Evil women in The Lord of the Rings

Frandîr said:

I believe Ungoliant could be read as a female character. I have not read all the history of middle earth (I'm halfway through) but using Blind Guardian's prologue to their Tolkien themed album "Nightfall in Middle Earth", "War of Wrath", I believe she is called: "...the mistress of her own lust."

Click to expand...

Rivendell_librarian said:

a major female evil human (or of human form) character but just wondering how such a character would have affected the story if it's considered possible or reasonably feasible?

Click to expand...

Ricardo said:

Lobelia wasn't evil, she was annoying, greedy, but not evil, perfectly demonstrated by what she did at the end.

Beruthiel is a too minor character to be considered, surely, she plotted, she spied on everyone, doesn't look that she was a good person, perhaps evil but with limited reach.

I can't think of anybody else. When you have big bags like Melkor, Sauron or Saruman the women look like saints.


the thing with Ungoliant is that Tolkien never really told us what she/he/it is. We know what she can do, we know what she looks like, but nothing else. It's the Tom Bombadil of spiders.

Click to expand...

Greenleaf2024 said:

Isn't Ungoliant simply an evil spirit that can take on different forms, and "she" chose to appear as a giant spider?

Click to expand...

Greenleaf2024 said:

Tolkien doesn't seem to have that many women in the main tales anyway, so evil women are even more rare 😅 I mean, think about this: Elrond's wife sailed. Theoden's and Denethor's wives died. We (seemingly) know NOTHING about Thranduil's wife (which makes me mad , by the way), Frodo's mother died, etc. Yes, we have Gilraen, Luthien, Galadriel, Arwen, Eowyn (there are some female characters), but the stories seem to have limited roles for women. I haven't met Tolkien, I don't know why, maybe he just forgot and didn't realize that so many of his male characters had (apparently) absent wives, either through death or the simple calamity of not one single sentence to guarantee their existence. 🤣

All of that is to say that maybe he just didn't really write too much about women anyway, so he didn't get too detailed about Shelob, for example.

Click to expand...

Ricardo said:

None in the Hobbit except Tauriel (don't flame me, I've being sarcastic

Click to expand...

Greenleaf2024 said:

🤣🤣🤣

Click to expand...

Ricardo said:

There seems to be more women with strong characters in the Silmarillion, the already mentioned Luthien, plus Idril, Melian, Varda, Yavannah, Morwen, Nienor, Andreth (not Silmarillon but first age).

Click to expand...

Valandil said:

Erendis?

Ancalime?

Cue up “The Evil Woman” by ELO!

Click to expand...