...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Faux Action Girl
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An Action Girl whose "action" aspect is more of an Informed Attribute than anything else. She's supposed to be The Hero (or, one of the heroes), but never gets to actually do anything heroic. She has a well-grounded reputation as a strong fighter in her field, but always fails miserably in the line of battle. Her talents and skills are well-known to fellow characters, but for some strange reason they're never seen by the viewers outside of perhaps A Day in the Limelight episode. Her status only exists as an established reputation and depends heavily on Genre Blindness; she never acts the way she's supposed to. Sometimes, the only way she qualifies as anything more than the Damsel in Distress is if you Take Our Word for It. If the writers are feeling merciful, however, the Faux Action Girl can be relied on to actually defeat her share of Mooks—or, in rarer cases, a female enemy. The key to identifying a Faux Action Girl is the disproportionate hype—whether she's overrated or under-performing. Also note that context does play a role; for example, in a show full of incompetents who think they're tough fighters, it doesn't matter if a female character behaves the same way. It is also possible to have a female character who doesn't fight or isn't as capable as some others for perfectly justified reasons whereas a Faux Action Girl is much less powerful or competent than other characters and true Action Girls for no logical reason. Strangely, villainesses are rarely Faux Action Girls, because we expect them to be threats. The Worf Effect used too many times on a legitimate Action Girl may turn her into a Faux Action Girl. Please note that a Faux Action Girl is someone who already has a reputation as a fighter. If she is just a captured girl then she's a Damsel in Distress. If she gets rid of the Distress Ball, she's just a Badass in Distress. If she has just started fighting and doesn't have the experience/fame handy still, she's likely Skilled, but Naïve or a Naïve Newcomer, and there's still room to see if she can grow into a real Action Girl or not. Merely because an Action Girl is captured does not automatically entail her transformation into a Faux Action Girl; generally it is down to the nature of her kidnap/capture and how she deals with this circumstance in contrast to her other informed feats. The characterization usually involves a form of Informed Ability: Most of these girls have big reputations and great past exploits. More or less the Distaff Counterpart to Miles Gloriosus and Fake Ultimate Hero. If the only one who lauds her "reputation" is the girl herself, then it's a case of either Small Name, Big Ego or Know-Nothing Know-It-All. If much of the show's screentime is dedicated to showing the girl in question training and practicing only to lose when it counts, that's not this trope. That's Hard Work Hardly Works, and it can hit anyone (even The Hero in some stories). Also contrast with Chickification, in which the producers take a character who is shown to be a legitimate Action Girl and make her incompetent. See also Standard Female Grab Area, the standard weakness of a Faux Action Girl, even though showing her drugged while her back is turned would make more sense. Like the Standard Female Grab Area and Designated Girl Fight, this trope is often caused by writers who want women in their action show, but are unwilling (or not allowed) to show a woman being hit by a man. In many cases, the Faux Action Girl will show genuine Action Girl ability when faced with a female opponent (because a Cat Fight is just fine), only to return to Faux status as soon as that fight is over. |
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Paige from The Walking Dead Michonne may count as this too. She's presented as a Friendly Sniper whose got Michonne's back covered, but she almost gets killed in a fist fight with Randall and when you actually encounter Norma and her goons, she completely fails to shoot any of them dead ultimately forcing you to kill most of the attackers. Though when first meeting Michonne, Paige states she's not a very good shot, even going so far as to joke that it's the reason she hasn't committed suicide. Ava from A New Frontier as well. She's first introduced as this tough, hardened survivor who can knock down guys twice her size in a single punch, but when it comes to actual fighting, she's very useless. She never helps in a combat scenario, gets captured, and mostly lucks out by staying away from danger. Even her death scene is an embarrassing way to go out since she gets killed by one zombie jumping her and falls off a bridge in a panic while most other characters go down fighting multiple walkers or at least put up a more determined fight. |
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Sheer from the So Bad, It's Good spin off Legend of Crystania exists to be captured, walk around, and stab Ashram who is possessed by Barbas, freeing him from the evil god's control. It's even more insulting when you realize she's the same person from '"Record of Lodoss War'' and was a genuine Action Girl there. | |
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Ashley Massaro, the 2005 Diva search winner. She revealed years later that she had never been trained properly, only on a per-match basis. Yet she still received two Women's Championship matches and competed at two WrestleMania events - both of which were based around her being the covergirl of Playboy rather than legitimate athletic talent. | |
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Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL seems to be the most notorious among the fandom for this. Of the main female characters claimed to be good at Dueling (Droite, Anna, Cathy, Rio), only one of them (Rio) ever managed an onscreen victory, against a random Monster of the Week. She also pulled a mostly-offscreen win against Tetsuo, but it's pretty heavily undermined by the fact that her fellow Barians were battling professionally talented opponents or fighting one-on-two at the time, while she apparently needed The Seventh One to handle a decidedly average middle-schooler. All the others constantly and consistently lose, even with massive advantages in their favor—sometimes for the purposes of Designated Victim-hood, but other times against random opponents of no particular note. The few times any of them wind up in a Tag Duel, they lose and their partner has to win for them. This isn't even getting into Kotori... | |
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Aida gives us both a Faux Action Girl and a Faux Action Guy in none other than our two leads. Aida is the rebellious, strong-willed leading lady who subdues a guard early on and is said to be "better with a sword than with a sponge." Radames, our leading man, is an Egyptian captain who has won several battles and is supposedly an overall badass. One could argue that since the story itself is more of a love story than anything, it's more forgivable that we don't see either of these two performing such great feats. However, at the end of the play, a fight breaks out. On the good guys' side, we have Aida, Radames, and Mereb, a physically weaker boy who's "better off cheering from the sidelines." And who's the one who does all the fighting while everyone else stands there watching in horror? Mereb, who dies in the process. | |
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Ranma ½ Early on it is established that Akane is a trained martial artist, and she is shown defeating numerous boys at her school. However, she is constantly kidnapped by various villains throughout the series and movies. She also routinely is incapable of winning fights against significant enemies without Ranma's intervention. She spends the majority of the first two Ranma ½ movies being held captive and waiting for Ranma to save her, and does nothing to make this task easier for him. This is especially absurd in the first film, as she is never tied up, locked up, guarded, or seriously restrained in any way after she is captured. | |
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X-Men: Jean Grey, in many of the early books. While later writers greatly expanded her personality, abilities, and role on the team, here she is mostly a damsel in distress whose identity is based on her longing for Scott Summers more than anything else. Men often have to direct her in the most basic use of her powers. When the team trains in the Danger Room, the males are shown battling or facing danger, while Jean threads a string though board with holes in it. Things improved in the later books. | |
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Yuuki Cross from Vampire Knight is initially presented as a relatively competent heroine, and she does try, but it becomes apparent from the very first episode that much of the plot revolves around protecting and rescuing the poor girl. She gets a little better after Kaname re-turns her into a vampire, but that's only for a little while. | |
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Liz Sherman, of Hellboy and B.P.R.D. is a pyrokinetic who has been with BPRD on and off for decades since she became a ward of the bureau. Still, despite her power set, years of experience, and one would assume extensive training as an agent, she keeps being kidnapped, possessed, and used as a power source by various beings. Her fellow agents are almost always the ones to rescue her. | |
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While Fire Emblem has tons of legitimately badass women, it also has a few Faux Action Girls. Midia from the Archaneia games, for one. She's supposedly a powerful knight, but when we first meet her, she and her squad are in captivity. And she didn't get better in the sequel, when she led a resistance against an evil Hardin... and gets caught AGAIN. Played for horrible drama with Queen Ismaire from The Sacred Stones, who ends up dead because of this trope. |
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Mina from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild travels with her brother Mils across Hyrule looking for treasure and fighting off the various monsters that get in their way. But her fighting style is so crude and indecisive that even killing a red Bokoblin is a significant accomplishment on her part. | |
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It's easy to peg Ken Marinaris from Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner as one of these after you learn that she cannot pilot the Ardjet without an AI. But remember, at the start of the game Dingo tells ADA that he'd prefer to pilot without one and she shows him all of the stats he would need to keep track of to be able to pilot Jehuty, so as it turns out, not even the Ace Pilot can use an Orbital Frame without it. | |
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Played for laughs in "The Mask of Matches Malone," the Birds of Prey (in this universe, Black Canary, Huntress and Catwoman) have a song where they brag about being better than all the recurring male superheroes. As soon as it's over, they're captured. | |
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Herula in The Wulf Archives. She's a Cat Girl who may be a Marshal in Thae'lynn's forces, but we barely see her on the job. Instead, we see her almost exclusively in her sex games, or as a Damsel in Distress. | |
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The first one to have this happen to her was Sable who had it written into her contract that she couldn't take bumps. In this case she was feuding with Jacqueline who in Real Life could go toe to toe with the men and barely break a sweat. Since Sable wouldn't take bumps Jacqueline had to rely on attacking from behind and using kicks in their matches. Jacqueline won the newly reinstated Women's Championship... when Marc Mero held Sable's feet down for the pin. Sable would only ever do about four moves in total in her match so one Sable Bomb and the supposedly dominant Jacqueline lay limp on the canvas for the 1-2-3. She would recover from this however and become Women's Champion again as well as Cruiserweight Champion while Sable ended up leaving the company. | |
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In the original James Bond game Everything or Nothing, CIA agent Mya Starling is your contact in the New Orleans mission, and it can be reasonably assumed that she can handle herself at least as well as the more actiony Bond Girls. You have to meet up with her in a certain amount of time before her cover is blown. Fair enough, but once you get there, her cover is blown anyway and her entire role in the New Orleans mission is Damsel In Distress. | |
