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Hey guys! I want my writing family’s input on something writing-related.

You ready for it?

Women in fiction. Particularly in fantasy, where so many of them take on combat roles or other roles commonly filled by men, in the name of offering ‘strong female role models’.

What do you think about this trend? While I was thinking about this I started thinking about Eowyn, Tolkien’s fearless warrior-maiden. I’ve seen so many articles and blog posts over time extolling her as the ultimate Strong Female and Feminist Icon who Doesn’t Need a Man to Save Her.

I got to thinking… is that true? Is Eowyn’s story about breaking free of restricting expectations and traditions and becoming your own hero? Are we meant to admire her actions and strive to emulate her?

Let’s pull her story apart and see what makes it tick.

Eowyn’s journey begins with anger. The culture of the Rohirrim is very warlike—placing great emphasis (undue emphasis) on the glory of valor in battle, and revering the man with the greatest battle-courage the highest. This is a culture of fighters, where every man has the right to make something of himself and change his circumstances if he doesn’t like them.

Eowyn doesn’t have that luxury. She’s stuck in a house where the only love anyone has for her is Grima’s lustful attention, and where everyone seems to have forgotten she exists.  Not only is she frightened and angry at her helplessness to change this situation, she’s tired of being told she is worth less than those who fight. There’s an insecurity here, I think. She defines herself by how well she lives up to the standards of others, without questioning those standards first to see if they are correct. Because the world around her tells her she is inferior and helpless, she believes it, and hates it because it won’t let her prove otherwise.

She has plenty of courage. But it was bitterness that drove her into battle. She was intent on proving something—not because she believed it was right, but because she was lashing out in anger against everyone who told her she couldn’t fight.

(Side note for the Rohirrim— don’t tell grown people what they can and can’t do. You usually just end up looking silly.)

If Eowyn’s story ended there, it would be about breaking free of oppression, tradition, and expectation. But it doesn’t.

Enter Faramir.

In many ways, Faramir’s story is like Eowyn’s. Here we have another cultural deviant. Gondor, too, holds war in high esteem. Faramir is the picture of a perfect soldier: brave, obedient, resourceful… but the difference is he ‘loves not the sword for its brightness or the arrow for its swiftness, but only that which they defend’.

Faramir has the truth Eowyn is lacking. War isn’t the point. The expectations of others— even if those ‘others’ are your own father— aren’t the point. The point is what you believe in. What you fight for. What is most important and valuable to you.

Eowyn is not ‘empowered’ when she flies in the face of tradition and rides off to war like a man. She’s desperate and controlled by her own anger and helplessness.

Faramir is empowered when he chooses to let the Ring pass into Mordor instead of returning it to his father, or taking it for himself, because he knows it’s right.

Where Eowyn’s attitude was one of ‘I’ll show you I can be as good as all the rest of you!’ Faramir’s actions said quite plainly: ‘I’m willing for all of you to think me inferior in order to do the right thing’.

*small fangirl moment* Is it any wonder they were meant to be?

Aragorn brought Eowyn’s body back from death, but Faramir healed her heart. Released from the grip of her burning anger and the need to be recognized as strong and valiant, Eowyn realizes it was never really war she wanted.

Then the heart of Eowyn changed, or else at last she understood it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her. ‘I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun,’ she said; ‘And behold! The Shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.’

Can someone say ‘character arc’? *dreamy sigh* I just love a happy ending, don’t you? Man, I should probably write more of them… 😛

ANYWAY. All that to say, defining Eowyn’s journey as that of a woman fighting back against male oppression is such a narrow understanding of the story, and leaves out the most beautiful part. She is reconciled to the truth. Not just the truth, but her truth— the truth she, Eowyn, by name, was created to pursue.

God calls each of us to something and provides us with the skills to pursue it. Generally speaking men are conquerors and builders, and women are healers and nurturers, but more important than general created context is personal calling. Personal calling usually fits into the general created context. When we spend our story-threads trying to dispute the general created context, we miss the powerful story of self-discovery. There is no more empowering story than that of a human soul discovering who God has called them to be.

@daeus-lamb @bama-rose @cassandraia @eden-anderson @literatureforthelight @noahlitle @sesi @piper-bee