My Heart Is Nuclear

hacash:

So I get really narky when people pull the whole ‘oh Eowyn’s
storyline came to such a sucky ending; she was really cool going around killing
orcs and Witch-Kings and then she got shoved into a traditional girly role by marrying
Faramir and becoming a healer’ thing, because no. No-no-no-no-no. Not only does that
stray dangerously into the territory of ‘women only have worth if they’re doing
traditionally blokey things’, but that misses almost the entire point of Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien was in the trenches in the first world war, right?
He got all that ‘for death and glory’ shit shoved down his throat, that was the
whole point about the war, it was when so many people came to see how awful and
misleading all the propaganda about winning glory through violence and death was. And Tolkien’s work completely shows
that: it’s why the hobbits, who’ve never craved power or battle the way men do,
are the heroes of the book; it’s
why strong men like Aragorn and Faramir are shown to be lovers of peace rather
than war. It’s why the quote - but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for
its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory; I love only that which they
defend – is so poignant and beautiful, when
seen in the context of all Tolkien had gone through. He’d seen all but one of
his closest friends die in an utterly pointless war; the prevalent message in
his books is ‘if you’re going to have that many people die, let it be for
something worth dying for.’ (Like
defending your home from the lord of all darkness, for example.)

And Eowyn
might be a fantastic female character, but she’s also got so much development
to go through, and she’s by no means perfect. I find it really interesting that when Eowyn talks to Aragorn
about wanting to go off and fight she never really actually mentions protecting
her people, but speaks about wanting to ‘face peril and battle’, and to
do ‘great deeds’. And it’s not that Eowyn doesn’t want to protect her people, because of course she does, but she’s also got such a
driving motivation within her to do glorious and fell deeds simply for the sake
of valour and renown. It’s one of her defining features, having an attitude
that got so many young men killed in the war and which, obviously, Tolkien
would have been very wary of.