History ComicBook / RedSonja

* TouchedByVorlons: The source of Sonja's power in comics where her abilities are supernatural, the early run of Dynamite comics had her granted her swordsmanship by the goddess Scathach and in the novels the blue vision that gave her power was a manifestation of her own spirit - Sonja was a ''True Soul'', a person of great destiny, and through this she gave herself supernatural swordsmanship (sorcerers in the novel can actually detect that her fighting abilities are magical in nature).

* WorldsBestWarrior: In several versions, Sonja is either the uncontested greatest warrior in the world or has only Conan as a true peer.

* DependingOnTheWriter: Red Sonja has been subjected to various retcons depending on who's writing her at the time - with changes ranging from whether she was the oldest child or the youngest child in her family, how old she was when her family was slaughtered, whether she got raped or not and why she was raped (originally the bandit leader was just horny and saw a beautiful red-headed girl, while in the Dynamite comics - Sonja was just a tween but she pissed off the bandits and they decided to rape her in revenge), whether she was divinely granted abilities or did she just develop them naturally and etc.

* FarmBoy: Well, farmgirl in her case but in almost all of her incarnations Red Sonja and her family were farmers/foresters before they got attacked.

* StatuesqueStunner: Her height is officially 5'11" ... in the current series by Amy Chu, she's 6'0'' and was played by the 6'0'' Creator/BrigitteNielsen in the movie.

Red Sonja, the She-Devil with a Sword, is a low fantasy sword and sorcery heroine created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith. She first appeared in ''Comicbook/ConanTheBarbarian'' #23 (Creator/MarvelComics, February 1973). The character was loosely based on Red Sonya of Rogatino in Creator/RobertEHoward's short story ''[[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Shadow_of_the_Vulture The Shadow of the Vulture]]'' (''The Magic Carpet'', January 1934), which Roy Thomas rewrote as a Conan story for the Marvel comic.

* LikeADuckToWater: In runs where Sonja was granted mastery over weapons by Scathach, she can turn virtually any object into an instrument of death with expert skill. In the current run by Amy Chu, her ability to learn new skills is practically a superpower. Arriving in New York, she quickly figures out how to use a remote control to operate a television and becomes almost fluent in English in 24 hours ... a faster learning curve than Wonder Woman. She somehow also learns how to *read* English without being taught and even picks up how to drive a motorbike just by riding on the back of one(with a nasty hangover, to boot).

* BadassNormal: {{Zigzagged}}, Whether Sonja is superhuman or not depends on the writer. Her fighting prowess was divinely granted rather than the product of natural training and under some writers Sonja is acknowledged to be just a mortal fighter on peak female human condition. Others explicitly make her superhuman to a least some degree. She once demonstrated a healing factor and other writers have ranged from being MadeOfIron to giving her [[SuperStrength the strength of multiple men.]] For example, Michael Avon Oeming's Sonja was an unearthly warrior virtually impossible to defeat in combat, whereas Gail Simone's could be beaten in a duel with a skilled swordsman and got thrown out of a bar by a couple of bouncers. Amy Chu's take on the character in the current run is probably the most physically impressive yet. She can take a fall onto bare rock from 30 feet up and jump straight up again, and can leap 15 feet straight up to slash a sauropod-sized demon; she is also swiped by the same demon and hurled hundreds of feet away and immediately jumps to her feet unscathed. She can catch a thrown knife by the hilt in the dark without even looking and can necklift a 250lb man with one arm, with him being unable to break her grip with both hands. Amy Chu has said in a Reddit chat that Sonja developed her abilities through sheer bloody determination and training (i.e. without divine intervention, unlike Oeming's version) but that she has the strength of several men and is powerful enough to topple a horse with a punch.

* BookDumb: Despite her mother's efforts, Sonja is only borderline literate. She may have a learning disability; she describes working very hard to develop only crude handwriting.

* MusclesAreMeaningless: Sonja is far stronger than most men she encounters but lacks the muscle mass to illustrate this.

* SiblingTeam: The Red Sisters in ''Queen Sonja'' and Ayla and Nias in the Simone's 2013 run.
* SingleMindedTwins: Ayla and Nias, the two hunters sent to track Sonja. They're always in the frame together and complete each other's sentiments if not sentences.

