Skip to main content

the lord of the rings - Is There More to Arwen Than Her Obsessive Love for Aragorn?


It's me again -- still reading my way through The Lord of the Rings, but quite familiar with Peter Jackson's trilogy, which I really like.


It occurs to me, though, that Arwen is almost the Lord of the Rings' equivalent of Twilight's Bella Swan. Arwen's sole purpose in her life seems to be to obsessively love Aragorn and to be with Aragorn romantically. As an elf, Arwen gives up her immortality to be with Aragorn (although I'm unsure why her being paired with Aragorn would require Arwen to give up her immortality to begin with). In the Jackson trilogy, there's the absolutely ridiculous and nonsensical storyline that ties Arwen's mortality to the fate of the One Ring (say WUT?). While Arwen and Aragorn do marry and are married for 122 or so years, Arwen dies of a broken heart a year after Aragorn passes away.


Does Arwen have any personal identity, interests, or causes of her own, that do not involve Aragorn, in the LOTR trilogy? Or is her purpose in the stories to simply be Aragorn's love interest? I find Arwen to be by far the most boring and insipid character of the LOTR movies, but is there more to her than meets the eye? I'm completely open to being swayed. Oh, and yes, I realize Arwen is responsible for safely transporting Frodo to Rivendell following his stabbing by the Witch King of Angmar, and I thought that was pretty awesome, especially when she said to Strider/Aragorn, "I do not fear [the Nazgûl]." Yet after this . . . Arwen's storyline seems to deteriorate to include only the Arwen/Aragorn love story.



Answer



Your judgment of Arwen can only get harsher after you've read the books. If anything, Peter Jackson beefed up her role. He did mess up the reason for her mortality, which is unrelated to the One Ring. Arwen dies because, in marrying a mortal, she chose mortality over Elvendom. This is clearly explained in the appendix.


I've read somewhere -- and concur -- that Tolkien had a very traditional and romantic view of females, possibly related to his upbringing and/or life at Oxford. I don't think he was an expert on women at all. I think his Arwen is a very weak character, barely something for Aragorn to pine for. Which is a shame, since when his female characters are allowed to show some backbone, they shine. One gets the impression Galadriel is both wise and very powerful. She is clearly calling the shots at Lothlorien (Celeborn seems more like a trophy husband), and we are told that if she ever took the One Ring, she would become way more powerful than Sauron ever was.


And we all know about Eowyn's "hands on" approach to adventure, willing to risk her life, instead of being left behind by the men. I pity Eowyn for the fate the Professor reserves for her. We're shown she has backbone, and she is definitely dangerous and brave. And all for nothing: at the end, this promise gets deflated. She will no longer be a shieldmaiden. I assume she gets to marry and raise children. Eh.. yay?


(disclaimer: these are the random thoughts of someone who absolutely loves LOTR. You should see what I do to books I hate)



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...
Post a Comment
Read more