Arwen vs. Galadriel

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by jallanite

To make it worse, in The Lord of the Rings, female beauty is directly related to a person’s position in the class system. There seems to be no such thing as dirt-poor and powerless, but insanely beautiful. And apparently a female’s moral and spiritual stature is directly related to that female’s beauty and hereditary class position.

You're not counting Ioreth, then?

The point is taken, but maybe Tolkien switched up things with Aldarion and Erendis. She was descended from Bëor, but not royalty, and initially thought Aldarion too high for her station. They married anyway, and of course their union had some unpleasant consequences. Maybe that's why we see the beautiful and powerful women most: they are associated with the more powerful and high-blooded males.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

You're not counting Ioreth, then?

No I am not.

Nor am I counting Éowyn, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, or Shelob or various females mentioned only in the Appendices. Éowyn would fit, as of royal kin and very beautiful.

The point is taken, but maybe Tolkien switched up things with Aldarion and Erendis. She was descended from Bëor, but not royalty, and initially thought Aldarion too high for her station. They married anyway, and of course their union had some unpleasant consequences. Maybe that's why we see the beautiful and powerful women most: they are associated with the more powerful and high-blooded males.

The story “Aldarion and Erendis” appears to me to be somewhat removed from the more romance tale of The Lord of the Rings. It seems to me to be closer in style to the Icelandic sagas.

Yet here too Tolkien writes of Ancalimë, the daughter that Erendis bore to Aldarion:

Even from birth the child was fair, and grew ever in beauty: the woman most beautiful, as old tales tell, that ever was born in the line of Elros, save Ar-Zimraphel the last.

By attributing this information to  “old tales” Tolkien may be suggesting some exaggeration by poets and tale-tellers. Yet here again Tolkien indicates two of the most highly born women are the most beautiful, those famed in story.

As to Erendis daughter of Beregar herself, Tolkien at first only indicates:

There Almarian the Queen observed her [Erendis’] beauty, of a kind seldom seen in Númenor; for Beregar came of the House of Bëor by ancient descent, though not of the royal line of Elros, and Erendis was dark-haired and of slender grace, with the clear, grey eyes of her kin.

But later he writes of Erendis:

… in time she [Erendis] ceased to be abashed, and became aware that men looked with wonder upon her beauty, now come to its full.

It is indeed reasonable that powerful men or elves should take beautiful women as their wives but I feel Tolkien somewhat overdoes the emphasis on beauty.