Women Fighters
- Thread starter Ange1e4e5
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Ange1e4e5
Well-Known Member
When should we introduce them (if we introduce them)? Season 5, when Aredhel leaves, or when she returns to Gondolin? Early Season 6, when Hurin and Huor arrive after rescue from Orcs? Or Season 8 (?) when Tuor arrives in Gondolin as a messenger of Ulmo?
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Nicholas Palazzo
Well-Known Member
If we are talking about Glorfindel and Ecthelion, we have already seen them as unnamed characters without a speaking role in S03. As Turgon separates from the other Noldor, they will likely be introduced through S04.
Ange1e4e5
Well-Known Member
Well, the other Lords of Gondolin. How about the rest (with the exception of Glorfindel and Ecthelion who are introduced earlier) are introduced by the time Aredhel makes her fateful trip in Season 5 or when she returns and dies, with Maeglin being introduced to the rest when he forms his own house?
Nicholas Palazzo
Well-Known Member
Perhaps. We will likely begin to focus more on Gondolin as we approach its fall.
Ange1e4e5
Well-Known Member
True.
How would we forge identities for characters like Ecthelion and Glorfindel, who are background characters at present but play a larger role in years to come?
MithLuin
Well-Known Member
I think they each require an 'introductory scene' where they do something significant and the audience pays attention to them, but also gets to know something of their characters. There was a suggestion for Ecthelion to fight off werewolves, either while exploring Beleriand or in an attempted elf-napping. A skirmish in which he would be the awesome fighter who prevails (and saves whomever he's with at the time).
I don't recall any suggestions on how to introduce Glorfindel, actually.
I don't recall any suggestions on how to introduce Glorfindel, actually.
Ange1e4e5
Well-Known Member
Ecthelion: fighting off werewolves sounds good.
Glorfindel: Same, perhaps in a scene where Turgon is present to establish them as kin? I've thought of having Glorfindel act as an elder brother to Idril during his time in Gondolin and teaching her how to wield a sword when she asks him during the last seven years of Gondolin's time.
It's because it has felt like when I mention the possibility, the reaction I get looks like: They don't need to be Celeborn's relative, therefore they should not be his relative. This is why it has sometimes felt like the answer is already no.suggesting that Nick and I will pre-emptively ban your ideas there is a bit...pre-emptive...don't you think?Okay, in all seriousness, I understand your concern.
About the Besain and healers, @MithLuin I do appreciate that there are pitfalls to avoid when using any minor or background characters, that I'm less familiar with those pitfalls than you are, and that you aren't necessarily saying we can't use them. It isn't always easy to tell the tone of a long critique on a forum.
I hope that for characters who would fade into background characters in some seasons, it would be helpful to not make them very prominent in the episode that introduces them.
Yes, we did.
I like this.
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Nicholas Palazzo
Well-Known Member
I just want to point out that discussing Ecthelion and Glorfindel on this thread seems ... wrong somehow...
Ange1e4e5
Well-Known Member
It’s because we’ve been talking about the roles and magnitude of characters and as of right now, Glorfindel and Ecthelion are minor characters.
Nicholas Palazzo
Well-Known Member
Yeah, but maybe this isn't the right forum for that.
MithLuin
Well-Known Member
Women fighters in the American Revolutionary War
Deborah Samson (sometimes spelled Sampson) is the best-known example of a woman who disguised herself as a young man and joined the Continental Army. She served for 3 years under the alias Robert Shirtliffe, being wounded twice in that time, before her identity was discovered by a doctor during an illness. She was discharged and granted a pension.
Less famous examples include Margaret Corbin, who "stepped up to the artillery during the attack on Fort Washington when her husband fell by her side and unhesitatingly took his place and performed his duties. In July of 1779 the Congress awarded her a pension for her heroism."
And the sisters Rachel and Grace Martin who "disguised themselves as men and assailed a British courier and his guards. They took his important dispatches, which they speedily forwarded to General Greene. Then they released the two officers who didn't even know that they were women." We know the officers didn't realize who they were, because they visited their mother's house and met them immediately after this incident...but didn't recognize the two young women as the 'men' who had assaulted them the night before. They were wearing their husbands' clothes and carrying pistols at the time of the assault.
http://userpages.aug.com/captbarb/femvets.html
General Casimer Pulaski was not a woman. But he has a woman's skeleton. To back up...we know this person was baptized as a boy. We know he had facial hair and male-pattern baldness. All of this indicates the presence of androgen hormones (ie, testosterone) and male sexual characteristics. But...this person's skull and pelvis? Would be classified as a female skeleton if they didn't know who it was. Height was somewhere between 5' 2" and 5'4". Never married and had no known direct descendants.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/revolutionary-war-hero-casimir-pulaski-might-have-been-woman-or-n991371?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR3Bo7KPshh6SGibUoh_vsasXFArNsYB_3xL5Voj5kWS8oM3fYtqKRFSXec
So, it is possible that this individual was intersex. I'm a bit frustrated that this article, which says they did DNA analysis, doesn't just come out and say whether that was XX, XY, XXY, or something else. And, obviously, if you give a woman more testosterone, her physical characteristics as far as muscle mass go are not markedly different from a man. But, regardless, this person was a noted general during the American Revolutionary War, and very successful until fatally wounded.
