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Virtuella's Idiosyncratic Literary Criticisms  by Virtuella 36 Review(s)
Reviewed Chapter: 3 on 8/14/2018
Thank you for this essay!

l have long been pondering the same question myself. Aragorn was very much a childhood hero for me, growing up in a very patriarchal culture. But as l got older, moved to the West, and got a more balanced view on the gender question, boy, l began to wonder if there's something off about him. Thank you for confirming it for me!

Decmeber

GUadaReviewed Chapter: 3 on 10/16/2017
I think I agree in most of your points. But I sadly think that Eowyn seems to have resigned herself to adopt a more traditional gender role at the end. I mean, you CAN want to be a healer, but the way Tolkine narrates it always sounded as Eowyn did this amazing thing and then she mgrew up and married and did all the right things a good girl should do. I know it's oversimplified but as a teen I just couldn't understand why wouldn't she be fighting side to side with Faramir or even better, be fighting while he grew gardens and read books. I understand he was a conservative catholic and all, but so were my parents and my dad did the cooking and gardening while my mom fixed the plumbing and did the woodwork. So there's that.
I love re4ading essays by the way. As someone who loves LOTR and The Sillmarillion and The Hobbit but isn't in the same page ideologically as JRRR it's kind of difficult to speak to fellow Tolkine fans. I find that most of the people who like Tolkien tend to either idolize him or be very passionate about uhm, I gues deflecting any possible criticism of him. Like they can't HEAR any type of critique.
When people tell me they love Tolkien I kind of pretend that I don't hear it or ignore them. I've gotten in worse fights with Tolkien lovers than with Tolkien haters.

Author Reply: Hello, thanks for your comments. I get where you are coming from with this issue of Eowyn settling down, though I didn't read it quite that way. To me, it was always about moving into peacetimes, and it is both of them who are going to settle and grow a garden together. What Eowyn leaves behind is not so much adventure and glory, but the horrors of war. I think her notion of battle was naive and romanticised before she actually encountered it. Rebuilding a war-torn country and being a leader of the people are challenging and honourable tasks, and I do not for a second imagine that Eowyn would henceforth only do embroidery and weeding. I think she would have made a skillful politician. Ultimately, it is only speculation anyway, because Tolkien tells us virtually nothing about their later lives. It's quite understandable that in that moment where they declare their love for each other, they are envisaging themselves as gardeners rather than orc-slayers.

Also, yes, I know what you mean about the idolisation of Tolkien. When you hear some folks calling him the greatest writer ever, you do have to wonder what else they read. ;-)

DamienReviewed Chapter: 1 on 3/6/2016
I don't think the Witch-King thought he was generally invulnerable. When Glorfindel rides up, the Witch-king ran away. Skedaddled. "Turned in flight." *Then* Glorfindel made his prophecy, to hold Earnur back. And prophecy is a thing in Middle-Earth, done by Ainur, Quendi, and occasionally even humans. I think Glorfindel was basically saying "I can kind of see when and how he'll fall, and it won't be by you, so don't try."

Sauron had gathered the Rings of Power back to himself; the Witch-king's Ring was off in Barar-dur. I'm not sure where this is spelled out, but it's the common wisdom. At any rate it would have lost its power when the One was destroyed, just as the Three did.

LissaReviewed Chapter: 3 on 5/22/2014
Hello, not a review, but just a comment ... I was watching The Return of the King movie adaptation by Mr. Peter Jackson et al and I was bothered by the flirtation between Aragorn and Eowyn, which I am certain hardly ever happened in the book. I read the books long before the first P. Jackson & co. adaptations were heard of and I recall that the first scenes mentioning Eowyn were among those that made me pick up interest again in my reading endeavors with the trilogy --- because as an adolescent living in the tropics it was a bit of a challenge for me to stick to a wordy narrative set in the frigid zone with only my imagination and a few lines in the encyclopedias to aid me with the visuals/illustrations --- so here's the comment ... I appreciate the way Eowyn and Aragorn are described like this in your Review here, ma'am. I was scouting for opinions regarding Eowyn and Aragorn because though the movie gave me a nice feeling about their bond it also made me feel as if I was being deceived by the intention in their scenes, I mean, as if it was intended to show that Eowyn was just a passing distraction for Aragorn and that Arwen is THE big thing, when in fact right now I seem to see that Arwen, at least in the movie, is some sort of a symbolism of an ideal that is deemed foolish by many: that of being in love with love. Aragorn and Eowyn looked good together in the movie but all the while I already know that I have always been happy that Eowyn and Faramir found each other. Faramir has even then fascinated me because though not having non-human traits he was, along with the hobbits, among those who can resist the seduction of the ring, which made me worried that it was not as clearly depicted in the movie, making him yet bring Frodo & Sam to Gondor before releasing them, a part as distasteful to me as having Aragorn flirt with Eowyn.
In the book, too, I was appalled that Eowyn was forced by circumstances to stay with the household chores when it was clear she could do other things aside from that. I had already mourned for her constriction then and I was excited when she got to ride behind her uncle, though in disguise, on the way to Minas Tirith. When she got to stay at the Houses of Healing I felt that she, with Faramir, were being taken away where the important scenes were played, at Minas Morgul, but right now as I read your review I realize that the energies I invested in liking the Eowyn-Faramir part all the same is in its right place because, that is, I now realize how much Tolkien himself loved my three most beloved characters: Sam, Eowyn, and Faramir.
Thank you for your review. Now I can see that you are right about Aragorn. As I am now again interested in picking up my long laid-down interest in his story, reviews such as yours are worth taking note of and sharing. Can I ask for your permission to re-post this in a blog, http://sacadalang.wordpress.com/ ? If I could put your article there, with your webpage at the head, and this comment at the end, too, then that would be great.
Thank you very much and I wish you a very nice week.

