My favorite female character in A Song of Ice and Fire has to be Daenerys Targaryen.  

I didn’t like her at first.  She irritated me when I started reading A Game of Thrones, the way she always deferred to her brother, how tremulous and frightened she seemed.

She was a sad character.  I thought her whole story was going to be about how terrible her life was -her marriage, her family, her exiled-royalty status.  Those things paired with Viserys mad obsession to reclaim the Iron Throne had me convinced Daenerys’ chapters would be unbearable.

But I quickly came to realize I was wrong.

She took to her new status as Khaleesi, gaining regality and confidence every day, and came to love her husband, Khal Drogo, deeply.  I started to like her more and more as the uncertainty and fear drained out of her like so much blood from a wound.

Daenerys took on a queenly manner, kind and devoted to her subjects yet commanding respect.  She won her people with strength, charisma, and eloquence.

She is revealed to be trilingual, fluent in the Common Tongue, High Valyrian, and proficient in Dothraki, and begins to reiterate, “I do not have a gentle heart.”

Daenerys comes to embody her House words, “Fire and Blood,” becoming Mother of Dragons and determined to her place as rightful queen of Westeros.

She is shown to have become both strategic and cunning, wrecking havoc in Astapor and gaining the undying loyalty of the Unsullied.

Yeah.  She’s pretty much a badass.