i haven't drank any tea yet today and i'm sad i'm going to have to wait literal weeks until i can get the audiobook of lotr: return of the king, so instead in my head i have some half formed thoughts about how fellowship of the ring and two towers doesn't pass the bechdel test because there's like 5 major female characters throughout 2 books so far and one of them is a fucking cosmic horror spider goddess.
i would really love to read some thoughtful analysis of the female characters of middle earth but given my last venture in to looking about the analysis of shelob i almost dread some of the supplemental literature i could pull up.
in my own opinion, those 5 characters have been incredibly varied and help to emphasize the development of the protagonists, the plot, and of the entire world of middle earth in ways that i think get easily missed. it's hard to breach this topic without making it sound like the misogynistic drivel i'm trying to avoid, but the fact that movement and the nature of power are delegated to women is incredibly interesting. like, technically yes, you can say "these women only exist to further the development of men" but i think it's much more complex and gray than that.
i still refuse to give tolkien any credit because he was a sexist anyway, but my own trans/queer lens when consuming this text makes it far more complex and sympathetic than these scholars who make it their job to tear apart his work in ways i just don't really even understand why.