All the Silm ladies represent
Jan. 30th, 2010 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elvenpirateladySo a few days ago I heard from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
minviendha who heard from metafandom a rant that there are no strong women in the Silmarillion apart from Luthien, and my approximate reaction was excuse me, are we reading the same Silmarillion? And I was going to clutter up Lise's journal even further with my list of awesome Silm women, but I thought it deserved its own post, and also this might get long.
So we might as well start at the top:
Varda/Elbereth
"Out of the deeps of Ea she came to the aid of Manwe; for Melkor she knew from before the making of the Music and rejected him, and he hated her, and feared her more than all others whom Eru made."
Why she's awesome: she made the stars, the first things the first Elves ever see. When the Two Trees were destroyed, she made the best of a bad situation and made the sun and moon out of the last fruit/leaf, respectively. Read that little quote from the Valaquenta again, and see how she steps up and helps Manwe with his job - she doesn't sit around passively waiting for Manwe to ask her. And look again, reading between the lines - before the Music, Melkor must have made her an offer/tried to pick her up, and Elbereth is smart enough to see through him and has enough self-control to not be swayed by the mightiest Vala in Arda. Melkor fears her more than Tulkas' strength, Ulmo's long memory and Manwe - hell, Melkor can run rings around Manwe, but he's not going to tangle with Elbereth. And when Melkor/Morgoth finally stomps off to Middle-earth and starts corrupting the hell out of it, what are the only things that he can't reach, the things that he has to raise up smoke and clouds to hide from because he can't destroy them? The Sun, Moon and stars, and they aren't the works of Manwe or any other Vala, they fucking belong to Varda.
Yavanna
Why she's awesome: she's the goddess of all plants and animals, and if you think that's a weak job, you'd better start wondering where your next meal, clothes, firewood, shade and weapons are going to come from.
Plus she made the goddamn Two Trees. Laurelin and Telperion? That's all Yavanna's work, her magnum opus. Without them you have no Sun, Moon, Silmarils or especially bright stars. When they're destroyed, she's heartbroken, of course, and she can't fix them but she coaxes one last fruit and one last leaf out of them. And when she realises that all these men and elves and dwarves &etc are going to chop a lot of trees and clear a lot of land, she accepts that it's going to happen but she makes the Ents too, to defend the voiceless plants and keep the balance.
And then there are the rest of the Valier: Este, Nienna, Vaire, Nessa and Vana - sure, they don't get the flashy jobs like the boys, but they're doing damn important behind-the-scenes work and you'd notice pretty fast if they stopped doing it. And then there's the Maiar. When the Valar have to pick a Maia to guide the newly-created Sun, they pick Arien - and she doesn't get lost in the sky like that twit Tilion. When Morgoth nearly corrupted Osse and sent him up and down the coasts Middle-earth unleashing storms, it's Uinen, not Ulmo, who dragged him back to Valinor to be pardoned. The Numenoreans love Uinen, and they love Osse too but they're afraid of him - and they call on Uinen, not Ulmo, to calm the waters again. And speaking of Maia, of course we have...
Melian
Why she's awesome: she taught nightingales how to sing! Long before the Istari, she was the first Maia to go to Middle-earth and take an active role in supporting the Elves against Morgoth - long before the Noldor were in town, the Sindar had their own kingdom and they were fighting their own wars to defend it, and I quote:
"They are called the Sindar, the Grey-elves of starlit Beleriand; and although they were Moriquendi, under the lordship of Thingol and the teaching of Melian they became the fairest and the most wise and skillful of all the Elves of Middle-earth... though Middle-earth lay for the most part in the Sleep of Yavanna, in Beleriand under the power of Melian there was life and joy, and the bright stars shone as silver fires..."
Sure, Thingol leads the Sindar, but it's Melian who makes it worth their while. It's Melian who teaches Luthien everything she knows about magic, and she teaches Galadriel a whole lot too. And let's not forget the goddamn Girdle of Melian, you remember the magic that protects Doriath? That nobody can pass unless they've got an Extremely Important Fate Coupon? Doriath didn't fall until the Girdle went away, making it the second-longest lasting Elf kingdom, after Gondolin. People use Melian leaving as an excuse for her not being a strong female character - please, her husband has just been killed by dwarves over a necklace, her daughter has gone to live her own life and will eventually die, and her grandson is coming to Doriath to take the throne anyway. There is only so much a Maia can take, after all.
Besides, Melian knew asking for a Silmaril was a bad idea. Pity Thingol didn't listen to her.
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And then there are the Elven ladies, who do not have any superpowers except being immortal and who are awesome too!
Nerdanel
Why she's awesome: do you think seven children raise themselves? Do you think you can raise seven children without having the slightest impact on their personalities? Whenever a son of Feanor acts vaguely sensible, I suspect that's their mother's voice in their head, not their father's.
So that's it, Nerdanel is a glorified housewife? Hell no! History of Middle-earth tells us that she sculpted, explored the wilds of Valinor and was highly interested in languages. Nerdanel is the only person in Aman that Feanor asks for help and advice, and she does her best to restrain him when he goes too far (and knowing Feanor, that must have been damn near all the time.) And when Feanor does eventually go too far and gets himself exiled from Valinor, Nerdanel stands her ground and sticks to her beliefs and doesn't go with him, no matter how much she loves him or their sons. Do you know how rare that is in epic fantasy? Usually it's all "oh, I hate what my husband is doing but I must support him and follow him because he is my husband" - Nerdanel says I love you, but you've gone too far and I couldn't respect myself if I followed you. And then her husband and almost all their children die, which must be as close as Elves get to divorce - and it was probably a pretty public and messy divorce at that. And Nerdanel sticks to her guns and endures it.
I must admit, Finwean women have the odds stacked against them already because there are so few of them – that must mean the awesomeness gets concentrated.
Indis – is the second wife in the first and only case of an Elf getting a divorce. Public scrutiny must have been intense, and can you imagine having Feanor as a step-son? Yet she manages to have a happy life with Finwe and has four children with him, and when Finwe dies she steps up to help Fingolfin rule the Noldor. Glorified housewife? Not so, she’s also a famed athlete. And she’s the only Vanya that I like.
Aredhel – mighty huntress, loves her independence too much to get married to anyone. Some fanon has her as an outrageous flirt, other fanon has her and Celegorm in love and not able to do much about it, because it’s cousincest. Or you could look at it this way: she thinks they’re all twits and doesn’t want to tie herself down to any of them. She crosses the Grinding Ice with the rest of Fingolfin’s Noldor – not exactly a pleasant trip, or one for the faint-hearted. She goes to live with Turgon in Gondolin, and that works for her for a while, but when she starts to chafe at the boundaries she doesn’t sit around moping, she goes out to find adventure! And when Turgon tries to stop her or tell her where she can go, Aredhel tells him to stick it:
“I am your sister and not your servant, and beyond your bounds I will go as seems good to me. And if you begrudge me an escort, then I will go alone.”
And when she does get out of Gondolin, has to take the long way to Celegorm’s lands (due to the Girdle of Melian, remember) and gets separated from her guards in the process, does she sit around waiting to be rescued? Hell no, she rides through the wilderness and damn close to monstrous-spider-infested Nan Dungortheb alone and gets there completely unharmed! And when it turns out that Celegorm is in fact far from home, does she sit around his house waiting for him? No, she goes everywhere over the wild country and enjoys herself.
