• Welcome to the Fantasy Writing Forums. Register Now to join us!

Tauriel

Ruby

Auror
Hi Legendary Sidekick, Thanks for posting the link to Deviant Art which I was able to view as I've recently joined it. I liked the painting although I haven't a clue what the story is about as I haven't read Game of Thrones.(Yet.)

Regarding sexism in books, I was never bothered as either a child or an adult that The Hobbit and LOTR had very few female characters. They are still my favourite books. I like the stories and the quality of the writing.

On the other hand, how many men read Little Women or Pride and Prejudice and wonder about the lack of central male characters?

Re the original post, the problem with Tauriel in the Hobbit movie is that she is a TOKEN female character. Why is she pretty and has a love affair with the only handsome dwarf? Why doesn't she fall in love with an ugly one?

The fight scenes where she and the other elf (Legolas?) manage to defeat scores of orcs along the river is also ridiculous. It's an entertaining film made for children and based very loosely on The Hobbit.

As for children wanting to look like Barbie, someone once worked out that if Barbie existed in real life, with those proportions she wouldn't be able to stand up! :eek:
 
Last edited:

Gryphos

Auror
Re the original post, the problem with Tauriel in the Hobbit movie is that she is a TOKEN female character. Why is she pretty and has a love affair with the only handsome dwarf? Why doesn't she fall in love with an ugly one?

As far as I'm concerned, it's better to have a token female character than none at all.
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
Regarding sexism in books, I was never bothered as either a child or an adult that The Hobbit and LOTR had very few female characters. They are still my favourite books. I like the stories and the quality of the writing.

On the other hand, how many men read Little Women or Pride and Prejudice and wonder about the lack of central male characters?

Re the original post, the problem with Tauriel in the Hobbit movie is that she is a TOKEN female character. Why is she pretty and has a love affair with the only handsome dwarf? Why doesn't she fall in love with an ugly one?

The fight scenes where she and the other elf (Legolas?) manage to defeat scores of orcs along the river is also ridiculous. It's an entertaining film made for children and based very loosely on The Hobbit.

As for children wanting to look like Barbie, someone once worked out that if Barbie existed in real life, with those proportions she wouldn't be able to stand up! :eek:

When something is "how things are," it's easy to not be bothered. No one else looks bothered, right (even though I can tell something's bothering you from your next series of questions)? But let's look at what "how things are" when seen from the other side. It shows how pervasive subtle these expectations are in culture, and answers your questions about Tauriel had to be a "Barbie Doll." This is very short, the images are subtle, just like they always are, but pay the most attention to the last scene.

 
Last edited by a moderator:

Legendary Sidekick

The HAM'ster
Moderator
Race and gender representation shouldn't be forced. Characters should just be great characters, regardless of race and gender.

I don't have a problem with inclusion (and, as Ruby pointed out, I think the OP was trying to say he doesn't either), but taking a well known work of literature and saying "let's retell it but add a woman"… there just seems to be something wrong with that. When I think "inclusion" in writing, I think of it as writing your own story with characters of the race and gender of your choosing. When someone takes an existing IP and adds original characters or changes existing characters and/or their fates (romance, life/death), that's fan-fic. When I see a film "based on" an existing story, I don't expect fan-fic. I do appreciate it most when the filmmaker sticks to the story.

Maybe the Captain of the Guard is an ambiguous character, and so Jackson simply took liberties with the possibility that the Captain could have been a woman…? I don't know. It's been almost 30 years since I read the book. But now I'm reading that Legolas is in The Hobbit films, too. It just seems odd that Jackson did LotR so well (or if there were complaints, they were drowned out by complaints about the Star Wars prequels), and now he's taking a single book, turning it into a 10-hour trilogy, and deviating in ways that seem to irk a lot of fans. These aren't changes necessary for the screen, are they? To me it comes off like, "I don't trust this story is interesting with the current cast of characters. I'm going to add a popular character and one I made up because it's MY story now." I feel like it's arrogance on Peter Jackson's part, where with LotR, I felt like he respected the story and told it well.

I mean, I didn't see The Hobbit. I'm just seeing this discussion and thinking, if half the people in this discussion think Peter Jackson made a bad move, they have a valid complaint. If you add a character and the result is immersion is broken because your audience is asking, "Who is this? She wasn't in the book!"–is that strengthening the story? Not for the readers who were unpleasantly surprised by your "artistic license." Should I, the audience member, be thought a fool for assuming a film called The Hobbit would be about characters from The Hobbit doing what they did in The Hobbit? Should I apologize for feeling ripped off because the film displayed the phrase "based on" onscreen?
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Fyle

Inkling
This is a big part of what i am saying that goes over peoples heads. It is not that she is female per se, it is the type of character she is. Very sell out, crowd pleasing un-Middle Earth like character.

Now wait... who am I to say she is un-Middle Earth? I'm not, only Tolkien can say for sure, which is why the movies should include originals only. If they do include makeshift characters a Junior High School kid can come up with than they should say 'based on the Hobbit' in the title or on the posters.

