There are others that come to mind from more obscure movies I've watched more recently, like the women in Grandma (2015), Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020), and even Men (2022),
also non-fictional women like those in Kokomo City (2023). There are so many more I can picture in my mind but can't put my finger on the movie and or am just shit with names so I can't think of them right now, but might come back to update.
Literally the first name that popped into my head when I saw the question. There are plenty of other good choices, but she has to be near the top of any list.
Incidentally... am I having federation issues? This is the only comment I see mentioning Ripley. I see 11 comments currently...
+1 for each of those, and i'll add clarice starling, uhura, michael burnham, Evelyn Quan Wang (everything everywhere all at once), helen lyle (candyman)
From T2. Sarah Conner from the first movie barely has enough sense to keep herself alive, but boy did she take her short comings seriously between movies.
Ellen Ripley. Under pressure she steps up and does what needs doing. Whether that means operating a loader, comforting a child or making monsters extinct.
So timely for me... I love that character and just rewatched Better Call Saul! She is very attractive, even referenced for that trait multiple times in the show, but they never actually sexualize her. Across ~4000 final hours of show footage, her character was all about her work ethic, her intelligence, and her loyalty. Do you realize how rare that is for a modern young, attractive female character!? Rhea Seehorn is an amazing actor...
That’s funny. I also posted Naomi Nagata. While I like Chrisjen and Bobby more, I think Naomi wins for strong independent. General of the resistance, self-marooned insurgent, and the escape of the Chetzmoka.
But I rather prefer to read about real strong women. Like scientists, nobel prize winners, political figures and people of (contemporary) history. Or I just consume their content if they're an author, comedian or content creator.
Not the first that comes to mind, but I have to add Nausicaa into the mix. She shows her strength through nothing but kindness and determination, without the need for violence or cold cruelty. A frightened critter bites her, and she endures the pain to keep soothing it without interruption. Ripley's a badass, but she'd never be able to do that.
True. I need to rewatch brotherhood. I was a OG FMA-anime fan way back in the day before I even knew it was based on a manga or that the anime just made up its own ending so it took me a while to even give brotherhood a chance.
Nobody in particular stands out, but a thought I had a while back is that Game of Thrones was one of the rare pieces of modern cinema with a host of great female characters who, for the most part, actually had to put in effort to earn their status rather than just being born with it.
For me, I respect female characters who are written strong but not mean or "buff". Your character doesn't need to be a dick or on steroids to be strong. A strong person can be kind and compassionate, just not capitulate under pressure. I also don't believe being "independent" means you can't love someone and lean on them in times of need, it just means you aren't defined by the relationship.
Bastila Shan from KOTOR
Mustang from Red Rising
Rita from Groundhog Day
Hermione from Harry Potter (if only JK respected ALL women)
About half the cast of Fullmetal Alchemist (Olivier Mira Armstrong, Izumi Curtis, Riza Hawkeye, Winry and Pinako Rockbell, Lan Fan, Mai Chang, Chris Mustang... and I'm sure I'm missing some).
Oh, and friggin' Chell, of course. Makes you almost feel sorry for GLaDOS.
On point number two, I mean that’s probably because most industries, especially media, have been dominated by males for decades and are just now having more female presence in the last decade in greater, more pronounced roles and numbers.
Well I mostly meant the characters themselves are male projections as a result. So they are effectively dudes with curves a lot of the time. I'm having trouble thinking of exceptions who aren't caretaker types like Deanna Troi. I probably don't read enough contemporary fiction.
Adding to this, she's also too concerned about what other people (her social betters not her family) think of her to be truly independent. She is strong, however.
My fiancee insists that if we ever have a daughter that we're naming her Aeryn. I'm fine with that. Hell, I'm the one who introduced her to the show lol
As a parent myself, might I suggest using that as her middle name.
When we named our two boys, we chose classic yet timeless names for their first, but did have some fun with their middle names. (and NO, they are not named "Ben" and "Will". My god, I actually know 6 families that have two boys with those names). That way, we got to name them something fun, but they had good classical first names they could go by through out their lives. Our boys were born during the height of what I call the "din" period. Where a lot of babies have names that ended with some derivation of "din", "dyn", "den" or something along those lines.
There is a very good reason why there is an entire subreddit on that other site called "/r/tragideigh".
Margot is also amazing, but she's not independent IMO. She's very emotionally hooked. Not in a bad way, mind you. She's like a shounen protagonist who screams for 5 episodes because her friend was threatened and somehow a nation collapses as a result.
I mean, no one is really independent, but women in fiction tend to be very dependent on men as (almost) their primary personality trait.
I loved Margot because she was as independent as anyone in real life can be. She did her own thing, helped her friends, let her friends help her, fucked up, owned it and fixed it (most of the time, anyway).
All the characters were very realistic (well, if you ignore the magic).
Lauren Oya Olamina, from Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. Strong, independent, and wise enough to know that there's strength in community.
Not Big Boss, the man with the eye patch and is a bad guy, the woman who taught him and the mother of Ocelot
She was such a badass woman that she inspired basically everyone around her to try to mold the world in the way they thought she saw it. Shes a great example of a woman/mother who's a badass directly because of the skills normally associated with those roles. Yeah, she can fight and kick your main characters ass, but that's mostly because she's spent time nurturing him and caring for him to the point where he emotionally cannot fight her. She regularly disarms strong, imposing men (some with superpowers like lightning channeling) by just looking at them sternly and implying she's about to call them by all 3 of their names in a disapproving tone
Time and again she does badass things while she's alive, and her death is technically the catalyst for the rest of the series as those who loved and admired her try to shape the world as she saw it, which isn't even something she herself did because of her loyalty to her country.
Oh and she's voiced by the same woman who does Pearl from SpongeBob, which is wild
Joan Holloway from Mad Men- she at the very least has the evolution of a woman rising to independence while in a world built around suppression of women. A lot of characters from that show are badass ladies at different stages of independence though.