Oh noes

[huinare]

There has been quite the hubbub around
the original female character "Tauriel"
in the upcoming Hobbit films.  I have opinions, my main one being that there's not yet enough info to have a fixed opinion one way or another.  I also have other opinions.  I sense an essay coming on, someday when I have time.

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I'm prepared to give them the chance to demonstrate this was a good idea, myself. As you say, too soon to express a fixed opinion.

Also, having carefully read the bit in the LOTR preface about the transmission of the Red Book of Westmarch and its dodgy copies and Gondorian 'corrections', I am quite happy to believe there are several versions of the story with aspects of canonical truth! :-D

[huinare.livejournal.com]

True about the copy process altering texts. For some reason I find this notion particularly valid for The Hobbit, probably because its narration style is not as detailed and thorough as LoTR...plenty of room for things to be left out that could conceivably have occurred. And I'm starting to get twitchy about the complaint that there cannot possibly be female elf warriors in Mirkwood...statistically improbable does not equal impossible!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I started to say that I thought that Tolkien's vision *probably* didn't encompass female elf fighters, but that I thought it could be an acceptable extension of myth. One tends to think of him, operating in that very male Oxford environment, writing books where most of the protagonists are male...

But then thinking about that a bit, I disagreed with myself violently - Eowyn, Aredhel and above all Luthien - this is not a writer who expects women to enjoy sitting about at home waiting for pillaging orcs...

And after all, how many sylvan elves of the lower classes do we ever meet in detail? Half of them are just described as 'elves' which could be male or female... Hmm.

[huinare.livejournal.com]

But then thinking about that a bit, I disagreed with myself violently
This is always instructive!

One thing I've heard said of Tolkien, and which I tend to agree with, is that he was rather ahead of his time in including *any* female fighters in his tales at all despite the now-noticeable male-centric world.

I'm trying to find the reference unsuccessfully so far, but apparently it was set down somewhere by the Professor that female elves could fight but that it was exceedingly rare. I can't recall if he meant all elves, or just Noldor. But to me, sylvan elves seem less concerned with propriety than the more "civilized" elves, so I'd almost think it more likely that there would be the occasional female elf fighter in Mirkwood.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I think I've read that somewhere... could it be in 'Letters'? I agree with your reading of sylvan elf culture though - and of course Mirkwood is a very *late* culture as well, by Elf standards.