Éowyn, Shieldmaiden of Rohan

[Frelga]

It is only later, in the Houses of Healing, that she gives up her Shieldmaiden status to become subservient to Faramir, the good male hero. At this point she slides into the mother role, not a Mary role more a Noah's wife role; important as a symbol but really just dressing.

Well, I think if Faramir expected a subservient wife, he had probably learned just exactly how mistaken he was. I also think the Faramir would have detested having a subservient wife.

IMO, the view of Éowyn as becoming a mere symbol, a trophy wife, stems from the value judgement of what is important. Fighting, yes. Healing and gardening, no. Men's work good. Woman's work bad. That's where Éowyn herself starts out.

But we know that Tolkien thought otherwise. His most favorite people, hobbits, were no warriors at all, yet they were fond of gardens. I don't think it's a mere accident that Samwise the Brave was, yes, a gardener, and Aragorn - not Gandalf - is a healer. Warriors are only important "for that which they defend".

That's what Éowyn comes to see.

She is a symbol of peace, and represents the transition of world at war to world at peace.

I really like that thought. Now that the world is at peace, Éowyn turns to what really is important, to Tolkien, Faramir, and in the end to Éowyn herself.

[Primula Baggins]

Well said, Frelga!

Especially considering that when she talks about "helping things grow," I feel sure that in her position as Princess of Ithilien that would mean supervising the planting of many, many gardens and founding many houses of healing. She would not have been retiring to plant window boxes full of herbs.

[vison]

Warriors are only important "for that which they defend".

Perfect. That's what Tolkien always said to me, too.

Which is why I never really took the "shieldmaiden" part of Éowyn all that seriously. I think she did what she had to do and then went on with her life doing the things that are important.

[Dindraug]

Vision .... Tolkien has a big thing about offering up mighty powerful stuff to leaders in time of war, Pippin and the planitair was just one of them

And what you say about her as shieldmaiden, also true. It never rang true. I always equated the shieldmaiden image with Joan of Arc without the visions; more a spoilt rich kid riding off to war than anything else. I get the impression she was an accidental heroine, not a planned one. She fought WIKI but Merry undid him, between them they slew him, but because of Tolkiens need to portray the comman man as mild and unassuming heros (hobbits always forfill his comman man role), Éowyn gets the glory.

She is the one that grows up a lot during the book, the only one who matures in that way (Frodo tries, but its just not quite right. Éowyn is well done in this respect).

[Queen_Beruthiel]

Who killed the Witch King of Angmar?

Well, here is my take on it.

I would emphasize the team effort. Were it not for Merry's intervention, Éowyn would have been killed and the prophecy would have been fulfilled in some other way.

The situation is at its darkest literally and metaphorically when Éowyn's laughter rings forth followed by her words of defiance.

Very amazement for a moment conquered Merry's fear, while the WiKi is silent, as if in sudden doubt. Éowyn has been invisible (that word again) to Merry up to this point but now he sees her:

Éowyn it was, and Dernhelm also.

Now that he sees, both literally and in terms of perception, Merry is moved to empathy and ... action. The WiKi is poised to strike when Merry strikes him:

... his stroke went wide, driving into the ground. Merry's sword had stabbed him from behind ... had pierced the sinew behind his mighty knee.

Undead warlords don't die from being stabbed in the knee. It is Éowyn, roused by Merry's shout, who delivers the death blow:

...with her last strength she drove her sword between crown and mantle, as the great shoulders bowed before her. ...Éowyn fell forward upon her fallen foe.

But Éowyn would have been toast, if not for Merry's intervention.

Now is this deus ex machina? I don't want to be a special pleading fangirl but. .. not necessarily. We were shown way back in Eriador that, even though all blades perish, that pierce that dreadful king, he can be pierced by a blade, even though it is then toast. This particular sword of Merry’s is bound up with spells of Numerore for the destruction of Sauron.

No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.

Prophecies are slippery things, but Glorfindel's foresight that the WiKi would fall not by the hand of man doesn't mean that the WiKi could not be harmed except by not-a-man. The WiKi knows of the prophecy but still is mentioned as fearing the earlier Boromir of Gondor.

And I still think Tolkien did it better than Shakespeare.

[yovargas]

No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.

