Dumbing it down

[The Only Real Estel]

What bothered me was the clunky, ungrammatical, and anachronistic language Theoden used: Why not "No father should have to bury his son." Or "No king." The insertion of gender-equal language in this situation rings a little false to me, not to mention the lack or agreement between "parent" and "their."

I don't see any problem with the 'gender-equal' language that he uses here. I don't think that he needs to specify a son because surely he would not only be grieving because he's lost his heir? 'No parent should have to bury their child' works well for me becaue it is true--no parent should have to bury their child. I don't think it would've made much difference to Theoden whether he had lost a son or daughter, he would be grieving over either one of them equally IMO.