* BadassNormal: {{Zigzagged}}, Whether Sonja is superhuman or not depends on the writer. Her fighting prowess was divinely granted rather than the product of natural training and under some writers Sonja is acknowledged to be just a mortal fighter on peak female human condition. Others explicitly make her superhuman to a least some degree. She once demonstrated a healing factor and other writers have ranged from being MadeOfIron to giving her [[SuperStrength the strength of multiple men.]]

She was played by Brigitte Nielsen in the 1985 film ''Film/RedSonja''.

* AmazonianBeauty: The comic character can be this DependingOnTheArtist - she has been more commonly depicted as svelte and voluptuous than buff (though there are exceptions). She was definitely one in the live action movie played by Brigitte Nielsen.

* StatuesqueStunner: Her height is officially 5'11" ... in the current series by Amy Chu, she's 6'0'' and was played by the 6'0'' Brigitte Nielsen in the movie.

* DeadlyDecadentCourt: Despite Songara appear to be peaceful and isolated from the rest of Hyboria, Sonja quickly finds out their nobles are a cutthroat bunch that do not take kindly to a foreigner (and a ''woman'', no less) being on the throne and they attempt to find ways to remove or subvert her.

* DistractedByTheSexy: This is [[DependingOnTheWriter sometimes]] given as the reason for the ChainmailBikini. The ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' stats for Red Sonja from ''ComicBook/PathfinderWorldscape'' show her chainmail bikini doesn't give her any armor bonus at all (her only armor bonus comes from Bracers of Armor +4), but she does have an ability that lets her add her Charisma bonus (18, for a +4 bonus) to Armor Class when not wearing armor,
-->''Opponents are distracted by her boo--, uh, "confidence and personality".''

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: A villainous version of this appears in the 2nd issue of Red Sonja: The Black Tower. After maiming the thug Fengar Tolt in the previous issue, he becomes a mighty warlord and captures Sonja. Not only that, he also has [[EyeScream one of her eyes is cut out]]. None of these events are shown on-panel.

* BadassNormal: Even though her fighting prowess was divinely granted rather than the product of natural training, Sonja is acknowledged to be just a mortal fighter on peak female human condition. She had also fought against evil monsters, beasts, sorcerers and even ''gods''.

* ArchEnemy: The [[EvilSorcerer sorcerer Kulan Gath]] has repeteadly plagued her life more than any foe and [[WhyWontYouDie has a knack for not staying dead]].

* TheFagin: Jubal
* {{Fanservice}}: Not just our female protagonist provides this. Named male characters are often depicted shirtless with excellent muscle definition.

!!''Red Sonja'' provides examples of:

* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Thulsa Doom in the Dynamite run look more like his movie counterpart than the original, skull-headed necromancer from the original Kull stories.
* AmazonianBeauty: Definitely Nielsen in TheMovie. The comic character can be this DependingOnTheArtist.
* AncientEgypt: Represented by Stygia: pyramid as mausoleum, slave labor, stereotypical dress, and a NephariousPharaoh.
* AndroclesLion: In ''Red Sonja: Beserker'', Sonja rescues a polar bear cub from a pair of sadistic hunters who were tormenting it. The bear stays with her through winter. Years later, Sonja has been sentenced to [[GladiatorGames die in the arena]] and a bear is unleashed against her. It turns out to be the same bear and refuses to attack her. The two team up and escape the arena.
* AndTheAdventureContinues: Most individual arcs as well as the end of Simone's run ended on this note, with Sonja riding off into the sunset to find more battles to fight.
* AnimalAssassin: Sonja sets the arena animals on their masters in ''Red Sonja: Berserker''.
* AnnoyingArrows: Notably averted, at least in the Simone run. Sonja recognizes archers as a threat (having been one herself) and will write off any plan that requires charging them.
* {{Anticlimax}}: With only a day remaining before her deadline Sonja bashes into an inn and declares she's taking Rakaua with her and slaughtering everyone who gets in her way. The innkeeper happily informs her that they've heard of her quest and are honored to assist. Rakaua still requests he be carried out over her shoulder (for dramatic reasons) but Sonja is underwhelmed by the whole experience.
* AnythingThatMoves: Unlike previous versions, the Gail Simone incarnation was not raped and will not lose her fighting abilities if she has sex, so she's more than happy to indulge. She's also not too particular about who she does it with. Man, woman, horned forest god are all fair game.
* ArcherArchetype:
** This is shown as the first weapon Sonja used when she avenged her family, having practiced hunting rabbits.
** Ayla and Nias are also expert archers due to their hunting backgrounds.
* ArentYouGoingToRavishMe: In ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' v2 #16, a crossover with {{Wolverine}}, Red Sonja is beaten by Wolverine and essentially gives up and waits for him to rape her, but he walks away, disgusted by the idea and saying "Sorry, darlin', that ain't my style." Sonja is both perplexed and slightly insulted, so she follows him. After their next meeting he warms up to her, and she eventually becomes his queen.
* AnArmAndALeg: At one point Sonja's hands are burned to the point of being permanently crippled to prevent her from ever holding a weapon again.
* ArmedWithCanon: Creator/GailSimone had Sonja encounter Osric the Untouched, a seemingly invincible swordsman who has his skills given to him by the gods and who can only have sex with the person who defeats him in battle. Sonja declares that she has never heard of anything so stupid.
* {{Astrologer}}: Samala believes "the greatest stargazer in the world" is an astrologer, but defined target Plaitius is an astronomer.
* AvengingTheVillain: After the death of Kalas-ra, his brother Katharas-ra comes hunting for his killer.
* BackForTheFinale: Not quite the finale, but the penultimate plot has Sonja's friends show up to say goodbye as she lies on her deathbed. Ayla and Nias, Gribaldi and Avena, Plaitius, Rat, Rakaua, Osric, and even [[spoiler:Annisia]] all appear in addition to a mob of nameless extras claiming to represent villages that Sonja protected.
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler:Dark Annisia]] joins Sonja's friends for their BackForTheFinale mourning party.
* BadassBoast: In the Gail Simone version she throws these before or halfway through almost every fight. Apparently it's much more successful offscreen.
-->'''Osric:''' Do they ''always'' run?\\
'''Sonja:''' I'd say it's about half and half.
* BandOfBrothels: Aneva's brothel is an abusive one in that Captain Ferox protects them from outside violence but no one protects the workers from him and his men. Aneva's stated dream is to create a prostitute-run band.

* BarBrawl: A common trope in Red Sonja stories, usually at the start of a story and leading to Sonja getting into trouble. There were a couple of instances in Frank Thorne's run at Marvel and a great one early in the Dynamite reboot, with a fantastic cover by Adam Hughes. There have been instances of Sonja starting brawls because she's been out of sorts but usually trouble will occur when another character hits on her or when they are bullying another character. In such instances, Sonja usually comes out on top, relying on any available weapons. She's cut off the wandering hands of would-be admirers with her sword, she's smashed guys with tankards and she's flattened groups of men with her bare hands. There's a short but neat bar brawl in the current series by Amy Chu, where Sonja picks up a table with one hand and hurls it across the bar like a softball, taking a gigantic thug off his feet ... Chu's Sonja is a cut above most Sonjas and WordOfGod is that she is pretty much superhuman.
* BatheHerAndBringHerToMe: Has happened to her more than once, when some EvilOverlord decides to make her part of his harem. See the ''Sonja Goes East'' one-shot for one such example.
* BeastlyBloodsports: Kalayah the Beastmaster oversees these in the ''Art of Blood and Fire'' arc.
* TheBeastmaster: Kalayah claims the title but his assistant Rat does the actual work. She frees herself by setting the gladiator animals loose on Kalayah knowing their love for her will leave her safe. Later she's seen asking a gorilla to break a jail cell and sending her hawk Windsong into combat.

* BlackMagic: Occasionally used by villains. To be fair, it's probably their only hope against the She-Devil with a Sword.

* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: Roy Thomas has said that when he 'created' Sonja, he made her a redhead so she would be visually distinct from the other major women in Conan's life: the black haired Belit and the blonde Valeria.

