Best and worst female protagonists (of my 2020 reading list)
Honestly, this list would more honestly be titled "Best, good, and slightly iffy female protagonists", because only one of the characters listed below was truly awful, and even then she had three better female leads to dilute my ire. Which is great!
Take note, Hollywood: None of these characters are femme fatales or the "strong female character" who is "strong" due to the ability to wield violence and be emotionally repressed – just like a man! Some do have combat skills (most notably Red and Blue) but that is not the core of what makes their characters interesting or successful. Instead, intelligence, grit, and the ability to collaborate and make allies are by far the most common traits, especially for those at the top of the list. In fact, several have to be listed as pair or groups because that is how they function. Not exclusively, though – there are a few loners. Most in some way fight, bend, or circumvent the restrictive roles their societies place on them, though they often can’t entirely escape them. Some also have a certain moral greyness that makes them interesting even if you don’t 100% like them or agree with their decisions.
1. Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, ‘Discworld’ series
This dynamic duo of witches are among my all-time favorite characters. While good individually, it is the way they banter and act as foils for one another that really makes them shine. Granny is the more powerful witch, but her pride and prickly nature might have isolated her and turned her to the bad side if she didn’t have Nanny’s friendly, earthy presence to ground her. They have very different ways of approaching the world and solving problems, but that is why they work so well together.
2. Virginia Hall, ‘A Woman of No Importance’
I’m not sure if I should call Virginia a “character” since she is a real person – but damn does she deserve her own movie! Virginia was a paragon of spycraft, building up extensive networks of allies and informants right under the nose of the French and German authorities during WWII. Not only did she never get caught in 3 years of undercover operations, she was able to spring dozens of her less fortunate comrades out of custody. She was so dedicated to doing so, in fact, that she had to escape from now fully Nazi-controlled France over the Pyrenees at the last minute – not telling her guides about her prosthetic leg, nicknamed “Cuthbert”. Virginia inspired great loyalty in those who worked most closely with her in the field, even as she irritated those who preferred women not to have authority and opinions.
Content warning for limb loss, war, and torture (of Virginia’s allies, not herself).
I actually first picked these books up when I was 14 because it was the first time I’d seen a fantasy book with a woman on the cover who looked like she was a real lead character. Tenar first appears in book 2 as the nameless priestess of dark gods. As such, she theoretically has power – but at the cost of her identity and all that is bright or joyful in life. When the protagonist of the first book, the wizard Ged, gets stuck in her labyrinth, Tenar must decide whether to kill him or to save him and escape to live life on her own terms. In later books, we learn that she chose a peaceful, ordinary life, marrying a farmer and having kids…and the books explore why we often assume that is the wrong choice. Tenar doesn’t stay out of magic and adventure forever, though – as a middle-aged widow she adopts an abused child who turns out to be both dragon and human, helps Ged after he loses his magic, and serves as an advisor to a king. Tenar always owns her choices, even when they are not what we might expect.
4. Red and Blue, ‘This is How You Lose the Time War’
I’m not 100% sure these two are female in the way we usually think of it, as they are shape-shifters (sometimes wearing male form, sometimes non-human forms) and are from societies where everyone is a "she" – but they generally think of themselves as women, so they count! They start out on opposite sides of a conflict between incompatible possible futures; agents such as Red and Blue are sent back upstream to make sure via any means necessary that theirs is the one that happens. The two start exchanging messages (through some very creative means) that quickly turn from taunts to curious-pen-pal exchanges to full-on love letters, and they begin to wonder if there is a third path that could be forged that might let them be together. Their relationship is great: fierce and vulnerable, with each delighting in the other’s wit and creativity – traits that they ultimately use to save each other. They are also very cool beings in their own right. Blue was grown as a “bud” of Garden, an organic joint consciousness, and can shift form naturally. Red was hatched in a Matrix-style pod and has varying levels of technological enhancements at different points in the story. Both are kind of terrifying – but that’s part of what they love about each other, and why they succeed.
Content warning for (mostly kind of stylized) violence and allusion to suicide (but note that in some threads ‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a comedy, not a tragedy).
