What does it mean to Write in the Spirit of Tolkien?

[Anguirel]

Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age

Surely you don't believe, for example, that Tolkien's Beren is more successful than his Luthien, merely because Tolkien was a male. Luthien has one foot in faerie but the rest of her is very "real", and I have no trouble accepting her feelings for Beren. And would you criticize Luthien for going out on the road on a wild adventure in a manner that most women would not do, as someone who was trying to wrest from men the role that rightly belongs to them? She was definitely a nonconformist by the standards of Elven society and even by our own contemporary standards.

I'm afraid, like LMP, I don't really buy perfect, invincible, silent (except for her blasted caterwauling) Luthien as a particular advertisement for Tolkien's ability to write women. Nor though would I take Tolkien as a testament to the inability of men as a whole to write women.

Idealising isn't quite the same as whitewashing, and I don't believe that being an Elf necessarily equals either-look at poor Aredhel. Even Finduilas isn't exactly a paragon of constancy and perfect virtue. Haleth is far more unconventional than Eowyn. Granted, these are glimpses from the Silmarillion, but I'm not sure I'd call Galadriel idealised either...she's too...perilous. She almost has the danger of TH White's Morgause, the first character whose beauty I felt as an extremely attractive threat.

So, despite, rather than because of evidence garnered from Luthien, in my view Tolkien can write women. And Men can certainly write Women. Allow me to kick Tolstoy pointedly...