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Old 02-03-2003, 04:58 PM   #1
little_bit_odd
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Shield Eowin kills Witch-King: Allegory?

I've heard that Tolkien disliked allegory, but it seems like this scene depicts the fall of an oppressive government.

The Witch-King is the Military dictatorship, or other dysfunctional government, and Eowyn is an activist. When everyone else runs away or cowers in fear (or is otherwise preoccupied with basic survival) when the Nazgul appears, Eowyn is brave and even arrogant.

The Nazgul says no man can defeat him, she cracks a sort of joke, saying that she is not a man, but a woman! She runs up and starts fighting, and wounds the Witch-King.

Then she starts to lose, briefly, before she gets the support of the hobbit (everyman, common people)who literally cuts the legs out from under the Nazgul (as the government would have its 'legs' cut out from under it when it loses the fear or support of the people)

Perhaps I'm just reading too much into this, but I think that even if it is not an allegory, Eowyn's victory is more symbolic because she has the courage to fight the Nazgul, and that is what defeats him, not the actual stabbing. I am reminded of the "Legend of Roland" in French history, in which the hero is killed not by a physical wound, but by being forced to admit weakness and blow his 'oliphant' horn for backup in battle. As soon as he blows the horn for help, blood shoots out his ears and he dies.

Thank you, Ultimatejoe, for pointing out my spelling error. I hope I have fixed it, and not made it worse.

[ February 04, 2003: Message edited by: little_bit_odd ]
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Old 02-03-2003, 05:47 PM   #2
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No, because
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Tolkien disliked allegory
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Old 02-03-2003, 09:54 PM   #3
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You've confused allegory with applicability.

Allegory is when something is written specifically to represent something else.

Applicability is when two different, unrelated things can be compared in principle - finding parellels.

I have given quotes from Tolkien that speak of this matter in my post here.
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Old 02-03-2003, 10:20 PM   #4
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This is a post-structuralist nightmare.

On edit: Tolkien certainly never implied any sort of message with the character of Eowin since nobody of that name appears anywhere in his writing.

[ February 03, 2003: Message edited by: Ultimatejoe ]
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Old 02-04-2003, 02:57 PM   #5
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Quote:
Perhaps I'm just reading too much into this
Yup, I think you do. I think the "Just-try-it"-Symbol goes more with the Hobbits. They are very small and weak to the world outside the Shire, but in the end one of them nearly beats Sauron in the end.
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Old 02-05-2003, 04:45 PM   #6
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It just reminded me of MacBeth, who also could not be killed unless... (several reasons, one of them to do with not being 'from woman born')
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Old 02-06-2003, 03:12 PM   #7
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I don't think Tolkien even realized that it could be allegory. Plus, you can take almost everything and turn it in some way into allegory. Tolkien very much disliked allegory, ehich is one reason he disliked one of his best friends works, C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia.
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Old 02-06-2003, 03:26 PM   #8
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Dear me all, we are cutting poor "little_bit_old" down, aren't we? I know that Tolkien disliked allegory, and I'm not saying that this is allegory, because it isn't. However, the beauty in Tolkien's work is that everyone can find meaning in it, weather it be relating the struggles of the characters to your own personal struggles, or to something political as this person chose to do. That is a really interesting parallel, though it was definitely not intended it works very well. Tolkien's writing is said to be applicable because everyone relates to it at some level, and thats the most important thing.
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Old 02-06-2003, 07:49 PM   #9
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It's just another example of art imitating life/life imitating art/what works in one place almost certainly works about a million other ways. Just like how a cell works like a whole organism, etc...
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Old 02-06-2003, 08:45 PM   #10
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It's not like that at all.
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Old 06-29-2003, 08:23 AM   #11
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Quote:
I don't think Tolkien even realized that it could be allegory. Plus, you can take almost everything and turn it in some way into allegory. Tolkien very much disliked allegory, ehich is one reason he disliked one of his best friends works, C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia.
That sounds interesting. I've read CS Lewis' Narnia books but never noticed any allegorys. Call me stupid for not noticing, but can anyone tell me about them? I know this is a little off track, but I'm intrigued as to what they are.
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Old 06-29-2003, 02:51 PM   #12
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Daisy, try typing Narnia or Lewis into the box on the search function; you should find plenty of discussions that might help you there.
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Old 06-29-2003, 04:36 PM   #13
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I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that Eowyn symbolized an activist. If anything Sauron could have symbolized Hitler, and Eowyn the Jews who were so mistreated during WWII.

I don't really think this is the case either, but it is an example of how we can see our own political views in a wonderful story.
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Old 06-30-2003, 10:54 AM   #14
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I think that you can compare Tolkien's books to just about anything in our world or in our history. His books have so many themes that are relevant today, that it is very easy to compare, say, Eowyn's killing of the Witch-King, to the overthrow of an oppressive government.
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Old 06-30-2003, 08:11 PM   #15
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Even if you were to only bring this idea to the level of applicability, and not allegory, I think it would be quite a poor reading of the passage to think it should be applied to the overthrow of an oppressive regime.
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Old 07-01-2003, 02:42 PM   #16
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Besides, the poor old Professor would be turning in his grave if he found out that we were comparing Eowyn killing the Witch-King to the downfall of an oppressive government. In the Letters, he specifically said that he didn't have anything like that in mind when he wrote the story. He just wanted to write the story, not compare it to anything else. Besides, he hated allegory.
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Old 07-01-2003, 02:48 PM   #17
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I agree. While I am sure that many things in Tolkien's life influenced his writing, I am equally sure that he did not mean for any of the tales of Middle Earth in any way, shape or form to stand for something else alegorically. LotR is simply meaningful, well-crafted fantasy that will always have parallels to life in the real world.
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Old 07-03-2003, 06:31 PM   #18
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how dare you insult him like that! Tolkien did not write allegoricaly, he was imaginitive! now be quiet, im shunning you [img]smilies/mad.gif[/img]
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