History ComicBook / RedSonja

* ''Prophecy'' (2013) - First crossover starring Red Sonja and Vampirella

[[folder: Comic Book Reading List]]

[[folder: Novel Reading List]]

She was played by Creator/BrigitteNielsen in the 1985 film ''Film/RedSonja''. A reboot film project has been in DevelopmentHell for quite some time. However, on October 11, 2022, it was reported that a new film adaptation was being produced at Millennium Media with Creator/MatildaLutz playing the heroine.

* 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.

* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Virtually the entire kingdom wishes to avenge Sultan Bashir in "Birth of a She-Devil" despite the fact he was a FatBastard HateSink.

** In ''Unbreakable Red Sonja'', Sonja begins a new journey whose new partner is a child version of her.

She was played by Creator/BrigitteNielsen in the 1985 film ''Film/RedSonja''. A reboot film project has been in DevelopmentHell for quite some time.

* 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.

* VirginSacrifice: Sonja saves a young man from this fate in ''Red Sonja: Blue''.
* WarriorVersusSorcerer: Like Conan, Sonja frequently finds herself pitted against {{Evil Sorcerer}}s, the most recurring of which is Kulan Gath. Sonja has occasionnally expressed a dislike for magic due to bad experiences.

* StrawMisogynist: Red Sonja is constantly getting mocked by men for the fact she's a swordswoman rather than a wife or concubine.

* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: In the Brian Reed's run, Sonja's sister Verona sides with Lord Lucan Martur with whom she has been having a secret affair and they send a crew of pirates to kill Sonja and her husband Daniel Dorn. Lucan ends up selling Verona and their baby into slavery for money and Verona is ultimately murdered by Sonja after her treachery is revealed, with her baby being given by Sonja to a kindly woman who wanted a daughter of her own.
* RoyalBastard: The''Vulture's Circle'' arc has Xoana who is one of Sonja's students. She is the daughter of King Xoan of Zingara and his favorite concubine. When Xoana's mother died, Xoan, [[MurderTheHypotenuse suspecting she was actually murdered by his jealous wife Queen Isaura]], sent Xoana to Sonja's school for young female warriors for the girl's safety.

She was played by Creator/BrigitteNielsen in the 1985 film ''Film/RedSonja''. Creator/HannahJohnKamen is slated to portray the character in a film reboot as of 2021.

* 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.

* BreakingOfTheFellowship: Leera loses Sonja's trust due to [[spoiler: keeping Kulan Gath's amulet]] and is sent away with her best friend.

* TheBreakingOfTheFellowship: Leera loses Sonja's trust due to [[spoiler: keeping Kulan Gath's amulet]] and is sent away with her best friend.

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 ''Literature/TheShadowOfTheVulture'' (''The Magic Carpet'', January 1934), which Roy Thomas rewrote as a Conan story for the Marvel comic. Hence "Sonja" is supposed to be pronounced "Sonya", not with a J sound.

* {{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.
* ReTool: The Creator/GailSimone series, with an eye toward {{Reconstruction}}.

[[folder: Dynamite Comics]]

[[folder:Comic Tropes]]
* AdaptationalAttractiveness: Thulsa Doom in the Dynamite run looks more like his movie counterpart than the original, skull-headed necromancer from the original Kull stories.
* 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.

* 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.
* AnimalAssassin: Sonja sets the arena animals on their masters in ''Red Sonja: Berserker''.
* 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.
* AvengingTheVillain: After the death of Kalas-ra, his brother Katharas-ra comes hunting for his killer.
* 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.

* 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. ''Birth of the She-Devil'' also opens with a Sultan making this fatal mistake. Probably in homage to her first solo comic appearance (see above).
* 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.

