Nerd Girls Save The World: 17 Of Pop Culture’s Greatest Female Geeks

Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Image via 20th Century Fox)

12. Willow Rosenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Sometimes, nerds really do save the world. That’s certainly what happened on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, thanks in part to Willow Rosenberg.

Willow (Alyson Hannigan) starts the series as a smart, bookish girl who is also deeply shy and awkward. Over the course of the series, however, she gains a great deal of confidence and power. She learns that she has inherent magical abilities and, like any good nerd, hits the books for intensive studying. The earnest, naive girl eventually becomes a learned, powerful, and occasionally even dangerous witch and magical practitioner.

Like many of us, she’s also deathly afraid of emotional conflict, sometimes to the point that it makes a situation worse than it needed to be. She can also be deeply competitive. She’s also one of the few LGBT characters on this list. Willow began dating her girlfriend Tara in the fourth season.

Willow gains so much knowledge that she becomes incredibly powerful, to the point where she becomes the sixth season’s major villain. However, she redeems herself in the seventh and final season, literally saving the world through her magic.

Spin-off comics series focus more deeply on Willow’s magical abilities. Creators were able to take advantage of the format and send her on a series of high-fantasy adventures. What fantasy-loving geek wouldn’t love to travel through worlds of magic, acquiring new knowledge and powers along the way? It’s practically a dream come true.