The way I always read it (and still prefer to read it, despite learning I'm in the minority) is that it was the breaking of the spell that killed him, the Éowyn's sword-in-the-face.

[MaidenOfTheShieldarm]

Getting caught up . . .

Jn, thanks for the explanation. Before I respond to the rest of your post (in response to mine), I just want to clarify existentialism: I looked it up on the OED and Wikipedia. Am I semi-correct in understanding that existentialism is a philosophy which says that the human condition is defined by experiences, emotions, and awareness? I know I'm missing loads of stuff, but that was the part I understood.

Their characters are similar in some ways, but I don't think it is reasonable to seek too many parallels. I think there are enormous differences that might render the similarities almost meaningless.

Perhaps it is the differences that are most meaningful, then. In a work that is partially about hope, wouldn't it be even a little bit interesting to look at those characters who do not have any hope?

I don't think her love for him had much to do with her disobedience at all. This may be because I don't think much of Théoden myself, of course. I have often speculated that Éowyn despised him as much as she loved him. Being so young, could she have made the excuses we might make for him?

That I agree with. She ended up watching over Théoden once she was there, but that was not a primary motivation. Perhaps this is in part because she was so used to having to take care of him that she naturally did it even when in disguise. It's interesting (or not) . . . Éowyn never really wanted to do the jobs she was assigned, taking care of Théoden in his madness, you could call it. But then she gets what she wants. She gets glory and a chance to fight and what does she end up doing? Taking care of Théoden. She really goes full circle there.

Edit: I don't think she despised him. I was just flipping through "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields," and it says 'and [Dernhelm] wept, for he had loved his lord as a father. She may have thought she despised him, but she didn't really.

I never really took the "shieldmaiden" part of Éowyn all that seriously.

Do you mean that you never took Éowyn herself seriously as a shieldmaiden or that you don't think that the shieldmaiden bit was the important part?

Frodo tries, but its just not quite right.

I know this is the Éowyn thread, not the Frodo thread, but this statement really stuck out to me. How did Éowyn grow up if Frodo did not? Was Frodo already grown up?

QueenB, I completely agree with your reading of the story.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but some of you don't seem to like or respect Éowyn very much. Clearly I'm biased here but the "spoilt rich kid" reading never even occurred to me. Éowyn has always been the epitome of the shieldmaiden. To me, her primary motive was not Aragorn but feeling trapped and wanting to *do* something with her life. More of a Boudicca than anything/one else. Maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see, but heartbreak seems almost too trite, too cliché.

I have to go to a meeting with my english professor now, so I'll respond more later and perhaps be a bit more coherent then.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Y'all had to know that this post was coming, eventually.

It the develoment of the Lord of theRings, the first mention of Éowyn called her the daughter of Théoden. That was quickly changed, but for some time there was another character named Idis who was Théoden's daughter, and older then Éowyn. Curiously, she didn't actually do anything; when she appeared at the great hall in Edoras she just stood there, while Éowyn brought the wine etc. As Christopher said:

I cannot say what function in the narrative my father had in mind for Idis ... ; still less why the daughter of the King (and older than Éowyn should be so silent and so overshadowed by the niece).

Originally, Aragorn and Éowyn both fell in love with each other (Arwen did not yet exist). In an early outline, Tolkien actually wrote "Aragorn weds Éowyn sister of Éomer." Christopher then writes:

But the story of Aragorn and Éowyn would in the event, of course, be quite otherwise, and; and in another short group of notes, isolated and undateable, this marital alliance of Rohan and Gondor was rejected (and no other was foreseen):

?Cut out the love story of Aragornand Éowyn. Aragorn is too old andlordly andgrim. Make Éowyn the twin-sister of Eomund, a stern amazon woman. ...
Probably Éowyn should die to save Théoden.

But my father added in a hasty scribble thepossiblity that Aragorn did indeed love Éowyn, and never wedded after her death.

I find the fact that Tolkien considered making Éowyn an "amazon woman" significant. In a later note, in response to Théoden's noting that he did not have enough Riders to save Minas Tirith:

Éowyn says that women must ride now, as they did in a like evil timein the days of Brego son of [mark showing name omitted] Eorl's son, when the wild men of the East came from the Inland Sea into the Eastemnet.

I think I would have liked to have had this concept remain in the story.

