Month: February 2016

ameliarating:

allalpha:

hereff:

nyarnamaitar:

hweanaro:

I’m gonna say it once and with all the due apologies for those who are just playing around with headcanons and having fun, but I honestly find the idea of Tar-Míriel as the Witch King of Angmar truly horrifying.

This. Also: I get the need for female villains in the Tolkien fandom, but they should be well-rounded characters that actually make sense as to why they’ve become villains in the first place and I just don’t see that happening with Tar-Míriel as the Witch-King. Why would she ever be persuaded by Sauron to accept a ring of power from him, when she of all people would utterly despise and mistrust the dude? Right now the whole fanon seems to me to invent female villains where there are none just for the sake of having female villains instead of interesting & complex female characters, idk.

(Though I don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun, so if this Your Thing, you should totally go for it.)

Yep, I agree.

I think my main objection to that idea is mainly because I see it as something that is degrading instead of empowering for her. She doesn’t get her revenge, she doesn’t get justice for all horrible thing that happened to her, which btw, at least partly caused by Sauron’s influence over Ar-Pharazon. So having her as Sauron’s servant actually make her situation even worse, she can’t have her peace until her death. Instead she becomes Sauron’s mindless servant, forever under his command.

I’m all for revenge fantasy and female villains, but I think Ill be more into it if people actually put her in position of power against her oppressor instead of keep being oppressed and enslaved under, because honestly I just can’t see how that should be empowering.

I agree – I’m not a huge fan of the theory either, because I don’t think it makes sense given her character arc or anything we know about her. However, I would assume that the reason some people do like the theory is because they’re uncomfortable with the way in which Míriel specifically is treated as a paragon of morality, as the ~pure woman~ who retains the moral high ground without ever being given any kind of narrative morality or complexity. Because her canonical treatment makes me equally as uncomfortable as the Witch King theory, and I can understand why people might want to subvert the tropes that define her. I’m not sure if this is the reason why people like the theory, but I think that it would be charitable to assume that it’s about more than just “wanting more female villains.”

I don’t quite understand the difference between wanting to to subvert a narrative which makes a female character into one with a moral high ground because she has the moral high ground and wanting more female villains. 

Especially when by turning her into a villain they use the tried and true hope of sexual trauma as corrupting influence. As in, she might have once been good, but now she is a tool of the people who subjected her to abuse. 

That’s not even merely subverting a narrative. That is turning a one note “pure and good” character into a one note “corrupted and evil” character.

Personally, I don’t have issues with her being one note since nearly every character in Númenor is a sort of flat good or evil type. Actually, two of the notable exceptions, in my eyes, are women: Erendis and Ancanlimë.

Guys guys guys guys guys

okay wait– so, as far as I know, the Tar-Miriel-As-Witchking theory originated, or was made popular, by a specific fanfic (please correct me if I’m wrong).  Are you critiquing the theory as written by that fic specifically, or the idea of the TMAW theory in general? 

Because if we’re critiquing the theory in general, I gotta say, it’s weird that you guys are a jumping right into dismantling tropes of a thing that doesn’t have a single implementation.
 The idea of Tar Miriel becoming or choosing to become the Witchking itself doesn’t dictate which tropes you use, or which parts of canon you use. We are talking about characters that have one line of dialogue if they’re lucky, and we’re already in the realm of throwing around source texts in a new and original manner. You can write Tar Miriel as generically or as specifically as you want, you can write Sauron as evil or as complex as you want; she’s only a mindless servant if you make her that, she’s only a victim if you write it that way, her relationship with Ar-Pharazon and with Sauron is whatever you write it to be, her control over the situation is whatever you make it be.

  If it’s fanon, or headcanon, I don’t particularly understand why you would approach it as if it’s a monolith. It’s not dictated by a single source that needs to be deconstructed, because it can be constructed any way you want. 

I’m just saying– if you’ve got a specific interpretation in mind that you want to 
take apart, go for it, but it’s just not sitting with me well that you’re shutting down something that could potentially have multiple interpretations that don’t exhibit any of the tropes or problems you just talked about. 

Am I making sense? Like… I’m not even particularly invested in this headcanon, but the process that just happened here is a little scary to me. :  If I’m talking out my ass or reading this thread incorrectly feel free to shut me down here; I’m just edgy because this thread reads to me like a dismissal of the right to headcanon and AU, which I know most of you support.