First look at Evangeline Lilly in 'The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug'

[THE Ka]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

I do mind her being a woman or at least having a woman imposed on a book character - though from the barrel scenes and the casting we have clearly lost my favourite scene of Galion getting sozzled with the captain of the guard.

That was probably the most memorable scene I kept in mind while reading LOTR later on, that elves aren't always this ethereal fluff of melancholy hanging in the air of every event, scene, etc.
Really rather sad.

Originally Posted by Aganzir

Yes - and it doesn't work to determine a film's feminism value, but rather it brings attention to how underrepresented women are. Try to think of a popular book/film that does NOT have two male characters, who talk to each other, about something besides a woman.

Took you long, didn't it?

I doubt works such as The Mists of Avalon could even pass the Bechtel test in it's entirety. Certainly certain chapters, but not every little thing. If anything it was a Bechtel test of its own source material, thought provoking though.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Didn't Galadriel maintain her "realm" in a very similar fashion, with the power of Nenya? She seemed to have had some success. Notice in each case it is the female who ultimately defends the home, despite armed might being in the hands of the males.

The remaining exception of all of these examples, with someone taking a bit more than just a defense interest in the home would be Haleth. Probably the only figure of the feminine persuasion who isn't just 'guarding the home' for someone, or who eventually 'stops playing at war chief' and settles down.

... Though I highly doubt Tauriel is going to be as in Tolkien's words: "a renowned amazon with a picked bodyguard of women" (The Peoples of Middle Earth). Also, if anyone remembers from the 'sneak peak' preview on The Hobbit website where of all people Stephen Colbert points out the difference between Thranduil & family from the rest of the elves in his society, PJ makes a quip about Tauriel being among those who did not heed the call west. Apparently she's some sort of device to familiarize the audience with the stratification of elven society (aka: 'one of these elves is not like the other-').

To be honest and nothing against the wishful thinking of other female fans, I see Tauriel as a plot device to do two major things:

- Familiarize fans who may not have read too deep into the different branches of elven society (as since most highly recognizable elven characters in the film are high elves of some sort)
- Serve as a device to bust the dwarves out of prison, since apparently our merry drunken duo and most of Bilbo's crafty reconnaissance and stealth have been dropped out of the film.

It's always a good thing to remember that in homages and recreations of works where a female figure has been inserted for appeasement purposes or else, it can still be pandering and sexist (maybe even more so) than if no character had been added to the original material. Mostly because, in the often wrong hands, such a character comes off as just 'eye candy', 'comedic', 'one dimensional' and/or 'useless'. It just ends up being heaped upon the burn pile of 'ugh, not another fan-service to feminism' for those who tend to think us females rattle our sabers over nothing.