In Celebration Of The Publication Day Of The Hobbit (September 21, 1937), I Would Like To Submit For

all RIGHT:

Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I've ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can't wait to share it with you all!

can't wait to see another poll with more info / another post for my love of irl-useless statistics

because i'm interested

feel free to put in the tags how long you've had your account, how many fandoms they're for, etc

reblogging as a post it note again

⪢ 𝐀𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐓𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐬 ‣ (𝟑/𝟖) pirate au, teen and up, 19k

⪢ 𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐕𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 & 𝐕𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐞𝐬 ‣ (𝟔/𝟔) modern royalty au, gen, 40k

⪢ 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫//𝐒𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫 ‣ (𝟏𝟐/???) modern band/bookshop au, explicit, 70k

⪢ 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝 ‣ (𝟏𝟓/𝟏𝟓) beauty & the beast au, explicit, 83k

⪢ 𝐅𝐮𝐜𝐤 𝐓𝐡𝐲 𝐍𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐛𝐨𝐫 ‣ (𝟓/𝟕) accidental marriage/neighbors au, explicit, 23k

⪢ 𝐊𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐮 '𝐚𝐛𝐚𝐝𝐚𝐳 ‣ (𝟒/???) post-botfa/supernatural au, explicit, 23k

⪢ 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ‣ (𝟏𝟔/𝟏𝟖) pre-quest au, explicit, 96k

⪢ (𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐌𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐓𝐨) 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐖𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐭 ‣ (𝟔/𝟔) pre-quest au, gen, 25k

⪢ 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 ‣ (𝟖/𝟏𝟎) hades&persephone/TNBC au, teen and up, 44k

⪢ 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐋𝐢𝐞 ‣ (𝟕/???) vampire/slayer au, explicit, 49k

on my way to rewatch lotr bc I have once again experienced a minor inconvenience

My toxic trait is rewatching lord of the rings whenever there’s a minor inconvenience in life

ooooh I love numbers

If you recall, a little while ago I manually scraped data regarding popular LotR ships from Ao3 using an extremely rough methodology. I had a request for the data, so what the heck, here you go.

Now, these numbers are ridiculously rough. In fact, you might even say they're bad. The first 10 are approximately correct. But, as explained in that link, every group of 10 after that is undercounted by more and more because I excluded fics from my search that contained the ships already on the list. Also, anything tagged in the Hobbit movies/book but not LotR was really, really undercounted.

Let this be a lesson in data sources! In fact, the best use of this data is to use it as a starting point for getting good data. Instead of checking every permutation of ships (like idk, Merry/Elrond) for proper numbers, you would start by checking the top 50 on this list. This is of course assuming you didn't have a better method of getting data out of Ao3 than using the work and tag searches like I've done here.

(The second-best use of this data is to go "lol, really?" which is what I assume/hope you're here for, because otherwise you're probably gonna be disappointed.)

(The third-best use of this data is to note that because the Hobbit movies came out 2012-14, right when Ao3 had achieved critical mass, it is much, much easier to find Hobbit-related fic on Ao3 than LotR, the films of which came out in 2001-03.)

For ships that intrigued me I've included the "actual" results in purple. But even those numbers are probably undercounting because some people don't use tags that map to the canonical tags.

Anyway, the top 140 ships for "Lord of the Rings - All Media Types" on Archive of Our Own using a Very Bad counting method are:

