Little Miss Badass

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
A pre-teen Natalie Portman is about to shoot you.

"Not two hours later, a little twelve-year-old girl comes to my building, armed to the teeth with the firm intention of sending me straight to the morgue."

StansfieldLéon: The Professional

She has skills that far exceed what you'd expect from her appearance. Maybe it's because she is a bit strange, mature for her age, or doesn't look like her age at all. Vaguely similar to a Tyke Bomb save she isn't necessarily groomed by a Big Bad, and may well be a Big Bad in her own right or at least The Dragon. Might be the fighting powerhouse on the good guys side and can be mistaken for just the Tagalong Kid until she unleashes the Waif Fu.

The character may be quite cute and is often smart enough to use that to her advantage, quickly manipulating anyone stupid enough to fall for her act. Her actual personality would usually be very clever and cynical, though. She may also be more innocent or good-natured, but no less charming that she generally gets her way. Often extends to what she is wearing, if she cares at all.

If put into serious danger she can often show an absurd amount of power and will easily deal with any annoying perverts in the most casually devastating way possible. Often a practitioner of Waif Fu, and can be an example of Small Girl, Big Gun or Girl with Psycho Weapon. Can be a Cute Bruiser, but doesn't rely on brute strength. If she doesn't have ridiculous strength, she would be Weak but Skilled. Most noticeable in characters who look very young, since many characters tend to catch on to overpowered teenagers much quicker.

Compare Enfant Terrible. May belong to a Badass Family. May grow up to be a Lady of War, although often with a touch of Femme Fatale. If lacking in charisma, she would be an Action Girl, or possibly Dark Action Girl.

Contrast Badass Adorable and Tyke Bomb; the distinction being that the Little Miss Badass is never restricted by a guileless disposition and can occasionally be found reveling in her own badassery, veiling her ruthlessness only when it suits her.

See also Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour, which some of these characters engage in.

Examples of Little Miss Badass include:

Anime and Manga

  • The quiet, petite Kirino Kotori of Ai Kora turns out to be Heir to the Dojo of a ninja clan, and also has a rather nasty temper on her.
  • Angel/Tenshi/Kanade Tachibana from Angel Beats!. She's as close as you can get to a Protoss Zealot and Agent Smith as you can ever get, packaged in a small girl's body.
  • Sweet, adorable and harmless Elizabeth "Lizzie" Middleford of Black Butler turns out to be one when it's revealed in Chapter 57 that because she didn't want her fiancé Ciel to see her "uncute" side, she deliberately hid her badass side and did a very good job of it until, finally, when Ciel despite his best efforts ends up injured and unable to save her, Elizabeth candidly leaps into the air and takes down the zombies with swords in both hands, saying that she will save him and become the wife of the Queen's Watchdog.
  • Gretel in Black Lagoon. Despite being only 11 years old she has the ability to run and fire a Browning Automatic Rifle to great effect as well.She might be a cross-dressing boy though. Similarly, her "brother" may fit this trope...
  • Yachiru Kusajishi in Bleach. She looks about six, and uses her cutesy antics to get many things more serious people would never give her, but she's second-in-command of the most violent of the Shinigami divisions and can dish some very scary whoop-ass, though she generally just rides around on Kenpachi's shoulder. (Yes, she's that small. And he's that big.)
    • Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck, who LOOKS like a helpless little girl, but get her agitated and she'll turn into her Adult, Ex-Third freakin' Espada form and tear you apart.
    • Also, the shy and meek Ururu, who comes equipped with her own personal BFG. (Check out the reveal at 1:00 in the clip from Karakura Super Heroes.) She also is a kick-ass boxer.[1][2]
  • Meiling/Meilin of Cardcaptor Sakura. Took on the Fight Card (that is, a supernatural being created to do nothing but fight, and to do it well) in hand-to-hand combat, knowing full well that she couldn't beat it, just to distract it long enough for Sakura to figure out how to seal it. She literally almost got killed in the process.
  • Claymore has more of these then it knows what to do with. There's the sweet and positively precocious Riful, one of the most powerful awakened ones in existence. Her favorite hobby is having her boyfriend torture people into going One-Winged Angel. Then there's the other Big Bad, Priscilla. Just like Riful she's cute as a button but, again, she's probably going to eat your soul. After the Time Skip they threw in Miata who mixes it up by being just this side of Axe Crazy.
  • Anya Earlstreim is one of the highest ranked knights in Britannia and pilots one of the biggest mecha yet seen... Yet she's barely 15 years old and looks about 12. Not to mention Nunnally in the spin-off Manga Nightmare of Nunnally.
  • D.Gray-man's Road Kamelot is only 12 years old—and yet she is one of the most fearsome villains. She's very powerful and is able to manipulate space. Her hobbies include playing, eating candies, and driving people insane. It's possible that she's also multidimensional, as she mentions that she can teleport without using the Arc because she exists both in the real world and the world she lives in, which just so happens to be Nightmare Fuel.
  • Suou in the second season of Darker than Black is getting there, thanks in part to time spent being yelled at by a supreme Badass and in part to the Small Girl, Big Gun effect.
  • Ai Haibara in Detective Conan, despite being older than she looks, is absolutely a Little Miss Badass. How often do you see an apparent second-grader calmly leveling a handgun at someone?
  • Ruki Makino in Digimon Tamers, complete with Badass Longcoat and Cool Shades in her debut.
  • Cisqua of Elemental Gelade, who even the author implies has access to possibly infinite amount of space in her cape and hat. And what does she use all the space for? Guns, missiles, bombs...anything that explodes.
    • Interestingly enough, the author also admitted that she was based on the aforementioned B.B. Hood.
  • Elfen Lied has the diclonii. Almost all of them go through a stage of been this.
  • Rebecca Hopkins of Yu-Gi-Oh! is twelve years old, in college, the American dueling champion and manages to hack into KaibaCorp to guide Seto and Yami Yuugi through while under attack from Dartz.
  • May Chang in Fullmetal Alchemist. She has cute braids, a little panda and very good manners. She also keeps pace with Scar when fighting off monsters.
    • Don't forget drop kicking someone (Ed) attacking Scar and then striking a ready pose. Can I get a Dynamic Entry?
  • Mint Blancmanche in Galaxy Angel, although she's actually a teenager (just barely, at 15), who just happens to look young. Though you really have to get on her bad side to make her mad enough to become a Little Miss Badass, in the Anime, she has a habit of concocting selfish plots up to and including letting the rest of the Angel-tai drown rather than see her with her head stuck in a wooden cutout.
    • Vanilla H, also from Galaxy Angel is similar. She looks quite young, is a Waif Prophet/Oracular Urchin... and she'll give you three chances. Then she can destroy cities.
  • In Gunnm, technically Sechs qualifies. She was born/created about 3 years before kicking major arse all around Jeru.
    • 1 Year, 8 Months according to Sechs Mind. Said 2 Years when asked.
  • From Gunslinger Girl, the eponymous cybernetic assassins salvaged from near death, trained and Brainwashed to become Italy's most elite counter-terrorism unit.
  • Minnie May in Gunsmith Cats. Bit of a subversion as well since she's also older than she looks, and uses this to comical effect with her boyfriend, when, say, renting a hotel room.
  • Ai Enma, who takes on the form of a vulnerable young girl clad in either a kimono or a black and red fuku. When angered, she has the power to take out an entire village with powerful fire blasts. She's also far older than she looks.
  • Girlycard has all of regular Alucard's powers in a loli package.
    • When Seras was younger, seven years old in fact, after her parents were murdered and while her mother's corpse was being raped, she charged out of the closet that her mother had hid her in, picked up a fork, and stabbed him in the eye with it. She was then shot, but she survived.
    • Integra fit this trope when she was younger. She shot her uncle in cold blood immediately after it was made clear that her new pet would do it for her, earning her more of said pet's difficult-to-gain respect. Additionally, Manga flashbacks reveal she was capable of ordering around full grown men like they were lapdogs.
  • Biscuit Krueger from the Greed Island arc of Hunter X Hunter.
  • Argent, Iono's pint-sized, smart-mouthed, samurai-like, special forces bodyguard in Iono the Fanatics.
  • Inuyasha's Kanna, despite being ten years old (technically, less than a year old), can absorb and deflect most of the characters' attacks very easily. Not only that, here's an attack you definitely cannot block-her sucking out your soul.
  • Mizho in Karakuridouji Ultimo. You think that her Goth image is just a tough act? Well, this girl has kicked three guys' asses using just Pocky and a crutch. She is seen smiling and laughing during all of this.
  • Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple's Miu Fuurinji was like that when she was only six years old.
  • Hatoko, five-year-old controller of Suzuka from Angelic Layer.
  • The ghost girl Elizabeth from Maburaho.
  • In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, the eponymous character starts off as one, as do some of her companions. In the third season time has skipped ahead ten years, so Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate have grown up... but Little Miss Badass Vita hasn't (being immortal and thus no longer physically aging), and they have more to add to the mix.
  • The young-looking but centuries-old vampire/wizardess Evangeline A.K. McDowell of Mahou Sensei Negima, who was a mostly played-for-laughs villain in an earlier arc, but shows her badassery in the Kyoto and Tournament arcs - her earlier weakness was explained away as affection for the hero.
    • A (much) later chapter has a character draw a humorous "Strength Table". The Demon God sitting at the very top? Evangeline (with Chachamaru's help) took him down in a little over a minute and most of that minute was telling everyone around to make sure to watch her kill it. Basically, after 22 volumes, the author is still saying, "She's really strong, so I can't actually have her fighting seriously yet."
    • You can note that either Evangeline or Chachamaru will fit this role based on what criteria you use. Evangeline fits the looks but is, in reality, centuries old. Chachamaru on the other hand, looks high school age, but is only two years old. Both have had their own moments of badass to qualify them.
    • Yue Ayase commanded three of her Valkyrie classmates who were years her senior to aid her in knocking out a Griffin Dragon. The final attack on it was done, by Yue, dodging her ally's covering fire, with one magic attack and a dull ceremonial knife. And she gets more badass from there.
    • Nodoka Miyazaki at one point took the Lifemaker Key from Dynamis by HERSELF!
  • Nabari no Ou has some examples. The most outstanding example being Raimei, a 14-year-old samurai with a bad attitude and really badass samurai techniques.
    • Let's not forget shijima, the cute white-haired girl who managed to have the most powerful ninjas of Nabari's asses handed o them sith just her hands. Also mopped the floor with all the main cast. Then again, she is actually a Cat. Who is about 300 years old. And is also immortal. which should pretty much explain it.
  • Narutaru has to a degree, Mamiko Kuri.
  • Pokémon: Mewtwo Returns: Team Rocket agent Domino. She has literally no Pokémon of her own, and manages to kick ass merely with gymnastics and electric flowers. She also successfully fools the main cast into thinking she's one of the good guys by acting like a traditional dumb blonde when her real personality is exactly the opposite.
    • Perhaps more badass than that is that Domino gets away with talking to Giovanni any way she damn well pleases, including telling him that he's crossed the line and lost all sense of Pragmatic Villainy.
    • All of the female 'Dex Holders in Pokémon Special qualify as this. Of note is Yellow, who everyone underestimates until she gets pissed off and completely crushes the competition.
    • The Anime has at least two in Ash's Bayleef and Snivy. Best Wishes character Iris is this too...but not for the same reasons as in Pokémon White.
    • Phantom Thief Pokémon 7 has Lily who is, or was, one of the best grunts Team Galactic has to offer (and in this continuity they're quite the fearsome bunch), but can't be older than fifteen at best.
  • Miyabi in Ninin ga Shinobuden. She's the only regular who's even remotely competent.
  • Noir's Kirika. Quiet, sad, cute, and can kill in many creative ways. Taken to extremes when it's discovered that she shot Mireille's parents, when she was a tiny tot in overalls.
  • Omamori Himari's Shizuku qualifies as one as well as being the only little girl of the series. She can track someone using the moisture in the air alone, spit icicles at high speed, and she's not being arrogant when she states that her water can cut through anything-she uses it like a freaking SWORD. Not to mention being able to turn to water to avoid the consequences of being sliced in half. And if she's at full power, she can trap you inside a whirlpool-ON LAND.
    • Then there's Tama. Who, as part of her introduction chapter, pins the titular character to the ground and bites a chunk out of them. Said title character, Himari, can't even put up any resistance. Himari only lives because Tama thinks she tastes bad.
  • Mitsuki in Onidere looks like a cute grade-schooler who loves bears. But she is a member of the most feared gang in their area, the all-girl group Demon Head. She can also tame bears and get them to do what she wants.
  • Lady Kayura in Ronin Warriors, who, according to Sunrise, is physically 12 years old. Doesn't change the fact she was the only foe the warriors could never beat.
  • Rozen Maiden has a cast full of girly, childish magical dolls that are from the human perspective as good as invincible.
  • To a lesser degree, the preteen sorceress Lily in Rune Soldier Louie.
  • Seikon no Qwaser's Katja is high-ranking Qwaser can control copper, including a life-sized marionette, powered by breast milk. And seduced then coerced two older girls into being her slave for fuel.
  • Lina Inverse is clever cynicism personified—and people who know her only by name are often shocked to learn that this short, big-eyed, small-chested teenager is the infamous Dragon-Spooker and Bandit-Slayer herself.
  • Spice and Wolf's Holo is quite the tease, but has lived for centuries and could turn into a big bad wolf to maul anyone who tries to attack her or Lawrence.
  • Rio in Spiral. She lures a teacher to his death, blows up her own chest to hide the evidence, built the bomb that did it.
  • Golden Darkness. Five words: Don't. Mess. With. The. Loli.
    • Also Eve in Black Cat, who she was derived from. She can turn her hair into nano-blades and cut you at a particle level.
  • Trinity Blood's Seth is both powerful and sneaky. Although she is one of the good guys.
    • Seth's not really one of the good guys. She's not antagonistic right now, but in the Canon book says she's waiting to correct the weakness against the UV and silver from her "Children" to make perfect soldiers who would conquer the Outer world. She never stopped her plans from world conquest. She just doesn't want to be defeated like it happened in the past. Like Lilith said, only Abel out of the three Nightlords has a human heart left.
  • Shaman King gives us Anna Kyoyama, an Itako (traditional Japanese shaman) and spirit medium who is Yoh's trainer and fiance. She's calm and mature for her young age, plus she kicks ass with her bead necklace, which she can also channel other spirits into others with. And to top it all off, she even tamed Hao's Shikigamis and used them as her own guardian spirits until Hao turned them against her and the rest of the Yoh-gumi. Now that's saying something.
  • And then there's Jeanne, the real leader of the X-Laws. At first sight, she's just a twelve-years-old cutie... whose furyoku levels are of the closest to Hao.
  • One of the Kirby Anime‍'‍s Ensemble Darkhorses, Sirica, counts as a Little Miss Badass as well, being a young Action Girl with a badass five-in-one weapon that can change into a flamethrower, grappling hook, bazooka, machine gun, and even a sword. Plus she's the daughter of the legendary Galaxy Soldier Garlude. And she's very cute, too. No wonder she's so popular despite only appearing in a few episodes.
  • Daida "Punishment" Hibana in Deadman Wonderland is a psychopathic kindergartner who was sent to the prison after dismembering several of her classmates. Brought up by her deranged mother to believe that injuring people helps them grow up, she wields a BFS twice her size with no apparent effort.
  • Veronica from Franken Fran, an Artificial Human with the body and personality of a preteen girl...and a healthy variety of weapons integrated. She also has a rather low killing threshold.
  • In Tiger and Bunny Kaede Kaburagi ends up becoming Sternbild's most badass little girl after developing superpowers. What other ten-year-old can claim to have saved almost every Sternbild superhero from a Mad Scientist's inescapable death trap?
  • Middle-school student Misaka Mikoto from A Certain Magical Index and A Certain Scientific Railgun is the third strongest Esper for a reason.
    • There's also her younger roommate Kuroko Shirai, who can rush into a fight (running or teleporting) and take out opponents twice her height. Less powerful but not to be ignored is their friend Ruiko Saten, who's become a Badass Normal after associating with espers for so long.
  • Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu's Alice, a shy, sweet little maid with a spiked bat, brass knuckles and enough strength to crack open a street and create a geyser
  • Soul Eater‍'‍s Maka Albarne is a young, sweet and friendly girl ... who wields a ginormous scythe. Yup.
  • Michiko to Hatchin: Hatchin evolves over the story into a more mundane then average version of this. At one point near the climax she faced off with a former gang lord; throwing rocks at the guy with a high-powered handgun.

