🧝Arwen: why i hate her

[Goldilocks Gamgee]

I think that Ealdwyn's answer is the most reasonable here. Squint-Eye, I know not to wait for Saucy's answer. But how does that stop me from mentioning her? Thank you for the welcoming, Halasían.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

But how does that stop me from mentioning her?

Oh, it doesn't. I just don't want any of our members to turn blue! 😁

 

[Goldilocks Gamgee]

Oh, it doesn't. I just don't want any of our members to turn blue! 😁

Okay!

 

[Angelimir]

join me now...may all anti Arwen's unite?!!!

1.> she does nothing other then sit around and have "HOPE" that things work out!!!! if i was her, i'd be there fight along Aragorn's side.

2.>She is so forlorn, like really id be way happier then she is if i was a gazillion (exageration) yr's old and still looked that good

3.> Eowyn diserved aragorn WAY more but stupid arwen stood in her way!


i posted this in the book section because i felt this way about her when i read the books...but even in the movie i cant STAND her cause pj has taken her annoying hated qualities and multiplied them a gazillion times

I didn’t dislike or like her character in the books, in the movies she was obviously given an enhanced part. She was given Glorfindel’s part for instance. But I’m sure Jackson had his reasons.

 

[Angelimir]

I didn’t like or dislike Arwen in the books. Her character has very little back story. In the movies she was given an enhanced role for whatever reason. For example she was given Glorfindil’s during the chase to Rivendale. And even Gandalf’s and Elrond’s role in bringing the waters up to disrobe the Nazgul. I didn’t enjoy these changes. But the first movie, I thought all in all stayed truest to the books than the second or third.

 

[Olorgando]

My guess, looking back to the origin of the thread in November 2003, that it was originated by, and participated in, by quite a few youngish female film-only (at the time) fans. Meaning they had not even read JRRT's book, and never mind The Sil, UT, HoMe and whatever else had been published at the time (Biography, Letters, stuff by tom Shippey, Verlyn Flieger etc.). So a lot if not all of what we grizzled book-nerd veterans have been spouting here (I was "only" 47 when the thread got started, but to a teenager that's probably ancient, at it was still ten year before I got internet at home) probably would have elicited "ehwot?!?" responses from the film-only crowd. So probably the background against which the early discussion was held would have been what had been in films and on TV by that time.

Squint-eyed Southerner earlier mentioned Xena. "The Avengers" with Scarlett Johansson was still nine years in the future, and what is probably today's "template", "Game of Thrones" eight (to my surprise). I hardly watched Xena (probably less than a handful of episodes in the 2000s), and I haven't watched GoT. It is being re-run (though I have no idea which season this is - hang on, somewhere in the 70s episodes) by RTL-II, the private TV RTL group's "channel two", on Saturday mornings a bit after midnight, three episodes in a row, I think, as per our TV's electronic TV guide.

That gripe that JRRT did not write (or PJ did not film) what others expected, or would have liked better, is as old as the book. The original gripes were by literature critics, TV still being relatively in its infancy in the 1950s (certainly in Germany, we only had a single channel with perhaps four to eight hours of programming daily. and in the teletext section of of public TV channel 1 there was recently an item about - I think in the late 1950s - Germany finally reaching the level of one million TV sets!). Now there are many films and programs in diverse media to compare to. George R.R. Martin is on record criticizing JRRT's lack of - well, I guess what he then put into GoT or rather his A Song of Ice and Fire, didn't he. Criticizing anybody for not writing (or filming, or whatever) what one would have liked better strikes me as very silly. There's enough (I'd guess) of what such people prefer reading or watching, so where's the problem?

My main guess here are the enormous sales of LoTR, so it's often simply a matter of jealousy. And the again silliness that some people seem to be annoyed that other people like other things than they themselves do. Get a reality check, folks! My wife never managed to finish our German translation of LoTR, and I certainly wouldn't watch the one daily soap that she likes, nor much of prime-time TV (lots of crime series, a clear case of an industry in a rut), or for that matter many of the books she has bought, tending towards TV soaps.

 

[GreatQueen]

I'm not a fan of Arwen in the movies and I think criticism for characters that I like and dislike is valid. People are allowed to have and voice different opinions be it negative or positive.

