Alright, yesterday I was thinking "Wow, Tolkien's female characters are really great!" Yeah, his male characters are great too, but there's something about all his female characters that really stands out to me.

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I think it's partly because most of Tolkien's male characters act like 'males' would normally do, what we expect of them. Aragorn, Boromir, Faramir, Gandalf, they're all strong warriors, they fight bravely for the cause to protect the country against the enemy. And that is what is expected of a man.
Now the female characters stand out in this mainly male-dominated landscape. The women of LotR are all something extra-ordinary, because they break the traditional gender roles.

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^
I exactly agree with you Ea. And also all the female characters have something very special about them (e.g. Galadriel has seen Valinor at the time of the Trees and has been living in Middle Earth since the First Age or Arwen is the Evenstar of her people)

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I agree with both of you. Every woman in LOTR is special. Like Firiel_18190 said, Galadriel has lived in Middle Earth since First Age, Arwen is Evenstar of her people and Eowyn killed the Witch King. They are all great women.

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...don't forget Luthíen in that list....

I agree with you 100%, Ea.

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^You really have [s]an obsession[/s] a thing for Lúthien, 'aven't you, Aerandir? lol

Well, I thought about it and I think I have to modify my statement a little bit. I said that Tolkien's female characters all stand out because they break the traditional gender roles, but actually Arwen doesn't. Only in the movie does she fight. In the book she sits at home and waits for Aragorn, she merely becomes the hope and inspiration for Aragorn, the prize he will win in the end if he fulfills his task. Well, Arwen does have a minor and down toned role in the books so in that way she is not really in the plot to achieve something the way Eowyn is...

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Yeah, I guess you could say that.... After all, Luthien was the most beautiful of all the Children of Iluvatar, and she did do a lot of things because of her love for Beren. She's got to be the coolest non-Ainur female in Tolkien's writings.

As for Arwen standing out....that wasn't so unusual, I guess, but most females in stories don't give up immortality in eternal bliss (Valinor) to stay with a person who they love, against their parent's wishes. They might stay with the person they love against their parent's wishes, but unless they're copying from Tolkien, they're not giving up immortality in eternal bliss--once she was in Valinor, Arwen would probably have had plenty to take her mind off of Aragorn, and she had to have known that.

Of course, Luthien did that, too...

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I know Aerandir and I do agree with you. Lúthien is an amazing character, and I admit she is my favorite female character, but I had noticed your interest in Lúthien before


Concerning Arwen (another of my favorites by the way, I can't help it). Yes, she did give up her immortality and I'm not disregarding that act, but she is still a minor character. Hmm... I'm trying to think of other female characters in LotR. There are Rosie and Ioreth... I must say I believe Rosie does play much of the same role to Sam as Arwen does to Aragorn, just on a different level - because Sam and Aragorn are on different levels, and they have different tasks to complete. But it's another discussion as she doesn't promise Sam anything, she doesn't make a sacrifice. And she is even a less important character than Arwen..


EDIT: Alright, when reading over that post again, I do realize I didn't get any point through... so much for multitasking... My apologies, I will try to pick up the thread where I lost it later on...

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^That's an interesting point, Ea. I never thought about it that way, but Rosie could definitely be to Sam what Arwen is to Aragorn, although, as you say, it's on a much different level.

I agree also with what has been said so far. I think another thing that sets them apart is that they are the minority in the story. We hear so little about so few of the women that the ones we do hear about stand out to us. There are a lot of male characters who have names, but are not significant to us. The female chracters with names mostly play a key role in the story. Some people have accused Tolkien of being sexist because his characters were so predominantly male, but if you read his stories, the power and strength he endows his female chracters with clealry show that he is nothing of the kind. Luthien shows this particularly. After all, she was the most beautiful of the Children of Iluvatar, and she was incredibly powerful, as was demonstrated when she enchanted Morgoth, the root of all evil. That's not something to be taken lightly.