5. Adelia, ‘Mistress of the Art of Death’
Adelia is a rare bird in the 12th century: a female doctor. She gets sent to England with a small team to investigate a series of child deaths that have been blamed on the Jews of Canterbury. Well, actually, King Henry requested a "Master of the Art of Death"; it was the head doctor in Salerno who forgot that a woman, her Muslim eunuch bodyguard, and a Jewish ‘fixer’ might be a bit conspicuous! Adelia’s rational focus and excitement when working on a mystery are reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes, but she is far from unemotional in general. She cares deeply about people and will run all sorts of personal risks to help. Her interactions with her original team, a local churchman whose life she saved, the earthy Gyltha and her grandson Ulf, and the king’s other investigator Sir Rowley Picot are also both delightful and important in solving the mystery and preventing a pogrom.
The story does go some very dark places along the way, so content warning for…pretty much everything you might put on that list, honestly.
6. The Biologist and Ghost Bird, ‘The Southern Reach Trilogy’
The un-named biologist at the center of the first book, ‘Annihilation’, has a characteristic that is unusual for female characters: she doesn’t relate well to people. She isn’t misanthropic, she just doesn’t get humans the way she gets plants, animals, and ecological phenomena. This is probably why she is the one who deals with the mysterious Area X the longest without losing her identity – and when she does join it permanently, it is a deliberate choice. Ghost Bird, her Area X-generated doppelganger, chooses the nickname the biologist’s husband gave her to indicate her distant, mysterious personality. Ironically, though, Ghost Bird is much better at understanding people. She is still weird, though, being very much an individual, with no clear allegiance to the force that made her. The top two positions at the Southern Reach, the institution set up to study Area X, are held by women of color who also strongly affect the course of the story.
Content warning for death and body-horror.
7. Margaret, ‘In Pursuit of the Green Lion’
As a woman in the 14th century with powers that lie somewhere between “saint” and “witch”, Margaret has learned how to play a part to avoid unwanted attention. She uses her acting skills, out of the box thinking, and unusual collection of friends to first navigate a difficult-to-the-point-of-dangerous in-law situation and then rescue her husband from captivity in France. One of the interesting things about Margaret is that she isn’t consistently self-confident. But it would be a miracle if she were, considering that her world regularly tells her that everything she is and does is wrong. That’s where her supportive friends and their varied talents and personalities come in. The other women in that group include the cheerful midwife Mother Hilde, social-climbing laundress Cis, and Margaret’s haughty ghost mother-in-law. Margaret is a mother, and so has to juggle caring for her two mischievous little girls and a new pregnancy with her other adventures – and she does so in a very believable way that includes being harried and anxious quite frequently.
Less of a content warning than for ‘Mistress of the Art of Death’ because the overall tone is lighter, but there is still real and pretend wife-beating, implied and threatened sexual assault and murder (including of minors), demon-summoning, and just generally pervasive sexism.
Susan is – through complicated circumstances – the granddaughter of Death. As such, she has inherited certain traits like the ability to stop time and swing a stick really well. When her grandfather gets distracted she can be pulled into The Duty. She grows up to be a governess and then a schoolteacher with a bit of a "Scary Poppins" vibe, blending a prim, rational, no-nonsense persona with her occult abilities. To her perpetual annoyance, she regularly gets pulled into supernatural hijinks and saves the world with some assistance from Death’s other associates: his horse Binky, the former wizard Albert, the Death of Rats, and DoR’s translator raven.
9. Eliza Sommers, ‘Daughter of Fortune’
Eliza does not always make the wisest decisions, most notably running away from Chile while pregnant to find her missing lover in the California goldrush. But she is determined and resourceful…and eventually works out that she deserves better than that loser! We also see the attitudes of her companion, Chinese doctor Tao Chien, toward women shift both in flashbacks of his time with his deceased wife Lin, and through his interactions with Eliza. Shout-out also to all the other vibrant and distinct female characters in this book, including Eliza’s surrogate moms Rose Sommers (prim Victorian spinster by day, erotica author by night) and Mama Fresia (sensible indigenous cook); stylish, dramatic entrepreneur Paulina del Valle; and tough but compassionate mobile brothel manager Joe Bonecrusher.
Content warning for period accurate racism and sexism, and a sex-trafficking subplot.