Author Reply: Hi, thanks for your comments. Yes, you can repost this, if you like.

MikoNoNyteReviewed Chapter: 3 on 9/9/2012
Okay so I'm coming to this late and with a few giggles.

I started out as a very young and active feminist and boy would I agree with you! However to be fair, and no I'm not going to even bring Tolkien into this, Aragorn was based on the male "role model" that was prevalent in Medieval times. Or so it seemed to me and yes, that could be very dodgy when having to deal with it.

I would not want to HAVE to deal with it, even though in real life I have done so. Personally I take it a bit unfair (and not pointing fingers here!) when a writer or fan tries to push a character or even historical person, into the box that is their own time period. We view these characters from out own "enlightened" time (boy do I wish we WERE enlightened!) so of course we'd find them lacking what we would think of as egalitarian behaviour.

Still, I won't disagree with your assessment. As he is written Aragorn is a jerk of the first order. I doubt he 'walked softly and carried a big sword'. He made his presence known and feared.

Author Reply: Thanks for your comments. You're right of course that Aragorn follows a certain literary mould. However, medieval authors were not as unenlightened as one might think. If we look at Wolfram's "Parcival" or at Hartmann's "Iwein" and "Eric" then we see heroes who get their fingers rapped quite firmly for their machismo and/or condescending attitude towards women.

Rian SteelsheenReviewed Chapter: 1 on 8/30/2010
I don’t read Glorfindel’s words the same way. It’s a prophecy, so Glorfindel is making a prediction. He cannot possibly change the WK’s physical constitution, or even perceive a weakness in it. My interpretation is that he had a flash of foresight and was suddenly gifted with the knowledge that no mortal man will be the one to destroy the WK. It’s not that a man cannot kill him, Earnur and Gandalf for example could, it’s just that it’s not what is going to happen.
It sounds more logical to me this way.

As to how Éowyn’s sword was able to pierce him, well I have always assumed that he had a body of some sort, or how would he be able too wear a cloak, boots, and a crown (Sauron kept the nine rings with him)?
I thought the problem was that his body couldn’t hold itself together without the cloak to keep it still. The material forming his body isn’t able to keep a definitive human form without his clothes. Isn’t that what happened to him at the Bruinen?
So, he can be pierced by anything, including a simple Rohirric sword, but Merry’s one is more effective as it is ensorcelled to be most painful for him. At the Pelennor he was so badly disembodied that it would have taken him a very long time to re-embody himself, but when the Ring was destroyed, he really died anyway.
Well that is how I understood thing at first, but I have not really thought about it until now, so I may be wrong :)

I liked your structural analysis!

Author Reply: Thank you for your thoughts! There's probably a lot of room for specualtion on this issue, but yes, the structural question of what function thsi fulfils in the text was the bit I was mostly interested in.

MîdhaerReviewed Chapter: 3 on 8/9/2009
I agree with this essay, however I think it's worth noting that Aragorn also says to Eowyn "As for you, lady: did you not accept the charge to govern the people until their lord's return?"

Although this does not help Aragorn's case, it does show that perhaps other people (most likely Theoden) realized she was a capable woman, and could, if necessary, fight. This also proves that other people also realized her intelligence. This shows that Aragorn is (probably) the only male in Lord of the Rings, of any race, who sees women as objects not people.

Great essay. Sorry if I got redundant. I really enjoyed reading this.

Namarie,
Mîdhaer

Author Reply: Thanks. I thought many of the reviews were more interesting than the actual essay, but that suited me just fine!

MîdhaerReviewed Chapter: 1 on 8/9/2009
I need to make an important point here. While Eowyn's sword was not magic, Merry's knife was. I think Merry's sword created a vulnerability, which Eowyn took to her advantage.

Author Reply: True. If you scroll down the reviews page and look at Dreamflower's comment, you'll see that she's explained this point in much detail.

NafadReviewed Chapter: 4 on 7/26/2009
I have found the responses to your essay extremely interesting. One core Christian message in the Gospels is that our behaviour has consequences; and Frodo exemplified a character who believed that to the extent he was prepared to die in his quest. Thank you so much for your contribution which is so very illuminating.

Author Reply: Thank you. It was great to have all these interesting comments. I would say, though, that "our behaviour has consequences" is a truism rather than a specifically Christian idea. That was part of my point I was trying to make, that if we want to call something Christian, it would really need to be something distinctly Chrsitian, rather than an idea that occurs in Christianity as well as in other traditions.

Linda HoylandReviewed Chapter: 4 on 6/30/2009
A fascinating and thought provoking essay.

Author Reply: Thank you. Thinking is always good. ;-)

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