Itaril

[TheMisfortuneTeller]

Originally Posted by LadyBrooke

... note the special snowflake description. I only call people that when I'm implying that they're really only special because mommy (or in this case, PJ) thinks they're oh so special.

I like that "special snowflake" characterization. I had gotten stuck trying to fill out the last line of a verse stanza with something that had to rhyme with "cast" or "passed," etc. I really wanted to use "aghast" but I couldn't make it fit following the comic-book references in line 5. Your mention of a snowflake at least gave me something to work with. Still not what I wanted to get across, but at least I've got something passable for the present. Thanks again for the helpful suggestion.

Murkwood Mary Sue's come back
Rebranded and recast.
First "Itaril" imploded, now
It’s "Tauriel" who’s passed
From Vicky Vale to Lois Lane:
A snowflake melting fast.

I give the elves credit for trying to write poetry, Tolkien's own favored means of literary expression. However, since I don't speak, read, or write Elvish dialects, I have to go with Bilbo Baggins as the hobbit Homer of Middle-earth. Naturally, none of this versification stuff has a chance in hell of making it into a Peter Jackson hack-and-slash action extravaganza. Now, if instead of Murkwood Mary Sue disemboweling orcs, wargs, and giant spiders, this Tauriel turned into an elegant, elvish Edna St. Vincent Millay, saying of the world's cruelty and injustice:

I know.
But I do not approve.
And I am not resigned.

... then I could appreciate such truly feminine strength and character. Of course, Galadriel would deliver such lines with more authority than Murkwood Mary Sue, just returned from her morning kung-fu choreography training, but if this story absolutely has to have something quintessentially elvish going on in King Thranduil's household while Bilbo skulks about, unseen, looking for a way to free his dwarf companions, then I would not mind witnessing a timelessly young elvish wordsmith audibly composing trenchant verse in King Thranduil's library. I think an invisible Bilbo would find that experience both enchanting and edifying, as well.

And then I woke up ...

[LadyBrooke]

Originally Posted by TheMisfortuneTeller

I like that "special snowflake" characterization. I had gotten stuck trying to fill out the last line of a verse stanza with something that had to rhyme with "cast" or "passed," etc. I really wanted to use "aghast" but I couldn't make it fit following the comic-book references in line 5. Your mention of a snowflake at least gave me something to work with. Still not what I wanted to get across, but at least I've got something passable for the present. Thanks again for the helpful suggestion.

You're welcome! I really like your poems. I'd try one, but in my family, my sister got all the poetry skills, and I got the essay writing skills...But yours are wonderful.

Naturally, none of this versification stuff has a chance in hell of making it into a Peter Jackson hack-and-slash action extravaganza. Now, if instead of Murkwood Mary Sue disemboweling orcs, wargs, and giant spiders, this Tauriel turned into an elegant, elvish Edna St. Vincent Millay, saying of the world's cruelty and injustice:

I know.
But I do not approve.
And I am not resigned.

... then I could appreciate such truly feminine strength and character. Of course, Galadriel would deliver such lines with more authority than Murkwood Mary Sue, just returned from her morning kung-fu choreography training, but if this story absolutely has to have something quintessentially elvish going on in King Thranduil's household while Bilbo skulks about, unseen, looking for a way to free his dwarf companions, then I would not mind witnessing a timelessly young elvish wordsmith audibly composing trenchant verse in King Thranduil's library. I think an invisible Bilbo would find that experience both enchanting and edifying, as well.

I don't think I'd mind this character, if she was what you are describing - a minor background character, inserted to set the mood in Thranduil's caverns, acting in an elvish fashion. Unfortunately, she's some mary sue of a modern woman, poorly disguised as an elf. *sigh* I'm just hoping that she isn't inserted onto the White Council or anything - one woman on the Council - Galadriel, not Tauriel. Also, I'm wondering who all they're going to place onto the Council - Galadriel, Saruman, Radagast, Gandalf, and Elrond of course. But what about Celeborn or Cirdan, neither of who, as far as I am aware, have been cast. If Tauriel gets on it, and neither of them do.... Must remember to wear pointy high heels to the movie that day....

[TheMisfortuneTeller]

Originally Posted by Rumil in another thread:

... strong female roles are thin on Middle Earth in Tolkien's work ...

Granted, but I think that certain characteristics of hobbits: namely, their shyness, love of growing plants, and relatively small stature, for example, substitute in many cases for appearance and behavior that men typically associate with women. I wouldn't go so far as to call hobbits "effeminate" by nature, but they do tend to live and act in ways antithetical to the adolescent, swaggering machismo that animates so much of infantile male mythology. Therefore, by creating morally "strong" hobbit characters like Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, Tolkien essentially provided what strong, mature women would have supplied, but without the mythological penalty of putting girls into a boy's fantasy adventure.

