Women in charge: female authority depicted sympathetically?

What are some of the best examples of female characters in positions of authority, who know how to USE that authority both wisely and justly? In other words, what are some of the best inversions of that old TV Trope "God Save Us From the Queen"?

The character can be any age; she just has to--
1) be in a position of authority (Queens are preferable, but any authority is good);
2) use that authority in a way that excites the reader's admiration rather than fear and loathing;
3) NOT be a power-hungry sociopath; and
4) not surrender her authority upon falling in love and/or getting married.

I'm interested in learning about characters like this.

Try Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis -- fascinating retelling of the Cupid and Psyche story, told from the viewpoint of one of the jealous sisters. The character of the sister, Queen Orual (or a name something like that) is wonderful.
I'm sure there are many others, but that's the first that leaps to mind.

The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper is a good one. The entire society is based on female leadership.

I don't know about "best", but here are some books I like that I think fit your criteria:

The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi and the sequel The Last Colony (the first book in the trilogy is Old Man's War but you don't need to read it to understand the others). (edit: these are science fiction, not fantasy, obviously)

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

If you like YA or J books, Dealing With Dragons and Searching For Dragons and the rest of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles.

Mara from Daughter of the Empire might be someone you would enjoy reading about.

Lackeys Valdemar books have a good queen starting with Arrows of the Queen and her Five hundred kingdoms The Fairy godmother is good for that too. I read Daughter of Exile by Isabel Glass, and Bloodrights N lee wood, which are both really good. Karen Miller has 2 queens in her Godspeaker Trilogy starting with Empress.

Basically look for female writers for something like this.

Lynn Flewellings Nightrunner and Tamir series have very capable queens. In the Nightrunner series the queen is not the main character, though. (But the books are definitely worth reading!)

In L. Frank Baum's Oz books, Dorothy, Ozma and Glinda, among others, all fit this.

Fantasy:
A Brother's Price - Queens and princesses and romance
Sailing to Sarantium - An empress, and not the main protagonist, but admirably just the same
The Curse of Chalion - scheeming and hoping

Female protagonists/commandors is a common trope in space operas. Here are a few examples:
Valor's Choice - the plot becomes increasingly unlikely in the latter books, and the all-powerfull aliens as plotdevice ruins book four somewhat.
City of Pearl - the series turn bad after the first two books
On basilisk station - the series get very repetitive after a while, and the villains particularly cardboard cut-outs.

Urm, perhaps The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley. The heroine starts out as a somewhat misfit young princess who teaches herself to be a dragon-killer and eventually manages to save her kingdom, fall simultaneously in love with two men who both respect her for being just exactly who she is, and become queen and ruler of her kingdom while married to one of them (while the other, who is pretty much immortal, sits back and waits his turn politely, ha!).

You might also look at the Books of Great Alta series by Jane Yolen: Sister Light, Sister Dark, White Jenna, and The One-Armed Queen. It is a YA series, but well-written and layered. The books are all set in a matriarchal society and there are multiple strong female characters.

I'd recommend the Attolia books by Megan Whalen Turner, starting with The Thief, but getting much more into the territory you're looking at in the second book, The Queen of Attolia. There are actually two female authority figures (queens of neighboring nations), and both are interesting characters, though in very different ways!

I second the recommendations for Till We Have Faces, Dealing with Dragons, and The Hero and the Crown.

Morgaine saga Although CJ Cherryh is better known for her SF work she has written some excellant fantasy too (and she doesn't see a distinction between them). This is one of her better works! There is a fourth part, exiles gate.

hell's chasm although the heroine is a bit carried along by events, she does exercise her power on her own.

Quite a few of the modern Urban Fantasy / Paranormal romances have strong lead women. Not all of whom melt into the arms of the first male they see.

Of coruse there is always polgara you don't get more powerful than that.