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Angela from the second title. When she's disguised as the Mysterious Thief, she offers up a very tough boss fight midway through the game, but later on she's captured by one of the villains without even putting up a token resistance, forcing you to come to her aid. Though this can be justified in that she is primarily a researcher, and even as the Mysterious Thief, she left most of the fighting to her robots or hired thugs. | |
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In the Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Licensed Game, Padmé says she's been trained in self-defense shortly before you are to fight through a gauntlet of Tusken Raiders, and proves to be useless, screaming for help and falling on all fours when struck. Strangely, you get to control Padmé as Queen Amidala later in the game and retake the city of Theed with only a few men by your side. The leap from Damsel in Distress to Action Girl was much needed. | |
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Naruto: Out of all the kunoichi in the series, Sakura suffers from this the most, largely because she's constantly compared to Naruto and Sasuke, whose random power-ups become downright gratuitous towards the end, whereas she is mostly relegated by Kishimoto himself to cheering for them from the sidelines, crying and relying on them, and distracting the enemy solely to give them a chance to do all the fighting. It doesn't help that she never informs her team of any of her plans and she ignores anyone who tells her not to do something, which constantly forces them to save her. Sakura's continual status as this gets Lampshaded several times. In Chapter 34, Sasuke tells her that she's just as bad as Naruto is and, in terms of skill, even weaker than he is, because all she does is flirt rather than working on her jutsu and making their team stronger. In Chapters 53 and 54, when Naruto and Sasuke are incapacitated, she even admits that despite thinking herself superior to Naruto, she can't actually do anything when it counts. As shown in the page quote, in Chapter 487, when she realizes that she cannot change Sasuke, and only Naruto can because he and Sasuke share a similar background, she admits that all she can do is have faith in them. In Chapter 678, Sasuke outright tells her that there's nothing either she or Kakashi can do about Madara casting the Infinite Tsukuyomi, which was her fault to begin with. Two chapters later, he reiterates this to Naruto, who agrees that both Sakura and Kakashi won't be of any help in the fight against Kaguya. Sakura has also never fought a one-on-one battle. In her fight against Ino, she had help from "Inner Sakura". Despite what people like to claim, Sakura did not defeat Sasori on her own or even at all—in reality, Chiyo did all the fighting by using Sakura as her puppet, and Chiyo defeated Sasorinote Also, Sasori wanted to become a piece of art to be with his parents, and to do this he allowed himself to be killed by Chiyo and his parent-puppets. Finally, in the fights against Madara and later Kaguya, Naruto and Sasuke, who had become Physical Gods by that point, did all the fighting while Sakura merely served as a distraction only once in each fight. Even after she activates her Yin Seal, Sakura is still not fast or effective as a medic. During the Ten-Tails Retrieval arc, she struggles to heal Shikamaru for two chapters, but in Chapter 649 Tsunade instantly heals him◊ in just two panels, having to finish Sakura's job for her. Two years later, in the canon movie The Last: Naruto the Movie, Sakura, now considered the best medic in Konoha after Tsunade retired, collapses from exhaustion after healing Naruto for three consecutive days, but Hinata, using the chakra she inherited from her ancestor Hamura Otsutsuki, instantly and completely replenishes Naruto's reserves with no trouble, despite not being a medic and despite having inherited Hamura's chakra only less than a week prior. Sakura proves that she hasn't gotten better over a decade later in Naruto Gaiden. In Chapter 9, her "fight" against Shin merely consists of her running around and getting things thrown at her, including getting smashed against a giant rock pillar. Then it's revealed that she was stabbed by Shin's rods. Despite becoming the best medic in Konoha, she inexplicably cannot pull out the rods herself, and she has to have Sasuke pull them out for her. Even Kishimoto and his assistant admit that Sakura's not a good heroine: |
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Deconstructed in Sidekick Girl. Superhero Illumina does practically nothing to fight crime and takes all the credit while her sidekicks do all the work. She has gone through several of them before the comic started. One of her former sidekicks got fed up with her and left, eventually becoming a supervillain, one wound up in a mental hospital, and another died trying to save her. She has been labeled as a sidekick deathtrap due to her track record. | |
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Fist of the North Star: Mamiya, who is supposed to be the leader of her village's defense force, spends more time getting captured or getting cornered by the bad guys, only to be saved by Kenshiro or Rei at the last minute. Reina, from the first Raoh Den movie is supposed to an elite general in Raoh's army, but all she does is get wounded fighting Souther's army. Twice. |
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Neon Genesis Evangelion: Genocide: Keiko becomes a Humongous Mecha pilot, but she's overshadowed by all her teammates, she never defeats a single enemy and she barely contributes in one battle. | |
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Shaundi from Saints Row is called up for being this by the Boss in the second game after her ex (a stoned D.J way over his head in organized crime) kidnapped her, leaving her to plan tactic and intel instead of bringing her to gunfight. She ends up proving herself later in the game and future games have her dropping the drugs and party making her more focused but also a Leeroy Jenkins which end up making her even more of a load until she learns to accept her past self instead of trying to compensate. | |
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Amberle in The Shannara Chronicles is presented as an all-action modern heroine in contrast to her original book incarnation, carrying a sword and frequently demonstrating that she knows how to use it. However, her fighting skills invariably seem to fail her when she needs them, and there's hardly an episode in the first season where she doesn't need to be rescued by Wil or Eretria at some point. | |
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Yihwa Yeon from Tower of God. The strength test clearly indicated that she was second strongest of the group and she never is too ashamed to boast of her strength and skill, but fact is that she got herself disqualified for burning up her team when she lost control of her flames, had to make herself monetarily dependent from Prince, screwed up the strength test by tripping and got taken over by some no-name antagonists and had to be freed by Viole. It's noteworthy that the author intended her to be that way to begin with. | |
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Luna Vachon also suffered from this in her feud with, you guessed it, Sable. They were set to compete in a mixed tag match at WrestleMania XIV and in their training for it, Sable refused to learn how to bump and Luna was warned that she would be fired if she damaged or hurt Sable in any way at all in the match. So in the match Luna had to rely on her partner Goldust to do all the work while she acted as Sable's punching bag. | |
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Gundam Build Fighters Try actually made this part of Fumina Hoshino's Character Development. When Team Try Fighters first enters the tournament, her Winning Gundam is basically just there to be support, literally transforming into power-up items for her male teammates Sekai and Yuuma. Then Lady Kawaguchi, the #1 female fighter in the world, challenges Fumina to a 1-on-1 match and it quickly becomes apparent that she geared the Winning towards support too much, and can't stand on her own despite being a talented builder and fighter. Kawaguchi encourages her to become more self-reliant, which results in her upgrading to the Star Winning Gundam, which can still support the boys but does so without "sacrificing" itself and is more than capable of kicking butt on its own. | |
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The old Nintendo Power comics of the early '90s gave us a comic based off of the original Star Fox game for the SNES; there the team gained a fifth member, the female fennec Fara Phoenix. She is the leading test pilot in the Cornerian Army and can fly an Arwing well; however when we first meet her, she's hopelessly taken hostage and runs off after being rescued. Later on, she and Fox playfully show off their flying skills, only for her to be instantly shot down by an enemy cruiser (which she charged head-on), and doesn't fully participate in battle or much else when officially on the team. | |
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Eva Marie was brought to the main roster almost immediately after signing with the company and like Ashley, wasn't trained properly. In 2015 she attempted to get more training, to mixed results. She eventually left the company when her contract expired. | |
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A Kid in King Arthur's Court provides a very ridiculous example of this trope with Princess Katie. In the training sequence she is shown to be an excellent swordswoman, archer and horse rider, thus she should be "of course, able to take care of herself". Except, then she gets kidnapped by some mooks, in broad daylight and needs to be rescued by Calvin and King Arthur. A fight begins. Now on the good guys' side we have Arthur (a very old man), Calvin (a nerd who fails at baseball and has only trained in swordfighting for a couple of days) and Katie (who is young, fast and has trained in swordfighting all her life). Arthur and Calvin fight and kill the mooks while Katie gets kidnapped again. The same film also subverts the trope, however, with Katie's older sister Princess Sarah. The viewer spends the entire movie believing that tomboyish Katie is the tough one of the pair, only to find out that Sarah is the secret identity of the Black Knight, who has been fighting the enemy all along. | |
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In Transformers G1, Arcee is pretty much a faux action robot chick. She fires her gun a few times, but spends much more time running away or getting cornered by male robots. Female robots got tougher after Beast Wars, getting into trouble only about as much as a single male robot is expected to, with Arcee herself varying depending on the series she's in. The version of Blackarachnia that appeared in Transformers Animated sadly counts. Needing to be rescued or protected from danger by her mech counterparts in pretty much every appearance, which was in direct contrast to her much more capable and badass predecessor. If she wasn't a full on Damsel in Distress, she came close to it. |
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Tallia, from Ian Irvine's first tale in The Three Worlds Cycle, is supposedly a master of armed and unarmed combat. Odd, then, that she so often is knocked out, overpowered, or otherwise comes up short. | |
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Tiger & Bunny: Karina Lyle aka Blue Rose is an in-series case, and treated rather realistically — she's a conflicted teen trying to live up to her public image as a domineering badass despite poor combat abilities that put a serious damper on powers that are actually rather decent, a ridiculously impractical costume for the sake of the sponsors (and one she did NOT choose), and serious misgivings about her job. She still gets stuff done because she genuinely wants to save people, but it's telling that one of her named, publicized special moves, the 'Cutie Escape', involves ducking and running from whatever criminal menace is trying to reduce her to a smear on the pavement this week. She gets better by the end of the series, gaining more confidence and skills to match. | |