An early outline shows that the conception of Éowyn being part of the battle against the Witchking existed from an early point, though the original conception was quite different then final story:

3. Charge of the Riders of Rohanbreaks siege. Death of Théoden and Éowyn in killing the Nazgûl King.

It appears that in the earliest conceptions of the story, Éowyn rode openly to Minas Tirith, not in disguise:

Against March 10 (?) is written: 'Merry insists on going towar and is taken up by [Grim>] Dunhere who rides with the King,Éowyn and Éomer.' It is hard to know what to make of this. A possibility is thatmy father had briefly decided toabandon the story of the 'yong rider of the guard (Éowyn), for Éowyn will now come openly to Minas Tirith, while Merry, equally openly, is taken by Dunhere, chief of the men of Harrowdale. In support of this isthe abandoned name Grim-(for Grimhelm?), and perhaps the underlining of Éowyn. But this seems to me very unlikely. It seems more probably that this text represents earlier ideas for this element in the story: not only is Merry permitted to go with the host, but Éowyn rides also as a matter of course.

It is interesting to me that Tolkien originally planned to have Éowyn openly come to Minas Tirith (as an 'amazon woman') and then perish in the defeat of the WitchKing. What a different message the final version of story makes!

Another interesting point of note is that once the story develops to the point where Éowyn survives the encounter with the Witchking, it is Aragorn, not Gandalf that originally describes what it must have been like for her during the decline of Théoden (but he still adds to Éomer about Éowyn's love for him "I saw also what you saw. An few other griefs amid the ill chances of the world ...").

After all this, Éowyn and Faramir's relationship seems to spring full-formed into the tale as if it had been planned all along. Tolkien notes in an outline when he was writing the Field of Kormallen:

The wedding of Aragorn and Finduilas (Arwen's original name)
Also Faramir and Éowyn.

Christopher notes that the Chapter The Steward and the King, "though written roughly and rapidly, was changed very little afterwards." After all of Tolkien's doubts and changes of direction, it seems that Éowyn's love for Faramir, and her conversion from "amazon" to happy homemaker was the most natural thing of all.

[Jnyusa]

Very interesting, Voronwë. Thank you so much for digging all of that up and posting it!

How many writers have written that the characters tell their story to the author and not the other way around! The final version is indeed more elegant, more poignant, and truer to the characters of Merry and Pippin as well.

Jn

[Queen_Beruthiel]

Dunno what happened here.

[Pearly Di]

Well, I think if Faramir expected a subservient wife, he had probably learned just exactly how mistaken he was. I also think the Faramir would have detested having a subservient wife.

No wonder the Divine Faz is my favourite man in the whole of Tolkien.

Maiden of the Shieldarm:

I know this is the Éowyn thread, not the Frodo thread, but this statement really stuck out to me. How did Éowyn grow up if Frodo did not? Was Frodo already grown up?

I agree, Mossy. Of course I regard Frodo as one of the most grown up characters in the story.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but some of you don't seem to like or respect Éowyn very much. Clearly I'm biased here but the "spoilt rich kid" reading never even occurred to me.

Again, I'm with you all the way, Mossy. I was always impressed with Éowyn as a character, and found the 'shieldmaiden' bit totally credible! And frankly, I was so grateful to find in LOTR at least ONE female character in this great story who did NOT conform to some blasted demure elvish stereotype!

Not that I don't like Arwen, or Goldberry, or Rosie Cotton (and Galadriel rocks) but the inclusion of Éowyn, the 'stern amazon woman' really adds something essential to LOTR.

Éowyn has always been the epitome of the shieldmaiden. To me, her primary motive was not Aragorn but feeling trapped and wanting to *do* something with her life. More of a Boudicca than anything/one else. Maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see, but heartbreak seems almost too trite, too cliché.

I thought she WAS heartbroken, but it never lessened my respect for her. Ever. I think Aragorn was the natural peg for her to hang her inner yearnings on. Whereas Faramir was the real deal. As Tolkien says, 'I think he understood Éowyn very well.'

for Faramir.

Ah, the old 'who killed the Witch King' debate. Well, I agree with Queen B. Merry made it all possible but Éowyn delivers the killing blow. Team effort. Combination of Merry's enchanted sword from Westernesse and Éowyn fulfilling Glorfindel's prophecy. (It was Glorfindel, wasn't it? I'm too lazy to go and look the reference up. I'm sure it was some Elvish dude in the Second Age, at any rate. )

Great thread!

