Women Fighters

Yes this is exactly along the lines I was hoping the discussion would go.

I like the idea of dimorphism being present to a lesser extent than in IRL humans (and we could make the dimorphism as small as we like - other than Thingol being the tallest Elf ever, we don't have a lot of material in the canon about this). And even if Elves weren't universally* monogamous (*exception: Finwe) there's another difference, namely that the proportion of an Elven mother's lifetime spent gestating and rearing children is miniscule compared to IRL humans, diminishing to the point of being effectively zero. So most/all of the gender split in the military would be social and not biological in origin.
And that's where we can, if we want, start from a conclusion we like and work backward to set the conditions that would get there. Do we want 40% female soldiers? Make it so - less gender dimorphism, and the tendency toward healer over soldier is present but only slight. Do we want 20% female soldiers? Great, set it up - slightly more dimorphism, and a stronger tendency toward healer over soldier. Do we want 2% female soldiers (I don't but let's suppose)? Fine - even more dimorphism, and a very strong preference to healer over soldier. We don't have to settle on any gender split that we don't like, just because the source material (both Legendarium and IRL human history) demands it. We can interpret the source material how we like.

We will have to fudge the dimorphism a bit of course - we are casting human actors in these roles, and we will be limited to human body types, and it's probably not going to be worth our time to try to artificially bulk up all those human female actors so that they are as big as their male counterparts. So some of our 5'6" female actors will probably have to fight as if they were 6'2". Will take some interesting choreography and camera work to do it right.
 
I agree that we could support what we want and justify it by saying 'that's how elvish society works.'

There are other issues besides gender that will come up in this same way. It is typical in stories of humans for the older people who make the decisions for society to send off the young men to fight wars. It would be rare to have someone over the age of 45 on an actual battlefield; the older guys are far away organizing everything, while it's the younger guys who have no voice in the decisions who have to go off and fight and die. Granted, that's not universal; there have been plenty of situations where old men have fought alongside younger soldiers, and where those making the decisions were expected to take the field with their men (moreso historically than now, of course). But that tension between old men declaring wars and young men fighting and dying in wars is a concept that would have little meaning to elves. A very old and venerable elf is plenty hale to continue in an 'active duty' role, and has merely gained experience to become even better at what they do. A younger elf is still learning. But...more or less any adult elf could be a soldier, no matter how young or how old. And they'll all *look* like young adults in the 25-40 year old range [if we cast them that way], so there won't be a sense of old men sending young men off to die.

As for our named female elf characters, here is who we currently have available:
Earwen and Irimë both fought and died in the Kinslaying; Galadriel was present and armed for battle, but did not fight. Aredhel was not there. Any other female fighters were not named characters. Moving in to Season 4....

The only three princesses of the Noldor are Galadriel, Aredhel, and Idril. Idril will be an adult as of the Mereth Aderthad, so we do get to decide what she and Aredhel will do prior to moving to Gondolin (which will likely happen later in the season, so probably after the Dagor Aglareb). We know that Idril will be armed during the Fall of Gondolin, but that is an extreme situation, and I would not automatically assume that she was fighting battles as a young woman. But, you know...she could. Aredhel has been shown hunting only so far. Galadriel is most likely going to be far from any battles this Season, though that does not preclude her involvement in future fights. We have not yet decided when she and Celeborn leave Doriath, so there could very well be opportunities later.

But besides the princesses, we do also have the wives of the Princes of the Noldor. These characters are rather nebulous and mostly non-existent in the project. We gave Elenwë a role, but she died on the Helcaraxë and is no longer around. We gave Curufin his son Celebrimbor, so obviously he had a wife at one point, but we've never brought her up (not even to say if she stayed behind). A recent suggestion is that she will be there in Middle-earth and be made captive by Sauron at some point. We'll need to develop that story - why was she travelling/fighting, how did Sauron target her, when does this happen, etc. All we know about her (again, in this project) is that she'll be an artisan. Angrod's wife Eldalotë will also be made captive, probably on her way home from the Mereth Aderthad, and whatever role she plays in the Dagor Aglareb is completely brainwashed. She will likely be killed during the Dagor Bragollach, but I'm not sure she'd be in any condition to be fighting. If she has a positive contribution, it's probably to wake up shrieking 'They're coming! They're coming!' in warning before the battle or something like that.