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Batman: The Brave and the Bold Alanna in "Mystery in Space!" The men (Batman, Aquaman and her husband Adam Strange) get in trouble early in the episode, but get out of it without her help. Nevertheless she insists on coming along on their next mission, since they obviously can't stay out of trouble without her...and she gets kidnapped by the villain and needs them to save her. Played for laughs in "The Mask of Matches Malone," the Birds of Prey (in this universe, Black Canary, Huntress and Catwoman) have a song where they brag about being better than all the recurring male superheroes. As soon as it's over, they're captured. |
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Audrey in Daybreakers, she gets captured no less than three times, and the men are called upon to save her every time. | |
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Burst Angel: Meg is supposedly highly skilled at combat, even though she's usually the dame in distress. Of course, since her partner Jo is a big badass Action Girl, Meg has nothing to worry about. | |
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The Baroness is depicted as this in IDW's G.I. Joe comics, crossing over with Big Bad Wannabe. She's an egotist who's deluded herself into thinking that she's a brilliant manipulator and combatant. In reality, she tends to fold like wet paper in straight fights if she doesn't sneak up on her enemy or bring back-up. Notably her first appearance ends with her getting knocked out by a single hit from Destro, who at that point had zero prior combat experience. It's strongly implied throughout the comics that her whole motivation is a desperate desire to be taken seriously by others. | |
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In Pan, Tiger Lily is a perfect example of this, a character who comes off as very strong and more than capable of defending herself when she faces off against the main characters and yet when confronted by an actual villain, she is completely useless. | |
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Lei'ella of Inverloch is introduced as a tough thief-catcher who prides herself on being the fastest knife around. But Varden quickly bests her when she confronts him, she comes off worse in a later fight with Berard (admittedly while in a Heroic B.S.O.D.), and Varden later has to train her to fight better. This also gets an explanation around that time—Lei'ella was better than the thieves she fought, but that wasn't saying much because most thieves are piss-poor fighters themselves. | |
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An episode of My Name Is Earl had the woman who Joy had stolen Earl from undergo Training from Hell so that she could get stronger and become a bounty hunter and one day get revenge. She's built up as a complete and total badass, but when she finally gets her rematch with Joy at the very end of the episode, she gets taken down in the span of a few seconds. | |
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Space Sheriff Sharivan: Miyuki and her teammates. In their very first appearance, they prove they're strong enough to beat Sharivan and yet, in every other episode they appear, they're unable to win a single fight and always need Sharivan's help (yes, the same Sharivan they had beaten so easily). | |
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Jinx from the James Bond movie Die Another Day is supposed to be a top NSA agent, and in an early scene she does manage to complete an assassination, but thereafter she only manages to get strapped to a laser Death Trap and almost drown in an ice hotel. In the end, she's given a Designated Girl Fight with Miranda Frost by way of consolation prize. | |
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Mars and Jupiter are examples in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl\Platinum. Although they were "Commanders" in Team Galactic, they don't get the chance to build their teams beyond two stock Pokemon and a "tank" (Purugly for Mars, Skuntank for Jupiter), meaning they don't advance that much beyond standard leveling up. When they team together at Spear Pillar, they are unfortunately facing off against you and your rival, who took training a little too seriously during the adventure. In fact, once you defeat them in Stark Mountain in Platinum, they decide to finally give up the profession and go back to regular lives. | |
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An in-universe example in Cave Story: Sue Sakamoto brags that she's never lost a fight with her brother and is convinced that she's a formidable scrapper, but based on the number of times you have to save her (hint: it's the same number of times as she gets into a fight), even her boast is questionable. Definitely an intentional example, though, as Sue is the only one who even brings up her fighting prowess, let alone tries to convince you she has any. | |
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Rosechu in Sonichu is a blatant example—while the author constantly insists that she's a true Action Girl and she's allegedly as powerful as the main character, most of the time she doesn't do anything and gets captured as a Damsel in Distress. | |
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The PK Girl actually makes this into a plot point, albeit a somewhat hamhanded one. Action Girl Saffy gets herself into trouble that you have to save her from, causing her to feel that she owes you her life and obligating her to try to save you from your problems... and that coincidentally puts her into more positions you have to save her from. | |
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Metro: Last Light introduces Anna, who is portrayed as the best sniper the Rangers have and thoroughly unimpressed by Artyom's heroics in the first game. Though she does help fight off a horde of monsters at one point (from the safety of a fortified church, accompanied by several other Rangers) her actual role in the game consists of getting captured, getting rescued, and having sex with Artyom. Nor does she participate in the final battle, which is literally the Rangers' last stand. There is a DLC that allows you to play as her, in which she does at least snipe her fair share of Nazis. she still fails miserably at actually achieving what she set out to do, though. |
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Pepper Potts in Iron Man: Armored Adventures thinks she's cut out to be an agent for S.H.I.E.L.D. The same Pepper Potts whose usual role is to be a Damsel Scrappy 24/7. Somewhere Whitney Stane must be laughing up a storm. | |
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In Fallout 3, Reilly, the leader of Reilly's Rangers, is never seen in combat, and when you first find her, she's in a coma from being ambushed by Super Mutants. | |
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In Mai-HiME the very badass Natsuki Kuga was not this trope. She tended to serve as the Butt-Monkey whenever the tone of the show turned comedic, but she still got the work done when it was needed. In its Elseworld spin-off, Mai-Otome, that trait was exaggerated into complete Faux Action Girl-ness. Despite supposedly being both The Ace and a Supporting Leader, she never once managed to achieve anything without blundering and spent a good chunk of the series depowered. Lampshaded in the manga, where in Natsuki's first (and only) fight, there is a panel of her crying tears of joy that she finally gets to do something. | |
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Vampire Hunter D: Doris is an extreme example. In the first scene of the movie, she's shooting down supernatural creatures with her gun; but after the eponymous D arrives, she's relegated to Damsel in Distress status and never takes up her gun again, instead getting kidnapped by the Big Bad several times. | |
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Soldier of Fortune: A rare Faux Dark Action Girl example. The series makes a deliberate point of having enemy female soldiers be weaker than enemy male soldiers. In Soldier of Fortune 2, the female Prometheus soldiers are coded to have worse accuracy and a crappier weapon than their identical-in-rank male counterparts. In Soldier of Fortune: Payback, the female boss character (who's apparently the Big Bad's personal bodyguard) is probably the easiest boss in the entire game. Madeline Taylor from Soldier of Fortune 2. She's introduced in the finale of the first game as a worthy replacement for Hawk, but in the second game we don't see her in combat and, what's worse, she gets killed halfway through the game. Deviant 1 from the same game. |
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Mutant X: Emma DeLauro. Frequently described as one of the strongest New Mutants in the world and deemed a good enough all-rounder to be included in the Mutant X team, and yet she very rarely does anything useful, especially compared to Shalimar Fox, the resident Action Girl. Granted she was also there for her psionic powers, but if Adam was wanting a psionic why did he not just use Vanessa, a minor psionic character who showed she, at least, could kick some GSA butt. | |
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Smallville: In the second season episode "Precipice" Lana Lang trains intensely in martial arts and by the end of the episode is able to take down a serious jock. But for the rest of her series run, these skills are never used again. Then the creators "listened to fan complaints" about her being this and had her come back in season 8 with Faux Navy SEAL training that she somehow got in eight months or so (this is absolutely impossible to do). That training pretty much gave her Charles Atlas Superpower. Then they made it so she radiates kryptonite so that she could have a reason for leaving the love of her life, Clark. From this to God-Mode Sue, all in one season. There's a reason she's a Creator's Pet. | |
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An in-universe example from Berserk: Farnese leads the Holy Iron Chain Knights, but they never expect her to actually fight. The Knights are traditionally led by a maiden, so she is entirely there for looks and because she comes from a noble family. Not that the men she commands are any better (the order only exists to give young scions of important noble families prestigious but cushy knightly duties), with the notable exceptions of Serpico and Azan. In-story Farnese is not very happy with this and later she begins to toughen herself up. | |
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Talia al Ghul from Batman: Arkham City is told to be a highly skilled ninja warrior with an extremely high intelligence who poses as a serious threat to all those who face her. However, in the game she never displays any of these skills and is captured by the Joker, forcing Batman to rescue her. While she does escape from the Joker and stab him, it turned out that this was a trick to let her guard down so he could shoot her in the back while the person she really "killed" was Clayface helping the clown prince of crime. Though, it's implied she did beat up Harley Quinn by herself, this all still happened offscreen and Quinn was already an Adaptational Wimp. | |
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Faux Action Girl / int_7291539d | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_74e7b75c | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_74e7b75c | comment |
Played with in The Perils of Enhancegirl. Enhancegirl spends the first five chapters very concerned that she's going to turn out to be this due to a string of defeats and successful kidnap attempts, especially by comparison with more competent heroes like Spectra. By later chapters, she's got more victories under her belt, and is much more confident in her power. | |
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| The Perils of Enhancegirl | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_74e7b75c | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_769eeb44 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_769eeb44 | comment |
Whitley from Wereworld who is supposed to be training as a ranger and who says that she can fight faints at the first sight of Drew in his Wolf form and later is thrown off her horse to fall frozen in fear. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_769eeb44 | featureApplicability |
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1.0 | |
| Wereworld | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_769eeb44 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_7afc24b0 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_7afc24b0 | comment |
Samurai Deeper Kyo: Yuya is said to be the bounty hunter with 100% success rate. Too bad we only see her in action a few times. Later in the story, she acts nothing more than a "damsel in distress". | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_7afc24b0 | featureApplicability |