If you're OK with YA books I would recommend Tamora Pierce Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen about a young girl destined to head a rebellion against the colonists in her country and become their queen, her wisdom is especially important to the plot. Although this duology (is that the right word?) is one of many short series Pierce has set in her world of Tortall you can easily read these two books without having read any of the others. However I should warn you that you may well find yourself addicted and end up going back and reading them all from the start as you obviously have an interest in intelligent, strong and realistic female characters and no one does sheroes quite like Pierce :)

I thought Elizabeth Haydon's trilogy that starts with Rhapsody was pretty good; I think the lead (female) character ascends to what you would call a position of power, though I don't recall exactly what it was.

#12 "Quite a few of the modern Urban Fantasy / Paranormal romances have strong lead women. Not all of whom melt into the arms of the first male they see."

Very true -- though in the case of Anita Blake, she ends up melting into the arms of almost EVERY male she sees, to the detriment of what started out as a wonderful series.

Also in YA-- The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale.
And, Terry Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax is a very strong female character. She doesn't have traditional political power but she is one of the most influential women in her world. She is quite the opposite of power-hungry, and would probably incinerate you with her withering glare if you implied she had amorous inclinations of any sort.

Granny Weatherwax is definitely a woman of power, particularly in the mountains where the witches are considered a distinct authority. And that power is not shown as wrong or evil.

You might want to look at Sylvia Kelso's Amberlight series which starts with a negatively portrayed matriarchy (although from the viewpoint of a positively portrayed female leader) and then goes on to the construction of a more equable society. You'll find a lot of strong women in Kelso's books (very dense prose, though!).

My own work has tons of female rulers, variously depicted. Try The Silence of Medair or Stained Glass Monsters. (Let me know if it breaches the rules to mention this - if so, will edit.)

There's Morgan Howell's "Queen of the Orcs" trilogy, starting with King's Property. In the first book, however, the heroine (Dar) is a slave, and it's only as the trilogy progresses that she comes into power. Also, rate "Queen of the Orcs" R for sex and violence.

There's a well-functioning matriarchal society in Martha Wells' Fall of Ile-rien trilogy, (starting with The Wizard Hunters.

Apologize in advance for bringing this thread back from the dead, but this is still a topic of interest to me. Certain books I've read lately touch upon the idea of just how much power a woman is supposed to have, and whether men are automatically better at wielding worldly power.

Two books/series that depict powerful women but nonetheless fall under the "God Save Us From the Queen" heading:

Rhiannon's Ride, beginning with The Tower of Ravens, Kate Forsyth's follow-up to her Witches of Eaileann (sic) series. I haven't yet read Witches (though I intend to), but being one book and a half into Ride, I've gotten an impression of what the earlier series was like, since many of the characters are the same and the ripple effects of the events in Witches are still being felt heavily in Ride. Powerful women are everywhere in Ride, the most powerful being Isabeau (one of the main protagonists of Witches), a major authoritative force in the community of sorcerers. (Interestingly, both male and female sorcerers are often referred to as witches.) There is very little stain of misogyny in this society, even among the villains. So what's the problem?

Well, the a key component of the earlier series, carried over into the later series, is the overthrow of a power-hungry, bigoted Evil Queen by a righteous, noble-hearted Good King. One of the problems of the later series is that the villains want to overthrow the Good King and disinherit his male heirs so they can put the Evil Queen's daughter (who will also inevitably be an Evil Queen) on the throne. Among the community of sorcerers, a woman like Isabeau may wield power in her own right. But her twin sister Iseult wields power only by virtue of being the wife of the Good King; she's the leader of the Guards (good), but only because she's his wife (not so good). The magic stone of worldly power must always be wielded by men -- the King, his sons.

Midori Snyder's Oran Trilogy is somewhat better, in that while we still have an Evil Queen who must be overthrown in order for Right and Justice to prevail, the powers of good who will rise to take her place are female this time. The Evil Queen will be displaced by Good Queens.

To broaden this subject out a little:
What are some examples of a fictional matriarchy in which the women are depicted sympathetically? In which they are NOT depicted as the vicious and power-mad abusers of tragically oppressed men? (The latter kind of depiction of matriarchy may "explore gender roles," as reviewers often say, but in the end the implication can't be escaped: women will misuse earthly power if it is granted them.)

