[Bêthberry]

I don't doubt that that knife to the Witch-King thing was historical revisionism of the worst sort.

It smells, I tell you, it smells. It is so typically patronising towards women, the kind of little knife which worries away real, true heroine-ism. Ya give a woman a major role to play, a major act set up by prophecy and then ya weakens it by having a minion do the final cut. Really! Talk about misogyny and puffing up one's own self-importance! You pretend to say a woman can do the job and then in the final moments you undercut it all--no wonder the story later shows Eowyn succumbing so quickly to domesticity and traditional authority. I'm surprised that the story doesn't have Merry whistling for the eagles and riding them off to Mount Doom to save Sam and Frodo himself.

No, don't give me this hobbits are so loveable and great. They're parochial Little Englanders who want to keep their females home, hyped full of herblore and housework with lots of little kettles singing on the fire.

++ Merry