I’ve been meaning to post this for literally months. Sigh. And it’s not even complete. (I am pretty sure it was dira who started this meme, but if it wasn’t her, then to whoever did, thank you! I love this meme more than I can tell you.)

fuck you, she’s awesome, in no particular order:

1. Elizabeth Swann

Elizabeth Swann wants. That is what I come back to, about her, time and time again; she wants to be a pirate, she wants Will Turner, she wants adventure and knowledge and freedom and independence and power, and she does not apologize for it. She is not ashamed of wanting.

That is pretty fucking amazing.

Even more than that, Elizabeth thinks of herself as competent and active and worthy of getting what she wants. Almost the first thing she says in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie is an assertion of self: “Actually, I find it all fascinating,” she tells her father, contradicting his request that she not be told stories of pirates. She wants those stories, and she sees absolutely no reason why she shouldn’t get them. Eight years later, her home is attacked, and she reaches immediately for the decorative swords over the mantelpiece; when she’s captured by Pintel and Ragetti, she bluffs and bullshits and bullies her way onto the Black Pearl, where she claims authority “to negotiate the cessation of hostilities against Port Royal.” She wants them “to go away and never come back.” When Jack Sparrow’s crew fails her, refusing to help her rescue Jack and Will from the cave on Isla de Muerta, she does it herself.

She chooses what she wants — Will Turner, alive and happy — and goes after it, arguing with Norrington in full view of his crew, making a deal that she thinks will secure his well-being, stepping in front of rifles to protect him. She forces her father to let her have the husband she wants, she tells Will as explicitly as a Disney movie will allow her that she wants him sexually (my hand to God, it’s been years since I saw that scene, and I am still shocked it made it into the final cut), she pulls a gun on and steals from a male figure of authority. She thinks she knows the best course of action, and isn’t afraid to prove it: it tears at her heart, but she’ll trap her hero Jack Sparrow on the Black Pearl for the kraken without a second thought; she can’t be a double dozen years old when she comes within a syllable of calling one of the Nine Pirate Lords a coward; she votes for herself as the Pirate King and gives orders and declares war without any concern she’ll be disobeyed.

Elizabeth Swann knows her body, and knows the power of it; she faints on cue to distract her father and Norrington from Will’s rescue attempt, she resents the corset that’s “the latest fashion in London,” she believes that she should not have to strip down and display herself to the guards at Sao Feng’s bathhouse. The smile on her face when Will leaves her to serve as the Ferryman for his allotted decade is the smile, my friends, of a woman who knows what a really good orgasm feels like.

Elizabeth Swann may be my hero.

2. Zoe Washburne

Zoe rides horses and shoots guns and has amazing sex and cracks jokes and is a big damn hero and has chosen her side. She’s pretty explicitly a feminist:

[Wash and Zoe find Mal enjoying Saffron's culinary skills.]
Wash: Is there any more where that came from?
Saffron: [to Mal] I didn’t think to make enough for your friends… [to Zoe] but everything’s laid out if you’d like to cook for your husband.
[Wash turns to Zoe, who gives him a look.]
Wash: [nervously] Z— heh-heh… Isn’t she quaint? I’m just not hungry.
Zoe: So… are you enjoying your own nubile little slave girl?

Our Mrs. Reynolds

Zoe, most of all, understands that there are different kinds of love for different people in one’s life, and that one kind does not diminish another. Zoe know things about love and grief and patience and change that I am not sure anyone else in Firefly does.

3. Lucy Pevensie

C.S. Lewis is terrible at writing women; I don’t think anyone disputes that. The Susan Problem bedevils feminist critics to the point of madness, and I think his attempt at writing a strong, independent heroine (Aravis) sucks.

But Lucy is a marvel — like Shylock and Jack Sparrow and Bazarov, she distorts the story around her, making it better but not what you thought, throwing everything out of kilter. Like gravity bending the fabric of space-time, and you don’t realize it while it’s going on. Lucy is the catalyst for all of the Narnia-verse, not just in the sense of being the person to find Narnia through the wardrobe in the first book (The Magician’s Nephew is a total retcon and I refuse to let it be the opening point of Narnia). Lucy is the heart and soul of Narnia, the compassionate woman who is the first to say yes to risk, to love freely and openly and without regret.

