I like her a lot but she is a faux action girl. The marketing and commercials show Merida as a badass that can take care of herself, gets things done, is the one who saves the day, and doesn't need anyone to save her. That is most definitely not the case, at least in the second half. In the first half they show her as that, though unfortunately they made her a brat in the first half. In the second half when she actually develops and does learn how to use peace and logic to solves problems and gains wisdom, she unfortunately loses all of her badassery. She constantly has to be saved by her mother and even her younger brothers. She saves her mom from being killed once but that's is. The rest of the time her mother has to constantly save her, even her younger brothers have to save her. I love that she develops, matures, and changes but did they have to make her become a damsel in distress in the process? I mean, there are definitely MUCH worse characters in fiction that are damsels in distress like Bella Swan or Olive Oyl, but she's still a faux action girl. They set up this badass character who was immature at the beginning but later matures and sees the error of her ways and they make her a faux action girl, damsel in distress. Don't get me wrong, I do like Merida a lot but I can't love her because they made her become a faux action girl and took her badassery away.

I'm not really sure if she is or not. There should have been a choice of "I don't know", I'd have chosen that.

I hate those options, they're always a cheap easy way out of answering the question.

Ugh, she definitely is. Even Mulan wasn't marketed as a "badass" like Merida was, and Mulan was far more kick-*** than Merida.

I wish there was a between answer actually because she does have a few factors working aginst her. (a supernatural bear that doesn't even flinch when hit with arrows) But alas, I must choose yes, she's played up as this strong capable independent badass in the first half but ultimately ends up being the biggest damsel in distress of the WHOLE line-up. It's hilarious really.

Yeah, considering she gets to be rescued a lot throughout her film, and she doesn't really use her fighting skills for anything useful (just showing off).

IMO a good female character (but i think this can also be applied to males) is just to let the character do things, and not inform us time and time again about how an "amazing" character this girl is, and blah blah blah.

Could Elsa be considered a faux action girl also? She doesn't really do anything "heroic" in her film yet the Universe thinks she's this ultimate badass...Just for singing a song.

She is not as hard as the trailer show it, but she is also a pixar character, they use to be more realistic , so she sorta a realistic action girl , she did stand for her father and fight

she faces and gets into a lot of action. so she is one. bad@ss? no. there's a difference between that and action girl though. bad-a pacifist is a trope (Pocahontas is one) where they do the OPPOSITE of action/get into fights.

nope