Lúthien: Not a Damsel in Distress




          Most of the Silmarillion is severely lacking in strong female characters. Normally dominated by men only with the occasional damsel in distress, it comes as a breath of fresh air whenever a woman appears that takes charge and can handle herself. When Lúthien is first introduced in the Silmarillion, I assumed that she would be like all the other devastatingly beautiful but-oh-so delicate women in Tolkien’s world, and for the most part she was nothing more than a pretty face and a good singing voice. “Then memory of all pain departed from him, and he fell into an enchantment; for Lúthien was the most beautiful of all the Children of Ilúvatar,” (165) “and suddenly she began to sing. Keen, heart-piercing was her song as the song of the lark that rises from the gates of night and pours its voice among the dying stars, seeing the sun behind the walls of the world,” (165).
            However beautiful and fragile Lúthien may seem when she first meets Beren, she is by no means helpless. After Beren sets out on his quest to recover one of the Silmarils and ends up in a pit in Sauron’s tower Lúthien senses something is wrong and goes to her mother to discover what has happened to Beren. Her father then locks her in a house from which she is supposed to be unable to escape. Being resourceful for a damsel in distress, Lúthien grows her hair to an incredible length and weaves special sleep magic into it in order to escape. She then teams up with the magical hound, Huan, who accompanies her on her journey to help Beren.
When she and Huan fight Sauron and his hounds outside of the tower she has damsel-like moments, “Then Sauron sprang upon Lúthien; and she swooned before the menace of the evil spirit in his eyes and the foul vapour of his breath,” (175) but also holds her own, “But even as he came, falling she cast a fold of her dark cloak before his eyes; and he stumbled, for a fleeting drowsiness came upon him,” (175) showing again that she isn’t completely useless. She even has a pretty good speech after Sauron is defeated and takes control of his tower herself, “[she] said that he should be stripped of his raiment and of flesh, and his ghost be sent quaking back to Morgoth; and she said: ‘There everlastingly thy naked self shall endure the torment of his scorn, pierced by his eyes, unless thou yield to me the mastery of thy tower,’” (175).
After saving Beren, the now trio moves on to Angband where they intend to break into Morgoth’s chambers to steal a Silmaril therefore together, “they wrought the greatest deed that has been dared by Elves or Men,” (180). Once in the throne room, Lúthien is stripped of her disguise by Morgoth and “she was not daunted by his eyes; and she named her own name, and offered her service to sing before him, after the manner of a minstrel,” (180). This certainly would have taken a good deal of courage and further shows that Lúthien is not the typical fairy tale female. The song she sings put all of Morgoth’s court to sleep including Morgoth after she puts her magical sleeping cloak in front of his face. This leaves the crown undefended for Beren to pry a Silmaril out of. After fleeing the throne room, Beren’s hand is bitten off by Carcharoth and Lúthien saves the day once again by sucking the venom out of the wound and healing it with magic.

Ultimately, it is obvious that Beren would not have even come close to recovering the Silmaril without Lúthien’s help. This is not to say that Lúthien could have done it alone, she definitely still needed Beren, but she was an invaluable asset and saved Beren’s life multiple times. As far as women in the Silmarillion go, Lúthien is definitely my favorite.

Comments

  1. Andrew FutcherMarch 7, 2018 at 1:12 PM

    I have always had a problem in media when a couple is never shown to work together on a quest, usually it had the man either saving the woman as the quest or the female waiting for him to return after his completion, both causing her to be the goal for the male after he completes it. However despite Tolikens track record with characters that aren't white men the story of Luthien and Beren as you have shown goes against that mold where both characters are needed to obtain a Silmaril with both carrying their own weight throughout when they can. Rather then Luthien just sitting in the back cheering him on. This causing the two to be needed and contribute to the overall quest rather then one simply being dead weight for the other.

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