1 Frodo/Sam (2207) (2,250) 2 Gimli/Legolas (1918) (2,121) 3 Aragorn/Arwen (1509) 4 Aragorn/Legolas (1492) 5 Éowyn/Faramir (1055) 6 Bilbo/Thorin (996) (12,085!!!) 7 Erestor/Glorfindel (955) (1,158) 8 Aragorn/Boromir (766) 9 Celebrían/Elrond (752) 10 Galadriel/Halbrand (688) (691) 11 Legolas & Thranduil (439) 12 Legolas/Original Female Character (347) (539) 13 Legolas/Thranduil (308) 14 Merry Brandybuck/Pippin Took (305) (488) 15 Thranduil/Original Female Character (294) (653) 16 Legolas/Reader (269) (328) 17 Gimli & Legolas (248) 18 Elrond/Lindir (244) 19 Éomer Éadig/Lothíriel (233) 20 Thranduil/Thranduil's Wife (232) (512) (this tag cracks me up) 21 Celeborn/Galadriel (216) 22 Frodo & Sam (196) 23 Boromir/Faramir (157) 24 Aragorn/Frodo (155) 25 Boromir & Faramir (153) 26 Rose Cotton/Sam (147) (331) 27 Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron (145) 28 No Romantic Relationship (128) 29 Elrond/Thranduil (123) (325) 30 Thranduil/Reader (114) (620) 31 Elrohir/Legolas (122) 32 Aragorn & Legolas (119) 33 Original Female Character/Original Male Character (117) 34 Aragorn/Faramir (99) 35 Aragorn/Reader (89) 36 Kíli/Tauriel (80) (2,604!!!) 37 Elrond/Reader (78) 38 Elrond & Maglor | Makalaurë (75) 39 Haldir of Lothlórien/Legolas (71) 40 Thorin/Original Female Character (68) 41 Merry Brandybuck & Pippin Took (82) 42 Denethor II/Finduilas of Dol Amroth (80) 43 Elladan/Elrohir (78) 44 Haldir of Lothlórien/Original Female Character (77) 45 Boromir/Original Female Character (70) 46 Bard the Bowman/Thranduil (67) (1,727) 47 Bilbo & Frodo (64) 48 Minor or Background Relationship (60) 49 Elladan & Elrohir (58) 50 Éomer Éadig/Faramir (57) 51 Elrond/Ereinion Gil-galad (72) 52 Éomer Éadig/Reader (59) 53 Celebrimbor/Sauron (55) (783!!!!) 54 Fingon | Findekáno/Maedhros | Maitimo (51) 55 Éowyn/Gríma Wormtongue (48) 56 Other Relationship Tags to Be Added (48) 57 Celebrimbor/Talion (Shadow of Mordor) (47) 58 Frodo/Faramir (46) 59 Arondir/Bronwyn (46) 60 Elrond/Legolas (45) 61 Arwen/Éowyn (52) 62 Aragorn/Éowyn (49) 63 Glorfindel/Original Female Character (48) 64 Legolas/Original Character (43) 65 Aragorn & Elrond (39) 66 Thorin/Reader (37) 67 Elendil the Tall/Tar-Míriel (34) 68 Legolas/Original Male Character (33) 69 Aragorn & Boromir (33) 70 Elrond & Elros Tar-Minyatur (32) 71 Durin IV & Elrond (37) 72 Ecthelion of the Fountain/Glorfindel (32) 73 Legolas/Harry Potter (30) 74 Original Character/Original Character (29) 75 Haldir of Lothlórien/Reader (29) 76 Glorfindel/Legolas (27) 77 Boromir/Reader (27) (85) 78 Legolas/Tauriel (26) 79 Elrond/Erestor (26) 80 Boromir/Legolas (26) 81 Frodo/Rose Cotton/Sam(25) 82 Diamond Took/Pippin Took (23) 83 Thorin/Thranduil (23) (723) 84 Sherlock Holmes/John Watson (22) (48) lol 85 Thranduil/Original Character (21) 86 Boromir/Théodred (21) 87 Éomer Éadig/Legolas (21) 88 Merry Brandybuck/Éowyn (20) 89 Aragorn/Original Female Character (20) 90 James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers (19) 91 Éomer Éadig & Éowyn (25) 92 Elrond & Glorfindel (22) 93 Éomer Éadig/Original Female Character (20) 94 Sean Bean/Orlando Bloom (18) 95 Éowyn/Legolas (18) 96 Erestor & Glorfindel (18) 97 Sean Bean/Viggo Mortensen (17) 98 Frodo/Merry Brandybuck (17) 99 Fëanor | Curufinwë/Nerdanel (17) 100 Elladan/Glorfindel (17)

101 Éowyn/Tauriel (20) 102 Frodo/Boromir (17) 103 Isildur/Valandil (17) 104 Elrond/Glorfindel (16) 105 Aragorn/Elrond (15) 106 Legolas & Original Female Character (14) 107 Lindir/Reader (14) 108 Elrond/Original Female Character (14) 109 Arwen & Elrond (14) 110 Elladan/Legolas (13) 111 Arathorn II/Gilraen (16) 112 Aragorn/Haldir of Lothlórien (16) 113 Galadriel/Sauron (16) 114 Elrond & Ereinion Gil-galad (14) 115 Human/Orc (13) 116 Sauron/Original Female Character (13) 117 Aragorn & Gimli & Legolas (13) 118 Witch-King of Angmar/Reader (13) 119 Bungo/Belladonna Took (12) 120 Frodo/Original Female Character (12) 121 Elendil the Tall/Reader (17) 122 Fíli/Kíli (15) 123 Frodo/Legolas (14) 124 Fíli/Original Female Character (13) 125 Ratbag the Coward/Talion (Shadow of Mordor) (13) 126 Estella Bolger/Merry Brandybuck (12) 127 Elladan/Elrohir/Legolas (12) 128 Celebrimbor & Talion (Shadow of Mordor) (12) 129 Loki (Marvel)/Thranduil (12) 130 Imrahil/Legolas (12) 131 Orlando Bloom/Viggo Mortensen (15) 132 Tom Bombadil/Goldberry (12) 133 Halbarad/Maglor | Makalaurë (12) 134 Frodo/Merry Brandybuck/Pippin Took (11) 135 Goldberry/Lady of the Blue Brooch (11) 136 Celebrimbor/Narvi (11) 137 Sauron/Reader (11) 138 Beren Erchamion/Lúthien Tinúviel (10) 139 Erestor/Reader (10) 140 Aragorn/Arwen/Boromir (10)

"must first priority to be that it can't be [etc]"

- gem found in my notes for the fic

yup

champion of overthinking

if homicidal why sexy