This week’s Sapphic Reading Challenge post features a very popular kind of protagonist: the famous (or maybe infamous) ice queen character.

Ice queens are characters who come across as cold, aloof, and prickly. Often, they melt a bit after falling in love, and we get to see their well-hidden vulnerable side, but they typically remain their ice queenish, frosty selves with other people. Ice queens are usually in positions of power–they own their own business, are famous celebrities, or made it to the top of the food chain in whatever profession they chose. Think Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, and you have the quintessential ice queen.