In short, fictional women who would be exceptionally useful to have as friends or at least someone you got on with or played on the same side with, but if they weren’t your friend/ally/whatever, look the hell out, man.
6. Faith Lehane (Eliza Dushku, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel)
Honestly, this is true of most of the Buffyverse women. Anyone who can, without question, kick your ass, be it via slayer strength or magic or demon powers or whatever, it’s these people you shouldn’t antagonize. But I ended up choosing Faith because she’s the only one who really seemed to kill just for the hell of it. Buffy kills demons and vampires, Willow killed Warren for revenge purposes, Anya killed men for her demon job, etcetera etcetera. Faith killed ’cause, whoops, sorta funny. Faith could take you out with that slayer strength and very probably will, and not just ’cause you’re evil and deserve it. So being on her good side is definitely useful. Being on her bad side? Look the hell out.
5. Joan Holloway Harris (Christina Hendricks, Mad Men)
There are plenty of things that not everyone around the offices of Sterling Cooper [Draper Pryce] need to know about. Some secrets are better kept secret, or at least kept safely in your home. But what Joanie thinks of you and your behavior? Not one of those secrets. She has no qualms about saying what’s on her mind (as long as it doesn’t pertain to her directly or seriously) and even if it hurts (especially if it hurts), she’s usually right. The few people she’s going to defend are absolutely lucky, though her loyalties do fluctuate at times (the best example being re: Peggy; sometimes she’ll defend her, sometimes she’ll snark her out and not unintentionally bat an eyelash doing so).
4. Trixie (Paula Malcomson, Deadwood)
Trixie is the kind of person who’s got her people’s backs. When she sees wrong has been done to those she cares for, she will grab a gun, knock on the wrongdoer’s door, and flash them while she shoots them. She takes care of her people: she talks sense into them, she tries to get them off the drugs, she offers sex when it makes sense. But those who aren’t her people are fair game, and that means if they try to mess with her people, they’ll very likely regret it.
3. Gemma Teller Morrow (Katey Sagal, Sons of Anarchy)
Not just because the woman’s got an entire motorcycle gang at her disposal. As I’ve mentioned before, she’s very much the momma bear type, and if someone messes with any of her brood, look out. She’s catty at times, she’s bitchy at times, she’s short-tempered and not entirely open at times. But she looks out for her own. And she’ll do pretty much anything in the looking-out process.
2. Adelle Dewitt (Olivia Williams, Dollhouse)
(Another most-of-the-women-in-canon-are-somewhat-this-sometimes-at-least case, yes.) There’s no coincidence about the fact that the other time I’ve used the term HBIC in the post title was also regarding Adelle. Like many of the other women on this list, she can come off a wicked cold bitch at times. She definitely had her bitch phase, the one in season two also punctuated by the drinking and the moral grayness, but she takes care where she needs to. She’s got that momma bear syndrome too, even though none of hers are blood-related; she looks after Topher, she looks after her dolls. Epitaph Adelle is beautiful and protector-y and just… augh. Being in her looking-out-for group is definitely a good place to be.
1. Pam de Beaufort (Kristin Bauer van Straten, True Blood)
Pam doesn’t really look out for many people. Eric always (before, sob) and occasionally other vampires when it doesn’t interfere with Eric. (King Bill got no love when he was anti-Eric, but she was all with the teaming up when he was pro-Eric. Jess gets love when she’s not being teenager-y. Etc.) But the ones she does look out for, she looks out for hard. Killing, rocket-launching, threatening, torturing… never a big deal to her. She’s a little bit of a sociopath, but she’s a loyal sociopath, I say for the 1000th time.
–your fangirl heroine.