Comic Books

  • The Authority Jenny Quantum exemplifies this. Her superhero career started a few days after she was born, when she vapourised a giant's legs; nowadays, a nine-year-old physically aged to 14, she's the leader of the team. (It probably helps that she's the resurrection, or regeneration, of previous leader Jenny Sparks.)
  • Batgirl Although now a teenager, Cassandra Cain was revealed to have finished the majority of her assassination training at the age of eight. I say most because she semi-failed her last test (she killed the guy but was so horrified by what she did that she ran away from David Cain, her father/mentor.) A Fan Nickname for Cassandra is "Little Miss Ninja Goddess".
  • Body Bags, Panda Delgado She's a petite although buxom 14 (and a half) year-old - and a professional bounty hunter with a deadeye aim.
  • Kick-Ass Hit Girl is about 11 but can take out a dozen full grown men with with just two swords.
  • Livewires The Marvel Comics Miniseries included Gothic Lolita, the team's android muscle, who looked young and dressed in her namesake style of clothing.
  • Runaways from Marvel Comics' Molly Hayes is the eleven-year old physical powerhouse of her team and falls somewhere between this trope and Badass Adorable, Depending on the Writer. It's thus uncertain how much of the little kid persona we see is veil and how much is her real personality.
  • Sin City Miho. Deadly little Miho.
  • X-Factor Layla Miller, as written by Peter David. Don't mess with her: she knows stuff.
  • X-Men Shadowcat was a master ninja (and experienced superhero and expert hacker) by the age of 14, thanks in part to some Year Inside, Hour Outside training by Wolverine's Evil Mentor.
    • X-Men also has X-23. Although now a teenager, when she was being trained to be the killing machine she currently is, she used her cute little kid-ness to get close to her targets and eliminate them.
  • Amy Rose from the Archie Comics version of Sonic the Hedgehog. Went from being a Bratty Half-Pint to HUMILIATING the Iron King, a Made of Iron bruiser of a warlord who had previously proved impervious to Sonic's high speed attacks, in each of their encounters and flattening a massive war machine in one hit.

Fan Works

  • The Mad Scientist Wars, we have two-year old Maxwell Eta, the youngest member of the Tinker Clan. Technically a badass Shota, but seeing as how an attempt to enroll him in Preschool ended in him staging a successful rebellion, complete with forcing the Superintendent to sign a loyalty oath... he has to count.
  • Ashley McFly/Leather Ashes from Pretty Cure Perfume Preppy isn't really innocent, but all in all badass, most notably in the end of episode 24: to put it shortly, a drug dealer shows up and tries raping her, only to have her stab him in the heart.

Ashley: Listen up, dude, I am not like the other schoolgirls. See ya in the next life.