Let's see, since this thread was last active:

5: I've read Daughter of the Empire -- fine book, and very interesting and detailed depiction of a woman's use of authority. My only issue with the book is that it does play the misogyny card, in that female authority is depicted as highly unusual, and Mara is the only interesting, important woman in the book.

17: I really want to read both The Silence of Medair and Stained Glass Monsters.

19: I've started The Fall of Ile-Rien series. So far I've only read the first book and I've only seen a very little of the matriarchal society, but I look forward to seeing more of it in the next books. Wells actually writes the very kind of matriarchal societies I'm looking for: the society of the Books of the Raksura, starting with The Cloud Roads, is matriarchal without any sense that males are oppressed or abused, and we also get a sympathetic Queen in The Element of Fire.

4: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles are great! I did enjoy Elantris very much, although I'm not sure how much power Sarene ever has in her own right. She's a wonderful character, but she starts out as a princess and ends as the wife of a King; what authority she has comes from her relationships with male power -- father, husband. The society she must navigate is very strictly patriarchal; the people there expect nothing of her. Still, I must say it's quite fun to see her prove them wrong.

6: Lackey's Valdemar series is wonderful at depicting women with political authority in a sympathetic light; good leaders are as likely to be female as male. When we move away from Valdemar into the Five Hundred Kingdoms, however, the picture changes a bit, and we get Evil Queens, among them the vile Cassiopeia in One Good Knight and the vile mother of Siegfried in The Black Swan. This is only to be expected, however, as the Five Hundred Kingdoms and the Elemental Masters books are working with legends and folklore, where Evil Queens are a standard feature, whereas Valdemar is a more original fantasy setting. I'll be interested to see if any sympathetic queens turn up in the Five Hundred Kingdoms. It's been a while since I've read The Fairy Godmother, but I don't recall any sympathetic queen; the godmothers, however, most definitely wield power in their world, so they would count.

>20 kceccato: It's been a while since I've read The Fairy Godmother, but I don't recall any sympathetic queen; the godmothers, however, most definitely wield power in their world, so they would count.
Actually, the godmothers are a lot more powerful than any king or queen, and actually rank them.

I was also thinking of the Kushiel trilogy by Jacqueline Carey. The queen of Terre d'Ange is Ysandre de la Courcel, and she is definitely a good one and doesn't lose any of her power upon marriage.

Edit: Ah, thought of another one: Queen Ehlana in the Elenium and the Tamuli by David Eddings. Admittedly, she's encased in crystal in the first few books, but after she's a good queen.

Edit2: And more, although they are not queens, there are some pretty powerful House rulers in The sun sword series and The house wars series.

I'm in the middle of YA fantasy Seraphina, and that is set in a land ruled by a Queen, who seems to be a good ruler. She brokered a treaty between the warring Humans and Dragons that allows them to live side by side. Although this is controversial, we are clearly meant to see it as a Good Thing. The heirs to the throne are female too, though it doesn't seem to be a matriarchy; the girls were just born first. Seraphina herself is an awesome heroine who is strong without needing to beat people up all the time. And she is a female Other, too!

In McKillip's Cygnet duology, the two main characters are the daughter and a niece/cousin/some-relation of a female ruler with no particular emphasis on gender that I recall, and certainly not treated as anything evil or oppressive to men.

EDIT: LOL... I just clicked into the "What are we reading" thread and see you're already in Cygnet, so never mind. :)

The Soprano Sorceress series by L.E. Modessit is a good one.

Sharon Shinn's Wrapt in Crystal portrays female religious leaders very sympathetically and they wield a great deal of power in their society.

Tolkien presents various admirable females who possess immense power.

22: I seriously need to get my hands on Seraphina.

23: One of the things I'm enjoying most about Cygnet is the authority that the female characters enjoy. They wield power with wisdom and honor. More like that, please! (Not long ago, I'd read McKillip's Ombria in Shadow, which is very much a "God Save Us From the Queen!" story, so it's good to see that McKillip can give us more than one kind of female authority figure/ ruler. Alphabet of Thorn also features a young queen growing into her power; there is little doubt that she will be a good ruler.)