And then she wanders into Nan Elmoth, which is unfortunate, and meets Eol, which is even more unfortunate, but being married to him does not crush her entirely. She makes the best of her situation for several years, and tells Maeglin (or his Quenya name, Lomion, which is a forbidden language) as much as she can about the Noldor without his father knowing. Maeglin tries to get the location of Gondolin, but there’s no way Aredhel will tell him that and potentially leave it open to attack. And when Maeglin asks her to take him to Gondolin, Aredhel doesn’t hang back out of fear of her husband – she sees her chance for escape and grabs it.
And Aredhel dies, in the end, but she dies taking a poisoned spear that Eol meant for their son. Before she dies she convinces Turgon to spare her husband’s life, because she still loves him or because she sees that killing him won’t do any good. (Except Eol dies anyway, but that’s Turgon’s decision, not Aredhel’s.)
Galadriel
Why she’s awesome: she can work magic, she can read minds, she has amazing hair that inspires Feanor to make the Silmarils, and refuses to give him any of it. She crosses the Grinding Ice, goes to live in Doriath and sets out to learn everything that Melian will teach her. Yes, it’s Galadriel who eventually tells Melian and Thingol about the Kinslaying in Alqualonde and the rest of the mess the Noldor have gotten themselves into, but she doesn’t crack at the first sign of pressure – she doesn’t want to betray her cousins even though they betrayed her, and what eventually makes her tell all is her fear that Doriath might fall if Thingol doesn’t know what the Feanorians are capable of. She marries Celeborn and they make an awesome power couple, so much so that there are numerous essays explaining that Celeborn is not just a trophy husband, he’s just as amazing as Galadriel.
And out of all the Finweans who went to Middle-earth, Galadriel is the only one left at the end of the First Age who isn’t dead, wandering the shores in eternal regret (Maglor) or about to repeat history all over again (Celebrimbor).
At some point (there are various options for when) Galadriel heads east because she doesn’t want to return to Valinor. And also the Valar forgive the exiled Noldor and let them come home except for the chief rebels, one of which is Galadriel, and she says ‘well, I didn’t want to go back there anyway’. Proud? Sure, but that’s practically in the genes for the Finweans. But consider that Galadriel didn’t go alone, or just with Celeborn – she took a lot of the remaining Noldor with her. Are they going to follow this woman further into exile just because she’s the granddaughter of their old king? I seriously doubt it.
And Galadriel does what I thought was almost impossible for a Finwean, and learns from her mistakes. She remembers how Morgoth sweet-talked his way into the Noldor’s hearts after he was allowed back into Valinor, and when his second-in-command Sauron, now the boss, tries to pull the same trick she doesn’t let him anywhere near Lothlorien. (Celebrimbor, the only surviving Feanorian, is not so wise.) Then she agrees to take the Ring of Adamant for Celebrimbor and keep it safe for him, making sure it doesn’t fall into Enemy hands. Galadriel uses Nenya and wears it for more than two thousand years, and in that time she doesn’t let Sauron batter down her mental wall either. At the same time she’s using the Mirror to spy on the Enemy, and she doesn’t let him get to her through that either. And she doesn’t take the One Ring of Power when she has the chance, because Galadriel has seen what power can do to a person, and can see what would happen to her if she was to take that power for herself (‘In place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen...’) and knows that she couldn’t handle it and is humble enough to accept that.
And at the end of the Third Age she finally sails home to Valinor, on her own terms.
Idril Celebrindal
Why she’s awesome: after crossing the Grinding Ice with the rest of the Noldor (and having to deal with her mother drowning on the way), she goes to live in Gondolin with her father Turgon, who is king there. Centuries pass until one day a mortal man comes walking through the gates, bringing a message from Ulmo. Turgon doesn’t really listen but Tuor gets to stay, and after a few years he and Idril get married. And that’s a brave step for an Elf woman to marry a human, since she doesn’t have Luthien’s option to die and follow Tuor into death. So they would have a few decades together, at most. Also, Turgon might not have begrudged Tuor the hand of his only daughter but I’m sure it caused a stir in Gondolin, even among the people who liked Tuor, and there were some who didn’t.
And Turgon doesn’t listen to Tuor’s warning, but Idril does – and when she starts being suspicious of what Maeglin is up to, she doesn’t sit around wringing her hands and wondering what to do. Instead she secretly talks people into building a secret tunnel that leads out Gondolin, through the mountains and into the wider Middle-earth. She thinks objectively about the possible ruin of her home of hundreds of years, and plans for it. Also, at this point Turgon has forbidden anyone to leave Gondolin on pain of death, in case they accidentally reveal its location to Morgoth and co, so what Idril is thinking and doing amounts to treason. Convincing others that there’s a really good reason to go against the king’s rules, (except that reason for all Idril knows is just a bad feeling, although Maeglin really is plotting something) is not easy, but Idril does it. And when Gondolin is invaded, the only people to escape get away because of the tunnel Idril has ordered built – the rest are trapped. Idril and Tuor lead the survivors out through the mountains and eventually end up by the sea, which is not nearly as safe a place to live as Gondolin used to be. With Idril and Tuor ruling them, however, they manage to survive.
And when Tuor starts feeling old and decides to try to sail to Valinor, Idril goes with him. At this point nobody sailing from Middle-earth has reached Valinor, on account of the Valar not being very pleased with the Noldor or Morgoth. So Idril goes with her husband, knowing full well that all the other ships have been wrecked trying to reach their destination. And they disappear from history, but whether they ended up drowning or sent to sleep on an island until the world ends (as Elvish legend had it), Idril has stuck to her values.
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And now for the Sindar ladies:
We’ve already gone over Melian, and apparently Luthien is unequivocally a strong female character so we won’t address her here. But I do want to talk about two other women in Doriath:
Nellas
Why she’s awesome: she’s a minor character in the story of Túrin Turambar, aka the unluckiest man that ever lived. She teaches Túrin about hunting and woodcraft and generally keeps an eye on him while he’s a boy. Eventually Túrin moves on to other friends, but Nellas ‘watched over him still, although she remained hidden’. What makes me think of Nellas as a strong character is what happens afterwards. To cut a long story short: Túrin kills an elf who insulted his mother, and runs away from Doriath because he thinks he’ll be arrested and killed without trial otherwise. Thingol holds a trial, and the general agreement is that Túrin murdered Saeros (who was an ass to him anyway, but nevermind) unlawfully, when one of Túrin’s other friends brings Nellas into Menegroth to testify for him.
And here’s the thing – Nellas doesn’t like going into Menegroth, and that could be because she’s claustrophobic, or because she doesn’t like to be around so many people at one time, or because she feels that she’s out of place with the nobles. (Unlike all the other women mentioned here, Nellas is a simple woodelf and doesn’t have anything to do with politics.) And regardless of whatever reason she stays away from Menegroth, Nellas puts aside her fear and goes to speak for her one-time friend. Not only is she just about the only person to support Túrin, she’s testifying against one of the king’s councillors. To the King. And it’s Nellas’ account of what happened (the murder was not unprovoked, Saeros attacked Túrin and his death was accidental) that acquits Túrin and would allow him to come back to Doriath if he wanted.