  • A lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic has focused on the ten-year-old baseball-playing "Littlest Slayer" shown in the series last episode, during the "activation" of every potential slayer on the planet.
  • While we haven't seen much of her ability "on panel," Lian Harper of DC Nation (who is VERY much alive in their timeline, thankyoumuch) is definitely shaping up here. Raised by The Arrow Family and a cadre of superpowered "uncles" and "aunts"...while also being trained in secret by Shiva Wu-San? That's one scary 12-year-old.
  • A disturbing example of this pops up in the Firefly fanfic Forward in the form of Inducer One-One-Nine. While not as overtly powerful as, say, River, she makes up for it by having terribly powerful Mind Manipulation powers coupled with frightening subtlety - and is psychotic enough to be an Enfant Terrible too.
  • Tomoyo Daidouji gets this treatment in the later chapters Shadow Crystal Mage's epic crossover fic Takamachi Nanoha of 2814. It boggles the mind, doesn't it?
  • ToyHammer has Emma. She's little, she's a miss, and she's certainly badass as she is fated to become the God Emperor of Mankind.
  • In the Black Lagoon fic "Four Pirates and a...Little Lady?" Revy's 13-year-old sister Rachel easily qualifies. At one point she's fighting a North Korean special-forces type, and holding her own for a while. Of course, growing up in a very tough slum tends to lead to this sort of thing.
  • Medley is the youngest flier among the seven main heroines of Ace Combat: The Equestrian War, but underestimating her is a surefire way to get hurt.
  • Taylor Hebert (of Worm) after she is reincarnated into a murdered muggleborn girl in the Worm/Harry Potter story A Wand for Skitter. She is responsible for the deaths of so many of Voldemort's followers before she's even in third year that Death Eaters jockey to get other Death Eaters sent after her.

Film

  • Subverted in Balls of Fury when a greatly feared ping pong champion turns out to be a cute little Chinese schoolgirl, but the hero easily crushes her and laughs in her face, causing her to cry.
  • Battle Royale Some of the more capable girls become this by necessity. Most notably, Mitsuko Souma and Takako Chigusa.
  • Chocolate Zen, an autistic teenage girl who is martial arts savant.
  • The pre-time skip version of Cataleya in Colombiana. And this was BEFORE she learned how to kill people.
  • Dune Alia. Even more so in the novel. While the David Lynch film either glosses over it or fails to explain it, in the scene from the movie after she kills Baron Harkonnen, where she's out on the battlefield with the crysknife and the strangely gleeful look on her face, she is actually engaged in systematically killing the enemy wounded.
  • Friday the 13 th
    • Part VII: The New Blood Tina Shepard, who uses Psychic Powers to smash, electrocute, hang, and immolate Jason (amongst other things), which came to a head when she blew her own house up to try and kill him.
    • Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan Rennie, who stabs Jason in the eye the first time he attacks her (which is actually quite impressive by the standards of Jason's victims) and melts his face with toxic sludge.
  • Full Metal Jacket The V.C. sniper
  • Hard Candy Haley Stark (Ellen Page).
  • Hoodwinked Red.
  • The Incredibles Violet becomes this.
  • In Kick-Ass, Hit Girl takes this to the absolute extreme, even more so than her comic incarnation. The apartment scene alone makes her worthy of this, but she also gets major points for the Darkened Building Shootout and the Executive Suite Fight. She swears more and kills more people than all of the other characters combined, and is easily the most popular character in the film.
  • Kill Bill Gogo Yubari. Also, O-Ren Ishii, when she was young.
  • Serenity River Tam.
  • The Last Boy Scout The daughter of Bruce Willis' character, who rescued her dad by pretending to be a lost little girl and approaching a gang of cutthroat corporate mercenaries and hands her father a .357 hidden in her teddy bear.
  • Nightmare On Elm Street
    • Part 4: The Dream Master Alice, who literally did kung fu on Freddy.
    • Freddy vs. Jason Lori, (played by 5'1" Monica Keena) pulling Freddy out of the dream world, setting a dock on fire, and killing him with Jason's machete. By the end she is one of the most kickass Final Girls in either series (not to mention the hottest).
  • Léon: The Professional Natalie Portman's character, Mathilda, although she never actually goes through with anything.
  • Push Cassie Holmes (Dakota Fanning).
  • Zombieland Little Rock (Abigail Breslin).

Tallahassee: You got taken hostage by a little girl?
Columbus: She was like a crouching tiger...
Tallahassee: She's twelve!

  • True Grit (2010 version): Mattie Ross, not so much for being a killer (although she does kill Tom Chaney) but for being utterly impossible to intimidate. Also you do not want to haggle with her. The epilogue is a bit of a deconstruction of the trope, as it reveals that she's matured into a fairly hard and joyless person.
  • Robyn, from the movie adaption of Tomorrow; When the War Began takes out a group of soldiers in the climax and is shown carrying grenades at the end. Truthfully, it isn't really her choice.
  • The title character of Hanna.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer would have been all of fourteen years old in the film, fifteen or sixteen at the start of the series, and the shortest member of the cast.
  • Roxy in God Bless America.