Liv Tyler did a good job with making an otherwise flat and contradictory character charming. What most people miss is that in the movie she is two characters into one: Glorinfindel and Arwen. So while in a scene she is facing enemies (Glorifindel's role), in the other scene she is sitting submissively, waiting her shiny knight to save the world which raises an eyebrow since she is an accommodated damsel wanting to be saved and waiting for others to do the job, even despite having powers to join the battle, or at least potential do much more, it rubbed me in the wrong way.

Added to that, Arwen being the most beautiful woman in the world that everybody falls in love, and dying from grieving one year after her love interest died, despite her being a queen and having children and a country to rule with people that adore her, is not beautiful, but simply annoying. What is relatable or likeable about it? Imo nothing. Other than Liv Tyler charisma, she is very flat and even problematic.

The Arwen in the book didn't bother me so much, since she barely appears. Aragorn and Arwen are in love and that's it, she isn't supposed to be a major player. I'm alright with expanding Arwen, she has potential but the movie script did dirty to her imo.

That would be better if her background in the books were expanded on screen, but not changed. Not everyone need to be a warrior. A woman can have own mind and role without being in the battlefield, Arwen is progressive in her own way: she was a royal elf that decided to give up her immortality for a human, and defied a lot of traditions of her people, and helped behind scenes, she has a mind on her own. How to show it on screen? Dunno in flashbacks and maybe showing more of her political mind in the present? Idk.

But the point is that she should have something more on her own than being pretty and in love with the protagonist and then dying because this gorgeous elf queen with mystical powers can't function without her man.

 

[HLGStrider]

I'm not a fan of Arwen in the movies and I think criticism for characters that I like and dislike is valid. People are allowed to have and voice different opinions be it negative or positive.

Liv Tyler did a good job with making an otherwise flat and contradictory character charming. What most people miss is that in the movie she is two characters into one: Glorinfindel and Arwen. So while in a scene she is facing enemies (Glorifindel's role), in the other scene she is sitting submissively, waiting her shiny knight to save the world which raises an eyebrow since she is an accomodated damsel wanting to be saved even despite having powers to join the battle, it rubbed me in the wrong way.

Added to that, Arwen being the most beautiful woman in the world that everybody falls in love, and dying for grieving one year after her love interest died despite her being a queen and having children and a country to rule and people that adore her, is not beautiful, but simply annoying. What is relatable or likeable about it? Imo nothing. Other than Liv Tyler charisma, she is very flat or even problematic as a character.

The Arwen in the book didn't bother me so much since she barely appears, Aragorn and Arwen are in love and that's it. I'm alright with expanding Arwen, she has potential but the movie script did dirty to her imo.

That would be better if her background in the books were expanded on screen, but not changed. Not everyone need to be a warrior. A woman can have own mind and role without being in the battlefield, Arwen is progressive in her own way: she was an elf that decided to give up her immortality for a human, and defied a lot of traditions of her people and helped behind scenes, she has a mind on her own. But she should have something more on her own than being pretty and in love with the protagonist and then dying because this gorgeous elf queen with mystical powers can't function without him.

There are a couple of faulty assumptions here.
1. There is not indication that Gondorian law or custom would have allowed Arwen to rule after Aragorn's death. In fact, considering that Aragorn's parting words to her include that his son is ready for the kingship, I think the opposite can be assumed. I very much doubt Gondor had it set up for the kingship/queenship to pass to a spouse after the death of the ruler. It's simply not how bloodline related rulership generally works.
2. I don't really see any indication that everyone falls in love with Arwen. Galadriel gets more of this, honestly. There's the automatic, "Oooh, it's a pretty Elf" reaction, but honestly even dude Elves seem to have this effect on Hobbits. Aragorn falls in love with her immediately, but that has more to do with Tolkien's ideals of fated romance (he does the same thing with Melian and Luthien) than with any special traits assigned to Arwen.

Tokien's ideal of a couple so linked by love that they pass away near each other is on one hand an ideal he espouses in multiple stories, and on the other something documented in long term couples quite frequently in real life (elderly married couples passing away within days of each other is a pretty well established phenomena). With Arwen, though, you add in the fated element that she is tied to Middle Earth specifically DUE to her link to Aragorn, and it becomes, again, tied to the concept of fated romance.

