#Eomund

[mummelthecryptid]

The royal line of Rohan on inherited mental illness

[torchwood-99]

Princess Diaries AU Crack

Modern setting.

Ok so Theodwyn hated the royal life. The press, the lack of freedom, the rigid expectations, all made worse by the sexism she faced from the court and the public alike, made her drop the royal life at first chance by marrying against her parents' wishes to a divorced soldier, resulting in her dropping her title.

She becomes Mrs Theodwyn Aldburg, wife of Captain Eomund Aldburg, and they spend their married life travelling from army base to army base. Although the scandal is remembered, by the time Theodwyn is forty, barely anyone recognises her as the former princess of Rohan. When Theoden becomes king, he offers to reinstate her title, but she refuses as she likes the private life.

Eomer and Eowyn do get to know Theoden and Theodred, but only in private, domestic settings, and Theodwyn insists they aren't told about their royal heritage until they're adults, especially Eowyn, who she wants to shield from the experiences she went through.

Eomer is told when he's eighteen, but agrees to keep it from Eowyn. Having lived their lives on army bases, they're fully enmeshed in that world, and both of them plan to go into the army, Eomer following their father's footsteps, and Eowyn as an airforce search and rescue medic. So when Eomer finds out he's technically royalty, it's weird, but it's so removed from real life that it doesn't overwhelm him.

Then the year Eowyn turns sixteen, Eomund and Theodred both die on campaign. Theodwyn, who has always struggled with her mental health, doesn't die but goes off the rails and disappears (she's later found living in a commune in Lossenarch), leaving Eomer Theoden's heir, and Eowyn under Theoden's guardianship.

Now Eomer has had his heart set on following his father's footsteps, but after Theodred's loss and due to the lack of heirs, parliament want to keep him from serving on the front lines or doing anything too dangerous. Cue a big blow up, and Eomer, desperate to honour his father's legacy, agrees to forfeit his right to the throne.

This leaves Eowyn, semi-orphaned, abandoned by her mother, the last heir to the throne of Rohan. As she is not yet eighteen, she falls under Theoden's guardianship, and cannot legally renounce her claim to the throne until she is an adult, leaving her the heir by default.

The only other heirs are distant cousins who for various reasons Theoden and Parliament do not want on the throne, (being unsuitable for the throne personality wise, or having lived all their lives in Gondor).

Cue Princess Diaries plot, with former tomboy army brat having to adjust to life in the palace, living under the media spotlight, being groomed for leadership, all the while trying to decide if she wants to renounce her claim on reaching the age of majority, or becoming Rohan's first ruling queen.

*If we want to bring in a teen romance, Faramir Steward is the son of the Gondorian Ambassador, who has lived his life around royalty and know all about protocol, offers/is enlisted in helping Eowyn adjust to the royal lifestyle.

[emmanuellececchi]

A sad and yet very beautiful story. your way with words is always impressive. I am in awe of your writing, as I am in awe with how you show those emotions , those moments...

🥀 Unwary 🥀

After working on and off for MONTHS and staring at it a long time, here’s the Théodwyn story many of you have heard me agonizing over. I can’t look at it anymore, so we’re just hitting “post”!

It’s called Unwary, which is one of the few words Tolkien gives us to describe Théodwyn’s husband Éomund. He was a “hater of orcs” who often rode against them “in hot anger, unwarily and with few men.” That got him killed and, shortly thereafter, Théodwyn herself died of an illness. This story is my attempt to tie all that together.

Note that Théodwyn’s 3 (canonical but nameless) sisters are here; they came to help after Éomund’s death. You’ll see I gave 2 of them Gondorian names; more explanation of that at the bottom if you’re interested.

There is a fire inside Théodwyn that will not be doused.

