This is what it means to fight like a girl.
"I'm a big haymaker in a title fight.
I'm a cute black kitten with a nasty bite.
I'm an action double-feature on a Friday night!
I'm me!"
I'm a cute black kitten with a nasty bite.
I'm an action double-feature on a Friday night!
I'm me!"
—"I'm Me",
Vanessa Doofenshmirtz, Phineas and Ferb
Vanessa Doofenshmirtz, Phineas and Ferb
An Action Girl is a female badass who is tough and kicks butt. Damsel in Distress? Not her (mostly). She's featured in far more than the Designated Girl Fight. She faces dangerous foes and deadly obstacles, and she wins. She's a fairly common character in the Action Genre.
For the longest time in many cultures, Double Standards in both fiction and Real Life meant that when it came to action and fighting, guys definitely outnumbered girls. Men Act, Women Are was the rule of thumb, which led to the action girl being a subversion of what was acceptable. As society has marched on, this view has faded in some media, leading to stories where Action Girls become the norm rather than the exception, such as stories set in a World of Badass, and especially a World of Action Girls.
The broad action girl concept can take many forms. Faux Action Girl is a case of presenting a character as this, only for them not to live up to the standards of this trope. Dark Action Girl is the villainous (or at least morally ambiguous) variety, and Affirmative Action Girl is a cast addition intended to balance out gender ratios that typically also falls under this trope. Less action-y versions include You Go, Girl!, Plucky Girl, and Passionate Sports Girl (although they can mix if her chosen sport is a combat sport). A "Can Hold Her Own" Moment can also reveal her to be an Action Girl.
This is somewhat of a Cyclic Trope, with Action Girls often having surges in popularity in the 1940s, 1970s, 1990s and 2010s, probably not coincidentally times when the women's movement increased in prominence. Action Girls are nigh-omnipresent in modern action films, especially as the love interest or sister of a male Action Hero. Of course, this doesn't mean lesbian Action Girls don't exist.
Contrast Feminine Two-Fisted Pounding, for female characters with no real martial training.
See below for even more related tropes and other variants.
For advice on how to write these types of characters, see Write an Action Girl.
Related:
- Amazonian Beauty: A female character that's portrayed as attractive because of or despite being muscular. This character is usually an Action Girl.
- Black Magician Girl: She's spunky and focuses on offensive magic.
- Combat Stilettos: A woman fights in high heels. They don't slow her down at all.
- Damsel Fight-and-Flight Response: A Damsel in Distress becomes an action girl just long enough to stun a villain and then run!
- Damsel out of Distress: Just because this lady was captured doesn't mean she's helpless; she does rescue herself.
- Dragon Lady: She comes from East Asia, and is often associated with the Triads or the Yakuza. Very likely to be a Dark Action Girl.
- Hates Wearing Dresses: Action girls often aren't fond of dresses, and the usual reasons are either because they're too girly or they get in the way of being action-y.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Fancy clothes won't get in her way. Often overlaps with Combat Stilettos above since some such outfits come with high heels.
- More Deadly Than the Male: If she wins fights by looking like the exact opposite of an Action Girl, and then being cunning and cutthroat.
- Never Mess with Granny: Sweet little senior citizen who can still kick your ass; may also be an Old Master.
- One-Woman Army: An entire army can't stop her.
- Pirate Girl: She's a pirate.
- Plucky Girl: She has all of the optimism and determination in the world in her hands. Nothing can stop her efforts!
- She-Fu: Action Girls tend to use lots of flips and cartwheels in fight scenes.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: When a woman disguises herself as a male soldier in order to go fight in a war.
- Undercover Model: She's a police detective going undercover in a beautiful-woman-related job to investigate a crime.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Don't dare to mess with her lover, or else she'll make you sorry.
- Waif-Fu: For when a small woman has to fight a much larger man.
Sub Tropes:
- Action Fashionista: Action girl version of The Fashionista
- Action Girlfriend: She either makes up the other half of a Battle Couple, or covers for her non-action boyfriend.
- Action Mom: An action girl (woman more likely) who has given birth and kicks ass.
- Amazon Brigade: A group of Action Girls who consistently work together with no male teammates.
- The Baroness: A badass and dominant evil woman.
- Battle Harem: A group of action girls who fight with/for the same lover.
- Brawn Hilda: An ugly, masculine woman. Don't laugh or she'll break you over her knee.
- Cute Bruiser: When female - she might look small, sweet, and mostly harmless, but she hits like a freight train.
- Dark Action Girl: An evil woman who kicks ass.
- Female Fighter, Male Handler: The action girl has a Non-Action Guy who handles and/or supports her.
- Girls with Guns: An action genre focusing on badass girls with guns.
- Girly Bruiser: The action girl happens to be a Girly Girl. Can overlap with Action Fashionista above.
- Jeanne d'Archétype: Action girls modelled on Jeanne d'Arc.