On one hand, I agree that not every character, female or otherwise, needs to be a warrior ... back in the day, I was as skeptical of the need of Arwen being made into a warrior princess for the movies as well. Looking back, and having learned a little bit more about film making, I kind of understand the expediency of combining two minor characters from the book into a single one for the purposes of pacing and (probably) budget. Was that the best way to do it? Shrug. Saved some time. Saved some casting. Gave a bigger part to a character that otherwise would've been more in the background ... might've been other ways to expand on her character, but I get why having her be sort of lingering in the background only to show up in the end to marry Aragorn would've been weird to the average viewer.

 

[Olorgando]

Both Arwen and Faramir are late entries in LoTR, as per the HoMe volumes 6 to 9 dealing with it. Don't forget, Aragorn started out as a mysterious Hobbit Ranger named Trotter, and retained the nickname Trotter long after it had become ridiculous for a tall Dúnadan Ranger. Aragorn becoming a distant echo of Beren, as Arwen of Lúthien, took quite a while.

At some intermediate phase, JRRT seems at least for a short time to have envisioned Aragorn and Éowyn marrying. While Faramir appeared (as per a letter of JRRT to his son Christopher while the latter was in South Africa training to become a pilot foe the RAF in WW II) "unbidden", and JRRT stating that he "needed to find out more about him" (his being Boromir's brother seems to have been there from the start), Faramir's "function" of "diverting" Éowyn from Aragorn was probably also a late development.

JRRT simply was not interested in in-depth characterizations of his characters, perhaps even straying into the paleo-Freudianism (which probably severely misunderstood ol' Sigmund himself) that may have been fashionable at some time. I feel that he dealt more in what one could almost call archetypes (but not those of Freud's rebellious pupil Jung), as he was interested in applicability, which must generalize in a way. In modern terms, don't expect a Woody-Allen type character in Middle-earth.

 

[GreatQueen]

There are a couple of faulty assumptions here.
1. There is not indication that Gondorian law or custom would have allowed Arwen to rule after Aragorn's death. In fact, considering that Aragorn's parting words to her include that his son is ready for the kingship, I think the opposite can be assumed. I very much doubt Gondor had it set up for the kingship/queenship to pass to a spouse after the death of the ruler. It's simply not how bloodline related rulership generally works.
2. I don't really see any indication that everyone falls in love with Arwen. Galadriel gets more of this, honestly. There's the automatic, "Oooh, it's a pretty Elf" reaction, but honestly even dude Elves seem to have this effect on Hobbits. Aragorn falls in love with her immediately, but that has more to do with Tolkien's ideals of fated romance (he does the same thing with Melian and Luthien) than with any special traits assigned to Arwen.

Tokien's ideal of a couple so linked by love that they pass away near each other is on one hand an ideal he espouses in multiple stories, and on the other something documented in long term couples quite frequently in real life (elderly married couples passing away within days of each other is a pretty well established phenomena). With Arwen, though, you add in the fated element that she is tied to Middle Earth specifically DUE to her link to Aragorn, and it becomes, again, tied to the concept of fated romance.

On one hand, I agree that not every character, female or otherwise, needs to be a warrior ... back in the day, I was as skeptical of the need of Arwen being made into a warrior princess for the movies as well. Looking back, and having learned a little bit more about film making, I kind of understand the expediency of combining two minor characters from the book into a single one for the purposes of pacing and (probably) budget. Was that the best way to do it? Shrug. Saved some time. Saved some casting. Gave a bigger part to a character that otherwise would've been more in the background ... might've been other ways to expand on her character, but I get why having her be sort of lingering in the background only to show up in the end to marry Aragorn would've been weird to the average viewer.

Well, fair point. There's no indication one way or another that she could rule, and much less that she had interest on doing so. She had an adult son and even probably had grandchildren at that point.

But what I'm saying is that Arwen is a flat and satellite character, and the way she was expanded in the movie turned her a disjointed character. Even Luthien has more substance than Arwen imo.