Plus Nellas is the only person in Túrin’s story who doesn’t die or otherwise meet an awful fate. Looks like lowly woodelf women have something to recommend them after all.
Nimloth
Why she’s awesome: she married Dior, Beren and Luthien’s son, and went from Doriath to live with him in Tol Galen, in the far wild east of Beleriand. And when Thingol was killed and Dior became king of Doriath, Nimloth goes all the way back with him. It’s not clear in the Silmarillion if she’s a queen like Melian and rules beside her husband, or if she’s only a consort, but either way it’s an abrupt change.
Now we are moving into fanon territory, but I think that Nimloth is a lot older than Dior. She’s Celeborn’s niece, the daughter of his brother Galathil, which makes her distantly related to Doriath’s royal family. The Silmarillion does not give us any information about Nimloth’s history or how old she is. It’s possible that she was born before the Sun and Moon were created. She could be old enough to remember the coming of the Noldor and eventually hear the story about the Kinslaying. She could have been taught by Melian, in the same way that Luthien and Galadriel were. And living in the heartland of Sindarin culture and watching the Noldor kingdoms rise and fall, she must have learned a lot about politics. So it’s possible that Nimloth acted as Dior’s adviser, explaining the effects of things that happened before he was born and helping him grow into his role as king.
Nimloth’s opinion of the Silmaril that lead to the second Kinslaying is also unknown, but if she’s seen what the Feanorians have done in the rest of Middle-earth I would think she would strongly argue to give it over to them and send them on their way. If this is the case, unfortunately Dior follows in Thingol’s footsteps and doesn’t listen to his wife. Nimloth is killed by the Feanorians, but there’s no information about how – she could have died fighting, or tried to lead her children and the Silmaril to safety and been killed en route. We simply don’t know.
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And we haven’t even started on the mortal women!
Haleth
Why she’s awesome: orcs come down on her people’s lands and start burning and pillaging, and they end up holed up in a stockade until they run out of food. Haleth sees her father killed by orcs and her brother too immediately after, but she keeps her people safe in the stockade for seven days, with no hope of rescue or escape, before help comes. When they are eventually saved at the last minute by Caranthir and his troops, Caranthir belatedly realises that men have something going for them after all and offers Haleth and her people lands closer to his own, where they’ll be protected.
Haleth says, essentially, ‘Thanks but no thanks, I’m moving somewhere where I can look after myself’. And she proceeds to lead her people into Estolad, and these people who used to be called the Haladin are referred to as the People of Haleth for the rest of the Silmarillion. Haleth makes them move again, although most of them are against the idea, and they start travelling between the Girdle of Melian and the Mountains of Terror, which are infested with monster spiders and other unpleasant things:
‘...that was no road for mortal Men to take without aid, and Haleth only brought her people through it with hardship and loss, constraining them to go forward by the strength of her will.’
So she didn’t many to keep all of her people safe on the long journey. This is not something new in Middle-earth’s history. But Haleth leads them to safety in the end, and they wouldn’t have got anywhere if she’d given up in the middle of the journey and let everyone be eaten by spiders. Eventually the People of Haleth settle in (relative) safety in Brethil, which technically belongs to Thingol, but as a favour to Finrod he lets them live there as long as they don’t let orcs into the woods. And Haleth answers, ‘Where are Haldad my father, and Haldar my brother? If the King of Doriath fears a friendship between Haleth and those who have devoured her kin, then the thoughts of the Eldar are indeed strange to Men.’ Which is a more polite way of saying, ‘Do you seriously think that I’m going to let the monsters that killed my brother, father and half my people run around in our new home? How stupid do you think I am?’
Emeldir
Why she’s awesome: her name means ‘Man-hearted’, and in the testosterone-soaked atmosphere of First Age Middle-earth she must have down something good for that to happen. As for how she got that name...
Emeldir is married to Barahir and Beren of later Silmaril-stealing fame is their son. They rule Dorthonion, but due to Elves and Men losing some critical battles, Morgoth is beginning to expand his domain, and Dorthonion is coming under his shadow. Orcs invade the land and kill or enslave any people they find, but Barahir won’t leave Dorthonion and fights them for every foot of ground. This is heroic, but not really helpful in the long run, especially with large groups of refugees to be protected. Eventually the situation gets so desperate that Emeldir takes matters into her own hands:
‘At last so desperate was the case of Barahir that Emeldir his wife (whose mind was rather to fight beside her son and her husband than to flee) gathered together all the women and children that were left, and gave arms to those that would bear them; and she led them into the mountains that lay behind, and so by treacherous paths, until they came at last with loss and misery to Brethil.’
Emeldir is more than willing to fight for her country, but she sees that it’s no use – Dorthonion is going to fall, but its people may be saved. Perhaps she saw the situation clearly while Barahir was blind to the truth, or perhaps Barahir asked her to get as many people away while he and the remaining men bought them time to escape. In any case, Emeldir leads the remnants of her people (and the armed ones, being women in a medieval society, are probably not the best fighters) out into the wilderness, searching for a safe land that she might have never seen before. Among the women who escape are Morwen and Rian, important ladies in later history.
And Emeldir never sees her husband or her son again. Maybe the tale of Beren and Luthien reaches her eventually, but for all she knows she left her family behind in Dorthonion to die.
Morwen
Why she’s awesome: she escapes Dorthonion with the aforementioned Emeldir, so she’s well-acquainted with roughing it and possibly fighting off attackers. Morwen moves to Dor-lomin and marries Hurin, the ruling lord. She has two children, a son (Túrin) and a daughter, Lalaith. Lalaith dies in a plague when she’s two or three, and Túrin almost dies as well.
Then Hurin rides off to be part of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, which does not end well for any Elves or men involved (to put it lightly). Morwen rules Dor-lomin while he’s gone, and she’s also pregnant again. Then men allied with Morgoth start to invade Dor-lomin, enslaving Hurin’s people and building their own settlements. These newcomers (the Easterlings) are there to live, not to pillage and plunder for a couple of years – they’re going to be a major and ongoing problem. After the first inroads, though, they leave Morwen alone because they think she’s a witch, and also because she scares the bejesus out of their leader Brodda just by looking at him:
‘Morwen he had seen once, when he rode to her house on a foray; but a great dread of her had seized him. He thought that he had looked in the fell eyes of a white-fiend, and he was filled with a mortal fear lest some evil should overtake him: and he did not ransack her house, nor discover Túrin, else the life of the heir of the true lord would have been short.’
Although they leave Morwen alone, the Easterlings take everything her people own and she’s left to provide for her son and the few people who are left in her house. Morwen works hard but they would starve if not for secret aid sent to her by Aerin, who is distantly related to her and was forcibly married to Brodda. Morwen knows that Túrin is not safe in Dor-lomin any more, facing enslavement at best and death at worst, and so she decides to send him away to Doriath and hope he will be safe. And she sends him away in autumn with a bad winter approaching, with only two old men for company, out into the wilderness towards a foreign kingdom, relying on his distant relationship to Beren to make the Elves take him in and look after him. Also, Túrin is eight or nine years old at this time, and Morwen knows she may never see him again. While she sends Túrin away, Morwen won’t leave herself: she is heavily pregnant, she has to look after the other few people in her house, and she secretly wants to believe that Hurin will return one day.