- Jungle Princess: Lives in the jungle, often protecting native tribes and animals.
- Kick Chick: Not only fights unarmed, but doesn't even favor her arms. Goes well with Combat Stilettos since those who wear high heels with this fighting style tend to have the heels regularly hitting the target.
- Lady of Black Magic: A sorceress who's graceful in appearance with dignified manner and wields immense magical power.
- Lady of War: A fine, elegant action girl who's just as composed as she is tough.
- Little Miss Badass: Very young Action Girls who are notable for skills and abilities other than, or in addition to, physical strength.
- Little Red Fighting Hood: An action girl version of Little Red Riding Hood.
- Lovely Angels: A pair of Action Girls who work together as a consistent team.
- Magical Girl Warrior: Where "Magical Girl" translates into "Kung-Fu Wizard or Magic Knight who wears Frills of Justice".
- Mama Bear: Don't mess with her or her kids, or she will kick your ass out.
- Ninja Maid: Her official job is as a household servant or employee: maid, butler, babysitter or nanny are the most common.
- Pregnant Badass: If she's capable of fighting while pregnant. If she's extra ferocious because of said bun in the oven, this overlaps with Mama Bear, above.
- Pretty Princess Powerhouse: Looks like a delicate princess but can fight better than her guards.
- Silk Hiding Steel: She's gentle and lady-like, but she'll cut you to ribbons if need be.
- Small Girl, Big Gun: Prefers a BFG to make up with her small size.
- The Squadette: The only female in an otherwise all-male unit.
- Strong Girl, Smart Guy: When she's part of a Brains and Brawn duo with a guy.
- Valkyries: Work for Odin as choosers of the slain. They have an awesome theme tune.
- Warrior Princess: She's royalty and she fights for her country.
- World of Action Girls: For works dominated by this character type.
- Xenafication: The harmless damsel of the novel becomes an action girl in the film adaptation.
Examples of Action Girls who don't fit into any of the related tropes above:
- Anime & Manga
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Films – Live-Action
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Pro Wrestling
- Video Games
- Webcomics
- Western Animation
On page examples:
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Asian Animation
- Happy Friends: Downplayed by Sweet S. Her main superpower is creating bubbles rather than an actual attack, and she's nowhere near as strong as the other Supermen, but she's still a heroine who can and will help the other Supermen fight evil whenever it's needed.
Fairy Tales
- "Nie Yinniang": Nie Yinniang is a girl who gets trained to be a professional assassin.
- The Ballad of Mulan: Mulan, the star of the most famous Chinese folk tale, joins the army in place of her father and serves with them for twelve years, keeping her true sex hidden from them the entire time.
- "The Singing, Springing Lark": The heroine travels around the world for seven years, faces down literal forces of nature, and braves an angry dragon over the course of the story.
Films — Animation
- Balto: Jenna is willing to fight a furious bear far larger than she is and has no qualms with standing up to Steele, something many of the male dogs in the film are too afraid to do. Sadly for the fans, she ends up fading into the background in the other two films. Her daughter Aleu in the second movie also gets to be badass, but unfortunately she quickly falls into Faux Action Girl territory.
- The Book of Life:
- Maria Posada. When Manolo and Joaquin start a swordfight over her, she picks up a sword and disarms them both in a single move. And that's before the bandits show up. During her travels, she has learned fencing and kung-fu.
- The Adelita Twins. Both of them due to having fought in the revolution as soldaderas.
- Brave: Merida, who is awesome with a bow and arrow.
- Disney Animated Canon:
- The Little Mermaid: Ariel is one of the first Disney Princesses to fight villains directly, fighting off a shark, saving Eric from drowning in a storm, and taking out Ursula's eels in the climax. Eric does rescue her from Ursula in the very end, but that's not her fault.
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Esmeralda, who, during the Festival of Fools, successfully fights off several of Frollo's guards, and is the one to rescue a wounded Phoebus from drowning the river after he's shot by said guards in a later scene.
- Fa Mulan. Perhaps one of the best examples of an Action Girl in the entire canon and the first chronogical one at that. After going through combat training, Mulan is perfectly capable of taking on Huns using a sword, a bow-and-arrow, a gunpowder cannon, and even a fan; she even manages to stand against their leader with a bit of cleverness and a cleverly timed foot sweep. In fact, she has the highest kill count of any Disney character.
- Treasure Planet: Captain Amelia is a fabulous example, voiced by the lovely Emma Thompson. One example is during the Permusa black hole sequence, where she manages to steer the ship back under control after the helmsman (a big and equally strong snail/octopus man, mind you) is nearly thrown from the steering wheel. She is notable for being the only Action Girl of the entire cast.
- Bolt has Penny (the onscreen version, anyway), particularly in the opening; it's implied she does all of her own stunts.
