Tamora Pierce/Awesome

Song of the Lioness

• Alanna, in the first Tortall books, called out one of the most powerful men in the kingdom for attempted murder and beat him in single combat. And then she defeated his Batman Gambit by doing exactly the opposite of her defining characteristic in the series thus far. Epicness.
  • He expects you to fight. So stop fighting.
  • Not to mention her defeat of the Ysandir at the end of the first book of the series. One line stands out: "she had shown the Ysandir that a girl was the worst enemy they could ever face."
    • About half of what Alanna does counts, honestly. The girl's a walking Action Girl and Determinator that doesn't let anyone defeat her. Ever.

The Immortals

• Daine managing to claw out Magnificent Bastard Ozorne's throat with the badger claw she received in the first book of the series had roughly the same effect.
  • Not to mention when she, thinking that Numair was dead, awakened a hall of previously dead dinosaurs, stormed through and tore up the entire palace, then left its ruins to the rats by magically asking the ratcatchers of the city to stay away. Revenge is Daine.
• Don't mess with Numair. He'll turn you into a tree.

Protector of the Small

• Keladry managing to beat a centaur twice her size to a pulp and take control of the disorganized squad was also the moment when people in the story began to take her seriously. This and the fact that she's the only non-magical protagonist in Pierce's Tortall series just made it more awesome.
  • Let's clarify the "take control of the disorganised squad" scene, assuming it's the one I'm thinking of. Kel and her fellow pages are out on a summer training camp in the hill country. Her group is sent out to map the area and catch some game for food. They run across a group of bandits in the hills. While the older page in charge of the group panics in confusion, Kel keeps her head and rallies her friends into a tactical retreat. One man on a horse charges at Kel as she brings up the rear. She guts him with a spear and continues to keep the group together while they reach a more defendable position until their training master arrives with The Cavalry. How old is Kel when she does all this? Twelve.
  • And don't forget that, in order to maintain a defensible position Kel had everyone scale a cliff and hide in a cave. This, while she was still scared of heights.
    • In the climax of that same book, she climbed a tower to save Lalasa from kidnappers. Again, terrified of heights.
• Keladry's mother has one in the first book of that quartet - in a flashback, she saves her very young daughter and the two sacred Yamani swords from Scanran raiders. By killing them all with a glaive. By herself. When the guards finally come, they all bow low. Badassery is clearly genetic.
• Kel training her Shrinking Violet maid in self-defense and finally having it pay off.
• Kel's explanation for why she's all but declaring war on hazing, and her friend's response to it.

Kel: "If we take this as pages, what about when we are knights? Do we say, Oh, now I'm going to be nice to the weak and the small? Or do we do as we learned when we were pages? I don't mean to lecture. You can laugh and say I'm a silly girl - but when I see anyone big pick on someone small, well, there's going to be a fight. Joren and his friends are out there looking for someone to hurt. I want to stop them."

Neal: [...] "You're the oldest ten-year-old I've ever met. [...] It means I'm trying to justify to myself the fact that the best lesson I ever had on chivalry came from someone five years younger than me. When you put it that way, well, I guess I'd better help."

• the whole last half of Lady Knight, really. Kel and a little army of friends- ( around 20 trained warriors, 4 very weary knights, a page, a few civilians, a cat, some dogs and a few sparrows) rescue all of the children that have been kidnapped. this involves fighting an army of 150, plus a rather powerful mage, AND his killing devices on the way. they wipe out every last one of the enemy, and only lose a horse, a few dogs, and 4 of the warriors.

Daughter of the Lioness

• Then there's Sarai and Dove, the girls Aly is protecting. They each get one: Sarai, years out of practice, is holding a sword at the right moment and stops an assassination while Dove, (at thirteen), rallies the rebel armies and keeps them fighting by flying overhead on a winged horse - invoking this trope to spur them on. And not to forget Aly herself - her mother was the favored of gods. Aly mouths off to them and tricks them. Badassery. Genetic.
  • How about Sarai trying (and almost managing) to kill her lover after he murders her father? Then Dove, who is, again, twelve at the time, shoots him with an arrow, killing him pretty much instantly. Just generally badass, these three girls.

Circle of Magic

• In Street Magic, Briar Moss, among other things, nearly kills a girl who is allergic to roses by causing rose vines to grab her and put out massive blooms right by her face, turns an old oak door into a tree, and destroys a massive castle using vines. At the end of "Briar's Book", he and the girls pull Rosethorn out of death. Even the head of the Circle goes "Yeah...nobody here can tell anyone about this."
  • And how Briar magically speed-grows a huge coocoon of thorny vines right up THROUGH the eunuch who has a garotte cord pulled tight around Briar's neck, essentially tearing the eunuch apart.
• Daja Kisubo at multiple points during Cold Fire walks through burning buildings to rescue victims, and earlier on in Daja's Book creates a living tree made of metal by accident.
• Trisana Chandler is, most of the time, a walking Crowning Moment of Awesome, what with being able to control storms and all.
• This troper is disgusted that Sandry did not get a specific mention from the first two quartets. Honestly, tropers. First of all, while untrained, she combines four different peoples' magics in a way nobody had a clue was even possible; then, when serial killers threaten her student, she doesn't just kill them: she dissolves one completely out of existence and literally rips the other two apart. Literally. And her power works with thread.
  • When Sandry heard her uncle had a heart attack before Magic Steps, she wove several people's clothes into cocoons just to get to him, and then held her uncle's soul to his body while the healers saved him.
• The Will of the Empress was an ever escalating series of Crowining Moments of Awesome for all four of the protagonists. It included:
  • Sandry trapping dozens of people in coccoons made out of their own clothes, which is probably becoming a trademark of hers.
  • Daja and Briar taking down a great mage famed for his defensive spells.
  • Tris holding back the rain for hundreds of feet while continuing to read, plugging up a tunnel by moving giant boulders, stopping a hurricane, and controlling wind with enough power and precision to fly.
  • The four of them combined defeating the greatest mage in Namorn by breaking through the magical border meant to protect the country from invading armies. Let me repeat: armies. And it was broken by four teenagers. Badass.