I do get where you're coming from, Plei, but I'm not sure I have the twitch about it that you're expressing. Let me go look at Encyclopedia of Arda because I haven't looked at the Silmarillion in detail in awhile, but I don't think he is exclusionary about making his monsters male elsewhere in the mythology. I'm remembering one of the great dragons as female. At the risk of sounding more supportive of your argument than I instinctively think I am, I have to point out that the greatest Anglo-saxonist of his time (and likely all time) would hardly be able to write about a female monster antagonist without being influenced in some way by Grendel's mother.

Okay, off to Arda. And maybe late late tonight at home, I'll pour through some of the Silmaril stuff as I am off to RotK again at 8pm.

ETA: no easy female dragon ref at Arda, so maybe I'm wrong about remembering one, I might have to dig into the books. But there was an interesting reference to "dragon-reek" and the effect, which I thought was interesting in the context of Nutty's remarks about stink and that the dragons referred to (in that cite) were male. [Ancalagon the Black, Scatha, Smaug]

See, reading that passage just makes me think how much less gendered and misogynistic and fearful of female sexuality it is than Spenser's Duessa, which is what I'd use as a model for personal horror inflecting cultural distaste. Was it Duessa? Serpents beneath, all seething aggressive female sexuality and horror of the vagina?

I'm a lot more irritated by the extent to which Tolkien was a product of his time than Nutty is, but I'm with her in not seeing a particularly personal take on this.

At the risk of sounding more supportive of your argument than I instinctively think I am, I have to point out that the greatest Anglo-saxonist of his time (and likely all time) would hardly be able to write about a female monster antagonist without being influenced in some way by Grendel's mother.

As I said, the female monster brings to mind other female monsters. In fairness to Tolkien, I'm more intellectually disturbed by the women-as-other (and it bugs me in Wodehouse, too) stuff. This one just gets me on a visceral level. (And again, in fairness to Tolkien, I'm as viscerally disturbed by the Grendel's mother stuff, the Fall of Man being Eve's fault, and pretty much all the historical blame shifting to we the womanfolk. It's a thing. Damn it.)

I think, if I were going to mark out female villains of Tolkien, Ungoliant from The Silmarillion would be the one I'd look at cock-eyed. We get a lot more psychology of that character, and it comes across to me as a lot more self-serving and less plot-serving, and there's the spawn issue. Not to say there's not a relationship with the item Ple doesn't like, but Ungoliant comes after, in completion/publishing terms, and is like a magnification of its publishing predecessor.

(Blah blah disclaimer about J.R.R. being dead for parts of the organization/writing of The Silmarillion. )

Given the context of Tolkien writing from a traditional viewpoint of women, it's interesting to me that most of the women are so memorable. When Middle-earthians pray, they pray to Elbereth; Luthien is arguably more famous than Beren; Galadriel cuts a far more memorable portrait than Elrond. I can be sort of affectionate towards Tolkien's antiquarian views, I think, because although he finds women confounding and confusing, he also finds them fascinating.

Galadriel, Melian, Elbereth: all hugely powerful and important, rather more important than their consorts, or at least more beloved. Elbereth's consort was Manwe, so probably she doesn't outrank him. But she made the Trees, didn't she?

And, yeah, Luthien kicked ass.

I loved the fact that when Beren and Luthien came back from the dead, everyone but everyone was weirded out by it and they had to go far away to live. Very believable, that...

In fairness to Tolkien, I'm more intellectually disturbed by the women-as-other

What's struck me in LotR is how everyone except the Hobbits are "other", the good and the evil, even Men. Who are not quite as men are "today" (the quotes being to represent both the point of view of the telling, and to indicate by today I mean Tolkien's era).

Granted, Hobbit women are represented pretty much by Rosie Cotton and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins and that's it.

Hmm, if I had a point, I seem to have lost it.

Hey, Lobelia comes out well in the end. She's just extremely cantankerous. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if she was a parody of someone specific Tolkien knew. Her husband and son came across as real lice.

snerksnerksnerk.

DM and BB run circles around a reporter here.

Oh, that's brilliant. I'd buy their car to spend a day with them.

If I were really rich, I mean.

I get what Ple is saying about Shelob. The description subtly evokes not just a female figure but a soft, baggy-bellied, pendulous-breasted kind of post-child bearing hag/disgust.

But generally speaking I was pinged more on the "suspicious brown people from the east" than the gender issues.

Though I enjoyed RoTK, I think it is easily the least of the theatrical releases As A Movie. I think a lot of the emotional affect is earned earlier and pays off here. I got the feeling (I think JessiMoon mentioned this) that PJ's edit of this movie was affected by putting together the extended editions of the earlier two movies. At a certain point he just threw up his hands and said, "I'm contractually obligated t make this 3 hours. There's no way I can get it all in. I'll just have to go with the extended edition as my personal director's cut."

What is the whitefont rule for this thread anyway? Do we give it a week or two? 'Cuz I'm thinking you shouldn't be reading this far in without having seen it at this point. The last two hundred posts are all specifically related to the movie.