* {{Bookends}}: Gail Simone writes them for her run on the character: the first page of ''Queen of Plagues'' shows Sonja sleeping in the woods about to be attacked by three men while the last page of ''The Forgiving of Monsters'' shows Halayah recording the same encounter for posterity.
* ButtMonkey: Sonja is turning into this in the Gail Simone run. She's been thrown in the mud by bouncers, has a chef turn her down when she's practically begging him for sex, and a swordsman spanks her in the butt before she falls face first in the mud. Finally a barbarian who saw her get humiliated gives her the nickname Mud Sonja. Stuff like this would never happen in the previous Dynamite incarnations.
* TheCaligula: When she wasn't killing evil sorcerers, Red Sonja was often killing mad kings, many of whom attempted to imprison her in their [[RoyalHarem harem]].
* CapturedOnPurpose: In ''The Art of Blood and Fire'' Sonja makes an assassination attempt against Kalayah, motivating him to capture and imprison her, which allows her to break free (with Rat's help) within his compound and set his own animals against him.
* CarnivalOfKillers: The Gray Riders, a group of twelve mercenaries and assassins hired to hunt down and kill Sonja in the ''Legends of Red Sonja'' mini-series.

* ContrivedCoincidence: Sonja arrives in the bogmen's camp to rescue the chef Gribaldi. Gribaldi foraged some eggs and lizards a few weeks ago and has been cooking them for the tribe. Those eggs and lizards were actually the offspring of lizardmen who choose to attack the bogmen within hours of Sonja's arrival, slaughtering the bogmen so she and Gribaldi can escape.
* CoolOldLady: Gerd, the blacksmith and retired adventurer who gives Sonja her very first ChainmailBikini in a story by Creator/RhiannaPratchett in ''Legends of Red Sonja''. She [[BigBeautifulWoman cut an impressive figure]] [[StoutStrength herself]] before she settled down.
* CrossOver: Red Sonja has crossed over with a number of others from Claw the Unconquered (a BarbarianHero from a different publisher) to ComicBook/SpiderMan and ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}. She was also a major figure in the Dynamite ''Swords of Sorrow'' event, which included Dejah Thoris, Vampirella, and Snow White among others.
* {{Curse}}: With his dying breath Kalas-ra curses Sonja to be incapable of forgiveness. His intent is that her inability to control her rage will see her killed by an angry mob or at least exiled.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: Dark Annisia endured the fighting pits alongside Sonja. Annisia was driven mad, hearing the ghosts of everyone they were forced to slaughter to stay alive and constantly promising to deliver more company to them.
* DeathByIrony: Kalas-ra's vengeance against Sonja is for her to lose control of her rage, resulting in her attacking innocents and allies to turn them against her.
* DefiantToTheEnd:
** Plaitius the stargazer. He faces torture and execution for his observations defying the divine writ of the rector, but refuses to recant even to save his own life.
** Death offers Sonja a job as Death's personal enforcer, seeking glory in battle for eternity. Sonja refuses, mostly to prove that she can.
* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu:
** EvilSorcerer Thulsa Doom slays an Elder God in ''Queen Sonja'' #20. Overlaps with DidYouJustScamCthulhu, as he first tricks it into giving him enough power to allow him to kill it.
** Sonja herself gets this a lot; in one mini-series she kills Woden, Loki, the Fenris Wolf and the Midgard Serpent. She also becomes a Witchblade wielder in another mini-series and defeats a fallen archangel.
* DiscontinuityNod: Gail Simone's relaunch dispenses with the "can't have sex unless the man defeats her in battle" aspect of her origin. Instead, a very horny Sonja meets a swords'''man''' who won't have sex with anyone unless they defeat '''him''' in battle. She declares it to be the stupidest thing she's ever heard.

