Evil DH leaned over when Frodo, Sam and Gollum reached Minas Morgul and Frodo started to walk toward the gargoyles, and whispered, "Okay. So. She's a dog." And when Sam reached Kirith Ungol and hestitated, apparently intimidated by its forbidding look, "This could be cozy. A plant and an uplight..."

Having just watched all three movies, Weathertop was never mentioned until Gandalf's line in ROTK.

I have some internal consistency issues with things Gandalf can do at one point and then doesn't do afterwards, even tho they'd be handy.

The round scar is supposed to be from the spear. Like a kevlar vest, I suspect the mithril prevented the spear from penetrating but dug into his skin quite a bit. Although it would've been nice for Frodo to have a bruise when recovering in Rivendell, but that might've impugned Elvish healing. It was so sad to see poor scarred Frodo, tho.

Back on the gender roles in Tolkein thing (dang it I wish I had internet at work)...Nutty spoke for me in a lot of ways, but although I did say that female spiders are the agressive ones, I think looking at Ungoliant is telling. Ungoliant was not created by Morgoth; she was there before him, and almost blotted out the world with her poison. In almost every culture, the pre-Apollonian ancient evils are represented by the feminine. Ungoliant and her kind have always existed and will always exist in the dark places of the world. That these places are often dank and cave-like makes it clear that they are the cthonian feminine. Tolkein had to have been building on this - it's too deeply-rooted, esp. in the European psyche.

Not to drag Paglia into it too much, because unlike Paglia I actually think feminine power comes not from being Apollonian but from being more protean. When the "strong female" criticism is broached, it's almost always people wanting to see a woman behaving in the masculine way, being a hero the way men are, not being strong in feminine ways. That the chtonian is considered "evil" is a whole other topic, because of course it often is the antithesis of progress or scientific thinking. But you need both sides.

Nutty also pointed out how often Frodo gets impaled...the Nazgul blade on Weathertop, the troll spear, some spoilery examples. To me, Frodo has always suffered a bit of gender slippage. The guy's a doll. Like Jesus, Frodo has to be male because it's the males who go out into the world and go on quests and enact change. But really, Frodo's not a male. He never fights, he doesn't attack anybody (except of course Gollum, when Frodo's gone completely mad. Frodo doesn't even attack Shelob, but hacks at the webbing.); he's a lifelong bachelor, not a sexual masculine persona as are Sam or Aragorn. Frodo's success is based on feminine qualities, like endurance and mercy, and on the very feminine tactic of creating a supportive group around him, rather than standing on his own.

So having posited Frodo as at least asexual, and quite possibly feminine, Shelob slips a bit to the masculine herself. She does impale Frodo, and cover him in sticky white stuff (okay, now I'm just riffing on Freudian interpretation...but the impaling stands). However, she is a cthonian evil, and she and Frodo are both too feminine, too much on the same side, to kill each other. It has to be Sam, the straight arrow, the rational male, to drive her off.

Back to looking a pictures of pretty hobbits and elves.

Finally saw it last night, at the midnight showing at Cinerama. DH and I felt like the oldest ones in the crowd, at the ripe old ages of 31 and 32, but decided that wasn't because we're the only people above the age of 30 who'd go at midnight, but because this particular showing was jammed with students from all the local colleges who'd just finished finals.

I'm about to post a meara, having read the whole thread this morning, but my overall reaction was very positive, but not quite as much so as I expected. Of course, the problem might've been my expectations rather than the movie itself--I went in fully expecting to see the Best. Movie. Ever., and it wasn't that. I'm not sure where it ranks yet, but it's somewhere behind FotR and The Shawshank Redemption, for sure. Still all-time top ten, though that's a tough list to make--I mean, how do you compare Bull Durham to RotK? Talk about apples and oranges. Anyway, DH and I thought the middle third was as perfect as anything that's ever been filmed, but that the first and last thirds dragged in spots (not that we had a problem with the multiple endings--that was necessary for the story).

I cried at Pippin's song superimposed on Faramir's charge, and again at the very end--when I heard lots of sniffling all over the theater. And my favorite moments were pretty much anything with anyone from Rohan, especially their arrival at Pelennor. And despite his relatively small screen time, my Eomer crush is starting to rival my Boromir love.