ETA: According to this second article, the condition General Pulaski most likely had was CAH, and the genetic analysis was of mitochondrial DNA in the femur (so that would explain why they couldn't confirm XX or XY or whatever). If it was a case of CAH, then Pulaski was most likely genetically female, but produced enough androgen hormones to show male traits.
https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/casimir-pulaski-intersex/Content?oid=69383944&fbclid=IwAR3EXqIK33pkiclCks0T1QZTEb51pMypfFb8mRKhRMplrUZSd4fq3gZeSaU
Deborah Samson (sometimes spelled Sampson) is the best-known example of a woman who disguised herself as a young man and joined the Continental Army. She served for 3 years under the alias Robert Shirtliffe, being wounded twice in that time, before her identity was discovered by a doctor during an illness. She was discharged and granted a pension.
Less famous examples include Margaret Corbin, who "stepped up to the artillery during the attack on Fort Washington when her husband fell by her side and unhesitatingly took his place and performed his duties. In July of 1779 the Congress awarded her a pension for her heroism."
And the sisters Rachel and Grace Martin who "disguised themselves as men and assailed a British courier and his guards. They took his important dispatches, which they speedily forwarded to General Greene. Then they released the two officers who didn't even know that they were women." We know the officers didn't realize who they were, because they visited their mother's house and met them immediately after this incident...but didn't recognize the two young women as the 'men' who had assaulted them the night before. They were wearing their husbands' clothes and carrying pistols at the time of the assault.
http://userpages.aug.com/captbarb/femvets.html
General Casimer Pulaski was not a woman. But he has a woman's skeleton. To back up...we know this person was baptized as a boy. We know he had facial hair and male-pattern baldness. All of this indicates the presence of androgen hormones (ie, testosterone) and male sexual characteristics. But...this person's skull and pelvis? Would be classified as a female skeleton if they didn't know who it was. Height was somewhere between 5' 2" and 5'4". Never married and had no known direct descendants.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/revolutionary-war-hero-casimir-pulaski-might-have-been-woman-or-n991371?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR3Bo7KPshh6SGibUoh_vsasXFArNsYB_3xL5Voj5kWS8oM3fYtqKRFSXec
So, it is possible that this individual was intersex. I'm a bit frustrated that this article, which says they did DNA analysis, doesn't just come out and say whether that was XX, XY, XXY, or something else. And, obviously, if you give a woman more testosterone, her physical characteristics as far as muscle mass go are not markedly different from a man. But, regardless, this person was a noted general during the American Revolutionary War, and very successful until fatally wounded.
ETA: According to this second article, the condition General Pulaski most likely had was CAH, and the genetic analysis was of mitochondrial DNA in the femur (so that would explain why they couldn't confirm XX or XY or whatever). If it was a case of CAH, then Pulaski was most likely genetically female, but produced enough androgen hormones to show male traits.
https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/casimir-pulaski-intersex/Content?oid=69383944&fbclid=IwAR3EXqIK33pkiclCks0T1QZTEb51pMypfFb8mRKhRMplrUZSd4fq3gZeSaU
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Haerangil
Well-Known Member
Hmm...
I don't think we'll actually need women who disguise as males... i mean, if elf women choose to fight they can do so. Maybe we have a small group of woman-regiment, or they just take part in the phalanx like the next guy. I just criticized the trend to have women put into classical male stereotypes.. as i don't think thats very progressive and i also said that women fighters in the legendaroum are always the minority and not the common standard. However the Halethrim and Rohirrim have an open subculture of female warriors, and the Elves have words for female warriors, so they must have existed.We know that some eldarin women did train on weapons and did perform athletic feats, others went hunting along with the males... makes them perfect candidates for possible female warriors. I just doubt they were very common, that is all.
I don't think we'll actually need women who disguise as males... i mean, if elf women choose to fight they can do so. Maybe we have a small group of woman-regiment, or they just take part in the phalanx like the next guy. I just criticized the trend to have women put into classical male stereotypes.. as i don't think thats very progressive and i also said that women fighters in the legendaroum are always the minority and not the common standard. However the Halethrim and Rohirrim have an open subculture of female warriors, and the Elves have words for female warriors, so they must have existed.We know that some eldarin women did train on weapons and did perform athletic feats, others went hunting along with the males... makes them perfect candidates for possible female warriors. I just doubt they were very common, that is all.