# Tolkien fanboys attack! New female elf **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 5, 2013, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244 "2013-06-05T22:10:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/1 "2013-06-05T22:10:51Z")
So [here](http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/06/05/evangeline-lilly-hobbit-desolation-of-smaug/?cnn=yes&hpt=en_c2) is a first look at a new major female character not it any of the books that will be in the next movie. Are you all getting a case of the vapors? ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/2 "2013-06-05T22:50:43Z")
…this is kind of old news. They already released her action figure. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/3 "2013-06-05T22:56:54Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > So [here](http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/06/05/evangeline-lilly-hobbit-desolation-of-smaug/?cnn=yes&hpt=en_c2) is a first look at a new major female character not it any of the books that will be in the next movie. > > Are you all getting a case of the vapors? I didn’t see THE HOBBIT in theaters, as I had enough evidence from THE RETURN OF KING and THE LOVELY BONES to know that TH would simply annoy me, and seeing it on Blu-Ray verified my judgment. I clicked the link hoping for some Evangeline Lilly hotness display but wasn’t moved. Anyway, I simply won’t see the movie. I know think that FELLOWSHIP and BEAUTIFUL CREATURES were abberations; Jackson’s taste in movies doesn’t match mine. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/4 "2013-06-05T22:58:07Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > …this is kind of old news. They already released her action figure. Yeah, I heard about this months ago. I have a love/hate relationship with Jackson’s Middle Earth films but they seem to embrace the spirit of the films more or less and that’s good enough for me. The books will still be there after all. ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/5 "2013-06-05T23:04:59Z")
Meh, she’s been around for a while. I’m a little weirded out by the technicolor orange hair - I was of the impression that elves got either blonde or black/brown. I will say that if the Professor had been a bit more inclusive of women in his staggeringly epic world in the FIRST place, then things like this (and the oft-parodied Arwen Warrior Princess issue from LoTR) wouldn’t be necessary, but it’s a little hard to knock him for it too seriously, as he was a product of his time. (And he created Eowyn, who is bad-ass enough to make up for a half-dozen Wheel of Time women all on her own.) ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/6 "2013-06-05T23:21:35Z")
Judging by the interview it sounds awful: > [@](#): > > Director Peter Jackson and his co-writers on the Hobbit trilogy, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, invented the character to expand the world of the elves of Mirkwood Forest — and to bring some more female energy to the otherwise male-dominated Hobbit narrative. After all, Jackson, Walsh and Boyen’s additions made the Rings films sooo much better. > [@](#): > > Tauriel isn’t only a fierce warrior; she has a softer side, too. “She will definitely have a love story,” Lilly says. “I can’t give away too much about it. It’s not a huge focus but it is there and it is important and it does drive Tauriel and her story and her actions.” Awesome - so we can have more of the same ham-fisted romance that made Aragorn and Arwen light up the screen? While I won’t go as far as **Skald** (I’ll definitely watch the movies) but I’m in broad agreement with his conclusions. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/7 "2013-06-05T23:21:49Z")
> [@](#): > > Lilly is well aware that some Tolkien purists will be skeptical about the introduction of a new character. “I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are going to be people who will totally hate Tauriel, think that she shouldn’t be in the movie, that it’s a betrayal of Tolkien, and no matter what I do it won’t be right,” she says. “…But I think if anyone knows how to respect Tolkien, it’s Peter, Fran and Phil. And Tauriel fits perfectly in that world.” I know that last sentence is going to raise some eyebrows. Can any of our resident Tolkien experts tell what Tolkien himself would have thought of such a character? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/8 "2013-06-05T23:22:16Z")
The picture looks lit it’s a screencap from a video game. I think the colors are over-saturated, or something. And I can see making a hitherto-nameless elf guard female (why not?), but developing her to the point that she’ll have a love story? That just completely comes out of absolutely nowhere. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2013, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/9 "2013-06-05T23:39:13Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I know that last sentence is going to raise some eyebrows. Can any of our resident Tolkien experts tell what Tolkien himself would have thought of such a character? Shockingly, it’s unlikely Tolkien would have been terribly impressed with a fairly stock Hollywood “badass,” regardless of what film she was in. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/10 "2013-06-06T00:00:52Z")