Literature

  • Between the expertise and the body count, Sarah from Billy & Howard exemplfies this trope. Halfway through the second book she grows into a Lady of War.
  • Thou shalt not mess with Devera. Seriously. Sure, she looks about eight, but she once ate a Jenoine. Admittedly, she was a dragon at the time, a form in which she's unlikely to be underestimated, but still.
  • Rachel from the Sword of Truth novels becomes quite the Badass by the end of the series. Trained by the Badass Normal of the series, it's hard to see how she couldn't be.
    • By the eighth book, most specifically. Nothing quite like confusing the hell out of the captive wizard by waving with a happy little grin when you're posing as someone under threat of death if he doesn't cooperate. Oh, and that soldier standing behind you? Yeah, that's your Badass Normal adoptive father, so flip him a few knives for him to fight with...from UNDER YOUR SKIRT.
  • Although she's not a prominent character, a girl named Kym in Return Of The Emperor is a major Little Miss Badass. She uses her looks (and her weapons) to knock out unsuspecting men and steal their stuff. She is used as part of the base for a smear campaign against Dusable's moron of a ruler.
  • In Robert A. Heinlein's Have Space Suit—Will Travel, Kip Russell, the narrator of the story, discovers that little PeeWee, whom he didn't judge as much, just a harmless little girl, has been helping the Mother Thing build a bomb - knowing that it is a bomb - which is capable of killing all of the Wormfaces, as well as a radio beacon to summon the Mother Thing's people for help.
  • It's glossed over, as it happened about eight years before the book actually starts, but the protagonist of Graceling once killed her perverted distant cousin with one blow. When she was eight.
  • In Neil Stevensons post-cyberpunk novel The Diamond Age, one of the many convoluted subplots revolves around a Shanghai crime boss whose suspected child trafficking activities turn out to be actually a large scale plan to save unwanted baby girls from certain death and provide them with an education only high class children can dream off. Through clever planning he also gets his hand on mass produced version of an electronic Great Big Book of Everything, that was supposed to a unique item for the granddaughter of the richest man on earth. Being Chinese, they also were all trained in martial arts. In the end, it all comes down to Shanghai going to hell with a large scale civil war with ethnic cleansing, suicide bombings, and all the other ugly things. But then the day is saved by massive armies of twelve year old girls marching in huge columns from the countryside and putting down all resistance in a matter of hours.
    • Don't forget Nell. She received the original of the Great Big Book of Everything, and the engineer who made it and was later blackmailed into providing the many given to the trafficked girls altered the plans for those to make them subservient to the original...so when Nell shows up, she immediately has a fanatically-loyal army of badass gangster-killing twelve-year-old girls at her absolute command.
  • Likewise 12 yearold Hazel Meade (later Stone) in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
  • Ivy the Archive from The Dresden Files. She has had the collective written knowledge of humanity filed away in her mind since birth—every fiction and non-fiction book, play, story, poem, speech, and script, not to mention all recorded knowledge of magic—and knows how to use it. The White Council thinks she's a peer to the youngest (and thus, weakest) Queens of the Faerie Courts, but the main character Harry — probably the only living member of the White Council who has seen the Archive in action — says they underestimate her.
    • To put this into perspective, in Small Favor, the Big Bad for the book sets off an Evil Plan to capture her while she's isolated in a building and sealed off from magic. She holds off at least ten Denarians, badass sorcerers even without fallen angels in their heads. And she does it all with a Restraining Bolt.
  • Arya Stark from A Song of Ice and Fire. At the tender age of ten, she murdered a stableboy who got in her way. At twelve, she is training to become a member of an assassin's guild that can change their identities/faces on a whim. She also has a psychic bond with a giant man-eating wolf.
  • Tiffany Aching, in the Terry Pratchett novel The Wee Free Men. Hell, she's nine years old, and takes on The Fair Folk with a Frying Pan of Doom!
  • The heroine of "The Adventures of Isabel", a poem by Ogden Nash is an unflappable little girl you don't want to get on the wrong side of, see her dealings with an enormous bear:

Isabel, Isabel didn't worry
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She washed her hands and straightened her hair up
Then Isabel quietly ate the bear up.

  • Hermione from the Harry Potter series, in the early books. More of a Black Magician Girl as she ages, but always The Smart Guy of Harry's True Companions.
  • Petra Arkanian from the Enderverse. The only girl of the group of kid space admirals that won the war, she went on to survive the global wars that followed the defeat of the buggers. In one scene, she is kidnapped by a special forces commando and calmly asks for the time to get dressed. When one member of the commando wants to hurry her, she calmly reminds them that her goodwill is worth more to his generals than his balls. In a bag. Now let me go to the bathroom before I go, please.
  • Most of the female Meq in The Meq, since the majority of them are over a thousand years old. Geaxi probably tops them all though and definitely fits the trope best.
  • The Millennium Trilogy: Lisbeth Salander is this trope.
  • Andrew McGee really tried to keep his daughter Charlie's pyrokinesis from getting out of hand, he really did. Unfortunately, they both fell into the hands of the Government Conspiracy which wanted to make a Tyke Bomb out of her... and when her father was killed by them, it wasn't long before the running and screaming started. And then she got really nasty: she talked to the press.
  • Mariel Gullwhacker. Kicked the tail of a pirate king unarmed, then beat up a seagull several times her size with nothing but a piece of knotted rope.
  • Kirsty from Johnny Maxwell Trilogy. She left the local karate club because no boy would dare to come near her.
  • Basically all of the female demigods in Percy Jackson and the Olympians fit this trope. Most of the Aphrodite daughters don't really do anything, but some special mention must go to Silena Beauregard. Even though she's not a badass when compared to the other characters, she attacks a drakon (basically a dragon but worse) head on, despite the fact that she definitely is not the best fighter.
    • The Hunters of Artemis are an entire militia of these, though they also fall into Older Than They Look. Zoe Nightshade, for example, looks 14, but is at least two thousand years old. Artemis herself prefers to appear about twelve.
  • In The Princess, The Crone, and the Dung Cart Knight, thirteen-year-old Sarah sees her family burned at the stake. Her response is to try and steal Sir Kai's sword so she can go after the man who instigated the mob. Kai is so impressed by this that he gives her the sword meant for his son (she's only thirteen, so it fits her better than his broadsword), and she not only exacts revenge on the man who started the mob, but the man who was giving him orders -- by facing him in single combat.
  • Serroi, of Jo Clayton's Duel of Sorcery and Dancer trilogies, is a Magic Knight who's been training as a soldier since she was thirteen. She's about four and a half feet tall, and doesn't have to put much effort into passing for a preteen at the age of twenty-seven.
  • Goth and The Leewit—the eponymous Witches of Karres—are two cute little girls, ages ten and seven. Little Goth can make your gun explode in your hand and pick your pocket from across the room. Little Leewit will burst your eardrums with an ultrasonic whistle and chew on your leg while you're distracted. It's a really bad idea to threaten them or their Parental Substitute.
  • Nita Callahan (13–14 years old) and Dairine Callahan (11–12 years old) from the Young Wizards series. Carmela might count but she's a little too old, as well as being downright girly as well as tough.
    • Not that this particularly matters when it comes to Carmela... Seriously, she can come walking casually into the Rirhath B Crossings Station in an awesome outfit ... right after the Crossings have been blown up in an effort to get rid of alien mercenaries threatening Instant Death ... and get rid of the aforementioned aliens using a bar of chocolate.
      • The blowing-up was awesome, too. Peridexis: "There is a high probability that the surrounding matter will react unfavorably." Nita: "Will our shield hold?" Peridexis: "...Yes." Nita: "Then let's start getting unfavorable!" Or something like that.
      • She even gets the spell named after her: "Callahan's Unfavorable Instigation." Even the name is pure awesomeness.
  • From the Sisters Grimm series: Sabrina, the self-proclaimed "Queen of the Sneaks" and her sister Daphne.
  • Several characters in The Wolves of Willoughby Chase series, but especially Dido Twite. Her half-sister Is takes over the badassery for a couple of books late in the series.
  • Margo Smith of Time Scout begins her training slightly before she shows up on Time Terminal 86, but takes a level when she shows up, and takes several more in the books that follow. All before she turns 18.
  • Bastille from Brandon Sanderson's Alcatraz Series, at age 13, is the youngest person to have become a Knight of Crystallia. Her training and being bonded to certain crystals makes her incredibly fast and strong. Underestimate her and you'll be at the receiving end of her massive crystal sword, or at least her handbag.
  • In the prequel Halo novel, The Fall of Reach, the female Spartan trainees, but in particular, Kelly. At the age of seven, she not only outruns full grown Marines, but manages to knock one unconscious by side-arming a rock at his head. She was always referred to as the fastest Spartan by far.
  • Angel from Maximum Ride.
  • sorry from Steven Erikson's "Malazan Books of the Fallen" series exemplifies this trope. She joins the most badass squad in the whole army in her early teens and leaves a trail of slashed open crotches in her wake. of course, she's also possessed by the patron god of assassins at the time.
  • Jasmine in Deltora Quest. When their group finds themselves caught up in the gladiatorial Rithmere games, it's not Barda who wins, or Lief, or even Glokk. It's her.
  • Helen Zilwicki, in her first major appearance in the Honor Harrington stories, is twelve years old, and she kills a couple of men who attempt to rape her, with her bare hands.