I understand the producers decisions. They thought that the only solution to make Arwen a strong or interesting character would be making her more of an 'action girl', so it would justify Aragorn preferring her over Eowyn. But it just doesn't make sense to her characterisation imo:

- One day she is facing bravely enemies without fear using powerful magical incantations but why she doesn't do it again to help the man that she loves if she is so magical and strong? Is she a coward? Nothing matters other than romance, while the human world that she wants to be part, is failing apart? We know she is a nice person so it doesn't make sense. Too much mental gymnastics are needed to explain her behaviour.

-And another scene she passively is at home while everything is failing apart, and then she appears again whipping because her husband died and then she retired to die too. The final result makes her seem like a prize waifu or spoiled short sighted character, instead of a wise elf. It's just a big "no" to me, but there may be people that like this kind of character, I simply can't.

Both Arwen and Faramir are late entries in LoTR, as per the HoMe volumes 6 to 9 dealing with it. Don't forget, Aragorn started out as a mysterious Hobbit Ranger named Trotter, and retained the nickname Trotter long after it had become ridiculous for a tall Dúnadan Ranger. Aragorn becoming a distant echo of Beren, as Arwen of Lúthien, took quite a while.

At some intermediate phase, JRRT seems at least for a short time to have envisioned Aragorn and Éowyn marrying. While Faramir appeared (as per a letter of JRRT to his son Christopher while the latter was in South Africa training to become a pilot foe the RAF in WW II) "unbidden", and JRRT stating that he "needed to find out more about him" (his being Boromir's brother seems to have been there from the start), Faramir's "function" of "diverting" Éowyn from Aragorn was probably also a late development.

JRRT simply was not interested in in-depth characterizations of his characters, perhaps even straying into the paleo-Freudianism (which probably severely misunderstood ol' Sigmund himself) that may have been fashionable at some time. I feel that he dealt more in what one could almost call archetypes (but not those of Freud's rebellious pupil Jung), as he was interested in applicability, which must generalize in a way. In modern terms, don't expect a Woody-Allen type character in Middle-earth.

Fair point. But I think adaptations are a great opportunities to expand otherwise unexplored characters. And the movie producers didn't do a good job with Arwen, but as already mentioned she is a side character and they had limitations of time and maybe resources. Well, at least showing more of Arwen is better than ignoring her and making them marrying out of blue, but I found her a bit annoying.

I don't have any hard thoughts about book Arwen, she just exists and is underdeveloped enough to insert with any headcanon and characterisation (respecting the lore of course). My criticism is more about the movie version.

About Eowyn, it seems that the main reason that some people dislike Arwen is that they prefer Eowyn as a love interest, which is understandable since she is a more compelling character and the female lead, but particularly I don't think that protagonists need to marry the main girl, it's a boring cliche. Aragorn already had a strong connection with Arwen prior the story, explained in side material, but the movie didn't expand it enough, which is a huge missed opportunity.

 

[Olorgando]

Fair point. But I think adaptations are a great opportunities to expand otherwise unexplored characters. And the movie producers didn't do a good job with Arwen, but as already mentioned she is a side character and they had limitations of time and maybe resources. Well, at least showing more of Arwen is better than ignoring her and making them marrying out of blue, but I found her a bit annoying.

I won't even try to pretend I have a better solution of how to expand Arwen's role in the context of a High Fantasy film, given the slim material to be found in the book. I think one problem Hollywood (as a generic term) has is that they have a limited number of templates to "steer" them. My impression is that the template ("flavor of the ...") of the time was "Xena: Warrior Princess" (now it might be "Wonder Woman" or whatever - my knowledge of post-millennium films besides PJ's two trilogies is very low - and that includes films (film franchises) of which I own DVDs!). At least in the Extended Edition appendices of The Two Towers, PJ acknowledges that they had considered having Arwen present at the Battle of Helm's Deep to kick (or slash) some butt. They decided against it; perhaps, as has been suggested in an Éowyn thread here, that it would have taken away from Éowyn's singular feat in RoTK of destroying the Witch-king - with some help from Merry.

 

[Ealdwyn]

I guess it depends who you consider the "real" Arwen. I don't really acknowledge PJ's Arwen. The character in the film is, frankly, a mess.
In the book she has no significance other than for Elrond to influence Aragorn, to steer him towards his destiny.

 

[Halasían]

In the book she has no significance other than for Elrond to influence Aragorn, to steer him towards his destiny.

