My favourite cartoon ladies

 Today I shall be taking a quick moment to pay tribute to three of my favourite female characters from TV cartoons. If you want to think of it as blatant fanboying, feel free.


 Let's start with somebody I've mentioned before.

Sh'lainn Blaze (Roswell Conspiracies: Myths and Legends)

 

Agent Sh'lainn Blaze of the Alien-hunting Alliance.

Tends to be quite soft spoken, loves nature and frequently the voice of reason.

Uncomfortable around technology and has very little in the way of hand-to-hand skills.

. Wait, what's going on with her hair?

That can't be normal.

As it turns out, Sh'lainn is a Banshee, one of a race of aliens who landed in Ireland during the Dark Ages. And you don't really need karate when your energy blasts can punch a hole in the side of a battleship.

   Attack mode

There's also another useful trick. You know the legend of the Banshee knowing when somebody is about to die? True. Or to put it another way, when Sh'lainn's hair starts doing the floaty thing...duck!

 Sh'lainn's relationship with Nick Logan, her hotheaded human partner, ends to flip between playful teasing and desperately trying to stop him doing something reckless. Despite that, they make a good team  and it's obvious early on that the Banshee cares deeply about Logan.

A development that surprised nobody but Nick Logan.

 I rather like the fact that the writers make Sh'lainn more complex than usual. Most of the time she's the sensible one. Unless there's vampires involved. Banshees and vampires don't get along.

 Fair enough really. Vampires are dicks. 

 There's also Sh'lainn's conflicitng loyalties. She spends the entire series trying to act as peacemaker between humans and Banshee. (Except for the time she became Queen of the Banshee and promptly tried to wipe out the Alliance. That was a misunderstanding though.)

 (Seriously. How does she get her hair to do that?) 

I'm not too sure about her dancing skills though. 

Next. somebody a lot  more fiery.

Hawkgirl  (Justice League Unlimited)

 Hawkgirl (Shayera Hol) Thanagarian Warrior-Woman

 Justice League is one of my top, all-time US series and the alien brawler quickly became one of my favourite characters. That Shayera is a redhead who twats people with a mace is possibly a key factor.  Even better, she's a redhead with wings who twats people with a mace.

 So that's what she looks like without the helmet.    

   Showing how much cartoons had moved on from when I was a kid, the writers weren't afraid to give the characters some depth beyond "Beat bad guy. Everybody laughs"  Case in point: Hawkgirl's burgeoning relationship with Green Lantern John Stewart.  Of course that went horribly wrong.

 

 Shayera the soldier.

   When a Thanagarian fleet showed up on Earth Shayera found herself torn between her new home and her people. This did not help her relationship with John or the rest of the team.

Shayera tenders her resignation from the  Thanagarian forces.

  Hawkgirl resurfaced in Season 3 with a new, less martial look. Still hitting people with a mace though.

 Admit it. You think this looks like a workout outfit too.

 There were a few complications. Wonder Woman was still a bit peeved with the whole Alien Invasion thing so relations were initially frosty. 

 Every man's nightmare: Being in the same room with two women who don't like each other. 

And John Stewart had a new girlfriend: 

Hawkgirl has a suprisingly friendly chat with romantic rival Vixen.

 

Hawkgirl on a date. Scrubs up nicely, doesn't she?

  The writing on this series is always good, especially when it comes to the characters and if Hawkgirl was nothing more than a redheaded bruiser...I'd still be a fan, most likely. But they managed to make her  more interesting than that, which is why I'm taking a moment to pay tribute.

 If you've never seen this series, go check it out.  

 Shayera Hol. Doing what she does best. 

   Incidentally I found some of these pics here:  http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/hawgirl

There's quite a few tribute vids too. Here's my favourite.

 

And lastly

Pinkie Pie: (My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic)

(Yeah, yeah. She's a horse. The other two aren't human either. Deal with it.)

   I got into this series the way a lot of people did: I started seeing Pony memes all over the internet, wondered what all the fuss was about and next thing I knew, I was halfway through Season 1.

  Pinkie is the loopy one.(If you believe the fandom, there's a more alarming interpretation - more on that later) Likes parties, cupcakes, having fun and bursting into song at odd moments.

All together now...

 Quite keen on dancing too. 

 Pinkie Pie spends her days on a permanent sugar-rush and sees it as her life's mission to make people happy. Characters like this usually get on my tits but The Pink One doesn't, mainly because of some hidden depths. To begin with, Pinkie regards the laws of nature, physics and reality as "optional"

 Her friends find Pinkie's ability to pop up out of nowhere...alarming.

There's also a definite sense that there's more going on in Pinkie's head than people realise. 

Of course what makes sense to Pinkie...

Having trouble with a rogue dragon? This is Pinkie's answer.

And if all else fails, start singing.  

  So, a sweet-natured pony with a tendency towards bounciness and a view of reality that baffles most people. OK so far.

  And then you watch the episode "Party for None" and all of a sudden the Pink Party Pony takes on a  whole new dimension. Because Pinkie cracks up big time.

Remember folks, this is a cartoon mostly aimed at kids

  There's a lot of speculation about Pinkie among the fanbase. How does she get from place to place so easily? Is she a Time Lord? What's really going on inside that head of hers (At least one fan-fic has Pinkie brutally murdering her friends)  How come Pinkie seems to be the only pony who knows she's in a  cartoon? 

Pinkie protesting that the episode ends too early. 

 Another fan theory is that one day Pinkie may find her way into our world. Pray she's not having one of her turns.

Eep

But you know what? I like Pinkamena Diane Pie because she's fun. 

 

My god. It's full of Pinkies.

To finish, here's Pinkie doing one of her legendary musical numbers.

 That's all folks. See you next time.