It has smoldered for years, just waiting for the breath of air that would coax its glowing embers to life and send a wave of flame racing through her as though she were made not of bone and blood but of kindling and fuel. Now lit by Éomund’s inevitable death, the fire burns bigger and hotter each new day that dawns without him, and it laps at her heart, singeing and charring until there is nothing left but heat. Gone is anything soft and pliant, anything tender or understanding, replaced instead by blistering fury.

She stalks the plains outside of Aldburg in the dark, crunching heavily over glittering, frost encrusted grass. She is trying to outrun that fury, though a fortnight of this new nightly ritual has achieved no such thing so far. But if she cannot leave her anger behind, maybe she can still exhaust it, tire it enough that it can be wrestled into submission and leave her in peace. Deep down, she suspects the effort is in vain, but she has no better plan. She is bereft of ideas, just as she is now bereft of laughter and sympathy and hope. Her husband is just one of many things suddenly missing from her life, and he is not the one she most wants back.

Sweat soaks into both her dress and cloak, and large red blooms form on her cheeks. Each gale of frigid wind catches the dampness at the small of her back or along her hairline beneath her hood, and sends a wave of wracking chills across her heated skin. But her pace never falters despite the passing of long hours and long miles. Over the sound of her boots grinding delicate ice into so many shattered crystals, she mutters her mantra again and again, hissing out the words in time with the rhythm of her steps.

I knew this would happen. I knew this would happen. I knew this would happen.

The night is her time to let this anger out, far away from Éomer and Éowyn, both much too young to be burdened with the knowledge that their dead father was a reckless fool. Someone who couldn’t control his own impetuous need to act and, worse, refused to accept a cautioning hand even from one he professed to honor and cherish. She had begged him not to go, to delay for even a single hour until more men could be gathered to join his small party of riders. But he had been blind, as ever, to anything but his own rash impulses and instincts. He had scoffed at her fears, swept aside her concerns, given bold assurances that weren’t in his power to make. And now he was being hailed as a fallen hero while she was left alone with the consequences of his folly, to manage a tragic loss that she knew to be entirely of his own making.

She hadn’t always felt this way about him. There was a time when she found his passion and spontaneity exciting. Stirring. Romantic. To be the object of his attentions, to be the desire that he would overturn the world to sate, was a special brand of intoxicant, and she drank it in willingly. His quickness to action and his unfailing courage set him apart from other men, and he gained much by risking more than others could stomach. She felt his every gain as her own, and they ran heedless together through the world, two free souls as yet unchecked by the realities of life.

But what felt brave and thrilling and decisive when they were twenty had begun to look much different on the doorstep of forty, when he had already gained more than most men could dream of and only stood now to lose what had been so daringly won. Slowly, creepingly, she began to see his whims as childish, his zealotry as self indulgent. It surprised her every bit as much as him, but somewhere along the way, with age and responsibility and perspective, she became the person who would check him as life never had. The person to ask questions, to say no, to thwart his boldest ambitions and disappoint his most absurd hopes.

Whenever she did, he would look at her as though he looked upon a stranger, an unrecognizable drudge that had stolen the body of his daring and passionate wife. He would look at her as though she had broken faith with him, betraying their bond by choosing to accept that they lived in a world of constraints and limitations. And then she would hate herself, and him, too.

A dull, thudding pain hammers away in the space right behind her eyes, and her muscles and joints ache with every wearied step, calling out for rest. To sit or lay quietly for a while might ease the strain that has increasingly weighed on her body these last few days, the strain of too little sleep, too little food, too little protection from the harsh bite of winter. But she no longer cares for physical ease or comfort. She can endure without them; it has always been the way of the Rohirrim to bear such things without complaint. What she cannot bear is the seething in her mind during moments of stillness, those times of lonely silence while others sleep and she can only gnaw on the bones of her grievances and look with contempt at her memories now tainted by abandonment. And so she stomps through the cold desolation instead, the frozen cloud of her breath drifting along in the wake of a body indulging in the only escape available.

