LOTR fans - What's the book's weakest point?

[What_Exit]

@Lightray

Excuse me, but we’re talking about JRR Tolkien here. Pointless details that serve no purpose to the main action are his bread and butter. How many pages did we spend on mallorn trees, again?

The innkeeper’s wife would have been an entirely appropriate character and role for the story Tolkien was telling.

Did you see me say anywhere that I was expecting warrior women? No, you did not. Because you are arguing against something I did not say. I just want there to be some more women in there. Doing anything.

Let us take, for example, Arwen. She lives at Rivendell, is the daughter of one of the most powerful elves left in Middle-Earth, the granddaughter of the most powerful elf, and held to be akin to the return of Lúthien herself. Why wasn’t she sitting in on that council meeting about the Ring? It is not as though the elves discount the advice of their women, or expect them to be seen and not heard – what, was she off baking lembas?

And I agree that Galadriel and Éowyn are unusual characters, whom we should not expect are ordinary women. That is just it, though – where are the ordinary women? We see lots of ordinary men (e.g., Butterbur, Beregond, etc.); why do we only see the extraordinary women?

I apologize if my adding details about Galadriel came off as a beat-down. I did not mean it as such.

The books tend to take place where women are not. In the Shire they are at the party and Rosie and her Mom are specifically mentioned in the Scouring and Lobelia of course. Mrs. Maggot barely had any lines of course. It was clearly a very paternalistic society. Of course it was also appropriate for the period of time being harkened to. At night at Bree it was just men that were at the Tavern. The status of Mrs. Butterbar is unknown and we don’t know if he had any children either.

At Rivendell, Arwen led what appeared to be a very sheltered life and she does little of note and even after 120 years of living mostly in Minas Tirith she still seemed remarkably unprepared for Aragorn’s passing. She is as far from Lúthien in temperament as I believe you could get. She was in the story little more than a trophy and I guess that is a flaw if you think too much about it.

They encountered few others until Rohan and there the women and children were quickly led off to safety in the hills. The same in Minas Tirith where at least you get to meet the healer Ioreth. The rest had retreated to safety and for some reasons the wives of rulers seem to have all died early. Again, I can see that as a flaw. A lack of Queens other than Galadriel herself who off course as I mentioned took the role of the Faerie Queen.

It does appear Tolkien was uncomfortable with female characters.

Jim

[Lightray]

Lobelia, that is an example of Tolkien making good use of a female character. She’s not necessarily someone you’d admire (although I kinda like her). But in reading about her in the Shire you think “yeah, that’s exactly the type of person who should be there”.

[Kobal2]

@RiverRunner

Hardly misogyny. The whole point of Eowyn’s character was that she longed for greatness but was not given any sort of chance to achieve it. Since her society would not allow her show her valor, she had to manufacture a chance to do it herself.

“Dad ? Fuck off. I’ll ride with the army whether you want it or not”.

There, opportunity created, without any ambiguous “women can only be important if they are, in fact, men” message. The Celtic and Norse sagas Tolkien drew so heavily upon (esp. when it comes to the Rohirrim) are rife with warrior women or godesses. Beodica ? The Valkyries (and the historical shieldmaidens they were based on) ? Freydis? And if you want to go more High Medieval, you’ve got your Isabella of Aragon, your Eleanor of Aquitaine, your Joan of Arc…

Plus of course, like Fish noted, her battle princess, headstrong, frickin’ Nazgul Slayer status neatly vanishes when she finds a Good Man To Marry. Then she can leave the centerstage for a cozy spot in the background, happily raising kids back home. Cause that’s what all women want, right ?

It’s also quite telling that Aragorn, who is quite obviously smitten by her strength of character and heroism still picks the Elven potted plant over her.

[QUOTE=Skald the Rhymer]
Do you seriously expect any narrative about warfare in a pre-industrial society to include women warriors as anything other than an oddity? Do you actually find it surprising that, of the four realms whose rulers we see, only one has a female one? Even today, women executives (of nations) are significantly less common than male ones.
[/QUOTE]

The point is that she’s *not *a female warrior. She’s a male warrior, who happens to be female, if you follow my meaning. Sweet Polly Oliver carries significantly less panache than Freydis.

Note that I’m not blaming Tolkien for this. He was a product of his era, and judging him by today’s post-feminist standards would be most unfair. But you can’t defend his choices either, nor handwave away the obvious misoginy of his books (nor the Frodo/Sam & Gimli/Legolas slash, for that matter:D).

