Fi's Five Favorite Female Action Heroes #3: Michonne (The Walking Dead)

(Click the links for Favorite Female Action Hero #4 and #5)

Oh most definitely there shall be some zombie slaying on our Women's History Month countdown!

If you don't know The Walking Dead comics or TV show (as small as those odds are if you're on my blog), it's a pretty basic open-ended story of the struggles of the survivors of the zombie apocalypse, and Michonne is the one with the sword.

Is that a silhouette or what?

As previously noted this month, there's an abundance of female characters who are given swords and aren't thereby made notable characters. Michonne even suffers from some of the problems that so often plague them. How she got so good with the sword isn't really explained on the show, and the comics use the laughable explanation that she was a fencing champion in college.

These styles of swordplay are about as compatible as an 9-track tape on a turntable.

So in spite of her coolness being thrown together without quite enough thought, as is so often the case with female characters designed for the purpose of coolness, what is it about Michonne that works so well?

Well, in the comics, it mainly comes down to the surprising lack of patronization surrounding her. This isn't generally one of The Walking Dead comics' strong suits. This is a series that brushes off the formation of an all-male council of leaders among the characters with about four lines of dialogue about how unsuitable all the female characters available at the time would be. 

The accuracy of those few lines should be enough to illustrate the bigger problem.

Michonne, however, despite being something of an exception in the Walking Dead comic-verse for being a competent woman, is never treated as an exception. She's about as good and as bad, as tough and as vulnerable, as any of the male stars. She's counted as part of the muscle of the group, never with any particular fanfare or "for a girl" asterisk implied. Of course, this has a lot to do with the simple practicality of a sword in a scenario where stealth is constantly a concern.

Also, she came up with this revolutionary stealth technique that none of the other characters usually remember exists.

After a very long, slow build of existing as one of the team not stuck in the usual "the girl" spot, she and our hero, Rick, form that nearly unheard of thing for two characters in their position: a solid platonic friendship, including a partnership as Alexandria's police force, as introduced to the show last week at the time of this posting.

The comic points in her favor may not sound like a lot, but they're enough to make her an icon in a non-ironic, non-condescending way, and as comics go, that's not nothing.

TV-verse Michonne, on the other hand, is something so much more.

Yes, that's a smile.

The TV version of The Walking Dead has plenty of its own writing issues, including with its female characters.

(Mainly in the early seasons)

But one of its best overall deviations from the source material is the way it preserves enough of the humanity of the characters for the horrors they face to keep mattering.

That doesn't mean the show shies away from the more horrific content.

Oh no, not at all.

But unlike the comics, which dwell on the misanthropic "we are The Walking Dead" theme to the point of numbness, the TV show knows when to let up enough to remind us to love the characters. That, combined with the charisma of Danai Gurira, makes all the difference for Michonne.

The TV show removes Michonne's less appealing qualities (she's racist and sexually manipulative in the comics) and also cuts out her more predictable rape-revenge plotline with The Governor, making their highly personal enmity revolve around a he-said-she-said tug of war for the trust of the other characters instead.

Also that little incident with a zombified little girl.

With those elements gone, her notoriously shrouded backstory comes down to an ordinary lawyer and family woman, stripped by the apocalypse of everything that made her any of the above, trying to figure out who she is now, and the mirroring of her plotline with Rick's is more pronounced. 

As he gets crazier and more broken by the zombie-filled world, she gets saner and puts herself back together from what she lost all at once. As he gets more distrustful of humanity, she gets more open and hopeful for the future of civilization, and their friendship ends up becoming the two halves of the group's conscience.

For being every bit the badass she was in the comics, an unquestioned physical protector of the survivors, she's become strangely close to what might be called the heart of the show.

While there’s every possibility that Rick and Michonne may turn out to be an excellent TV romance someday in the future, there’s also every possibility they may not. It’s not assumed, because filling in the role of the romantic foil in his story is not her simple, obvious purpose for existence. She’s not just one of the better examples of The Girl in action stories. She defies the formula.

And it must be noted, she does this not only by being a multifaceted character, a force to be reckoned with in a fight, and an icon of action-hero cool, but by being all this on a show where other women are too.

This spot on the list was a tossup between Michonne and the Carol who bears no resemblance to her comics counterpart, the one who went from abused housewife to lovable sociopath who can take down a season-long town-sized villain with a single rocket launcher and force us to ponder the question of how many children she could kill and still be a hero.

There are plenty of clips of Michonne and her sword kicking Walker ass that I could leave you on, but to capture the cool-factor that hovers around her, let's go with the instant of her transition from page to screen.

Yeah, that’s her.

Agree? Disagree? Comments are always welcome! Or keep up with my fictional musings by joining me on Facebook, on Twitter, or by signing up for email updates in the panel on the right!