LOL@"Let me put my raincoat on, before you start hurtling abuse"

Ok, I hope nobody's gonna start hurtling abuse at you or I may have to punish them *sharping her throwing daggers*. Now, about Arwen's role in the movies, I agree with you yet not. I know, I couldn't have been vaguer *g*.

Yes, Arwen acts very differently in the books (or rather, she does not act at all, except comes and get married once all is done). She is present though in the main body of LOTR, many times, but only through Aragorn's thought, and often it's something implicit and her name doesn't even appear (like when he stands on top of the hill of Cerin Amroth). And I don't know where people stand on that one, but if you read the book carefully, although, yes, Aragorn does all his heroic deeds because of who he is first, Arwen is, no doubt about it, a great motivation, and certainly what keeps him going sometimes. Actually, he remembers her always when he just went through something terrible or is about to face danger.

The problem is, how do you represent thoughts on screen? You cannot just take Arwen out of the picture, that would have been unfaithful to Tolkien, who himself admitted that he should have brought more of Arwen in the LOTR proper. But you can't either have Aragorn appearing all sulky, hair askew and with tears in his eyes at some times in the movies and expect people to automatically link that to him thinking of Arwen *g*. So you have to actually show her more.

Of course, the way she's shown and what she does exactly is matter of debate. And let's never forget that PJ and co knew already that there was going to be a problem with the audience not familiar with Tolkien's universe (which represents, despite what me may think, the big majority of the people living on this planet): the lack of women in the movie. So they immediately tried to beef up what feminie characters they had already.

Now, the only thing I thought was somewhat unfair in your post Iseabal, was your remark about Liv Tyler, for two reasons: 1) if she was interested in the money, she would never have signed for LOTR, and that works for the whole main cast of the movie. It is known that they were paid as they would have been for 1 1/2 movie while there were shooting three. And 2)in fact, I think we should be thanking her, because she was the one to point out to PJ the first day when they shot her being present and fighting at Helm's Deep how not in character that was, thus avoiding the worst, namely a real warrior Arwen.

That being said, now onto what was really on screen. I've never had the feeling Arwen was a warrior, and that includes her saving Frodo. You all know about them prefering not to introduce another character and why it was her saving Frodo instead of Glorfindel so I'll skeep that ;-) But even in that scene: she doesn't fight, she rides, and then she calls for the forces of natures to help her out. Well, she's over 2000 years old, so the fact that she's a good rider, better than Aragorn is not really surprising. But I never saw her fight, so no, no warrior Arwen for me. And for the rest, yes, she does look sad a lot, but I would if were her, with a man like Aragorn who loves me and may never return to me, and if he does, that would mean I'd have to part from my family forever and beyond. Or maybe it's the overly romantic part in me doing the talking here, I dunno *g*

Finally, let's look at what the movie would have been if Arwen hadn't been in there, or if her presence had been as limited as in the book (3 scenes, and only one where she actually talks!). This is where the general adience, the one that hasn't read the book (reminder: the majority) weights in the decision. It couldn't have been satisfactory, for just too many reasons that seem obvious enough for me to skip them here. Let's just say they had to show her more, again, it's only on the manner that one can objectively disagree.

All that being said, in the end, that's a debate that could never end. Why? Because no matter what I say, and no matter what you say, there can be no 'winner'. This is not a question of being right or wrong, only a question of different sensibilities: Arwen grates on your nerves, she doesn't grate on mine, period. Anyway, at the bottom of all this, we are so passionate about that because we love Tolkien's work and that what counts in the end. The rest, all that I've written above, compared to that, is just air (or pixels, in this case) ^-^