"I didn't know that about Idril. Thanks for that. And don't forget your namesake, Morwen...who I think was one of Tolkien's most intriguing female characters."
No one could accuse Morwen Eledhwen of weakness, to much pride perhaps. And of course she was under the influence of Morgoth's curse when she made her worst decisions.
"I would actually quibble about your point, however, of women not having strong roles in the literature of Tolkien's sources. There were an awful lot of women appearing in old Norse literature and poetry, and some of them were damn scary, I can tell you."
Oh yeah! What about that Gudrun, ready to sacrifice her sons lives to get her revenge?
My favorite has always been Signy, sister of Sigurd. Torn between loyalty to father and brothers, (murdered by her own husband) and to husband and children she solves her dilemma by helping her surviving brother avenge their family, (even bearing him a son to fight beside him!) but chosing to die with her husband and their children.
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen is cast very much in the pattern of a Courtly Romance with the conventions of the 'Fair Unknown' and cruel father keeping the lovers apart. I hate the Tale precisely because it makes Arwen out to be such a passive ninny. *Some* heroines of Romance are like that but most are pretty tough ladies, running their own castles or roaming the countryside as a Damsels Errant, searching for a knight to right a wrong or undertake an adventure she knows of and guiding and advising him every step of the way once she's found him.
What I meant was while both Northern legend and Medieval Romances have strong women characters they express their strength in traditional female roles, wife, mother, mistress, sorceress and only rarely shield maiden, just like Tolkien's women.
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