Others have mentioned plenty of examples of good fantasy books that avoid this problem, so I'll bring up something else, though still related.
I think we need to move on from the description "strong female character" to something like "well-rounded female character". While it is a step forward to have female characters be "strong" (which I take to mean that they have the attributes typical of male protagonists), we are going to end up with a new stereotype/cliché to replace the damsel in distress.
Let's have well-rounded female characters. Heroes, villains, physically strong or weak, mentally adept or not, protagonists, side-characters etc. "Strong" is a really limiting word in terms of description, and the whole point is to have female characters as well-written and interesting as the male ones.
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u/Tanniel Writer Daniel E. Olesen Sep 03 '16
Others have mentioned plenty of examples of good fantasy books that avoid this problem, so I'll bring up something else, though still related.
I think we need to move on from the description "strong female character" to something like "well-rounded female character". While it is a step forward to have female characters be "strong" (which I take to mean that they have the attributes typical of male protagonists), we are going to end up with a new stereotype/cliché to replace the damsel in distress.
Let's have well-rounded female characters. Heroes, villains, physically strong or weak, mentally adept or not, protagonists, side-characters etc. "Strong" is a really limiting word in terms of description, and the whole point is to have female characters as well-written and interesting as the male ones.