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Old 02-17-2006, 11:58 AM   #116
davem
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davem is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.davem is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Numenorean. I can see where you're coming from, but I think its far more likely that Tolkien was emphasising the relative uniqueness of the people of Haleth (& of Eowyn) rather than holding them up as typical.

At the same time I accept that the way Tolkien uses the term 'Shieldmaiden' to refer to Eowyn does imply that she was not a total one-off (why would there be a term for women warriors if there weren't at least a few of them around?) Of course 'shieldmaiden' does derive from norse tradition:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shieldmaiden.

I can only repeat that women warriors are almost as rare as hen's teeth in Tolkien's writings - though not so rare as some readers might think, still rare enough that when they do appear its pointed out as something out of the ordinary.

Quote:
As history clearly shows, women were (and are) more than a match for and often surpass men in combat,
is perhaps going a bit too far the other way, though.

Last edited by davem; 02-17-2006 at 12:02 PM.
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