Who ?

[Krausse]

Is your favourite heroine ?

[Flyhalf]

Sorry, I can't explain why I made the distinction, except that simply saying Christian seemed odd.

[Mick-Talbot]

Jack the Hat

[doctordb]

Emma peel.

[Flyhalf]

Sticking with fiction,
Nicole Rougeron, in Nevile Shute's "The Pied Piper".
A young Frenchwoman who helps an old English gentlemen to the Channel coast, and onto a ship to Britain, after the fall of France in 1940. She refuses the offer of a safe haven in Canada along with the disparate group of children he has collected along the way, opting to remain with her widowed mother.
My short list also included
Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing)
Marian Halcombe (Woman in White)
Prue Sarn (Precious Bane)
Marion Staples (Franchise Affair)
Mary Yelland (Jamaica Inn)

[Kiki-frog]

Bet Lynch from Corrie - kind-hearted, strong, sassy, and able to bounce back from whatever cr@p life threw at her.