"The Steward and the King" - Jacob's Thoughts

Yeesh, Tolkien just doesn't know how to do romance, does he.

Or women generally.

I mean, look: I get that it was the '50s, it was a different time and era, gender roles were much more rigidly codified, it was genuinely remarkable that Tolkien even bothered to include a female-warrior in the first place--let alone one who quits herself as impressively as Eowyn does, what with the way she defends Theoden when all else flee and slays the Witch-King in combat.  But then Tolkien undercuts her achievements by having Faramir tell her: "You desired to have the love of the Lord Aragorn, because he was high and puissant [...] But when he gave you only understanding and pity, then you desired to have nothing, unless a brave death in battle" (299).  Apparently, she fought not for honor or glory, but only because her crush didn't like her back.  That's...not as interesting.

Then when Faramir offers himself as her Silver Medal (way to sweep her off her feet there, bro), she promptly forswears that whole soldier life she fought so hard for and declares: "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" (300).  'Cause all a girl really wants, apparently, is for a cute guy to show her her true nature: to be a nurse and a nurturer.  (Nursing and Home & Family Development, the two most stereo-typically feminine majors at BYU).  Again, that's...not as interesting.

I'm sure it's the only end to that particular character arc that Tolkien (so thoroughly a product of his time and place) could have imagined for Eowyn, but it remains a disappointing one.  Her final fate is especially frustrating since there have been so few other female characters at all in these novels; I think there's been, what, Tom Bombadil's girlfriend Goldberry that Frodo pervs on? Arwen, with even less to do than the movies give her?  I think Galadriel is the only genuinely powerful female we encounter, though like Gandalf the White, we hardly ever see her in action--and like a proper lady, she consents to "diminish and fade" rather than accept the Ring when it is offered her in "The Mirror of Galadriel".  Moreover, the way she contemplated that offer with "All will love me and despair!" indicates that Tolkien apparently believes that all women really want deep down is not power, but to be loved.  Now, I understand that no one should ever accept the Ring, its corrupting influence is not gendered; nevertheless, the implicit message of Galadriel's choice is that a wise woman knows to refuse power, even when it is freely offered her, and then fade into the background--which is, at best, a mixed message.

Ernest Hemingway has a famous short-story collection called Men Without Women, and the same could double as a sub-title for Lord of the Rings: The Ents, recall, have not seen their Ent-wives in literal ages.  Neither Bilbo nor Frodo appear to have any sort of mother figure or romantic partner or love interest in their lives; for that matter, the entire Hobbit posse is a boy's club without the slightest hint of feminine influence in their lives.  In fact, come to think of it, their domesticity and love of cooking almost seems to mark them as feminine themselves, thereby rendering female Hobbits superfluous (as though cooking and domestic chores were all women were good for).  The Peter Jackson films show the orcs spawning from the ground, which they might as well do, since there is no mention of Orc-women anywhere in the text that I can recall.  Overall, Tolkien appears to consistently forget that women are half of humanity and are absolutely essential for the existence of our species--at least, so I conclude based on the way he seems to have to keep reminding himself to include women-characters in the first place.