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| Faux Action Girl / int_7afc24b0 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
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Faux Action Girl / int_7afc24b0 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_7c7b501c | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_7c7b501c | comment |
Roll started out as this in the Mega Man cartoon, but by the time season 2 rolled around (get it? "Rolled" around?) she'd developed into a proper Action Girl. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_7c7b501c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_7c7b501c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| MegaMan | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_7c7b501c | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_7ea3d0e1 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_7ea3d0e1 | comment |
Sarah Ryback in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory. Early in the movie, it's established that Casey has trained her in martial arts. However, she never gets an opportunity to put those skills into practice and remains a hostage for the entire duration of the hijacking. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_7ea3d0e1 | featureApplicability |
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| Under Siege 2: Dark Territory | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_7ea3d0e1 | |
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Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_7f6b418c | comment |
Maryse is a rare villain case. After her return she was immediately pushed in a Divas' title feud and the announcers constantly talked up how menacing and aggressive she was. Her matches told a different story—she would literally have her opponents beat the crap out of her for 90% of the match while the only offence she would get in would be a few slaps and maybe a backbreaker. If she was winning the match then she'd use her finisher. It was pretty hard to take Maryse seriously as a top heel when she only used one move and was never shown actually kicking any ass like the announcers claimed she was. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_7f6b418c | featureApplicability |
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Faux Action Girl / int_7f6b418c | |
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Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_7f82753b | comment |
Sakura proves that she hasn't gotten better over a decade later in Naruto Gaiden. In Chapter 9, her "fight" against Shin merely consists of her running around and getting things thrown at her, including getting smashed against a giant rock pillar. Then it's revealed that she was stabbed by Shin's rods. Despite becoming the best medic in Konoha, she inexplicably cannot pull out the rods herself, and she has to have Sasuke pull them out for her. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_7f82753b | featureApplicability |
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Faux Action Girl / int_7f82753b | |
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Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_8063b105 | comment |
Kings of the Wyld: Some of the new female "mercenaries" are pretty clearly just models and dancers hired to make the male mercenaries look good during the parade. They even respond to catcalls with blown kisses, when Clay notes that most female mercenaries respond to that sort of thing by beating the offending party within an inch of their life. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_8063b105 | featureApplicability |
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Faux Action Girl / int_8063b105 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_8125b468 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_8125b468 | comment |
Alanna in "Mystery in Space!" The men (Batman, Aquaman and her husband Adam Strange) get in trouble early in the episode, but get out of it without her help. Nevertheless she insists on coming along on their next mission, since they obviously can't stay out of trouble without her...and she gets kidnapped by the villain and needs them to save her. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_8125b468 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_8125b468 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Batman (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_8125b468 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_81b77705 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_81b77705 | comment |
The Fantastic Four: Susan Richards had been a Damsel in Distress in most of the early stories, until rewritten as a far more powerful and effective heroine by John Byrne; however, under later writers, she didn't always live up to this standard, and occasionally degenerated into this trope, mostly by giving her powers some kind of time or concentration limit despite no such obstacle for the others. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_81b77705 | featureApplicability |
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| Faux Action Girl / int_81b77705 | featureConfidence |
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Faux Action Girl / int_81b77705 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_81c0c165 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_81c0c165 | comment |
Final Fantasy: Unlimited. Lisa is supposed to be a martial artist and a magic user, but most fights have her using a totally ineffective attack, then cowering with the children she's "protecting" until Kaze shows up and saves everyone with one summon. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_81c0c165 | featureApplicability |
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| Faux Action Girl / int_81c0c165 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
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Faux Action Girl / int_81c0c165 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_826ef177 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_826ef177 | comment |
Jayne Magdalene in the Bionic Commando remake. In the prequel comic, she's shown as pretty competent. In the game, all she does is get clocked, first clotheslined (literally, with his bionic arm cable) by Spencer and then stomped on by the Big Bad. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_826ef177 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_826ef177 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Bionic Commando (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_826ef177 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_84f3f987 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_84f3f987 | comment |
Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V tried to Win Back the Crowd with this trope's aversion, as Yuzu and Serena were much more active and battled much more than previous female leads in the franchise. Other girls were competent or fairly useful... and then seasons 2 and 3 happened. After having been Demoted to Extra in season 2, Yuzu and Serena in Season 3 is only a Living MacGuffin and Damsel in Distress used to motivate Yuya into action. The Bracelet girls in general are underused despite being Living MacGuffins throughout the series. Rin's importance to the story is very minimal aside from being Ray's Synchro fragment and Yugo's childhood friend that needs to be saved, Ruri lost every single on-screen duel when under Parasite Fusioner's control, and all four of them are imprisoned when the Professor activates ARC-V, leaving them on the sidelines. The rest of the female cast, from Masumi to Mieru to Yoko to Ayu to the Tyler sisters, are Demoted to Extra or written out entirely. Asuka returns from GX to be the only female legacy character, and ends up being by far the least significant, only defeating a handful of mooks before being easily taken down by Yuri. Even Ray, who defeated Zarc originally, is more of a Deus ex Machina than a character on her own, and said triumph was merely the result of four special cards that were tailor-made by her father Leo to defeat Zarc in the first place, while never shedding any light on Ray’s actual dueling skills. | |
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| Faux Action Girl / int_84f3f987 | featureConfidence |
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Faux Action Girl / int_84f3f987 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_8832bf9a | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_8832bf9a | comment |
Zenith from Commander Kitty is often played up by other characters as being exceedingly dangerous to take on alone. In truth, though, she wields an exceedingly impractical weapon that isn't even lethal, displays fairly weak stamina, and is never shown fighting without her army of goons to do all the work for her. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_8832bf9a | featureApplicability |
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| Faux Action Girl / int_8832bf9a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
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Faux Action Girl / int_8832bf9a | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_8ac4e993 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_8ac4e993 | comment |
The Gundam series tends to be very odd with this trope. Many of the females who are Mobile Suit pilots tend to be very competent in their role and if they're killed, they're usually done in by some Ace Pilot who got the better of them. Some girls, however, tend to have this trope applied to them due to being way in over their head. These are usually relegated to those who don't actually start out as actual pilots for one reason or another, although there are some infamous cases where they did, such as Lumamaria Hawke and Aida Surgan. Gundam Build Fighters Try actually made this part of Fumina Hoshino's Character Development. When Team Try Fighters first enters the tournament, her Winning Gundam is basically just there to be support, literally transforming into power-up items for her male teammates Sekai and Yuuma. Then Lady Kawaguchi, the #1 female fighter in the world, challenges Fumina to a 1-on-1 match and it quickly becomes apparent that she geared the Winning towards support too much, and can't stand on her own despite being a talented builder and fighter. Kawaguchi encourages her to become more self-reliant, which results in her upgrading to the Star Winning Gundam, which can still support the boys but does so without "sacrificing" itself and is more than capable of kicking butt on its own. |
|
| Faux Action Girl / int_8ac4e993 | featureApplicability |
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Faux Action Girl / int_8ac4e993 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_91bb3b0c | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_91bb3b0c | comment |
Wanderer/Wanda from The Host was apparently quite the badass in some of her previous lives. This is somewhat at odds with how she acts once on Earth. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_91bb3b0c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_91bb3b0c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Host | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_91bb3b0c | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9431bab8 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9431bab8 | comment |
In Sleepy Hollow, Katrina is constantly described as being an all powerful witch, with numerous characters gushing over how strong she is. From what we actually see, she spends most of the series being a Damsel in Distress, creating love triangles, and failing to do magic. She does manage to feed the other heroes a lot of useful information from captivity and has some success in messing with the villains' heads, but if you want a woman who actually gets things done you'd best look to Abbie or Jenny. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9431bab8 | featureApplicability |
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| Faux Action Girl / int_9431bab8 | featureConfidence |
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| Sleepy Hollow | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_9431bab8 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_94bfa327 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_94bfa327 | comment |