Live-Action TV

  • Out of all the characters in Round the Twist, the most physically dangerous is Linda, an idealistic 14-year-old environmentalist schoolgirl. As this is a non-action kids' show, this doesn't actually come up that often, however.

Music

Professional Wrestling

  • Kaicho Ramu started appearing in the ring at age six. She wears Iron Maiden T-shirts, can do the Chokeslam, 619, and Shining Wizard. Underestimate her, and she will demolish you, then pin you 1-2-3.
  • Riho from Ice Ribbon debuted at age 8 and as of 2011 is 13. She busts moves like the running knee strike, triple suplex, and the CATTLE MUTILATION!!!

Tabletop Games

  • Mekton Isami Shinzato from the Virtual game. A BLIND thirteen-years-old girl who is one of the most dangerous Humongous Mecha pilots, to the point that her name has become in-game jargon for a called shot to the cockpit in the opening moves of combat. She's also known to deal quite... harshly... with older male bullies.
  • [[Vampire: The Masquerade]] A purchasable flaw. While this is a flaw in the game, note that flaws actually give you more points to spend elsewhere—meaning a child vampire will actually be ahead of its companions wherever you put those points. There are several examples of powerful vampires that look like children, such as the Malkavian progenitor vampire looking like twelve little girls with glowing eyes.
  • Warhammer 40,000, age and power as a psyker are loosely related at best. Although, given 40K this is less Little Miss Badass and more Little Miss Walking Portal to Hell.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Amazoness Princess combines this with Badass Princess, while Amazoness Scouts are seen strutting their stuff on the Trap Card Amazoness Onslaught.

