When Asterix speaks out against the chaos, Bravura proposes We Can Rule Together to him and attempts to kiss him. Shocked, he hits her out of reflex. Though he immediately regrets this and apologizes, he also is cast out of the village. Several others join him, partly out of camaraderie and partly because life has become unbearable in the village.
Meanwhile, Julius Caesar is hatching a new plan to get rid of the pesky Gaul village once and for all. His new secret weapon is being shipped in right now: Female legionaries, to take advantage of the fact that everyone knows Gauls Would Not Hit a Girl.
When Asterix tries to warn the remaining villagers of this new threat, he is laughed off. Bravura goes out to the landing army, greeting the legionaries as sisters. This is not received well. However Asterix, impressed by Bravura's prowess in fighting, proposes a truce and the two start hatching a plan.
When the Roman army arrives a while later to attack the seemingly undefended village, they are instead welcomed in with open arms: The Gaulic women have set up the village as a mall with the newest fashions from Lutetia, accessories and shopping possibilities. Forgetting what they came here for, the female legionaries set out to shop, while in the background the men destroy the fortified camps once again. In the end, they reinstate Cacofonix as a bard, chasing the legionaries out of the village with his singing. Asterix and Bravura bury the hatchet, and Caesar is the laughing stock of Rome when the story comes out.
This album has examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Bravura is less than subtle about her attraction towards Asterix, which he doesn't take kindly to.
- All Women Love Shoes: The Gauls ultimately defeat the female legionaries by exploiting their female desire to shop.
- Celibate Hero: Asterix, who is outraged when Bravura tries to flirt with him — although that's admittedly because she's telling him that she's interested in ousting the village's chief, whom Asterix loyally serves.
- Covers Always Lie:
- The cover gives the impression that Asterix is quite flustered by Bravura's attentions. It is really not the case, since he goes as far as hitting her when she forcefully kisses him.
- It also implies that Bravura is the titular secret weapon, and considering the uproar and social disturbance she causes in the village effectively single-handedly you could almost believe she was a secret agent sent by Rome. In fact she's not, the secret weapon is Caesar's female legion.
Only applies to the English version, of course.
- The Dog Bites Back:
- Cacofonix gets a chance to violently hammer Fulliautomatix into the ground for a change, without the aid of magic potion no less.
- After Bravura forcibly kisses him, Asterix gives her a well-deserved slap, even though he regrets it afterwards.
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Bravura is constantly sexually assaulting Asterix (well, as much as she can in a kid's series) and nobody bats an eyelash, but when he finally lashes out, he's exiled. Getafix is the only person who objects to this, and even then his objections are based more on how important Asterix is to the village's defence than the decision actually being unfair. Cacofonix also receives a black eye from a woman in the village, although he already has a long history of being beaten up by villagers of both sexes anyway.
- Didn't Think This Through: Bravura's plan to deal with the female legionaries is to make an offering of peace, assuming that fellow "sisters" will listen to her. This falls apart when the guard at the female camp punches her when she approaches and Claphamomnibus laughs off her offer.
- Eek, a Mouse!!: Part of the plan involves Cacofonix chasing out the animals from the forest to scare the female legionaries. The singing probably did its part, as well.
- Effortless Amazonian Lift: Bravura does this to Asterix.
- Equal-Opportunity Offender: While the story is mainly satire on feminists (mind you strawmen feminists), the males are also mocked with some jokes aimed at their masculinity, chauvinism and in the long wrong all male villagers are shown to be dominiated by their wife.
- Faux Action Girl: Zigzagged with the female legionaries. On the one hand, they do successfully beat up some of the male legionaries when they laugh at them, and one of them slugs Bravura right in the face when she tries the "we're all women, we've no reason to fight" argument. On the other hand, they defeat them by presenting them with an opportunity to shop...
- Fired Teacher: Cacofonix is the first man to leave the village after they decide that Bravura would make a better teacher.
- Hypocritical Heartwarming: When Asterix returns to the village after all the men have left to warn the women, they show they still care about their husbands by giving him a huge array of presents and comforters to take back to them, despite having exiled them in the first place.
- To be fair, Impedimentia is the only one who directly did anything to provoke her husband into leaving, where everyone else just left in a show of solidarity with Asterix.
- Hypocritical Humor: When Asterix comments to Getafix how odd it is to see a female bard, Getafix makes a comment on tolerance. When Asterix then asks if this means there might be female druids one day, Getafix scoffs at the idea.
- Men Use Violence, Women Use Communication: Zig zagged. Men wouldn't use violence on women, but the female legionaries aren't above using violence against their female counterparts. However, the plot is resolved by the women going shopping together, while the men raze the camps. And then Cacofonix chases out the women by singing.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Asterix after he hits Bravura.
- My Instincts Are Showing: Because apparently, all it takes for a trained troop of legionaries to forget discipline is to remind them that All Women Love Shoes, and therefore, like to shop. Vanity Is Feminine, indeed.
- Rage Breaking Point: Asterix puts up with a lot of Bravura's crap, but when she kisses him without his permission, he snaps and punches her, only to regret it.
- Real Women Don't Wear Dresses: Or so the villager's women think after a few evening courses.
- Status Quo Is God: The last plot-relevant appearance of Caesar in Asterix and Son promise to rebuild the Gaulish village after it was burned down, and it was by the next album. This story completely ignores that and now he's planning to destroy them again.
- Straw Feminist: Bravura's hat in a nutshell.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Cacofonix gets to pound away at Fulliautomatix. He later gets to attend the ending feast.Cacofonix: Oh, no! You won’t get me to sing! Oh, no! You won’t get me to sing!
- The Unfair Sex: A plot point is that the Gaul code forbid men to hit women; Caesar even created the female legionaries platoon to exploit this fact (although the same code, according to Asterix, has no problem with Obelix knocking a woman's spear out of her hands and slinging her under his arm, nor did it prevent Vitalstatistix from chopping down Cacofonix's treehouse with Bravura in it).
- Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Fulliautomatix's daughter wishes she could fight with boys, or becoming the village's chief later. Still, she won't trade her skirt for pants.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Getafix calls Impedimenta out for being this when she tries to banish Asterix for hitting Bravura:Getafix: Oh, so the person who's destroyed the harmony of the village is on the council, while the one who has done so much to safeguard our liberties is banished?
- We Can Rule Together: Bravura to Asterix.
- Would Hit a Girl: Asterix, though he didn't mean to and is incredibly remorseful afterwards.
- Would Not Hit a Girl: The Gaul code of chivalry forbids men to hit women. Not, however, the other way round, which is the entire point of the female legionaries.
