The top five female characters of the Whedonverse.
Well according to Daemon's TV. Who features on your list?
If you're experiencing a mild form of deja vu, it's because we had a very similar discussion about the top five male characters.
June 16 2011
This thread has been closed for new comments.
You need to log in to be able to post comments.
About membership.
1. Willow
2. Darla
3. Drusilla
4. Cordelia
5. Joyce
An honorable mention of that irksome vampire slayer Buffy :)
Madhatter | June 16, 23:36 CET
1. Willow
2. River
3. Zoe
4. Echo
5. Joyce
Giles'chainsawchick | June 17, 00:08 CET
emmy | June 17, 00:17 CET
Faith
Buffy
Zoe
Joyce
Fred
Probably in that order. This is if we're excluding Dollhouse, right?
Also, honourable mention for Jenny!
BlueSkies | June 17, 00:36 CET
archon | June 17, 01:58 CET
Buffy
Fray
Dandelion
Lilah
Adelle
Honorary mentions
Zoe
Darla
Drusilla
Dawn
Simon | June 17, 02:53 CET
Adelle
Faith
Willow
Cordelia
Honorable mentions: Lilah, Dawn, Zoe, Dru and Darla.
vampmogs | June 17, 03:39 CET
Buffy
Zoe
Drusilla
YoSaffBridge
Dandelion
Honorable mentions: Harmony and River
BreathesStory | June 17, 03:57 CET
In no order: Cordelia, Buffy, Faith, Darla, Willow.
aradia | June 17, 04:21 CET
There are so, so many ways.
Buffy
River
Dawn
Drusilla
Fray
Honorable mentions: Faith, Anya, Serenity, Mag, Miss Kitty Fantastic, everyone else
Who's this "Dandelion"?
Kairos | June 17, 05:10 CET
Dandelion is from Sugarshock, Joss's online comic, it was great! http://www.darkhorse.com/Comics/16-523/Sugarshock-One-Shot
BlueSkies | June 17, 05:28 CET
Faith
Cordelia
River
Adelle
Honorable mention: Ellen Ripley.
Simon - I never heard about Dandelion until now. Is it worth reading?
Moscow Watcher | June 17, 05:29 CET
You can read it for free on MySpace
http://www.myspace.com/darkhorsepresents
The story is in three parts, issues 1 - 3 (scroll to the bottom of the page to get to the archives).
Simon | June 17, 05:35 CET
BlueSkies | June 17, 05:36 CET
1. Willow
2. Faith
3. Fred
4. Kaylee
5. River
Honorable mentions: Anya & YoSaffBridge
captain | June 17, 05:40 CET
Faith
The slayer in The Chain
Anne, particularly given this thread earlier this year.
Cordelia
Night On My Side | June 17, 05:40 CET
Darla
Faith
Buffy
Adelle
Honorable mentions:
Willow
Jenny
Chantaralle/Lily/Anne
Sierra/Priya
Everyone from Firefly
erendis | June 17, 05:49 CET
Faith
Buffy
Willow
Anya
I would do an honorable mention, but then I would just list all the Whedon women.
mossome | June 17, 06:01 CET
I need my monthly dose of Joss Whedon stuff...
Moscow Watcher | June 17, 06:07 CET
1) Faith
2) River
3) Buffy
4) Kaylee
5) Illyria
Probably would be slightly different had I answered this last week... and will be different again next week, no doubt!
The Arcane | June 17, 06:32 CET
And honourable mention to Adelle just because I love Olivia Williams.
moley75 | June 17, 08:36 CET
1. Buffy
2. Cordy
3. Willow
4. Fred/Illyria
5. River
Calledon | June 17, 09:05 CET
OneTeV | June 17, 09:09 CET
Faith
Anya
Darla
Lilah
Adelle
Honorable mentions: Willow Rosenberg, Cordelia Chase, Claire Saunders (Whiskey), River
benboy606 | June 17, 09:15 CET
Willow
Adelle
Fred
Kaylee
... that was easier than I thought it would be. I love so many more characters, but these shine.
Valentyn | June 17, 09:59 CET
2. Willow
3. Meleka
4. Zoe
5. Tara
Wow, I'm the only one with Tara, that's very interesting.
[ edited by theMidnighter on 2011-06-17 19:32 ]
theMidnighter | June 17, 10:31 CET
As memory serves*, it is believed to have become a tradition due to the fact that professional sailors, going as far back as we know of, where overwhelmingly male and often isolated from the female sex over long stretches of time. It became customary to view one's vessel as a substitute for the things left at home (such as female companionship/home itself) and the parallels of the relationship between a pregnant mother and her unborn child to that of a sailor and his host ship also has a longstanding place in the collective mariner psyche.
* Who needs Google anyway? Phaw!
:)
brinderwalt | June 17, 10:51 CET
1. Buffy
2. Cordelia
3. Zoe
4. Darla
5. Lilah
Surprisingly easy to do actually.
Leaf | June 17, 11:08 CET
Willow
Anne (AKA Chanterelle & Lily)
Fred/Illyria
River (particularly when she is the ship, Serenity)
So many rich wonderful characters I loved a lot... I would mention Ivy but I mostly love her in the new Dollhouse comics!
Oh no, I want Lilah too! Can't we make this a top ten? Actually I love them all.
embers | June 17, 11:14 CET
Willow
Adelle
Buffy
Faith
marvelknight616 | June 17, 13:35 CET
1. Buffy
2. Willow
3. Illyria
4. Anya
5.
AndrInarajohnsmusicbox | June 17, 13:38 CET
Willow is my second favorite female character and after her, it gets impossible to choose only three more.
Cordy, Darla, Zoe, Inara, Joyce, Tara, Dawn, Anya, Faith...
