[Lush]

Phantom, you have to look at my statement in context. Feminist literary criticism of fairy tale in general, and Tolkien in particular hinges on several things, in my opinion; one is that, as Toril Moi put it in her "Sexual/Textual Politics," writes that we should not necessarily take literature and expect it to portray 'reality' as we know it. Art is not a transparency, essentially. When I wrote about "the real world" I was referring, primarily to statements made repeatedly in communities such as the 'Downs, ones that, in my humble opinion, do not widen, but reduce our understanding of Tolkien's work and the choices he made. Now, of course we are going to have to be able to respond in a tangible way to what we encounter on the page, otherwise there would be no connection between the reader and the written word, but we should always be aware that our understanding of any text, be it Lord of the Rings or something else, always exists in a particular framework.

In my study of fairy tale, I have encountered the notion that fairy tale conventions should not be taken out of context. There are a variety of approaches in making sense of them: feminist, Freudian, Christian, etc., but I think most readers are coming from a place where a father can't cut off his daughter's hands on the Devil's bidding and get away with it, and a Balrog won't spring out at you from the depths of the Grand Canyon when you're on vacation there with your family. Do fairy tale conventions apply to the real world? Of course. We wouldn't respond to them so strongly if they did not. But if we are not to treat a Balrog in a literalist fashion, why should we treat the gender of the Fellowship's members in the same way? Please understand that this is merely musing, I by no means think that a rule should be made, I just think people ought to step back from their regular points of reference when addressing fairy tale. Stringent interpretation is, in my opinion, reductive and unreasonable.

No matter what type of book the human is in, a human is a human and male and female are male and female and thus real world rules apply to humans in books unless the author says otherwise.

What rules in particular are these? Do you think Tolkien addressess any specific rules of gender?

The real world is what a normal person uses to define something.

Of course. Though I'm not sure what normal is, or if I am the person to talk to when it comes to normalcy. I am home on a Friday night with a mug of hot chocolate, debating gender in Lord of the Rings, after all.