Faux Action Girl: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Naruto]]'':

** Sakura Haruno. In the beginning of the series she is constantly described as being prodigiously talented and does all kinds of fighting in the opening credits, but actually helps out in less than a half dozen fights in the first part of the show (and loses each one save against Ino, in which the result was a draw). Her [[Love Makes You Crazy|affection]] for Sasuke seems to contribute to this, as she frequently stands around watching him play the [[Ineffectual Loner]]. Following the timeskip and the strengthening of both her [[Character Development|character]] and [[Extraordinarily Empowered Girl|abilities]], her infatuation for Sasuke levels off and she is finally able to get off the sidelines... for two arcs (the Sasori arc and the Sai introductory arc), then it's back to being moving scenery.

** [[Hair of Gold|Yuugito]] [[Playing with Fire|Nii]] being a [[Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can|Tailed Beast host]] ''should'' mean being a badass especially when having [[Power Levels|one more tail than]] [[Dishing Out Dirt|Gaara,]] but being [[Bus Crash|curb-stomped off screen]] by [[Hero-Killer|Hidan and Kakazu]] proved otherwise despite [[Informed Attribute|being well-respected in her home village.]]

** Also Anko. And Konan. The list goes on. The closest things to true Action Girls are Ino, Temari, and Tsunade on her better days. For Sakura, Hinata, or TenTen, it depends on whether or not they [[Took a Level in Badass]] at the time.

* DC Comics:

** As a rule, [[Black Canary]] is an [[Action Girl]] when appearing in her own title or a team book, and a [[Faux Action Girl]] when she appears in comics that have a single main character who isn't her. The [[Green Arrow]] comic is particularly bad about having her lose to villains she really ought to be able to beat. She's rather infamous as the zig-zagging example of this trope and genuine Action Girl.

** 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 [[Gotham City Sirens|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]]''.

* The comic book prequel to ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Knights of the Old Republic]]'': Jarael started out as a pretty [[Badass]] [[Action Girl]] in the first story arc of the series, to the point of {{spoiler|saving [[The Hero|protagonist Zayne Carrick]] from the villains in the climactic scene}}. Since then, while she's kept the fiery temper and violent disposition, she becomes incompetent dealing with anything other than [[Mooks]], and [[Damsel in Distress|continuously has to be rescued]] from Mandalorians, [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]s, and rampaging HK assassin droids, among other things.