Reddygirl | June 17, 18:29 CET
I love Willow, but she only gets so much attention because they made her a gay character. River is only popular because she kicked so much butt in Serenity and Zoe is kind of a bland character to me, which isn't to say that I disliked her. I just find Inara to be the most complex and interesting female on Firefly. Faith and Illyria are faaaaaaar more interesting characters than Willow and River
Love seeing Cordy on there though, I think her and Wesley had the greatest character arcs of the entire Buffyverse. Buffy on the list is a given
[ edited by Arkham258 on 2011-06-18 04:28 ]
Arkham258 | June 17, 19:18 CET
Arkham258 | June 17, 19:24 CET
I wasn't going to comment, but I had to say I think you are way off base saying Willow only gets so much attention because they made her a gay character. Like she couldn't possibly have made these lists if Buffy ended after season 3. That's absolutely ridiculous.
Just because you didn't appreciate her character as much as others doesn't mean everyone else is blinded by her sexuality. I'm offended by this statement.
/end rant
guidedby | June 17, 21:38 CET
archon | June 18, 00:33 CET
Wow, that was incredibly hard to narrow down.
Emmie | June 18, 01:15 CET
(My own list: Buffy, Willow, Fred/Illyria, Adele - and a shared fifth place for about five or six other characters... like aforementioned Gloria, Tara, River, Echo, Inara.....)
Puck | June 18, 01:39 CET
Oh and I always thought that Glorificus was lame, she would never make any list of mine (unless it was for lame characters). Just my own personal opinion of course.
embers | June 18, 04:51 CET
redeem147 | June 18, 04:55 CET
Maybe not, but I see Illyria on a lot of lists, so I'm not the only one stretching the rules here. :)
Thanks for the anti-googling, brinderwalt! That was interesting. And for the Sugarshock! link, Simon. Yay, new (to me) Joss work!
Revising my list now without looking back at the last one I wrote, because it really is cheating to keep doing those honorable mentions:
Buffy
River
Drusilla
Anne
Dawn
[ edited by Kairos on 2011-06-18 14:47 ]
Kairos | June 18, 05:45 CET
I can't speak for others, but my love for Willow and River is not primarily because of their sexuality and ass-kicking, respectively.
[ edited by WilliamTheB on 2011-06-18 18:28 ]
WilliamTheB | June 18, 09:24 CET
I'm no critic so I'd never try this. Plus I tend to get confused doing a Personal Favorites because 1- I confuse liking the actress with liking the character, and 2- because I confuse (as the Lieutenant said on _Family Matters_) "thinking thoughts" about the actress with appreciating her acting abilities. Which explains why my 2 favorite female characters are the radically different Tara and Harmony . . . and I wish they made "Smile Time" puppet versions of them.
DaddyCatALSO | June 18, 11:51 CET
Willow
Cordelia
Fred/Illyria
Serenity (because a ship is female!)
Slipping About | June 18, 17:54 CET
Willow
Anya
Drusilla
Harmony
What can I say? I like the classics.
[ edited by Xane on 2011-06-19 03:57 ]
Xane | June 18, 18:56 CET
Emmie | June 18, 19:18 CET
Of course, OneTeV, you must expect some wiggle room. In fact, think I'll add Anya to the mention. Hey, so many great chartacters! Yeah, I'm so weak :)
Madhatter | June 18, 22:33 CET
Jim: It has to be a book, Dwight.
Dwight: Fine, Physician's Desk Reference-
...hollowed out, inside-waterproof matches, iodine tablets, beet seeds, protein bars, NASA blanket and, in case I get bored, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
OneTeV | June 19, 05:57 CET
I think coming out is what defined Willow. It made her news worthy and every truly major thing that has happened in her character arc stems back to her relationship with Tara. There was no REAL character growth for her until they decided to have her come out. Willow was pretty much the same character for the first three seasons of the show. It doesn't feel like they really did anything major with her character beyond being one of Buffy's sidekicks until her coming out in season 4 had everyone talking about her and the show.
There's a HUGE part of the fan community that is STILL clamoring for Tara to come back and be re-united with Willow. Their relationship still remains the most talked about event in Willow's entire story. So I DO think being gay is the thing that truly elevated Willow's character and made her more popular than ever. Just as people always talk about Buffy being a feminist icon, people made a huge deal out of Willow and Tara having the first lesbian relationship on tv(though Xena toyed around with this a bit but never committed). Just my opinion
River was always a cool character on Firefly, but Serenity made her into this iconic action heroine with the image of her holding two weapons surrounded by armed Alliance troops and dead reaver bodies. Is it a coincidence that her appearances in both Chuck and Sara Connor Chronicles used her as this scary female who looked like she could kick anyone's butt? She's been kind of type casted since Serenity. The Cape took a different approach with her that was nice, but that show was so bad and doomed to failure unfortunately
Arkham258 | June 19, 13:04 CET
Just because you didn't see her character growth, doesn't mean that the rest of us didn't see and appreciate her growing confidence and strength long before she met Tara.
It is true that River was already a complex, and dangerous, little girl before she was even let out of the box in Firefly, but that isn't character growth.... that was us slowly discovering what happened to her. I agree that in Serenity she had a major break through which allowed her to access her power, but I would still argue that that is less character growth as it is self discovery.
At any rate I don't think the fans appreciation of either of these characters is mutually exclusive: Joss has written a lot of very interesting complex women none of whom are exactly alike (although obviously Cordelia and Jayne were exactly the same).
embers | June 19, 13:26 CET
guidedby | June 19, 20:09 CET
Anya-Loved her brand of funny and growth.
Illyra-I could watch a whole series staring Blue.
Gwen-Such potential!
Buffy-A given.
romanceguru | June 22, 09:33 CET