- Tangled: Rapunzel sets off on a whole adventure of her own free will, and fends off lots of opponents with both her hair and a frying pan. She also saves her love interest on several occasions, just to put icing on the cake. This continues in her own series.
- Wreck-It Ralph:
- Sergeant Calhoun from Hero's Duty. A grizzled Space Marine with a Crazy-Prepared attitude, she fights her enemies the Cy-Bugs with a rifle, pistol, and knife.
- Vanellope from Sugar Rush also counts, in a Badass Adorable kind of way, considering she's a Badass Driver and the one to save Ralph from falling from the sky during the climax. Also, as the true ruler of Sugar Rush, she's the Badass Driver in the game.
- Frozen:
- Played with Princess Anna, who is written to be a more realistic example than most examples on this page, considering (on one hand) she is a Badass Normal in comparison to her sister Elsa. On the other hand, the character she was originally based on, Gerda, is considered to be more of an Action Survivor. In the first film, when helping Kristoff fight off the wolves, she holds her own and bludgeons one of them with Kristoff's lute before burning Kristoff's bedroll and throwing it to stop another in its tracks. In the end, after sacrificing her life for Elsa and returning back to life, she punches Hans in the face with enough force to knock him off a ship. In the second film, despite her lack of powers and involvement in direct combat, she proves instrumental in saving the day more than proves her bravery by the end. Specifically, she climbs her way out of a cave, leaps from one cliff edge to another, confronts a group of rock giants and gets them to destroy a dam she lures them to by standing on it so they'd throw boulders at it before leaping away when it starts to crumble.
- Elsa herself, meanwhile, is a full-fledged Action Heroine, albeit a reluctant one at that. As the token super of the main cast, her main problem-solving method is using her powers to blast ice at things. It's how she deals with the wind spirit and the water spirit, freezing the wind spirit and beating the water spirit in battle with her ice magic. It also plays a key role in how she deals with the fire spirit, blasting ice before charming it with ice flakes after it becomes clear it's a super-adorable and cuddly salamander. Although, she usually doesn't want to hurt anyone intentionally, even two guys clearly sent to kill her by the Duke of Weselton. When it's made clear that it's her or them, however, she becomes brutal.
- Big Hero 6: GoGo Tomago and Honey Lemon are just as integral to the eponymous team as the other male members, and prove to be skilled combatants with their abilities (super speed and chemical explosions, respectively) in battle.
- The former is a Badass Driver who was probably the first who Jumped at the Call and grows to become particularly skilled with her discs in combat, which serve as throwing weapons and shields. In the first fight against Yokai, she's the only one who gives him a challenge. The series also reveals that she likes boxing.
- The latter is a Badass Bookworm and Action Fashionista who uses a purse containing her chemical concoctions which, when used, take the form of small balls/bombs to help during fights, usually for either trapping opponents or blowing some stuff up.
- Zootopia: Judy Hopps. A young bunny rabbit from the countryside who dreams of becoming a police officer in the titular big city, she undergoes ZPD training, which obviously includes combat training. In fact, during the first film's Training Montage, Judy develops the skill and agility to knock out a Rhino sparring partner by jumping fiercely into the ring ropes, bouncing off them into the Rhino's gloved fist and using her strong legs to kick his fist into his face.
- Moana: The 16-year-old daughter of a Polynesian/South Pacific chief, Moana Waialiki is a tough, proactive heroine from the get-go. When her home is in danger of perishing, she sets off on The Hero's Journey, fights off a whole bunch of evil Kakamora on a battleship, stands up to Te Kā, and — in a marvelous climax — restores the heart of Te Fiti. She has received positive comparisons to the previously mentioned Mulan.
- Raya and the Last Dragon:
- The titular Raya herself, who also received Mulan comparisons. The daughter of Chief Benja of the Heart Tribe, she has been training to become the Guardian of the Dragon Gem ever since she was a young girl. Said training involves hand-to-hand combat, swordplay, and even arnis sticks, skills that have vastly improved in the present day. Only Namaari can match her.
- Namaari herself falls under the Dark Action Girl category. While she is not a straightforward villain (as she acts only for the safety of her people), she is the most prominent force acting against the heroes, a ruthless warrior princess with skills on par with Raya, her Foil.
- The Emoji Movie: Jailbreak.
- Happy Feet Two: Boadicea - a penguin chick who can do Le Parkour.
- How to Train Your Dragon: In this setting, all vikings are warriors who fight against dragons, including the women. The two most prominently featured ones are Astrid, the protagonist's Love Interest and Ruffnut, one half of the Plucky Comic Relief Half-Identical Twins.
- The Incredibles 1 and Incredibles 2:
- Elastigirl stands out in a world full of male superheroes
- Violet becomes one as she grows more confident in her abilities.
- KPop Demon Hunters: The protagonists are a K-pop girl group that secretly hunt demons that threaten to steal the souls of people.
- Kung Fu Panda: Tigress and Viper.
