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Which character did you view totally differently as a child vs. as an adult? - Eowyn

Eowyn

I’m talking about Book!Eowyn. This is important to remember because she’s so very different from Movie!Eowyn.

When I first read Lord of the Rings I was 11, which looking back was way too young to fully understand them. Rereading them when a was as a mature, wise eighteen-year-old (yes, that counts as an adult) I find myself looking at Eowyn differently.

As a kid, I felt like she was a good example of how to not write a female character. She was going to commit suicide just because a random guy didn’t like her, and she ends the story marrying a random dude and deciding to stay in the kitchen. Like a lot of people, I thought her entire character was pretty sexist. Of course, I loved Movie!Eowyn. She was my idea of a good female character: a spunky warrior who smashed the patriarchy.

Between 11 and 18 I’ve struggled with depression a lot. My experiences with that and other mental illnesses put Lord of the Rings in a completely different light. Its funny no one mentions exactly how much it’s about conquering depression. That’s practically the main theme of the book. Every character suffers from depression at one point, every character gives up all hope at least once, and it’s the constant, unseen enemy. The Nazguls personify despair, but we see less blatant examples too. Eowyn’s journey is possibly my favorite.

Eowyn’s situation when we first meet her is pretty terrible. Her cousin has recently died, her brother is banished and on a suicide mission, and there’s a creepy guy constantly trying to make moves on her. Her kingdom is about to be overrun and her people are being killed, and there’s nothing she can do about it. What’s worst, her uncle, who’s practically a father to her, is being manipulated and weakened. She watched him grow weaker every day and there’s no way she can help him. She’s royalty, born for greatness, but she’s stuck helplessly watching everything around her crumble and rot.

That sort of depression, the kind when you fear your own helplessness and inability more than anything when you are unable to fight back, doesn’t have a name. But those who have faced it know how draining and debilitating it is, especially when you feel that you have to stay strong for those around you.

Then Gandalf and co come in and save the day, Eowyn sees a way out. She sees Aragorn and becomes obsessed with him. Not because she’s actually in love with him, but because she sees him as a great king who will give her a chance to fight, a chance to be great, a chance of freedom.

But then he leaves on what seems like a suicide mission, and she knows her uncle and brother are on their way to a battle they probably won’t return from. She, however, is stuck once more, left behind to watch her world fall apart while she can do nothing.

Her soul has been worn away by the endless waiting. She has no hope left that the power of Mordor can be defeated because she has watched it invade her very home while she could do nothing. In many ways, she’s similar to Denethor, who was destroyed by doing nothing but watching the enemy creep closer. But Denethor’s paralysis was by choice. Eowyn has no choice, she rarely does. She has no control over anything. And the one person she thought could save her and her kingdom is leaving on what seems like a hopeless journey.

Eowyn is no longer afraid of dying. She’s reached rock bottom at this point. All she wants is a chance to make a difference, to make a choice for once in her life. So she disguises herself as a soldier and marches off to battle she doesn’t plan to come back from.

And of course, she takes Merry, who might not be as desperate but also feels pretty helpless.

We all know what happens next. That scene is so famous, it’s probably one of the best moments of the books. It’s way better in the book the movie: Eowyn laughs before her “I am no man,” line. But looking further into it the scene is about as heartbreaking as it is awesome. Eowyn’s laughing because at last, she’s doing something. At last, she’s able to at least try to make a choice. A choice at how she will die, heroically, defending her king and father-figure to the last. The Nazgul, whose weapon is soul-crushing despair, has no effect on her because she’s faced it day after day. And that despair had no face and no form and she couldn’t fight it. And now, finally, in her last moments, she has a chance to fight it.

And she does.

But instead of dying, she’s wounded, and yet when Aragorn heals her she finds that not much has changed. She still believes that their defeat at the hands of Mordor is inevitable, and she’s still determined to die in the best way she can. If she can’t control her life, she might as well control her death.

But she can’t even control that. Aragorn and the others insist that she stays behind to heal while they once again head off to a hopeless last stand. Yet again she’s trapped, helpless, waiting for Mordor to win and overrun everything.

She killed a Ringwraith, but nothing much changed.

Then she meets Faramir. He’s the first person she lets see her as anything but strong. She allows herself to cry before him, and later on, draws close to him when she thinks the armies of Mordor are coming. This is a sharp contrast to the way she treated Aragorn, constantly trying to prove her strength to him. She lets Faramir see her pain and her fear. Faramir knows quite a bit about despair himself, and he’s watched at least one loved one (his father) be destroyed by it already. He wants to save Eowyn from her own hopelessness. The two grow close, and Eowyn allows herself to melt a little.

