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Originally Posted by BB
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.
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I don't think 'royals' would have that kind of freedom - as hobbies maybe, but not the freedom to choose those courses as 'careers'. With rulership comes responsibility. Its simply not in Eowyn's nature to reject her responsibility in that way & just go off & do as she wishes. There must be rulers to guide & protect the people. Eowyn's choice to marry & become 'Queen' & healer is not really that different to the choice she made to fight to defend her people. Her thoughts are focussed to a great extent on others all along. As a member of the ruling house of Rohan she would have been brought up to put the welfare of her people first, & we can see her desire to fight to protect them as a manifestation of that, her 'love' for Aragorn sidetracking her into a 'wrong' course of action.
In Middle earth there is no sense of any character (no 'good' character at any rate) thinking that 'meaning, 'Truth' or 'Reality' are 'subjective' things, determined by the individual's desires. Eowyn has a responsibility to rule & protect her people - that's the task, the obligation, she was born to. To have her simply turn her back on that, & do what she wanted, seek her own personal fulfilment, would have been a betrayal of her obligations, & would simply show that she was still not truly healed. Her healing involves the realisation that she must fulfil her destiny, & not throw her life away, either in battle or in chasing after her personal desires. She grows up - how childish is it to want to chase around killing Orcs till one of them finishes her off? Equally, how childish would it be to reject her obligations of protection & guardianship towards her people, in order to live in the moment & please herself?
If she had done so, she would have come across as selfish & callous, because none of the other characters - none of the men, did that. At the end what we see is all the 'good' characters accepting their responsibilities & living for others. They all accept lives of service. Eowyn does the same - she makes an adult decision to live selflessly for the benefit of others. In Middle earth there are historians & loremasters a plenty, but rulers - true rulers as opposed to those who merely seek power & self aggrandisment - are rare, & those whose destiny it is to rule must accept their role. Eowyn's blessing is that she can finally find joy in doing just that.
I accept (throw all the brick bats you want - I have my mithril shirt on
) that to a certain class of 'feminist' Eowyn throwing off the shackles & going off to do her own thing, whatever the men might think, would be a cause for shouts of joy, but for me it would simply show Eowyn to be immature, & to have learnt nothing. Do we really see Eowyn sitting among the loremasters in a tower of Minas Tirith, surrounded by dusty old tomes as the destiny she deserves?
(Edit: the point in that last paragraph was NOT aimed at anybody in particular, - I don't think anyone on these boards would hold those views. But I won't take the mithril shirt off for the moment, just in case)