#eowyn

[silhouette-cosplay]

Thinking about ✨her✨ today

Remaking this Éowyn after 10 years of cosplay was so gratifying! The trim is all hand embroidered and I’m so proud of how well I was able to dye the matelassé to match the corset suede 😍

[siktheon]

No man

Éowyn faces the Witch king of Angmar on fields of Pelenor.

[glorf1ndel]

The Lord of the Rings | Éowyn and Classic Paintings

Paintings: Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer | The Blond Woman, Leon Francois Comerre | Joan of Arc, John Gilbert | The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli

[born-to-seek-and-destroy]

I let my friend whose never seen lotr name lotr characters

[egglygreg]

All my Disney X LotR art so far

I only just realised I made Eowyn’s hair curly like Aurora’s in the battle picture and straight in her portrait, whoops! Never mind, I wanted her to have straight hair to differentiate her more from Galadriel and Arwen anyway.

In an actual movie I’d want Galadriel to be animated slightly more fluidly and beautifully than everyone else, since she lived in Valinor and saw the two trees. And for her hair to be particularly glorious!

I also think it’d be cool if the Ringwraith’s were animated kinda jerkily or even stop motion like, something uncomfortable to convey their horror.

Next up is a Faramir/Eowyn drawing, then I’m torn between Gandalf or the hobbits

[torchwood-99]

Imagine that. You're Aragorn. You're Isildur's heir. You inspire loyalty wherever you go. All who know you love you. Your people will follow you into the gates of hell. You're a deadly and valiant soldier, yet your hands also have magical healing powers. You save Middle Earth and become a great and beloved king.

You're own creator still says you're not good enough for Eowyn

[mcnostril]

The Witch King's very bad day continues.

[suzannahnatters]

all RIGHT:

Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I've ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can't wait to share it with you all!

[southfarthing]

remember when éowyn first met faramir and immediately thought "ah yes. this is a guy who could wipe the floor with any soldier of rohan." bc I think about it a lot

[emilybeemartin]

Boromir Lives AU: it's a BABY

Activate Stiflingly Protective Big Brother Turbo Boost

Labor Day

The Gondor Chronicle's headline reads Brilliant Military Strategist and War Hero Absolutely Loses His Goddamn Mind During Sister-in-Law's Routine Labor

Beregond didn't anticipate this under the Extra Duties as Assigned clause in his job description

Somebody say uncle, quick

NEW LIFE NEW LIFE NEW LIFE IN A WORLD HE THOUGHT WAS ENDING, YOU GUYS

------

Boromir Lives: Helm's Deep

Boromir Lives: Whump-Time After Pelennor

Boromir Lives: GO TO SLEEP

Boromir Lives: Aragorn's Coronation

Boromir Lives: Faramir and Eowyn's Wedding

Boromir Lives: The Haircuts

[luckylucyart]

Mucha inspired Eowyn illustration

[bethanyisdaydreaming]

I am no man

[tolkiengif]

Then the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her.

[booksinthelakes]

@prudencegoodewitch on instagram

Literally would watch this on repeat.

Like daily. Hourly. EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY.

[lady-arryn]

THE LORD OF THE RINGS costumes appreciation: ― Eowyn's green dress (costume design by Ngila Dickson and Richard Taylor)

[mithrandirl]

Then suddenly he beheld his sister Éowyn as she lay, and he knew her. He stood a moment as a man who is pierced in the midst of a cry by an arrow through the heart; and then his face went deathly white, and a cold fury rose in him, so that all speech failed him for a while. A fey mood took him.