* 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.
* BodyguardBabes:
** The Red Sisters serve as the PraetorianGuard to Sonja as Queen of Songaria.
** Ayla and Nias from the Gail Simone's run also serve Sonja.
* BrokenPedestal:
** In the Brian Reed's run, Scathach reveals that Sonja was created from the blood of Kulan Gath, saying that and that his hair is red due to the blood of Gath that runs in his veins with each reincarnation and to make matters worse, Sonja discovers that Scathach let her family be massacred and she be raped purposely only to use it as a weapon to destroy Gath forever. Sonja renounces the your devotion to Scathach for her betrayal is revealed by the goddess herself.
** Ozzyus in "Birth of The She-Devil" is the man who raised Red Sonja after her family's death and helped her become a thief as well as drunkard (not that he's proud of these things). Red Sonja turned against him when he and she robbed their employers, genuinely nice people, resulting in the father's horrific demise as well as the enslavement of his daughter. Ozzyus eventually quit drinking and turned to Mitra but it was too late to regain her respect.

* 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.

* {{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.
* DecadentCourt: Despite Songara appearing 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.
* 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: 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.
* 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''.
* 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.
* EvilAllAlong: The thief Jubal, who personally trained Sonja in her youth, was revealed to be a Kulan Gath's follower who tried to resurrect his master before Sonja stopped him.
* EvilCounterpart: Crimson Katherine from ''Giant-Size Red Sonja'' #2. She is a woman with a backstory virtually identical (orphaned, made a compact after her family was killed, redheaded female barbarian hero) but was empowered by the Goddess of Vengeance. They initially team up before Sonja realizes she's just too extra.

* EyepatchAfterTimeSkip: In issue #2 of ''The Black Tower'' arc, it is revealed that Sonja lost one of her eyes after spending years being forced to fight as a gladiator and is shown wearing an eye patch.
* EyeScream: Sonja gets an eye removed by a vindictive warlord in ''Black Tower'', due to some [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong timestream repairing]] when a possible clone/bastard daughter or whatnot of Sonja went back to the past, losing the eye was undone.
* TheFagin: Jubal in ''Queen Sonja'' was a criminal that trained children to pickpocket and "conscripted" Sonja during her teenage years.

* 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.

* GladiatorGames: Commonly overlapped with slavery.
** Sonja is sentenced to the arena in the ''Red Sonja: Berserker'' one-shot.
** In ''The Black Tower'' arc, Sonja spends years being forced to fight as a gladiator before breaking free.
* 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.

* 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.
* GreatWhiteFeline: Issue #50 of the original Dynamite run has Sonja accompanying an EgomaniacHunter known as Lord Kinzara on a hunt for a mythical beast known as the Cloud Tiger which takes the form of a large, terrifying white tiger. Sonja convinces him to journey to the top of a mountain with just her and leave his hunting party behind. When they are confronted by the Cloud Tiger, it is revealed that Kinzara was the leader of the bandits who murdered Sonja's family and raped her when she was a child. Sonja has spent years tracking him down and used his obsession with hunting to lure him to his doom. Sonja leaves Kinzara to be killed by the Cloud Tiger and avenges her family.
* AHandfulForAnEye: Sonja pulls this trick on Raven in the ''Red Sonja: Raven'' one-shot.
* HeelFaithTurn: Ozzyus turned to Mitra to regain control over his life. It actually worked out for him.
* HeroicSacrifice: Ozzyus attempts this in "Birth of the She-Devil" but fails. It's enough to make him a RebuiltPedestal for Sonja, at least partially.
* 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.

* 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.

* 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.

* 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.
* LaserGuidedKarma:
** In issue #49 of the Brian Reed's run, Sonja, now reincarnated, confronts [[EvilSorcerer Scathach]] without knowing who she really was, let alone about the revelation made in the issue #29 and kills her without first, the witch making Lucan her champion and tell him to kill her and drinking his blood and and then get killed by her.
** In ''The Black Tower'' arc, Thraxis chooses one of the your Sisterhood of Thraxis girls and after he tells her his origins, she gets her revenge for [[spoiler:Sonja's death]] without first confronting him, because everyone messed up about her origins.
* 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.

