Thank you Salon for bringing me the best news ever: Tea Party nutjob Christine O'Donnell is a Lord of the Rings scholar!
Here is the original essay, written for Free Republic, a conservative site that was too controversial even for Matt Drudge.
My first thought when I read it...who is Belladonna? According to O'Donnell, despite the fact that she barely even appears in the books, "she is content, even utterly satisfied, in the role of a wife and mother." We have no way to confirm that either way! I don't even know who she is!
Eowyn v. Arwen
O'Donnell tears down Peter Jackson's masculinization of Arwen, complaining of how the movie gave her some of the manlier tasks that belonged to Glorfindel and Elrond, that "there is an out of place sauciness that goes against the meekness of her character." Basically she's saying, and I agree, Arwen sucks, so don't let's pretend otherwise. However, I more objected to Movie!Arwen because she took some of EOWYN's role in the novels.
O'Donnell loves Eowyn, like any good feminist should (though O'Donnell is anything but.) "One can easily imagine Eowyn with a wicked case of PMS, which is part of why we love her," writes O'Donnell. Careful Christine, you're sounding like Gloria Steinem there.
"It is only when she reconciles her femininity with her warrior spirit that the torment is gone, and her true womanhood is discovered." Amen. This is basically why Eowyn is awesome, and Arwen always sucked.
A strangely on-point essay by a woman who has since refashioned herself as a lunatic.
