The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)

I was surprised by how much action arose AFTER the big climactic Mount Doom situation. Everything was fixed, and yet so many things still remained to be fixed. It just keeps on going.

And I definitely think Tolkien has a woman problem. There are only 3 female characters - Arwen, Galadriel, and Éowyn.

To Arwen, I think the films were extremely generous, because she's wet, completely without agency, and not even a very good elf. And then she throws away all her Elfness to be Aragorn's queen, without ever really telling me what they see in each other, or why they're together. Aragorn, we know well enough to assume he's broadly attractive, and he's a weird kind of half-magic super-human, which MIGHT be enough to attract an elf woman, but I have no idea what he sees in her, because I know almost nothing more about her at the end than I did at the beginning.

Galadriel is a fabulous elf, infinitely better than Arwen, with her wisdom and her magic and her natural shimmer. Sam Gamgee has quite the crush. But she's not real enough. She's an untouchable goddess, not a person. Nothing about her has a personality you can grab hold of, and say, "Yes, I know this woman, now". Plus, she's married to an idiot who is clearly beneath her in power, wisdom and intelligence, a fact that Tolkien makes no effort to explain.

Éowyn is the most interesting of the three, but she's basically screwed by patriarchy. Everyone around her wants her on a Galadrielesque pedestal, when she's actually equipped to fight wars as effectively as her brother (possibly more so). She has a massive crush on Aragorn, and would probably be a decent match for him, but he's pining over the wet elf, and anyway, she's sort of distracted by the idea that he can see her potential better than her family can, and might give her the chance to prove herself, which his benevolent sexism is never going to do. She ends up married to Faramir, who at least respects her as a warrior, although he's strongly committed to neither of them doing any more fighting, anyway. She actually dresses up as a man to sneak to the front, which seems like a very WWI thing to do.

So Tolkien has three female archetypes, and the only one who even resembles a fully formed person is the one who lied about her sex to get into the trenches? It feels like that might be the only woman he ever met. Who are the other two based on? A distant mother who sent him to school to be raised by strangers? The sister of a friend, whom he knew existed, but never actually got to know?

The women characters are weak, even when they themselves are showing strength.

But it's an excellent story, complex and engaging, and the MALE characters are strong, and diverse, and rounded, and flawed, and generally interesting.

I still don't understand why Aragorn couldn't claim the throne decades ago, if not generations. Multi-generational stewardship seems bizarre and unnecessary. But I'm not about to start reading the appendices to find out. I looked at Sam's family tree, and that was it.