The Fellowship of the Ring

I think when I re-read this in college (so pre- 2016) I counted the number of female characters in the books just as a "fun" exercise.

We've got, in order of appearance: Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, Mrs. Maggot, Goldberry the River's Daughter, Arwen Evenstar, Galadriel, Eowyn, Shelob (she totally counts, fight me!), Ioreth, and Rosie Cotton.

The characters have to be present and alive and actually do something or speak in the main text, not appendices, of the three books. Nine is not a great amount especially with all of the characters in the book and few of them have personalities and do anything of an import.

This time I decided to compare how many ponies/horses have names and thus far we have: Sharp-ears, Bumpkin, Wise-nose, Swish-tail, White-socks, Fatty Lumpkin, Bill, and Shadowfax in the Fellowship. Coming up in the next books we have Arod, Hasufel, Stybba, Windfola, Strider, Firefoot, and Snowmane. There may be more!

So comparing women to horses it's 9 to . . . 15. Not great, John.

Still! I love the books but reading them as a feminist is always a complicated undertaking.