She knows she should be at home in case her children need her, and she knows that her sisters disapprove of how she has been acting. You’ll catch your death out there, says Edlenniel each night as she walks out the door. You need to start taking better care of yourself, clucks Théopryte, a critical eye cast over her increasingly bony figure, her unkempt hair. And this, too, makes her angry, the insistence of her elder sisters on treating her as though she is still a child even now. Nothing she does is ever good enough in their eyes – her home is too untidy, her language too profane, her daughter too much at liberty to run wild rather than learning the ways of respectable girlhood. And now she cannot even grieve correctly.

In truth, she had not expected to mourn this way. The day Éomund rode off, she had imagined her own reaction to the eventual return of his meager company without him. Sorrow, longing, despair, regret – these had been anticipated despite her frustrations. But when Éothain knocked at her door with the news, watery eyes rimmed with red and a battered horse-tailed helmet in hand, she felt none of those things. They vanished in an instant, disappeared from her heart and mind, perhaps never to return. Instead, she became like the cicadas that come to Rohan every dozen years and litter the ground with their delicate molted shells, perfectly formed images of themselves that have been deserted, no longer fit for use and liable to shatter under the slightest of pressures.

Now every interaction, every well-meaning friend or suffering relative, is at risk of being the next target of the dull blade of her anger, always at the ready to hack and slice ineffectually at those who draw her attention and, thus, her scorn. The neighbors who look at her pityingly as they pass by. The men of Éomund’s company who expect her to join them in their grief. Even her sweet son, all knobby knees and gangly elbows, works an inflamed nerve as he swings a sword much too big for him, vowing to protect their house now in his father’s absence. It’s a mother’s job to protect her child, not the other way around, she says to the thin frame and slight shoulders that are not yet grown enough to bear his own charge. You have years left just to be a boy, safe under my care. But it is said through gritted teeth, her tone emotionless, and he doesn’t believe her.

She has enough awareness still to see what she’s become, and though she cannot change it, she knows to try to hide it. She labors each day to be the mother her children need, sitting with them as they cry and holding her tongue when they paint Éomund in their remembrances as a valiant hero, a man to rival all the greatest legends of song. But they know that something isn’t right within her; some voice inside their childlike minds warns them of peril in the one place where they were trained never to expect it. Éomer has stopped asking why she doesn’t cry, and Éowyn now clearly prefers to seek her comfort from Tadiel, whose soft arms, doughy middle and doting indulgence provide what Théodwyn’s sharp, angular body and brittle bearing simply can’t or won’t.

As it inches toward sunrise, she reluctantly turns toward home again, where soon the rest of the household will begin to stir and her absence will be noted, frowned about and tsked over. The judgment of her sisters is no real concern, but she doesn’t want to add to the worries of her children. For them, she will fight to maintain even the barest pretense of normalcy. For her children, she will sit in that house among the remains of Éomund’s life – his belongings, his clothes, his scent – and she will struggle to breathe through the poisonous resentment that is trapped in her throat because she cannot allow it to pass her lips. For her children, she will choke.

The gate comes into view and, beyond it, the garden that she once loved and nurtured into glory, now gone dormant for the winter. She stumbles on the rise to the path, and a knee drives into the frozen ground. She rights herself with difficulty, grunting in the effort, and she curses at this clumsiness. Weakness of body has never been a challenge of hers, and she cannot understand the heavy, dragging feeling that follows her to the door. For the first time, she considers whether everything – the throbbing head, the sweating skin, the screaming joints – is not just a product of exertion but something more serious. Something brought on by the refusal to rest, to eat, to stay warm, to accept comfort and support. It is an unsettling thought, and she tries to push it from her mind as she slips quietly inside.