* TheDogBitesBack:
** In the first arc of Simone's run [[spoiler:the queen of the king killed by the mad King of Zamora gets even with him by feeding him the very poison he'd used to decimate the countryside in his drink, resulting in an extremely messy death as all his organs fail at once]].
** Both metaphoric and literal examples in the ''Art of Blood and Fire'' arc: the apprentice Rat releases all the caged animals at once on their abusive trainer Kalayah.
* DolledUpInstallment: Sonja's first appearance was an adaptation of Howard's non-Conan story ''The Shadow of the Vulture''.
* DuelToTheDeath: Invoked by Sonja to beat Osric, the greatest swordsman in the world. Turns out he ''is'' a better swordsman in a duel, but if death is on the line her steely nerves hold up where his fail.
* EmergencyTransformation: It happened to Sonja in the crossover event ''Prophecy'' when she is fatally poisoned by a Mayan demon and in order to save her life, {{Dracula}} turns her into a vampire. She was still a vampire at the end of the story and for a short time in her regular series, until [[StatusQuoIsGod it was reversed]].
* EnigmaticEmpoweringEntity: The "red goddess" Scáthach (known as "The Lady" in some accounts) who grants Sonja her fighting skills in the Creator/MarvelComics version of her origin.
* EternalHero: After a story in which Sonja dies, the subsequent story has the character being reincarnated. This is later revealed to be a mystic line of reincarnation, [[spoiler:back to the days before humans used weapons--Sonja's original incarnation was the first to do so. Apparently being a FieryRedhead is actually the real power of the line, as her fury is what allows each incarnation a way of becoming a great warrior regardless of circumstances, but depending on how she does it, that fury means she can end up a great hero or a great villain.]]
* EvenTheGirlsWantHer: Happens from time to time. Sonja herself even expects it.
-->'''Sonja:''' I'm Red Sonja. I'm everyone's type.
* EvilAlbino: Trolus from ''Savage Sword of Conan'' #1.
* EvilCounterpart:
** Crimson Katherine from ''Giant-Size Red Sonja'' #2.
** Dark Annisia in ''Queen of Plagues''.
* EvilOverlord: Many of Sonja's enemies are warlords or dictators bent on military domination, such as the king of Zamora.
* EvilSorcerer: Kulan Gath, the brothers Kalas-ra and Katharas-ra, and many others.

* TheFagin: Jubal

* {{Fanservice}}:
** What do you think the ChainmailBikini is for?
** Named male characters are often depicted shirtless with excellent muscle definition.

* FireForgedFriends: The ''Art of Blood and Fire'' arc has Sonja collecting six artisans. As they journey with her they band together so that when she is captured, they all contribute to her escape (except for the dancer, who was the last to join).
--> '''Sonja:''' They could have lived lives of endless surplus. They chose friendship instead.
* FishOutOfTemporalWater: She is thrown into modern times with frequent regularity such as her crossover with Spider-Man, the Dynamite crossover ''Prophecy'' and the 2017 run where she was magically displaced in time and is trying to adapt to modern times.
* {{Forgiveness}}: Obviously, a heavy theme in ''The Forgiving of Monsters'' arc.
** Kalas-ra curses Sonja to be unable to forgive, intending that this will lead to her being cast out and/or murdered by the people she protects.
** A barkeep who suffers Sonja's rage as a result forgives her publicly, nullifying the curse's effect in that town.
** Sonja asks Death's forgiveness for opposing her in a literal DuelToTheDeath. Death, who understands Sonja's nature and is barely inconvenienced by the encounter, agrees.
** When Sonja catches up to Fellan, she tells him that he is forgiven since he is no longer the man who sinned against her.
* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: When Sonja meets Death in her fever dream, Death appears as Sonja-but-more-so: ten feet tall in a chainmail bikini with prominent skull motif. Death intends it as a compliment after all the people Sonja has delivered to her arms.
* FullFrontalAssault:
** On a few occasions, Red Sonja has broken out of a [[RoyalHarem harem]] and fought while clothed only with shadow.
** In the third Smith/Tierney novel, ''When Hell Laughs'', her ChainmailBikini is torn off her in the middle of battle. She fights on, and makes no attempt to cover herself even when the danger is past. (For the remainder of the novel series she wears more practical armor, though the cover art keeps the bikini.)
** It also happens in the first act of ''Red Sonja: Blue''; during battle with a monster to save a young man from being a virgin sacrifice, her top is ripped away. [[ArmorIsUseless This, naturally, just pisses her off]], and after defeating the monster (berating the boy not to look all through the rest of the battle) skins it to wear its blue fur as a makeshift tunic.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: While Gribaldi, Rat, Aneva, Osric, and Plaitius are fighting for Sonja's freedom, Rakaua is lost in his dancing in the background.
* GladiatorGames: Commonly overlapped with slavery.
** Sonja is sentenced to the arena in the ''Red Sonja: Berserker'' one-shot.
** In the Gail Simone run, she and Dark Annisia used to be slaves fighting in an arena for the King of Zamora's amusement until they were rescued.
* GodIsEvil: Odin and Loki from the Norse pantheon in ''Wrath of the Gods'' are monstrous beings that rule the realm of Aesir with iron fist and aim to wipe out the Bundini people off from existence and return to Earth just to re-establish their control over mortals. Thor, on the other hand, averts this trope, being [[SemiDivine half-Bundini]] and being genuinely heroic and kind towards humans.
* GoGoEnslavement: A frequent trait of bad guys. The King of Zamora is shown having multiple slaves of both genders from kingdoms he's conquered, including at least one queen whose husband he murdered.
* GoldDigger: Laranda-fa, the Empress Dowager, was a common peasant until she married the emperor. It's implied she murdered him to wield his power.

