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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 1315867" data-attributes="member: 151">I'm going to side with Shadowdancer on this one. I just don't see Eowyn as out for personal gratification, so much as being out for being given an equal chance to influence her own destiny. A core part of movie-Eowyn's character is that she is treated as a lesser actor in events. Eowyn's main problem is that she knows that she is a competent warrior, something Aragorn recoginzes almost immediately upon meeting her, and yet she is continually shunted out of usefullness. Right or wrong, Eowyn sees her best value to her people as being side-by-side with her brother and uncle, choosing her own battlefield. The contention that her responsibilties as queen bind her to sit back and watch others sacrifice and die without being given the same choice is what chafes her. In both cases, at Helm's Deep and Pellenor, if the men all fail, what exactly can she do, then? Critically short on fighting men in both instances, they eschew the fact that they need more spears for battle, and that they are employing old men and young boys to fight....and yet no one suggests that the King's niece, who is clearly a competent and skilled warrior, take part. Eowyn sees this as the height of hypocrisy, most likely, and nonesensical. She's not there to protect the women and children: she's there to give the Kings some degree of mental comfort. And if the fate of the world is in the balance, and the hope of all men rests on one of these battles, why shouldn't she participate? The fact that a term exists such as 'shieldmaiden of Rohan' and the 'our women learned long ago...' line indicate that female warriors are far from uknown amongst the Rohirrim. Theoden is saving himself anguish, and that's the only logical reason for his denial of Eowyn. Does he truly think that if he fails (and in RotK, he clearly expects that they will) that it's preferable for Eowyn to sit in Edoras, waiting for the rampaging hordes to come? I don't doubt that she also wants a chance at glory...something she gets, though I suspect she didn't fully appreciate the cost until after the fact. Her entire culture (and truthfully, all of the cultures of Middle Earth, except possibly the hobbits, who only have the Bullroarer) centers around regarding their past heroes, like Helm Hammerhand. But I don't see her as being solely motivated by a desire to be a hero of legend, and I think it's a tad unfair to ascribe purely selfish motives to her actions. Her actions at Pellenor certainly don't indicate someone who was out to show everyone what she could do...but instead someone who wanted to do what was right and to do what she could do. That she aids and befriends the one other person about who shares the same dillemma is telling of this, to me. Granted, there is a greater reason for why Merry is denied...but thematically, PJ is clearly intimating that they have something to contribute - ultimately contributing one of the most important actions of the battle.</blockquote>

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