Hey... she made a beautiful standard that Halbarad toted all over Middle Earth...
And a simple way that Arwen could have been brought into the movies was to have her ride with her brothers with the Dunedain Rangers south....

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I shouldn't laugh -- it's an important moment, though of course we don't see its significance until later.

 

[Ealdwyn]

And it took her something like 40 years to make it. I mean, how on earth does it take that long? I guess she was far too busy doing whatever beautiful elf maidens do for 40 years. Admiring herself in the mirror?

 

[Olorgando]

40 years, bah! When Arwen and Aragorn "plighted their troth" at her grandma's place Lothlórien in TA 2980 - he was 49 then, she 2739 (*cough, cough*), she had had far more time to fill up to that time than 40 measly years. Even the 2690 years of her life before future hubby was even born are still 89% of her life until they got married 89 88 years after his birth ... what the? Twice 89?!? This cannot be a coincidence!!! Have Shippey, Flieger, Hostetter and Co. been notified of this ground-breaking, nay, earth-shattering discovery?!?!?!? oops

JRRT stays strangely silent about Elven occupations, except for some smithying and of course military duty in the First Age (the latter declining very much in the next two ages). Actually, except for the Dwarves with their mining and smithying, JRRT leaves economists among his readers (be they micro- or macro- specialists) perhaps more frustrated than any other professional group. 😭

 

[Oromedur]

It seems now that if a female character doesn’t fit with modern feminist tropes or ape male archetypes then she is not considered worthy. Sad.

 

[Ealdwyn]

It seems now that if a female character doesn’t fit with modern feminist tropes or ape male archetypes then she is not considered worthy. Sad.

It's more that Arwen doesn't actually *do* anything in LotR. It's hard to deem a character worthy when she does nothing at all.
I mean, Ioreth does more.

 

[Halasían]

... modern feminist tropes ...

What would that be? Equality?

It's more that Arwen doesn't actually *do* anything in LotR. It's hard to deem a character worthy when she does nothing at all.
I mean, Ioreth does more.

Quite true really.

 

[GreatQueen]

40 years, bah! When Arwen and Aragorn "plighted their troth" at her grandma's place Lothlórien in TA 2980 - he was 49 then, she 2739 (*cough, cough*), she had had far more time to fill up to that time than 40 measly years. Even the 2690 years of her life before future hubby was even born are still 89% of her life until they got married 89 years after his birth ... what the? Twice 89?!? This cannot be a coincidence!!! Have Shippey, Flieger, Hostetter and Co. been notified of this ground-breaking, nay, earth-shattering discovery?!?!?!?

JRRT stays strangely silent about Elven occupations, except for some smithying and of course military duty in the First Age (the latter declining very much in the next two ages). Actually, except for the Dwarves with their mining and smithying, JRRT leaves economists among his readers (be they m

40 years, bah! When Arwen and Aragorn "plighted their troth" at her grandma's place Lothlórien in TA 2980 - he was 49 then, she 2739 (*cough, cough*), she had had far more time to fill up to that time than 40 measly years. Even the 2690 years of her life before future hubby was even born are still 89% of her life until they got married 89 years after his birth ... what the? Twice 89?!? This cannot be a coincidence!!! Have Shippey, Flieger, Hostetter and Co. been notified of this ground-breaking, nay, earth-shattering discovery?!?!?!?

JRRT stays strangely silent about Elven occupations, except for some smithying and of course military duty in the First Age (the latter declining very much in the next two ages). Actually, except for the Dwarves with their mining and smithying, JRRT leaves economists among his readers (be they micro- or macro- specialists) perhaps more frustrated than any other professional group. 😭

We all know that Arwen was an important businesswoman, an economist in the elf world. She took care of kingdom's finances 😎

Now seriously, idk how they could had expanded her in that movie without derailing it too much. A tv show could provide more space to explore Arwen without turning her a disjointed mess.

What would that be? Equality?


Quite true really.

Yep I don't know why some people in this topic mentioned feminism as a bad thing. Equality is good. Women being useless is not alright, specially since Arwen is often the poster girl in expense of Eowyn (I think it's Liv Tyler star power?) Feminism doesn't mean turning every woman a warrior though. Even the main protagonist of the LOTR is not a warrior and he is great. The main problem with Arwen is giving interesting characterisation, and tying her to the story without making her look random.