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08-27-2006, 12:03 PM | #1 |
Face in the Water
Join Date: Dec 2003
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Eomer and Eowyn's Gondorian Kin
When Morwen Steelsheen went back to Lossarnach after the death of Thengel, her three elder daughters went with her, correct? One can assume that at least some of them married and had children.
So would Eomer, Eowyn and Theodred have had Gondorian cousins? How thorough and formal was Morwen's break with Rohan? Would these cousins have been able to inherit the Rohirric throne, do you think, had Eomer and Eowyn died in battle? Granted, it would have been going rather farther back in the genealogy than usual to establish a claim. Thoughts/answers?
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08-29-2006, 05:24 AM | #2 |
Spectre of Decay
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Theoretically possible
Given the past relations of Gondor and Rohan, I should imagine that many families had branches in both kingdoms. Let's not forget that Morwen was herself Gondorian, and that therefore such cousins probably existed even without the marriage of one of her elder daughters.
I don't see Morwen's return to Gondor as a break with Rohan so much as a return to her own people after her bereavement. It's probable that her descendents in Gondor would be raised as Gondorians, but that would not necessarily present an insurmountable barrier. By all accounts, Mary Stuart was more French than Scottish, yet she was accepted as Queen of Scots without overwhelming dissent; and Charles V successfully combined the roles of King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor for decades. Whether the same could be achieved in Rohan is, of course, an entirely different question. Presumably any hypothetical Gondorian relative could in theory become King of Rohan. Although it would appear that they had no queens, descent in the female line seems to have been no barrier: Éomer himself was the son of Théoden's sister. The problem with this question is that there are too many imponderables: were there any Gondorian male cousins? Would they be accepted by the people of Rohan? Were there any eligible Rohirric heirs to the throne? What would have happened in the event of Éomer's death anyway? Since the death of Éomer before Elfwine's birth would leave no obvious heir, it's possible that the Rohirrim would select their king without reference to kinship, possibly choosing a leader for personal qualities. I don't think that this is a question that can be answered with any certainty, since it requires information that Tolkien did not see fit to record.
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08-29-2006, 10:32 AM | #3 |
Shade of Carn Dûm
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I think it's reasonably accurate to say that many Rohirric families were related to Gondorian families as well...but the question is, how closely? If you think about it, we could be all related (however distantly) to every other human on earth.
It's not much of a stretch to consider that your average Rohir has a Gondorian aunt, uncle, cousin, or grandparent somewhere very far up her family tree. I don't think that a Gondorian would be elegible to be ruler of Rohan just because in order to establish royalty, one would have to search very far back on the family tree...much farther back than necessary to pick a Rohirric king. Also, would Rohan readily accept a king from Gondor? They value their independence too much and are too suspicious, I think, to just accept some upstart from Gondor as their king. This hypothetical Gondorian would have had to leave Gondor for good and live with the Rohirrim for many years to even be considered. I don't know...this is all hypothetical, anyhow.
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08-29-2006, 11:12 AM | #4 |
Pilgrim Soul
Join Date: May 2004
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Eomer and Eowyn, and Theodred definitely had Gondorian cousins and, in a rather Hapsburgian fashion married two fo them. Although Morwen is named of "Lossarnach"it says, probably in Unfinished tales since I can't find it in the appendices to LOTR, that she was of the line of Dol Amroth and Imrahil acknowledged the kinship between him and Eomer of blood even before they were linked by marriage. It seems reasonable to suppose that the daughter of a Prince of Dol Amroth married the lord of Lossarnach were the parents/ grandparents of Morwen. The first cousins Faramir and Lothiriel were thereby perhaps third cousins of their sibling spouses. Though the exact degree cannot be certain. Their marriages surely would also have resulted in further intermarriages since both Lothiriel and Eowyn are likely to have taken some of their own people with them to their new lands and the forging of such strong ties and relative peace would have increased traffic between the two realms.
I imagine that there were two types of Gondorian/Rohan intermarriage. I think it says somewhere that the mountain folk of Gondor were stronger in indiginous rather than Numenorean blood. Along the borders of two friendly realms I imagine people intermarried as they willed without thought of technical nationality. I would be surprised if the union of Morwen and THengel was unique amongst the higher social echelons particularly as the Numenor effect waned and the lifespans and culture became closer. Noble houses tend to intermarry and only a few Gondorian families had very pure blood. However it is possible that while a daughter of Dol Amroth might have married out, the sons might have been encouraged to marry numenoreans..... It is likely that there were descendents of Eorl living in Gondor but whether they would have been preferred over say the highest ranking Marshal of the Riddermark surviving the conflict I don't know. However, if Eomer's line failed within a couple of generations I would think that Eowyn's desendents might have been acceptable.
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