But...there are other women who hypothetically exist. Maglor and Caranthir should have wives. I would not be at all surprised if we decided to cut Caranthir's wife altogether, but that would still leave Maglor's wife. Orodreth will marry a Sinda lady (Meril).

Fingon should probably have a wife at some point. We should also *really* figure out if Fingon or Orodreth is going to be the father of Gil-galad, and then figure out when Gil-galad will be born (likely much later than now). The answers to those questions would likely influence what we wanted to do with Fingon's wife as a character, but...he should have a wife. Probably. Maybe. Perhaps. I think that it will be better to tell the story of Fingon-as-High-King if he has a wife at that time, and it would seem odd for him to get married then, so he probably should already be married for quite some time. Possibly in Valinor, but possibly now in Middle-earth.

Anyway, so we will have a few named female characters to work with when battles break out. We should eventually decide what we want to have them do in those situations. What we probably want to avoid is the, 'But I want to fight!' 'No, stay home, you're a girl,' conversations. If they do join the fight, it's more or less a matter of course - elvish women just do these things sometimes and fight alongside elvish men if they aren't the 'healer/actively-raising-kids' types. None of the women mentioned above will be actively raising kids during this time, so...they can be healers or fighters, but it's not a matter of challenging the assumptions of the male elves to make that happen. The one exception could be Idril - I can imagine Turgon wanting to keep her safe. But...Turgon also took her across the Helcaraxë when she was still a child, so, it's not like he would never lead his child into danger.

I would like to make an unofficial rule that we don't have literally every named female character involved in a battle made captive during it. We can have female captives (and will), but we'd also have to have some female casualties and some female fighters who return home after the battle. Just...a variety of outcomes, please.
 
Though both Joan and Boudicca probably did not actually fight themselves...

Joan of Arc probably didn't though she did personally lead charges on the battlefield. Of Boudicca, we know very little. We do know that the Britons had actual warrior schools, some of which were actually run by women. The Romans certainly didn't think the Gallic and British women were shy on the battlefield. I would say that Boudicca probably engaged in battle herself to the same degree other Celtic rulers of her stature and value did.
 
Those woman warrior schools are mythology... but we know pictish women did fight on and off.. thete fore the so called law of the innocents...

I do not remember any roman writer mentioning fighting celtic women
 
I think it’d be OK to have 15-25% of warriors be women, and 15-25% of healers be men. Or 30%. I also don’t want to be wedded to making Elven woman warriors vanishingly rare or unheard-of, but I do prefer to preserve the sense that they’re less common than male warriors.

Dimorphism: “Laws and Customs” does say Elves have less sexual dimorphism in strength and speed than Men – until an Elf-woman has children. (I personally consider “Laws and Customs” just as canon as anything else JRRT wrote after the LotR.)

One thing I caution us is to avoid automatically making Elves mentally like Humans. In addition to other differences, Elves might have greater inherent gender tendencies to prefer particular activities. I’m not proposing we make them like the Clan of the Cave Bear, just saying we don’t have to make their preferences just like those of real people, although we certainly can. (That is, we don’t have to assume that such differences must be entirely cultural, and conclude that in the absense of the same pressures present in Human societies, the differences would vanish.)

The fact is that as far as the perpetuation of society goes, we are pretty expendable. And, if you look at human genetics, we can see that women have been twice as likely to produce offspring as men. A village or even a nation could lose 80% of its male population and survive. Losing that many women would be fatal. Turns out that we just didn't matter enough to not be sent to fight as far as the ancient world goes.
At the same time, as they are an unfallen race I would hope that Elves are less likely to make cold-blooded decisions to use “expendable” people as canon-fodder. (Likewise, I think all the princes and lords go to war with their soldiers, except possibly Thingol.)

It is true, though, that after most of the Noldor decide to stop having children due to the war, and finish raising their current children (which does take 50-100 years), then the women will no longer be involved in reproduction at all. But, the dimorphism will appear for those who are mothers.