And I know one thing for sure, if it was your own story and someone added such a cardboard character to sell more, you may even approve for the sake of sales, but you would know darn well the original story worked much better with the characters you intended. If Tauriel does not bother you, I have to wonder how you view your own creative process.
 
Last edited:

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but to me it's the dwarf-elf relation that's the most annoying part.

Within my frames of reference, dwarves and elves are generally not on the best of terms - as far as species to species relations go. It seem really odd to me that an elf would fall for a random dwarf they pick up in the forest.
 

Fyle

Inkling
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but to me it's the dwarf-elf relation that's the most annoying part.

Within my frames of reference, dwarves and elves are generally not on the best of terms - as far as species to species relations go. It seem really odd to me that an elf would fall for a random dwarf they pick up in the forest.

Yes, that was mentioned and further proves she is a cardboard character there to please a certain audience, not an attempt to add a character that fits well (which is extremely difficult in this case being that Tolkien is unique and practically defined the genre as we know it).

Thanks for the response!
 

Gryphos

Auror
Should I, the audience member, be thought a fool for assuming a film called The Hobbit would be about characters from The Hobbit doing what they did in The Hobbit?

Again, it is about characters in the Hobbit doing what they did in the Hobbit. People just seem really eager to overstate the differences.

Should I apologize for feeling ripped off because the film displayed the phrase "based on" onscreen?

Well... yes. The wording seems pretty clear.
 

Fyle

Inkling
Again, it is about characters in the Hobbit doing what they did in the Hobbit. People just seem really eager to overstate the differences.



Well... yes. The wording seems pretty clear.


If you had creative control over the Hobbit Gryphos, would you add a character similar to Tauriel or do your best to bring the source material to life as Tolkien invisioned it?
Do you think more than the Hobbit contained is necessary?
 

Gryphos

Auror
If you had creative control over the Hobbit Gryphos, would you add a character similar to Tauriel or do your best to bring the source material to life as Tolkien invisioned it?
Do you think more than the Hobbit contained is necessary?

I would've thought it would be obvious by this point, but hells yeah I would have added a Tauriel-esque character. Maybe not exactly like Tauriel (and definitely not one with a romantic subplot), but definitely a female side-protagonist.

Because the way Tolkien envisioned it was great... for almost a century ago. But as AE Lowan has already explained at length, it wouldn't work and shouldn't work for today's society.
 

Legendary Sidekick

The HAM'ster
Moderator
Well... yes. The wording seems pretty clear.
My point is that making a major change in a work is an immersion-breaker. I went through this sort of thing several times watching GoT season 4.

My wife asked if Meera was going to be raped when she and Bran were captured at Craster's, and I said, "I hope not, since this never happened in the book." In other words, to someone who didn't know the original story, this was a scary situation and NOT an immersion-breaker. If you knew the story, every major deviation ran the "risk" of removing you from the story with those moments of denial.

That's not to say that I personally hated all changes. It's just the ones I found stupid, such as Asha Greyjoy and the Bolton Bastard facing each other so Reece could twirl his villain mustache in front of her. Other deviations, like those in episode 10, were fun enough that I was still in the story, cheering on Brienne and holy crapping over a death that didn't happen in any of the books (yet).

But one reader I spoke to said he and his friends didn't care for Brienne's victory because they felt she could never take on the Hound. Others suspected Jojen's death was a book 6 spoiler, so how dare they write that. Just because some changes didn't bother me, it doesn't mean no one is allowed to be bothered by them.

What I'm getting at is that the viewer can't help how s/he genuinely feels, and "based on" simply means the filmmaker has permission to change the story. Jackson is allowed to write that Bilbo dies at the end and preempt the credit roll with onscreen text explaining that the events in LotR are simply a dream, a false hope Bilbo had in his dying breath.

^That's an absurd example, but it's there to point out that everyone has a threshold where "based on" would no longer suffice as an excuse for a book-to-film deviation.





Svrtnsse,

Don't you get it? The dwarf-elf relationship is moving JRRT's crappy story out of the Stone Age. As someone who is in a marriage of mixed ethnicities, I say it's about time (*pounds table*) we've had a dwarf-elf coupling on film. If Samwise married a human girl, LotR would've had a better ending. (*takes swig of alcoholic beverage*) Maybe in the re-release…
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Fyle

Inkling
I would've thought it would be obvious by this point, but hells yeah I would have added a Tauriel-esque character. Maybe not exactly like Tauriel (and definitely not one with a romantic subplot), but definitely a female side-protagonist.

Because the way Tolkien envisioned it was great... for almost a century ago. But as AE Lowan has already explained at length, it wouldn't work and shouldn't work for today's society.

There is a term, a phrase many people pin to great works of art, movies, books and songs. That phrase is timeless. Which means the work maintains its quality through the ages, it maintains its value no matter what the times call for.

