[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by The Phantom

It makes sense that Gimli, the dwarf representative, was male, when you consider that the majority of dwarves were men, and dwarf women rarely seen. Plus, would a dwarf woman really be satisfactory to those desiring a female character? I mean, do you really think the average human female could relate to a dwarf female any better than she could relate to an ent?

Gimli could be a female dwarf. Well, they do all have beards, so it would be easy for one to impersonate a male. And it makes for something a bit spicier when Gimli falls for Galadreil and then gets close to Legolas.

Originally Posted by Farael

I believe that a plausible reason for the lack of compelling females is the overall tone (or mood) of the story. LoTR is mostly a dark, gruesome tale of great heroics in a time of desperation. I hope I don't get labeled as a machist pig after saying this but at least to me, it's much harder to convey a sad mood with the precense of women.

You ever read any Plath? And what about Nienna?

Originally Posted by Anguirel

Explore the world outside the battlefield. Let's play Agamemnon, not Iliad. Let's see Pippin's sisters amidst the Scouring, let's see Arwen and her trusted handmaids talking at Rivendell; let's see Galadriel and her seamstresses at work. This will call for a more War and Peace-like balance of course...

...and Tolkien isn't Tolstoy. So alas we cannot envisage it from his own pen. But that leaves all the more for us!

This is interesting. Tolkien did expect, or at least hope, that others would 'fill in the gaps' and expand upon his story, and writers of RPgs and Fan-Fics have done exactly that, in exploring the 'others' of Middle-earth, the women. Especially the ordinary women. We see the princesses and queens of Middle-earth in the books, the fans provide the ordinary women's stories and I don't doubt for a minute that Tolkien would have disapproved.

Looking at LotR in context, he did write it as a sequel to The Hobbit, which was originally written for an audience of boys. Yet fans included women and girls - and the fanbase of Tolkien's work as a whole must be fairly equally balanced between men and women; Heren's poll says there are more women than men on the Downs (or at least who responded to his poll, anyway...). To me this means that either we respond as women to those female characters who are in the books, or else it doesn't have such a big effect on us, the work may be transcendant. And I also think that Tolkien must have realised after The Hobbit that some of his fans at least were women, as he then included female characters in LotR who were not mere ciphers.

Aside from The Hobbit, Tolkien's works do not actually have a main protagonist. In a way, in LotR, all the characters are the supporting cast to The One Ring. The absence of a 'leading lady' in that respect does not really matter - but what does matter is to consider those diverse female characters on their own merits and not dismiss them as pretty little appendages to the males in the story, because they aren't.

There are actualy quite a lot of diverse female characters: Eowyn, Galadriel, Arwen, Luthien, Rosie, Ioreth, Haleth, Aredhel, Shelob, Ungoliant, Beruthiel, Celebrian, Erendis, Idril, Lobelia, Belladonna, Finduilas, Dis, Elwing, Melian, Elbereth, Nimrodel, Goldberry, Niennor, Andreth, Ancalime, Gilraen, The River Woman, Silmarien, Miriel...........

Anyway, I'm sure the list could be added to. I'd welcome a proper discussion on how such characters (especially Erendis, long overdue thread...) were handled and what they represented, without having to explain them away with old arguments.