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sovinly · 6 years

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Thoughts on Eowyn?

Oh man, so many thoughts! Thank you so much, you are EXCELLENT. Here goes!

(Tumblr ate my answer andI accidentally copied over my copy of at 50-60% of it, so I am RETYPING ALL OFTHIS)

Éowyn is one of my top favorite characters, and always hasbeen, for many reasons.

I loved that there was this… cold, fucked-up woman who wasstriving for a heroic end because it was a satisfying conclusion. Because shewanted to have worth.

Like… here, we have this woman who is stern and capable andhas lost so much, her parents and hercousin to death, her brother to banishment, her uncle to sorcery. There is theservant of a sorcerer in the king’s hall (and with the absence of her mother,her aunt, an older sister, a female cousin, herhall in part by rights) and she cannot do anything about it.

She desires Aragorn not just because he recognizes her, butbecause he offers leverage – not just to keep her from ever being so powerlessagain, but for her kingdom. Because her kingdom is besieged, falling, stillstumbling in the ruin of attacks by a powerful enemy (and with a more powerfulenemy lurking behind him, whom they have spurned), because the king is aging,the heir is dead, and her brother is banished. Because he is wise and good andknows her lands.

And he only offers her pity and understanding and it hurts, even if pity isn’t used in theway we use it now, not because it’s hurt feelings but because she wants to beequal. She wants to be cared for. She wants somany things, and because she thinks she can’t have anything, all she canwant is death.

(I’m so disappointed by the way the movies treat her,honestly. She’s stripped of so much agency and context, she becomes hollow andsuffering, and her pain, not her fierce and burning desire take up muchof the story. She’s painted as naïve and honestly pretty selfish in a lot ofplaces, and it’s so frustrating.Because, in Irish and Norse myth, and so subsequently in Rohirric culture, herheroic aspirations have context and value; her cool capability and frustrationhas a thousand echoes. And they go “Nah, mate, she’s a Sad Lady with Many TearyExpressions who Just Wants to Fight but only because she Doesn’t Understand [Love].”I feel, actually, that the fundamental letdown of the films is theirunwillingness to allow for nobility: many secondary and tertiary characters whoare there as foils are stripped of their nobility and gentleness and it’s… ugh,it’s really frustrating. They’re still fun adaptations and good cinema, but thatpart makes me so sad.)

Okay now for a cut, because this ended up being 2k of Feelings, and that’s a lot:

Anyway, Éowyn is competent and capable and wise, but she isangry and exhausted and in so much pain. By rights, why shouldn’t she have aplace on the battlefield? So she goes, and she fights, and she doesn’t die. It would have beenperfectly narratively satisfying, however tragic, if she had, but she doesn’t. Sheis proud and noble and wise, and she earns her place in the halls of herforefathers, but she lives. She livesand she resents it.

Her pain is as legitimized by the narrative as any otherhero’s. The darkness hanging over her, not just the shadow of the enemy but theshadows of isolation and helplessness and depression and PTSD, is not madelight of. She struggles to make sense of her place in the world when she feels shouldbe dead, or dying in the subsequent battles. And it’s alright that for her,healing isn’t about rest, or even kindness, or idle, quiet contemplation.

She’s allowed to be restless and frustrated and desolate. It’sallowed, that she finds herself again through connections and friendships andconversation. Through walking and experiencing and chafing still at all therestraints placed on her. Éowyn is so tired of restraints, is as stubborn and indomitableas any male hero who does his best to abandon bedrest. Her desire to help, to rideto glory and honor, is not a bad thing.The desire to be heroic and recognized is not a bad thing. (She already is: the irony is how little she sees it.)

But she realizes that it isn’t the only thing. And shedecides to heal.

I see… a lot of conversation about how Éowyn is lessened by herending, that her desire to heal and grow and not die a vainglorious death issomehow sexist. But I really don’t think it is, at all. Not just because itgave me hope: hope to see someone recover from such aching, intimate desire tobe done with the world. Hope to seeher find recognition and companionship and more than anything else understanding.

It’s because the hands of the king are the hands of ahealer, we see it over and over again, are told it is the mark of a just and true ruler, and I don’t think it’s a mistakethat we see those lines in such close proximity to Éowyn too. Narratively,Éowyn is as valued, is as upright and distant and wise as any of the maleheroes, and her declaration tells us explicitly that she reaches that same pinnacle of worthiness. It isn’t because shefought, or because she killed the Witch King, or because she was willing to diefor her king, or because she decided that she didn’t want to pursue death: it’sbecause of all those same heroic qualities and that she decides she doesn’tsimply want glory or death or to be the vanguard of the enemy’s death, shedecides that she wants to build and heal and better the world that has curtailed so much of her.

(And her appointment with Faramír to the reparation ofIthilien, and the appendices, make it further clear that this is what we’re being told.)

