The Ethereal Woman

Oftentimes in media, women are portrayed in the same regards or fall into the stereotypical tropes of female characters. See: the virgin, the wide eyed ingenue, and so on and so forth. For the most part-- and when I say the most part, I quite literally mean the most part-- women are written seen as vapid characters in television and movies. However, the same cannot be said for the way women are written in literature.
In Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, Amy Dunne is the calculated and clever "cool girl" that broke grounds for what it meant to be an enigmatic woman in literature. Never before had I read a character so strategic in her methods and so dedicated to her plight. I admire Amy for her brilliance, her vision, and the amount of details she meticulously puts in orchestrating her whole disappearance and return. Amy's thoughts and actions are the primary driver in each characters plotline-- Nick especially. Amy is also clever at predicting how most of the events would unfold and is a master at spinning the situation to suit her purposes. Her re-imagined wickedness defines what it means to be a bleeding-edge female who shows independence and self-love. (Side note: Amy Dunne bore psychological demons that drove her internally motivated her actions and I'm not really glorifying emotionally traumatizing men, but I am for giving men what they deserve!)
Going back to Greek literature and old English, two reigning heroines stand out among the rest-- Elektra and Lady MacBeth.
Elektra would rather kill her own children and the lover of her newly divorced husband than shee him get his way. A little extreme yes, but mother fatale nonetheless.
Lady MacBeth was so despotic that she was willing to ruin her husbands livelihood and sacrifice her baby for power. Yes hunny!