Child,
Waking up and thinking through my post, that I had not mentioned the magical number 13 as I had previously, I came back and edited before I saw your post. "Abdomination" I removed because I had wished to add my thoughts about the special nature of the number. I had mentioned I would return to check phrasings. And now I see you have responded. Well. Serves me right for not having the time to edit. However...
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I wouldn't have had a problem if you had simply indicated you personally would not care to do things the way Rosie did. But your statement seems a good deal stronger and more general than that.
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Child, your quotation includes my statement that I recognise others will have different feelings and that I "politely and respectfully demur". This is my admission that I recognise here I am making a personal statement. And, yes, it is a strong statement, brought on by the very number Tolkien uses. Having added this recognition, I would think, absolves me of your suggestion that I am imposing a value on other women, and, so, yes I do think you have misread me. You mention the canon thread. Have I not there been very clear that I respect the right of all readers to form their own interpretations, and that this respect for individual opinion would extend elsewhere?
There is a way of discussing art forms which asks about "point of entry." This is the 'place' or 'focus' which draws the audience in. For many of us with LotR, that is the delightful depiction of the hobbits in the early chapters. For others, it might be the thrill of Tolkien's very skilful use of tension with the introduction of the Dark Riders. With others, maybe it is the elves or Strider's enigmatic figure. What is not much discussed are "points of exit", where the art somehow fails to maintain its imaginative power over its audience--or certain members of its audience--or where the artist perhaps deliberately choses to break his or her illusions. For me, Sam and Rosie's thirteen children is one of these places. It breaks the magic of the fantasy, for me by the sheer enormity of the number. (I do know, personally and intimately, families of seven and ten and twelve children and I understand that size of family does not determine either dysfunction or success. My comments were directed towards the health aspects.) But perhaps this is to be expected, that somewhere towards the end, there will be definite signs of the parting of the way between book and reader. A family of five or eight would not have done this for me; it is this baker's dozen aspect. Who knows? Maybe it is one of Tolkien's jokes.
davem,
Well, I am not so sure that in Middle earth Eowyn's choices are limited to healing or slaying. She could be historian or loremaster. Granted, bar maid or miller or tanner would not be suitable for her status. Maybe she could open a riding academy.
Joking aside, thank you for providing that quotation from Donovan. Putting Eowyn in the context of Valkyries is interesting, for she more than just the companion o guide of slain warriors on the journey to Valhalla. Yet, if I may point out something, I have not myself used the word 'feminist'. (I did use 'suffragette' in an earlier post.) Using modern in quotation marks was admittedly lazy, but let me explain.
As I think we have discussed elsewhere, Eowyn is unlike other characters in that she is given a degree of psychological complexity which other characters do not have. She is, to my mind, a character on a slightly different order. Arwen, Galadriel to some extent, Goldberry--these are all female characters who incorporate large symbolic or typological qualities which determine their characteristcs and their actions. Eowyn has more complex attributes. Combined with her status as a shield maiden is her initial attraction to Aragorn. This attraction partakes of psychological depth and detail which more closely approximates characters in realistic fiction rather than in the earlier legends, tales and myths.
I am still left with this fascinating question: why did Tolkien choose to portray the wrongness of war through the healing of a female character? Why is she the one given the desire for glorious death in battle and not others? (Perhaps I should ask, why is her desire healed and that of others not.) You are right that everything works symbolically--I said that myself. Yet, still, why choose the female character to work this out? Would it have worked to have Eomer cleansed of his warrior status? Is it possible that only through a female warrior could the condemnation of war be made feasible? We are left, of course, with the irony that even though war is shown to be tragic and wrong, a great deal of time is devoted to the grand and glorious exploration of the activities.