Useful Links

In this new post, you can find various links to useful websites and online material, ranging from more general (related to Tolkien's fictional world), and more concrete (about The Lord of the Rings). In them, you can discover more things about women in Tolkien.

• A Woman's Perspective on "Lord of the Rings". In this video, you can see this woman explain her experience watching the movies of "The Lord of the Rings" for the first time, pointing out how female characters and other traits of the stories are perceived from her point of view.

• Tolkien Gateway. In this site you will find an encyclopaedia of anything related to J.R.R. Tolkien, including adaptations, books, characters, among many others. You can search the characters, which are classified according to: race, book where they appear, and the period of history when they lived. 

• The One Wiki to Rule Them All. The Lord of the Rings Wiki. This is another site related to the world of The Lord of the Rings in particular, with featured articles and pictures, news, among others. Information is also classified according to books, members of the Fellowship, and movies. 

• Presentation of the main aspects of the topic. Here, you will find relevant information about the female characters of the saga in general terms and also in detail, not only about their characteristics but also about the role they perform and their function in the story.

• The Tolkien Road (podcast). This podcast is hosted by Greta and John Carswell. It is not focused specifically on the female characters of the story. Instead, you will find interesting details about the Middle Earth as they analyse chapter by chapter Tolkien's world, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion.

• Women and Tolkien (episode of the podcast "Keep on Tolkien"). This podcast is similar to the previous one. However, in this episode, in particular, Danny Jay and Joel N. (the podcast hosts) along with two guests, discuss the role that women take and how they are portrayed in the story.

• Tolkien and the Women of Middle Earth (episode from the podcast "Risking Enchantment). In this podcast, hosted by Rachel Sherlock, diverse art topics (such as literature, music or architecture among others) are discussed and related to Catholicism. In this concrete episode, the topic is the figure of The Lord of the Rings women and how they are portrayed in relation to Catholic ideas of femininity. 

Éowyn. Shieldmaiden of Rohan

Éowyn is the figure of the classic woman warrior. She a shieldmaiden of Rohan, daughter of Éomund and Theodwyn, younger sister of Éomer and niece of King Théoden. When she is first introduced in the movies, she is presented in a position of caretaker, in a passive role. During the War of the Ring, she was forced to stay back in Meduseld to attend to her uncle, whose health had been declining because of Saruman’s influence. After Gandalf restored King Théoden’s he prepared to defend against Isengard alongside Aragorn, Éowyn was forced to stay back again, and be the leader of the people of Edoras. However, her reluctance to stay behind and let men do the fighting was soon to change. 

Éowyn, in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields

Théoden and Aragorn return victorious from the Battle of Hornburg, and she receives them. It is at this time that she confeses her love to Aragorn, although she is rejected. Here, Éowyn is perceived as a “war bride-left-behind” (Smith 2007). Her fleeting and fast-growing feelings for Aragorn arise due to the uncertain circumstances of a war in which men are losing their lives, and women are forced to stay back. Again, this notion of Éowyn in a passive role would not remain true for long.

When Théoden’s aid is called against the forces of Mordor, Éowyn begs to ride into battle besides Aragorn, but he refuses her requests and asks her to stay behind. Herein lies the role change of the Shieldmaiden of Rohan. Éowyn disguises herself as a man and rides her horse to the battlefield.  She takes Merry along because, like her, he was left behind as well and he wished to aid his friends in battle. She has an active role during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, fighting in King Théoden’s escort. When the King is mortally wounded by the Witch-king of Angmar, she faces him, instead of fleeing like the other riders. The Lord of the Nazgûl boasts proudly that no man can kill him, to which she replies “No living man am I! You look upon a woman!”. She cuts off the head of his Fell Beast, and with the help of Merry, who hinders him with a Barrow-blade, Éowyn cleaves her sword throught the Witch-king’s head, killing him.