Finally, after Mordor falls, Faramir asks her if she loves him, or Aragorn. Like many love triangles, this one is symbolic. Aragorn offered what she thought she needed: a chance to have control of her life, to be great queen, to have control over her world. But he was never going to love her back, and great deeds were never going to heal her.

Faramir offered a simple life. He wasn’t a king, her place as second in line to Rohan was much higher than his. But he loves her, and she loves him. He gave her a chance to be a healer, a mother, and a wife. She was never going to heal chasing the impossible, striving for a last heroic stand. She had to stop fighting and let herself heal.

Ironically enough, killing the personification of despair didn’t conquer Eowyn’s depression, finally accepting someone else’s love and letting herself a chance to heal did.

Eowyn’s story is not about a battle against evil hordes or even the patriarchy, but of a battle against depression. She is so much more than a spunky heroine or a tragic lover. Her character is complex and her despair feels very real because many of us have felt it.

Many people, including me at first, felt like Eowyn’s ending was sexist. But Tolkien never saw battle as heroic or good. We naturally see it sexist that our heroine retires to become a healer and wife because we’ve been taught that those things aren’t ‘heroic’ or ‘cool’. But Tolkien’s heroes rarely are skilled in battle, and over and over again we are given the message that true strength is not what it seems.

The great ones: Denethor, Boromir, Theoden, and Saruman are easily corrupted. The small, unimportant hobbits who like to cook and garden (fairly traditionally feminine activities) are the strongest of all. Even Aragorn is recognized as a king due to being a healer, not a warrior.

Eowyn’s story is another one in which Tolkien shows us that true strength isn’t killing a terrifying demon but letting yourself hope again.

@castieltrash1 if you're a stripper, I'm a Pokémon detective, hmm... seems about right 😏😆

Online persona vs real life. Made here. (Starting a new thread cuz the last one was HUGE.)

Tagging for fun: @sketch-and-write-lover @i-did-not-mean-to @laurfilijames @sebbymylove16 @shalinizhara @midearthwritings @werelywrites - and anyone else who wants to!

Dear lawd haha, this is gonna be a laugh.

I am such a flipping noob! But thank you @blairsanne because it really is fun!

I am going to tag: @luna-xial @lathalea @lonikje @tschrist1 @bluemonade @sirmacbethbeth @thedreamingscorpio and anyone else who wants to take a Crack at it!

Thank you for the tags @to-be-frank-i-dont-care and @sketch-and-write-lover 💕💕

(I am so boring I’m sorry-)

I shall make some no pressure tags to: @underthemoon-n @ladylouoflothlorien @deepestfirefun @skylarkvip @tolkien-fantasy and whoever would like to play!

Thanks for the tag @luna-xial! This looks fun!

I swear I'm not mean, I just look the part! 😂

@castieltrash1 @jojo-reader-hell @bjnurse @dongiovannaswife @writingfromkitchenator @jotaros-massive-tiddies @iamwurd @shewriteswithexperience and anyone who wants to try!

When you were that one kid in grade school who really enjoyed Ancient Egypt-based books (fiction and non-fiction) and now you have to write a paper on what a movie got wrong about Ancient Egypt–

My time, it is here. 

GIRL THAT AND I WAS THAT KID THE WHOLE ASS CLASS WOULD COPY THEIR HOMEWORK FROM WHEN IT CAME TO WORLD HISTORY, ROMAN EGYPTIAN AND GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 🤣🤣🤣

They should water some plants too to douce their inner bitterness. Lol.

Boo, you can spam me anytime! Don't worry about it! 😆

Wait. Say psyche right now.

I thought you were twenty bro. I THOUGHT YOU WERE OLDER THAN ME!!!!!

Is this such a huge surprise to people??

I - am I the only one of this group of mutuals that is NOT a minor??? What is happening???

@claraofthepen @gossip-girl-of-middle-earth @thewhiteladyofrohan

Yeah I think so. Dang everyday I'm learning that more and more people in the lotr fandom are minors.

dang. I'll be 18 in 6 months but until then....

I'm already 18 guys, @beenovel , @claraofthepen , @thewhiteladyofrohan , @my-darling-haldir, so I guess I'm one of the only adults here too... Jesus Christ I feel old now. 2003 was a weird year

.... I was born at the end of 2003. I feel very young

2001 here.. jeeeez y’all make me feel old.

WAIT. YA'LL REALLY YOUNG. 😦

Am I the only one who's a 92 liner? 🥲

The first thing that come to my mind when Teucer said he’ll be waiting for Lumine at Snezhnaya 🤣🤣

....plus I can’t sleep...so yeahh...a quick drunk-like sketch🤣

Have these nonsense sketches...🙃🙃🙃 I’m too busy with work hence the uncoloured pages...but I wanted to post it since I’m afraid I might forget bout it later...

