Strongest female character in TNG?

She is also from a planet that appears to be portrayed as something approaching a matriarchy...she’s royalty after all, and in some respects, all that husband stuff and hassling deanna ties into that. She doesn’t just want grandchildren, she wants an heir. When the facade slips with Odo in Ds9, then the less public face is really seen. I am not the biggest fan of Lwxana, but she has a lot going on.

 

The simple act of answering the distress call is breaking the prime directive? I'm going to need some convincing on that.

You can make an argument that Data in Pen Pals, violates the prime directive when he answers the girl's message, but Picard answering the distress call in Symbiosis? Not seeing it

 

I have to say Pulaski might be the strongest because she shook things up far more than any other female cast member... and frankly, almost all male members, too.

I have to also give honorable mention to K'Ehleyr... she played off Worf really well, and I was saddened when she was killed off. But in just two episodes, she shook the core of Worf so majorly that I believe it informed a lot of his character later on.

Admiral Necheyev deserves some recognition... she was no-nonsense, and one of the few people who put Picard in his place. (In particular, telling Picard his duty was to safeguard the lives of Federation citizens, not conscience wrestling.) Most admirals we saw were his friends, or at least were pretty informal with Picard... I think she was the only one, other than Mark Jameson, that was 100% "Admiral Mode" with him.

And she was the only Admiral to deal directly with TWO STAR TREK leads, Sisko being the other.

 

I'm sure K'ehlyr (sp??) could bench press more than any of them.

 

Android bigot. lol I just can't get past it. She may be strong & virtuous in every other way, but pissing on Data lessened her imho

Some, but she was also the idiot who got suckered into nearly getting Picard tortured to death with that lame Krieger Wave black op. That gambit was pure idiocy from top to bottom

 

Things haven't changed that much. Amy Schumer's I Feel Pretty is almost the same gag as Lwaxana falsely accusing Picard of lusting after her.

One of the problems with the goal of this thread is to look for some ideal role-model when characters are boring if they don't at least have SOME flaws. A Lwaxana that wielded her sex positivity in a serious way may just not have been as fun as having her tease Picard.

Guinan is probably the most sage-like character but those kinds of characters make poor protagonists. Once you've got all the mysteries of the cosmos worked out, there's really nowhere to go, so it's better for her to act as a sounding-board.

Same deal with independence. In an ensemble show, characters who seem to be islands unto themselves don't really work well. That was the problem with Pulaski. She was plenty independent, but not a team-player.

So you gotta ask yourself what you're looking for, some evidence of a "perfect" woman or a character that actually drives an interesting story, either directly or indirectly.

 

I initially didn't like Pulaski, eithee, exactly because of how she treated Data.

But as I got older, I realized her other qualities.

(I still have an issue with how she treated Data, because he is my favorite character. But she did get to acknowledge him better and such.)

 

Probably the worst thing about her being dumped so soon was that they never cleared that up. I really doubt it would've stayed that way. Unlike the Spock/Bones ongoing beef, I really think they'd have totally made her come around, so much so, that she may have become one of his closest friends

 

Agreed. I think she would have been a force of evolution for Data, interactions and dealings that would have made him grow even more.

"Elementary, Dear Data" showed us that possibility, when she essentially dared him to be a real detective. I can definitely see her and Data becoming super close buddies. He did help her when she was old and gray...

 

I was thinking of Lwaxana in Cost of Living when she refuses to bend to the desires of her controlling fiance.

 

It’s only just occurred to me that if you gender flipped Lwxana and Picard, we’d be thinking about her actions in a different light. Interesting.

 

You have no idea how much that messed up my day, I couldn't walk for hours

 

Hey, it makes the first recurring trans character in Trek, on a technicality.

Spot is a good cat.

 

Yey, clever me!

 

I think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking a 'strong female' is just one that is strong in ways they until recently were not allowed to be. That's one way to be strong, but strength can also be in the moral power characters like Beverly have.

 

Guinan was the best woman on the series. I loved whenever she made Deanna look completely redundant and useless.

I think only Ds9 and Voyager did a good job getting female characters right, former moreso than the later.

 

Lwaxana Troi. She took no shit from anybody, she was always unapologetically herself and always did what she thought was best even when it ran counter to what an entire crew of highly trained Starfleet officers wanted.

 

Indeed. Apart from anything else we can see the growth *begin* to happen late in the season, particularly in "Measure of a Man" at Data's going away party, and "Peak Performance" where she's really encouraging him to step up to the videogame challenge. The idea that Pulaski was blanket mean to him the whole time she was there is one of the biggest misnomers that continues to be perpetuated by the fandom

 

Admiral Nachevev. Strong leader who could even chew out the captain of the Federation flagship and then go over to DS9 and do it to Sisko as well though she was kind of out of line in that case. Don't expect the Federation Utopia sells pitch to work on someone like the Maquis who just had their homes stolen from that very same Federation.

Also Ro of course but she is kind of ovious. It's a shame we never got to see Shelby again. She would have been a good character choice in "Chain of Command." if they went that way. Not sure which I would prefer. On one hand you get to see Shelby come back and take command and get into conflict with Riker but the downside is you don't get to use Ronny Cox. Me I think I would go with Shelby and use Cox in a later role. He could have been Cal Hudson on DS9 later that year.

Jason