#i am so worried this will break containment and ill get disk horse

[philtstone]

people more eloquent than i have already made this point about chani -- and ive never read the dune books, as a disclaimer -- but i havent seen anyone ever make it about arwen & as i personally had already been thinking abt her role in lotr for the last 4 months before i watched dune 2 i had a field day with the whole thing so here goes. im going to try my best here so please forgive me for any oversights/mistakes

arwen in the lotr books has maybe 3 scenes in which she appears and (correct me if im wrong here) no dialogue outside of she and aragorn's appendix (admittedly a banger!). she is never mistreated or dismissed and is very clearly held in deeply deeply high regard by her beloved, who daydreams about her every couple paragraphs, but she's not like. a Character. contrastingly, arwen in the lord of the rings dir. peter jackson is allowed active physical and narrative presence in the story by being given all of book!aragorn's certitude and thereby narratively externalizing much of the story's central themes for the viewer. you see this not just in her direct delivery of some of aragorn's more assured book dialogue (you are isildurs heir, not isildur himself) but also in her refusal to abandon middle earth and the way her spirit is connected to the waxing and waning of despair in the movie before the ultimate eucatastrophe; arwen is hope, just as aragorn (named hope in the books, but never called so directly in the movies) is. they are the same person (read: basket of themes and archetypes) split in half, and thus better and with more nuance explored. if you notice, they often have very similar if not identical dialogue, and if i remember correctly in two towers specifically arwen is usually the progenitor. she is the one who says there is always hope first; then aragorn delivers it into the action. she is the one whose power (love, hope, call it what you will) brings him back to life. she is the one whose choice to stay prompts the reforging of the sword. when elrond says i looked into your future and saw death and she counters with but there is also life! overlaying everyone else's moment to moment choices (all of which also reflect the central theme in different ways, because lotr is an excellent work of storytelling) is arwens refusal to leave, her refusal to abandon hope, and her unwavering belief in the potential joy life has to offer despite so much despair, and in all of this she becomes, rather than just the tertiary narrative concept she is in the book, one of the clearest character proxies for lotr's central thesis.

now ive never read dune, so feel free to tell me i am wrong here. but to the extent of my understanding book chani is similarly not A Character but rather a love interest; she does not really have complex presence in the story outside of paul. in contrast to arwen, she is a secondary character and also grossly mistreated. so there is the first inversion. but chani in dune part 2 dir. denis villeneuve is the anti-paul. she is the original narrator: you see the fremen and arrakis and the conflict from her perspective in the immediate moments of dune 1, before the POV switches to paul for most of the rest of screentime. once paul crosses the point of no return that POV is lost and we immediately go back to chani, horrified, betrayed, unaccepting. throughout the movie, from the very first minute, she challenges paul -- not just on the big things but the little things too, cementing them as equals in defiance of any potential of his superiority. she challenges the blind belief people might have in dogma, prophecy, and charisma (all of which can be manipulated); she distrusts absolute power in general; she demands equality and values honesty and authenticity and camaraderie and the collective capacity for change over reliance on a saviour. she sincerely loves paul too, and in her own humanity and authentic realness humanizes him. and when paul "triumphs", she embodies what the narrative wants the viewer to take away by turning her back on him and leaving. chani shows us directly that paul is in the wrong, and the machinations and manipulations and beliefs that led him there have the potential for great evil, and that he has become and allowed and embraced a horrible, horrible reality.

as arwen is the embodiment of a beautifully archetypal certitude, chani is the embodiment of a very realist doubt. the former contains much of what lotr is about, externalized for the viewer; and the latter contains much of what dune is about, externalized for the viewer. both stories explore excellent and compelling themes that frankly can and should co-exist. and in both cases, each woman is given an active and plot-influencing presence on screen that she did not originally have, and the expression of agency through choice: arwen to stay, and chani to leave. the perfect inverse. the truest ontological compliment.

ironically reflecting the stories' philosophical differences movie arwen & movie chani are both given onscreen agency that they did not have in the books by playing precisely inverse narrative roles that are yet equally integral to the externalization of plot and theme in their respective films in this essay i will