* GottaCollectThemAll: Sonja is charged with collecting six of the greatest artisans in the world. Four need rescuing from hostile forces, but the other two only need convincing.
* GreatBigLibraryOfEverything: The nuns' Citadel of All Knowledge aspires to be this, but it's really quite small in that context. Considering the time period and the practical difficulties of travel, it may well be the largest collection of knowledge in the world.
* AHandfulForAnEye: Sonja pulls this trick on Raven in the ''Red Sonja: Raven'' one-shot.
* HealingPotion: The alchemist of ''Queen of Plagues'' develops one, but is killed shortly thereafter. The last few drops he manufactured are delivered to Sonja as she lies dying.
* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Aneva. When introduced, her dream is to unite the prostitutes into a guild for their own protection. She agrees to join Sonja to save the lives of slaves who will be freed if Sonja succeeds.
* HumanShield:
** Sonja uses Rudus' body to as a shield to close against archer Haron in the final issue of ''The Forgiving of Monsters''.
** Used tactically by Sonja whenever she's outnumbered. She'll maneuver around frontline fighters to keep a body between herself and arrows/bolts.
--->'''Sonja:''' Basic combat. When surrounded, as the arrows start flying, it's not a matter of how you stand. It's where.
* IHaveYouNowMyPretty: Done to Sonja constantly, whether its by [[TheCaligula mad kings]] and [[EvilOverlord dark lords]] trying to add her to their harems or turn her into a HotConsort, or by [[TheBrute barbarian brutes]] looking forward to [[BestHerToBedHer defeat her in combat to take her as their prize]]. Not even [[EvenTheGirlsWantHer female]] [[DarkActionGirl villains]] (like the Queen of the Frozen Wastes) are exempt from pulling this to. Of course, this is [[BullyingTheDragon always a bad idea]].
* ILied: Though never directly stated, this was [[spoiler:Samala's]] plan all along. Sonja is unsurprised but still pissed.
* ImAHumanitarian: The bog people delight in consuming outsiders who enter their swamps as a delicacy.
* ImportantHaircut: In the final few pages of ''The Forgiving Of Monsters'' Sonja cuts her long red hair short, symbolizing her learned control of her rage.
* INeedAFreakingDrink: Red Sonja has always been a boozer and this probably reached its zenith under Gail Simone, where she was a full-blown alcoholic who could barely function without booze. Current writer Amy Chu has dialled that back a bit but her Sonja still loves a drink. In the storyline where Kulan Gath transports her through time to modern-day New York, her first priority after escaping captivity is food and her second is ale. Sonja pretty much says the trope title while walking around Harlem looking for a bar.
* IShouldWriteABookAboutThis: The final page of Simone's last issue shows Halayah carefully chronicling Sonja's adventures (starting with Simone's first) for the Citadel of All Knowledge.
* ISurrenderSuckers: Rare heroic variant: when Rudus offers injured Sonja the chance to kiss his blade to earn a swift coup de grace, she uses it to get inside his reach and stab him.
* KangarooCourt: Sonja finds herself before one in the ''Red Sonja: Berserker'' one -shot after maiming two young hotheads who mistook her for a prostitute and then attacked. One of them was the son of the justicar who sat in judgement on her.
* KickTheDog:
** Kalayah the Beastmaster not only runs a savage arena pitting animals against each other, after he captures Sonja he puts her horses into the ring -- hamstrung, so they can't run or fight back.
** Laranda-fa forces a slave to brush her hair, then has her executed when the brush shows the girl broke off too many hairs.