The frozen sting in her fingertips and toes is a strange counterpoint to the burning heat of her forehead and cheeks, and she collapses into a chair by the fire, waiting out the gradual thaw of her frost-dulled limbs and the eventual return of her body to how it is supposed to feel. But though her fingers slowly lose their bluish tinge and sensation tentatively returns to her feet, the heat in her face and the exhaustion in her muscles only grow. Time ticks by, innumerable minutes that seem like hours, and she can feel it all continue to worsen. What little energy she had now spills from her body like the blood of the stags that Éomund used to hunt, their carcasses sliced open and left to drain. A shiver runs through her, once and then again and again and again, every time stronger until the shivers are full-body spasms that clack her teeth together, threatening to catch her tongue in each jolt. A low, groaning noise fills the room, and she discovers with surprise that it is coming from her own throat.

Good gods, Théodwyn. What have you done to yourself? Edlenniel is in the doorway, and the horrified alarm in her voice is enough to smother the instinct to snap in response. What has she done? She tries to stand, but her legs don’t respond. A strange distance has crept in and inserted itself between the intentions of her mind and the obedience of her body. She wills herself up again and lurches forward with great effort. Is she standing now? She cannot be, not with the cool, smooth stone of the floor somehow pressed to her flushed cheek. She would lift her head to check, but the exhaustion is so heavy that it pins her down, the turning of a screw that secures her, motionless, to wherever she has landed.

Her mind becomes slow and hazy, her sight flickering in and out as though she is passing quickly between rooms that are brightly lit and others that are in total darkness. Théopryte is there and then not. Calls for help are relayed down the hall, and more people rush in. Tadiel pulls Éomer from the doorway, a hand over his eyes as though the sight of his mother is too frightful for him even to look upon. Clamoring, urgent voices echo around inside Théodwyn’s head until they are no longer intelligible to her, just a whirling churn of volumes and tones. She floats, alone and disconnected, in a sea of others’ panic.

A man’s face appears in her field of vision, lifting her up and carrying her to a nearby couch. Théodred? It comes out as a hoarse whisper, and the face shakes its head. No, of course not. Her beloved nephew doesn’t live in Aldburg and never has. A neighbor, then? Or servant? She loses interest before she can unravel the mystery, distracted by a painful new sensation that prickles across the surface of her skin like a thousand small needles. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to exhale the pain with her every labored breath.

Uncounted hours pass, and she is now in her own bed, though she cannot recall being brought there. It takes all her effort just to keep her eyes open, and each time she blinks, it feels like scraping her eyelids over sand. She drifts in and out of lucidity, bobbing in a current of confused thought like a small boat tied up at the edge of a running river. When she’s lost, she is certain she can see Éomund in the corner, watching her in grave silence. When she’s present, she hears bits and snatches of hushed conversation, all in the voices of her sisters. The healer says there is nothing more to be done, says one. Such an awful waste, sniffles another. I knew this would happen, sighs the third. But who could stop her from running herself into the ground this way? She’s always done just what she wanted, no matter how rash or irresponsible.

Amidst all her pains, these words hit her like a blow, and an immediate, convulsive heaving in her stomach has others running for the healer again to manage this fresh symptom of her malady. But she knows it for what it really is: the retching out of unwelcome truth, her body’s rejection of this simple distillation of her fate. Recovery is not coming. She will die here in this bed, and her death will be needless. Pointless. And all the more shameful because she should have known better. She could have heeded the cautions and warnings of others.

Edlenniel leans her over a bowl as she empties herself of what little she’s eaten in the last day, and the bitter taste in her mouth lingers even after she has swirled and spat out many mouthfuls of water. It lingers as she collapses back into the sweat-soaked sheets that cling to every inch of exposed skin. It lingers as her addled mind struggles to reckon with the weight and cost of her mistake, this tragedy of her own making. It will always linger, for all the minutes she has left in the world and for the eternity that stretches out into the boundless, unknown future beyond it.

Her head lolls weakly to one side, and she can see Éomund in the corner still watching, silent and attentive. His face is not impassive, but calm. He accepts what has happened, is happening, will happen, and she must accept it, too. He dissolves into a vague blur as hot tears begin to spill down her cheeks, and whether they are tears for him or for herself, she isn’t sure. When she blinks her eyes clear again, he has moved closer to the bedside. He smiles softly, the wistful look of one who knows what it is to carry the burden of self-blame past any hope of remedy, and he reaches toward her with an open hand. A hand of consolation and invitation.

