10 Ways Tolkien Ladies Outdid the Men
Here are some of our favorite Tolkien female moves. What are yours?
J.R.R. Tolkien’s female characters are not as plenty as the men. Even so, there are many, especially in The Silmarillion. We’ve collected some of our favorite moments from across his vast mythology where women changed the game or saved the day, so even if you haven’t read his “Sil,” then you should still recognize some of these names. From princesses to queens to goddesses and lasses, Tolkien’s vision of femininity runs the gamut. Some possess magic, while others possess courage. Still others are fascinating vortices of evil and violence. So here are ten that challenged and changed readers’ notions with tributes and insights for each:
Varda — Varda Elentári is the Queen of the Valar — queen of the gods — and Lady of the Stars. The Elves of Middle-earth prayed and called to her most in their great trials against dark lords Morgoth and Sauron. She made all of the stars, the constellations; the Lamps of the Valar, precursors to the Sun and Moon, then setting the Sun and Moon on their course; collected the glowing dews of the holy golden tree Laurelin and the silver tree Telperion in the Wells of Varda; and hallowed the Silmarils. She helped guide many great deeds in the struggles of Middle-earth, but our favorite was how she helped kindle the Phial of Galadriel, aiding Frodo and Sam in their fight against Shelob.
Ungoliant — The mother of all of the great spiders, including Shelob, Ungoliant was a Maia, a dark angel of avarice and hunger. She could create an impenetrable darkness called the Unlight, which helped cloak her and Melkor when they infiltrated Valinor, stole the Silmarils, and stabbed the Two Trees, Ungoliant draining them of their sap and drinking the Wells of Varda dry. When they escaped to Middle-earth, she demanded the Silmarils from Melkor so she could devour them. Outmatched, he called the Balrogs to his aid and she fled south, where it is said in her final greed — doing one better than black widows that eat their mates — she ate herself. Ewwww! If Varda represents starlight, then Ungoliant is the blackhole.
Lúthien — Lúthien Tinúviel is one of Tolkien’s most inspired creations. While she was inspired by his wife Edith, Lúthien has many traits that are both fantastical and profoundly universal. Her spells enabled her to shape-shift or disguise herself and others, and her singing could enchant not just mortal creatures, but gods. Yet at the heart of her power was her empathy and common decency, a high integrity that she shared with Beren, the human hero with whom she fell in love. While her bravery and magic saved and healed Beren several times on their Quest of the Silmaril, perhaps her greatest feat was swaying the god of the dead, Mandos. Our favorite moment is when she outdid not just Beren, but perhaps everyone else in all of Tolkien’s mythology, after dying and going to the Halls of Mandos — where the Elves wait until the end of the world and humankind departs into the unknown — and sang of the sorrows and griefs of Men and Elves in their long struggle against evil; Mandos was moved and let them return to Middle-earth as mortals, where Beren and Lúthien peacefully raised their son, setting the stage for the final overthrow of Melkor.
Galadriel — Cate Blanchett was one of the few actors in the world who could play Galadriel, not because of her appearance, but because she exudes integrity. The Elven queen of Lothlórien is a fascinating character, a “white witch” who provides The Lord of the Rings with perhaps its most elevated atmosphere. The Fellowship of the Ring’s visit to her woodland realm is enchanting, and contains perhaps some of Tolkien’s best writing, especially how he so eloquently captures his description of time and the human condition. We love Galadriel for all of those ethereal and spiritual ministrations, and the best one comes in the form of her counsel to Frodo the Ringbearer. Followed by Sam, she leads Frodo at night to a silver basin that she fills with water. Looking into it, Frodo and Sam see visions of possible events and futures. Galadriel’s brilliance isn’t just how she talks to them both about the very nature of reality and dream, but how she frames the moral question at the heart of Tolkien’s anti-quest to destroy the One Ring. Her key insight is wisdom fit for all people for all time: everyone has a role to play in the uncertain fate of the world; even the smallest person can change it all. Also, she passes the test of refusing the Ring, and gifts the Phial of Galadriel to Frodo, and with the spiritual kindling of its light by Varda, ultimately saves the quest in the lair of Cirith Ungol.
