Don't do me like that

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age

.

The greatest frustration for me is this: we know JRRT could do better. There are female characters in the Silm, most notably Luthien, who are miles above any of the depictions of women in LotR.

This I have to disagree with.

I am a feminist. It has never stopped me enjoying the Lord of the Rings or indeed "Boy's Own". But every fibre of my being is revulsed by the "Tale of Beren and Luthien". The most "revered" woman in the canon barely speaks. Her "power" is in her beauty and in her "blood" neither of her own making. Despite her power she is passive until motivated my her desire for Beren. I suppose it is at least something that neither party in this relationship is attracted by the other's mind . She allows herself to be imprisoned which shows a lack of self respect and she gets Finrod killed (unforgivable). All just to marry the gloopy Beren and pull one over on Daddy. If that is the summa cum laude of female depictions in Tolkien I would rather have no females at all.

On the other hand, there is a elven princess who is wholly admirable, unfortunately she doesn't get as much attention. She manages to marry her mortal with Daddy's blessing, uses her wits in the common good and ensures that at least some of her people survive. Go Idril! At least Tolkien's blondes aren't bimbos - and they have more fun.

Idril, Galadriel, Eowyn are all strong, feisty politically engaged women - yes they are beautiful and high-born but that doesn't define them in the way it does Luthien and her type Arwen.

Tolkien wrote few satisfying female characters but the ones he did are fabulous. For me Eowyn and her "evil twin" Erendis are the finest. As Lalwende has pointed out, Tolkien was a child of his time and culture. Also, perhaps more than any other really successful author, he was writing for himself above all. He certainly wasn't going to be writing to pander to a feminist movement that hadn't really kicked in at the time of publication . I don't see the point in criticising him for not being Margaret Attwood . You might as well criticise Turner for his failure to do portraiture. The vast majority of Shakespeare's characters are male too but some of his greatest characters are women.

Tolkien wrote what he wrote. It can't be changed. Disliking a certain aspect or a story doesn't mean we have to reject the whole. It is not invalidated. You don't have to reread anything that you dislike...the canon is a buffet not a set menu . Hey it works for me.....I have manage to ignore the existance of Bombadil almost continuously for over 20 years.....

[Anguirel]

I agree with you to an extent about Luthien, Mith, though, despite all my best anti-mortal efforts, I always find myself liking Beren. When I was writing a script for a Lay of Luthien animated film I was always longing to get out of Doriath. The other thing I noticed was that Beren seemed to be almost constantly trying to get away from Luthien while on the quest! Oh yes, for her protection it may have been, but what would Dr Freud have made of it?

I do think that you remarking that she allows herself to be imprisoned is going a bit far though. She was unaware of the magnificent Celegorm and wondrous Curufin's supremely cunning intentions until it was too late...

As for your list of female worthies-Idril, Galadriel, and Eowyn-I would undoubtedly add Aredhel, Haleth, and Melian. Just because things often went wrong doesn't diminish their glory.

Oh, and Morwen.

[Mithalwen]

I meant letting herself be imprisoned in the tree by her Dad .... It is the Middle Earth equivalent of being sent to your room

Aredhel rocks, apart from not making a clean getaway, but she wasn't a blonde . Morwen ... her story is so bleak.....

[alatar]

But back to the original question, which I think is what character or characters, newly minted or replaced/subsumed, would attract more female readers in 2006?

And I would disagree with some of the posts where it's stated that women could not do certain things (hold the throne, go to war, etc). Umm, unless my library is all skewed, but isn't this fantasy? Sure, it seems realistic, but couldn't a Xena-type Arwen character at least hold her own against Aragorn etc? Peter Jackson seemed to think so.

And was the Balrog male or female?

[Mithalwen]

Err could you specify the question then?.... I detected a release of storm but no actual question in the original post ....

And while it is classified as fantasy, it is not random. Tolkien created various cultures with their own rules and norms. In the culture of the Noldor, women fought only in defence therfore a Xena Arwen would be breaking from her culture. If you put such a unorthodox figure as a central character in the story the unorthodoxy is liable to become the story. Tolkien's story was of a small person's quest to save the world ( Eowyn is marvellous but realtively peripheral - and perhaps because of the fact she is not bearing so much of the burden of the plot has such a well rounded character). How many issues are you expecting Tolkien to tackle in his story before it is acceptably politically correct?