* LizardFolk: There is a tribe in the bogmen's swamp, secret enough that Gribaldi doesn't recognize their young as an intelligent species. Sonja dubs them mindless predators, but they are intelligent enough to coordinate an attack on the bogmen (who were prepared for such), to use the table for their feast, and to speak at least a few words.
* LoadBearingBoss: Kalas-ra, who pulls his cavern sanctuary down on top of himself as he's dying of bloodloss. Sonja sprints to the exit.
-->'''Sonja:''' I'll say this about wizards. They are very poor losers.
* LostFoodGrievance: Sonja likes ale, and does not like absence of ale.
** She objects vehemently when Gribaldi uses Cimmerian ale to cook instead of drink.
** It's reversed when Sonja uses Gribaldi's artisanal soup as an improvised weapon.
* LowFantasy: Usually, with some variation depending who's writing. Sonja isn't often motivated to take down a BigBad or Ultimate Evil, nor does she often work alongside other adventurers. She's taking on quests to earn money to get drunk and fights whenever she feels like it.
* MagicFeather: Havan the Fire Maker loses his ability to summon fire. He sought out other magic users to find what he was missing. Sonja re-empowers him by claiming to be a witch princess and commanding him to restore his fire.
* ManEatingPlant: ''Savage Tales'' #5.
* MarkOfShame: In the ''Queen of Plauges'' arc Sonja's face is marked with one after she contracts the plague.
* MasterSwordsman:
** Red Sonja is dangerous with a bow or improvised weapons, but she's most deadly with her sword.
** Also Osric the Untouched, a duelist so named because he's never been touched by his opponents' blades.
* MercyKill: Sonja shoots a mortally injured bear in Kalayah's arena, drawing his ire.

* NephariousPharaoh: Emperor Samala of Stygia

* OhMyGods: "By Ishtar and Mitra!"
* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Plaitius the stargazer is learned in physics to conduct his craft, but he also claims to be an expert in "potions and powders", i.e. biology and chemistry.
* OneSidedArmWrestling: In the ‘Lost In New York’ storyline mentioned under BarBrawl, NeverGetsDrunk and INeedAFreakingDrink above, Sonja finds a seedy bar and while she’s knocking back a couple of beers, she notices a big guy called Luis crushing his friend in an arm-wrestle. Luis then invites the statuesque female barbarian in the chainmail bikini to step up, hoping to BestHerToBedHer and figuring he’s got an easy win on his hands. Unfortunately for him, Sonja immediately smashes his arm down without blinking. With the other patrons laughing at him, Luis complains that he wasn’t ready, so Sonja offers to take him on again. Once more, she immediately and effortlessly beats him, with Luis saying he thinks she broke his wrist. The next panel shows Sonja beating a huge bald guy with ease in an arm-wrestle and this particular bout goes viral on social media and alerts her enemy Kulan Gath to her presence. The strong implication here is that the She-Devil beat every single challenger in the bar without breaking a sweat, although we only see her taking on two. Now factor in that Sonja was sporting a nasty head-wound in the scene and also had a nasty gunshot wound to her arm-wrestling shoulder, suffered in the previous issue. WordOfGod is that Red Sonja is as strong as six normal men.
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: One dark wizard shows off by conjuring wyrms to devour his enemies.

* {{Pirates}}: Just as with ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'', pirates feature prominently in the ''Red Sonja'' stories: both as enemies and allies.
* PlayingWithFire: Havan the Fire Maker can conjure and control flames.
* PlotCoupon: The six artisans Sonja collects in ''The Art of Blood and Fire''.
* PoisonIsEvil: Zigzagged. Poison is evil if used indiscriminately, but acceptable if targeted and used by someone otherwise physically incapable of murdering them.
** Poison is used by the villains of ''Queen of Plagues'' to kill off enemy militaries before a fair fight even starts. The men in question are depicted as cowardly and unnatural.
** The same arc sees one of them heroically poisoned by his own attendant at risk of her own life.
** In the next arc, a chef poisons an evil king when he reneges on his bargain with Sonja.
** The poisoned daggers of Utro are treated as evil since they subject victims to excruciatingly painful death.
* PoisonedWeapons: Utro the Needle uses daggers covered in dung to cause lethal infection from a scratch.