Seraphina is cool...

>27 kceccato:: I finished Seraphina, and yes, you do need to get hold of it! It didn't disappoint at all. In addition to the title character, there are many other strong female characters who have various roles to play, good and bad.

27> Seraphina is wonderful.

Not a book, but Lady Eboshi, boss of Iron Town in the film Princess Mononoke is a very complex, and ultimately admirable ruler. Miyazake uses the same type of character in Nausicaa. You think they are bad people, but you find out that they are just good rulers. So, just because their choices and decisions don't benefit your hero, doesn't mean they are evil. Woman authority figures, who make hard decisions to benefit their people. Justice generally benefits one side over another, right? It's complicated.

Time to bump this up again. It's on my mind due to recent reads.

29, 30: Now that I've read Seraphina, I can concur: it is wonderful. I wish the good Queen had a bit more page time, and her daughter is a drip, but fortunately her granddaughter (whom I spent most of the book actively hating, believing her to be a bigot) is growing into the queenly role. The only evil female authority figure turned out to be... not quite what the reader would expect. (Honestly, did anyone see that coming?)

I did have some issues with the book. I wished, for example, that Seraphina had at least one other female friend besides the Princess. The two girls did not share very many scenes, so almost all Seraphina's interactions were with male characters. (Hopefully this will change in the sequel.) But that's a quibble. The book got far more right than it got wrong.

Cinder, however, is another matter. I do like the book on the whole. Its setting is wonderfully detailed, and its plot a very clever transposition of the Cinderella myth. Cinder herself is a smart, engaging heroine; I love that she's good at what she does. So what's wrong with it? Simply the distribution of power along male/female, good/evil lines. The Lunars, the villains who are threatening Earth with their mind control and threat of mass murder, are led by a woman. Not only that, but this evil empire has a long tradition of female rule, and their Queens have always been evil. But on Earth, where the good guys live, the majority of leaders/rulers are male. The only distinguishable female among these leaders is "Queen Camilla," who is presented in a distinctly unflattering light, less concerned with the safety of the people of Earth than with seeing that hero Emperor Kai, rather than her own son, will have to marry the Evil Lunar Queen. The new Emperor is male; his predecessors are male; his chief adviser is male; they all rule wisely and well. Perhaps most troubling of all is that while Kai is in mourning for his recently deceased father, his mother is never mentioned. We can assume she's been dead for many years, since the Evil Queen had wanted to marry the previous Emperor. But she gets not even the most passing mention -- as if Kai were conceived in a laboratory with the aid of an anonymous egg donor! The absence of the mother, even in memory, means that there are no females at all within Kai's inner circle, unless one counts a subservient android.

I've heard this book called "feminist." Its active heroine notwithstanding, so far it doesn't seem very feminist to me.

The Deverry books by Katharine Kerr have a few interesting and strong females, including in positions of power. They are absolutely in the minority - the human lands are very much an early mediaeval warrior society - but the first novel (Daggerspell) deals specifically with the way in which a strong female leader manages local politics in the face of an uprising. Lovyan is a good ruler in her prime, with no love interest (she is a widow and has inherited in her own right). She is not the main character, but she is a key character in the first novel (and recurs throughout the series).

Jill, the main character, is somewhat more difficult as she does have to choose (repeatedly across incarnations) between love or magic. Magic isn't presented as a male domain, although the mages in the first novel are both male.

In the second sequence (A Time of Xxxx) the focus shifts to the Elven domains, where the society is equal - female and male in balance, although one of the villains is a crazy goddess and another is a powerful witch. Still, given there's been ample illustration of power mad male evil through the first sequence, this doesn't feel especially imbalanced or problematic (especially as the weight of resolving the issues falls mostly on female protagonists with the odd bit of male muscle / moral support). As antagonists, they are judged on the basis of being batshit crazy, not because they are female (although much is made of Alshandra being mad "because her daughter is stolen from her", she's batshit crazy from the start. She gets *angry* when she thinks her daughter is being stolen from her). The witch is every bit as power-mad as the male villains who precede her, and similarly collects the markers of Doing Evil Evilly.