- The LEGO Movie: Wyldstyle. Hell yeah. Three words: The melting room.
- Monsters vs. Aliens: Susan, a.k.a. Ginormica, eventually becomes one of these after starting out as a Reluctant Monster.
- 9: 7 is the only girl out of the group , and makes her entrance by decapitating the Cat Beast in one swing.
- Once Upon a Forest: Abigail, a tomboyish woodmouse.
- Open Season: Giselle.
- Rio: Jewel, right up until Nigel injures her wing.
- Rock-A-Doodle: Peepers, the bespectacled teenage mouse.
- Princess Fiona from Shrek; in the first movie, she takes out Robin Hood and his merry men when they attempt to give her an Unwanted Rescue.
- The Steam Engines of Oz:
- Victoria is a Wrench Wench who keeps the gears of Oz turning, but in her first real fight she takes on three lions and very nearly gets the best of them.
- The lioness Lucilla is one half of a Battle Couple with her mate Magnus.
- Toy Story 2: Jessie.
- Toy Story 3: Barbie evolves into this after going through an identity crisis after being thrown away.
- Toy Story 4: Bo Peep after her return as well as her new sidekick Giggle McDimples.
- WALL•E: EVE, with a built-in ion cannon.
Music
- The Aquabats!: "Danger Woman!" from Myths, Legends, and Other Amazing Adventures is about a superheroine from the Feedbackverse.
She’s hanging off the chopper
And no one’s gonna stop her
Don’t try and call the doctor
‘Cause she’s jumpin’ around now
Handle bar standing
And flying over canyons
No hands on the landing
Now we’re rollin’ around on the ground - Disturbed features one in the final sequence for its music video, "Indestructible". The other wiki even mentions the significance of featuring a female soldier among its pantheon of legendary warriors.
- The Flaming Lips, "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" (Her name is Yoshimi / She's a black belt in karate...)
- Jex Thoth, "Warrior Woman".
- Slymenstra Hymen, Estrogina Lugubrious, and Vulvatron of GWAR.
- Machinae Supremacy has a song called "Action Girl".
- The music video for Nana Mizuki and TM Revolution's "Kakumei Dualism" featured the two singers duelling in an arena, dressed as a ninja/assassin and Roman centurion, respectively.
- P!nk in the video for "Trouble".
- P!nk in real life, too. In her "I'm Not Dead" tour, she did a full-fledged Cirque de Soleil act forty feet above a stage that had no padding and no net. While singing the entire song live. Every single night. This tour, she's doing a song with a trapeze act that starts out with her blindfolded.
- "Super Girl (Buttercup)" by Shonen Knife.
- Woody Guthrie's "Miss Pavlichenko" is about the real-life Soviet sniper Lyudmilla Pavlichenko, who killed 300 Nazis.
- Sabaton
- "Lady of the Dark" is about Milunka Savić, a Serbian woman who dressed as a man to take the place of her brother when he was conscripted for the First Balkan War. After ten deployments, she was discovered when she was wounded, but she had been such a good soldier that they didn't want to punish her, instead allowing her to serve openly in the infantry when she refused to be transferred to nursing. She went on to serve in World War I in the Serbian and later Yugoslav armies, becoming the most decorated female soldier in the recorded history of warfare, including becoming the sole female recipient of the Croix de Guerre with gold palm. And then was practically forgotten as soon as the war was over.
- "Night Witches" is about Russia's predominantly female 588th Night Bomber Regiment who flew in World War II and terrified the German army with their stealthy bombing runs. Flying mostly at night, they would cut the engines on their plywood and canvas planes in order to silently glide over their target, leaving the enemy none the wiser until the bombs started falling.
Myths & Religion
- The Scythians, which in Real Life had female warriors and their most well known rulers are war mongering queens like Tomyris, had Tabiti as their Top God. Other deities like Argimpasa and Api had kurgan depictions holding decapitated heads. The Scythian warrior women, and those of related peoples like the Sarmatians, are held as the Amazon legend's inspirations, since the Greeks (who were very patriarchal) found them astonishing, with Amazons becoming a feature in Greek art or tales once the two cultures made contact.
- The Bible:
- In Chapter 4 of Judges, Deborah, a prophetess and leader (or "judge") of Israel, leading her people to victory against a foreign enemy. Boudicea-like, she is a skilled charioteer.
- In the same story there's Jael, the wife of one of Deborah's generals, who put a tent peg through an enemy king's head. She's more of a Guile Hero, however, having manipulated the guy first before killing him when distracted.
- Rahab, the madame of a brothel, gleans secrets from enemy soldiers in moments of distraction and passes them to the Israelites who are besieging the city.
- There's also Plucky Girl Judith, who tricks an enemy general and cuts his head off to free the Jews from him.
