It was a topic that had to come up during discussion because how could you talk about The Hobbit without talking about the movie and how could you talk about the movie without talking about Tauriel? It was a topic that I almost wish we had taken more time to discuss rather than let it sputter out and die in silence, but I was "too tired" when I really shouldn't have been because this is important to me.
Tauriel, in the second movie The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, is a brand new character that Tolkein's universe had never seen before. She's the Captain of the Elven Guard underneath Thranduil's rule and realm and she's absolutely different from the other female elves that we'd seen before (in reference to the Lord of the Rings movies). I can't talk about Tauriel without comparing her to Arwen and Galadriel, yet she deserves to stand on her own. Galadriel and Arwen are both elves of different areas of the world, hold different titles and, of course have their own (pretty small in my opinion) part to play through the Fellowship's journey.
Both Arwen and Galadriel are etherial, otherworldly and seem, at times, quite aloof, though we know that they hold nothing but information for Frodo and his friends. They are written (again, at least in the films) as information holders, and tend to not "do" very much. Arwen saves Frodo from the wound the Ring Wraiths inflict on him and bring him to her father's kingdom so he can heal, and then promptly spends the rest of the trilogy fighting over her personal decision to give up her immortality so she can be with Aragorn without the threat of outliving him.
Don't get me wrong, Arwen and Galadriel are wonderful, amazing characters, both of them adding to the mystery and complexity of Middle Earth but for me (and a lot of other people, I'm sure) Tauriel offered something a little more. She was created and implanted into The Hobbit as a way to break up the dominating male cast and, admittedly, to give women more of a reason to see the film. From the promotional posters and the trailers and such, Tauriel looked amazing. She was a kick ass, no nonsense character who, although Elves and Dwarves were supposed to loath each other, decided to help out a rag tag group of Dwarves and their Plus One Hobbit get out of Mirkwood so they can continue on her journey. I had hoped that she was going to tag along as extra security. I had hoped that she was going to stay as her own character and not be written as a potential love interest, but that's exactly what we got.
And people hate her.
This is what we're greeted with on her Wikia page. She's a character in the movie, she's cannon now!
This isn't a fanfiction that someone wrote.
Tauriel's appearance in the film was a great step forward, her writing in the film forced her to stay where most women in film stay and that's not okay. The audience is immediately forced to watch a growing love triangle between her, Thranduil's son Legolas, and one of the youngest Dwarves, Kili. Now if you want two characters to fall in love, that's fine, great even! But to fall back on the crutch of the love triangle is weak, outdated, and annoying. I want her to be so much more. Yes, she's based heavily off of the "Strong Female Character" trope, which just hearing someone devalue a female character to that one single trope is annoying, but she's what we've got and we need her in the movie. So what if she's non-cannoncial? The entire Hobbit trilogy should be counted as non-cannonical because of the appearance of the White Orc (he wasn't in the books) or the Necromancer (who was just mentioned, briefly, in an offhand comment, way at the beginning).
I read an article a while ago that I think about sometimes, especially when I'm reading/watching anything that has only one or two female characters. It's about this father who read The Hobbit to his daughter one night and was surprised when she told him that she thought of Bilbo as a woman. At first he wasn't very receptive to it, but once he began changing Bilbo's pronouns to she/her/hers, he found miraculously (sarcasm intended) that there was no change to the story. Lady Bilbo was just as strong, sarcastic, clever and brave as Male Bilbo and, guess what, THE STORY DIDNT CHANGE. Bilbo being a woman didn't ruin the story as some people might claim she would. She didn't grow whiny, or weak, or think any of her Dwarf companions were attractive; she continued on with her adventure, just as lost, just as heroic, and just as wonderfully cunning as the original Bilbo did.
Women don't ruin stories. Women don't have to be written as weak, something to be saved, as only information holders. They're awesome and great additions (especially in Tolkein's universe where there are thousands upon thousands of male characters with names! and only a handful of named women, and even a smaller few who aren't barmaids). This is important to me and it should be important to everybody.
"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow bones on his fellow man" - Joseph Campbell "The Hero With A Thousand Faces"
1 comments:
I think what really makes Tauriel a positive addition to the film series, is that she's an unpredictable factor to both the book reader and the film goers. Whether you've read the books, or seen all the movies, the audience is left questioning her fate. Will she live? Will she die? And that really creates a strong intrigue for her character, in addition to her just being rad as hell.
I pray that her character isn't diminished to simply being a love interest thrust into a love triangle, because she has so much to offer.
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