Should he have rewritten it with Frodo as a disabled, gay, single-parent from an ethnic minority?

[Anguirel]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

How many issues are you expecting Tolkien to tackle in his story before it is acceptably politically correct?

Should he have rewritten it with Frodo as a disabled, gay, single-parent from an ethnic minority?

But I thought he was...

[Mithalwen]

Well maybe two of the four .... according to some..

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age

While the Legendarium as a whole may have had strong female characters, The Hobbit did not. In fact there was not a single female in The Hobbit

Well, that is a bit over the edge; beside the general refferences to "women" and "girls", there is an interesting refference in the very first chapter:

As I was saying, the mother of this hobbit - of Bilbo Baggins, that is - was the fabulous Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of the hobbits who lived across The Water, the small river that ran at the foot of The Hill. It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife

Originally Posted by the phantom

They'd have to bathe, dress, and relieve themselves separately and such, which would've been a liability because there were times when everyone needed to stay together and no one should've been wandering off alone.

Cf the Druedain, UT, many of Haleth's warriors were women, and I doubt they had such problems; women also participated in the Marhwini attack on the Wainriders; the elven nissi also participated in fights (cf Of the laws and customs of the eldar).

The most "revered" woman in the canon barely speaks.

She enchants Beren with her singing, she convinces Thingol not to kill him, she puts Melkor to sleep with, again, her singing, she is the _only one_ to change the heart of Mandos... come on .

she gets Finrod killed

Why blame her for his death? Maybe Beren for "twisting" his hand into joining him, but not her...

All just to marry the gloopy Beren and pull one over on Daddy

The ennoblement of Men by Elven blood is part of the 'Divine Plan', cf Letter #153... so there is more to it ... *feels special defending his favorite hero*; without her, there would have been no silmaril for Earendil to protect him on his voyage, therefore no war of wrath, etc; not to mention the general uplifting of moral her deeds caused .

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Raynor

She enchants Beren with her singing, she convinces Thingol not to kill him, she puts Melkor to sleep with, again, her singing, she is the _only one_ to change the heart of Mandos... come on .
Why blame her for his death? Maybe Beren for "twisting" his hand into joining him, but not her...
The ennoblement of Men by Elven blood is part of the 'Divine Plan', cf Letter #153... so there is more to it ... *feels special defending his favorite hero*; without her, there would have been no silmaril for Earendil to protect him on his voyage, therefore no war of wrath, etc; not to mention the general uplifting of moral her deeds caused .

Singing is not speech. And we don't know what she sang. We know nothing of her mind Basically she is motivated by lust (like Melkor). And most girls know howto get round their fathers so that is nothing special. She may be part of the plan but she is driven by selfish motives, trails death after her and has zero personality. And she is not revered for her role in the Silmarils such as it is but for her beauty and dying for love *sticks fingers down throat*. I just see her as a slightly less trashy Paris Hilton....

There would have been no Earendil without Idril's brain and foresight ..........

[Raynor]

And we don't know what she sang.

From the Lay of Leithian, HoME III:

Then did she lave her head and sing
a theme of sleep and slumbering,
profound and fathomless and dark
as Luthien's shadowy hair was dark
each thread was more slender and more fine
...
His dreadful counsel then they took,
and their own gracious forms forsook;
in werewolf fell and batlike wing
prepared to robe them, shuddering.
With elvish magic Luthien wrought,
lest raiment foul with evil fraught
to dreadful madness drive their hearts;
and there she wrought with elvish arts
a strong defence, a binding power,
singing until the midnight hour.
...
With arms upraised and drooping head
then softly she began to sing
a theme of sleep and slumbering,
wandering, woven with deeper spell
than songs wherewith in ancient dell
Melian did once the twilight fill,
profound, and fathomless, and still.
The fires of Angband flared and died
...
Suddenly her song began anew;
and soft came dropping like a dew
down from on high in that domed hall
her voice bewildering, magical,
and grew to silver-murmuring streams
pale falling in dark pools in dreams.

