Women Who Kick Ass

This is a homage to the fictional role models (viragos?) who helped lead to Leeth's creation.

While women have always been seen as influential ("behind every great man is a woman"), most human societies in recorded history have been male-led, if not outright male-dominated. Even in the above quote, the woman's position is behind the man. And while the average man is physically stronger than the average woman, that seems a pretty sorry justification for an unequal sharing of power. Thankfully, in the long run brain and heart are far more important to humanity than brawn. So as our societies evolve and improve, our innate sense of fairness puts a steady, shaping pressure that heads us in the direction of equality. (Fingers crossed!)

Anyway, enough philosophy. This piece is meant to be about the fictional characters who inspired me: role models who helped shape Leeth, and of whom I sometimes wondered "How would Leeth get on with X?" So, here's the list, in the order they spring to mind (and probably the significance of their influence):

Key Influences

Modesty Blaise — if you haven't read all Peter O'Donnell's novels about Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin... you're missing out, big time. Those stories have everything, including a lot of heart.

Leela of the Sevateem (Louise Jameson alongside Tom Baker's classic Doctor Who)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Angel_Alita">Battle Angel Alita aka ("Gunnm" in the Japanese)

Buffy (we don't even need to add "the vampire slayer" these days, do we?). The original film was an influence — and although the series was better, it was a little late to be a big influence. :-)

Leeloo of (Fifth Element)

Leeth... and magic?

Leeth was pretty much fully-formed by 1992: both who she was and her personality were already determined before all the fictional characters who came later than that. (As my friend Jon Marshall pointed out: Leeth has been in existence for more years than her fictional age.)

It was kind of weird, in a way: when Leeth was born, strong female characters in fiction were both rare and considered odd. Even in my original MS, Harmon chose the Huntress as the Archetype to try to activate through Leeth's Unfolding, because it would result in a perceptible shift in society. And strangely enough, while I wrote and polished, society did indeed shift around me, just as Harmon had hoped in his future society. Writers are dreamers: I know I was just tapping into a change that was already under way; there was no cause and effect. Words only work their magic on our society if they're read, not from the pure act of writing! But still, it seemed a nicely weird coincidence.

Sensitised by Leeth's existence, and wanting to do the best I could for her, I read lots of books in the genres I like, with strong female characters. And there are some truly wonderful women who have burst into life in our imaginations. Although they had much less influence on Leeth than the earlier few, I still want to give a kind of "shout out" to these later women of courage.

More women who kick ass

Commander Kusanagi of Ghost in the Shell's Section 9.

Joel Shepherd's series about Commander Sandy Kresnov. As I've long thought, by another weird coincidence, Crossover, the 1^st novel in that series was one of the ten finalists alongside my own early MS — then titled "Leeth" — in the 1998 George Turner contest.

Lilith Saintcrow's Dante Valentine and Jill Kismet.

Joanne Walker of C E Murphy's The Walker Papers.

Diana Rowland's demon-summoning cop Kara Gillian.

The irrepressible Tinker of Wen Spencer's Elfhome series (aka "the Godzilla of Pittsburgh" — quite a rep, for a teenage girl!)

Maxine Kiss (in Marjorie M Liu's Hunter Kiss series.) Incidenatlly, how's this for a fantastic opening line — which the series goes on to equal and exceed! — "When I was eight, my mother lost me to zombies in a one-card draw.")

Elissa Megan Powers, "Emp", (Adam Warren's subversive and deeper-than-it-looks superheroine comic series, Empowered).

Wonder Woman, as re-imagined by George Perez in the late 80s.

Patricia Briggs's Mercedes Thompson.

Joanne Baldwin of Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series.

Eugenie Markham, Richelle Mead's Dark Swan series.

Katsa, Fire, and Bitterblue in Kristin Cashore's absolutely brilliant related books, that began with Graceling.

Agent Lila Black in Justina Robson's intriguing Quantum Gravity series.

Honor Harrington in David Weber's hard military sci-fi series.

Valkyrie Cain in Derek Landy's hugely fun Skulduggery Pleasant series.

Jane Yellowrock in Faith Hunter's Skinwalker series.

Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake (of the eponymous series).

Rachel Morgan (Kim Harrison's Hollows series).

Agatha Heterodyne (Phil & Kaja Foglio's brilliant Girl Genius series of graphic novels).

So, what's the attraction?

Why am I so drawn to the idea of a strong woman, as an author? There's probably a raft of reasons.

For a writer, a female protagonist provides a rich vein of emotional openness to explore. Men are expected to be "strong", and in our society showing emotion has for centuries been taken as a sign of weakness: a vulnerability. (Although that's finally changing!) In contrast, women were allowed, even expected, to let their emotions show. Or maybe they've simply been generally wiser, or tougher: willing to expose that side of themselves because of all it brings in return? (Countering the irony of Simon and Garfunkel's "If I'd never loved, I never would have cried".)

But whatever the reason, while for all these characters, their prowess and general ability to kick ass is empowering and heartening, it's their spirit that I find far more engaging. These are people who don't back down, who don't give in, who keep on fighting, no matter the odds. They never say die.

And it's that indomitable spirit which is their true strength.

PS

If you have thoughts about any of this, or would like to nominate other inspiring, kick-ass female protagonists, I'd love to hear about them in the comments!