The Ring Trilogy: Eowyn

One brief comment:

The character of Eowyn in the film is completely unrecognizable from the character that Tolkien wrote.

So far as I can tell, this is the most extreme example, when comparing the movie and the book.

I’m not talking about what was left out, the scenes in the Houses of Healing, etc. I’m really talking about the actual spirit of the character, the INTENT of the character. Characters do have souls, you know. And Eowyn’s soul in the film appears to be warm, lusty, restless, emotional. Am I wrong on this? She wants to go to war because she is restless. That is basically the message I got from the film. She doesn’t want to live in a “cage”. Modern-day female audiences are suppoed to relate to that, I guess.

In the book, Eowyn is cold. The word “frost” is used repeatedly. There is actually something wrong with her – and I mean, inside. Something has hardened within her. She cannot accept softness. She cannot accept a hand outstretched. And when Aragorn does not return her love – she decides that death would be her only attractive choice. It’s not a feministic struggle against the ties that bind women to the home – or, at least it’s not just that. She has a wounded soul, and yet she does not allow herself any weakness – She is cold, as Tolkien tells us again and again.

Not by any stretch of the imagination could the character as depicted in the film be portrayed as COLD. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite. She comes off as impulsive, loving, emotional – Her soul shines through her face.

Eowyn in the book would never be so open. At the end of the book, in the Houses of Healing, is when Faramir finally cracks through the ice. She is not well, she is not healing – I suppose Tolkien suggests that this is so because there is something wrong in her psyche. A coldness, a hardness – She cannot accept Faramir’s love, she wants no pity – she only wants death. She yearns for death.

What – a movie audience couldn’t accept a young woman who is cold, frosty, unemotional – and yet who also deeply loves Aragorn and is devastated when he doesn’t return her feelings – and yet who also has a deep death wish …?

I think they could.

I actually related more to the Eowyn in the book. She’s tragic. Her soul has turned to ice. She hates her life – she hates having been born “in the body of a maid” as Faramir says – and if she can’t have the love of one man, then she chooses death. She wants glory, she wants to have something BIG happen to her. But the quest does not enliven her, the quest for having something BIG happen to her does not envigorate her, or make her excited – It turns her to ice. That’s a very human thing. I loved her.

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7 Responses to The Ring Trilogy: Eowyn

  1. Mike says:

    Amen to all that. And damn them for what they did to Faramir, too.

  2. mj says:

    I was going to suggest Faramir, and Arwen, who never trained for battle in the book. They also left out Denethor’s excuse for his actions: that he was influenced by Sauron after using the palantir.

  3. Ron says:

    Eowyn and Faramir are certainly the most extreme cases of characters being changed for no particularly good reason. But there are others as well. More subtle, but more bizarre because I can’t see at all what the point would be. Why do they change the point of view of all the characters about whether or not to go to Moria?
    Why do they have Merry and Pippin come along by accident? I also don’t understand why Merry and Pippin are spying on the secret council at Rivendell, but at least that is more in character with the characters from the book.

  4. Emily says:

    Sheila — a LOTR note, though completely unrelated to Eowyn. I hope you don’t mind.

    I finally got around to watching the “making of” extras on the extended Two Towers DVD. I never thought much of the look of Haladir, him having that whole elven androgeny thing going on and all, but have you seen the actor who plays him out of costume? OH MY GOD. “Adonis” would be an understatement.

  5. Dave J says:

    MJ, the film does hint at Denethor’s use of the palantir: he asks Gandalf, “do you think the eyes of the White Tower are blind?” I suspect it’s yet another something else that might show up in the extended edition.

    As for Arwen wielding a sword, I don’t think there’s really anything wrong with that in theory (Galadriel and her cousin Aredhel both fought alongside the boys in the First Age), just that in practice Liv Tyler isn’t believable doing much of anything. But then, Glorfindel as deus ex machina at the same point in the book really makes even less sense if you think about it: the presence of a First Age elvish hero in Middle Earth, who was killed in the Silmarillion but for some unexplained reason is back from Valinor, pretty severely undercuts the rest of Tolkien’s theme about the elves being in decline.

  6. red says:

    I have not seen our androgynous Haladir … Now I have to find a photo of him out of elven garb.

  7. Emily says:

    Do yourself the favor, Sheila. And have something cloth-like handy to wipe away the drool.

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