I think she’s based on Thranduil’s unnamed “Captain of the guard”. Given JRRT’s predilection for writing about assertive elf-women in the past who “acted like men”, I can digest the concept without much pain. Galadriel was also known as Nerwen, or “man-maiden”. Aredhel told her brother the king to get stuffed and went off on adventures. Luthien kicked Sauron’s butt and cast a glamour over Morgoth. Mithrellas had two kids by a mortal man then skipped out leaving him to raise them. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/11 "2013-06-06T00:09:17Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The picture looks lit it’s a screencap from a video game. I think the colors are over-saturated, or something. It’s because of the 3D process, which mutes the colors. To compensate, the props and sets are done up in really garish colors. Once the film’s been fully processed, it will look a lot less eye-searing. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/12 "2013-06-06T00:14:41Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I know that last sentence is going to raise some eyebrows. Can any of our resident Tolkien experts tell what Tolkien himself would have thought of such a character? Look no further than Luthien…Let’s start with Luthien… along with being the “fairest child of Elves or Men”, the daughter of a Maia, and the most accomplished singer of all time, she also loved her man so much as to be willing to knock out her guards and leave home and face down Sauron and _beat_ Sauron’s sorry ass just to stand by him. She was willing to go with him straight to Thangorodrim itself, put one over on _Morgoth_(!), and even after all _that_ still cared for him so much that she was willing to go to Mandos and talk the Valar into bringing Beren back to _life._ Let’s face it: Luthien Tinuviel was _one_ hot thoroughly accomplished scared-o-nothin’ clever-as-hell broad. > **[Tolkien Crackpot Theories](http://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/theories/arag_arw.htm)** 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Suil\_Dubh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85f322/32.png) [@Suil\_Dubh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suil_Dubh)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/13 "2013-06-06T00:18:34Z")
> [@standingwave](#): > > Yeah, I heard about this months ago. I have a love/hate relationship with Jackson’s Middle Earth films but they seem to embrace the spirit of the films more or less and that’s good enough for me. The books will still be there after all. I feel the same way. No matter how the films turn out, the books are always there to be enjoyed on their own. As long as any new characters that appear are still in the spirit of the books, I can’t really find myself getting too upset. (For the record, I really liked all three of the Lord of the Rings films, but found the first Hobbit film to be a bit too long.) ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/14 "2013-06-06T00:41:08Z")
As a D&Der of many years, that is one heck of a sylvan elf. Yes, the colors are oversaturated, but it IS a fantasy after all, y’all. We all knew Mr. Jackson would take liberties with _The Hobbit_ and that would have to include the addition of new characters and the expansion of the existing ones. Having one of the new ones be a female powerful character is a very good idea. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/15 "2013-06-06T00:46:44Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And I can see making a hitherto-nameless elf guard female (why not?), but developing her to the point that she’ll have a love story? That just completely comes out of absolutely nowhere. Yes, this. I likewise have no problem with making the movies’ Elven cultures a bit more flexible than those of the books were in terms of gender norms. _Digression:_ In fact, it could be argued that this modification is actually somewhat **more** true to the spirit of the ancient sagas Tolkien was deliberately imitating, with their shieldmaidens and valkyries and powerful elven queens directing troops in battle, than Tolkien’s own version. It’s always seemed weird to me, for example, that Eowyn is the only identified shieldmaiden of the Rohirrim or IIRC of any other race of Men throughout their entire history—yeah there’s Haleth and some other valiant queens, but I don’t know of any other chick that actually strapped on a breastplate. Clearly a shieldmaiden is a “thing” among Middle-earth warrior-class humans, a culturally recognized concept rather than a unique lunatic aberration, so how could Eowyn be the only example of one that ever appears anywhere in the historical record? _/digression_ [ETA: and **Qadgop** ’s points about Tolkien’s examples of heroic Elven women in the LOTR backstory reinforce this for me. _/digression for real this time._] But giving this new female character a big enough story arc to include a love interest? Sheeyut, I don’t really care about the love lives of _any_ Sylvan Elf soldiers, male **or** female. Why are you wasting film on this pointless diversion, Mr. Jackson? **On the other hand.** While there are a lot of Jackson’s tweaks and flourishes on Tolkien that I don’t much care for, there are some that have grafted themselves onto my perception of Middle-earth forever. Before I saw the movies, for example, I didn’t know that dwarves often braided their hair and beards in distinctive individual ways. Now I do, and I’m just surprised that I hadn’t realized it before. Of course that would be something dwarves do, even if Tolkien never explicitly mentioned it. It’s obvious. Maybe the story of Tauriel the female captain of the Sylvan Elves’ guard will similarly strike a narrative “sweet spot” with me and become something that was always true about the Wood-elves but I just never noticed it before. Or maybe not. We’ll have to see. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/16 "2013-06-06T01:35:43Z")
