Eowyn is one of my all time favorite characters, both in the Lord of the Rings books and movies. Not because she's the feminist character in the series that proves herself and so on and so forth but because her character goes way beyond anything like that. J.R.R. Tolkien had good, logical reasons for her to do what she did. Her motives were easy to understand and relate to. Eowyn was not a character made up just to prove a point like many female characters are today in novels, her character was treated with due respect and depth. Too many times in a movie or a book there's a character put in there just to show how to tough women are and how they should be treated just like men and yada, yada, yada. If that's the point of your plot fine, I'll deal with it. But putting a character like that into your plot just distracts from your overall theme and message. Have that female character, but don't have her be smarter then all the rest of your protagonists and super strong and have super human running abilities or whatever. In The Lord of the Rings, Eowyn had a logical reason for going to fight with her brother and uncle, maybe not the best choice on her part but it can be justified. That's the important thing. Treat all your characters with the respect they deserve, don't push character traits on them that don't make any since. Most of the time when there's a feminist character in a book it doesn't even match with that character's background. Think carefully, logically about why your characters act the way they do, why they are the person that they are and who influenced them to be that way. If you can figure out that you won't have so many distractions in your books and the plot will be less confusing and more interesting.
Happy writing slash reading!
Learning and aspiring writer for God's glory,
-J.C.
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