4. C.J. Cregg

I sincerely believe that C.J. Cregg could conquer the world if she wanted to. With a woot canal. She banters with Danny Concannon for god only knows how many years before having sex with him; she has fantastic taste in men; she wears the hell out of Vera Wang gowns; Leo McGarry chooses her to succeed him as White House Chief of Staff; Toby Ziegler respects the hell out of her (and she thinks he is a very pretty girl); she’s been an expert in language in polling models since 1993; she is delightful and delicious, much like learning; she makes fun of the President of the United States to his face — and of his football team, which is even more gutsy of her; she gets drunk with the first lady; her life can best be described by war metaphors; relaxing makes her nervous.

And if you’ve never seen C.J. do the Jackal, then you’ve never seen Shakespeare the way it was meant to be done.

5. Susan Vance

She only looks like a ditz. Underneath, Susan Vance is smarter than you are, braver then you are, and knows all the people you don’t. You want her on your side. Susan knows that the best response to disaster is whimsy and laughter. She sinks her putts every time and knows perfectly well that golf balls are round, thank you very much. Also, her brother gave her a leopard (who may eat dogs or be fond of them; she isn’t sure), and therefore she is awesome.

6. Liz Imbrie

Elizabeth Imbrie is a practical artist. That, right there, endears her to me. She has found a way to reconcile her talent and her will to survive, she is waiting out the Great Depression with her teeth gritted, and she knows that her boyfriend is not ready to marry her but that doesn’t mean he won’t be. She hates her boss, an unethical creepmeister, but she hates the breadlines more. She has wit like broken glass, she can hold her liquor better than anyone else around her, and she wears the best hats ever.

Also, she was married when she was “just a kid,” back in Duluth, Minnesota, and she got a divorce and has put it behind her so thoroughly that she didn’t bother to mention it to Mike Conner. In the 1930’s. Could she be any more awesome? MOVING ON: it’s what’s on Project Runway next!

7. Adele Dewitt

Adele is not a good person. Adele’s got consent and power and control and trust and did I mention the consent and god only knows what other issues. Adele is smarter than pretty much anyone around her, and she knows what they think of her, and she doesn’t give a shit. I can’t tell you how much I love characters who are, by any conventional reasoning, totally amoral, and who know it, and are totally fine with it. She is the toughest person around, the most ruthless, the seducer of innocents, the person in charge. Adele is where the buck stops, in the Dollhouse-verse; it is entirely possible to lay the in-universe moral responsibility at her feet (Joss Whedon, of course, gets the non-meta blame for the amazing amounts of creepy and fucked-up in Dollhouse, and oh boy is there blame to be allotted there).

I admit that I am fascinated by her moments of weakness, few as they are. The “Miss Lonelyhearts” scenes are approximately seventeen different kinds of messed up, but I came out of them feeling pity for Adele, my hand to god. She has spent her whole life using her sexuality and her willpower to the point where the former has become a tool first and foremost and the latter is the strongest muscle she has, just as scar tissue is the strongest in the body. I believe that Adele is a deeply, deeply unhappy person; surrounded as she is by all the trappings of wealth and power, and yet she is even less of a person than the Dolls she oversees; she has spent years deliberately eradicating her inner life and devoting herself to the Dollhouse, and she has done it willingly. The Dolls didn’t know what they were getting into; Adele has had her eyes open every step of the way.

Adele may be the truly tragic figure of Dollhouse; I suspect that Caroline/Echo’s character will have a triumphant arc, and Topher and Boyd do not have quite the same depth as Adele (although Topher, too, bears some of the same storytelling signs as Adele). She has created her own doom, leaving her signature on every terrible gear, and cannot bear to stop the machine even when the consequences become clear.