* 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.
* MamaBear: In Mirka Andolfo's run, she protects her adopted daughter Sitha, who carries a great curse and everyone wants to kill her.

* MercyKill: Sonja shoots a mortally injured bear in Kalayah's arena, drawing his ire.
* NephariousPharaoh: Emperor Samala of Stygia.

* 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. We also get instances of her destroying huge guys at armwrestling in the Red Sonja Halloween Special (2018)and in Invincible Red Sonja #1 (2021)

* 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.
** The poisoned daggers of Utro are treated as evil since they subject victims to excruciatingly painful death.

* 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.

* 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.]]

* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: In the Brian Reed's run, Sonja's sister Verona sides with Lord Lucan Martur with whom she has been having a secret affair and they send a crew of pirates to kill Sonja and her husband Daniel Dorn. Lucan ends up selling Verona and their baby into slavery for money and Verona is ultimately murdered by Sonja after her treachery is revealed, with her baby being given by Sonja to a kindly woman who wanted a daughter of her own.
* RoyalBastard: The''Vulture's Circle'' arc has Xoana who is one of Sonja's students. She is the daughter of King Xoan of Zingara and his favorite concubine. When Xoana's mother died, Xoan, [[MurderTheHypotenuse suspecting she was actually murdered by his jealous wife Queen Isaura]], sent Xoana to Sonja's school for young female warriors for the girl's safety.

* 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.
* SeriesContinuityError: Luke Lieberman has Sonja leaves Ozzyus' service twice under different circumstances. Notable because Luke wrote them both.
* ShoutOut:
** In ''Queen Sonja'' when a couple of assassins try to ambush her and her guards, they tell her that "[[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire your subjects send their regards]]".
** Also from ''Queen Sonja'', Sonja sends a prayer to her goddess that ends with "[[Film/ConanTheBarbarian1982 If you forsake me, then to Hell with you!]]".
** Ariok is one big homage to ''Literature/TheElricSaga'' being a long-haired noble descended from corrupt magic wielders that also wields a [[EvilWeapon cursed sword]].
** After being [[VampireRefugee turned into a vampire]] by Dracula in the ''Prophecy'' CrisisCrossover and returning to her own timeline in Issue #76 of Dynamite's regular run, rumors spread that "she became the Devil's concubine", a reference to ''Film/BramStokersDracula'' where Van Helsing says the same about Lucy Westenra when she is bitten by Dracula and she happened to be a FieryRedhead in that movie.
* SiblingTeam: The Red Sisters in ''Queen Sonja''.
* 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.

* TooDumbToLive:
** Fengar Tolt in the ''Black Tower'', not only was this thug trying to rape a woman in front of Sonja (this is the hugest BerserkButton for her), he also jabs his finger into an exposed part of her breast. [[FinGore He loses a finger as a warning.]]
** Sultan Bashir in "Birth of a She-Devil" knows 18-year-old Sonya as a mercenary and killing of kings already but insists on ordering BatheHerAndBringHerToMe. This, of course, leads to his horrifying demise.

* WarElephants: In the 1970s Marvel run, Sonja allied herself with the young ruler of kingdom whose major military strength was its war mammoths.

* WaterfallShower: Sonja takes one (surrounded by strategic CensorSteam) just before she is captured by an EvilSorcerer at the start of ''Red Sonja Annual'' #4.

* 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.

* CelibateHero: Until the Gail Simone's run retconned it, Sonja was defined by her celibacy vow unless if a man defeated her in fair combat. The nature of her vows and whether or not she would lose her skills should she ever had sex depends on who is writing it. She does show attraction to certain men from time to time, but these never develop into true relationships, though according to her past narrated in ''Queen Sonja'', she did have a boyfriend during her teenage years after her rape without losing her abilities. Its implied that in addition to her vows to the goddess, she also refuses to love any men because she still grieves her beloved's death and wants to NeverBeHurtAgain.