These quotes are proof of the magic in her words - she is the chief enchatress among the elves; but there is more to her merit, since magic itself couldn't move Mandos, only art (or Art maybe) from Of Beren and Luthien, Silmarillion:

The song of Luthien before Mandos was the song most fair that ever in words was woven, and the song most sorrowful that ever the world shall ever hear. Unchanged, imperishable, it is sung still in Valinor beyond the hearing of the world, and the listening the Valar grieved. For Luthien wove two themes of words, of the sorrow of the Eldar and the grief of Men, of the Two Kindreds that were made by Iluvatar to dwell in Arda, the Kingdom of Earth amid the innumerable stars. And as she knelt before him her tears fell upon his feet like rain upon stones; and Mandos was moved to pity, who never before was so moved, nor has been since.

I just see her as a slightly less trashy Paris Hilton....

I doubt this was Tolkien's impression of his wife

Originally Posted by Letter #340

I have at last got busy about Mummy's grave. The inscription I should like is:
EDITH MARY TOLKIEN
1889-1971
Luthien
brief and jejune, except for Luthien, which says for me more than a multitude of words: for she was (and knew she was) my Luthien.

[Eonwe]

Originally Posted by Raynor

I doubt this was Tolkien's impression of his wife

Stole my thunder...

[Lush]

I see this thread is off an running in a direction of its own, but I want to specify some things.

Mithalwen, et al, please take not of my original post.

I am not complaining about the fact that Tolkien isn't Margaret Atwood. I am complaining about reductive, reactionary discussion of the subject.

For example. Farael, and I hope you forgive me for picking on you in particular,

You wrote:

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.

This pertains to your own enjoyment of the book, it doesn't have anything to do with the genre of the fairy tale, the work of archetypes, and so on.

For some reason, the second you bring up women in Tolkien's work, the same questions get asked,

"Oh so you don't like the book?" "You can't relate?" "You think he's sexist?" "You think Legolas should have been a Legolasa?"

I'm tired of this. Nobody, for example, is interested in looking at, say, Goethe's representations of the male as a sphere and the female as a cube; his ideas of domesticity and how they relate to fairy tale archetypes.

This is, as I wrote in my original post, reductive.

[Farael]

Originally Posted by Lush

This pertains to your own enjoyment of the book, it doesn't have anything to do with the genre of the fairy tale, the work of archetypes, and so on.

I beg to differ though, because I'm not saying whether I like the book or not, I was trying to explain my thoughts on Tolkien's intentions

Originally Posted by Lush

Fairy tale survives through its own logic and its own archetypes

I would not say its own but rather its authors. A fary tale, as any tale, is an outgrowth of the imagination of the author(s) and as such, while it might be isolated from the real world, it cannot be isolated from the author. I went on a ramble on what I believed Tolkien might have been trying to do because none of us IS Tolkien. My guess is as good as yours, even when I'm a Biochemistry student rather than English.

Now, please do let me know if I should delete my previous post. I thought I was contributing to the discussion yet perhaps I was not. I don't mind either way, you seem to care much more than me.

No hard feelings,

Farael

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Lush

Mithalwen, et al, please take not of my original post.

What and shut up? That was the main thrust wasn't it? That those of us who don't share your field of research, and haven't been here so long, and may relate our experiences of our own world to Tolkien's Middle Earth should stop boring you?

[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.

[Durelin]

Originally Posted by Lush

Fairy tale survives through its own logic and its own archetypes. Don't bring in the real world to justify the absence of females in the Fellowship...

I think I see your point here. I see a point, anyway, though it may not be your point, if you know what I mean. I really am not sure, and forgive me for that.

My only argument to what I believe you have said can be that because a fairy tale survives quite on its own, detatched from boundaries or laws or logic or achetypes or justification of the real world, it could also survive without any genders in it at all! Perhaps the only reason there are two genders in any fairy tale world is to make intimate relationships a little less baffling...

And you of course could simply avoid overly vehement arguing over this by directing any questions to the simple notion that Tolkien created Middle-earth's gender archetypes in a way that did not allow room for a female in the fellowship, and so it must simply be accepted, because, in the end, it is his story. But, not only do I not like the sound of that, but it seems to carry the ghostly visage of a canonicity debate...