Amberley was this in early points of The Dreamstone, being outshone by most of the heroes and the most liable to be captured by the Urpneys (she usually put up a hell of a fight, but it rarely did much good). During the later half of the series, Amberley became more intelligent and able to get out of scrapes on her own. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_94bfa327 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_94bfa327 | featureConfidence |
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| The Dreamstone | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_94bfa327 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_95c15e08 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_95c15e08 | comment |
Shakugan no Shana: Pheles is a rare antagonist version of this trope. The way Wilhelmina talks about her before she shows up, you would think she was a Physical God. When she does show up, she descends from the heavens (surrounded by a tornado) to Ominous Latin Chanting, and the main character's expression is a very clear Oh, Crap!. Cue the heroes taking her down in about 5 minutes. And about an episode later, she subverts Defeat Means Friendship by revealing that she was actually a significantly less powerful doll created by the real Pheles, who is not at all interested in the talk the heroes have just been having with the doll. Of course, this would completely explain why she was taken down so easily by the heroes before. The real Pheles shows up in person very shortly, once again with Ominous Latin Chanting. Cue the Big Bad taking her down in about 5 minutes. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_95c15e08 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_95c15e08 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Shakugan no Shana | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_95c15e08 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_982fa89f | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_982fa89f | comment |
Robin Hood: Kate. One of the other outlaws calls her "a good fighter", and she insists that "I can look after myself" even though she gets into trouble and has to be rescued by her male co-stars no less than fifteen times over the course of one season. To get a gist of this percentage, keep in mind that there were only thirteen episodes per season, and Kate only appeared in eleven of them. At one stage she was kidnapped by an evil tax collector three separate times in one episode. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_982fa89f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_982fa89f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Robin Hood | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_982fa89f | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_98f72622 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_98f72622 | comment |
Sheena. Roger Ebert noted the incongruity of "a jungle woman who has ruled the savage beasts since infancy [being] pulled along by a television anchorman fresh off the plane." This is out of Sheena's character, considering that in the comics she's a badass who takes down many savage animals and corrupt poachers. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_98f72622 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_98f72622 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Sheena | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_98f72622 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9a7088bc | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9a7088bc | comment |
Star Trek: The Original Series: If you thought there were no Dark Action Girl examples, you'd be wrong. The Romulan commander in the episode "The Enterprise Incident" is easily duped by Kirk and Spock, and, though explicitly stated to be a soldier, the most badass thing she does is slap Spock across the face in a fit of Woman Scorned fury. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9a7088bc | featureApplicability |
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| Faux Action Girl / int_9a7088bc | featureConfidence |
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| Star Trek: The Original Series | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_9a7088bc | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9a7c869d | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9a7c869d | comment |
Thorn became this in the Harley Quinn solo series, where she was essentially served as a tough-talking superheroine who would be easily dispatched by Harley and Ivy. There was even a multi-issue subplot where the girls got sick of her meddling and just kept her bound and gagged in their apartment so they could torture her for fun. Years later, she was made into a more competent vigilante when she reappeared in her own mini-series and a tie-in storyline in Birds of Prey. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9a7c869d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9a7c869d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Gotham City Sirens (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_9a7c869d | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9b2b2221 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9b2b2221 | comment |
Sally Broadbent of Tyrannosaur Canyon is described as the quintessential independent Western woman, a skilled rider and crack shot. Then she's captured without much fuss, bungles an escape attempt, and spends the rest of the story being present while Tom and Ford save the day. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9b2b2221 | featureApplicability |
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| Tyrannosaur Canyon | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_9b2b2221 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9bb5aad4 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9bb5aad4 | comment |
Asuka of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is an odd treatment of this trope. She's actually got a pretty good onscreen record (five wins, three losses, two tag duel wins), but her victories tend to be against rather unimpressive Monster of the Week characters or people playing with a handicap, and her deck is frankly awful. This is mostly due to her having very few major story threads to her name; defeating Titan in the first season is about her only plot-relevant victory for 180 episodes. This is written into her character to some degree, with her constantly trying to prove herself better than the expectations of her male peers, and very aware that the standards for women in Duel Academy are at the floor. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9bb5aad4 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9bb5aad4 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Yu-Gi-Oh! GX | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_9bb5aad4 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9e2f90f4 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9e2f90f4 | comment |
One Piece: Rebecca in the Dressrosa arc. Introduced as "The Undefeated Woman" in a colosseum tournament, it initially seems she's the real deal, as she constantly does battle with people who sincerely want to harm her and yet remains undefeated. Then it turns out that her fighting style is entirely based in dodging and tricking her opponents into falling out of the arena, and in a straight fight she's helpless. Worse, this is how she was trained, as her teacher did not want her to soil her "innocent hands" with blood (understandable, since said teacher turned out to be her father). She spends the rest of the arc constantly having to be saved, or worse, being the problem when her non-Action Girl aunt confronts the Big Bad to stall for time and Rebecca is forced into fighting her via People Puppets because she got too close. However, that's the point of Rebecca's character, as she was never meant to be a warrior and after Dressrosa is saved, she is finally able to drop her weapons and live a peaceful life. Charlotte Smoothie was introduced as one of Big Mom's Three Sweet Commanders, with the highest known bounty of any female character in the series. Yet unlike the other two Sweet Commanders Cracker and Katakuri, who both have big fights against the main protagonist, Smoothie has not put her fighting skills to use. In her first scene, her plan to ambush Brook was taken over by Big Mom, and the only thing she did during the wedding chaos was grabbing Nami (and quickly being forced to release her by Reiju). This is especially glaring considering that Katakuri was constantly on the attack, and people who ranked lower than Smoothie got more screentime than her. |
|
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1.0 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9e2f90f4 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
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Faux Action Girl / int_9e2f90f4 | |
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Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9ef055f4 | comment |
Ratchet & Clank: Sasha, Ratchet's Love Interest, was hyped by the creators as "a female Han Solo". Her supposed enjoyment of video games is never seen in the series, apart from giving Ratchet a console so he could play Vid Comics, and she ends up being the Damsel in Distress by the end of the game, despite having command of a very powerful starship. Angela from the second title. When she's disguised as the Mysterious Thief, she offers up a very tough boss fight midway through the game, but later on she's captured by one of the villains without even putting up a token resistance, forcing you to come to her aid. Though this can be justified in that she is primarily a researcher, and even as the Mysterious Thief, she left most of the fighting to her robots or hired thugs. |
|
| Faux Action Girl / int_9ef055f4 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_9ef055f4 | featureConfidence |
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Faux Action Girl / int_9ef055f4 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_a44ac02e | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_a44ac02e | comment |
Lita in Jack had dedicated her whole life training to be able to defeat her monstrous father. When she completes her training and goes to Hell to face him, not only is she too weak to win against even nameless male souls and hellspawns, gets captured and nearly raped, but she also gets constantly saved each time by males like Cliff and Jack. And yet she's described as among the strongest female characters in the series. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_a44ac02e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_a44ac02e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Jack (David Hopkins) (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_a44ac02e | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_a796bde8 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_a796bde8 | comment |
Meryl Silverburgh from Metal Gear Solid was presented as one from the start, though one who was aware of her limitations and strove to overcome them. And in Guns of the Patriots, she did. | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_a796bde8 | featureApplicability |
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| Faux Action Girl / int_a796bde8 | featureConfidence |
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Faux Action Girl / int_a796bde8 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_a900b058 | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_a900b058 | comment |
Queen Emeraldas: Emeraldas receives this treatment in Arcadia of My Youth: while Harlock (the ultimate badass of the Leijiverse) clearly treats her as his equal, she never actually does anything to back up that cred in this movie, even spending some time in the Damsel in Distress role. This is possibly justified by the movie being Harlock's Origins Episode, so Emeraldas merely accompanies him on his first pirate venture without infringing on his spotlight. In all other Leijiverse media, she is consistently depicted as a proactive and danger-defying individual. | |
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Faux Action Girl / int_a900b058 | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_a9570fac | type |
Faux Action Girl | |
| Faux Action Girl / int_a9570fac | comment |
In the military science fiction story Victoria, the female soldiers of the Lady Land Azania tend to come across this way, mainly due to the main character's Plot Armor. They have the most advanced technology in the setting, and are generally very competent and successful wherever he is not involved, but suffer humiliating defeats every time they move against his unit. Taken together with said character's condescending attitude toward them, this has somewhat unfortunate implications. | |
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| Victoria | hasFeature |