[What_Exit]

@Lightray

Lobelia, that is an example of Tolkien making good use of a female character. She’s not necessarily someone you’d admire (although I kinda like her). But in reading about her in the Shire you think “yeah, that’s exactly the type of person who should be there”.

In many ways she is the most interesting female character. She does come out likable in the end. She had her own redemption like many others did. Professor Tolkien really liked redemption.

**Fish **quite bluntly there was no sex as Professor Tolkien was commissioned to write a sequel to the Hobbit a children’s book. We are fortunate that around Bree it took on the darker tones of an epic and left behind the fairy story style of the Hobbit and most of Tolkien’s other works.
I really did like Éowyn and Ioreth though. Both characters were very interesting. Éowyn life was fairly terrible. She was an orphan raised by her Uncle and watched in despair as he fell into senility. She also knew that Wormtongue was plotting to take her for a wife or worse. She saw little way out of her personnel hell and glommed onto Aragorn hoping for escape only to find out he was hopelessly in love with another. In the end she went not to battle for Glory but to die in Glory and gain a more noble escape. She was young; I think about 22 years old.

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@What_Exit

I really did like Éowyn and Ioreth though. Both characters were very interesting. Éowyn life was fairly terrible. She was an orphan raised by her Uncle and watched in despair as he fell into senility. She also knew that Wormtongue was plotting to take her for a wife or worse. She saw little way out of her personnel hell and glommed onto Aragorn hoping for escape only to find out he was hopelessly in love with another. In the end she went not to battle for Glory but to die in Glory and gain a more noble escape. She was young; I think about 22 years old.

Eowyn is also my favorite character (in terms of the movie), and I’ve come back to repeat what I always say when Wormtongue’s plans for her come up: I dearly wish he’d have tried to rape her, if only so we could have gotten this exchange:

GRIMA: My balls! My balls! Why have you ripped off my balls!

EOWYN: Because you’re not limber enough to swallow them otherwise.

GRIMA: (gurgles as testicles are stuffed down this throat)

EOWYN: Oh, dear, I appear to have a bruise on my right pinkie. And I need a bath.

[Lightray]

There’s another flaw: LotR is sadly lacking in bathing scenes. Particularly, sponge-bathing scenes.

[well_he_s_back]

Two more points about female characters (not disagreeing with anyone for criticizing Tolkien here. While it doesn’t bother me, as I said previously, I was looking for what other book fans saw as weak spots):

• One, Tolkien’s personal experience of war was extremely formative in his writing a book about a war. That, along with his other major influences (academia, Catholic church, the world he lived in). affected how he wrote women. As I said before, I’m just glad we got Eowyn.
• Two - Arwen’s mother had been tortured by orcs. possibly even raped. That’s why she left Middle Earth. Isn’t that why Arwen was so sheltered and Elrond so protective? Much more protective than he was of his sons.

[Fish]

@What_Exit

The books tend to take place where women are not.

And yet you say that Galadriel played a pivotal role in the war against Sauron — somehow, Tolkien found a way to rationalize her exclusion. Similarly, Eowyn stayed behind to rally the people and take them safely to — Dunharrow? I forget — but despite how “important” this duty was (that’s what they told Eowyn), Tolkien never shows her doing it. The fact that Arwen gets exiled from the Immortal Elf Club because she has the hots for somebody … that doesn’t suggest anything to you? Not even the brutal, evil, live-by-their-instincts Orcs have sex; there don’t seem to be any females of any race.

If we’re speaking of pre-industrial society and the role of women, I don’t have to explain that there have been women throughout that period who played very important parts. Let’s start with Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Henry II; let’s mention how the Earl of Wessex tried to get his daughter Edith Godwinson married off to Edward the Confessor both as a political ploy and to produce an heir (Edward died without an heir, possibly prompting the Norman Invasion); there’s mention Mary Queen of Scots; there’s also Emma of Normandy, widow of Aethelred the Unready, who was taken to wife by Danish conqueror King Canute to validate his hold on the English crown. And that’s just England. No no no — in Tolkien, the women are all conveniently dead or invisible.

@What Exit?

Fish quite bluntly there was no sex as Professor Tolkien was commissioned to write a sequel to the Hobbit a children’s book.