Frodo stares into the Mirror of Galadriel, seeing visions of possible futures. Artwork by Alan Lee. Belladonna Took — She doesn’t ever appear in Tolkien’s stories but as a memory in hobbit history, and most importantly, as the key figure in Bilbo Baggins’ genealogy — his mother! Roots are incredibly important in Middle-earth, and this is no less so in the Shire. Tolkien devotes lots and lots of story to the families and social dynamics of the hobbits, in terms of who is who and what is what: who is respectable and who is not, who is joyous and who is not, who is good-hearted and who is fool-hearted, often one and the same. You have your Ted Sandymans and your Sam Gamgees, one a bully miller, one a gentle gardener. You have your Bagginses, who are mostly a sedentary uncurious lot. You have your Brandybucks, who are raucous and party a lot. And then you have your Tooks, which legend has it one of their ancestors probably took a fairy wife — there’s that mixed heritage thing again. So why give Belladonna Took an entry here? Well, unusual among hobbit names, Tolkien used an Italian first name for Bilbo’s mother, perhaps to reflect a carefree southern charm. Her two sisters were Mirabella and Donnamira, a little fun three-way wordplay. Like the daughters of Old Took, Tolkien’s own mother, Mabel Suffield, also had two sisters; the Tooks in contrast to the Baggins side of the house, loved adventure. And this is why we love Belladonna, because in the end, it’s her side that wins out in The Hobbit, when Bilbo finally decides to leave his little hobbit-hole. In the background to all of this is Mabel, who married a German Englishman, moved to South Africa, and as a widow tried to raise her two sons outside Birmingham in nature, reading to them about dragons and fairies. So thank god for Mabel, and thank god for Belladonna Took!
Gollum’s Grandmother — While women are often far from the “action” in The Lord of the Rings — an epic greatly influenced by Tolkien’s mostly male-centric experiences in World War I — like with Belladonna Took, they have a momentous effect on key events throughout the book. Arwen for one (though she is not in this particular list). But perhaps one of the most mysterious and intriguing female characters in Tolkien’s masterpiece is Gollum’s grandma, or should I say Sméagol’s grandmother. We don’t learn much about the Matriarch, except that she was the head of their Stoor clan. We favorited “Grandma Gollum” because she kicked Gollum out once he became a menace, after he had killed his friend Déagol and stole the One Ring, sneaking and slinking about their hobbit settlement by the Anduin River. It’s not an admirable thing that he was banished, but it carries an important emotional sting. Grandmothers, much less hobbit grandmothers, don’t usually give up on their grandsons, so it tells us something important about Gollum and the Ring — this way agony lies.
Shelob — The chapter Shelob’s Lair is perhaps Tolkien’s best chapter in all of his books. Frodo and Sam’s harrowing passage through Cirith Ungol was made for the written word. For one, you cannot show the darkness in a theater, that ancient “Unlight,” that he describes in the book. And then, when you add the abstractions of horror —the sounds of the spider, her stench, her ominous presence, Sam and Frodo holding hands, the touch and encounter with her web — goodness gracious! — what divine hand was guiding Tolkien, what experience represented the loneliness, the pain, the sheer terror that he brings to bear for this un-mother, his anti-Galadriel? Perhaps the most disappointing part of all of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films is that it could not come even close to the book’s arachnid power. Oh how we wanted people in the theater to experience its wonders, and yet, how could it ever be? — thank goodness that words still reign supreme. She’s our favorite monster, our favorite thing. The film did get one part right, when she sneaks unheard above Frodo in the rocks, and when she knocks Sam on his face and crunches her legs into the sand. It’s just the tip of her sting. We love her because never did a greater mistress of evil walk our wildest dream.
