{"id":311,"date":"2004-01-07T07:47:48","date_gmt":"2004-01-07T12:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=311"},"modified":"2015-05-13T18:13:18","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T22:13:18","slug":"the-ring-trilogy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=311","title":{"rendered":"The Ring Trilogy:  Eowyn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0345538374&#038;asins=0345538374&#038;linkId=MZBIH42RXYNR73R7&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nOne brief comment:<\/p>\n<p>The character of Eowyn in the film is completely unrecognizable from the character that Tolkien wrote.<\/p>\n<p>So far as I can tell, this is the most extreme example, when comparing the movie and the book.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not talking about what was left out, the scenes in the Houses of Healing, etc.  I&#8217;m really talking about the actual spirit of the character, the INTENT of the character.  Characters do have souls, you know.  And Eowyn&#8217;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&#8217;t want to live in a &#8220;cage&#8221;. Modern-day female audiences are suppoed to relate to that, I guess.<\/p>\n<p>In the book, Eowyn is cold. The word &#8220;frost&#8221; is used repeatedly.  There is actually something wrong with her &#8211; 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 &#8211; she decides that death would be her only attractive choice.  It&#8217;s not a feministic struggle against the ties that bind women to the home &#8211; or, at least it&#8217;s not just that.  She has a wounded soul, and yet she does not allow herself any weakness &#8211; She is cold, as Tolkien tells us again and again.<\/p>\n<p>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 &#8211; Her soul shines through her face.<\/p>\n<p>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 &#8211; I suppose Tolkien suggests that this is so because there is something wrong in her psyche.  A coldness, a hardness &#8211; She cannot accept Faramir&#8217;s love, she wants no pity &#8211; she only wants death.  She yearns for death.<\/p>\n<p>What &#8211; a movie audience couldn&#8217;t accept a young woman who is cold, frosty, unemotional &#8211; and yet who also deeply loves Aragorn and is devastated when he doesn&#8217;t return her feelings &#8211; and yet who also has a deep death wish &#8230;?<\/p>\n<p>I think they could.<\/p>\n<p>I actually related more to the Eowyn in the book.  She&#8217;s tragic.  Her soul has turned to ice.  She hates her life &#8211; she hates having been born &#8220;in the body of a maid&#8221; as Faramir says &#8211; and if she can&#8217;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 &#8211; It turns her to ice.  That&#8217;s a very human thing.  I loved her.<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=0345538374&#038;asins=0345538374&#038;linkId=MZBIH42RXYNR73R7&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8217;m not &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=311\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[262,1095],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101202,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/101202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}