- In The Death of Koshchei the Deathless, Princess Marya Morevna is apparently a fierce and vicious warrior. However, she does come off as a bit of a Faux Action Girl when Koshchei the Deathless kidnaps her, turning her into a Damsel in Distress and forcing her Non-Action Guy husband to go on a quest to save her.
- Egyptian mythology has Sekhmet, the very bloodthirsty lion-headed war goddess with titles like "Mistress of Dread" and "Lady of Slaughter".
- Greek mythology features goddesses Athena, goddess of wisdom/intelligence, justice and war and Artemis, goddess of hunting, nature and the Moon.
- Many goddesses actually, rather ironically given the patriarchal Greek culture. Hera was at times worshipped with a warrior aspect, and kicked the crap out of Artemis in the Trojan War. Selene, the Moon goddess, fought against freaking Typhon, many primordial goddesses are clearly much more powerful than Zeus himself (Nyx, for starters, which is why he never messes with her children), and Aphrodite had not only associations with war, but many nasty epithets associated with death and violence.
- Also, the mortal heroine Atalanta, who was best known as a huntress (and unsurprisingly a devout follower of Artemis). She was the first to injure the Calydonian Boar, took part in Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece.
- Durganote , from Hindu Mythology, is the goddess of victory of good over evil and very, very good at killing demons.
- St. Margaret of Antioch, also called Margaret the Dragon Slayer. Margaret fought off the advances of a local governor and was thrown into a dungeon with a dragon which she subdued with a crucifix. In art, the crucifix is actually a spear or longsword, the hilt forming the cross, and she battles the dragon in the same manner as St. George. After defeating the dragon, Satan appeared to her, and she wrestled him to the groundnote . She is also one of the saints that Joan of Arc claimed appeared to her.
- The character of Hua Mulan, known for joining the army in place of her elderly father and too-young brother, fighting to the West of China, then going home and eventually dying of old age.
- Norse Mythology:
- Freyja, the leader of the Valkyries. When she gets angry, she can make the whole of Asgard shake.
- Sunna, who is on war with evil sky wolves, and actually left behind the Sowilo rune, which symbolises victory.
- The valkyries are basically an Amazon Brigade of death incarnate.
- In some depictions, Maid Marian of the Robin Hood legends. There's even a ballad (one of the Child Ballads) where Marian went to seek Robin, armed and in man's clothes, and when she met him, he was also in disguise — so they fought, for "at least an hour or more", before recognizing each other. Ironically, Marian started out as an Action Girl only for much later Hollywood adaptations (as in Errol Flynn's The Adventures of Robin Hood) to cast her as the Damsel in Distress. Only recently has she regained her original Action Girl status (Judi Trott in Robin of Sherwood and Lucy Griffiths in Robin Hood (BBC)), though just as often she comes across as a Faux Action Girl (as in Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves).
- Mai Bhago was a Sikh woman who rallied fleeing warriors with her urges and taunts and her leadership ability and took them into battle against the forces of the Grand Mogul. As all Sikh women are princesses (which is what the common female surname Kaur, means), perhaps she would also be a Pretty Princess Powerhouse. She's revered as a saint in Sikhism, sometimes called the "Sikh Joan of Arc".
- Nora of Kelmendi in Albanian legends was considered the greatest warrior woman in Albania (as well as the most beautiful one being compared to Helen of Troy), being born into a Roman Catholic warrior clan from the highlands and trained by her father since he had no sons to help him fight against the Ottoman Empire. She killed an Ottoman warlord in a duel after refusing his proposal to join his harem because the law of Albanian Kanum forbade marriage with non-Albanians. According to one version of the legend, she also led an army of 300 women into battle to defend her village from his army.
- Victorious viking chief Odd of "The Story of King Odd" is actually a disguised woman.
- The fairy tale character, Tatterhood (no relation to Little Red Riding Hood). She fights trolls (in some versions witches) while wielding a spoon and riding on a goat.
- Celtic Mythology has Scathach, the warrior maiden who put the folk hero Cu Chulainn through Training from Hell.
- From 4th century Chinese literature, there's the tale of Li Ji/Li Chi Slays the Giant Serpent, set in Southern China: Li Ji (or Li Chi) is joined by her dog and both go to fight and kill a giant serpent that has devoured many local maidens who were given in sacrifice to it.
Pinball
- The unnamed woman on the backglass of Atari's Middle Earth pinball, who's slashing at the giant gorilla with a Laser Blade while a Kaiju prepares to bite her head off.
- The Valkyrie in Dungeons & Dragons (1987), who's hacking away at the fire-breathing dragon even as it has her in its claws.
- Captain Rose of Black Rose (1992) is an unabashed Pirate Girl.