I say these things because I once wanted to pay tribute to a strong woman who I consider one of my country's real heroes: a mother who had lost her son in Iraq who subsequently confronted the President of the United States from a position of enormous relative powerlessness but far greater moral authority. For inspiration, my first thoughts turned to Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, where Isabella pleads with a judge for her condemned brother's life. Then I thought of Macbeth and Hamlet in reference to the unequal struggle with bloody power figures. Then I thought of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, specifically "Riddles in the Dark" and "The Shadow of the Past," respectively. Then this happened:

Metrics for Measure
(Dedicated to Cindy Sheehan)

The pricking of his thumbs begins to sting
As something wicked comes his way unsought:
The awful truth about the play as thing
Wherein the conscience of the prince is caught

Now Isabella camps outside his ranch
Her silent supplication real not fake
Her rude requests for justice make him blanch
Her simple power poised to grab and shake

Her time, down in a roadside ditch, she bides
With twenty*-hundred crosses witness mute
While safe within his bubble he resides
The gashes in the dead his lies confute

His thought no counsel credible informs
So on he stumbles, mouthing scripted rhyme
Upon the gibbet’s scaffold he performs
For his allotted fifteen minutes’ time

An angry ape with glassy essence clear
Before high heaven trotting out his trick
Afraid of nothing quite so much as fear
Which makes splenetic angels laugh till sick

Assured of his own ignorance he pressed
To have himself informed of what he knew
In little brief authority he dressed
So as to mask his nakedness from view

His counselor, the clown, roved here and there
Professing, like Rasputin, cures to know
For royal hemophilia laid bare
As turds that blossom on the frozen snow

But still the would-be great no greatness had
They thus could only mock the small who sobbed
Until disrobed, in disrepute unclad,
Their perfidy showed clear to those they’d robbed

But Gandalf once to Frodo Baggins said,
In telling him his uncle Bilbo’s tale,
That even small ones lost in fear and dread
Can turn the blast of fortune’s greatest gale

For Bilbo spared the vicious Gollum’s good
In pity of one long so lonely lost
And would not strike him even though he could
Which in the end saved all great evil’s cost

No doubt some live who maybe ought to die
And some that die deserve to live instead
But who shall make of his own life a lie
Who deals out death in judgment of the dead?

And as the wizard might have said at length
What Isabella did, a court to sway:
How excellent to have a giant’s strength
But tyrannous to use it in that way

For even very wise ones cannot see
The end to all the mischief that ensues
From feckless fights and their mad misery
As complex as a rainbow’s many hues

And as such smallish suitors might combine
Soliciting compassion as their cause
They plead for pity in a single line
That pelting petty officers might pause

For making thunder just to hear the noise
And lightning just to see the awe and shock
If overused by adolescent boys
Will look more like the chicken than the hawk

They like it well enough when first they think
That all will go exactly as they dream
But soon enough they shun the fetid stink
That clogs the nose and gags them till they scream

Those wise who hold great power in reserve
And do not waste it in a foolish deed
Have moral power more which well will serve
When faced with future’s grave and greater need

Thus Isabella Baggins now implores
The one who can to pity those who serve
And bring them home from bloody foreign shores
To reap the future lives that they deserve

We only ask for metrics we can use
To measure what is often promised glib
By bureaucrats who went and lit the fuse
And now can only hedge, and stall, and fib

The prince from all his lies, has not escaped
Despite the chimps and baboons that he aped
Upon this dwarfish thief with soul misshaped
His title's giant robe hangs loosely draped

* Note: As of early 2008, the number of dead American soldiers in Iraq had reached 4,000 – or “forty hundred,” as the poetic meter would have us mark the doubling yet again of premature graves filled with more luckless victims of vainglorious venality.

Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2005, 2008, 2011

So, it appears that deep down in my own psyche, I associate strong women and hobbits, without the distracting violence and sexuality that attend more "modern" conceptions of "femininity" and "strength." Whether Tolkien intended that sort of subliminal association or not, I cannot say; but it seems to me that with the best qualities of hobbits to work with, Professor Tolkien did not require much in the way of overt female roles to communicate his major themes and issues.

Just a few thoughts and verse stanzas on the subject ...

[Nerwen]

I think some named Elven characters would be needed (yes, even in a hypothetical faithful version). I mean, Elves turn up quite a bit in the book, but are mostly referred to collectively : "they said this", and "they said that". That would probably not work in a film. So I've got no objection to PJ throwing in an Elf-maid named Tauriel– as long as she's a minor character, and not another version of "Itaril".

Here's hoping the change of name indicates a change of plan. Jackson has supposedly said she's not to be Leggy's love-interest, which reduces the Mary-Sue factor somewhat.

On the other hand, there's speculation she's going to be Bard's love-interest...

Oh, and though in every reference to this new character on the net, she's "Tauriel, daughter of Mirkwood", the name doesn't, in fact, mean this at all. Wonder where that came from.

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Oh, and though in every reference to this new character on the net, she's "Tauriel, daughter of Mirkwood", the name doesn't, in fact, mean this at all. Wonder where that came from.

It was taken off Jackson's facebook page but may be elsewhere too; and I think it's likey from someone on the Jackson team, a sort of simplification: as the name appears intended to mean 'daughter of the forest' -- and the particular forest in reference (so to speak) is popularly known as Mirkwood (or Taur-e-Ndaedelos 'forest of great fear').

Thus Jackson, or someone, 'simplifies' it in this way: 'daughter of Mirkwood'.

[Mithalwen]

I suppose that it is so luxiouriously cast that even Raft elves and the hunting/feasting elves areliable ot be"names" and I suppose there is no great harm if the spokes rafte elf were female however I have no faith itwill be jsut that.

[TheMisfortuneTeller]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

On the other hand, there's speculation she's going to be Bard's love-interest...

At this point in the revolting development, I've begun to not care if "Murky" becomes romantically attracted to Smaug, or vice versa. Something along the lines of Fay Wray and King Kong, only the reptilian version.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by TheMisfortuneTeller

At this point in the revolting development, I've begun to not care if "Murky" becomes romantically attracted to Smaug, or vice versa. Something along the lines of Fay Wray and King Kong, only the reptilian version.

Well, PJ did film an over-produced but ultimately mediocre version of King Kong. Perhaps he has run out of plot bunnies and had to borrow one from there.