I LIVE FOR THESE THREE

Sing to the sea and one day you’ll hear it sing back (Siren!Bruno Buccellati/Reader)

An awesome commission I got to write for @skylarkvip! I had so much fun writing this and I was itching to write something for our favourite Bruno for a while! Thank you for commissioning me and I hope you like it hun!

Rating: R  Pairing: Siren!Bruno Buccellati/Reader Summary: An accident takes away your memories of bright blue eyes and gleamin white and black scales. A storm brings them back.  Warnings: Childhood friends to lovers, mentions of an accident, mentions of being attacked, double penetration (in one hole), hemipenes, breeding kink, creampie, face sitting/cunnilingus, fingering, mating and being in love. 

Keep reading

WHAT IS OXYGEN I'M WOBBLING 😍😍😍

the way people view my race in america has made it so very hard to distance myself from femininity

i could do anything to my body and still be viewed as a small, cute asian girl

really fks me up that people think it's okay to tell others who obviously have a poor relationship w femininity that they look feminine and will always look cute no matter what

v not ok

if anything, this is proof that media / represent is effected by and then effects reality.

specific examples that happened to me:

i don't think u guys realize how demeaning this is and this has been a constant my entire life. even as an adult, ppl use words they use for children to describe me. ppl babytalk to me. this is why many asian ppl take offense to being called cute. it's infantilizing, dehumanizing, and emasculating.

ex of ppl doing this to full grown celebrities:

i'm begging u to be mindful. i am so sick of being viewed and treated this way, esp by ppl who apparently Love asian ppl.

watch how u treat asian ppl online and irl. we're people deserving of basic respect. we're people who are varied. we're people who have boundaries.

watch how u consume and interact w asian media and asian fictional characters. it fully affects how u view asian ppl as a whole.

🚨ATTENTION🚨

All Writers Published on Ao3:

This app, "Fanfic Pocket Archive Library", is lifting all public content from Ao3 and making it available through a service they profit from.

Your work has been stolen and is being used to make money for a third party.

^above are the ways in which the app makes money off of Ao3 content. The developer is called Simple Soft Alliance. Here's the app's Terms and Conditions.

Any fanfiction that can be accessed without a password on Ao3 is already available in this app. Yours, mine, every fan creator's. Whether this is illegal I do not know, but it is certainly unethical and needs to be fought. Ao3 is a site of unparalleled integrity and shows the utmost respect to creators, so this content grab is an even bigger slap in the face for that reason.

🚨Please flag/report this app in your app store. 🚨

🚩Google Playstore link

🚩Apple Store link (download app, then go to report it here )

Feel free to contact Ao3 as well to alert them to this issue. Let's take em down, folks. In the meantime, you can put your Ao3 in private mode to prevent any more data theft.

Please reblog and tag your writer friends. Signal boost this.

If the app developer wasn’t making money I wouldn’t care, but as it is all my fics are on this app and I’m NOT happy. Reported and also reported to Ao3

Thank you for tagging me in this @3dg310rdsupreme

I'm very much not okay with my works being published on another platform, this app included.

@fandom-and-feminism @nikkalia

Hey @lokilickedme @tilltheendwilliwrite @sherrybaby14 @captain-rogers-beard

Well, that's a problem.

I reported this app, stating that it was profiting from a not for profit organization.

Hopefully something will be done.

All writers on AO3!!! @patanghill17 @luna-xial @dabisburntnut @jumpingmanatee @birdkeeperklink @technoelfie @thophil2941btw @fromthedeskoftheraven @armitageadoration @thewarriorandtheking @deepestfirefun @legolaslovely @tigereyesf @fountainsofsilver @c-s-stars I’m not sure who else is active on AO3, or if all of you are, but spread the word!

Super glad I haven’t posted much on AO3 yet, but those of my mutuals that have: be careful ❤️

@nerdbirdsworld @legolaslovely @ladylouoflothlorien @underthemoon-imagines @floral-and-fine @jumpingmanatee @evyiione @tolkien-fantasy @lady-of-lies @revengeworld

We were just talking about it earlier and yep I'm relieved they didn't have some my stuff but I'm upset for other people's work getting stolen.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind (La Squadra Ver.) & (Valentine's Day Ver.) click and drag game!

damn ghia, keeping me all to yourself I see

DANG ALRIGHT 

Melone tryna win me over with sweets while Daddy Risotto rather prefers skinship! 😂

Hey yall! If you’re interested in supporting me financially, I now have a kofi!