The Analytical Nerd

Women and Romance in Lord of the Rings: Part 4 Eowyn’s character is easily the most developed and complicated female character of the four women in the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Her character’s storyline is loaded with romantic interactions between no less than three men in the films, and these romantic interactions are a large part of how she is developed as a character. However, unlike Tauriel and Arwen, she does not rely only on her romantic connections and interactions with male characters in order to develop as a character, and she gets much more screen time and development than Galadriel. In fact, a crucial part of her character is that she grows beyond the first two romances and develops independently without any reliance on a romance with a man in the story. Her character grows and thrives, and even though her character’s story ends in a romantic relationship with Faramir, her character is not restricted to this romance after her previous development. ...

Women and Romance in Lord of the Rings: Part 3 Tauriel and Arwen are characters that are almost completely centered around their romantic plots (though Arwen’s romance and love story is infinitely more complex and interesting), but the only one of the four women in Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit without a primary focus on love is Galadriel. Galadriel is the Lady of Lothlorien, a guardian of the woods of Lothlorien alongside her husband Lord Celeborn, and she plays a small but crucial role to the story in the Lord of the Rings. She acts as both as a source of wisdom for the fellowship, giving them warnings as well as providing them with hope and gifts, and she does so with no dramatic or emphasized romantic attachments. Tauriel, Arwen, and Eowyn are all characters whose development is heavily reliant on other male characters as love interests, but Galadriel’s character and her development is completely separate from romantic involvement with any male characters, and as such, ...

Women and Romance in Lord of the Rings: Part 2   Tauriel’s character in the Hobbit Trilogy was a much needed woman in an otherwise male dominated story, but even though her character was written from scratch to fit into the existing story of the Hobbit, her character was stunted by a shallow love triangle and an almost complete dependence on the love stories to exist as a character. At first glance, Arwen’s character in the Lord of the Rings trilogy seems similar to negative aspects of Tauriel’s character, specifically her character’s dependence on romance to evolve her character. Though she becomes an interesting and meaningful character, for the most part, her love interest in Aragorn and Aragorn’s love for her are her only connections to the rest of the story. Other than her first scene rescuing Frodo, she is never included in the story other than when it is about her connection with Aragorn. Though her character is mostly unable to grow outside of the romance,...

Women and Romance in Lord of the Rings: Part 1 The lack of women in Lord of the Rings franchises is a well-known and obvious problem. In 21 hours of Tolkien based cinema for the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the three Hobbit Movies, there are only four main character women: Tauriel, Galadriel, Arwen, and Eowyn. The lack of female representation is of course an issue, but even more than that, all four of these women have plots that are partially or completely centered around romance, love, or physical attraction to or from a man. At first that does not seem to be of that much importance. As long as there are women, they’re being properly represented, right? However, because of their ingrained connection with their romances to a man, they are dependent on these men for their own character growth and development. Most of these women are still fantastic characters, but their dependence on romances and the men they are connected with hinders their character in a way that the doze...

Content warning: There are some graphic and disturbing pictures included in this post involving blood, violence, suicide, and sexual content. Comics have been around in some form since the stone ages when people drew short stories on cave walls. They have progressed from that point to comic strips, and those short strips grew into comic books and graphic novels with full blown stories and sagas. These comic books went through stages usually separated into four ages, each age coming with its own themes, characters, and problems, but each age influenced the others. However, the Comics Code (a code of restrictions that censored what was allowed to appear in comics) had long term repercussions after it was introduced in 1954. Though the Code became less prevalent at the end of the Silver age, it shaped comics in its own age as well as in the Bronze and Modern Ages. With the continued discussions about fake news, alternative facts, internet privacy, and censorship, it is...