Queen Beruthiel

part of my weekly Tolkien Sketchblog

Beruthiel, daughter of the Black Numenoreans, wife of King Tarannon Falastur, Queen of Gondor and (aside from a few eight- legged dames) Tolkien's only Bad Girl (and by bad girl I of course mean paranoid personality disorder and torturer of small animals)

I figured it was about time for me to take on a Middle-earth female, (all the largely interchangeable fair, pure, virgin mary-like elf maidens are something of a bore, frankly) and Beruthiel always stood out from the rest; a Black Numenorean noblewoman chosen by the King of Gondor for his wife, probably in an attempt to end the blood feud between Gondor and Umbar, who instead turns out to be a frigid sourpuss with sadistic tendencies (fucking black numenoreans, what can you do with 'em)

I liked the Idea of the exiled Numenoreans in Umbar as a ruling class of pale, racially exclusive, sort of castillian people amid the otherwise mostly arabic/north african-type population of Near Harad, so naturally keeping their women heavily covered up and out of the sun to preserve their pallid complexion would have been of great importance (as it was for medieval noblewomen)

I see Beruthiel here as being quite young, at the start of her (short lived) tenure as queen - like all those sixteen-year-old princesses put into arranged political marriages in the middle ages - and actually quite beautiful in her youth, but due to spoil quickly. "Bloody Mary" Tudor was a partial inspiration, and the robes and jewelry were largely taken from moroccan styles. The crown is pretty solidly frankish court design (replacing the traditional fleur de lis with the gondorian seabirds wings)

*as a point of interest "Beruthiel" is not her real name, but a title in Sindarin, meaning "angry queen." I'd love to know what her real name was (probably one of those wonderfully fierce Adunaic names, heavy on Z's and R's)