women in tolkien's world

She came from Lossarnach, which doesn't seem to have very many people of 'High blood' as they say. Their Lord at the time during the War of the Ring was Forlong the Fat. That people were somewhat shorter and swarthier than other peoples, certainly more so than the people of Minas Tirith. The Dunedain, by contrast (or leastways those of purer Numenorean blood) were tall and fair skinned.

We have no basis for claiming there were or were not a lot of people of Dunadan blood in Lossarnarch. Beregond seems to have been a Dunadan and his father Baranor lived in Lossarnach. And Morwen, the wife of Thengel, came from Lossarnach, but she was a descendant of the Lords of Dol Amroth. And it's not clear whether Forlong was or wasn't a Dunadan.

Short of any statement from Tolkien to the effect of "there were/were not many Dunedain in Lossarnach", we simply have no way of knowing (or of guessing, so far as I can see).

If Forlong the fat was a Dunadan, then we can dispense with the stereotyped Dunedain ("tall and proud with sea-grey eyes"). So we can add silly Ioreth and Fat Forlong to the spectrum of Dunedain body-types and psychology.... After all not all Dwarves look alike (Bombur was fat even during the Quest to Erebor), so the Dunedain may vary.

I know!i just thought I'd list those few that I did to annoy him.

I had forgotten about Beregond (and didn't know about Morwen). Do Dunedain suffer from corpulence at all? I always kind of envisioned them with semi-Elven body structure (which would eliminate Forlong, unless he was of far more mixed blood). But I never considered Beregond a Dunadan. How are we to tell, do dark hair and grey eyes always give one away? At any rate Gandalf said Boromir did not have much of the blood of Westernesse, so I wonder very much at it.

What does it mean to be a Dunadan? I mean if it's all down to blood, King Theoden would be a Dunadan too.

Eh? Dunedain are a Race of people, they are the descendents of the Numenoreans ('Dunadan' is a loose translation of 'Numenorean'), except that the Druedain (Woses) are not included. The dispute is that everyone in Gondor has mixed blood with lesser peoples, while the Dunedain of the North are dwindling because they never mingled with other peoples.

So there's the question of who in Gondor is a Dunadan, i.e., who has purer Numenorean blood.

That's what I meant. Theoden's father Thengel married a Dunadan lady (Morwen, wasn't it? Or was that Denethor's wife?). Theoden's got Dunadan blood in him !!

I think the debate "who's a Dunadan" was really pertinent in Gondor, they even fought the Kinstrife because the King's Heir (I forget who) was part Northman. Since Gondorians are generally watered-down Dunedain there's got to be some kind of criterion?

Or am I picking nits? One of my cats has lice, gotta see how to get rid of them. (The lice, not the cats.)