She will take it, but not yet.

Bring the children, she rasps out.

There is a moment’s debate in the room, furious whispers that drift to her ears. Not something a child should witness, she hears. There may not be time to wait, is the response. She repeats her request, louder this time, and the debate intensifies, rising in pitch and strength. But before the argument can resolve itself, Éomer has pushed in from the hallway, towing little Éowyn by the hand. Her words have reached them on their own.

She struggles to bring her son and daughter into focus, just as they struggle to see the outlines of their strong, capable mother in this frail, spiritless form. She craves nothing more than rest, but she knows she cannot; if she rests now, she will not wake again. She takes each one by the hand, their skin cold and dry against her own clammy fingers and palms, and presses those hands to her lips.

Be good for your uncle, she tells them. Your cousin will love you as a brother.

Éomer, quicker to understand, begins to cry, and his tears trigger Éowyn’s. Soon all three are crying together, for both the first and last time.

You deserve better than this, she should say. I have failed you, she wants to say. But would it give them any comfort to know that she belatedly understands her own mistakes? That left to do it all again, she would guarantee that they would never be without their mother? What can she tell them now that will help and not hurt, that will be a gift and not a hindrance? She swallows hard, and it is like swallowing gravel. Your father and I did the best we could, she whispers. The two of you will do better, and we will be proud.

She drops back to the pillow, exhausted beyond measure, and someone bundles the children back out into the hall again. Éomund smiles at her, and she nods. Her eyes drift closed as his hand wraps around hers, and the burning in her heart and skin slowly fades, the fire extinguished at last.

A note on the sisters of Théoden: Their father, Thengel, ran away to Gondor as a young man and lived there for a huge chunk of his life. He married Morwen, a Gondorian woman, and Tolkien tells us he only went back to Rohan “unwillingly” to take up the throne after his own father died. 2 of his daughters and his son were born in Gondor before that happened, and my HC is that all 3 of them had Gondorian names because, at the time, Thengel never had any intention of ever going back. So that gives us Edlenniel (“daughter of the exile,” since that’s how he saw himself) and Tadiel (“second daughter,” so overshadowed by her siblings that Thengel couldn’t be bothered to even give her an interesting name).

Théoden himself had a Gondorian name as well (Arnhereg, “royal blood”) but he changed it to something Rohirric (Théoden means “leader of the people”) when the family went back to Rohan both because he wanted to fit in better and because it seemed only appropriate that the future king of Rohan have a Rohirric name. Then when the other two sisters were born in Rohan, they were given Rohirric names as well (Théopryte, “pride of the people,” who was extremely beautiful; and Théodwyn, “joy of the people,” who was full of spirit).

3 of the 4 sisters were dead by the time of the War of the Ring (Edlenniel from old age, Théopryte from an accident, and Théodwyn as described here), and Tadiel had gone back to Gondor. Edlenniel never had any children and Tadiel and Théopryte had only daughters, which is why we don’t hear anything about other cousins that might have competed with Éomer for the throne after Théodred’s death. I’ve made a backstory for each of the sisters, but no use putting that all here since I’ve already gone on too long!

(Dividers by the wonderful @quillofspirit !)

[severussnapedamagedlove]

Do people like Eomer (LOTR) fanfics? i have one that is kind of my baby and I want to release it, but it's important that it is loved so I'm nervous

[theleakypen]

'We shall see,' said Éomer. 'So many strange things have chanced that to learn the praise of a fair lady under the loving strokes of a Dwarf's axe will seem no great wonder. Farewell!'

