Abstract
As Tolkien scholarship develops through the years, studies that focus on women in the Legendarium thrive. Among the many Tolkienian female characters who have received more attention and goodwill, Aredhel, the White Lady of Gondolin, is ‘often overlooked, under-analysed, and even maligned’, as pointed out by Clare Moore. Some have read her as a ‘fridged woman’, a symbolic female disruption that is the direct cause of the Fall of Gondolin, or else as a supportive character to Maeglin, her son, who seems to be more significant in the grand scheme of the Legendarium. Many have treated her with pity, perceiving her as a victim of male violence, her story cut short by abduction and rape. However, this paper will propose an alternative reading, focusing on Aredhel’s own agency in terms of her restlessness and desire, and how that agency constructs the legend of the Fall of Gondolin as a major literary thematic motif, instead of a simple plot device.
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Aredhel's Textual History.xlsx