So she sends Túrin away, and in the spring she gives birth to her daughter, Nienor. Túrin is accepted into Doriath and Melian sends messengers to her, asking her to come and live in Doriath herself in safety. Morwen is intensely relieved to hear about Túrin, as any mother would be, but she will not leave her home. She’s very proud, and probably losing her first home in Dorthonion affected her this way: she’s lost one home, she’s not going to lose another. So Morwen raises her daughter and looks after her people with only a little help (Melian sends Elves with aid, occasionally, and Aerin still helps her) until Nienor is fully grown. What finally makes Morwen leave Dor-lomin is that another Easterling, Lorgan, has his eye on Nienor, and there’s no way she’ll let her daughter meet Aerin’s fate. So they finally go to Doriath.
And during that time Túrin has left Doriath, and Thingol is not entirely sure where he is now, although they’ve heard some rumours. Irate does not begin to describe Morwen’s reaction when she arrives in Doriath and learns the whole story, but she can’t do much if she only has rumours to rely on. After the fall of Nargothrond, some survivors make it to Doriath and reveal that the Blacksword of Nargothrond was indeed Túrin, although they don’t know what happened to him, and now there’s no stopping Morwen. She wants to go and find her son, or find out the truth and know the worst of it. Thingol thinks that she should wait until he’s sent his own people out, and tells her that Hurin and Túrin would want her to stay safely in Doriath.
‘You did not hold Túrin from peril, but me you will hold from him,’ cried Morwen. ‘In the keeping of Melian! Yes, a prisoner of the Girdle! Long did I hold back before I entered it, and now I rue it.’
Essentially: ‘gee, thanks for mansplaining this to me, Thingol’. Morwen has waited long enough. She leaves Doriath with an escort of riders (and unknown to her at first, her daughter too) and sets off for Nargothrond. Things do not go well for them there, and Morwen ends up wandering the wilds and starving to death in Brethil. She eventually finds her son and daughter’s graves, but she dies without hearing how they met and died. Which is probably a relief.
Aerin
Why she’s awesome: she’s a minor character in the story of Túrin, being related in some way to Hurin, and she’s in Dor-lomin when the Easterlings invade. Aerin is not lucky enough to scare them off like Morwen – she’s captured by the invaders, and their leader Brodda ‘took her to wife by force’ (and since ‘to take to wife’ is Tolkien’s favourite way to describe sex, what happened is that Brodda raped her. And then made her his wife, so she’s stuck in enemy-occupied Dor-lomin.) We don’t know if Aerin had any children or how her husband treated her, but being the same race as the slaves under the Easterling rule, and being the Easterling leader’s wife, could not have endeared her to the Easterlings as a whole. And her own people probably thought she was a traitor and a whore or worse, although Aerin was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
You’d forgive Aerin for wanting to pretend that she doesn’t exist, but she doesn’t forget Morwen. She secretly sends Morwen aid, and takes it from the goods and animals that the Easterlings have seized. And she manages to do this for years, although Brodda beats her whenever he catches her at it. She also makes sure that her people are given food and shelter in her halls, which is the best she can do for them.
Morwen and Nienor eventually escape, and one day Túrin returns to Dor-lomin and walks into Brodda’s hall, demanding news of his mother. Aerin tells him all she knows, and an enraged Túrin kills every Easterling in the hall. By doing this he has brought death on Aerin and many of her people, and she tells him to escape while he can, he can do nothing to help them there. And knowing that she’s going to die, Aerin does one last thing to have her revenge, in a small way, on the Easterlings who have caused her such grief:
‘They have fired the hall,’ said Túrin. ‘To what purpose is that?’
‘They? No, lord: she, I guess,’ said one, Asgon by name. ‘Many a man of arms misreads patience and quiet. She did much good among us at much cost. Her heart was not faint, and patience will break at the last.’
Aerin did not have control for most of her life, but she doesn’t go down without a fight.
Nienor
Why she’s awesome: she survives with her mother in occupied Dor-lomin until she’s fully grown, and escapes with Morwen to Doriath. When she hears that her mother is going out into the wilds to search for Túrin, Nienor pleads with her to stay and be safe. Morwen refuses, and so Nienor takes matters into her own hands. She rides secretly with Morwen’s Elvish guard until they are out of Doriath, and when she is discovered she calls her mother’s bluff:
‘If the wife of Hurin can go forth against all counsel at the call of kindred,’ said Nienor, ‘then so also can Hurin’s daughter. Mourning you named me, but I will not mourn alone, for father, brother and mother. But of these you only I have known, and above all do I love. And nothing that you fear do I fear.’
‘What would you do?’ said Morwen.
‘Go where you go,’ said Nienor. ‘This choice indeed I bring. To lead me back and bestow me safely in the keeping of Melian; for it is not wise to refuse her counsel. Or to know that I shall go into peril, if you go.’
Nienor loves her mother but is quick to point out her hypocrisy, and she doesn’t want to be parted from the only family she knows. She worries about Morwen going into the wilds, but she isn’t afraid of going there herself. Morwen’s pride means that they continue on to Nargothrond, where Nienor becomes separated from the rest.
But when the blind terror came upon the riders, Nienor’s horse, running wild, stumbled, and she was thrown. Falling softly into grass she was unhurt; but when she got to her feet she was alone: lost in the mist without horse or companion. Her heart did not fail her, and she took thought; and it seemed to her vain to go towards this cry or that, for cries were all about her, but growing ever fainter. Better it seemed to her in such case to seek again for the hill: thither doubtless Mablung would come before he went away, if only to be sure that none of his company had remained there.
Alone in the wilderness, Nienor doesn’t panic and takes a sensible course of action. Of course, this brings her into contact with Glaurung, which ends with her having amnesia and fleeing through the woods, but she doesn’t go down without a fight: Strong was the will and heart of Nienor, and she strove against Glaurung; but he put forth his power against her.
And things go very badly for Nienor and all her family after that, but she began well.
Andreth
Why she’s awesome: Andreth isn’t mentioned in the Silmarillion at all (she lives in HoME), and I am ashamed to say that I know next to nothing about her. Online sources tell me that she and Aegnor were in love but decided not to marry because of the difference in lifespan, which must have taken a lot of courage. Andreth also went toe to toe debating with Finrod, so she must have been smart. If anyone can make a case for Andreth, comment away!
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And there you have it: two Valier, one Maia, seven Elves and six mortal women, all of them strong female characters. They might not be so easy to spot among all the Silmarillion men, but they’re all important to Middle-earth’s history, even if their roles aren’t as flashy as the boys’. If you add Luthien you end up with seventeen strong female characters – and before I go I must make this point: it’s pretty damn easy to be a strong female character when you’re the most beautiful woman to ever live, you have magical powers, your father is King of the Sindar, your mother is a minor goddess, your husband is an accomplished fighter and you have a Silmaril in your possession. Being a strong female character without any of that – that’s what’s awesome.
Um, wow, this got epically long. I wrote this up over the course of three days and it clocks off at just over 6000 words; this is the longest fandom-related thing I’ve ever written. I haven’t included every single named woman in the Silmarillion because not all of them are strong characters (Finduilas, while I love her, is a classic princess in a fairy tale) – but if you know someone who isn’t included here and should be, comment and argue for them! Any and all discussion about Tolkien’s women should be encouraged.