PS. Voronwë, I find the early workings of the plot absolutely fascinating. It's quite incredible, the changes the story went through to reach its final form. So many characters seemed to, er, change their characters and their purpose along the way! What we ended up with is so rich. I haven't the patience to wade through HoME, but I very much value the contributions of those of you who have.

[MaidenOfTheShieldarm]

Voronwë, thanks for posting all of that. Really interesting, that is. I'm so glad that Tolkien changed his mind and ended up with the story that is in the final version.

I wonder why he had planned to kill Éowyn. It was the pattern that a lot of literature follows, but that seems almost un-Tolkienian.

Of course I regard Frodo as one of the most grown up characters in the story.

Naturally. And I completely agree.

And frankly, I was so grateful to find in LOTR at least ONE female character in this great story who did NOT conform to some blasted demure elvish stereotype!

Not that I don't like Arwen, or Goldberry, or Rosie Cotton (and Galadriel rocks) but the inclusion of Éowyn, the 'stern amazon woman' really adds something essential to LOTR.

Exactly. I love Galadriel, but she's strong in a different way. Éowyn was a character who was very necessary. Not just plotwise, but because of who she is.

I thought she WAS heartbroken, but it never lessened my respect for her. Ever. I think Aragorn was the natural peg for her to hang her inner yearnings on. Whereas Faramir was the real deal. As Tolkien says, 'I think he understood Éowyn very well.'

I agree that she was heartbroken, but I never saw that as her primary motivation. I thought it was the final straw, the thing that made her unable to bear anything else.

[Pearly Di]

I agree that she was heartbroken, but I never saw that as her primary motivation. I thought it was the final straw, the thing that made her unable to bear anything else.

Ah. Yes, I see, and I agree.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Voronwë, thanks for posting all of that. Really interesting, that is. I'm so glad that Tolkien changed his mind and ended up with the story that is in the final version.

Your welcome.

I wonder why he had planned to kill Éowyn. It was the pattern that a lot of literature follows, but that seems almost un-Tolkienian.

I think that it was simply that he hadn't learned what her "true role" in the story was. For all of his scholarly ways, Tolkien wrote very much from "inspiration".

Exactly. I love Galadriel, but she's strong in a different way.

I'm sure we will have a Galadriel thread, in good time.

Éowyn was a character who was very necessary. Not just plotwise, but because of who she is.

To me, the essense of Éowyn is courage.

[Dindraug]

How many writers have written that the characters tell their story to the author and not the other way around!

All of them, or at least the honest ones. Its the way stories are written, the good ones anyway. You never know what your charictors are going to do in a tale, or why until you ponder it later, and the different versions are as much the charictors telling you what they would do in hindsight as any 'tidying up' exercise If you drag your charictors through, make them do what you want and when, well you get Dan Brown

I have to disagree with you Voronwë on this. The essence of courage is knowing what you fear and doing it anyway. I do not think that was true of Éowyn, book Éowyn anyway, she did not have a concept of riding to war and certainly had no concept of facing the Witch King before she was there. Her stroke was of despiration, not skill, she was fighting for her life, and essentially lashed out.

Éowyn at Pelennor is the students in Tiannaman square trying to halt a tank, in the end it was a futile gesture because Merry had already done the deed. Think of Darth Vada 'killing' Obi Wan Kanobi. He strikes an empty shell. This is all Éowyn had to do. Then when teh adrenalin wore off, she realised what she had done, and so the tale went on....

Sorry, this sounds like I am not a fan of Éowyn, I am. I just think she is missrepresented as a feminine ideal, and missing the essential truth that it is what she does after that is important.

[Alatar]

I have to disagree with you on both of these Din. I know many people claim that Merry's blade was the killing blow, but I really don't see that supported in the text.