Faux Action Girl / int_a9570fac | |
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Faux Action Girl | |
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Yu-Gi-Oh!'s female characters in general tend to flirt with this trope — like Gundam above, the series isn't remotely targeted toward women, and it seems like every series has at least one character who gets these accusations, from Mai to Asuka to Aki. Mai of the original series fell mostly into Designated Victim territory - offscreen, she has a number of victories, but when we see her onscreen, though she usually handles herself decently, she's always facing opponents who are either much stronger or have much more Plot Armor, giving her very few wins to her name. It's even worse in the anime-only Doma arc, where she tries to join the villains to get stronger, but still manages only one onscreen victory (where her opponent fell unconscious due to earlier injuries), and then goes through a Redemption Demotion and is defeated offscreen. Asuka of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX is an odd treatment of this trope. She's actually got a pretty good onscreen record (five wins, three losses, two tag duel wins), but her victories tend to be against rather unimpressive Monster of the Week characters or people playing with a handicap, and her deck is frankly awful. This is mostly due to her having very few major story threads to her name; defeating Titan in the first season is about her only plot-relevant victory for 180 episodes. This is written into her character to some degree, with her constantly trying to prove herself better than the expectations of her male peers, and very aware that the standards for women in Duel Academy are at the floor. 5D's brings us Aki, who notably starts as being a Dark Action Girl but then goes through a heavy Redemption Demotion coupled with Chickification. In her case, it's not that she starts losing, it's that the show sort of forgets she was supposed to be a powerful, unstable, and highly-skilled Duelist, to the point of literally making her a benchwarmer. She does reclaim a tiny bit of cred in the final arc, where she helps defeat Sherry in a tag duel, but as it was her first win in 65 episodes, it sort of falls flat. On the other hand, Ruka is more straightforward; she's described as a prodigy, and it's suggested she has some kind of greater role as a protector of the Spirit World, but she never won an onscreen duel without massive help (in one case, fighting an opponent three-on-one where both her partners did far more than her, in another, her brother fought a grueling battle and she only took over for the very last turn), and she rarely displays any impressive strategies. Even protecting the Spirit World only comes up twice in the entire series, and is swiftly forgotten. Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL seems to be the most notorious among the fandom for this. Of the main female characters claimed to be good at Dueling (Droite, Anna, Cathy, Rio), only one of them (Rio) ever managed an onscreen victory, against a random Monster of the Week. She also pulled a mostly-offscreen win against Tetsuo, but it's pretty heavily undermined by the fact that her fellow Barians were battling professionally talented opponents or fighting one-on-two at the time, while she apparently needed The Seventh One to handle a decidedly average middle-schooler. All the others constantly and consistently lose, even with massive advantages in their favor—sometimes for the purposes of Designated Victim-hood, but other times against random opponents of no particular note. The few times any of them wind up in a Tag Duel, they lose and their partner has to win for them. This isn't even getting into Kotori... Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V tried to Win Back the Crowd with this trope's aversion, as Yuzu and Serena were much more active and battled much more than previous female leads in the franchise. Other girls were competent or fairly useful... and then seasons 2 and 3 happened. After having been Demoted to Extra in season 2, Yuzu and Serena in Season 3 is only a Living MacGuffin and Damsel in Distress used to motivate Yuya into action. The Bracelet girls in general are underused despite being Living MacGuffins throughout the series. Rin's importance to the story is very minimal aside from being Ray's Synchro fragment and Yugo's childhood friend that needs to be saved, Ruri lost every single on-screen duel when under Parasite Fusioner's control, and all four of them are imprisoned when the Professor activates ARC-V, leaving them on the sidelines. The rest of the female cast, from Masumi to Mieru to Yoko to Ayu to the Tyler sisters, are Demoted to Extra or written out entirely. Asuka returns from GX to be the only female legacy character, and ends up being by far the least significant, only defeating a handful of mooks before being easily taken down by Yuri. Even Ray, who defeated Zarc originally, is more of a Deus ex Machina than a character on her own, and said triumph was merely the result of four special cards that were tailor-made by her father Leo to defeat Zarc in the first place, while never shedding any light on Ray’s actual dueling skills. |
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The soundtrack to the arcade version of Double Dragon came with liner notes that explained the game's backstory, which revealed that Marian used to be a martial arts instructor in Billy and Jimmy's old school prior to the nuclear war. However, the game itself doesn't do much of a good job of showing Marian's martial arts skills, since she is knocked unconscious by a single blow to the stomach and carried off by a mere mook at the game's own opening sequence. The Neo-Geo fighting game version gave Marian some legitimate fighting skills in order to make her into a playable fighter, although the game barely has anything to do with the original, save for the names of some of the characters. | |
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In the Fatal Fury games Mai Shiranui's always been Ms. Fanservice and Andy Bogard's Clingy Jealous Girl, but still remains a proud Action Girl and gets the job well-done when needed. In the anime, however, she's all too often used as a hostage to lure Andy out to fight and as an even more blatant Ms. Fanservice; apart of her friendship with Sulia and defeating Panni (another girl) on her own, poor Mai doesn't get to show even a bit of her strength. It's has been implied that she might fit more as a Deliberately Distressed Damsel in story, however. | |
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GoLion/Voltron: Princess Fala/Allura is a downplayed trope. When not piloting one of the lions she can barely do anything useful, but it's the lion thing that is most important. Allura averts/defies this trope in Voltron Force, set seven years after the events of the original series. | |
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Virtua Fighter the Animation: Pai Chan has this problem in-universe. She's not that bad of a fighter, technically speaking... but her ex-boyfriend aka the Big Bad knows how to deal with her kicking-based martial art style, and so he trains his mooks specifically to neutralise her and so the poor kid spends most of her time getting beat down by non-mooks and getting abducted. Pai finally ends up being much more competent in the second season, being able to take on and beat even tougher opponents. | |
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The Secret World offers the Council of Venice agent in the "A Dream to Kill" arc. Despite looking the part of a superspy, complete with Spy Catsuit and sexy Russian accent, she does little to help you fight monsters and often causes more trouble than she's worth. It turns out, however, that there's a very good reason for this: she's not working for the Council of Venice. Nor, for that matter, is she precisely human. She's actually Lilith, the Big Bad in disguise, and she reveals her real identity to you at the end before kidnapping the MacGuffin girl you were looking for and cutting off your legs Goldfinger-style. (Given that your character is supernaturally empowered themselves, you get better.) | |
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In The Force Awakens, Captain Phasma appears to be a formidable elite First Order officer. However, she never gets in any fights or fires a single shot in the entire movie. Her only significant contribution to the plot is when she gets easily captured by Han, Finn, and Chewie, who then force her to lower the shields on the Starkiller base. She immediately complies with their order, essentially selling out everyone in the base to save her own skin. She continues the trend in The Last Jedi where all she manages to accomplish is knocking Finn down once, surviving an attack because her armor is blaster-proof, and going down in a single hit from Finn when he gets back up. | |
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JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Poor Lisa Lisa. Despite being by far the most experienced Hamon user in Battle Tendency and the one who trains both Joseph and Caesar, she has a total of one serious fight in the entire series, where she defeats a fake double of the Big Bad and is then immediately tricked and incapacitated by the real thing, spending the rest of the battle as a Damsel in Distress. | |
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Game of Thrones: Yara Greyjoy has earned the loyalty and respect of her crew, but she doesn't do much onscreen to justify her reputation. The one time we do see her fight, she and her crew are eventually driven off, though it's implied that the biggest reason is she'd simply given up on her mission as a lost cause. The Sand Snakes consider themselves to be elite warriors who can take on the best in Westeros. Of course, most of their victories came about because they ambushed people who weren't trained warriors and they weren't even able to defeat Jaime Lannister, who only has one hand. Come season seven, Obara and Nymeria Sand both die in a battle with Euron, by their own weapons in fact, showing they weren't really as good in combat as they thought they were. |
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Jericho: Emily Sullivan fell under this for most of the first season. Fixed from the Season One finale onwards. | |
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Midia from the Archaneia games, for one. She's supposedly a powerful knight, but when we first meet her, she and her squad are in captivity. And she didn't get better in the sequel, when she led a resistance against an evil Hardin... and gets caught AGAIN. | |
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Ninja Gaiden: Rachel in the Xbox game is a supposedly skilled fiend hunter who kills an Elite Mook fairly easily, but then gets knocked aside by a (relatively) easy boss, and later gets kidnapped by Doku for most of the rest of the game. Momiji in Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword. The manual suggests that she is a strong ninja, and the player controls her for the first level, which seems to indicate that she might play a role in the action as a secondary player character. Unfortunately, at the end of the level, she loses to the first boss and gets kidnapped, where she is held for the rest of the game. She manages to outgrow this one and becomes a competent Action Girl come in Sigma 2 and 3... by fighting like a warrior Shrine Maiden instead of a ninja. Perhaps she chose the wrong class earlier. Gets averted in Dead or Alive 5: Ultimate, where Momiji joins the cast of ninja girls you can select. The difference between her, Kasumi, and Ayane is that her attacks are the slowest, but more powerful. In the original trilogy, Irene Lew, highly-trained CIA agent and the Love Interest of Ryu, suffers from this as she's a Damsel in Distress in the first two games. Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom (which actually is set between the first and second games) plays with this, as Irene seemingly dies while performing a covert operation, but Irene saves herself from this trope when she pulls a Big Damn Heroine moment to save Ryu of all people. Ninja Gaiden II for the Xbox 360 features Sonia, who is also a highly-trained CIA operative. Her story at first mimics Irene's (capture, then saving Ryu's bacon), but she then gets captured again, causing her to fall right back into this trope. However, it's hard to be of any use in the Underworld if you're not a badass Ninja named Ryu Hayabusa. Perhaps a sequel will give Sonia a chance to redeem herself in the vein of Rachel and Momiji. As the original games have apparently been retconned to follow the Xbox titles (and by proxy, Dead or Alive), it's eventually revealed in Dead or Alive: Dimensions that Irene and Sonia are one and the same. |