To this day one of the best lines in the whole of the Lord of the Rings

[killbilled]

“But to some one I must now entrust my people that I leave behind, to rule them in my place. Which of you will stay?” No man spoke. “Is there none whom you would name? In whom do my people trust?” “In the House of Eorl,” answered Hama. “But Eomer I cannot spare, nor would he stay,” said the king; “and he is the last of that House.” “I said not Eomer,” answered Hama. “And he is not the last. There is Eowyn, daughter of Eomund, his sister. She is fearless and high-hearted. All love her. Let her be as lord to the Eorlingas, while we are gone.”

“It shall be so,” said Theoden. “Let the heralds announce to the folk that the Lady Eowyn will lead them!”

- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

[khantoelessar]

OH Yeah!

— Éowyn, The Battle of the Pelennor Fields

Paintings by Matthew Stewart, Nick Robles, Chris Rahn, Çağlayan Kaya Göksoy, Craig Spearing, and Stephen Graham Walsh

[emmanuellececchi]

Following the post about conflict between Faramir-Eowyn and Eomer-Lothiriel

and hoping we will be able to reblog all without Tumblr tumbling. @from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras I can't for the lvoe of me, access @celeluwhenfics reblog as well... @torchwood-99 I am tagging you a well so that you can jump in, idem for @dilettantefeminist I saw you there but not sure if you did write or not... it seems there is a bug.

As it is, I didn't write a conflict for Eomer and Lothiriel about the language. On the other hand (@from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras thinking about you) I studied a bit about Thengel and Theodean languages... and the conflict thereafter... For Tirwald story XD.

One thing had been pointed out on various site about Tolkien lore is that "the royal family was speaking Sindarin and Westron" in Rohan, after Thengel and Theoden. So: Eowyn and Eomer are certainly speaking Westron and Sindarin AND Rohanese, as Theoden, unlike his dad, made sure to learn Rohanese, even having his name changed (although it might be Thengel doing... it was a bit confusing).

So, I am still convinced Eomer and Eowyn know how to write, because Theoden and his sisters knew how too. Although Eomund might have seen that differently (and so maybe they learned it later in life) and they know three languages. And of course, Theodred knew how to speak and write as well

Now about Faramir and Boromir (I alsmot write Borodred). They know Sindarin and Westron. And here I guess: Boromir knew Rohanese. Why? He was known and respected by Rohan. Something implying he went there often enough. And so I guess he learned it for strategic reasons (or reasons of the heart - as you see fit). But Faramir? I don't think he would. Denethor would tolerate this from Boromir, but never from his younger son. Maybe Faramir would be curious enough to try to learn it on his own of course, so maybe he would knew a few words.

Lothriel knows Sindarin and Westron but certainly not much of Rohanese or at all. On the other, and mostly because this is how I see her, once she get to know Eomer, she might just decide to learn it. As a way of expressing herself/rebelling against her entourage. And to surprise him. She would be shy about it at first but I can imagine how Eomer would feel when she tries to speak it (sorry I digress).

So, to come back to conflict: Eowyn and Faramir have certainly (and they're known characters with establish personnality) some cause for friction ("some" XD). As for Eomer and Lothiriel, it will essentilly depends on how Lothiriel is written. We know a bit about her family, link to others and gondorian context. But nothing about her personna. So I guess my answer to @torchwood-99 for them would be: you can have as much or as few conflicts as you want with Eomer and Lothiriel ;)

[graveyardgremlins]

Her fist connected with his face, sending his glasses flying and making him stumble backwards, falling ass first to the floor. Her knuckles cracked and burned with the impact and her arm protested, as if she had torn something. Her red hair, that had been tied up, broke free from the tie and landed on her face. She puffed angry breaths, like a dragon.

"But no living man am I! You look upon a woman." Lily thought. "Eowyn I am, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him."

"I will smite you, if you touch him again," she said.

The satisfaction that her violence brought her made all the pain worth it. Lily Evans had never been a damnsel in need of rescuing and she never would. She was bright! And no boy, let alone James Potter, would make her feel anything less.

