May 23, 2002

Arwen: The Much-Needed Heroine
Jessie

I'd like to throw my two cents in about Arwen. I agree that it was nessesary to have more scenes with her in FotR so that her marriage to Aragorn at the end of the trilogy will make sense. I also agree that it was wise for her to replace Glorfindel for the sake of keeping things simple and not confusing the audience with another character.

I'd like to add that P. Jackson has also slightly modernized FotR by making Arwen a stronger female character. I hope I'm not the only one who has noticed that there aren't a lot of females in LotR, mainly just Arwen (whose role in the books is minimal), Galadriel, and Eowyn. Not saying that Tolkien was sexist, it was just typical of the books of the time for all the main characters- all the brave, adventurous ones- to be male. By giving Glorfindel's role of facing down the wraiths and bringing Frodo to Rivendell to Arwen, Jackson has given us the kind of heroine we've come to expect in modern films, and will later see in Eowyn.