Although victorious, she is left with a broken arm and other injuries which, together with her loneliness and despair after the death of her uncle and rejection of her feelings, she succumbs to a case of the Black Dead and is taken to the Houses of healing. There, she meets Faramir and falls in love with him, leaving behind her dreams of glory in battle and going back to a domestic role (Harrison 2013) and dedicate her life to peace and her marriage.

Éowyn’s great contribution to the war effort and the victory against Sauron by killing the Witch-king seems to be rendered as unimportant, as her role cycles back to being a passive female figure who leaves the battlefield to care of her family.

Galadriel. The Elven Queen

The Elven Queen has an atmosphere of mystique surrounding her. She represents purity and the spiritual. This is also seen in her physical appearance: she has fair, long hair, and timeless features. She is the wise woman who guides characters with her magical powers. These powers are due to the fact that she is in possession of one of the Great Rings: Nenya. Although she is married to Celeborn, it seems that she has even more power than her husband. She is not only one of the mightiest but also one of the fairest of all the elves, so emphasis is put both on her power and on her beauty. Additionally, she is also a strong character in the sense that she is committed to serve the Fellowship even if her elven power is eventually declining. 

Galadriel

Although her roles in the narration are so determining that they are not only present in The Lord of the Rings, but in the history of Middle Earth, in this particular book she plays a special role in the War of the Ring. As she already has the Ring of Adamant (Nenya) in her possession, the wielding of the One Ring which Frodo has would make her a mighty match for the Dark Lord, Sauron. This is one of her most outstanding moments in the story, when she finally resists temptation of the One Ring. Other male characters find it very difficult to renounce to the power of the Ring, but she is finally able to control herself even though she knows that not having it will inevitably lead to the waning of her powers and the necessity to emigrate from Middle Earth. At the end of The Lord of the Rings, the few elves that remain in Middle Earth know that the Third Age is coming to an end, so she and her fellow elves are forced to leave their home toward the Grey Havens. She has been said to represent the morning as opposed to Arwen's symbolical relation to the evening, so the character also has a symbolical meaning in the novel. 

We could summarise one of her roles in the story as that of an "all-seeing Mother Nature figure," due to her foreboding powers and her preserver and healer nature (see more in this article). She forebode that the Shire would be destroyed if Frodo did not carry out his destiny of bringing the Ring to Mordor. She showed this to the hobbit in order to convince him of the importance of his task, so this is one of the ways in which she contributed to the fate of Middle Earth. She is also a ring-giver to the Fellowship members. For instance, she gifts Frodo the Eärendil Light, an object which will be essential for Frodo and Sam's survival at Shelob (a giant spider)'s lair. 

As we can see, Galadriel is one of the female characters that most contribute to the final resolution of the events in The Lord of the Rings. This is due both to her immense power, provided to her by the ring Nenya, and to her age and long life, which has given her the wisdom to guide the rest of the characters toward the expected end. 

By: Clara Madrigal Acero

Arwen. The Lady of Rivendell

Arwen barely appears in the films and even less in the books. As you may know, Arwen is the daughter of Elrond, the Lord of Rivendell, which makes her Lady of Rivendell. Arwen is described as a woman in a power position and really beautiful. In addition to that, as you can see in the family tree in this website, she is, on her mother’s side, Galadriel’s granddaughter. Arwen’s full name is Arwen Undómiel. As this work explains, the name Arwen means “noble maiden” and Undómiel means “Evenstar.” In fact, in the films, she is in possesses the Evenstar jewel, which she gives to Aragorn as a proof of her love for him. Moreover, the etymology of her name (noble lady of the evening star) is also very significant because, at some point, Gimli is arguing with Éomer who is fairer, and the dwarf finally says “You have chosen the Evening; but my love is given to the Morning.” This is a reference to Arwen and Galadriel. And so, as her name points out, Arwen represents the evening, whereas Galadriel represents the morning.