EDIT: Andreth and Miriel here, Elwing here. Hopefully I haven't forgotten anyone else.
minviendha who heard from metafandom a rant that there are no strong women in the Silmarillion apart from Luthien, and my approximate reaction was excuse me, are we reading the same Silmarillion? And I was going to clutter up Lise's journal even further with my list of awesome Silm women, but I thought it deserved its own post, and also this might get long.So we might as well start at the top:
Varda/Elbereth
"Out of the deeps of Ea she came to the aid of Manwe; for Melkor she knew from before the making of the Music and rejected him, and he hated her, and feared her more than all others whom Eru made."
Why she's awesome: she made the stars, the first things the first Elves ever see. When the Two Trees were destroyed, she made the best of a bad situation and made the sun and moon out of the last fruit/leaf, respectively. Read that little quote from the Valaquenta again, and see how she steps up and helps Manwe with his job - she doesn't sit around passively waiting for Manwe to ask her. And look again, reading between the lines - before the Music, Melkor must have made her an offer/tried to pick her up, and Elbereth is smart enough to see through him and has enough self-control to not be swayed by the mightiest Vala in Arda. Melkor fears her more than Tulkas' strength, Ulmo's long memory and Manwe - hell, Melkor can run rings around Manwe, but he's not going to tangle with Elbereth. And when Melkor/Morgoth finally stomps off to Middle-earth and starts corrupting the hell out of it, what are the only things that he can't reach, the things that he has to raise up smoke and clouds to hide from because he can't destroy them? The Sun, Moon and stars, and they aren't the works of Manwe or any other Vala, they fucking belong to Varda.
Yavanna
Why she's awesome: she's the goddess of all plants and animals, and if you think that's a weak job, you'd better start wondering where your next meal, clothes, firewood, shade and weapons are going to come from.
Plus she made the goddamn Two Trees. Laurelin and Telperion? That's all Yavanna's work, her magnum opus. Without them you have no Sun, Moon, Silmarils or especially bright stars. When they're destroyed, she's heartbroken, of course, and she can't fix them but she coaxes one last fruit and one last leaf out of them. And when she realises that all these men and elves and dwarves &etc are going to chop a lot of trees and clear a lot of land, she accepts that it's going to happen but she makes the Ents too, to defend the voiceless plants and keep the balance.
And then there are the rest of the Valier: Este, Nienna, Vaire, Nessa and Vana - sure, they don't get the flashy jobs like the boys, but they're doing damn important behind-the-scenes work and you'd notice pretty fast if they stopped doing it. And then there's the Maiar. When the Valar have to pick a Maia to guide the newly-created Sun, they pick Arien - and she doesn't get lost in the sky like that twit Tilion. When Morgoth nearly corrupted Osse and sent him up and down the coasts Middle-earth unleashing storms, it's Uinen, not Ulmo, who dragged him back to Valinor to be pardoned. The Numenoreans love Uinen, and they love Osse too but they're afraid of him - and they call on Uinen, not Ulmo, to calm the waters again. And speaking of Maia, of course we have...
Melian
Why she's awesome: she taught nightingales how to sing! Long before the Istari, she was the first Maia to go to Middle-earth and take an active role in supporting the Elves against Morgoth - long before the Noldor were in town, the Sindar had their own kingdom and they were fighting their own wars to defend it, and I quote:
"They are called the Sindar, the Grey-elves of starlit Beleriand; and although they were Moriquendi, under the lordship of Thingol and the teaching of Melian they became the fairest and the most wise and skillful of all the Elves of Middle-earth... though Middle-earth lay for the most part in the Sleep of Yavanna, in Beleriand under the power of Melian there was life and joy, and the bright stars shone as silver fires..."
Sure, Thingol leads the Sindar, but it's Melian who makes it worth their while. It's Melian who teaches Luthien everything she knows about magic, and she teaches Galadriel a whole lot too. And let's not forget the goddamn Girdle of Melian, you remember the magic that protects Doriath? That nobody can pass unless they've got an Extremely Important Fate Coupon? Doriath didn't fall until the Girdle went away, making it the second-longest lasting Elf kingdom, after Gondolin. People use Melian leaving as an excuse for her not being a strong female character - please, her husband has just been killed by dwarves over a necklace, her daughter has gone to live her own life and will eventually die, and her grandson is coming to Doriath to take the throne anyway. There is only so much a Maia can take, after all.
Besides, Melian knew asking for a Silmaril was a bad idea. Pity Thingol didn't listen to her.
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And then there are the Elven ladies, who do not have any superpowers except being immortal and who are awesome too!
Nerdanel
Why she's awesome: do you think seven children raise themselves? Do you think you can raise seven children without having the slightest impact on their personalities? Whenever a son of Feanor acts vaguely sensible, I suspect that's their mother's voice in their head, not their father's.
So that's it, Nerdanel is a glorified housewife? Hell no! History of Middle-earth tells us that she sculpted, explored the wilds of Valinor and was highly interested in languages. Nerdanel is the only person in Aman that Feanor asks for help and advice, and she does her best to restrain him when he goes too far (and knowing Feanor, that must have been damn near all the time.) And when Feanor does eventually go too far and gets himself exiled from Valinor, Nerdanel stands her ground and sticks to her beliefs and doesn't go with him, no matter how much she loves him or their sons. Do you know how rare that is in epic fantasy? Usually it's all "oh, I hate what my husband is doing but I must support him and follow him because he is my husband" - Nerdanel says I love you, but you've gone too far and I couldn't respect myself if I followed you. And then her husband and almost all their children die, which must be as close as Elves get to divorce - and it was probably a pretty public and messy divorce at that. And Nerdanel sticks to her guns and endures it.
I must admit, Finwean women have the odds stacked against them already because there are so few of them – that must mean the awesomeness gets concentrated.
Indis – is the second wife in the first and only case of an Elf getting a divorce. Public scrutiny must have been intense, and can you imagine having Feanor as a step-son? Yet she manages to have a happy life with Finwe and has four children with him, and when Finwe dies she steps up to help Fingolfin rule the Noldor. Glorified housewife? Not so, she’s also a famed athlete. And she’s the only Vanya that I like.
Aredhel – mighty huntress, loves her independence too much to get married to anyone. Some fanon has her as an outrageous flirt, other fanon has her and Celegorm in love and not able to do much about it, because it’s cousincest. Or you could look at it this way: she thinks they’re all twits and doesn’t want to tie herself down to any of them. She crosses the Grinding Ice with the rest of Fingolfin’s Noldor – not exactly a pleasant trip, or one for the faint-hearted. She goes to live with Turgon in Gondolin, and that works for her for a while, but when she starts to chafe at the boundaries she doesn’t sit around moping, she goes out to find adventure! And when Turgon tries to stop her or tell her where she can go, Aredhel tells him to stick it:
“I am your sister and not your servant, and beyond your bounds I will go as seems good to me. And if you begrudge me an escort, then I will go alone.”
And when she does get out of Gondolin, has to take the long way to Celegorm’s lands (due to the Girdle of Melian, remember) and gets separated from her guards in the process, does she sit around waiting to be rescued? Hell no, she rides through the wilderness and damn close to monstrous-spider-infested Nan Dungortheb alone and gets there completely unharmed! And when it turns out that Celegorm is in fact far from home, does she sit around his house waiting for him? No, she goes everywhere over the wild country and enjoys herself.
