Don't know that she's (and I usually play Hawke as a woman) the most badass, but I admire her. She doesn't start life as the daughter of a king or noble, she's either an apostate hiding from authority or she's protecting one. She isn't given the chance to join some larger than herself organization, she and her little band of kin and fellow refugees are out there on their own, without resources, without a governmental body backing her and her cohorts. The scrabble their way from the mean streets of Kirkwall to a position of power and authority that her mother may have dreamed of but her father never did. In all, she has one goal:
. But does she give up? No. She finds a reason to continue, she struggles on for her band of brothers/sisters and the city she calls home.
Does she save the world? No, in fact she may help cause it more trouble. Does she do this because she's evil? Not in my universe, it all happens because she's trying to do right by her family and friends. Life keeps knocking this woman down and she just keeps on standing up. I think of the three, she is the most complex and interesting sort of ordinary (at least by Thedas standards) human being.
She may not be the most badass, but she is the least boring of the three, and I wouldn't have said that when I first started playing DA:II, but I do say it now.