#—with love at the very least. tauriel could never be as effective as eowyn was because she was never written with care for women in mind

[pinkfey]

explain about tauriel? I’m not remembering anything 😅

yes ofc!!

so in lotr women are frail, subservient, and are supposed to hold the children while the men die at war. that’s nothing new. galadriel and eowyn are the exceptions to this rule, with eowyn actively fighting quite literally every man in her life (save for merry) for her right to be on the battlefield. ultimately she does it with literally no man’s blessing because all men in the films want her safe and believe her “better than” the horror of war; essentially she is their delicate flower in need of protecting.

she serves as our Token Woman and catalyst for some liberal feminism. i don’t really have to explain much further the lenses through which women are viewed in lotr are misogynistic, but at the very least eowyn is complex. her relationships with men are not her becoming an accessory to them and the story devotes a pretty great deal of time to showcasing what’s going on in her head. and i love that.

enter tauriel!! she’s cool!! she’s badass!! she does flips and kicks on par with legolas!! she’s everything we wanted!! a woman efficiently fighting from the get-go!! no need for saving!!

except that’s not really tauriel. yes, she is an exquisite fighter and i do love the choreography of her fight scenes, but that is not why she’s there. like eowyn, tauriel’s sole connections in the films are men: thranduil, legolas, and kili. but unlike eowyn, tauriel exists to accessorize them. any possible backstory of hers gets chalked up to being a silvan elf and the single other scene of her expressing her thoughts is used to show kili developing feelings for her.

tauriel is there to show thranduil’s high standards for his son, to show legolas’ bitterness over her unrequited love, to provide the viewers with an unearned heterosexual love story between her and kili, and (and i don’t see this brought up much) to watch over children. when kili is injured and bard is off in jail, tauriel is there to take care of the children. because of course she is. women are caretakers after all.

so!! in summary!! though i really really wish tauriel was more than just a cheap faux feminist ploy, she just isn’t that. despite tauriel being what most people wanted out of eowyn—sharp and quick on her feet and efficient—she falls short of everything eowyn rose above!! aka men!! tauriel is a weak plot device, and from just her introductory scene it’s made clear she will not be written with any care, where she swoops in to save the man who will fall in love with her and the camera lingers on her in a way it does not do with bilbo or thorin. it’s supposed to be a nod to the audience, a cue to applaud her for breaking such a gender norm, while also informing you of the stale romance that is to come.

so there u have it!! everything i’ve noticed about the absolutely terrible writing of tauriel ♡

#i didn’t mean to write paragraphs abt this i’m so sorry anon fjshdbfk #also this isn’t me pitting two bad bitches against one another this is me using eowyn as a good example of a female character who was writte #—with love at the very least. tauriel could never be as effective as eowyn was because she was never written with care for women in mind #letters #anonymous #lotr liveblog #<- just bc this was kinda epic and belongs here idk