Elwing — Why should we care about Elwing? Is she an Elf? Is she a wing? She is an “El” as in an “L” — “Lady” Elf, worthy of Tolkien’s greatest mariner and the seed of his whole elfin’ mind-blowing mythology. Speaking of blowing, Elwing blows through the wind at the near climax of The Silmarillion, the culmination of greed that flips into salvation. The brothers Fëanor, desperate still to hunt down a Silmaril, follow Elwing to the Havens of Sirion. Three of the brothers had already died in the Second Kinslaying, but the oldest brothers Maedhros and Maglor survived. Driven onward by a deadly oath to reclaim the Silmarils in the name of their dead father, they had already attacked Elwing’s home of Menegroth, murdering her father, mother and brothers, descendants of Beren and Lúthien. It’s tragic messed up stuff. Elwing’s grandfather, King Thingol, had previously died when he paid some dwarves to put Beren’s Silmaril in a beautiful necklace called the Nauglamír, all of them bickering over the finished jewelry, driven mad with desire for its beauty. And so, when Fëanor’s surviving sons come for her, Elwing dives into the sea, swimming after Eärendil and is transformed into a seabird, joining him as they set sail for Valinor, where they win the help of the gods in defeating Melkor. It’s a favorite move, another one of Tolkien’s exquisite miracles. Elwing is magical, and with Eärendil carrying the last Silmaril every night through the sky on their ship Vingilot, she visits and flies to him from her white tower at the borders of the Sundering Seas. It’s their bravery that keeps the star alight. She’s also the mother of Elrond and Elros, the sire of all of the kings of the Dunedaín right down to Aragorn. Her name does not mean “Elf” or “wing” — that was a joke — but translates to “star spray,” for she was born by starlight glittering in a waterfall by the house of Beren and Lúthien. Of course, Eärendil is the star that aids Frodo and Sam in that spider lair. Without it, all would have been lost. So take that, Shelob!
Elwing transforms into a bird and flies on the borders of the Sundering Seas. Artwork by John Howe. Éowyn — Who doesn’t love Éowyn? She’s the shield-maiden and sister-daughter that saves the day at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, the main strategic military turning point of The Lord of the Rings. All Tolkien fans know her story. She can’t not be on this list, simply because she is a badass. But we love her for more than just her warrior moves, felling the Lord of the Nazgûl. Yes, that is our favorite Éowyn moment, and one of the highlights of Tolkien’s epic. But there’s another favorite, and that’s her taking charge of Edoras when Théoden and Éomer ride to Helm’s Deep. Earlier, Aragorn had noticed her stark, cold beauty, in the Golden Hall, right after Gandalf had freed the king from Saruman’s spell and Wormtongue’s lies. As Aragorn leaves with Théoden, he looks back and sees her standing alone in soldier’s gear guarding the king’s home. Théoden had trusted Rohan not only to her intellect, but to her warrior prowess. Tolkien writes, “the sword was upright before her, and her hands were laid upon the hilt. She was clad now in mail and shone like silver in the sun.”
Elanor Gamgee — Samwise Gamgee and Rose Cotton named their eldest child after a winter flower in Galadriel’s Lothlórien. It means “star-sun.” In a way that’s exactly what she is, a piercing light in Tolkien’s mythology, the last note to his great symphony. It is baby Elanor who Rose puts in Sam’s lap at the end of The Lord of the Rings, after he says goodbye to Frodo at the Grey Havens and returns to live out his life in the Shire at Bag-End. And yet our favorite move is the story’s last grace note, tucked in the Appendix. Her father gives her the Red Book of Westmarch when he grows old: she is keeper of the history that contains all of Tolkien’s mythology, a meta compendium cherished by a little meta maiden. And at its core, an everlasting message — a star-sun hymn to the power of love.
Please tell us about your favorite moments in the Comments below, or share them on social media. If you want to know more about why Tolkien’s female characters are so compelling, and more plentiful than many might know, please read Part One in our series, The Mixed Heritage of Tolkien’s Myth.