Arwen doesn’t serve a critical role, unless muse for heroes is critical. She is mildly significant in Tolkien lore for the deep fans and has part of the appendices dedicated to her relationship with Aragorn. But in the book(s) itself she physically appears and speaks for literally what is about a couple of pages in most editions.
Just a few fewer lines (since she’s a spider), but Shelob gets more time than Arwen.
Arwen was an important person in the history of Elves in MIddle-Earth and the history of Gondor, but she only had a bit part in LotR. In the movie(s) she had a more prominent role, but I was talking about the book. And not the Appendices.
As far as counts of characters, I was considering all named characters that appear “on camera”. There were dozens of males, although many had only bit parts. But then most of the female characters had only bit parts, too.
Then, you have to count Arwen.
I dont count “unnamed orc soldier #37”. Named characters with lines- many lines.
Jackson very smartly dumped Glorfindel, who showed up once, then went away in the books, for Arwen.
If you Google LOTR cast, you get 6 men and two women on the first line.
I did. She’s one of the eight female characters. She’s just didn’t have a prominent role in the book.
I thought I made it clear I was talking about the book, not the movies. Hell, I haven’t even seen the third movie. I bailed out of the second one about halfway through.
Mentioning the “on camera” has me confused.
I put the phrase in quotes to show that I didn’t mean it literally.
Did you count Shelob?
I did indeed. Here’s my list (in rough order of appearance). However, I did this from memory and it’s been years since I reread any of the book, so I may have forgotten one or two.
OK, then, name three movies that fail the reverse test, in that they don’t have two named male characters who talk with each other about something other than a woman.
The mere existence of movies that fail the test isn’t a problem. The fact that movies that fail the test are so incredibly common, however, is a problem. The fact that nobody would ever think of making a movie that fails the reverse test illustrates just how big a problem it is.