This is what Tolkiens work is to many many people - fans and people in the industry. These works are best left untarnished to maintain its original quality, when you change too much of the original, it loses what made it timeless. In this case, we trade timeless storytelling for flavor of the week.

(Some punctuation was missed, I typed this on my iphone」
 

Gryphos

Auror
This is what Tolkiens work is to many many people - fans and people in the industry. These works are best left untarnished to maintain its original quality, when you change to much of the original, it loses what made it timeless. In this case, we trade timeless storytelling for flavor of the week.

Well then, those people should probably do themselves a favour and not watch the film. Problem solved.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
If someone wants to be a purist, that's fine. The Hobbit films offer plenty of opportunity for the purist to complain. They bear little resemblance to the original book. If, in the face of the multitude of changes to book, the majority are hand-waved or excused out of hand and someone says "But you know what I really hate? They added a girl!" then claims of purism are bollocks. A purist has a whole lot to complain about.

Although the original trilogy was more faithful there was some of the same argument there, where people were ultimately fine with most of the changes, but what really pissed them off was Arwen.

If you want to be a purist, then be a purist and hold true to that position, don't excuse everything except the increased gender inclusion.
 

Philip Overby

Staff
Article Team
I'll jump in here, only to say I've watched both Hobbit films so far and neither one of them bothered me in any way. Sure, the romance sub-plot felt shoehorned in, but the fact that Tauriel was a woman had no effect on me really because I wasn't that familiar with the novel (although I read it a while back). I thought she was a decent character that added something to the movie version anyway. I do remember the barrel scene in the book and I did think it was a little over the top to have all that chaos happening. But, I kept remembering, "Oh, this is a movie. Having people float in barrels for 30 minutes would probably suck."

To the point Steerpike made about purists, I think I was the same about GoT when the series first started. I was a "read the books" guy. But then as the series went on, they changed some things here and there and I never went, "What? Why the hell did they do that?" I figured that GRRM is a producer, consultant, and sometimes writer of the show, so whatever.

I get the idea that people want to protect the original version of the story without taking liberties with it, but it's a movie. Movies rarely are adapted faithfully to their source material.

I would like to see more original IP made though, especially in fantasy. I don't even know when the last time I've seen a fantasy movie that was an original screenplay. Hell, maybe I've never seen one. It must be a hard sell in Hollywood.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
If someone wants to be a purist, that's fine. The Hobbit films offer plenty of opportunity for the purist to complain. They bear little resemblance to the original book. If, in the face of the multitude of changes to book, the majority are hand-waved or excused out of hand and someone says "But you know what I really hate? They added a girl!" then claims of purism are bollocks. A purist has a whole lot to complain about.

Although the original trilogy was more faithful there was some of the same argument there, where people were ultimately fine with most of the changes, but what really pissed them off was Arwen.

If you want to be a purist, then be a purist and hold true to that position, don't excuse everything except the increased gender inclusion.

To be honest, it's been so long since I've read the books, most of the differences went right over my head. And I have no trouble dismissing something like a fight scene because it's clearly a screen change instead of a story change.

There's purity, sure. But as Mr. Legend said, there's also immersion. Tauriel - and I'm taking the character as a whole, here, romance and all - was such a tremendous contrast with the rest of the movie, with everything I did remember from the Hobbit, that her scenes became difficult to watch.

I don't think that would've been as much of the case for me if they had done something other than the romance. But I don't have a hypothetical Tauriel to use as a control. I've only got the character they put on screen. And that character was added for reasons outside the main story - alright, I'll accept that - but she fell into every one of the pitfalls people associate with doing so.

It wasn't just that she was a female elf. It's that she was just​ a female elf.
 

Jabrosky

Banned
I would like to see more original IP made though, especially in fantasy. I don't even know when the last time I've seen a fantasy movie that was an original screenplay. Hell, maybe I've never seen one. It must be a hard sell in Hollywood.
THIS.

Think about it, an original story would give the filmmakers so much more leeway in the world-building, casting, and plotting than adapting a pre-existing mythos. They wouldn't have to worry about angry purists anymore!
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
What if they'd made one or two of the dwarves female instead, but kept them otherwise the same?

As I recall there ARE female dwarves, they're just really rare - or did I get that wrong?
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
What if they'd made one or two of the dwarves female instead, but kept them otherwise the same?

As I recall there ARE female dwarves, they're just really rare - or did I get that wrong?

They also have beards.

I think that would've been more jarring at first, but I may have found it easier to get used to as the movies went along. It's hard to say. It's a big character change, and I normally hate when people suggest gender swapping an existing character, but some of the dwarves weren't that firmly established to begin with. Tauriel got worse as the film went on. I'm dreading the inevitable scenes in the last movie when they're going to have to talk out their little love triangle.

If I was asked, before I saw the movie, whether I'd prefer the elf or the genderswapped dwarves, I would've said the elf, by far. Having seen what that meant I would say the dwarf.
 
Top