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02-23-2009, 01:28 PM | #1 | ||
Salt Miner
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: gone to Far Harad
Posts: 987
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Random (non-canonical) Thought on Éowyn and the Witch-king
Rereading the confrontation between Éowyn and the Witch-king last night, I had a completely un-canonical, uncharacteristically romantic notion.
In another forum, Alvin Eriol theorized that perhaps Quote:
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Might Éowyn look like the Dúnadan girl the Witch-king left behind? Before his fall, was he not a man? Might have he have fallen in love? Here this young woman before him “golden-haired, bright-eyed, and strong” like unto “the youth of” the Women of Númenor “as they were in the Elder Days.” Might the Lord of the Nazgûl pause not only because Éowyn was “no man” but a woman, stripping away the riddle of the Prophecy of the North – but also because she looked like his long-lost love come again to walk upon the green grass of Arda? Might his “cry of hatred that stung the very ears like venom” be not only a war-cry, but a cry against the life and love and hope he spurned in his lust for wealth and power, abandoned in a past now forever lost, a cry against his own damnation, as gazing again upon his unseen face with tears in her eyes he sees once more among the living the girl he left behind? It’s just a notion, a passing fancy. And it has NO basis in the text: none whatsoever. It’s just a thought. But I thought I’d share it. |
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02-23-2009, 01:48 PM | #2 |
Entmoot Minister of Foreign Affairs
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Copenhagen
Posts: 2,145
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Hehe.. a romantic notion Alcuin.
I would like to agree, since it certainly would make it a very deep scene indeed, but my view is, maybe in a stronger degree than most here on Entmoot, that the Nazgûl are fallen to an extent that we cannot really fathom. They are lost in a darkness that knows no light whatsoever, and thus they cannot see beauty. It does not exist to them. I have this view of them as creatures that have simply forgotten the emotion of love and whatever passions they had as Númenóreans.. I don't think love or a memory of love has any chance of presence in their minds in any situation. Their dark nature would simply snuff it out in an instant, and so the cry of the Witch-King to me, is just the blackest form of cry, without any recognizable human passion. It seems a cold and shrill cry, with no past emotion involved. I don't think he could see her beauty. To him it's as unrecognizable as anything else. His cry is a dark cry, of anger, torment and desolation. But it's a likeable thought you offer nonetheless
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02-23-2009, 02:17 PM | #3 |
Kraken King
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Yes, indeed it is. I would not be all that surprised if the professor did indeed want that to be the basis of that scene. Unlikely, but not impossible. Thanks for sharing.
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02-23-2009, 03:17 PM | #4 |
Princess of the Noldor (and Administrative Empress of the Lone Islands)
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And if there was something in this likeable thought, it would just make the torment and desolation all the more acute, and make the cry even more a cry of anger against Sauron his tormentor than ever before.
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02-23-2009, 04:01 PM | #5 |
Salt Miner
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: gone to Far Harad
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It seemed to me that for one so steeped in evil that anything that recalled to mind the days before his fall and the joys of normal life he would rush to remove, destroy, annihilate. To see a woman the spirit and image of she whom he loved would drive him near mad with rage unless he sought redemption. To kill Éowyn in that case would be to murder his own love and utterly and violently reject his last chance at redemption just before destruction.
And yes, that cry would be a cry of hate of Éowyn, of the unnamed woman of his honest youth, of his own honest and honorable past, of his fall, of all the evil and pain he perpetrated, and of his master whom he hated; and above all that, a war-cry practiced and raised for millennia on many fields of battle, intensified beyond ever before in dark fury against all creation. Again, no canonicity here. Just imagination. |
02-23-2009, 04:34 PM | #6 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 987
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She wouldn't really have to closely resemble a real woman in his past to stir up such thoughts. For one thing, he couldn't really see her all that clearly in the bright sunlight. For another, she could have been barely a step above a hag and still come across as hotter than any of the orc-chicks WiKi had to deal with on a daily basis back in Morgul. I imagine what he saw in Eowyn would give him pause whether there was any recognition there or not.
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02-24-2009, 09:57 AM | #7 | ||||||||
Lady of the Ulairi
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Minas Morgul
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Wow, how romantic, Alcuin! You should write a fanfic… I would love to read it.
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By the end of the Third Age golden haired Numenoreans must have become quite rare. Most of the golden haired populace died in the Downfall, and those who remained in Umbar became heavily mixed with Haradrim, likely losing their blond hair in the process. Eowyn might have indeed looked like a blond Numenorean girl, especially considering she had a lot of Numenorean blood from her grandmother, Morwen of Lossarnach. Quote:
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You seem to forget how the events played out. Eowyn had revealed that she was a woman - the WK "made no answer, and was silent, as if in sudden doubt." The revelation itself didn't provoke any cries from him, emotional or not. He just sat there looking at her and thinking. Then the Fell Beast, bored by its rider's inactivity, decided to eat the tasty girl - and got its head chopped off. THIS provoked the WK's attack, not the previous talk. Quote:
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You see, Alcuin, I like your initial theory. The WK learned that he faced a woman, thus "no man": it was dangerous. If this woman, in addition, resembled someone whom he used to love in the past, it could be symbolic (Death taking a guise of his former beloved) and thus even more dangerous. All this was more than enough to give him pause. But for the voracious Fell Beast, he might have left leaving Eowyn unmolested. Quote:
Last edited by Gordis : 02-24-2009 at 10:12 AM. |
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02-24-2009, 12:38 PM | #8 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 987
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I'm sure the women there in Minas Morgul were beauties.
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02-24-2009, 04:00 PM | #9 |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
Join Date: Sep 2002
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Interesting thought, Alcuin! I think there's definitely something in evil that regrets the evil choices, and to be reminded of this would bring great sorrow, and then denial and anger.
As far as the beastie, I don't think the WK attacked Eowyn because his pet was killed. I think her killing the beastie just brought him out of his reverie. I think he always intended to try to kill her.
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02-24-2009, 04:21 PM | #10 |
Lady of the Ulairi
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