10. Patricia Campbell and friends, ‘The Southern Bookclub’s Guide to Slaying Vampires’
Patricia and her bookclub friends have been turning to lurid true-crime books and murder mysteries to liven up their existence as 1980’s housewives. But Patricia realizes they have a mystery on their own doorstep when she is bizarrely attacked by an elderly neighbor, and then finds that the neighbor’s charming nephew has some very odd habits: sleeping like the dead during the day, for instance. Mrs. Greene, the African American lady who took care Patricia’s mother in law (before a horrifying incident involving a tidal wave of rats) tells her that something is preying on the children in her neighborhood. But the two struggle to get anyone to take them seriously, and even Patricia is temporarily dissuaded when the husbands of the book club gang – who are now investors in a real estate scheme Mr. Harris is running - all turn on them. Patricia comes back to the fight, though, when the vampire begins targeting her own children. Patricia is a flawed heroine (Mrs. Greene rightly chastises her for her flabby allyship) but a realistic one; the more you have to lose, the harder it is to take a risk even if you know it to be the right thing to do. She and her friends eventually do take action and, by working together, ultimately succeed.
Content warning for graphic violence (some sexual in nature), as well as the racism and sexism previously mentioned.
Kanya is one of the best examples of a morally grey female character I’ve come across. This environment ministry “white shirt” is sort of the secret protagonist of this story – you don’t find out until the last third of the book all the ways that her decisions have affected the story. She is dour (telling her to smile will get you nowhere) and kind of bad at relationships...though on good enough terms with her scientist ex-girlfriend for important information to be shared between them. Both qualities make sense once you understand her history and inner moral conflicts.
Content warning for graphic violence (some sexual in
nature), as well as racism/ethnicity-based bigotry... mostly not directed at this character, though.
12. Shahes and Akal, ‘Mountain Ways’
In the world of this Ursula LeGuin short story, marriages consist of a set of four people called a sedoretu and comprise two expected same-gender pairings and two opposite-gender pairings. Sturdy, hardworking Shahes needs to form such a marriage in order to preserve her family farm. Unfortunately, she has two women she’d like to marry (new flame Enno, AKA Akal, and her old friend Temly) but there are no suitable Evening moiety men. So Shahes persuades Akal to pass herself off as a man so that the Morning moiety man Otorra, who likes Temly, will agree to the foursome. Akal is reluctant, because Otorra is likely to find out the deception rather quickly, but eventually agrees. This story is a exploration of relationship dilemmas in a very different cultural setting. I find Shahes particularly interesting because of her blend of practicality and stubborn passion that tempt her to this deception.
Like Kanya, Door is kind of a “secret protagonist”. A reader might be tempted to think of Richard Mayhew as the protagonist because he is the POV character but for most of the story he is the hapless fish-out-of-water in Door’s world of London Below. She is the one the antagonists are trying to get at due to her magical talent for opening passageways. Door is physically quite small, so not in any position to directly fight the menacing Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, who have already slaughtered the rest of her family. Her survival and ultimate success depend on making good use of the network of allies she and her deceased father have cultivated, and on some clever foresight and sleight of hand. Door is vulnerable – physically and emotionally – but she is not a damsel in distress.
Content warning for violence.
14. Polly (AKA Oliver) Perks, ‘Monstrous Regiment’
Polly becomes a Borogravian soldier as "Oliver" to look for her brother, who joined up a while ago and hasn’t been writing. Polly is observant, a planner - figuring out in advance exactly how she was going to explain her lack of facial hair, or how to pee like a boy - and more of a humanistic free-thinker than you might expect in highly religious Borogravia (though that’s typical of Pratchett protagonists!). She gets on well with her species-diverse squad and, while she has to wrap her head around some complications, deals well with the gender and sexuality issues that come up too. If you want to know more about that, or the other female characters in this book, check out the spoiler section of my original review. Polly isn’t perfect, though, and it does her good to discover that she still has things to learn, and that other people can be observant and clever too.
It feels weird to give a content warning, since Discworld books are pretty PG-13, but there are a lot of semi-direct references to the horrors of war and allusions to things like the abusive Magdalene laundry system.
15. Noemi Taboada, ‘Mexican Gothic’
Noemi wasn't initially the sort of female protagonist I usually relate to – for instance, she’s a fashionable socialite who is very comfortable in her ability to manipulate men. But she is also an aspiring anthropologist who is fairly observant and very stubborn. And all these traits together serve her well in not only surviving her encounter with a creepy old mansion in the mountains of Mexico and the English family who live there, but freeing her cousin and the only worthwhile member of that family from its grip as well.