NB These books are still set in a man's world - so most of their women are just talking a lot about marriage/babies and requiring rescuing, especially in the past incarnation arcs. This extends to a swordsman thinking (he's wrong, and this is very clear) that he will get away with rape because Oh Hey, I'm a Strong Man With A Sword - She'll Like It.

Still - witch aside, only two other human women I can think of in the "past" (i.e. incarnation arcs) aren't basically swoony helpless things with limited agency. Lovyan in the "present" is an exception, and Jill has been working up to open rebellion against all that swooning in her previous lives.

And I'm not sure either sequence would pass the Bechtel test, although there may eventually (i.e. second sequence) be conversations between women that are only about magic or how to win a war. Maybe.

Does Ms Frizz from The Magic School Bus count? ;)

Thendara House by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
She by H. Rider Haggard.

35: Ayesha is sympathetic?? I would have thought she was the poster child for "if you give women power, bad things will happen"!

This isn't really to bash Haggard. He was a creature of his time, and his time was the nineteenth century. At that time, no male author -- or female author, for that matter -- could conceive in his (or her) wildest notions a female ruler who wielded power with wisdom, justice, and mercy. They just couldn't think of one. This was the heyday of the contrast between the Evil Powerful Woman (in this case, Ayesha) and the Good Powerless Woman (in this case, Ustane, or Tanya in the 1935 film -- a character who irritated me so much that I had to turn off the movie). Ayesha is certainly dangerous, a credible threat to male authority. But she is NOT sympathetic. Her downfall is necessary in order for the Right (in this case, male authority) to prevail.

I do not expect any recommendations in this thread that were published before 1970. The only possible exception might be George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind.

I've just reread Till we have faces, in which Orual is shown to be a wise and sensible Queen. Although is clear that she has made mistakes in her life, due to her possessive love for her sister Psyche which leads to tragedy, once she becomes Queen she rules justly and makes good decisions with the help of her advisors. Orual herself is narrating the story, but she is very clear-eyed and honest about her faults so I think she is a reliable narrator when describing her reign. She is not always a synpathetic character, but she is a good ruler.

Ok, so Ayesha has a jealousy issue. ;)

I'm straining my brain to think of books with female authority figures. Science Fiction might be easier, military officers etc. Maybe there's a gap in modern Fantasy?

37: Thank you for reminding me of Till We Have Faces. That certainly would be an exception to the general rule. Queen Lucy the Valiant, at least in the later Narnia books, might also qualify as an exception. I'd be willing to call Tolkien's Galadriel an exception as well, if only her part weren't so tiny.

38: I looked at some of the reviews of Haggard's novel and was surprised at how quickly a book's message may be misinterpreted. One reviewer called Ayesha a "kick-ass heroine" -- really? If she's a "heroine," so is Lady Macbeth! Another reviewer dismissed the book as "too feministy," as if ANY depiction of a woman in charge is automatically feminist. If that is so, then Sir Thomas Malory is "feministy" for his portrayal of Morgan le Fay!

Depictions abound of women in authority designed with the expressed purpose of showing why having a woman in charge is a bad, bad thing. Let's see, we have Robert Jordan's female authority figures; Frank Herbert's Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres; almost any Arthurian fiction except Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon; modern depictions of evil Queen Maeve (Medb), the deadly enemy of Cuchulainn; the evil matriarchy in Anthony and Lackey's If I Pay Thee Not In Gold... Lots of examples are listed under "God Save Us From the Queen" in TV Tropes. Positive examples, less numerous, turn up under "The High Queen" -- but alas, many of those examples -- like, say, Queen Thayet in Tamora Pierce's Tortall Universe -- are not Queens in their own right, but instead get what power they have from being the wives of Kings.