Saturday, October 6, 2018
Wow! a strong female character...kinda
One of the many arguments against Tolkien’s writing is the lack of strong female characters. I had never read the Silmarillion but I was greatly surprised to find one example of such a character, while a slightly insignificant character that can easily go ignored it is a strong female character. The character in question is Haleth daughter of Haldad and sister of Haldar. Ultimately her name is tied to a man and the Teleri look at her in favor because of their friendship with her father. They also have pity for her since she is a woman who has lost the protection of men in her life because of a heroic death in war, and so she is in need of protection. While all these details are very patronizing because it makes it seem like she can hold her own, upon her father and brothers death she becomes the leader of her people. She guides them to safety and helps them resettle. There are very few females characters outside of elves who have a quality of strength and guidance to them, and none whose strength isn’t trumped by the overpowering presence of another man who serves as an authority figure in her life. One such example is Eowyn the shieldmaiden, being a shieldmaiden may sound pretty cool but she still must obey her brother and father, and even the will of Aragorn who shares no relation with her. However, Haleth while still living in the shadow of her father and brother can follow her own whim since they have gone to the Halls of Mandos and can order her no longer.
4 comments:
Haleth is definitely a strong female character who kicks some serious butt in Tolkien's mythology. However, I feel as though this post equates strength to battle prowess. I noticed you mentioned Eowyn here - a warrior much like Haleth, though living in a different time and under different social conditions. Both are strong female warriors who vanquish some formidable foes and can do so without the help of men, nor do they let men define them. Ultimately, not allowing others to define their lives is what make them strong female characters, not their capabilities in battle.
I also feel like Luthien should get a shoutout here as well. Luthien is often overlooked as a strong female character because unlike Haleth and Eowyn, she is motivated primarily by love. This seems awfully hypocritical to me because at the end of the day, many male characters are motivated by love as well and in no way do we consider those heroes "weak male characters". Take Odysseus, for example. His primary motivation is to reunite with his wife and to do so he must overcome countless obstacles. Sometimes he relies on the help of others and sometimes he fails, but he is still a strong character. Luthien's motivation for the majority of her tale in the Silmarillion is basically the same, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Luthien is still a strong female character regardless of her relationship with Beren and shows readers time and time again that she is clever and able to take down foes ten times more powerful than herself. I don't think this should be discounted just because she happens to be in love with a man.
-Varda*
I don't disagree that she is a strong character, but I was trying to get at characters who arent in a way binded by their relationship to a man, luthien probably wouldn't have gone out of her way to do anything heroic had she not fallen in love with Beren, that doesnt make it unheroic or bad but it makes her in a way influenced by a man.
Hi there,
I'd like to throw one other badass female character into the ring:
Galadriel is the one who overshadows Celeborn in her part of Lord of the Rings for sure: everyone who talks about Lothlorien ends up mentioning Galadriel. She's this amazingly powerful elf whose choices are rarely guided by men and is, unlike Celeborn, a ring-bearer.
True.
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