And then she wanders into Nan Elmoth, which is unfortunate, and meets Eol, which is even more unfortunate, but being married to him does not crush her entirely. She makes the best of her situation for several years, and tells Maeglin (or his Quenya name, Lomion, which is a forbidden language) as much as she can about the Noldor without his father knowing. Maeglin tries to get the location of Gondolin, but there’s no way Aredhel will tell him that and potentially leave it open to attack. And when Maeglin asks her to take him to Gondolin, Aredhel doesn’t hang back out of fear of her husband – she sees her chance for escape and grabs it.
And Aredhel dies, in the end, but she dies taking a poisoned spear that Eol meant for their son. Before she dies she convinces Turgon to spare her husband’s life, because she still loves him or because she sees that killing him won’t do any good. (Except Eol dies anyway, but that’s Turgon’s decision, not Aredhel’s.)
Galadriel
Why she’s awesome: she can work magic, she can read minds, she has amazing hair that inspires Feanor to make the Silmarils, and refuses to give him any of it. She crosses the Grinding Ice, goes to live in Doriath and sets out to learn everything that Melian will teach her. Yes, it’s Galadriel who eventually tells Melian and Thingol about the Kinslaying in Alqualonde and the rest of the mess the Noldor have gotten themselves into, but she doesn’t crack at the first sign of pressure – she doesn’t want to betray her cousins even though they betrayed her, and what eventually makes her tell all is her fear that Doriath might fall if Thingol doesn’t know what the Feanorians are capable of. She marries Celeborn and they make an awesome power couple, so much so that there are numerous essays explaining that Celeborn is not just a trophy husband, he’s just as amazing as Galadriel.
And out of all the Finweans who went to Middle-earth, Galadriel is the only one left at the end of the First Age who isn’t dead, wandering the shores in eternal regret (Maglor) or about to repeat history all over again (Celebrimbor).
At some point (there are various options for when) Galadriel heads east because she doesn’t want to return to Valinor. And also the Valar forgive the exiled Noldor and let them come home except for the chief rebels, one of which is Galadriel, and she says ‘well, I didn’t want to go back there anyway’. Proud? Sure, but that’s practically in the genes for the Finweans. But consider that Galadriel didn’t go alone, or just with Celeborn – she took a lot of the remaining Noldor with her. Are they going to follow this woman further into exile just because she’s the granddaughter of their old king? I seriously doubt it.
And Galadriel does what I thought was almost impossible for a Finwean, and learns from her mistakes. She remembers how Morgoth sweet-talked his way into the Noldor’s hearts after he was allowed back into Valinor, and when his second-in-command Sauron, now the boss, tries to pull the same trick she doesn’t let him anywhere near Lothlorien. (Celebrimbor, the only surviving Feanorian, is not so wise.) Then she agrees to take the Ring of Adamant for Celebrimbor and keep it safe for him, making sure it doesn’t fall into Enemy hands. Galadriel uses Nenya and wears it for more than two thousand years, and in that time she doesn’t let Sauron batter down her mental wall either. At the same time she’s using the Mirror to spy on the Enemy, and she doesn’t let him get to her through that either. And she doesn’t take the One Ring of Power when she has the chance, because Galadriel has seen what power can do to a person, and can see what would happen to her if she was to take that power for herself (‘In place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen...’) and knows that she couldn’t handle it and is humble enough to accept that.
And at the end of the Third Age she finally sails home to Valinor, on her own terms.
Idril Celebrindal
Why she’s awesome: after crossing the Grinding Ice with the rest of the Noldor (and having to deal with her mother drowning on the way), she goes to live in Gondolin with her father Turgon, who is king there. Centuries pass until one day a mortal man comes walking through the gates, bringing a message from Ulmo. Turgon doesn’t really listen but Tuor gets to stay, and after a few years he and Idril get married. And that’s a brave step for an Elf woman to marry a human, since she doesn’t have Luthien’s option to die and follow Tuor into death. So they would have a few decades together, at most. Also, Turgon might not have begrudged Tuor the hand of his only daughter but I’m sure it caused a stir in Gondolin, even among the people who liked Tuor, and there were some who didn’t.
And Turgon doesn’t listen to Tuor’s warning, but Idril does – and when she starts being suspicious of what Maeglin is up to, she doesn’t sit around wringing her hands and wondering what to do. Instead she secretly talks people into building a secret tunnel that leads out Gondolin, through the mountains and into the wider Middle-earth. She thinks objectively about the possible ruin of her home of hundreds of years, and plans for it. Also, at this point Turgon has forbidden anyone to leave Gondolin on pain of death, in case they accidentally reveal its location to Morgoth and co, so what Idril is thinking and doing amounts to treason. Convincing others that there’s a really good reason to go against the king’s rules, (except that reason for all Idril knows is just a bad feeling, although Maeglin really is plotting something) is not easy, but Idril does it. And when Gondolin is invaded, the only people to escape get away because of the tunnel Idril has ordered built – the rest are trapped. Idril and Tuor lead the survivors out through the mountains and eventually end up by the sea, which is not nearly as safe a place to live as Gondolin used to be. With Idril and Tuor ruling them, however, they manage to survive.
And when Tuor starts feeling old and decides to try to sail to Valinor, Idril goes with him. At this point nobody sailing from Middle-earth has reached Valinor, on account of the Valar not being very pleased with the Noldor or Morgoth. So Idril goes with her husband, knowing full well that all the other ships have been wrecked trying to reach their destination. And they disappear from history, but whether they ended up drowning or sent to sleep on an island until the world ends (as Elvish legend had it), Idril has stuck to her values.
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And now for the Sindar ladies:
We’ve already gone over Melian, and apparently Luthien is unequivocally a strong female character so we won’t address her here. But I do want to talk about two other women in Doriath:
Nellas
Why she’s awesome: she’s a minor character in the story of Túrin Turambar, aka the unluckiest man that ever lived. She teaches Túrin about hunting and woodcraft and generally keeps an eye on him while he’s a boy. Eventually Túrin moves on to other friends, but Nellas ‘watched over him still, although she remained hidden’. What makes me think of Nellas as a strong character is what happens afterwards. To cut a long story short: Túrin kills an elf who insulted his mother, and runs away from Doriath because he thinks he’ll be arrested and killed without trial otherwise. Thingol holds a trial, and the general agreement is that Túrin murdered Saeros (who was an ass to him anyway, but nevermind) unlawfully, when one of Túrin’s other friends brings Nellas into Menegroth to testify for him.
And here’s the thing – Nellas doesn’t like going into Menegroth, and that could be because she’s claustrophobic, or because she doesn’t like to be around so many people at one time, or because she feels that she’s out of place with the nobles. (Unlike all the other women mentioned here, Nellas is a simple woodelf and doesn’t have anything to do with politics.) And regardless of whatever reason she stays away from Menegroth, Nellas puts aside her fear and goes to speak for her one-time friend. Not only is she just about the only person to support Túrin, she’s testifying against one of the king’s councillors. To the King. And it’s Nellas’ account of what happened (the murder was not unprovoked, Saeros attacked Túrin and his death was accidental) that acquits Túrin and would allow him to come back to Doriath if he wanted.
Plus Nellas is the only person in Túrin’s story who doesn’t die or otherwise meet an awful fate. Looks like lowly woodelf women have something to recommend them after all.
