50 fearless, confident, all around badass women on television

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Buffy Summers – Buffy The Vampire Slayer

How do you contain the badassness of a Vampire slayer into a few paragraphs? Buffy Summers was ordained savior and slayer at a very tender age, and she took that responsibility very seriously. Well, mostly. She had a mean stake game and an even sharper wit, and could make you love her and fear her all at once.

She had to balance the fate of the entire world, as it sat poised on the hell mouth, with studying for her History final, and she always managed to make it work. Buffy faced more monsters, literal and figurative, than all of us combined. She saved her friends from certain doom more times than can be counted, all the while sorting out their interpersonal problems and juggling a work/life balance.

She loved and lost so many times, died and came back from the dead, and had to say goodbye to every member of her family. But she kept on fighting the good fight. She literally fought off evil to save a world that was cruel to her in every way imaginable. Sometimes she felt hopeless and wanted to give up, but she never did. She often made terrible decisions and felt humiliated, but she persevered. And Sarah Michelle Gellar played Buffy like the most gorgeous girl next door you could ever imagine.