My opinions of the female characters:
Aredhel: She’s a hunter, and we could show her participating in war.
Galadriel: She’s a warrior.
Eldalote: I’m inclined to make her a healer, if we can make a non-combat reason for her capture.
Idril: I prefer her to be a healer only. She does fight in the Fall of Gondolin, but that’s usual for healers at the last resort when a city is being sacked. I think being a healer fits more with her having and using the original Elessar.

Captured Fëanorian princess: I prefer to use Caranthir’s wife, or even Maglor’s wife, instead of Curufin’s. Unless there’s some compelling reason that only Curufin’s wife can fulfil this role? I don’t know of one, and I would rather stick with Tolkien’s statement that Celebrimbor takes after his mother, who had the sense to stay behind in Valinor. Using Caranthir’s wife, if they’re relatively recently married at the time of the Rebellion, would be a way to explain why they never had kids.

I do not think Fingon should have a wife, because JRRT’s final decision was that he had none. (Obviously, that will depend on whether we make Gil-galad the son of Orodreth.) But it would be interesting to give Fingon a Sindarin sweetheart who refuses to marry him. He might agree with his father that the Siege of Angband is going to last forever, while his love believes it won’t, and doesn’t want to marry during what she considers wartime.

What we probably want to avoid is the, 'But I want to fight!' 'No, stay home, you're a girl,' conversations.
We could flip it, though. Have a young male healer try to join up an army unit, and be told “No, stay home, you’re a healer. We are not that desperate yet.”

I would like to make an unofficial rule that we don't have literally every named female character involved in a battle made captive during it. We can have female captives (and will), but we'd also have to have some female casualties and some female fighters who return home after the battle. Just...a variety of outcomes, please.
Yes, seconded.


Joan of Arc probably didn't though she did personally lead charges on the battlefield.
How... does one actually lead a charge without fighting? :confused:
 
Those woman warrior schools are mythology... but we know pictish women did fight on and off.. thete fore the so called law of the innocents...

Whether that is mythology or oral history is a matter of conjecture. Since it is what we are told and we have no evidence to refute it, I have no problem thinking it the latter.

I do not remember any roman writer mentioning fighting celtic women

Quite a few actually, the most notable being Plutarch.
 
A little clarification of my thoughts as I think more. I have mixed feelings, maybe like Amysrevenge. Normally I tend to say writers should take advantage of speculative fiction to show alternatives to our world: such as gender or racial equality. But the gender differences are baked into this setting and I normally advocate for being faithful.

If we showed men and women participating equally in battle, we run into trouble. The Noldor have only male leaders in wartime, and not being a warrior is a plausible, less sexist reason for passing over Idril in the succession.

Is it at all plausible to show gender differences and equality at the same time? I think Nick suggested we should show the value of “feminine” activities, e.g. with Luthien, and I agree. We can emphasize the role of healers more than Tolkien did.
 
How... does one actually lead a charge without fighting? :confused:

Most likely with a loyal and skilled cadre of bodyguards, which is what we know Joan of Arc did have.

I intend to have at least some more to say when I'm sitting at my desk rather than cooking dinner, though. :)
 
Is it at all plausible to show gender differences and equality at the same time? I think Nick suggested we should show the value of “feminine” activities, e.g. with Luthien, and I agree. We can emphasize the role of healers more than Tolkien did.

If this is something we can pull off, then I'm much more OK with a starker difference in the army composition. But I think, without introducing a whole lot more characters, it will be tough. For instance, we could have every military leader paired with a strong independent healer-type #2 - the military Elf is in charge, but next in line, right there all the time, is a non-military Elf. But then we'd need a couple dozen of those added to the story, which isn't feasible.

So, what other ways could we show how important and respected and valued the non-fighty Elves are, without looking like we're pandering or backflipping to satiate the "SJWs"? We're starting from a history book largely about battles after all.
 
We can show that the non-military Elves are just as important.

On the other hand, we can show how Men view the role of others who are not on the front lines (Turin emphasizes martial action during his tenure at Nargothrond, "arms are the only wall against Morgoth"), and that not every Man able to fight should be on the front lines; just look at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, where the House of Hador fielded every able-bodied man and were subsequently slaughtered to a man, leaving them defenseless for the Easterlings.