There’s no sex because Professor Tolkien didn’t write any — children are perfectly capable of understanding fairy tales with basic human interactions, such as falling in love. And yet, in the whole work, this fails to happen. The fact that it was for children is a poor rationalization, in my view.

[What_Exit]

@Fish

And yet you say that Galadriel played a pivotal role in the war against Sauron — somehow, Tolkien found a way to rationalize her exclusion. Similarly, Eowyn stayed behind to rally the people and take them safely to — Dunharrow? I forget — but despite how “important” this duty was (that’s what they told Eowyn), Tolkien never shows her doing it. The fact that Arwen gets exiled from the Immortal Elf Club because she has the hots for somebody … that doesn’t suggest anything to you? Not even the brutal, evil, live-by-their-instincts Orcs have sex; there don’t seem to be any females of any race.

If we’re speaking of pre-industrial society and the role of women, I don’t have to explain that there have been women throughout that period who played very important parts. Let’s start with Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Henry II; let’s mention how the Earl of Wessex tried to get his daughter Edith Godwinson married off to Edward the Confessor both as a political ploy and to produce an heir (Edward died without an heir, possibly prompting the Norman Invasion); there’s mention Mary Queen of Scots; there’s also Emma of Normandy, widow of Aethelred the Unready, who was taken to wife by Danish conqueror King Canute to validate his hold on the English crown. And that’s just England. No no no — in Tolkien, the women are all conveniently dead or invisible.

There’s no sex because Professor Tolkien didn’t write any — children are perfectly capable of understanding fairy tales with basic human interactions, such as falling in love. And yet, in the whole work, this fails to happen. The fact that it was for children is a poor rationalization, in my view.

Somehow he did describe Éowyn falling in love with Faramir as he tries to win her heart. I guess you missed that part too. As to Galadriel, it was mentioned in the Appendix along with what happened up near Erebor and Dale. I did not make all that up for your benefit believe it or not. Did you just not bother to read the appendixes? What was Galadriel suppose to do? March out with the remains of the Fellowship when her power was concentrated and localized in Lothlórien?

I’ve already agreed there was a lack of Queens and wives. What I am trying to do is disabuse you of some of your complaints that are false.

[control-z]

The first few chapter or two of Fellowship about the party planning are dreadfully boring. I started the book twice when I was in my teens and couldn’t make it past that part. Once I did, I flew through the rest of the trilogy. My friend was the same way, except he never made it past the party.

[Fish]

@What_Exit

Somehow he did describe Éowyn falling in love with Faramir as he tries to win her heart. I guess you missed that part too.

I must have blinked.

As to Galadriel, it was mentioned in the Appendix along with what happened up near Erebor and Dale.

He puts the most powerful woman in the world into the Appendix and you think that doesn’t say anything about his view of women?

[DrDeth]

@Fish

If we’re speaking of pre-industrial society and the role of women, I don’t have to explain that there have been women throughout that period who played very important parts. Let’s start with Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of Henry II; let’s mention how the Earl of Wessex tried to get his daughter Edith Godwinson married off to Edward the Confessor both as a political ploy and to produce an heir (Edward died without an heir, possibly prompting the Norman Invasion); there’s mention Mary Queen of Scots; there’s also Emma of Normandy, widow of Aethelred the Unready, who was taken to wife by Danish conqueror King Canute to validate his hold on the English crown. And that’s just England. No no no — in Tolkien, the women are all conveniently dead or invisible.

Note that all but one of those historical examples are only important becuase they married an important MAN.

[DrDeth]

@Fish

I must have blinked.

He puts the most powerful woman in the world into the Appendix and you think that doesn’t say anything about his view of women?

She’s not just in the Appendix, and of course, Aragorn is in the appendix also, along with just about everyone.

[What_Exit]

@Fish

I must have blinked.

He puts the most powerful woman in the world into the Appendix and you think that doesn’t say anything about his view of women?

So when should he have included what happened in Lothlórien, Dale, Rivendell and the Shire during the main narrative in a tale about Hobbits? He saved the Shire until they returned and discovered it for themselves. The events in Lothlórien and Dale where of less importance to the Fellowship I think and specifically Frodo.

Why this need to slam Tolkien? You can also read the Silmarillion and find several strong women. Though I am sure still nowhere near enough. Morwen and Haleth come to mid immediately. Lúthien & Melian go without saying. Idril and Elwing were not weak flowers of characters. I think you are reading too much into the story to make the aspersions on Professor Tolkien that you seem to be making.