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A villainous example would be Shimmer from Young Justice. She's first introduced as Kobra's supposedly badass bodyguard, only to end up incapacitated by Robin before throwing a single punch. The exact same thing happens near the end of season one, and in season two, she's ambushed and dismissively knocked out by Miss Martian so that the latter can steal her identity. | |
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Aurora Bladeseeker in DROD: Gunthro and the Epic Blunder. The other teammates refer to her as a hero and won't continue without her, but all she actually does in the game is explore some roach pits so you have to go rescue her. | |
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The version of Blackarachnia that appeared in Transformers Animated sadly counts. Needing to be rescued or protected from danger by her mech counterparts in pretty much every appearance, which was in direct contrast to her much more capable and badass predecessor. If she wasn't a full on Damsel in Distress, she came close to it. | |
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In SpacePOP, mainly due to being as strong as the plot demands and the series shying away from showing fights, the girls can come across as being weaker than presented. | |
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Demented actress Vera Starbeam from Team Galaxy. She provides an unsafe environment for her fellow actors due to her penchant for real explosives and filming actual battles as part of the Cosmic High TV program. She takes the part of a Dark Action Girl in that she is a real threat with weapons, and did plan the destruction of the actual Galaxy High. However, the "Faux" part is entirely due to her inability to grasp the difference between fantasy and reality (especially since her opinion of Galactic Marshalls being villainous was because they arrested her for unsafe usage of explosives during the filming of one of her films), and that Brett's vast knowledge of the program actually proves key in them stopping her from blowing up the school. Principal Kirkpatrick assumes that some therapy may fix this problem. | |
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Dengeki Stryker: While all the female Strykers receive substantial hype, they have a poor track record for actually defeating enemies on their own, and seem to contribute mostly by helping male characters to power up. However, this is Justified by them being civilians with no combat experience - in the sequel routes in Chou Dengeki Stryker, they've received actual training and are far more effective as a result. Iron Clie, a heroine original to Chou, is just as strong as Stryker Zero right from the start, and after her upgrade into Stryker Hagane, becomes a One-Man Army and the strongest heroic character in the series. | |
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Doctor Who: Sara Kingdom is introduced as the Space Security Service's best and most loyal operative, with a Samus Is a Girl sequence, and she shoots her own brother on behalf of Mavic Chen. However, as soon as she does a High-Heel–Face Turn and the Doctor takes her on as a companion, all her combat skills disappear and she spends most of her time asking the Doctor to explain things, running down corridors, and experiencing Doctor Who's notorious Big-Lipped Alligator Moment Christmas Special ("The Feast of Steven"). While shooting some Daleks would perhaps have been helpful, her personality itself remains intact, particularly her extreme loyalty. In the Dalek TV show that Terry Nation had been trying to make, she was going to be a Damsel in Distress her (other) brother had to rescue, but this got a bit of a Fix Fic when Big Finish adapted the story, as it switched her and her brother's roles around. | |
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Played for horrible drama with Queen Ismaire from The Sacred Stones, who ends up dead because of this trope. | |
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Twilight: Alice beat her combat veteran boyfriend Jasper in a practice fight in Eclipse. He beat Emmett and tied with Edward, indicating that Alice is the best fighter of the four. However, in a hostile situation Emmett and Jasper are the ones who step up, and Alice's fighting prowess was never even mentioned outside that scene. It should also be noted that she can see the future. This would be a rather useful advantage in battle, though that doesn't explain why she wasn't important in the battle itself. More specifically, Alice is often the character who is trotted out by Twilight defenders against accusations that the series is anti-feminist. It's usually countered by pointing out that Alice only seems like a "strong female character" in comparison to Bella, but by the standards of just about any other series she clearly qualifies. Vampirized-Bella from Breaking Dawn also counts. She gets all sorts of training in combat from Emmett and is trained by Kate as to how to protect others with her shield against offensive attacks... and spends the climax just sitting there with everyone else. Her shield halts an attack from Jane and Alec each, but it's nowhere near any of the badassery she was hyped for. The movie does fix this by showing that during the climactic fight Bella and Edward serve as a Battle Couple and take down Aro, but... it turns out that the whole thing was All Just a Dream. |
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Van Helsing: Anna Valerious is another lovely example, whose laughable losing record is referenced in this blog post. Most of this is due to The Worf Effect, but she repays the favor in the end. | |
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Mai of the original series fell mostly into Designated Victim territory - offscreen, she has a number of victories, but when we see her onscreen, though she usually handles herself decently, she's always facing opponents who are either much stronger or have much more Plot Armor, giving her very few wins to her name. It's even worse in the anime-only Doma arc, where she tries to join the villains to get stronger, but still manages only one onscreen victory (where her opponent fell unconscious due to earlier injuries), and then goes through a Redemption Demotion and is defeated offscreen. | |
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Criminal Minds: During season six, Ashley Seaver joined the team for a short while. She was supposedly the best at the academy but did absolutely nothing to prove itnote Season six is a season that most fans tend to forget about specifically because of her. | |
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The Avengers: Janet Van Dyne/The Wasp, in many of the early comics. In one issue, after she has been absent for the entire fight, she reappears on the last page. When asked where she was she responds that she had to go powder her nose. Like the above, she improved later down the line. | |
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Kamen Rider Kiva: Yuri and her daughter Megumi are supposedly some of the best Fangire Hunters, but they seldom get in more than two or three blows before the villain begins shrugging off their attacks, and either captures or starts pounding them, requiring them to be saved by Kiva or Ixa. By episode five, you're rolling your eyes at them for thinking they can do anything, like Mooks Shooting Superman. It doesn't help when the Transformation Trinkets for the Ixa suit not only pass by Yuri (whom it was originally developed for) and her daughter too, but are used by male characters. At least Megumi gets a loaner on the second version once in the TV-series and the movie. | |
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Vereesa Windrunner from Richard A. Knaak's Novel Day of the Dragon novel (set in the Warcraft universe). Here we're informed she is just as capable a ranger as her sisters in the first "of the Dragon" book, and in that book and every subsequent one, her grand accomplishments include being kidnapped, marrying Rhonin, and standing around in Dalaran next to her husband leading one of the least active factions in World of Warcraft. | |
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The Amazing Race: Most of the athletic female teams come off as this, save for Kisha & Jen, who are the only ones to make the Top 4, then they ended up winning when they returned for Unfinished Business. Generally, the strong physical female teams tend to get eliminated earlier than the ones who rely more on their intelligence. Sam & Renae from the Australian version are another exception, also making the top 4. Canadian hockey players Natalie Spooner and Meaghan Mikkelson were an incredible exception on the Canadian version. They claimed an incredible number of first place finishes (seven) and went to the final leg. They ended second and it was likely only caused by a nagging injury from before the Race. |
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Faux Action Girl | |
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Glimmer in the first Hunger Games book is definitely an antagonistic example. She's presented as a Career, someone who's trained their whole life to be a Tribute. Unfortunately, she's shown to be incompetent with a bow, she doesn't display any notable skills, and she dies extremely early in the Games before she gets to do anything notable. She gets a little better in the movie, where we can at least see her slaughtering a couple of Tributes during the initial bloodbath and Cato lets her kill one other Tribute who was Too Dumb to Live. Cashmere from Catching Fire. She's from District 1, a career, trained from a young age to excel in the games. She even won the 64th games. She doesn't end-up doing much and dies the second day, trying to avenge her brother. One of the few examples of a Faux Dark Action Girl. |
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Zoe in Bully, by way of game mechanics: her profile info says she likes to fight and makes a formidable opponent, but good luck actually getting to fight her. If the trouble meter maxing out for touching her doesn't get you first, it's more likely that she'll just run away. This is because the programming for the girls is all the same, and the rest are generally nonviolent except sometimes against each other. | |
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Ninja Scroll: Kagero, introduced as a supposedly deadly ninja who then proceeds to be repeatedly kidnapped and molested. Kagero actually shows herself as being mostly competent in the movie: she rescues Jubei from Benisato and her snakes, holds off Mushizo's swarm of bees, and even in the scene where she was being molested, if Jubei hadn't alerted Tessai, triggering his ability to turn his skin to stone, she might have successfully killed him with the needle she was hiding. | |
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In the John Carter of Mars books, red Martian women in general are supposed to be strong and have adapted to their harsh, violent world in terms of being ready to fight if necessary, but all they can ever do is play the Damsel in Distress. They have attitude, but apparently they're just physically absolutely inferior to both men and monsters. They also don't go properly armed like the men do, even though that should make sense if they were as advertised. | |
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Erica in Breakout Kings is supposed to be this badass former bounty hunter who can track anyone and who killed five very dangerous men, but she does not live up to the hype. In "Out of the Mouths of Babes," a middle-aged former school counselor is able to outrun her and give her the slip. When she is useful, it is in roles that seem to have been written for Philomena, the con artist from the pilot whom Erica replaced. | |
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On the other side of things, X-Men villain team The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants had Scarlet Witch, who had the ability to give people bad luck. Unfortunately, the potential for this power wasn't truly realized until she was expanded upon after doing a Heel–Face Turn and joining the Avengers. | |