Podcasts
- The Adventure Zone: Balance: At least one major example every plot arc, with the exception of The Eleventh Hour (which is a more exploration-heavy arc). The first has Killian, a crossbow-wielding orc packing the ability to animate golems. The second has Jess, a pit fighter who wields an axe. The third has two: Hurley, a constabulary lieutenant with a black belt in ass-kicking, and Sloane, the apparent villain of the arc who Curb-Stomps our heroes in her first appearance. The fourth arc has Killian return with her teammate, Carey Fangbattle, a Dragonborn Rogue and sister of Jeremy "Scales" Fangbattle. The sixth has Antonia, an elven mercenary, and Lup, who manages to kill 50% of the big bad duo despite being stuck in an umbrella for the whole arc. The seventh has Lup, and Lucretia ascends to this after episode 65. Taako lampshades this when he says "There must be a competent woman who can bail us out".
- Most of the principal women in Are You Afraid of the Dark Universe? are formidable fighters. In particular:
- Gwen is a werewolf, and even when not transformed, it gives her a major boost to her strength and endurance, letting her trade blows with characters like Frankenstein's Monster. When she becomes an Alpha, she becomes functionally unkillable on top of an even larger strength boost.
- Jennifer Halsey is an experienced monster hunter with Prodigium, and the self-declared "queen of mummy murder-sprees".
- Evelyn O'Connell retains her abilities from The Mummy Trilogy, showcased when she fights her way out of the Prodigium base in The Mummy's Hand.
- Trixie Dixon, girl detective, of Black Jack Justice. She's every bit her partner Jack's equal as a detective and just as good in a firefight as he is, even with Jack's being a war veteran. She regularly keeps a barretta pistol in her purse and a small gun Jack jokingly calls the "mouse trap" strapped to her leg. At minimum.
- All the heroes in Jemjammer are this. Ælfgifu is a ranger so she's obvious, Cacphony the Bard will happily fight off villains with her rapier, and Jylliana the Cleric is actually the only party member wearing plate armour (not to mention her giant warhammer). There's also the NPC Captain Alana Bondar, who the party assists in reclaiming her ship and has a gun strong enough to disintegrate giant spiders in a single shot.
- Red Panda Adventures:
- Kit Baxter was initially recruited by the Red Panda as a chauffeur for his secret identity because she was a fearless, talented driver. When she inevitably caught on to the Red Panda's actual activities, her response was to demand to be let in. From this the superhero the Flying Squirrel was born. The Red Panda's training, coupled with her own action-oriented personality and a lifetime watching boxing at her father's gym, has made her every bit The Dreaded to the criminals of Toronto as her boss. When Kit is benched and becomes Mission Control during the later stages of her pregnancy, police chief O'Malley remarks that he knows the Flying Squirrel has been less active because there have been fewer crooks being brought in with bodily injury. One of the books also describes Kit's battle cry as a mix of fury and joy.
- The Flying Squirrel's best friend is the Grey Fox, resident superhoerine of Vancouver. The reason they're best friends is that the Grey Fox is every bit the fight-loving brawler Kit herself is. "Girl's Night Out" has the two uncovering a Nazi sabotage ring in the Fox's city. The Grey Fox displays how she gets information by threatening and, if need be, beating up whoever she has to. The Squirrel, in turn, teaches the Grey Fox how to use threats of drops from rooftops to interrogate suspects. In "The Lost Sheep", the Flying Squirrel wants to find out what happened to a boy she had tried and failed to keep out of the army after he enlisted. Since she feels the Red Panda won't go along with her on this one, she calls the Grey Fox to help her out.
- All the Sequinox girls, naturally, though to different degrees. Yuki is an introvert outside of battle, but when transformed is usually the first to attack with magic. Chell and Hannah are both athletes with sick abs, so that carries over as well. Sid has knives. Most Stars are also female and are very happy to fight the Sequinox girls.
Roleplay
- Dino Attack RPG has had quite its share of action girls over the years of all kinds — surprisingly, for a game based on a LEGO theme with a cast consisting entirely of four men. To name a few specifically:
- Amanda Claw: A former bounty hunter who still put her old skills to good use.
- Cabin: A qualified helicopter pilot, practically second-in-command when it comes to taking action in the skies.
- Maria: A lesbian action girl with a firmly feminist attitude that came from growing up in a sexist society.
- Sarah Bishop: Oh boy, where to begin. Bludgeoned a man in the head (plus Cabin- an innocent bystander), shot who knows how many Mooks working for XERRD, and single-handedly fought off Spy Clops (a giant spider-like cyborg) in a burning room... all to protect her daughter.
- Zealot: Refused to leave the GAIA Squad's side in the battle for Mount Bricklake.
- JoJo's OC Tournament:
- The Blues Brothers' Lina Rey from Shining Sandstorm is a capable hand-to-hand fighter with notable strength and agility, even without a Stand. Not even being wheelchair-bound after clashing with Cise and Michael J. of the Cleaners limits her combat ability, as she still manages to take on and knock out another member of the group in hand-to-hand combat without being able to stand up.
