Calling all female mad scientists
A friend recently asked on her blog what fictional characters we (her readers) relate to. Two that immediately came to mind for me were Helen Narbonic (from Narbonic) and Agatha Clay (from Girl Genius). Both are female mad scientists from webcomics, which got me wondering what other female mad scientists I might be missing out on. A quick glance at Wikipedia’s List of mad scientists confirms how male-dominated this field is. Though I admittedly only skimmed it, I didn’t see any female mad scientists on the list whose names I recognized other than the above two. Nor have I been able to come up with others off the top of my head (though maybe that’s just due to poor memory/lack of imagination). So, readers, help me out. What other female mad scientists are out there?
(By the way, if you haven’t read them, I highly recommend both Narbonic and Girl Genius. Narbonic is rather slow getting started, but the story and the art both improve tremendously.)
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emilym
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Hm…Ritsuko Akagi from Evangelion, maybe? It’s not quite right, maybe, though she is mad, and a scientist, and also a practitioner of mad science…
Sorry, only one I can think of off the top of my head is Dr. Blight from Captain Planet, and I don’t think that’s exactly what you’re looking for.
Thanks, guys! I haven’t seen Evangelion. Dr. Blight certainly seems to qualify. I suppose I’m more interested in good guys than bad guys, but knowing that there’s some bad guys out there too isn’t bad! (I suppose most mad scientists are bad guys.)
I don’t think Ritsuko is a bad guy, for what it’s worth. Morally complex, certainly, but certainly no worse than many other characters in Eva.
I haven’t seen Neongenesis Evangelion either, but during the year that many of my blockmates were luxuriating in it, my (now-)husband remarked, “Evangelion is very realistic in that, in the real world, you usually remain completely unaware of enormous important things until they destroy you!”
As for female mad scientists, the first to come to mind for me is Qing-jao of Xenocide. As with Elizabeth’s offering, Qing-jao is not quite a fit for the term “mad scientist,” but she is rather mad, and a scientist.
And, with a slight shudder, I have to admit I do identify with her.