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5D's brings us Aki, who notably starts as being a Dark Action Girl but then goes through a heavy Redemption Demotion coupled with Chickification. In her case, it's not that she starts losing, it's that the show sort of forgets she was supposed to be a powerful, unstable, and highly-skilled Duelist, to the point of literally making her a benchwarmer. She does reclaim a tiny bit of cred in the final arc, where she helps defeat Sherry in a tag duel, but as it was her first win in 65 episodes, it sort of falls flat. On the other hand, Ruka is more straightforward; she's described as a prodigy, and it's suggested she has some kind of greater role as a protector of the Spirit World, but she never won an onscreen duel without massive help (in one case, fighting an opponent three-on-one where both her partners did far more than her, in another, her brother fought a grueling battle and she only took over for the very last turn), and she rarely displays any impressive strategies. Even protecting the Spirit World only comes up twice in the entire series, and is swiftly forgotten. | |
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One Biggles comic book set in modern times had the all-British hero declaring there's a place for skirts. At the end he recants this sexist statement as his female sidekick has proved her worth. By pushing a single button. Admittedly it was the Big Red Button of the Self-Destruct Mechanism, but still... | |
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In the WWE version of FCW, Rosa Mendes did occasionally look like a credible villain due to Angela Fong's dramatic selling and Alicia Fox's busted lip but after that, she only managed to be intimidating by virtue of standing next to someone else who was. Mendes debuted on cable sneak attacking Melina Perez several times but could never gain the advantage in these fights, despite Perez's lack of vigilance, and had to be bailed out by Beth Phoenix each time. Phoenix eventually deemed Mendes no longer useful and easily brushed her aside. Her next big moment was causing Zack Ryder to depart from WWECW for fear of her safety after being speared by Tiffany. Even her moment where she was supposed to turn on now baby face Phoenix saw Mendes talk big game she couldn't back up, Mendes only getting some offense due to a freak accident suffered by Phoenix. | |
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Karai in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) and its sequel. She's the Shredder's second-in-command, but in combat she seems to be not as capable as her status suggests, being easily subdued by the Turtles with little effort and even getting instantly knocked out by April O'Neil of all people. | |
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Muramasa: The Demon Blade: Subverted with the real Momohime. The game got a lot of hype for having a male and female lead, but it turns out that she's possessed by the spirit of a man whenever she's fighting. When she's properly herself, she's an ordinary doll-like princess that's treated pretty badly by the game in general and is never considered an Action Girl In-Universe, unlike Torahime. At least, save in one possible ending where Jinkuro sacrifices his own life to save her by fusing his soul with hers, which gives her amnesia, but also grants her all his sword-fighting skills to make her a true Action Girl. Also Torahime. We get told that she's a fearsome warrior, but her main role in Kisuke's story is to be the love interest and get into a lot of trouble that Kisuke needs to save her from. The only time she displays any competence is when YOU fight HER earlier on. |
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Digimon Frontier: Zoe/Izumi has a poor record as a "legendary warrior" and it is certainly worse than her male teammates. She only succeeded at beating one opponent on her own over the course of the entire series, and was defeated in every other battle she participated in, even losing to the Monster of the Week in the episode where she got her first Spirit; she had to be saved by Koji, who, along with the rest of her all-male teammates, easily beat the MotW the first time he Spirit Evolved. | |
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In Quest for Camelot Kayley aspires to knighthood and heroism, but when things get dangerous it quickly becomes clear that a background of farm chores and haphazard self-training hasn't left her very well equipped to defend herself, and she spends most of the film running away or relying on Garrett (who's blind!). | |
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Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger: Marie Gold (movie only). She is DekaGold, and has time-stopping powers. But then, her only on-screen display of power is when she had her transformation sequence INTERRUPTED and then was poisoned by the bad guys, so the Dekarangers had to hurry and save her. | |
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Spoofed in Adam Warren's graphic novel Empowered. The eponymous heroine is considerably more insecure than most of the other examples here, halfway between a Faux Action Girl and a pure Damsel in Distress. However, at one point her boyfriend reassures her by saying he admires her guts in continuing to try and fight despite knowing that she'll probably end up getting her butt kicked and captured, as opposed to all the other heroes who have it relatively easy. It's also eventually revealed that when she does maintain her confidence, her powers actually work, such as when she effortlessly rescues said boyfriend early in the story. Also a bit of a deconstruction of this trope, as her poor track record is a major source of misery for her; her self-esteem's pretty much nonexistent and her reputation as a crime-fighter is the exact opposite of what this trope usually calls for: She routinely gets called things like "Useless Lass" and "Captain Kidnapped". As the story progresses she gets much better at using her powers and more generally competent, but most of the other characters don't notice (then again, most of them are jerks). In-universe, Sistah Spooky is considered this, with her A-lister status being regarded as inflated due to her being a Twofer Token Minority. This is mostly averted in the story proper, where she's shown to be an exceptionally powerful Black Mage and a very competent (if seriously unlucky) hero, so it's very probably just prejudice from the people who see her as an Affirmative Action Girl. |
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Saiyuki: Yaone is a really good example of this as well as the White Magician Girl. Constantly running around trying to fight off her opponents, she perpetually loses or forgets that's she's supposed to fight against them all together. These days she's just mostly left at home when the boys go out to play. | |
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Mei Ying in Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb is supposedly an intelligent and tough sidekick, but proves herself to be borderline-useless during fights and even manages to get incapacitated and possessed by the Big Bad during the final battle. | |
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The Batman: Detective Ellen Yin spends most of her time being saved by Batman, one step behind Batman, or getting her hand held through mysteries by Batman. A borderline case, as she is competent when the writers realize they have no other choice other than solidifying her slide into full-on Damsel in Distress. However, she is promptly Put on a Bus at the end of the second season in favour of Commissioner Gordon (thanks to the Law of Conservation of Detail) and replaced by Gordon's daughter as the only female protagonist on the series. (She did get a Shout-Out in a season 4 episode, though she didn't actually appear; apparently twenty years down the road she becomes police commissioner of Gotham.) | |
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The Arcee triplets in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, who failed to do any major damage while chasing down Sideways in Shanghai, and end up getting destroyed in the film's final battle. Even their screentime in the film was under a minute. | |
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Cleopatra 2525: Rose, aka "Sarge", completely failed to live up to her supposedly badass nickname. Routinely kidnapped, captured and tied up, she was pretty much useless. Worst example was one episode where, in trying to save her younger sister, she herself was captured. | |
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Merlin: Isolde was presented as a tough, no-nonsense Action Girl. She is injured in her first battle and dies in her second. | |
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Pokemon Reburst: Eight volumes worth of material, and Miruto never actually let her Pokémon out of its Pokéball and has never actually participated in a battle, allowing the male lead all the action even if he really could've used the help. This despite the fact she is supposedly part of an organization meant for investigating crimes. It gets really kind of ridiculous when she and her group have to take on someone in an area where Burst is neutralized...and she still doesn't take her perfectly working Pokeball out. | |
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Justified: Ava Crowder always talks a big game, but to date her only real achievements are killing her (unarmed) abusive husband, successfully resisting her first kidnapping, and shooting Delroy (who thought she was on his side). She fails to intimidate Bo Crowder, and is easily kidnapped by him, loses a shootout to Dickie Bennett, is brutally beaten by Judith when she tries to fight her, and otherwise gets her ass kicked any time that her opponent can actually hit back. | |
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Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit has been accused of being this in the OAV, but it's a rather unfair claim since not only she is fairly new to the outer world, her powers are more of the supporting kind from the very start. Technically speaking, she begins as an Action Survivor in the OAV and upgrades to Action Girl status in the TV series Also Shiris in Chronicles of the Heroic Knight. Though fairly competent in the original OVA, in the tv series she loses almost every fight she gets into, including the Designated Girl Fight. Orson eventually dies to save her, and his sacrifice feels wasted as she does nothing productive in the remaining episodes. Sheer from the So Bad, It's Good spin off Legend of Crystania exists to be captured, walk around, and stab Ashram who is possessed by Barbas, freeing him from the evil god's control. It's even more insulting when you realize she's the same person from '"Record of Lodoss War'' and was a genuine Action Girl there. |
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Jaheira in the Baldur's Gate novelizations, to a painful extent. Gee, Mister Abdel Adrian, you think you caught a glimpse of her softer, more feminine side under "her usual tough warrior exterior"? If a fighter/druid can't deal with a spider getting inside her shirt any other way than by having you tear her top off (forced by the circumstances and by no means intentionally, as her husband just died a while ago, after all), then you can be pretty confident something is wrong. | |
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Revolution: Charlie Matheson starts out as this. She's incompetent, at least early on. On top of that, she usually ends up being saved. However, she managed to not screw up in episode 2 by tricking Nate and succeeded in killing the warden and another man. It may be because she isn't good with close range or unarmed combat, she is a good shot with her crossbow, but since crossbows can't fire as quick as a real bow after a single shot she tends to be helpless. Which may be why her father warned her not to go into the woods. Too many people in the village have gotten hurt or killed trying to save her ass. Not that the village got into trouble over her in the pilot episode. | |
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Captain America's long time love interest Sharon Carter was a high-ranking agent who led large squads of fighters into the battle field. She was, as a rule, the first to be knocked down, in order to give Cap a reason to protect her. She's now a much better fighter. | |
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Star Trek: The Next Generation: Tasha Yar. She's supposed to be the Enterprise's tough-as-nails security chief; her main contributions to episode plots include being kidnapped, breaking down in tears, and hesitating just long enough to allow Klingon fugitives to take hostages. This led to her actress, Denise Crosby, quitting the show before the end of the first season. | |
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