* 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.

* MarkOfShame: In the ''Queen of Plauges'' arc Sonja's face is marked with one after she contracts the plague.

* 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.

[[folder:Character Tropes]]

* ActionGirl: Red Sonja herself.
* ActionHero: Sonja rarely meets problems she can't bash, slash, or stab. Even when she does it's still her go-to strategy.
* 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 Creator/BrigitteNielsen.
* AncestralWeapon: In the novels, Sonja's sword was originally her father's who was once a mercenary captain before settling down to become a farmer (the soldiers who murdered Sonja's family and raped her were her father's ex-comrades who had a grudge). When she received her vision and picked up a sword to kill her first man, it was her father's that was lying in the wreckage. The novel ''Star of Doom'' goes further, Sonja tells a witch that [[CoolSword her father crafted the sword himself and when she took it up - she had slain so many demons, sorcerers and battle-crazy warriors and put so much of herself in that sword, that it had become magical]] and the witch acknowledged it actually had power.
* AnythingThatMoves: The Gail Simone incarnation was not raped unlike her previous incarnations 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.
* ArchEnemy: The [[EvilSorcerer sorcerer Kulan Gath]] has repeatedly plagued her life more than any foe and [[WhyWontYouDie has a knack for not staying dead]].
* 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. The version of Sonja that appeared in 2019's 'Vampirella/Red Sonja' was legitimately superhuman and could smash through a two-foot-thick stone wall with a single punch, taking out several solders on the other side, as well as kicking down a heavy steel door with ease - she appeared to be just as strong as Vampirella. Similarly, the Sonja of the 'Sonjaversal' series appears to be either immortal or to age very slowly and is said to have been blessed with strength and speed greater than anyone else of her world. Amy Chu's take on the character is also outright superhuman.
* BarbarianHero : Rare female version. Arguably, the ur-example.
* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: While she does get a few dirt smears on her in rare occasions, this is played straight to an extreme degree. Sonja has been slashed, impaled with arrows (albeit in the arms or legs), and even got got shot with a police revolver in her team-up with Spider-man. In no instance has she ever been scarred, lampshaded at the end of her Spider-man team-up, she wakes up lying on an altar somewhere in her own time period and finds the bullet she had been shot with had fallen out. More recently she contracted black plague and while one panel had her sprouting some boils on her face, these immediately disappeared the panel after.
* BestHerToBedHer: Former TropeNamer.
** LoopholeAbuse: As might be expected in a modern take on the story, deconstructing the exact wording and meaning of Sonja's vow has been attempted in her current series. Aside from the presence of the word fair (which can come and go, depending on the story), and for that matter the ''definition'' of fair combat, in issue 15 of the Dynamite series, [[spoiler:an ancient god defeats her (''and'' two of her friends, which apparently made it a fair fight) in battle. However, he knows nothing of her vow. Later, they become allies, and she comes to admire him, so she allows herself the indulgence.]] In issue 31, it's revealed she can lie with any man she chooses if she permanently foreswears her blessed skills. It would also follow that she does not have to let a man rape her if he defeats her, but the option to sleep with him is there if he does. In addition, there is no provision against love, just physical affection--it is as much a test of Sonja's will to abide by her vow as it is a compact from her goddess. The wording of her vow also means that if she were to be raped, she would ''not'' lose her blessed skills in consequence.
** This facet of her has officially been abandoned in the Gail Simone run; she runs into a [[SpearCounterpart male swordmaster]] with the same vow and... well...
--->'''Red Sonja:''' That is without question the [[StupidestThingIveEverHeard stupidest thing I have ever heard]].
* BlitheSpirit: Of the more violent sort. In general, the Hyboria is at least as patriarchal as the medieval times of our own world; when she passes through a town, though, some of the women tend to take inspiration from her example.
