warning-rant
Jun. 2nd, 2013 06:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
antongarouI read this entry by needled_ink_1975(rant about movie!Eowyn being better then book!Eowyn) and after I thought a bit about why it felt so wrong, I have this to say:
For me it is the other way around. PJ's Eowyn is pretty forgettable, while book Eowyn is this woman who is full of honor and pride and grief and despair at the beginning because for her the only great and honorable deeds are those of battle, which she is barred from("What do you fear, lady?" he asked."A cage," she said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and the chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.") and at the end she has seen all that battle can offer, won the greatest honor that battle can grant, and I think she found the price for them too great, as it always is. And if people think the Gondorians are so small as to not grant her that honor for standing and slaying the Witch King, I don't think they read the same culture I did, the one whose legendary kings are scions of Luthien, who faced Sauron when he was but a greater power's servant and defeated him, who has riven prison walls stone from stone by song only.
After all that her decision is not to go and "darn Faramir's socks". It is to go to another field of battle, where the victory is healing people. And I think she chose that knowing that in that profession there are as many defeats as victories. Most of all, at the end of the book she feels much more whole then when we first meet her - when we meet her she is all broken corners and defiance, in that talk with book!Faramir, she is very much rounder, calmer, with compassion rounding things a bit. She does not choose this in defeat, as a last resort, she chooses to be a healer because that what she wants to do now, because she has left behind her people's perspective of the king as a warrior and chose the Gondorian perspective of the king as a healer( "The hands of the King are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known").
As to Faramir, he is depicted in the books as the counterpoint to Boromir. While Boromir was prideful, and emulated their father as best as he could, Faramir was patient and insightful and it is hinted that he listened to Gandalf over his father more than once. That kind of man? Would probably consider it an honor(and an unexpected one) to have such a woman as a wife, and won't dream of stunting her growth or putting walls around her.
(yes, I can totally see Faramir and her arguing because she is going to help with healing in this village affected by $Sickness, because he will be still worried about losing her, and her winning and him going "At least take some guards with you!")
needled_ink_1975(rant about movie!Eowyn being better then book!Eowyn) and after I thought a bit about why it felt so wrong, I have this to say:For me it is the other way around. PJ's Eowyn is pretty forgettable, while book Eowyn is this woman who is full of honor and pride and grief and despair at the beginning because for her the only great and honorable deeds are those of battle, which she is barred from("What do you fear, lady?" he asked."A cage," she said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and the chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.") and at the end she has seen all that battle can offer, won the greatest honor that battle can grant, and I think she found the price for them too great, as it always is. And if people think the Gondorians are so small as to not grant her that honor for standing and slaying the Witch King, I don't think they read the same culture I did, the one whose legendary kings are scions of Luthien, who faced Sauron when he was but a greater power's servant and defeated him, who has riven prison walls stone from stone by song only.
After all that her decision is not to go and "darn Faramir's socks". It is to go to another field of battle, where the victory is healing people. And I think she chose that knowing that in that profession there are as many defeats as victories. Most of all, at the end of the book she feels much more whole then when we first meet her - when we meet her she is all broken corners and defiance, in that talk with book!Faramir, she is very much rounder, calmer, with compassion rounding things a bit. She does not choose this in defeat, as a last resort, she chooses to be a healer because that what she wants to do now, because she has left behind her people's perspective of the king as a warrior and chose the Gondorian perspective of the king as a healer( "The hands of the King are the hands of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known").
As to Faramir, he is depicted in the books as the counterpoint to Boromir. While Boromir was prideful, and emulated their father as best as he could, Faramir was patient and insightful and it is hinted that he listened to Gandalf over his father more than once. That kind of man? Would probably consider it an honor(and an unexpected one) to have such a woman as a wife, and won't dream of stunting her growth or putting walls around her.
(yes, I can totally see Faramir and her arguing because she is going to help with healing in this village affected by $Sickness, because he will be still worried about losing her, and her winning and him going "At least take some guards with you!")