Good point, TT.

When it comes to Rosie and Ioreth, I don't consider them in the same light as Arwen, Eowyn, & Luthien when I hear "Tolkien's female characters." They just don't spring to mind immediately. Rosie's character, I think, sort of represents what a lot of women represent to men who are away for a while or going through hard time--the shining light at the end, what they focus their thoughts on to make it through. She herself doesn't do anything significant, but the thought of her helps keep Sam on his feet.

Ioreth, now. She...grrr...gets on my nerves, as I'm sure Tolkien intended (I hate it when people garble gossip). She doesn't have any real strengths at all, I'd say, unless it's being very social. She doesn't stand out to me at all except as being annoying.

So the sum of my post is basically that I don't think Rosie and Ioreth really 'stand out' compared to Arwen, Eowyn, Luthien, Morwen, etc.

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I think I was trying to decide whether to nail Arwen as a major character or not... since honestly Tolkien didn't spill much ink on her in the trilogy... But it doesn't really matter in this discussion.
I agree with you Aerandir, Ioreth and Rosie both play secondary roles in the story. I just wanted to explore their part in the plot since they are some of the few named females.
I know the Silmarilion tells of many more (strong) female characters, but I didn't mention any of them on purpose. In my opinion the Silmarilion and the Lord of the Rings are too different to be compared. I have always seen the Sil as the mythology and legends of Middle-earth. Everything could happpen, the events were all dramatic, despairingly fatal or devastating evil. Sort of like the Greek mythology (or Norse Mythology), gods walked the earth and even interfered with human and elven life. The people in the Sil were extraordinary and everything is exaggerated in a magical universe. The LotR on the contrary is more... 'realistic' in a way. The people are just people with no supernatural powers. The struggle with hopes and fears and fight the way they best can. Everybody mentioned in the Sil stand out, whereas the characters in the trilogy are more the everyday heroes.
Well, where am I getting with all this?
Nowhere actually...
And that leads me back to the gender roles. Tolkien's world is inspired my medieval values and society and men did play a predominant role. Nonetheless does Galadriel rule Lothlórien and is the keeper of a Ring of power. She is the wise fairy godmother. Eowyn becomes a heroine as she rides to battle and fullfills the prophesy when slaying the Witch King. But it is also a step into womanhood. Her story is sort of a personal odyssey to find out who she really is and what she is going to do with her life.

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^
I can only agree with what you said. When I think of Tolkien's female characters I don't automatically think of Ioreth or Rosie cuz they only have secondary roles in the story.
I also think that Tolkien's female characters stand out, because they are so few of them so every one of them has something really special about them.
I also think that Rosie and Ioreth are not on the same level as Arwen, Galadriel or Eowyn, partly because they don't know that much about what is actually going on in LotR.

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I think one thing that really stands out to me is the role the females have. Eowyn at first is wanting to be a man and not accept her role as a female. But then by the end of the book she's accepted it and changed to the way women were created to be like.

That's just one thing that stadns out to me.

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Very true as well Firiel.


I'm inclined to agree with you, except for the sentence I underlined. Eowyn is a lonely female in a world of men. Her mother died and she doesn't have other role models than her uncle, cousin and so on, all men. Naturally, she wants to be like them, but she finds her gender limits her. I connect Eowyn with strength, determinism and compassion, which she only know how to express through fighting like the men of her family. She is confused. After slaying the Witch King, she feels she accomplished what she longed for and I think that might have made her relax and allow herself to listen to herself.. that she sort of became more open to finding out what to do with her life. I believe meeting Faramir didn't change her as a person, she would still be strong-willed and compassionate, but she finally allowed herself to 'be taken care of' as well.

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I agree with Ea on that last bit. I think she would still be strong-willed, but a little more satisfied, because by killing the Witch-king, she did something that made her famous among men. She was no longer so 'overlooked' and taken for granted as I think she felt she had been before.

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