* BloodKnight: Sonja basically enjoys two things - drinking and fighting. And she is very good at both.
* BoobsOfSteel: A skilled and strong fighter who is often drawn very busty.
* 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. Averted in Amy Chu's run.
* ChainmailBikini: Usually attributed to artist Esteban Maroto. Red Sonja is the TropeCodifier, if not the UrExample.
* ColorCharacter: '''Red''' Sonja.
* CombatPragmatist: Despite having vast strength from Scathach, at least in some incarnations, she happily uses any advantage she can during combat,
* 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 tweenie 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.
* DistaffCounterpart: To Conan the Barbarian.
* 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".''
* DrowningMySorrows: Sonja frequently turns to alcohol when she is depressed. Her volatile state when drunk has made her the bane of any unfortunate barkeep's existence.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: She wore a downright modest regular chainmail shirt in her first few comic appearances but gained her signature bikini for the first issue of ''Savage Sword of Conan''.
* 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 is apparently accustomed to this treatment and even flaunts it when opportunities arise.
-->'''Sonja:''' I'm Red Sonja. I'm everyone's type.
* ExposedToTheElements: Sonja both averts this and plays this straight, depending on the writer and artist of the story. The better writers will have her wearing several layers of fur when she is in a snow-covered realm. The worst ones will have her marching through the snow or rain in a ChainmailBikini without even as much as a fur cloak.
* FarmGirl: In almost all of her incarnations, Red Sonja and her family were farmers/foresters before they got attacked. (Though in the '80s novels - Sonja's father was a mercenary captain before mustering out and settling down to farm.)
* FieryRedhead: Red Sonja is named for her hair and known for her rage, battle- and otherwise. Roy Thomas said he drew from Red Sonya of Rogitano of ''The Shadow of the Vulture'' when creating Sonja.
* GeniusBruiser: In the ''Dragan the Magnificent'' arc, prior to returning to Hyrkania she had studied under a Sun-Tzu expy, Domo the greatest warmaster in Khitai. Not only can she read, but she's had 4 years of daily strategy and tactical lessons from him. The ''Dragan'' story often had Queen Sonja be a general as much as fighting in person.
* GoodIsNotNice: Sonja to a tee. Offend her or attack innocents in her presence and she'll usually offer a BadassBoast; those who apologize and leave live, but those who refuse are almost universally executed. Corrupt leaders don't even get the chance to leave because by the time Sonja is in their presence, she's aware of their greater crimes.
* TheHighQueen: Just like Conan, Sonja also became queen by her own hand when taking the throne of Songaria. Despite her past as TheLadette and not being royal born, she was regal and queenly in every other way as well as devoted in protecting her realm. In the ''Dragan the Magnificent'' story arc, Sonja is voted into being Queen of Hyrkania by the desperate rubes (Hyrkania here is a primitive land of tents, bandits and goats) - Sonja is queenly and regal because she was a high ranking officer of Khitai before the Emperor got deposed by his treasonous son.
* TheLadette: Especially in Gail Simone's run. Sonja is not particularly modest, has an aggressive appetite for sex, booze and food, sings bawdy songs and has a mouth as foul as anyone else's she might encounter.
* LikeADuckTakesToWater: 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.
* LittleMissBadAss: In the Dynamite comics one-shot Sanctuary, Sonja mentions that she started her career as Scathach's enforcer when she was 12.
* MistakenForProstitute: This happens to Sonja on a semi-regular basis; largely due to her habit of hanging around seedy taverns in her ChainMailBikini. This usually ends badly for the person making the mistake, although she always gives them the opportunity to apologize before kicking their ass. They seldom take it. Given how much she ([[DependingOnTheWriter usually]]) loves fighting, at this point you have to think she's deliberately trolling for this to happen so she can find a jerk who is deserving of her unloading on them.
