The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings were written during a time when most women did what Arwen (in the books) did. Stay home, pray, sew, etc. It was probably considered to him that it was quite bold to have Eowyn go out on to the front lines, which was good writing on his part. It was maybe a nod to the Viking shieldmaidens? I'm sure Elthir has a letter or two to explain it.

Anyway, I'm not sure it really mattered much in the Hobbit what the genders were.

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Dunedain Ranger of the North
Annalist, Physician, & Historian
of The Black Company of the Dúnedain,
The Free Company of Arnor

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I'm just happy someone got my pun

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Dunedain Ranger of the North
Annalist, Physician, & Historian
of The Black Company of the Dúnedain,
The Free Company of Arnor

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Just goes to show: you can run from a bee pun (even for five years)... but you can't hive.

I apollengize

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Dunedain Ranger of the North
Annalist, Physician, & Historian
of The Black Company of the Dúnedain,
The Free Company of Arnor

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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When I think about it, JRRT was being eccentric vis-a-vis the generic dragon quest (as in many other aspects) by not having a princess to be rescued from the blighted lizard. What a curmudgeon! (which is probably one of the reasons I find him sympathetic - I differ with him in quite a few real-world opinions, but he appears to hold some - perhaps not explicitly stated but to be recognized without excessive "digging" - that seem to be difficult to reconcile with some of his stated orthodoxies.

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I think Tolkien wrote it the way he wrote it for a reason. Lack of female characters does not take away from the story at all and adding them in doesn't work well, as we have seen in the movies. I wish it was still socially acceptable to just not have female characters.

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Eighty years after The Hobbit’s publication date now, and when I watch (usually for a very short time before I want to “fwow up”) series, more accurately serials, soaps, telenovelas … and I often see a thunderingly pathetic depiction of women there. Too much stuff from US television which (among other things) has badly gone down the tubes since the days of Alzheimer Ronnie. I’ll take The Hobbit the book kept free of such garbage before seeing it polluted by current garbage. And Tauriel coming uncomfortably close to Mary Sue is no help; actually PJ pushed Galadriel to the edge of such trash too close for comfort (though I did like her seriously “not amused” manner when taking out Sauron …). Things have not become uniformly better even in the western world in the last 80 years.

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