Nimloth
Why she’s awesome: she married Dior, Beren and Luthien’s son, and went from Doriath to live with him in Tol Galen, in the far wild east of Beleriand. And when Thingol was killed and Dior became king of Doriath, Nimloth goes all the way back with him. It’s not clear in the Silmarillion if she’s a queen like Melian and rules beside her husband, or if she’s only a consort, but either way it’s an abrupt change.
Now we are moving into fanon territory, but I think that Nimloth is a lot older than Dior. She’s Celeborn’s niece, the daughter of his brother Galathil, which makes her distantly related to Doriath’s royal family. The Silmarillion does not give us any information about Nimloth’s history or how old she is. It’s possible that she was born before the Sun and Moon were created. She could be old enough to remember the coming of the Noldor and eventually hear the story about the Kinslaying. She could have been taught by Melian, in the same way that Luthien and Galadriel were. And living in the heartland of Sindarin culture and watching the Noldor kingdoms rise and fall, she must have learned a lot about politics. So it’s possible that Nimloth acted as Dior’s adviser, explaining the effects of things that happened before he was born and helping him grow into his role as king.
Nimloth’s opinion of the Silmaril that lead to the second Kinslaying is also unknown, but if she’s seen what the Feanorians have done in the rest of Middle-earth I would think she would strongly argue to give it over to them and send them on their way. If this is the case, unfortunately Dior follows in Thingol’s footsteps and doesn’t listen to his wife. Nimloth is killed by the Feanorians, but there’s no information about how – she could have died fighting, or tried to lead her children and the Silmaril to safety and been killed en route. We simply don’t know.
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And we haven’t even started on the mortal women!
Haleth
Why she’s awesome: orcs come down on her people’s lands and start burning and pillaging, and they end up holed up in a stockade until they run out of food. Haleth sees her father killed by orcs and her brother too immediately after, but she keeps her people safe in the stockade for seven days, with no hope of rescue or escape, before help comes. When they are eventually saved at the last minute by Caranthir and his troops, Caranthir belatedly realises that men have something going for them after all and offers Haleth and her people lands closer to his own, where they’ll be protected.
Haleth says, essentially, ‘Thanks but no thanks, I’m moving somewhere where I can look after myself’. And she proceeds to lead her people into Estolad, and these people who used to be called the Haladin are referred to as the People of Haleth for the rest of the Silmarillion. Haleth makes them move again, although most of them are against the idea, and they start travelling between the Girdle of Melian and the Mountains of Terror, which are infested with monster spiders and other unpleasant things:
‘...that was no road for mortal Men to take without aid, and Haleth only brought her people through it with hardship and loss, constraining them to go forward by the strength of her will.’
So she didn’t many to keep all of her people safe on the long journey. This is not something new in Middle-earth’s history. But Haleth leads them to safety in the end, and they wouldn’t have got anywhere if she’d given up in the middle of the journey and let everyone be eaten by spiders. Eventually the People of Haleth settle in (relative) safety in Brethil, which technically belongs to Thingol, but as a favour to Finrod he lets them live there as long as they don’t let orcs into the woods. And Haleth answers, ‘Where are Haldad my father, and Haldar my brother? If the King of Doriath fears a friendship between Haleth and those who have devoured her kin, then the thoughts of the Eldar are indeed strange to Men.’ Which is a more polite way of saying, ‘Do you seriously think that I’m going to let the monsters that killed my brother, father and half my people run around in our new home? How stupid do you think I am?’
Emeldir
Why she’s awesome: her name means ‘Man-hearted’, and in the testosterone-soaked atmosphere of First Age Middle-earth she must have down something good for that to happen. As for how she got that name...
Emeldir is married to Barahir and Beren of later Silmaril-stealing fame is their son. They rule Dorthonion, but due to Elves and Men losing some critical battles, Morgoth is beginning to expand his domain, and Dorthonion is coming under his shadow. Orcs invade the land and kill or enslave any people they find, but Barahir won’t leave Dorthonion and fights them for every foot of ground. This is heroic, but not really helpful in the long run, especially with large groups of refugees to be protected. Eventually the situation gets so desperate that Emeldir takes matters into her own hands:
‘At last so desperate was the case of Barahir that Emeldir his wife (whose mind was rather to fight beside her son and her husband than to flee) gathered together all the women and children that were left, and gave arms to those that would bear them; and she led them into the mountains that lay behind, and so by treacherous paths, until they came at last with loss and misery to Brethil.’
Emeldir is more than willing to fight for her country, but she sees that it’s no use – Dorthonion is going to fall, but its people may be saved. Perhaps she saw the situation clearly while Barahir was blind to the truth, or perhaps Barahir asked her to get as many people away while he and the remaining men bought them time to escape. In any case, Emeldir leads the remnants of her people (and the armed ones, being women in a medieval society, are probably not the best fighters) out into the wilderness, searching for a safe land that she might have never seen before. Among the women who escape are Morwen and Rian, important ladies in later history.
And Emeldir never sees her husband or her son again. Maybe the tale of Beren and Luthien reaches her eventually, but for all she knows she left her family behind in Dorthonion to die.
Morwen
Why she’s awesome: she escapes Dorthonion with the aforementioned Emeldir, so she’s well-acquainted with roughing it and possibly fighting off attackers. Morwen moves to Dor-lomin and marries Hurin, the ruling lord. She has two children, a son (Túrin) and a daughter, Lalaith. Lalaith dies in a plague when she’s two or three, and Túrin almost dies as well.
Then Hurin rides off to be part of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, which does not end well for any Elves or men involved (to put it lightly). Morwen rules Dor-lomin while he’s gone, and she’s also pregnant again. Then men allied with Morgoth start to invade Dor-lomin, enslaving Hurin’s people and building their own settlements. These newcomers (the Easterlings) are there to live, not to pillage and plunder for a couple of years – they’re going to be a major and ongoing problem. After the first inroads, though, they leave Morwen alone because they think she’s a witch, and also because she scares the bejesus out of their leader Brodda just by looking at him:
‘Morwen he had seen once, when he rode to her house on a foray; but a great dread of her had seized him. He thought that he had looked in the fell eyes of a white-fiend, and he was filled with a mortal fear lest some evil should overtake him: and he did not ransack her house, nor discover Túrin, else the life of the heir of the true lord would have been short.’
Although they leave Morwen alone, the Easterlings take everything her people own and she’s left to provide for her son and the few people who are left in her house. Morwen works hard but they would starve if not for secret aid sent to her by Aerin, who is distantly related to her and was forcibly married to Brodda. Morwen knows that Túrin is not safe in Dor-lomin any more, facing enslavement at best and death at worst, and so she decides to send him away to Doriath and hope he will be safe. And she sends him away in autumn with a bad winter approaching, with only two old men for company, out into the wilderness towards a foreign kingdom, relying on his distant relationship to Beren to make the Elves take him in and look after him. Also, Túrin is eight or nine years old at this time, and Morwen knows she may never see him again. While she sends Túrin away, Morwen won’t leave herself: she is heavily pregnant, she has to look after the other few people in her house, and she secretly wants to believe that Hurin will return one day.