Let’s move, though, for a moment, into some of the stuffthat I didn’t really have the context for when I was reading these books as akid.

So, my woman Carol Clover (I love herrrrrrrr and her work onboth Icelandic sagas and film analysis is SO GOOD she is SO SMART

Which, obviously, there is some… very sexist andmisogynistic stuff underlying these traditions (Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir,who is also amazing, talks about the romance sagas and how the shield-maidensand specifically the maiden-kings are… horrifically punished for holding powerand authority, thaaaanks changing social values and continental influence, butanyway). But the thing is, these traditions of women carrying power and takingon these roles, is there, both in the influential source material and in thetexts.

Culturally, narratively, Éowyn has every right to want to goto war for her realm, especially at the start of her appearance in thenarrative. Her father is long-dead, her cousin and near-brother has been slainby their long-standing enemies, her brother is banished, and her uncle the kinghas been ensnared by sorcery (which comes with its own Irish and Nordicbaggage, honestly). And then these strangers come and restore the hall of theking and then war looms. So Éowyn goes to war, disguises herself and picks uparms, and notable, this is important, noone notices or says anything, which I have to imagine to be culturallyimportant.

So Éowyn rides to war. She fulfills every heroic narrativeand role and she is proven right. Sheis there and because she is a woman, not despite it, she slays the Witch Kingand fulfills prophecy, and she is right.Because of her kind wisdom, Merry is there to strike a devastating blow and anancient blade, and she is right. Sheis right to go, because she defendsher uncle and king from defilement and dishonor when no one else can. Heractions, her near-sacrifice, mean that Théoden is able to speak once more withMerry, with Éomer (and so to formally pass on and endorse his kingship, whichis important).

Éowyn is of the line of Eorl, satisfies in every way andmanner the narrative of the Rohirric hero, earns beyond doubt her grace andglory and renown. She closes the gaps in killing the Witch King, in defendingthe king, in bringing Merry to the battle. The narrative validates her: she isindeed a great and worthy hero, has done deeds beyond telling and compare, herpresence is right.

But her death isn’t. Her diminishment isn’t. So she lives,and struggles, and tries to figure out how to be a person who has lived pastthe end of the tale.

There’s a lot, too, in how Tolkien communicates heroism anddescribes worthiness – a lot to unpack, and I don’t really have time to do thathere. The point is… the point is that Éowyn is exceptional, but she is alsohuman. She’s allowed to be human. And that humanity, that sadness anddesperation and suicidal impulse and desire to be valued and seen and worthy, that struggle to cope and keep going,that drive to find refuge in conversation and conviction and moving and doing…it’s important. It’s so important.

Éowyn’s story has always resonated with me. Éowyn has alwaysresonated with me. I won’t go much into her relationship with Faramír, becausethis question wasn’t about him, but that resonates with me too. Here are twohurt, tired people who have been through so much, not just the poison of theenemy but the traumas of human existence. Here are two people who thinkthemselves worth very little, who have been constrained and shoved aside, buthere are their convictions. Here is their nobility and their wisdom and graceand fierceness, here is their kindness and their striving and their hope. Hereare two people, who are exceptionally good,even if they don’t know it.

It isn’t just that Éowyn is the embodiment of a mythictrope, or a twist on it. It’s not just that she’s a female characterappropriately placed in the narrative who evades so many shitty, awfulstereotypes and misunderstandings. It’s not just that she’s complex andinteresting.

It’s that she was so fucking sad and so trapped, by suicidal impulse and social constraints, andshe did the right thing, she did amazingthings anyway. It’s that I cried when I first (and subsequently) read theReturn of the King, because I didn’t think she would live. I didn’t think heremotions would be wrestled with. I didn’t think she would get to heal. “Thenthe heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it,” and I havenever recovered from that line, because that’s it. That’s it.

It’s that one of my clear sense memories is sprawling halfin the doorway of my childhood closet, the afternoon sun filtering down ontothe plain carpet, and sobbing my heart out because I had hope. There was hope, because of Éowyn, because of that chapter,and I hadn’t known that I could hopeto survive the isolation and the strictures and the loneliness and my owndistant, cold heart. Because I knew I would cling to that, in the years tocome, and I did. I still do. Éowynand her story are burned deep in my heart and my blood and it chokes me,sometimes, that hope. That healing, even when I am healing.

It’s that here was this fantasy, this epic tale, and it wasfull of hope and nobility and sadness (not just tragedy, plain human sadness),and I found myself there. It found me.

So, yeah.

I love Éowyn a lot, and I think I’m due a reread, now.

#sovin the socially awkward #LotR #eowyn #long post #answer memes #I Love Her #I don't think I adequately conveyed how very much #but the fact that I am not ducking the maintags is probably evidence enough #anywaaaaaay thank you for your patience #and thank you for such a GREAT TOPIC TO YELL ABOUT <3 #embroideredcupcake

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