- Take Warning from Urban Uprising used to be a night-time vigilante before finding herself forced to play the eponymous ARG. As such, she's easily the most experienced member of her team, the Castle Full'a Rascals, in combat against other Stand users.
- Moonrise: Many of the she-cats are just as strong, if not stronger than, the toms. In fact, at one point in time, literally every single Clan leader was female — in fact, most of both Flame Clan's leaders have all been female, most notably Robinstar, Dovestar, Skullstar, and Rowanstar.
- A lot of Survival of the Fittest characters, examples including Maxie Dasai, Trish McCarroll, Shameeca Mitchell, Bridget Connolly and Hayley Kelly.
- This Is War has several, including Rebecca "Tex" Church who works as the less-than legal debt collector for a less-than legal gang.
- Luck of the Draw has team Fable, which consists almost entirely of action girls, who fight supervillains and crime using a combination of their powers and their flying power armor. The only exceptions are Portent, who is a child and thus does not participate in the action, and Ninja, who is nonbinary and thus doesn't qualify as a girl.
Tabletop Games
- Special note should go out to the granddaddy of most Tabletop Role-Playing Games, Dungeons & Dragons. Fair for Its Day in the seventies, it allowed females in all roles. There was a problematic limitation on female characters' Strength scores in the earliest editions, but as early as 1989's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, the rules made males and females entirely equal with females completely able to take on any Action Girl role without limits.
- BattleTech: A LOT of them throughout the setting. Unsurprising given that mechanized warfare is king, although many women are quite formidable even without; a standout is female Clan Elementals, who due to the Clans' genetic engineering and breeding programs are just as much hulking masses of Powered Armor-combat-optimized muscle as their male counterparts.
- In Chess, the Queen is the most powerful of all pieces.
- Psionics: The Next Stage in Human Evolution: The Scream in Tomorrow’s Starlight is a necrokinetic martial artist that mixes both skill sets. She charges head on into hand to hand combat with enemies, despite being seemingly outgunned and at a physical disadvantage, and is highly capable with telekinesis.
- In Unicornus Knights, Princess Cornelia, Donia, Mirza and Fara are all capable combatants. On The Empire's side, Lyla is the best example, being a famous general, but Marianne and Rozie are no slouches either.
- Warhammer 40,000 has them aplenty, being a World of Badass that's also quite egalitarian when it comes to gender (if not species and religion. In general, unless a faction is physically incapable of having female members (Orks, Tyranids, and the Astartes of all stripes), it will have at least some female members, which will be every bit as hyper-violent and brutal as the males. This used to be only informed rather than shown, but since the 2010s GW has been adding more female miniatures and lore characters to balance the gender ratio to an extent.
- First of all, there are the Amazon Brigade organisations. The Imperium has the Sisters of Battle, the Sisters of Silence and the Callidus Assassins, and on the lower level, the House Escher of Necromunda. The Aeldari have the Howling Bansheesnote , and their dark cousins have the mostly female Wych Cults. The other races don't really differentiate between genders, so they lack such organisations.
- On the individual level, the most prominent Action Girls are probably Lord Castellan Ursula J. Creed, daughter of Cadian hero Ursarkar E. Creed who has inherited his famed tactical genius, Commander Shadowsun, the de facto commander of the entire Tau military, and the Aeldari Necromancer Yvraine, leader of the death-worshipping Ynnari. Each of them are among the most powerful and famed leaders in their respective factions. The leaders of the aforementioned Amazon Brigades, like the Abbess Sanctorum Morvenn Vahl or the Phoenix Lord Jain Zar, also qualify. There are also many minor female characters like Phaerakh Xun'bakyr, the omnicidal leader of the Necron Maynarkh Dynasty, or Calladayce Taurovalia Kesh of the Adeptus Custodes, but they do not have miniatures nor are they as prominent in the lore.
- Poptropica: If you play as a girl, your character can defintely count as one. She takes on Zeus himself. Twice. And beats him both times. She also defeats a bunch of other villains, and is a superhero, a pirate, a cowgirl, etc.
Theatre
- Aida (John/Rice): While the musical isn't that action-oriented, the title character does display some skill wih a sword in an early scene, and plenty of gumption and backbone throughout.
- Odabella in Attila, who fights against the Huns along with an entire Amazon Brigade. She earns the approval of her enemies, and Attila himself is smitten with her when he sees her unflinching courage.
- Nala and the lionesses in The Lion King (1997), just like in the movie. However, not only are they more prominent in this version, they become Dance Battlers.
- Ariel in The Little Mermaid (2007), for the same reasons as in the movie, with the added bonus that in the stage version, she defeats the villain, Ursula, instead of Eric. Not bad for a Disney Princess!
- Ruth in Pirates of Penzance. Near the end of the play, a hilarious fight scene breaks out between the pirates and the police, with Ruth participating in it right along with the rest of them.
