Can be from any kind of media.
For me it’s Margot from The Magicians (which is interesting because in the books she is anything but) and Jesse Faden from Control.
Princess Cimorene from the Enchanted Forest Chronicles
Ron Swanson
Susannah Dean and Naomi Nagata
Zoe, Inara, Kaylee, and River. Mic drop.
Ellen Ripley. Under pressure she steps up and does what needs doing. Whether that means operating a loader, comforting a child or making monsters extinct.
Taarna
Leela from Futurama
Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Tiffany Aching.
About half the cast of Fullmetal Alchemist (Olivier Mira Armstrong, Izumi Curtis, Riza Hawkeye, Winry and Pinako Rockbell, Lan Fan, Mai Chang, Chris Mustang… and I’m sure I’m missing some).
Oh, and friggin’ Chell, of course. Makes you almost feel sorry for GLaDOS.
Xena Warrior Princess
Hermione Granger because I read so little fiction that this is the first woman (?) that comes to mind.
assuming that “strong independent woman” being in the title of the original post counts as someone saying it
Korra and Toph from Avatar, Tsunade and Sakura from Naruto
Roberta “Bobbie” Draper from The Expanse was the first to jump into my head.
Avasarala is my pick
Came here to say Avasarala.
That’s funny. I also posted Naomi Nagata. While I like Chrisjen and Bobby more, I think Naomi wins for strong independent. General of the resistance, self-marooned insurgent, and the escape of the Chetzmoka.
Samus came to mind immediately
The Boss, MGS
Not Big Boss, the man with the eye patch and is a bad guy, the woman who taught him and the mother of Ocelot
She was such a badass woman that she inspired basically everyone around her to try to mold the world in the way they thought she saw it. Shes a great example of a woman/mother who’s a badass directly because of the skills normally associated with those roles. Yeah, she can fight and kick your main characters ass, but that’s mostly because she’s spent time nurturing him and caring for him to the point where he emotionally cannot fight her. She regularly disarms strong, imposing men (some with superpowers like lightning channeling) by just looking at them sternly and implying she’s about to call them by all 3 of their names in a disapproving tone
Time and again she does badass things while she’s alive, and her death is technically the catalyst for the rest of the series as those who loved and admired her try to shape the world as she saw it, which isn’t even something she herself did because of her loyalty to her country.
Oh and she’s voiced by the same woman who does Pearl from SpongeBob, which is wild
Ripley