Offhand, how did tidings of the Nirnaeth come to Dor-Lomin if they were all slaughtered? It's making me think of Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl when his cellmates tell him that the titular ship never leaves survivors. Jack responds "No survivors. Then where do the stories come from, I wonder?"
 
One of the problems is that most of the high-ranking women stayed in Valinor. Which is more virtuous but removes them from the story.

And we’ve started an unfortunate trend of eliminating what few prominent women we have left. We killed off Irime, and we’ getting rid of Edhellos and a Feanorian wife. I don’t like how we’re treating female characters as expendable instead of giving them more to do. That’s one reason why giving Penlod a brother is better than getting rid of yet another woman. In fact I request someone please bring this up to the Hosts, if I can’t. We could get rid of Caranthir or Maglor’s son instead, for example.

Ange1, perhaps the invading Easterlings brought tidings/bragging.
 
One of the problems is that most of the high-ranking women stayed in Valinor. Which is more virtuous but removes them from the story.

And we’ve started an unfortunate trend of eliminating what few prominent women we have left. We killed off Irime, and we’ getting rid of Edhellos and a Feanorian wife. I don’t like how we’re treating female characters as expendable instead of giving them more to do. That’s one reason why giving Penlod a brother is better than getting rid of yet another woman. In fact I request someone please bring this up to the Hosts, if I can’t. We could get rid of Caranthir or Maglor’s son instead, for example.
Perhaps Caranthir's son, which explains why he's more harsh and quick to anger. Maybe he's KIA at the Dagor Aglareb?
 
I’m saying that the character who’s taken captive and never seen again should be a man, rather than eliminating one of our few remaining female characters.
 
If this is something we can pull off, then I'm much more OK with a starker difference in the army composition. But I think, without introducing a whole lot more characters, it will be tough. For instance, we could have every military leader paired with a strong independent healer-type #2 - the military Elf is in charge, but next in line, right there all the time, is a non-military Elf. But then we'd need a couple dozen of those added to the story, which isn't feasible.

So, what other ways could we show how important and respected and valued the non-fighty Elves are, without looking like we're pandering or backflipping to satiate the "SJWs"? We're starting from a history book largely about battles after all.

The way that you do this is to show why the elves in question are respected and valued. As a long-time Star Trek fan, I can tell you that their doctors were not as combat-driven as other crew members, but you never got the feeling that they were either A) worthless or B) a stretch or belief (maybe Counselor Troi is an exception to this?).

Dr. McCoy does engage in the occasional fisticuffs, but he is not depicted as anywhere near as effective as Kirk, much less Spock. Scotty is a pretty tough customer when you come down to it, but his role is very different.

TNG, DS9, and to some degree VOY do the same. Voyager has some weird examples like Commando Janeway, but it follows similar formulae. The toughest guy on the crew of the Voyager is arguably Tuvok, but his role in the show is not really more important than that of Harry Kim or the Doctor, neither of whom are particularly dangerous for most of the show.

My point is that it is not a reach to depict healers as being less important than soldiers because that is true.
 
I’m saying that the character who’s taken captive and never seen again should be a man, rather than eliminating one of our few remaining female characters.
Oh. My bad.:( Well, as for the captives, we have two from each gender as of right now, with two male (Annael and Rog) and two female (Eldalote and Curufin's wife.
 
For instance, we could have every military leader paired with a strong independent healer-type #2 - the military Elf is in charge, but next in line, right there all the time, is a non-military Elf.

That is essentially the Gil-galad/Elrond dynamic. Elrond is Gil-galad's herald, his second if you will, and he's clearly a very skilled healer. Having the 'heralds' be roles for healers would be an interesting take on the story, but probably not impossible. Very little is said about heralds in Tolkien's work, but it's obviously an official role and wouldn't *have* to be a combat position.

In the case of Manwë/Eonwë, the roles are flipped - Eonwë the herald is a fighter, and Manwë has decided to make himself a non-combatant (in the War of Wrath, anyway).

But, yes - making an official military role that is meant for someone who is not typically a fighter would be an interesting take, especially since the herald would be expected to assume command if anything happened to the leader!

We might not have the opportunity to develop this idea fully, but it's a neat idea and it would give our lonely lords someone to talk to. Don't have a (living) wife? Never fear, here's your herald to be a listening ear and give feedback.