Arwen in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Like Éowyn, she is in love with Aragorn, the difference is that Aragorn does love her back. Although they both love him, they take different roles. As this paper points out, Arwen’s role is passive in comparison with Éowyn’s. While the latter goes into battle with Aragorn, Arwen awaits for his return from the war. And that is why we say that Arwen’s role is passive. If we take Arwen’s role into account, we can conclude that she is a highly accurate representation of chivalric novels’ lady: the lady who patiently awaits for her lover to return from his battles to offer her love to him. And so, we could state that is what more or less happens, once Aragorn returns from the War of the Ring, they are able to marry because he reclaims his position as king of Gondor. However, Arwen does not marry his love without facing the consequences. In fact, during the films, she is faced with an impossible choice: her father or her love. This choice means that, if she is to marry Aragorn, she must abandon her life as an elf, which means to become mortal and to be separated from her kind forever. On the other hand, if she is to remain the rest of her life as an immortal elf, she should have to abandon Aragorn, not only not getting married with him, but also not seeing him never again. So, she finally choses to stay with Aragorn. However, Elrond explains that she is not to marry him until he proves himself worthy, which is done once he claims Gondor throne’s back. And so, they finally get married, and Arwen becomes Queen of the Reunited Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor. And so, when the elves part on the ship to the West, to the immortal’s land, she offers her place to Frodo, so that the wounds that he received along the journey may be healed.

As we have seen, Arwen’s role through the story is not that of a woman who contributes that much to the fellowship’s success. On the contrary, she patiently waits for the war to end to fulfil her role as queen. Even more important, she must do so sacrificing one part of herself, which is her family. However, her love is clue because it gives strength and hope to Aragorn in the midst of battle.

Introduction

Welcome to "Female Characters in the Lord of the Rings' Book and Film," a blog about women in one of the most famous fantasy books of the last century. Though Tolkien is well-known for other works, including The Hobbit (1937) and The Silmarillion (1977), we will focus on the characters of The Lord of the Rings (1954-5). The aim of our blog is to emphasise the role of these important characters in the story, as well as to explore how they are depicted. In The Lord of the Rings, there is a clear predominance of male characters. According to this source, not only the number of women in Tolkien's work, but their depiction, has been criticised. However, we find three main female characters in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films: Galadriel, Arwen and Éowyn. In the book, these are only two, because Arwen has a marginal role. The objective of the following posts is to account for the depiction of these three women in The Lord of the Rings, as well as to explore their role in the story.

Main female characters: Arwen, Galadriel, and Éowyn.

Women usually have the role of mothers or wives, as is the case of small female roles, including Rosie Cotton, whom Sam Gamgee marries and with whom he forms a family; as well as Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, a female hobbit from Bag End. Aragorn marries Arwen, and this is what enables her to become queen of Arnor and Gondor. In the same way, Éowyn finally marries Faramir, and despite her bravery and heroic feats during the War, she leaves this role behind and dedicates herself to married life. As for Galadriel, she also has a husband (Celeborn). Consequently, all female characters are married or get married by the end of the story. In contrast, there are many examples of male characters who remain single, like Frodo, Gandalf, Legolas and Gimli. In fact, the only character of the Fellowship of the Ring who gets married is Aragorn, but his legendary fame dates back to when he was single.

Before immersing yourself in the amazing stories of these characters, we suggest you take a look at this questionnaire. In this way, you are going to obtain a preliminary idea of the role of women in the story and particularly of the three main female roles in the story: Arwen, Galadriel and Éowyn.

It is highly probable that many of the questions were difficult to answer. The reader will be able to learn many things about the characters in the following posts, which will be related to each of these women. For the moment, examine this infographic in which you can obtain a brief introduction to each of the characters we focus on in our blog.

Infographic. Women in The Lord of the Rings.

As you can see, the roles of these women are extensive and crucial for the events in the story. Two of them, Galadriel and Arwen, are elves, highly regarded creatures of vast knowledge, while the third one, Éowyn, is human. Nevertheless, the three of them have in common their depiction as admirable people.