10 great female characters from The Lord of the Rings

Melian, Queen of Doriath

Sticking with the divine beings of Middle-earth, let’s talk about Melian the Maia. Like the Valar, the Maia are heavenly creates who existed before Middle-earth came into being, although they are less powerful than the Valar. Sauron is a Maia. So are Gandalf and Saruman.

Believe me, you’ll thank me for this education in Tolkien’s mythology when The Rings of Power starts up.

Anyway, Melian was a Maia who dwelt in Middle-earth during the Years of the Trees, even before the beginning of the First Age. She was beautiful, wise and unsurpassed in her ability to sing enchanted songs. She fell in love with the elf Thingol and became his queen, ruling the forest realm of Doriath with him. During her reign she became friends with a young Galadriel and protected her kingdom with the Girdle of Melian, though which none could pass without her approval…save one.

Importantly, Melian and Thingol had a daughter, who would go on a grand adventure of her own…

Lúthien Tinúviel

Lúthien was the daughter of Thingol and Melian, meaning that she’s part elf and part…angel, basically. She lived for many years in peace in the forests of Doriath, until one day she was seen by the mortal man Beren, who fell in love with her as he watched her dance. She reciprocated his feelings, but the idea of his daughter marrying a human man was too much for Thingol, who set them an impossible task in order to win his approval: steal a Silmaril from the crown of Morgoth, a Dark Lord so dark he makes Sauron look like a mere Dark Comptroller.

But love finds a way. Beren and Lúthien went on a perilous journey to retrieve the sacred jewel; they were captured by the sons of Fëanor, imprisoned by Sauron, and eventually stole into Morgoth’s dread fortress of Angband and successfully stole a Silmaril from his crown. Any questions, Thingol?

But the story doesn’t end there. Beren dies shortly after completing the quest, and Lúthien, beset by grief, follows him. But Mandos, the Vala in charge of the dead, is so moved by this story that he returns Beren and Lúthien to life in Middle-earth, on the condition that Lúthien become mortal. She agrees, setting up a choice that several of Lúthien’s descendants will also have to make. That includes vital characters like Elros and Elrond, the former of whom became the first king of Númenor and the latter the Elven lord we know from the original trilogy.

Going even further down the timeline, both Arwen and Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings are distant descendants of Lúthien, so she casts a long shadow over the series. And her story is so full of tragedy and majesty that I’d love to see it on TV…but it happened in the First Age rather than the Second, so don’t expect it to show up in The Rings of Power.