I think it’d be OK to have 15-25% of warriors be women, and 15-25% of healers be men. Or 30%. I also don’t want to be wedded to making Elven woman warriors vanishingly rare or unheard-of, but I do prefer to preserve the sense that they’re less common than male warriors.

Yes, I am fine with the 15-30% range. I don't think there is any textual support for 50% of the elven fighting forces being women. Having women being willing to fight while their houses/city is being sacked doesn't mean that they are regularly going on patrol and maintaining the Siege or fighting in the battles. But, at the same time, I don't think we have the lone female warrior elf fighting to prove herself worthy to take part in the battles, either. Following from our first introduction of elf combat (the Kinslaying), the women who were there took part in the event, carried weapons, etc. But the majority of the combatants were male.

So, all we have to do is follow through with that - make sure that in general, a fighting force is seen to contain female elves. The viewers won't know that they're the non-mother elves, but we could make sure we don't portray any women who are mothers as part of the 'standing army' of the elves if we wanted to.


Captured Fëanorian princess: I prefer to use Caranthir’s wife, or even Maglor’s wife, instead of Curufin’s. Unless there’s some compelling reason that only Curufin’s wife can fulfill this role? I don’t know of one, and I would rather stick with Tolkien’s statement that Celebrimbor takes after his mother, who had the sense to stay behind in Valinor. Using Caranthir’s wife, if they’re relatively recently married at the time of the Rebellion, would be a way to explain why they never had kids.

The Hosts asked us to suggest a female elf captive who would be forced to labor in Angband. The only suggestion was made by Ange1e4e5, and he suggested Curufin's wife. The Hosts considered that suggestion a good one, as it would make sense for Curufin to have married a skilled artisan and for Celebrimbor's mother to be skilled. So, it's not that it can't have been Caranthir's wife; it's that no one suggested Caranthir's wife, and thus far in this project there has been no mention of Caranthir having a wife. Curufin, having a child, obviously has a wife somewhere. Why not give her a story? So, as of right now, it's Curufin's wife who will be made captive.

We don't yet have a story of how Curufin's wife will be made captive - if it will be part of a raid or while she's travelling or what.

Eldalotë/Edhellos will most likely be made captive while travelling from Nevrast to Dorthonion (or wherever Angrod is hanging out) after the Mereth Aderthad.


We could flip it, though. Have a young male healer try to join up an army unit, and be told “No, stay home, you’re a healer. We are not that desperate yet.”

Yeah, there might be the opportunity for that. Just so long as we remember that the warrior/healer divide in elvish culture doesn't split strictly along gender lines, all will be well.

Edited to add:
One of the problems is that most of the high-ranking women stayed in Valinor. Which is more virtuous but removes them from the story.

And we’ve started an unfortunate trend of eliminating what few prominent women we have left. We killed off Irime, and we’ getting rid of Edhellos and a Feanorian wife. I don’t like how we’re treating female characters as expendable instead of giving them more to do.

Yeah, I don't like that either. We will eventually be killing off all of the male characters, too, for what it's worth. Eldalotë won't die before her husband, and Curufin's wife won't die until the War of Wrath (poor thing). So, we're not killing them off, per se, but we are eliminating them from the story, essentially. 'Being made captive' is a step up, story-wise, from 'being killed off' or 'being left behind'. But it's still not 'integral part of the story.'

The ones who stayed behind in Valinor or got killed before reaching Middle Earth are written off the show. The 'captives' aren't - they're still characters on the show, and we can give them storylines. Curufin's wife could be integral to Gwindor's escape, for instance. We've given Eldalotë a role in the Dagor Aglareb. Aredhel will canonically get herself killed off and she's got plenty to do before then, so I'm fine with her story. She's not 'expendable', but we are going to hide her in a valley, lose her in a woods, and then kill her off once her son grows up. So, yes - we need to pick a Noldo wife who will be a) not dead (sorry Turgon), b) not captive/damaged (sorry Angrod and Curufin), c) not in Valinor (sorry Finrod and Fingolfin). Doesn't seem like too high high of a bar to request a wife who can be her husband's partner over the next few seasons, and yet....

