Lord of the Rings: 5 Women Who Got Their Due (& 5 Who Deserved More)

The Lord of the Rings is a series that has a severe lack of women. In the books, there are only a few women mentioned, and The Hobbit series is even worse. Many of the most interesting and dynamic women from the world of Middle-Earth are actually mentioned in some of the other books about the history of the world.

The movies did try to include more women or give exciting characters a much bigger role. However, even in the movies, not every woman was given her due. Here are the women from the franchise who were given what they deserve as well as those who deserved much more.

10 Got Their Due: Melian

Melian is a character that more casual fans might not know about, but she is a very interesting figure. She was extremely powerful because she was one of the Maia which puts her on par with sort of a god-like figure. She was also Queen of Doriath which was the ancient land of the Sindarin elves.

Melian was the mother of Luthien and also a distant relative of Arwen. While it would be great if more people knew about her, she is a female character that gets a good deal out of the story.

9 Deserved More: Goldberry

Goldberry is Tom Bombadil’s wife, and she isn’t in the movies at all. However, given that Tom Bombadil didn’t get the cut either, this can be forgiven. However, even in the books, she deserves more than she gets. Her origins aren’t completely known but she is called the River Daughter and might be a river spirit.

Despite the fact that she’s clearly a powerful person connected to nature, her role is mostly just talked about in terms of being Bombadil’s wife.

8 Got Their Due: Luthien

Luthien is a character from the history of Middle-Earth, but fans of the books are aware of her as she is mentioned. She is an ancestor of Arwen, and her love story with Beren is similar in some ways to the love story of Aragorn and Arwen.

While much of her story is about romance, she’s also a rather powerful character. She is the daughter of Queen Melian and King Thingol. She rescued Beren after he was captured by Sauron using her magic which is a rather feminist story given the time it was written.

7 Deserved More: Celebrian

Celebrian is a character that isn’t mentioned in any of the movies, but she is notable by her absence. She was Elrond’s wife and Arwen’s mother, and she suffered a terrible fate. She was also the daughter of Celebro and Galadriel. During a trip to visit her parents in Lorien from Rivendell, she was captured by orcs.

The torture they put her through was so awful that she left Middle-Earth to the Grey Havens. It’s unfortunate that this happened as she could have been a powerful figure in the series.

6 Got Their Due: Arwen

While there definitely are some things about Arwen’s character arc that can be criticized, the movies did do a good job of trying to give her a bigger role.

While she can still come off a bit like a damsel, the scene in The Fellowship of the Ring when she rescues Frodo was a great improvement. She’s clearly a powerful and wise elf, and just because she’s not a warrior doesn’t mean she’s not an interesting character.

5 Deserved More: Thranduil’s wife

Tolkien seems to have an issue with writing a lot of dead wives into his stories. While there are many powerful elves in The Lord of the Rings series itself, most of them are men other than Galadriel. Similarly to Elrond, Thranduil’s wife is also dead. In the books, little is known about her at all, and she never even gets a name.

In the movies, she is given more of a story of being killed by orcs, but she’s mostly just used as a motivation for Thranduil and Legolas which is an unfortunate trope.

4 Got Their Due: Galadriel

Galadriel is actually one of the most powerful figures in Middle-Earth during the War of the Ring. She has a fascinating and long history that Tolkien laid out in some of his other writings. She is descended from some of the most powerful elven families including Finarfin. She bore the ring of power called Nenya, and she was regarded by Tolkien as one of the fairest and most powerful elves of all.

Her story and power make her a female character ahead of her time and rare and welcome addition to the women of Middle-Earth.

3 Deserved More: Rosie Cotton

Unlike many of the women on this list who are powerful elves, Rosie Cotton is one of the few women we meet in the series who is not. She is a Hobbit, and she is mostly mentioned because Sam has a crush on her.

They also end up getting married after Sam returns from the journey of destroying the Ring, and they build a family together. While Rosie doesn’t need to be a powerful warrior to be important, it would have been nice if she was more than just a love interest who barely got to speak.

2 Got Their Due: Eowyn

While Galadriel is by far one of the most powerful figures in Middle-Earth, and probably the most powerful woman in Tolkien’s lore, Eowyn is the most feminist figure from The Lord of the Rings books. She is someone who starts off with little power and who wants to be able to fight and break free of the gender roles she’s been put into.

When she kills the Witch-Kin and proclaims, “I am no man,” it’s one of the coolest and empowering moments any woman has in the series.

1 Deserved More: Tauriel

Tauriel is the only main female character included in the movies who isn’t from the books at all. She was added to The Hobbit movies to try to give them better female representation, but they didn’t handle her well at all. While she might have been a capable warrior, her role was reduced mainly to a love interest in a love triangle with Legolas and Kili. The need to use the only main female character, other than Galadriel, for a love story seems outdated.

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