Abstract
Recent queer scholarship on Tolkien’s legendarium has broadened our understanding of character embodiment, narrative possibilities, and reader/fan reception. Yet within this field, aromantic and asexual identities, collectively referred to as a-spec, remain comparatively understudied. While scholars such as Rory Queripel, Kristine Larsen, Nicholas Birns, and Danna Petersen-Deeprose have begun this conversation, one commonality persists: a focus on male-coded character a-spec readings. Very little attention has been paid to the a-spec resonances of female-coded characters. This may be because female-coded characters in Tolkien’s work are frequently positioned as wives and mothers, roles that appear to preclude a-spec readings due to normative expectations of romance, marriage, and reproduction. However, applying narrative theory through an A-Spec Toolkit adapted from Elizabeth Hanna Hanson and Rosie Clarke reveals meaningful a-spec resonances within several female-coded character narratives. This paper focuses on the resistive narratives of Haleth, Galadriel, and Míriel, in contrast to the more eronormative narratives of Éowyn, Lúthien, and Arwen, paying attention to how character narratives resist or complicate eronormativity and (re)productive temporality. This analysis illuminates how movement, growth, fulfillment, and kinship may operate outside dominant romantic-sexual paradigms. Rather than assigning identities to individual characters, the analysis foregrounds how narrative resistances generate a-spec resonances that broaden readings of female-coded characters beyond tropes of romantic and/or sexual partners. Attending to these resonances widens queer Tolkien studies and demonstrates how meaning in Tolkien’s world can emerge outside normative romantic and sexual scripts.
Recommended Citation
Sheppard, Jackie
(2026)
"What is Unwritten May Yet Resonate: In Search of Female A-spec Resonances in Tolkien,"
Journal of Tolkien Research: Vol. 24:
Iss.
1, Article 7.
Available at:
https://scholar.valpo.edu/journaloftolkienresearch/vol24/iss1/7