Orodreth and Galadriel will marry, but they'll marry Sindar. We need a Noldo woman who is the wife or daughter of someone in this story. I mean, Idril, yes, but...

Part of why I want to give Fingon a wife is so he'll have someone to talk to. But I suppose we could just as easily give him a female steward whom he is not making googly eyes at. Point being....we're lacking a female character who is with the Princes of the Noldor and not subordinate to them. Aredhel has to obey Turgon in Gondolin and Galadriel is off in Doriath.
 
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That is essentially the Gil-galad/Elrond dynamic. Elrond is Gil-galad's herald, his second if you will, and he's clearly a very skilled healer. Having the 'heralds' be roles for healers would be an interesting take on the story, but probably not impossible. Very little is said about heralds in Tolkien's work, but it's obviously an official role and wouldn't *have* to be a combat position.

In the case of Manwë/Eonwë, the roles are flipped - Eonwë the herald is a fighter, and Manwë has decided to make himself a non-combatant (in the War of Wrath, anyway).

But, yes - making an official military role that is meant for someone who is not typically a fighter would be an interesting take, especially since the herald would be expected to assume command if anything happened to the leader!

We might not have the opportunity to develop this idea fully, but it's a neat idea and it would give our lonely lords someone to talk to. Don't have a (living) wife? Never fear, here's your herald to be a listening ear and give feedback.

OK this I like. I accidentally invented a thing that is already a thing! This prince/king + herald relationship is one I very much can see moving forward. Because it's an established thing that we're not making up out of the blue, we don't have to work as hard setting it up - we don't need characters and backstories for effectively double the number of Noldor princes. We need to introduce a handful, and then just see the others here and there and know what that means.

I could see the Feanoreans abandoning this practice, actually, and only the houses of Fingolfin and Finarfin really leaning into it. So that's even fewer heralds to introduce.
 
That is essentially the Gil-galad/Elrond dynamic. Elrond is Gil-galad's herald, his second if you will, and he's clearly a very skilled healer. Having the 'heralds' be roles for healers would be an interesting take on the story, but probably not impossible. Very little is said about heralds in Tolkien's work, but it's obviously an official role and wouldn't *have* to be a combat position.

In the case of Manwë/Eonwë, the roles are flipped - Eonwë the herald is a fighter, and Manwë has decided to make himself a non-combatant (in the War of Wrath, anyway).

But, yes - making an official military role that is meant for someone who is not typically a fighter would be an interesting take, especially since the herald would be expected to assume command if anything happened to the leader!

We might not have the opportunity to develop this idea fully, but it's a neat idea and it would give our lonely lords someone to talk to. Don't have a (living) wife? Never fear, here's your herald to be a listening ear and give feedback.




Yes, I am fine with the 15-30% range. I don't think there is any textual support for 50% of the elven fighting forces being women. Having women being willing to fight while their houses/city is being sacked doesn't mean that they are regularly going on patrol and maintaining the Siege or fighting in the battles. But, at the same time, I don't think we have the lone female warrior elf fighting to prove herself worthy to take part in the battles, either. Following from our first introduction of elf combat (the Kinslaying), the women who were there took part in the event, carried weapons, etc. But the majority of the combatants were male.

So, all we have to do is follow through with that - make sure that in general, a fighting force is seen to contain female elves. The viewers won't know that they're the non-mother elves, but we could make sure we don't portray any women who are mothers as part of the 'standing army' of the elves if we wanted to.




The Hosts asked us to suggest a female elf captive who would be forced to labor in Angband. The only suggestion was made by Ange1e4e5, and he suggested Curufin's wife. The Hosts considered that suggestion a good one, as it would make sense for Curufin to have married a skilled artisan and for Celebrimbor's mother to be skilled. So, it's not that it can't have been Caranthir's wife; it's that no one suggested Caranthir's wife, and thus far in this project there has been no mention of Caranthir having a wife. Curufin, having a child, obviously has a wife somewhere. Why not give her a story? So, as of right now, it's Curufin's wife who will be made captive.

We don't yet have a story of how Curufin's wife will be made captive - if it will be part of a raid or while she's travelling or what.

Eldalotë/Edhellos will most likely be made captive while travelling from Nevrast to Dorthonion (or wherever Angrod is hanging out) after the Mereth Aderthad.




