Spearwaifu

A list of women warriors who use spears. Title comes from the spearwives of the wildling civilization of A Song of Ice and Fire (a.k.a. Game of Thrones) and my own self-hatred. Two elaborate and detailed sources indeed.

Honestly, though, this is a really weird trend. It's apparently due to a Japanese folk legend about the wife of a prominent daimyo or some such who ably defended her homestead with a naginata (a Japanese spear with a sword at the end, for those asking), so it's sort of garnered this reputation in Japan as a woman's weapon. But like a really tough woman's weapon. Amazonian badasses. Japanese games could use more of that archetype, even if they do end up giving them all pointy sticks.

List items

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  Oerba Yun Fang

  Start with some Final Fantasy ladies. Oerba Yun Fang? More like Final Feistasy, am I right? Rowr. This is already the worst list I've ever made.

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  Freya Crescent

  This Final Fantasy IX spear-wielder is a reticent rat monster that riverdances. Not a particularly sexualized character, thankfully, but I'm sure the internet disagrees.

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  Raynie

  So I've been playing a lot of Radiant Historia of late. Despite having a big pole and being largely outspoken about asskickery, Raynie's also your primary magic-user. The demure princess, conversely, has very few spells and just shoots everyone with her twin pistols. It's an odd game, but I like how it mixes things up - nothing archetypal about Raynie. I mean, besides the spear thing.

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  Dominica

  Man, I did not anticipate Dominica would be in our wiki already. A minor playable character from the decidedly minor Infinite Undiscovery, Dominica is a mercenary and kind of the cool older sister to main heroine Aya. Loooot of cool older sister types on here.

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  Valkyrie

  The Valkyries of Valkyrie Profile (and of Valkyria Chronicles too, to an extent) all wield spears. Well, at least when they're performing their special attacks. Hrist, Silmeria and Lenneth are all Norse deities bred for combat and strife, so "badass" is probably an understatement.

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  Hilde von Krone

  Lances are kind of like spears, I guess. Hilde's a relatively new addition to the Soul Calibur universe with her appearance in IV, which is kind of like introducing a new recurring Simpsons character in Season 21 and expecting anyone to care. The lance and sword combo is a somewhat exotic weapon style, though. Especially without a horse.

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  Gwendolyn

  The requisite "character from a game I haven't played", Odin Sphere's heroine does most of her jabbing with her gem spear from what I can tell. I don't know what it is, but I've never been able to get into a brawler RPG. Not even Guardian Legend.

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  Kotone Shiomi

  The succinctly-named Persona 3 Portable Female Protagonist specializes entirely in spears, which adds another layer onto her creepy statutory relationship with fellow spear-wielder and 9 year old (or maybe 13, I dunno, kids all look the same age) Ken Amada. What's odd is that they designed this new redhead character for the able portable port, like the guy version wasn't androgynous enough to pass for either gender. They could've just added a ribbon and made that work, Ms Pac-Man style.

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  Judith

  Judith's one of my favorite Tales characters, because she just straight up doesn't give an eff. Though technically not an elf, she is technically an elf and the elves of Terca Lumireis manifest that whole "living forever" thing with a world-weary, laid-back, apathetic attitude towards everything. I mean, she needs to save the world from all the destructive McGuffins, but she's not going to rush or anything.

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  Seung Mina

  Ah screw it, people are going to wonder where she is anyway. Another Soul Calibur character, Seung Mina is probably who I should've put on this list instead of Hilda. You know, because she actually has a spear instead of a weird pointy pole with a flag on it. Man, there's probably a lot of Dynasty Warrior and Samurai Shodown spearwomen too. Let's pretend I just wanted to stop at ten, but if I were to keep going I would totally add them all and you're right to mention them in the comments below. It is totally okay for you to do that if your spearwaifu isn't on here. Fair warning though: I think I'll be trying to forget this list exists pretty much the moment after I publish it.

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  Nifsara

  Aw crap, I forgot about Nifsara! Figures there'd be at least one of pretty much every anime archetype ever to be found in a Suikoden game, but Nifsara's cool. She's a bodyguard to a particularly effeminate noble (in a game that already has an effeminate royal protagonist) and develops a taste for pretty boys upon joining the Prince's army. Worth noting also are fisherwomen Lun and Subala from the same game, who also use spears and argue with each other about their breast size. I dunno you guys, I think there's some sketchy business going on with these games sometimes. But hey, a conversation like that technically passes the Bechdel test.