Content warning for graphic violence (some sexual in nature), as well as racism and body horror.
16. Harriet Lee, ‘Gingerbread’
Like Polly, Harriet is maybe more of a narrator than a
protagonist, but her life and her relationships with her mother and daughter,
the wealthy Kercheval family, and her girlhood friend/crush/guardian spirit
Gretel are really interesting. And she does go through great character
development, from an insecure try-hard (as a girl, she once considers having
cards printed out that read “Harriet Lee – Friend or acquaintance: It’s
completely up to you!”) to a woman who has finally decided to relax and
live her life and just let people like her as she is. The story itself has the
feel of a modern fairytale, and contains two really satisfying subversions of common romance tropes. Oh, and Harriet is a black bisexual character but none of her problems relate to either of those things, which is rather refreshing!
Minor content warning for something that looks like an attempted suicide, but isn't.
17. Julia, Bridie, and Kathleen, ‘The Pull of the Stars’
Julia Power, the main protagonist and narrator, is a Dublin nurse working with pregnant women infected with the 1918 flu. While aware of the impacts that poverty has on her patients’ outcomes, she has generally tried to keep her head down and out of politics. That starts to become more difficult as she gets to know revolutionary doctor Kathleen Lynn (a real person, BTW!) and Bridie Sweeney, a volunteer who is a product of the network of exploitative Magdalene laundries, mother and child homes, prisons, etc. that only made the situation of Ireland’s poor worse. Though she and Bridie do not get the time together they would have wanted, Julia has gained an epiphany about her beloved brother – who lost a very close comrade during the war and came back mute – and enough courage for a small personal rebellion at the end. I like to think that’s just the first step on her journey.
Content warning for death, stories of child abuse and neglect, and the kind of blood and body horror that comes with childbirth and the 1918 flu.
Bioengineered human Emiko, though the title character, is kind of a secondary protagonist in this book. She is pulled along by events for much of her life, but she ends up finding her power in a way that has important repercussions for the story. She might have been lower on this list, because I’m not usually a fan of the “sexual assault transforms a woman into a badass” trope…but then I realized that isn’t what flips the “murder all my oppressors” switch. It can’t be, because unfortunately being subjected to sexually degrading stuff is just her normal life. What really does it is her employer crushing her dreams of finding a place where her people can live free and then sending her out on stage! She was engineered and trained for submissiveness, but by the end she is independent and potentially on her way to that seemingly lost goal.
As noted above, content warning for graphic violence (some sexual in nature), as well as racism/ethnicity-based bigotry.
I probably wouldn’t find either of these characters particularly compelling individually, but their relationship is deep and fascinating and the core of the story. Sula in particular also has huge effects on their hometown in the way that others respond to her rule-breaking nature. This short book is beautifully written, too.
Content warning for multiple violent deaths, racism.
20. Margarita, ‘The Master and Margarita’
To the extent that this Soviet magical realism book has a human protagonist at all, it is the titular Margarita. However, she doesn’t show up until halfway through the book when she makes her deal with the devil to save her lover. Though you can't help but admire her determination, we don’t get to learn much else about her or anything else she might want in life, or why she likes this writer guy so much. Which is why she’s almost at the bottom of the list.
There's some violence in this (though it leans toward the cartoonish) and some unnecessary female nudity - not sure if that warrants a content warning, but there you go!
21. Patricia, Olivia, Mimi, and Dorothy, ‘The Overstory’
This book consists of multiple interweaving stories, and each of these ladies is the protagonist of their own storyline. The first three, especially Patricia, are mostly fine in themselves - they have their own goals which they pursue competently, etc. However, all three are rather "de-sexed" in what we see of their thinking while simultaneously being treated as "muse" (intellectual and romantic/sexual inspiration) by a male character, which I did not care for. I was particulary annoyed that Mimi's bisexuality was brought up repeatedly but only serves to make her exotic and interesting for a man. Dorothy (Dot) was my least favorite character in the book. She both wants to not be tied down AND is baby-crazy (two traits that do not normally go together), cheats on her husband (though again we are given no hint of what she finds attractive in men), and is redeemed by devoting her life to caring for that husband after he has a stroke. Uggh.
Content warning for violence toward peaceful protesters, and a few major character deaths (including at least one suicide).
