So—Is Epic Fantasy Misogynist? Part 2—"The Lord of the Rings"

Yesterday, I began to explore the question of whether I believe it really is true that epic fantasy, as a subgenre, is misogynist and determined that, in order for the answer to be  positive, I would have to conclude that epic fantasy "consistently conveys an inherent hatred of women."

To read the full post and in particular my discussion of how I might evaluate epic fantasy works to assess whether they "convey an inherent hatred of women", click here.

As part of trying to reach either a positive or negative conclusion I indicated that, although not in a position to undertake a comprehensive survey of epic fantasy, I would look at a couple of well known series in more detail. The purpose of today's post is to kick that process off—and the logical and obvious place to start has to be with JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, which effectively defined the epic fantasy genre in the middle of last century. So let's shine the spotlight in that direction now.

The Lord of the Rings

In the past, I have heard allegations of sexism leveled against The Lord of the Rings (LoTR) because of the lack of female characters within the story. I have always partially excused JRR on this count on the grounds of his generation (and because I love the tale, of course) but my question now is whether, as a defining example of epic fantasy, LoTR is misogynist?

Lack of female characters is certainly a stroke against it. But going back to my first experience of the story as an early teen reader, I don't recall being consciously concerned about the lack of female characters in the same way that I felt uncomfortable when I realized that all the human races allied with Mordor (the Southrons, Haradrim etc) were clearly African/Eastern in ethnic conception. I felt very uncomfortable indeed about that—and even more so when I saw what was in the book faithfully replicated in the screen version.

So why didn't—and don't—I feel so uncomfortable about the women in the story? Although there are few female characters in the first book, those we do meet—Rosie Cotton, Mrs Maggot, Goldberry and Arwen Evenstar—while not particularly important to the story, are in no way negative characters, ie weak and venal. I regarded—and still regard—them all as relatively positive portrayals; they're just not major characters.

Similarly, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins is difficult and unlikable but then so, too, is her son. I never get the sense that Lobelia is unlikable because she is a female: it's because she is a Sackville-Baggins. (And in fact her ornery character, however disagreeable, nonetheless acquires positive virtue at the end of the story because she has stood up the forces of oppression and been imprisoned for doing so.)

Another female character who appears in the early story in a positve, though nonetheless background —in fact, backstory—way, is Luthien Tinuviel. Luthien was clearly powerful, courageous, and a person of integrity as well as (at least in the story that Strider recounts) saving her lover Beren from Morgoth, the Great Enemy.

Nonetheless, despite such minor positives, I still recall the joy with which I first encountered Galadriel:  a strong, powerful, wise, compassionate but nonetheless dangerous character who appears in real time at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, but whose influence is felt throughout the continuing story: for example,  when Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas speak with Eomer in Rohan; when Sam and Frodo are questioned by Faramir in Ithilien; and during the passage of Cirith Ungol.

And then there's Eowyn. I remember how very real she always seemed to me as a teenager: the way she felt trapped within her role and aspired for more; her crush on Aragorn; and the sheer wonder and glory of the fact that she took her fate into her own hands—and because of that was the right person in the right place at the right time to do something really important for the course of the story.

Eowyn is the sword-wielding chick par excellence, but she is also a real person, troubled and lost. She also gets some great lines on the subject of the roles men allocate to women:

"All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more."

But also said about her, in this case when Theoden is trying to decide who can lead the people left behind when the army goes to Helm's Deep (the book is a little different from the film.) He has just said that Eomer is the last of his house and cannot be spared, when Hama replies:

" … he is not the last. There is Eowyn … his sister. She is fearless and high-hearted. All love here. Let her be as lord to the Eorlingas."

I know some readers feel that Eowyn's eventual turning way from the sword to healing lessens her role—but within the context of a story where the values of civilization and peace, learning and healing and gardening, are set above the sword, I find it difficult to agree with this perspective. As well as choosing life over death, a choice that the value set within the book establishes as the path of strength (as opposed to Denethor's self-immolation, which Gandalf describes as both weakness and a fall from wisdom), Eowyn also sets aside her crush on Aragorn for the real love of Faramir.

This may seem like a consolation prize in the film version of the story, but as I have always considered the character of Faramir to be one of the strongest and most real in the book, once again I don't see it that way.

So although there are very few women at all in LoTR and only two that I consider to be major in any way, those two are great characters. In the case of Eowyn, she does question the limited choices on offer to her because she is female and follow her own path. Galadriel is quite simply a powerful and charismatic character—and none of the minor female characters are in any way weak or venal, or portrayed negatively simply because they are women.

The historical  "torment" of Elrond's wife in the dens of the orcs is referenced, but LoTR does not really explore the brutalities of war a real time way for either men or women. We know that civilians have been massacred in Rohan and we hear of how characters die in battle—but usually deaths and casualities are reported after the event. Even Boromir's battle with the orcs at the end of Book One is not described in real time, but recounted to Aragorn when he comes on the scene after the event.

Despite the small number of female characters in LoTR, therefore, I do not believe it is possible to make the case that the story is misogynist: there is no sense for me in which hatred of women or the female is inherent in the book.

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Next up I will look at Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (WoT) and George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF), the first book of which is the recently televised A Game of Thrones. Both series have towered above the plains of epic fantasy over the past two decades—The Eye of the World was first published in 1990; A Game of Thrones in 1996—and so cannot be ignored.