The beards, I think I sort of had in mind before the movies. The bit that’s become a part of my personal headcanon, though, is Sam clobbering an orc with a frying pan. Yeah, I can see him being a lot more comfortable with a pan than with a dagger. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/17 "2013-06-06T01:41:53Z")
That’s not a very flattering picture of her, and I’m not crazy about the description of her as a near-berserker Elf warrior, but I’ll hope for the best. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/18 "2013-06-06T02:27:14Z")
The best thing you can do to a classic piece of literature when you adapt it is to create a completely original character with his or her own plot shoe horned in. ---
**Author:** ![Sehmket](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Sehmket](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sehmket)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/19 "2013-06-06T03:02:38Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > But giving this new female character a big enough story arc to include a love interest? Sheeyut, I don’t really care about the love lives of _any_ Sylvan Elf soldiers, male **or** female. Why are you wasting film on this pointless diversion, Mr. Jackson? > > … > > Maybe the story of Tauriel the female captain of the Sylvan Elves’ guard will similarly strike a narrative “sweet spot” with me and become something that was always true about the Wood-elves but I just never noticed it before. Or maybe not. We’ll have to see. Back in my undergrad days (Those particular days being the semester leading up to the first LotR moving coming out, so… fall 2002?), I took a course about Tolkien (a 300 level Honors elective). One of the books we read was a compilation of Tolkien’s letters. One of the things I, as a budding young feminist, had a hard time getting over was just how WEIRD Tolkien was about gender relations. He refused to visit C.S. Lewis’ house if Lewis’ wife was home (because being in such a private setting with another woman might incite lustful thoughts). He was positively baffled at any woman who wanted to continue her education, and vehemently opposed to women at Oxford… not so much because he didn’t think they were capable, but being around women might create lustful thoughts in the men and because… well, why are they even there? Why could they possibly want anything other than a home and a million babies? Isn’t going to school just a waste of time for everyone involved, since once she meets the right man, she’ll just want to go make babies? Adding the love story actually makes a lot of sense in light of many of his other views on women - Love (both romantic and familial) is the only real drive women have in Tolkien’s mind. A woman, in his world, is obviously perfectly capable of most anything a man is, but the only reason she might want to do is to win the affections of a particular man (either in terms of romance, or to make her father proud… which usually gets her a husband). That’s why there’s so few women out adventuring or shield-maiden-ing; not because they’re not capable, but because most of them have found a decent relationship. The ones who haven’t deserve some sort of pity, because they’re just waiting for the right love to come along for them to throw down their sword and raise babies or whatever. It’s in some ways almost as empowering as it is demeaning. Women are smart, strong, and capable, but unfulfilled as a human being until they’re making a home and raising children. Of course, men are often viewed as the same way - they’re easily swayed by lust (although their lust is often more nuanced, and may be for something like power), and (IRL, if not in the books as much), can’t be trusted around women because they might just fall into a lustful rage and… I dunno, rape them or something? A friend and I spent one night, fueled by SoCo and OJ, scouring several books for anything Tolkien (or Lewis, who shared many of his odd views) might have written on lesbians. Alas, it appears it was not a topic of his time. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2013, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244/20 "2013-06-06T03:42:49Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > …this is kind of old news. They already released her action figure. As the OP and the article title both say, first look. Not first news. And the article did have new information. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-fanboys-attack-new-female-elf/660244.md?page=2)