[Fish]

@DrDeth

Note that all but one of those historical examples are only important becuase they married an important MAN.

Of course — it shows how important that marriage was, especially royal marriage, and the preservation of the line, a detail which Tolkien seems to disregard because it has mushy bits in it.

@What_Exit

So when should he have included what happened in Lothlórien, Dale, Rivendell and the Shire during the main narrative in a tale about Hobbits?

I’m saying that The Lord of the Rings is deficient in female characters both great and small. Important things done by women are ignored in favor of trivial things done by men.

Why this need to slam Tolkien?

Why this need to defend him? The thread asks what I feel the weakness of the trilogy is, and this is my answer.

[Fish]

@DrDeth

She’s not just in the Appendix, and of course, Aragorn is in the appendix also, along with just about everyone.

But if she is defending Lothlorien from the Big Bad, this is surely her crowning moment. Tolkien relegates her to a “where are they now?” section of the book, rather than include a woman in the core of the narrative. In exchange we get — well, I already listed a paragraph of dispensible plot points which we get instead.

[What_Exit]

@Fish

Of course — it shows how important that marriage was, especially royal marriage, and the preservation of the line, a detail which Tolkien seems to disregard because it has mushy bits in it.

I’m saying that The Lord of the Rings is deficient in female characters both great and small. Important things done by women are ignored in favor of trivial things done by men.

Why this need to defend him? The thread asks what I feel the weakness of the trilogy is, and this is my answer.

That is fine and your point is valid until you specifically mention Galadriel and were wrong about her. The Lord of the Rings couldeasily be seen as deficient in female characters both great and small and Peter Jackson agreed with you as do many others.

You also brought up other points though specific to sex that did not fit with a sequel to the Hobbit at all. You actually seem to be all over the place. Stick to your main point and I think it would be impossible to argue.

Besides I was also trying to answer the charge of misogyny brought up by Kobal2.

I can see where you thought it was all aimed at you though. My mistake.

[Orual]

Another perspective on the (probably tiresome) lack of female characters complaint:

The first time I read the book, I noticed it a lot - Tolkien seemed to go out of his way avoid including women. (It was, of course a step up from The Hobbit, which has no female characters whatsoever.) I was a 12-year-old kid: reading was the entryway to imaginary worlds. Tolkien created one that I, as a girl, apparently had little-to-no place in. It irked.

And the one gal who is really engaging and appealing is apparently only that way because she’s mentally unbalanced due to a traumatic upbringing. Irksome.

I understand that it’s not the result of overt misogyny. I understand Tolkien was a product of his time and upbringing. It am aware (and quite fond) of the kickass women of The Simarillion.

But that doesn’t mean that a reader can’t reasonably notice the lack of female characters in speaking rolls in The Lord of the Rings, and consider it a flaw.

[What_Exit]

@Orual

Another perspective on the (probably tiresome) lack of female characters complaint:

The first time I read the book, I noticed it a lot - Tolkien seemed to go out of his way avoid including women. (It was, of course a step up from The Hobbit, which has no female characters whatsoever.) I was a 12-year-old kid: reading was the entryway to imaginary worlds. Tolkien created one that I, as a girl, apparently had little-to-no place in. It irked.

And the one gal who is really engaging and appealing is apparently only that way because she’s mentally unbalanced due to a traumatic upbringing. Irksome.

I understand that it’s not the result of overt misogyny. I understand Tolkien was a product of his time and upbringing. It am aware (and quite fond) of the kickass women of The Simarillion.

But that doesn’t mean that a reader can’t reasonably notice the lack of female characters in speaking rolls in The Lord of the Rings, and consider it a flaw.

Agreed across the board and well put.

[Fish]

@What_Exit

That is fine and your point is valid until you specifically mention Galadriel and were wrong about her.

Wrong in what way?

The Lord of the Rings couldeasily be seen as deficient in female characters both great and small and Peter Jackson agreed with you as do many others.

Yes: that is my point. It is a glaring, obvious deficiency (in my view) in both a historical, demographic, and narrative context.

When someone confronted me with the canard that “it is realistic” that there are no women, I brought in all those other points — sex, birth rates, arranged marriage, historical women — to demonstrate that the realism rebuttal is difficult to support with facts.

Personally, I believe the omission of women says a great deal about Tolkien himself.