* Main/MostCommonSuperPower: One of the most blatant examples. Sonja has very buxom breasts.
* MsFanservice: One of the most well known examples in comics due to being the TropeCodifier for the ChainmailBikini trope.
* MusclesAreMeaningless: Sonja is far stronger than most men she encounters but lacks the muscle mass to illustrate this, although other characters will occasionally mention that she's exceptionally well built for a woman.
* NeverGetsDrunk: Type 3a. Red Sonja *can* get drunk and often *does* but her capacity for alcohol is prodigious, probably even higher than Conan’s.
* PerfectPacifistPeople: Believe it or not, but Sonja belongs to one as revealed in the ''Wrath of the Gods'' miniseries. Her people are the Bundini, a red-haired race of humans defined as a peaceful shepherds, advisers and merchants rather than warriors and as such, they were bullied and persecuted by everyone in Hyboria. According to their legend, they would one day breed a powerful warrior without parallel, which is incidentally Sonja herself.
* PirateGirl: Sonja has been a pirate from time to time.
* PrivateMilitaryContractors: When she's not righting wrongs and helping the helpless (or getting into bar fights, or killing people for looking at her funny, or cutting her way through a few dozen guards of the latest guy to kidnap her and try to make her part of his harem and then making him wear his ass as a hat, or any of the other sort of violence she engages in), Sonja tends to make a living as one of these.
* RapeAsBackstory: She became the badass warrior she did partly out of a reaction to being raped when she was a girl.
* RapeAsDrama: Sonja's original backstory uses this as an inciting element (along with, y'know, the deaths of her entire family).
* RealMenLoveJesus: A female example, since she is extremely devout to Scathatch, the deity that granted Sonja her fighting abilities.
* RedIsHeroic: A heroic redhead.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Part of her backstory, but also like her SpearCounterpart Conan, would often find herself motivated to them, especially against foes that took particular delight in their crimes against women.
* RoguesGalleryTransplant: Kulan Gath was originally created by Michael Moorcock for Conan the Barbarian's comic book series. He would eventually become Red Sonja's archenemy. Notably, he would continue to show up in both Marvel comics and Dynamite's verison of the character.
* 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.
* {{Stripperiffic}}: Obviously. Probably the only major comic character who routinely wears less than her is [[ComicBook/SubMariner Namor]]. Justified in the Dynamite Series that Red Sonja deliberately wears it to distract her mostly male adversaries.
-->'''Sonja:''' Men are easily distracted. Most don't even notice my sword until their head rolls off their necks.
* SupportingProtagonist: In the first 3 of the six '80s Red Sonja novels by David Smith and Richard Tierney, Red Sonja is there to support the local protagonist of the story - in fact, she's not even close to dealing with the BigBad of the respective first 2 novels. The first book ''The Ring of Ikribu'', it was Duke Pelias and a bunch of Stygian cultists that dealt with the sorcerer Asroth - Sonja merely found the {{McGuffin}} before having to eventually turn it over and act as supporting muscle. The second book ''Demon Night'', it was renegade temple virgin Tiamu who destroyed the CorruptChurch and released the [[EldritchAbomination Earthfolk]], Sonja mostly putzed around on the run and indirectly led Tiamu to where she needed to go.
* 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).
* TragicKeepsake: Her ChainmailBikini is revealed to be this in ''Queen Sonja''. It was a BeautifulSlaveGirl outfit given by [[TheLostLenore her boyfriend Kain]] to infiltrate a sacrifice chamber and rescue their allies. He was killed during their mission and she wore this outfit ever since in his honor.
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Virtually the entire kingdom wishes to avenge Sultan Bashir in "Birth of a She-Devil" despite the fact he was a FatBastard HateSink.
* WalkingTheEarth: Sonja is usually depicted wandering from town to town. Occasionally she gets a quest that gives direction for a month or two.
* WorldsBestWarrior: In several versions, Sonja is either the uncontested greatest warrior in the world or has only Conan as a true peer.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Novels]]