More to come....

But really, Frodo's not a male. He never fights, he doesn't attack anybody

Hee. Frodo is the Xander of LotR.

Yesterday's Foxtrot.

meara time.....

His strength failed at the end, but his mission was a success. I'm not religious, but Mount Doom is one of my very favorite examples in literature of God's grace - go as far as you can, and grace will bring you the rest of the way. (Katie M)

I am religious, and I totally agree. And I cried when I first read your post--that's just beautiful.

Oh! I managed to watch all of the Shelob scenes without closing my eyes. (Jilli)

I didn't quite close my eyes, but I did squint and watch through my fingers for most of that section.

However, at the end I felt the more immediate parallel was that Frodo was like a young man returning from WWI who saw so many horrors that he could never really re-integrate into his small towns. He was darkened. (Hecubus)

Yes. This. Exactly. All through the last few scenes with Sam and Frodo before the destruction of the Ring, and then when the hobbits return to the Shire, I was really feeling the WWI resonances--the utter horror of the trenches, and the impossibility of a complete homecoming and restoration to the way things were before.

(Accidentally hit post too early, so my Arwen gripes and general comments on women in Tolkien will get their own post.)

She was just nothing -- soft sighs and youthful but uncompelling pretty. (ita)

Yes. This. Even in the books, I preferred Eowyn, because she just has more substance as a character, and she kicks ass, and besides, I just love the Rohirrim. But as played in the movies Arwen annoyed me so much it was all I could do to not audibly chant "Dump the elf! Dump the elf!" everytime Aragorn had screen time with Eowyn.

was Liv at all elfy, other than sighing through every line, which was kind of her thing alone, since the rest could breathe just fine?) (ita again)

Yeah, what was WITH that weird breathy diction? Drove me crazy through all three movies.

His women, both weak and strong are idealizations. I simply don't think he was capable of ever going beyond that. (Cashmere)

t nods And while I do enjoy the books, this is enough to keep them from every being among my absolute favorites, because quality of characterization and how intimately acquainted I feel with whoever I'm rooting for are pretty much my top criteria for how I rank a book, and as a woman I have a certain instinctive preference for strong and believable female characters.

He does set up every woman as having a completely different mind than one might find in a man's body. I would have said he found women sort of vaguely mystifying, and sometimes in nice ways (Galadriel, Luthien). But, I guess, that sort of attitude doesn't say very much to me about Tolkien as a person/writer, as much as it does about his particular slice of English donnish 1940s culture. (Nutty)

Not sure I agree with this completely, based on comparison with Lewis. While Lewis's writings certainly show their share of sexism, his girls and women are (to me at least) human, three-dimensional characters, and he even has a slight bias toward writing from a female POV. That being said, I wouldn't by any means say that Tolkien was more sexist than Lewis, just that their strengths and weaknesses as writers, and probably as people too, were very different. (Of course, it's no secret that Lewis is one of those writers where I love what he got right so much that I'm willing to grant him near-infinite tolerance for what he got wrong (except for That Hideous Strength --I hated that book). Whereas with Tolkien I maintain more critical distance. And I'm fully aware that many people, and possibly most people in this thread, have the exact opposite reaction.)

as a woman I have a certain instinctive preference for strong and believable female characters.

Whatever gene this is, I'm missing it completely.

as a woman I have a certain instinctive preference for strong and believable female characters.

I don't think that's "as a woman" -- I think it's "as a Susan."

I have a preferenece for strong and believable characters, and tend to prefer it to average out 50/50 male/female, but that only has to be over the span of my consumption, not over any particular oeuvre or even storyteller.

Whatever gene this is, I'm missing it completely.

Well, I probably should've phrased it better, because I didn't mean to say it was a universal female trait, just that it's an area where it's influenced my tastes. I.e., I didn't mean "all women feel this way," but rather, "I'm almost certain the reason I feel this way is because I'm a woman." And I'm not saying it's a virtue, either--it's just a neutral fact of my tastes, sort of like preferring chocolate to vanilla and Dr Pepper to Coke.