Also, to clarify yet further, hopefully without putting my foot any deeper into my mouth, I do believe the inability to write three-dimensional women (or men--I've certainly encountered writers with the opposite problem) is in absolute terms a writing flaw. However, given that there's no such thing as a perfect writer, how important that flaw is is largely a function of value-neutral reader taste. And I'm certainly not going to defend my own taste as having any particular virtue to it. Though I will defend myself to the extent of saying it's not that I can only relate to female characters or only enjoy a story with at least one woman in a lead role--after all, I do love LotR, and my other favorite movie from this year is Master and Commander --I'm even reading those books now, after finding them dry the first time I tried them. It's just that if you asked me why LotR doesn't top my all-time favorite books list, I'd say it's because Tolkien's female characters didn't work for me.

Susan, am I correct in thinking that what you're saying is that you prefer strong and believable female characters over female characters who don't share those traits - not just S&B female characters rather than S&B male characters? Maybe this is where some of the confusion is coming from. Or maybe I'm the one confused.

Susan, am I correct in thinking that what you're saying is that you prefer strong and believable female characters over female characters who don't share those traits - not just S&B female characters rather than S&B male characters?

Exactly. (Well, I do have a preference for stories where women play important roles, but not to the extent that I can't love one where they don't. See under loving Master and Commander.)

ita, this one. (A big download.)

ita, the one Kathy linked to earlier. And just linked to again, while I was looking for the post.

Another point from the doc is Bernard Hill saying that Howard Shore scored 5 hours of film for ROTK. FIVE HOURS, boys and girls. That's one helluva Extended Edition.

"Okay. So. She's a dog."

Ha! This absolutely made my day.

Back on the gender thing (thwap thwap), I think the Arwen we got in movies 2 and 3 was much more of a slam on women than the mostly-absent Arwen of the books.

Pretty dresses though.

I don't think Arwen in the books is a slam on women, since she does have a story, and Tolkien didn't put it right in the story.

But I don't think Arwen in the movies is a slam either -- I think she's PJ's attempt to make the best of a mostly absent deal, and an ineffective attempt at that. But I blame casting (and that odd my mortality is tied to the ring (does it have to do with giving Frodo her grace? What *is* that?) thing) for a lot of it. If not for the fact that he has to choose her over Eowyn, simple casting could be enough for us to look at her and think "I get that. I see why he's loved her for decades". Liv Tyler? Not a freaking chance. Given that PJ had cast a creampuff, the writing needed to pick up the slack.

I don't know. If Arwen had been played by the Platonic Ideal of a perfect woman, the writing would still have stranded her in WTF-land. I think, once you re-orient her as an active character with a subjectivity, you're sort of obligated to play that out all the way through. Not turn her into a helpless twit.

Alternately, you could write her from the start as regarding the whole thing as a test -- not just Elrond seeing it that way, but her too. Not "I know you need to go do remarkable things; I'll wait here for you", but "Go do remarkable things, and don't come back to me till you've done them." It sort of flies in the face of classic romance, but I like the idea of her deciding, not before the movie starts, but right there in the middle of it, whether she'll cleave to him (and from the elves) or not.

[edited because WFT is not the same as WTF.]

But then his reasons for doing the remarkable things become entirely selfish, and defeat the main purpose of his arc.

I want Aragorn wrestling alone with his destiny and what that means in the larger scheme of men and history, not fighting so he can nail some chick, elven or not.