* TheProblemWithFightingDeath: Referenced but handwaved. Sonja goes toe-to-toe and is unabashedly disrespectful when she fights Death herself. After the fight Death communicates that she's not displeased and there's no bad blood between them.
* PsychoLesbian: Not Sonja, but some of her foes fall into this category.

* RedemptionEarnsLife: Fellan the woodsman was the only survivor of the band that killed Sonja's family. He fled and escaped her wrath until she hunted him down decades later. [[spoiler:She forgave him since he gave up raiding and went into self-imposed exile.]]
* {{Retcon}}: Happened partially when Dynamite first re-introduced Red Sonja. While almost all the other details have been kept the same, her age had been reduced to tweeny-hood in her origin (perhaps to increase the believable length of her adventuring career) and she was made to be the youngest child not the oldest. In the latest Gail Simone version, her origin seems to be retconned again, this time making her successful revenge against the killers of her family come from her own childhood skills as a hunter rather than being powered-up by a goddess and there seems to be no rape.
* ReTool: The Creator/GailSimone series, with an eye toward {{Reconstruction}}.

* SanitySlippage: Over the ''Queen of Plagues'' arc Dark Annisia transitions from a competent and fearsome general protecting the world from dangerous plague to a bloodthirsty executioner driven mad by the weight of deaths she's caused.
* SavagePiercings: Katharas-ra wears facial jewelry: two nails driven through his right eyebrow and eyelid and spacer earrings in his nostrils.
* ScarecrowSolution: Played by Gravaha the Clever in her in-universe children's book when she dressed a field of cornstalks as an army to intimidate an enemy with terrible eyesight.
* SchmuckBait: Gribaldi announces his first appetizer to his captor as Khitaian mushroom pate, which the man happily eats. Minutes later Gribaldi announces that any gourmand would know Khitaian mushrooms are poisonous.
* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: Samala empowers Sonja to get the cooperation of the six greatest artisans in the world for his party by offering any amount of money. None of them accept the money, but Sonja persuades them by other means.
** Gribaldi the chef is just happy to repay Sonja for his rescue from the cannibal tribe.
** Rat the beastmaster likewise repays Sonja for ending Kalayah's BeastlyBloodsports.
** Avena the courtesan is willing to help secure the release of Samala's slaves.
** Osric the swordsman agrees after Sonja defeats him in a duel.
** Plaitius the stargazer wants a platform to educate people on his observations of physics.
** Rakaua the dancer finds Sonja's quest noble and interesting.
* TheSecretOfLongPorkPies: Inverted by Gribaldi among the cannibal bogmen. By day they captured travelers and brought them to him to cook for dinner. Instead he cooked foraged foods and released the travelers.
* SingleMindedTwins: Ayla and Nias, the two hunters sent to track Sonja. They're always in the frame together and complete each other's sentiments if not sentences.
* SleepingTheirWayToTheTop: Laranda-fa was a commoner girl until she caught the attention of the emperor with her beauty. Shortly thereafter they were married, and shortly after that he was dead.
* SorcerousOverlord: Kulan Gath.
* SpikedWheels: She acquires a Boudicca-style chariot, complete with spiked wheels, for leading troops into battle in Queen Sonja #4.

* SupremeChef: Gribaldi, renowned as the greatest chef in the world. It's implied that his skills were either the reason the bogmen allowed him to live as a slave or else why they captured him in the first place.
* SwordAndSorcery: One of the genre-defining works.
* ThroughHisStomach: How Gribaldi earned survival from the bogmen. It helps that they have palates sensitive enough to appreciate his work; Sonja certainly doesn't.
* TilMurderDoUsPart: Implied to be how Laranda-fa took the throne as Empress Dowager.
* TorchesAndPitchforks: Used defensively by the town when evil wizard Katharas-ra comes hunting injured Sonja.
* TrueCraftsman: Gribaldi the expert chef, who cannot prevent himself from turning forage into gourmet meals.
* VillainousBreakdown: Dark Annisia is dangerous as the general of an army cleansing plaguebearers. When the plague is cured, she refuses to believe it and executes healthy people violating quarantine. When the plague's true cause is finally revealed she snaps completely into bloodthirsty madness.
* VirginSacrifice: Sonja saves a young man from this fate in ''Red Sonja: Blue''.