Theatre

Video Games

  • Babette from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a 300+ year old vampire assassin with the body of a ten year old girl. Also a master of alchemy, and one of two Dark Brotherhood members (besides the player) to survive the hideout being swarmed by soldiers and then exploding.
  • Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica Cocona pushes this beyond the limits. She not only was a 11-year-old girl who used her metamorphic hairbands(!) as her weapon of choice, alongside roundhouse kicks which are somehow capable of destroying doombots with such murderous efficiency that by the end of the game, your wizard/cyborg/bards rarely get to cast their spells before all the enemies are already dead. Her supermove involves her shooting a giant laserblade out of her hair bands... somehow. What makes her go above and beyond the call of being a Little Miss Badass, however, is that she does this while bodily protecting the reyvateil wizards/cyborgs/bards of the party, who are twice her age and body weight, in spite of actually BEING a reyvateil herself, who is simply too young to manifest any real power. In a game filled with robot warriors, and highly trained knights with rocket lances with guns sticking out, the only listed reason for her badassery is that she is "a really energetic girl".
  • Arc Rise Fantasia Spunky and enthusiastic Cecille is a Cute Bruiser, who can unleash a devastating amount of damage with her fists. Is also technically Older Than She Looks.
  • Backyard Sports Luanne doesn't run. She's so fast, it looks like she's teleporting. Oh, and she's four years old.
  • BlazBlue Rachel Alucard is generally considered to be one of the top three characters in the first game, as is robot loli Nu-13. Let's not talk about the third one.
  • Bliss Stage First and Final Act Sara Smith is an extremely powerful Pilot with a nearly unbreakable ANIMa formed from her relationship to her brother. She's also thirteen.
  • Bunny Must Die The protagonist Bunny, the second protagonist Chelsea, two of the devils and even some of the Mooks qualify.
  • The Capcom vs. Whatever series. Capcom seems to be thinking along these lines since Roll has a better track record than her brother Mega Man himself (Rock has only appeared once; Roll, at least twice). Because of that, Roll can have the distinction (Power Creep, Power Seep aside) of beating not only Onslaught and Yami, but also the ultimate Badass of the Mega Man series!
  • Castlevania: Rondo of Blood Maria Renard, the secret playable character, definitely counts. Though it might just be the contrast that makes her shine. The actual hero of the game, Richter Belmont, controls with all the grace of a mack truck with a few flat tires. Maria can run, double jump, attack super fast with an army of owls, and do a forward slide. It's a wonder anybody ever uses Richter in that game.
  • Chrono Cross Marcy. Leah's more a Cute Bruiser sort, but Marcy is more than happy to tell you her opinion of you as she's beating you down. Becomes playable later, too.
  • Darkstalkers
    • Bulleta/Baby Bonnie Hood. She's a monster-hunting Badass Normal, being the only one who shows no supernatural or high-tech abilities, just heavy munitions. Yet, she takes down Darkstalkers who are far bigger and stronger than her regularly. For context, a low-level Dark Stalker can destroy an entire army and could scare the literal crap out of a hardened veteran marine. Bulleta makes Class-S Darkstalkers shit their pants (Class-S being the strongest level).
  • Disgaea: Etna who, at one point, reverses a Batman Gambit back onto her blackmailer and ends up kicking his ass from here to next Friday. Though she is Really Fourteen Hundred Seventy Years Old, she's around 13-14 by demon standards.
    • In the second game there's Adell's nine-year-old sister Hanako.
    • Raspberyl in the third game.
    • And Marona (and even more her alternate-dimension clone Carona) from the spin-off Phantom Brave.
    • And of course there are most of female generic units.
  • Drakengard has a six-year old Manah with evil magic powers as the leader of The Empire, and the game even calls her "the source of all evil."
  • Enchanted Arms Yuki. One of the youngest people depicted in the game, and easily on par with an experienced knight in combat prowess.
  • Evil Zone the anime-inspired fighting game, the arguably second-most powerful character is Kakurine, a 40,000-year-old sorceress/priestess/goddess who looks like she's about 8, can teleport at will, enjoys playing with hoops made from pure destructive energy, and giggles cutely as she throws armored warriors and huge mercenaries about with ease. However, she's a goddess who simply chose the form as pure amusement.
  • The Final Fantasy series. Most of the games have a "Little Girl" archetype, that is, an immature or young female character.
    • Final Fantasy IV Porom is only 5, but she can learn every single White Magic in the game. There's also Rydia, who gets a Plot-Relevant Age-Up in the middle of the game, but before that she definitely counts!!
    • Final Fantasy VI Relm has the highest natural Magic Power in the game. She surpasses even Terra, who is half-Esper and thus practically a demi-God who has been able to cast magic all her life.
    • Final Fantasy V Krile. The Earth Crystal room's scene is what puts her ahead of all the others by far, personally.
    • Final Fantasy VII Yuffie, who manages to steal the entire party's Materia, and continuously escape from them. When they finally catch her, she tricks them and escapes from them again.
    • Final Fantasy IX Eiko. Yes, she's six years old and adorable, but don't piss her off, or she will summon a giant monster that will annihilate you.
  • Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn Sanaki.
    • Don't forget Nino, Fir, Myrrh, Fa, Mist (by some accounts), Thany, Sophia, and Amelia.
    • Also a few Badass Shotas: Rolf, Lugh, Lleu, Tormod (by some accounts), Ross, and Ewan.
  • Golden Sun has a team of teenage heroes, but in the second game, baddie Karst is estimated to be around fifteen by the fandom, making her the same age as your youngest player characters... and is the first enemy you meet who can put your Djinn out of commission, has a one-hit KO move, can heal herself and her ally, and can Break all your buffs, as well as Killing It With Fire. And she takes pride in keeping calm under pressure.
  • Grand Chase The female cast. That being Elisis, Lire, Arme, and Amy.
  • Guilty Gear The under-appreciated nurse-loli Fanny from that one iteration that nobody ever played.
  • Guns N Angel a Flash game. The protagonist who is apparently an expert with assault weapons and explosives.
  • Knights of the Old Republic Mission Vao is fourteen years old, and Badass Normal. Yes, she has the lowest HP in your party. Yes, she's a sweet young lady higher on the Karma Meter than the party's Jedi. Yes, if you go to The Dark Side, you have to kill her, but she is a skill monster with a nasty sneak attack. Furthermore, she survived on her own in one of the worst slums in the known galaxy, despite being of a race, gender, age, and attractiveness level (young, pretty, Rutian Twi'lek female) that would have normally pigeonholed her into prostitution and/or slavery. It was several months after Griff abandoned her that she fell in with Zaalbar. Given that, her Berserk Button over being called or treated like a helpless kid is kinda understandable.
  • The Zelda series.
  • Oneechanbara: Saki. She wields a katana, can withstand kicks from super strong cyborgs, jump off buildings, destroy pavements, cut a truck in half among other things with little effort.
  • Sengoku Basara has Itsuki, the tiny adorable leader of the northern peasant revolution. She loves rice, beating the crap out of some of the scariest samurai around with her humongous hammer, and inspiring oddly sweet moments with the game's resident Estrogen Brigade Bait Blood Knight.
  • Shin Megami Tensei has Alice. Nice girl who loves dolls? Sure. Insane sorceress capable of casting the deadliest Dark-aligned One Hit KO attack and who charmed two Goetia demons into serving as her guardians by sheer force of cute? That too.
  • [[Star Ocean: The Last Hope]] Meracle Chamlotte doesn't seem all that badass at first glance, being a Stripperific Moe Moe Catgirl, but once you max out her Critical skill and get her some decent equipment her multi-hit killer moves become absurdly deadly; she can clear the field with a single Claws of Fury that scores something on the order of a dozen consecutive critical hits. Needless to say, jaws were dropped.
    • Lymle Lemuri Phi, the Magical Girl of the game, first appears as just another spellcaster. But one can clear the entire field of enemies with a few well placed spells if they use her right.
  • Super Robot Wars Latooni Subota, whose calm, analytical approach to combat makes her a deadly opponent, even when she's wearing a frilly dress. And that goes double for her Humongous Mecha.
  • Tales (series)
  • Touhou Virtually any cast member who's young enough, or looks young enough, fits this trope. In other words - nearly all of them.
  • Valkyria Chronicleth giveth uth Aitha Neumann, the 12-year-old Thhocktrooper with a lithp. Altho a cathe of Thmall Girl Big Gun.
    • Don't forget Aliasse!
  • Wild ARMs 5 Carol. She compounds this by looking like a clumsy little girl even while shooting giant rockets at enemies.
  • Xenogears Maria and her Expy, Mai from Xenosaga.
  • Lily Flyer from '"F-Zero GX.
  • Every female playable character in Pokémon, and a few NPCs.
  • Arima Miyako from Melty Blood. She's just the younger cousin of the main character, and a completly normal human who relies only in fighting skills. However, anyone that can take on Arcueid, Ciel or Nrvnqsr Chaos certainly counts.
  • In Monster Girl Quest, Granberia is an adult, and when she tells Lucas that she mastered the Serene Mind technique 20 years ago, he assumes at first that she is Really 700 Years Old. She is not - she learned it when she was only 5.
  • Fate/stay night
    • Ilyasviel von Einzbern. Made all the more apparent considering her servant is Berserker. Specifically of the Older Than They Look type, what with being a (sort-of) homunculus and all.
    • Saber may also count since she is a very tiny girl with a physical age of around 15-16.
  • A bunch of paranoid kids who spend most of their time killing each other in a variety of horrific ways may seem like an odd choice for this trope, but several of the girls definitely have moments that define them as Little Miss Badasses, mostly in Kai when The Power of Friendship is at its' strongest. Rika, however, takes the cake for managing to endure being caught in a Groundhog Day-style time loop--in which every single loop ends in her death--for over 100 years and not go screamingly insane long before the series proper even begins.
  • Say what you want about Erika of Umineko no Naku Koro ni, but that girl is a lot scarier and a lot tougher than she looks. She killed Beatrice, for crying out loud!