So she sends Túrin away, and in the spring she gives birth to her daughter, Nienor. Túrin is accepted into Doriath and Melian sends messengers to her, asking her to come and live in Doriath herself in safety. Morwen is intensely relieved to hear about Túrin, as any mother would be, but she will not leave her home. She’s very proud, and probably losing her first home in Dorthonion affected her this way: she’s lost one home, she’s not going to lose another. So Morwen raises her daughter and looks after her people with only a little help (Melian sends Elves with aid, occasionally, and Aerin still helps her) until Nienor is fully grown. What finally makes Morwen leave Dor-lomin is that another Easterling, Lorgan, has his eye on Nienor, and there’s no way she’ll let her daughter meet Aerin’s fate. So they finally go to Doriath.
And during that time Túrin has left Doriath, and Thingol is not entirely sure where he is now, although they’ve heard some rumours. Irate does not begin to describe Morwen’s reaction when she arrives in Doriath and learns the whole story, but she can’t do much if she only has rumours to rely on. After the fall of Nargothrond, some survivors make it to Doriath and reveal that the Blacksword of Nargothrond was indeed Túrin, although they don’t know what happened to him, and now there’s no stopping Morwen. She wants to go and find her son, or find out the truth and know the worst of it. Thingol thinks that she should wait until he’s sent his own people out, and tells her that Hurin and Túrin would want her to stay safely in Doriath.
‘You did not hold Túrin from peril, but me you will hold from him,’ cried Morwen. ‘In the keeping of Melian! Yes, a prisoner of the Girdle! Long did I hold back before I entered it, and now I rue it.’
Essentially: ‘gee, thanks for mansplaining this to me, Thingol’. Morwen has waited long enough. She leaves Doriath with an escort of riders (and unknown to her at first, her daughter too) and sets off for Nargothrond. Things do not go well for them there, and Morwen ends up wandering the wilds and starving to death in Brethil. She eventually finds her son and daughter’s graves, but she dies without hearing how they met and died. Which is probably a relief.
Aerin
Why she’s awesome: she’s a minor character in the story of Túrin, being related in some way to Hurin, and she’s in Dor-lomin when the Easterlings invade. Aerin is not lucky enough to scare them off like Morwen – she’s captured by the invaders, and their leader Brodda ‘took her to wife by force’ (and since ‘to take to wife’ is Tolkien’s favourite way to describe sex, what happened is that Brodda raped her. And then made her his wife, so she’s stuck in enemy-occupied Dor-lomin.) We don’t know if Aerin had any children or how her husband treated her, but being the same race as the slaves under the Easterling rule, and being the Easterling leader’s wife, could not have endeared her to the Easterlings as a whole. And her own people probably thought she was a traitor and a whore or worse, although Aerin was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
You’d forgive Aerin for wanting to pretend that she doesn’t exist, but she doesn’t forget Morwen. She secretly sends Morwen aid, and takes it from the goods and animals that the Easterlings have seized. And she manages to do this for years, although Brodda beats her whenever he catches her at it. She also makes sure that her people are given food and shelter in her halls, which is the best she can do for them.
Morwen and Nienor eventually escape, and one day Túrin returns to Dor-lomin and walks into Brodda’s hall, demanding news of his mother. Aerin tells him all she knows, and an enraged Túrin kills every Easterling in the hall. By doing this he has brought death on Aerin and many of her people, and she tells him to escape while he can, he can do nothing to help them there. And knowing that she’s going to die, Aerin does one last thing to have her revenge, in a small way, on the Easterlings who have caused her such grief:
‘They have fired the hall,’ said Túrin. ‘To what purpose is that?’
‘They? No, lord: she, I guess,’ said one, Asgon by name. ‘Many a man of arms misreads patience and quiet. She did much good among us at much cost. Her heart was not faint, and patience will break at the last.’
Aerin did not have control for most of her life, but she doesn’t go down without a fight.
Nienor
Why she’s awesome: she survives with her mother in occupied Dor-lomin until she’s fully grown, and escapes with Morwen to Doriath. When she hears that her mother is going out into the wilds to search for Túrin, Nienor pleads with her to stay and be safe. Morwen refuses, and so Nienor takes matters into her own hands. She rides secretly with Morwen’s Elvish guard until they are out of Doriath, and when she is discovered she calls her mother’s bluff:
‘If the wife of Hurin can go forth against all counsel at the call of kindred,’ said Nienor, ‘then so also can Hurin’s daughter. Mourning you named me, but I will not mourn alone, for father, brother and mother. But of these you only I have known, and above all do I love. And nothing that you fear do I fear.’
‘What would you do?’ said Morwen.
‘Go where you go,’ said Nienor. ‘This choice indeed I bring. To lead me back and bestow me safely in the keeping of Melian; for it is not wise to refuse her counsel. Or to know that I shall go into peril, if you go.’
Nienor loves her mother but is quick to point out her hypocrisy, and she doesn’t want to be parted from the only family she knows. She worries about Morwen going into the wilds, but she isn’t afraid of going there herself. Morwen’s pride means that they continue on to Nargothrond, where Nienor becomes separated from the rest.
But when the blind terror came upon the riders, Nienor’s horse, running wild, stumbled, and she was thrown. Falling softly into grass she was unhurt; but when she got to her feet she was alone: lost in the mist without horse or companion. Her heart did not fail her, and she took thought; and it seemed to her vain to go towards this cry or that, for cries were all about her, but growing ever fainter. Better it seemed to her in such case to seek again for the hill: thither doubtless Mablung would come before he went away, if only to be sure that none of his company had remained there.
Alone in the wilderness, Nienor doesn’t panic and takes a sensible course of action. Of course, this brings her into contact with Glaurung, which ends with her having amnesia and fleeing through the woods, but she doesn’t go down without a fight: Strong was the will and heart of Nienor, and she strove against Glaurung; but he put forth his power against her.
And things go very badly for Nienor and all her family after that, but she began well.
Andreth
Why she’s awesome: Andreth isn’t mentioned in the Silmarillion at all (she lives in HoME), and I am ashamed to say that I know next to nothing about her. Online sources tell me that she and Aegnor were in love but decided not to marry because of the difference in lifespan, which must have taken a lot of courage. Andreth also went toe to toe debating with Finrod, so she must have been smart. If anyone can make a case for Andreth, comment away!
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And there you have it: two Valier, one Maia, seven Elves and six mortal women, all of them strong female characters. They might not be so easy to spot among all the Silmarillion men, but they’re all important to Middle-earth’s history, even if their roles aren’t as flashy as the boys’. If you add Luthien you end up with seventeen strong female characters – and before I go I must make this point: it’s pretty damn easy to be a strong female character when you’re the most beautiful woman to ever live, you have magical powers, your father is King of the Sindar, your mother is a minor goddess, your husband is an accomplished fighter and you have a Silmaril in your possession. Being a strong female character without any of that – that’s what’s awesome.
Um, wow, this got epically long. I wrote this up over the course of three days and it clocks off at just over 6000 words; this is the longest fandom-related thing I’ve ever written. I haven’t included every single named woman in the Silmarillion because not all of them are strong characters (Finduilas, while I love her, is a classic princess in a fairy tale) – but if you know someone who isn’t included here and should be, comment and argue for them! Any and all discussion about Tolkien’s women should be encouraged.
EDIT: Andreth and Miriel here, Elwing here. Hopefully I haven't forgotten anyone else.