Yeah, there might be the opportunity for that. Just so long as we remember that the warrior/healer divide in elvish culture doesn't split strictly along gender lines, all will be well.

Edited to add:


Yeah, I don't like that either. We will eventually be killing off all of the male characters, too, for what it's worth. Eldalotë won't die before her husband, and Curufin's wife won't die until the War of Wrath (poor thing). So, we're not killing them off, per se, but we are eliminating them from the story, essentially. 'Being made captive' is a step up, story-wise, from 'being killed off' or 'being left behind'. But it's still not 'integral part of the story.'

The ones who stayed behind in Valinor or got killed before reaching Middle Earth are written off the show. The 'captives' aren't - they're still characters on the show, and we can give them storylines. Curufin's wife could be integral to Gwindor's escape, for instance. We've given Eldalotë a role in the Dagor Aglareb. Aredhel will canonically get herself killed off and she's got plenty to do before then, so I'm fine with her story. She's not 'expendable', but we are going to hide her in a valley, lose her in a woods, and then kill her off once her son grows up. So, yes - we need to pick a Noldo wife who will be a) not dead (sorry Turgon), b) not captive/damaged (sorry Angrod and Curufin), c) not in Valinor (sorry Finrod and Fingolfin). Doesn't seem like too high high of a bar to request a wife who can be her husband's partner over the next few seasons, and yet....

Orodreth and Galadriel will marry, but they'll marry Sindar. We need a Noldo woman who is the wife or daughter of someone in this story. I mean, Idril, yes, but...

Part of why I want to give Fingon a wife is so he'll have someone to talk to. But I suppose we could just as easily give him a female steward whom he is not making googly eyes at. Point being....we're lacking a female character who is with the Princes of the Noldor and not subordinate to them. Aredhel has to obey Turgon in Gondolin and Galadriel is off in Doriath.
What are we intending for Eldalote for the Dagor Aglareb?

As far as giving Fingon a wife or female steward could depend on who we want Gil-Galad to be related to: Gil-Galad son of Fingon or Gil-Galad son of Orodreth.
 
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Oh. My bad.:( Well, as for the captives, we have two from each gender as of right now, with two male (Annael and Rog) and two female (Eldalote and Curufin's wife.
It's OK :). And yes, but we have fewer women to start with, and we appear to be running low already. Aredhel dies next season, too.


I have some preliminary ideas for showing women in prominent roles -- but this hinges on having enough women left after we're finished killing them, sending them to Angband, and relegating them to hide in Doriath. It'd be less of a problem if we were allowed to introduce new characters as needed. That may be a compelling reason to bring Curufin's wife to Middle-earth, and give Fingon one too if possible.


1. Scholars. Tolkien gives no examples of female scholars except Galadriel, but I think we should include others. Edhellos, Idril, Finduilas, Maglor's wife... perhaps not Aredhel nor Caranthir's wife. Let's include them in the councils unless battle is the only topic at hand, and have them say important things which others respect.

2. Besain. Every kingdom and city needs a Besan, a woman who oversees the lembas. She and her assistants -- all female by law -- grow the sacred Corn of Yavanna (likely wheat), bake the bread, wrap it, store it, and decide who to give it to. The Besan is always the highest ranked woman in the land. Anytime there would logically be lembas in the story, let's show the Besan and her assistants doing a special ceremony bestowing the lembas, and show that she alone decides who receives it. When the two Noldorin camps reconcile, let's show the Feanorian Besan (logically Maglor's wife, if she's in Middle-earth) giving sacred seeds and stored lembas cakes to Fingolfin's Besan, since they must have eaten all theirs on the Helkaraxe, and make it a big deal. Aredhel would be the Besan of Gondolin until she runs off, and Idril would be one of her assistants and then her successor.

3. Healers. Every kingdom and city needs healers, and probably a chief healer. Show that the majority of chief healers are women, and they're respected and listened to in the aftermath of battle. And maybe a king or lord's herald is often (always??) a healer who performs and oversees battlefield triage and the combat medics.

I think a given female character could fulfil more than one of these roles. And except for the healers, they can be warriors at the same time (Galadriel is both a warrior and a Besan in Lothlorien).
 
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