She looked down on him, eyes blazing and a firm frown holding back her urge to smile. And, in the seconds before her knuckes had kissed his skin and he had raised his hand to craddle his broken nose, she could swear she saw him smile too. He looked up at her and she was trapped in that moment with him.

Was violence truly his language? Had she spoken it and he understood it? Or was this only a moment in which two people found themselves in synchrony?

None of her questions would ever be answered, as his friends broke the spell by scrambling to collect him and get him up. Her own friend, whom she had been defending, moved to grab her arm and pull her away.

Severus was saying something. An apology for causing her trouble, cursing the other boys, asking her about the state of her hand, but she couldn't focus. All she could think about was how James had been laying down at her feet bleeding and smiling.

Maybe she understood the hype around him after all.

[lolotr]

I'm capping it at ten otherwise we'll be here forever

tagging @queerofthedagger @the-ipre @athymelyreply @many-gay-magpies @schweetheart and anyone else who wants to do it!!

[khantoelessar]

OH this is heartachingly wonderful!

Raven and Golden, August 2024

Faramir and Eowyn found each other while waiting for the great battle, worried, unable to fight because they had already been hurt by the great evil. They helped each other heal, both physically and emotionally. We don't know enough about their cinematic versions, as we barely get to know them in the book, but it's enough to love them unconditionally. It took me a long time to find a good reference pic (even this one might be a montage of different stills?) but then, the colouring came easily and beautifully.

[mummelthecryptid]

eowyn realising she inherited the worst traits of her parents,,, eowyn who sees her fathers recklessness reflected in herself knowing it brought him death. Eowyn who knows that while her mothers despair was visible in the way she slowly rotted away, her own resulted in her trying to get herself killed in battle.

[torchwood-99]

Prompts inspired by @from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

Question: since Eowyn and Eomer have the same parents (read: Eomund’s hothead genes), do you believe Eowyn would be just as hotheaded as her brother if she were a man? As a lady, there were different expectations of her, so perhaps that’s why we don’t get to see much of that hotheadedness?

Ooh, thinking about what someone with Éowyn’s personality but who was born into the opportunities and freedoms that men had is a really interesting exercise! Thanks for asking! ❤️

I do believe Éowyn had those same hothead genes, and I actually think that we can already see them in her in the canonical story. She doesn’t have all the same opportunity as a man to show it, but she does repeatedly act impulsively and decisively; is very brave and heedless of danger; is very consumed with realizing her own goals to the exclusion of other considerations, etc. — all characteristics that are definitely hothead-adjacent.

When Aragorn unexpectedly appears in Rohan, representing everything that Éowyn wants to be and do and achieve, she wastes very little time before she is literally begging him to take her away with him. She’s immediately willing to throw overboard almost everything about her life to date to follow a man she barely knows into a situation that she doesn’t fully understand. That’s not exactly careful, rational decision making (even if we, as readers, don’t disagree with her choice!). We also famously see her boldly defy the orders of her father figure and king by sneaking into battle on her own — and with an unauthorized hobbit in tow! — not because she made a reasoned calculation about what was best for Rohan or Théoden or herself but simply because she was so singularly focused on her own goal. So again, even if we are entirely sympathetic to that decision and in retrospect know that it was the right one, that’s got some clear hothead vibes that go with it. 

She also repeatedly courts death, mouths off to the Witch King himself (“be gone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion!”) and laughs in his face, demands to be put back into battle as soon as she’s awake again in the houses of healing even though she doesn’t know anything about how conditions have changed since her injury, and is a little bristle-y with Faramir in some of their early interactions, jumping to her own conclusions about what he thinks and means when he speaks to her. All of that feels consistent to me with someone who is quick to their emotions, recklessly brave, and willing to act without sitting around to carefully analyze a situation first. She even talks about herself as being ungentle and a wild woman that others might seek to tame, which suggests to me that she also saw herself as embodying many of those same hotheads traits — bold, unconventional, potentially dangerous, etc. 