- She Kills Monsters:
- Agnes Evans is the protagonist of the play and plays through a Dungeons & Dragons campaign as the audience is treated to a whole D&D aesthetic, in which Agnes does precisely what the title states. The role requires an actress to perform plenty of stage combat, with suitably awesome fight scenes.
- Her sister Tilly (Tillius in the game), and player characters Lilith and Kaliope (Lily and Kelly in "real life") also have some great fight scenes as characters in the D&D world. This is one of the relatively few plays to feature actresses in heavy doses of stage combat.
- Taz in Starship. She even declares herself leader by ripping off Up's mustache and putting it on herself.
- Ken Kudwig's version of The Three Musketeers includes Sabine, an original character who's D'Artagnan's sister and joins him on his quest. Her actress is required to learn enough stage combat for the end, where she fights and kills Milady de Winter.
- Much of the work produced at Vampire Cowboy Theatre in NYC features Nerd-cum-Badass-cum-Troperiffice Comedies that heavily feature Badass Women. The above mentioned "She Kills Monsters", "Alice in Slasherland", "Fight Girl Battle World" and more all feature this particular Trope.
- A play called The Warrior's Husband has Antiope, Hippolyta, and the entire Amazon army. It takes place in Pontus, the land of Amazons, where the traditional gender roles are reversed. So this trope is naturally going to be present.
- La Wally gives us an operatic heroine who unhesitatingly descends into a ravine with a rope to physically rescue her unconscious love interest. The opera is based on story by Wilhelmine von Hillern, who in turn was inspired by a real life version of this trope in the painter Anna Stainer-Knittel.
Web Animation
- If Episode 20 of Cow of the Wild is any indication, Mink was one. So is Sharp, the female alpha of the Pack of Falling Stars.
- Destripando la Historia: Mulan, Rapunzel and Snow White are action girls, since they are that way in their original tales; Mulan joins the army, Snow White confronts her stepmother with a sword, and Rapunzel raises a child on her own in the wild. So is Joan of Arc, who leads the French army into battle several times.
- Octavia in Once Upon a Time in Canterlot. "Eat grass, kick ass" indeed.
- Red vs. Blue:
- Tex, more than capable of easily handling entire outposts on her own. The only character noted to be tougher than her in combat was the superhuman Meta, and only because he had a bunch of abilities he stole from other people. Without them, he had to gang up on her 2 against 1 to beat her.
- Any female Freelancer qualifies as this, to one degree or another. Say what you want about South, but Season 9 shows she's quite the badass. And Carolina wiped the floor with an even larger number of troops, single-handedly. CT initially seems to be an exception to this, but as is discovered in Season 10, she's actually able to hold her own fairly well against both Tex and Carolina until she was killed, of course.
Web Original
- A staple of The Colmaton Universe, as the majority of prominent superheroes in the series are heroines.
- The Cursed (OCT) revolves around the titular individuals fighting one another for a chance at being freed from their respective curses. It's a given that any female character featured will be capable of fighting, but some stand-out a bit more above others:
- Brea used to run with a group of mercenaries picking out bandits and bashing their skulls in with a mace for fun. She's still a very capable fighter, and is usually the one who initiates fights out of fun.
- Clemmy is quick on her feet and strong enough to repeatedly swing around an heavy mullet as her weapon of choice, on top of being extremely durable and refusing to stay down.
- Ice is a lycanthrope, a stone wall of a woman who can tire out even the most fit of opponents without breaking a sweat. She's also a capable swimmer and archer.
- Laria is a master thief, extremely agile and fast and capable of robbing just about anybody of everything without ever being noticed.
- Yugure Ame is a master of Chinese martial arts.
- Foxy from Dead Ends is just as good at fending off the undead as the male characters. She even decapitates a would-be rapist with a katana!
- Dina Marino: Siria Ashen will reason mostly through her fists.
- Mahu has several in his "Second Chance" narrative let's play, including Commonwealth admirals Shu Lin and Ibrahim. Each one is a veteran commander and victor in dozens of engagements both within and beyond the frontiers of their Republic.
Web Videos
- Broken Bonds:
- Li'lu is a raging sprite wielding a greataxe.
- Bryan is a deadly monk.
- Channel Awesome:
- MarzGurl in Kickassia. Complete with punching her troops into shape.
- And continued in Suburban Knights, while acting as San. She can swing a mean spear.
- Rebecca Stone in Demo Reel. Quirky, Nerves of Steel, and would have been more than happy to beat a guy twice her size to death.
- TT and Lala from Cream Heroes are this in cat form. They punch other cats when they're annoyed, they pounce and play with the toys Claire brings them and both of them absolutely love running on the cat wheel.
- Resident Evil Abridged: Jill is the primary example, given she was able to navigate much of the Spencer Mansion on her own, with little assistance from her partner, Barry Burton. In the final scene, she and Rebecca cover the team's escape by holding off a wave of zombies.