Web Comics

  • Ruby Gem, the little vampire girl from Monsterful, and her special transformation the VSV (vampiric spartan Viking) makes her even more badass.
  • Antihero for Hire Malvagia. Fourteen-year-old bounty hunter, practicioner of Waif Fu, and one of very few villains to tangle with Shadehawk and come out ahead. She's the niece of a crime boss, too.
  • Grim Tales from Down Below MiniMandy .
  • Head Trip Lillian . When a Jerk Jock was hitting on her and wouldn't take no for an answer, she broke his nose. Apparently, this has happened before.
  • Homestuck Rose is dangerously handy with a pair of knitting needles, as an ogre painfully learned at his expense. She also happens to be a Little Miss Snarker just to put icing on the cake of badassery.
  • Megatokyo uses the tag-line "Ph34r teh Cut3 0n3s", often in reference to the main character, Piro's, inevitably cute-and-highly-competent game characters. The comic itself also contains at least one Little Miss Badass: the enigmatic Tohya Miho, whose true powers and purpose have yet to be revealed—but who is "hardcore, badass dangerous". Recently, Largo managed to turn Yuki from Magical Girl to Little Miss Badass, much to her discomfort over such "lack of cuteness".
    • Ping fills the trope when she's angry, since she can lift and throw busses, and chase people with a street lamp. The best example is when she threw a giant turtle through the top of a skyscraper, crushing Ed and his BFG in the process.
      • Second place to this would be the time she threw Dom out the window. Her aim was slightly off, so his head clipped the wall. And left a neat head-shaped hole right through.
  • She... is truly my son. (NSFW) Badass straight out from the "womb".
  • Super Stupor by R.K.Milholland's Here's a Genre Savvy parody.
  • Van Von Hunter Parodied by Ultimate Evil: an eight years old who has mastered the most powerful and evil spell (by skipping to the end of the magic book and memorizing the ultimate spell without learning all the lower level spells first). She almost immediately sides with the heroes, and thus isn't a Tyke Bomb.
  • Tycho's niece Anne from Penny Arcade. There's a reason her nickname is Annarchy...

Web Original

  • The Global Guardians PBEM Universe Heart Girl. Imagine Superman as a nine-year-old blonde girl with pigtails.
  • Open Blue, in past incarnations, has had a propensity for these kinds of characters, most of them products of Avelion's Espartano Project. Presently, the only one around is Janice Cervantes, who actually escaped her training and is now a Pirate captain... at the age of 14...
    • As of v5, the concept has been recycled, except they now work for Remillia. However, so far, we only see the more grown up ones.
  • Vocaloid Special mention must go to Rin Kagamine. She is the youngest of the entire Vocaloid Roster (forget Yuki), and not only is she cute, she is also not to be trifled with.
  • The Whateley Universe's Generator. Fourteen, but looks ten. Cute as a button, and loves Hello Kitty. She once destroyed a Syndicate hardsite, killing pretty much everyone who got in her way. After being chained to a table, having her knee smashed with a hammer, and then getting stabbed through the heart so hard the weapon jammed in the table under her.
    • Lets not forget the time she was attacked by a huge 9' tall werewolf. She let him punch her, revealing a bear trap hidden inside her spirit-clone's face, then nailed him to a tree using psychically animated railroad spikes, then casually proceeded to tattoo brand "I attack little girls" on his chest in silver with mithril.
  • Just about every named female in the cast of RWBY who isn't a Badass Adorable, at least at the start of the series.

Western Animation

  • Avatar: The Last Airbender Toph, the self-proclaimed "greatest earthbender of all time." Best not to disagree with her on that.
  • Ben 10 Ben's cousin Gwen (and to a lesser extent, her Evil Counterpart Charmcaster). Not so much in Ben 10: Alien Force, where they have both grown up considerably.
  • Gormiti: The Lords of Nature Return Jessica. Other than being one of the chosen ones and wielding the powers of the Air Tribe, she also boasts a orange belt in judo. And she beat Toby in the school tournament!
  • Invader Zim Gaz is all badass. The fact that she's only nine and has already beaten the living crap out of her older brother at least three times, coupled with the fact that she nearly killed a guy over a video game system, makes her qualify.
  • Jimmy Two-Shoes Heloise, an Enfant Terrible who spends her free time beating up anyone who displeases her and her on-the-clock hours working for Satan.
  • The Powerpuff Girls All three of them but most noticeable, Buttercup.
  • The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy Mandy. Wears pink, is blonde, snarks almost constantly, and makes the Grim Reaper her personal bitch in the first episode.
  • The Simpsons Maggie Simpson, whose exploits include
    • Shooting Mr. Burns.
    • Knocking out Homer out by bonking him on the head with a mallet. Being strong enough to pick it up is Badass enough, but when you can actually knock someone unconscious with it... Plus, let's not forget Homer can withstand: Several punches to the head, a Chair to the head, Being smashed with a Wrecking ball, falling down a deep chasm head-first, survive being hit by a cannon ball, and has drunk himself silly for the past two decades. Knocking him out with one hit alone is not an easy task.
    • When Homer is targetted by the Mafia for starting a security business. Maggie picks up a pellet shotgun and opens a can of whoopass on them, one by one. Then, when Homer and Marge walk into her room, she hides it under her bed and pretends to be asleep, only to look at the camera and smile once they leave. Paired with a Crowning Music of Awesome.
    • In The Movie, she drops a rock on the head of Russ Cargill, knocking him out, just as he's about to shoot Homer and Bart. Not to mention that Bart and Homer leave her there and she still manages to get back into the arms of Marge before they do... plus she got out to the canyon in the first place.
      • Also where she scares off Mister Teeny (the chimp) with a broken bottle and a glare when the mob comes to the house.
    • In the episode "Midnight Towboy", when Homer is inprisoned in a basement of a tow truck driver, Maggie saves him by riding on Santa's Little Helper to the place, and attaching the guy's towhook to the cellar window bars.
    • In "MoneyBART", when Lisa wants to practice fencing, she tries it with Maggie, who defeats her spectacularly.
    • In "Little Girl in the Big Ten" as Homer makes his parenting rounds, Bart is in his bubble, Lisa is missing and Maggie is fending off a crazy raccoon.
    • In "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder", Maggie swims into the ocean and pull's her drowning father to shore. Given her age and weight, that's practically toonforcing.
  • Titan Maximum Claire is something of a subversion in that despite that she looks and acts like a little girl she's actually 21 according to Gibbs.
  • Transformers Animated, supervillain Professor Princess (yes, that's both her pseudonym and her real name) wears frilly dresses and rides around on a flying pony named Powdered Sugar. Also she can beat up Bumblebee (granted pretty much anyone can do that).
    • And now Sari seems to have hit that point too...
  • All the female operatives in Codename: Kids Next Door.
  • Spinelli from Recess.
  • Ahsoka kriffing Tano.
  • In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Scootaloo fits this role. Whether it's performing extreme stunts at high speed on her scooter or ziplining through the treetops, Scootaloo will be first in line whenever the Cutie Mark Crusaders do anything athletic, physical, or endangering to life and limb.

Real Life