But suddenly he too stumbled forward with a cry of bitter pain, and his stroke went wide, driving into the ground. Merry’s sword had stabbed him from behind, shearing through the black mantle, and passing up beneath the hauberk had pierced the sinew behind his mighty knee.
‘Éowyn! Éowyn!’ cried Merry. Then tottering, struggling up, with her last strength she drove her sword between crown and mantle, as the great shoulders bowed before her. The sword broke sparkling into many shards. The crown rolled away with a clang. Éowyn fell forward upon her fallen foe. But lo! the mantle and hauberk were empty. Shapeless they lay now on the ground, torn and tumbled; and a cry went up into the shuddering air, and faded to a shrill wailing, passing with the wind, a voice bodiless and thin that died, and was swallowed up, and was never heard again in that age of this world.

and also

So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dúnedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.

This second quote seems to support the idea that Merry's blow was the killing blow, but it does not bear up under close inspection. After Merry stabs the WitchKing he stumbles forward with a cry of pain, still very much alive. When Éowyn's sword strikes him it shatters and the Crown falls. Only after this does the Wiki's soul depart his "body". We are certainly led to believe that Merry's stroke "broke the spell" that made the WitchKing invulnerable, but it was Éowyn's blade which delivered the death stroke, otherwise what shattered her blade?

Likewise, Darth Vader most certainly "killed" Obi-Wan. When Obi-Wan said "if you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine" he was referring to his ability to return from death. To do this however, he had to die and Vader was the instrument of his death. The only reason it looks like he strikes an empty robe is because of the relatively poor special effects at the time. The orginal version had a fairly solid robe in two parts which looked pretty ridiculous when it was struck by the lightsaber. Lucas's intent was clear though. Obi-Wans body disappeared at the instant of death, as did Yoda's.

Alatar

[yovargas]

Hope this mini-Osgiliation doesn't offend.

...breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.

That's the key point for me. If his "sinews" are no longer to his will, it sounds to me like the equivalent of saying your brains no longer control your muscles. Kinda like saying he's braindead. If his sinews were no longer tied to his will and Éowyn hadn't stabbed him, I guess he woulda just sat there like a useless lump until someone finished the job. But braindead is dead as far as I'm concerned.

[Dindraug]

Sorry Alatar, not sure I agree.

After Merry stabs the WitchKing he stumbles forward with a cry of pain, still very much alive.

People do still make noise as they die. He is unmaking from the bottom (well knee) up, and if Éowyn were to be able to stab into something, albeit an already unravelling something, then the proces would take at least enough time to allow the dear old WIKI to make some noise.

Also, he is already falling and head bowed when Éowyn stabs him. Why would he do that unless he is already falling apart? If he was hurt he would have turned on Merry, then turned to face Éowyn again.

Also, his cry. The Nazgûl are famous for piercing cries. If he had been stabbed and hurt, his cry would have been the nasty magical one that puts fear into everybody...but tenfold worse. All Tolkien mentions is the pityful cry, then the final squeak as his body fades, like Sauramans sigh.

Also, why does Tolkien take the time to discus Merry sword, yet Eowyns doesn't get a mention apart from it shattering. A shattered sword is of no danger No death and glory info on that blade. Why not if it did the deed.

The shattering is to show it was inefectual, but effected. A bit like seeing a building blown apart in a nuclear test from the fifties.

And on Yoda and Kanobi, didn't they both will themselves to death

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Tolkien himself confirms that the result of Merry's stabbing of the Witchking was that he fell over, not that he died. In his letter to Forest Ackerman about Zimmerman's proposed movie script, talking about Weathertop, he wrote (Letter 210):

There is no fight. Sam does not 'sink his blade into the Ringwraith's thigh', nor does his thrust save Frodo's life. (If he had, the results would have been much the same as in III 117-20.4: the Wraith would have fallen down and the sword would have been destroyed.)

Even more telling is what the footnote describing what the scene at III 117-20 is says:

4 The slaying of the Lord of the Nazgûl by Éowyn.

More importantly, I continue to hold that this:

Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel. "But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him."

is one of the most courageous moments in the history of literature.

[vison]

Of course I agree with Voronwë. Éowyn killed the Witch King, if one can be said to "kill" one who is "undead". Whatever. She finished the brute off, but Merry had weakened him: Merry's sword made the Witch King vulnerable, both "physically" and "mentally". Of a sudden, the Witch King felt what he hadn't "felt" for ages, a blow to his undead body, and the sudden realization that his "un-life" was in danger. His certainty was destroyed, just as Sauron's was about to be, when Frodo put on the Ring.