So I think she and Éomer both show some signs of hotheadedness throughout the story, and I think they show that a little hotheadedness isn’t always a bad thing! Éomund just had way too much of it and was impervious to being curbed, whereas Éomer takes advice when it’s given and Éowyn comes to see that acting with more deliberateness (as Faramir does) isn’t a bad thing either.

But all that leaves open to question whether Éowyn would have been an even bigger hothead if she had been a man. I see two possibilities there. Either her personality would have been exactly the same but the effect of her actions and behavior would have been magnified (making Lord Éowyn SEEM like a bigger hothead than Lady Éowyn) because a male version of her would have had more opportunities to follow his impulses and cause a ruckus. OR, perhaps some of her instincts would have actually been dampened a little bit by the additional freedoms of life as a man — without some of the (entirely justified!!!) resentment and frustrations that Lady Éowyn felt, perhaps Lord Éowyn would have been a bit mellower. I’m inclined toward a middle ground — some of the latter, but with the clear stipulation that even then Lord Éowyn was NEVER going to be an entirely cool, collected cucumber because that’s just not his core personality or how this family works! 

All my own 2 cents of course. I’d be very curious to hear others’ thoughts as well! 

[severussnapedamagedlove]

Eomer: Your hair looks nice. I like what you’ve done with it. Changed it? Washed it maybe?

Eowyn: …

Faramir: 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Éomer sits on the edge of whether or not he should inquire. Decides to push himself off into his choice: ‘What is it?’ ‘My lord?’ ‘What are you thinking over? It’s something to do with…we need a name for him [Saruman].’ ‘The Collector,’ Gríma says far too swiftly for Éomer’s liking. ‘He collects things. Keeps them in cabinets that line the walls of this one room…Specimens—insects pinned to boards, birds, also jars with preserved animals, body parts. All meticulously labelled—’ ‘And this is the man you thought to follow?’ ‘It’s a study, Éomer. Have you never wondered how something works? Take apart an animal to see what goes where inside of it? How some deaths are caused by things unseen to the naked eye? Have you never wondered?’ ‘Not about that.’ ‘Whatever it is you have wondered about, there is likely an answer to it in Orthanc. The books he has, a tremendous number. More than any one man could read in a lifetime.’ ‘Is there an answer to that time the sun disappeared?’ Éomer asks, harsher than intended. ‘Is there an answer to why some men seem incapable of love while others love too much? Is there an answer to why some children die in their cot and others live to adulthood? Is there an answer to why there is evil in this world? Is there an answer to why there is good? Why is it we all have both inside of us and some are able to do what is right while others struggle?’ Gríma looks at Éomer for the first time since they began this strange, evening conversation. Eyes wide, pools of black ink, lips in a thin line like a suture. Éomer believes he is being weighed. He believes some unknowable calculation is being thought through. [...] ‘Collector,’ Éomer prompts. ‘I dislike it. It makes my skin crawl.’ Gríma lifts an eyebrow, face profile to Éomer for he continues to study the blinking red of the cinders. ‘It makes it seem as if he views everyone and everything as nothing more than objects,’ Éomer continues. ‘Something to use up, discard. Like those specimens you described, but instead of snakes or frogs or what-have-you it is people.’ ‘Sometimes,’ Gríma murmurs. ‘It is sometimes like that.’ Should Éomer ask if Gríma is being literal? ‘What troubles you?’ Éomer tries, instead.   ‘What is this?’ Gríma bites back, but with little heat. ‘Éomer son of Éomund is interested in Wyrmtunga’s well-being?’ ‘I am interested in you remaining well enough to see this through to the end. After that point, I care not what comes of you.’

"I don't care about you beyond this plot we have going together" says Eomer son of Eomund, a lying liar who lies.

also man I love Grima being like "This is very normal!!" about Saruman and Eomer being like "This is not, in fact, normal!! This is, in fact, deranged behaviour!!"