#eomund and theodwyn you ARE the parents!

[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.

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

I've just finished reading 'Unwary'.

This was amazing - thank you for writing and sharing, and thank you for tagging me!

I can certainly sympathize with Theodwyn's view on Eomund. The things that make a man exciting at 20 quite often make him childish and irritating at 40 if he doesn't grow up and move beyond him.

Then we discover, Theodwyn is just as flawed that way herself. Also incapable of heeding the advice of others, not accepting she needs to change and behave more sensibly until it's too late.

I loved the add-on stuff about Thengel. I headcanon Thengel as being a hard, authoritarian father who set high standards and expected obedience (hence why Theoden is so worried about being worthy of his ancestors), and struggled to show love, especially to his kids. I also headcanon that one of the daughters was completely overlooked because she was quieter and plainer than her more glamorous and outgoing siblings. The 'second daughter' name in your story is a great but painful touch.

Would be interesting to see a follow-up from Eomer's perspective. The son who loves his parents unconditionally as a child realizes as an adult how flawed they both were. And perhaps it gives him some painful moments of self-reflection, sitting in vigil over Eowyn in the Halls of Healing after the Battle of Pelennor Fields, accepting that he himself suffers from the same rash stubbornness, and it almost got him killed as well. He tells himself he needs to do better and be better going forward, if he is to be a good King.

Beautifully done. Thank you again, for your lovely work :)

Thank you so very much! What a lovely message!

I think you and I are in a very similar place about Thengel! As someone who’s own father was a damn mess, he never had a good role model for fatherhood and so prioritized easily quantifiable things like discipline and obedience over squishier stuff like feelings, which he would never have imagined talking about with his dad. And since he was essentially forced back to Rohan against his will, I think that would also have made him very particular about wanting to have everything his own way once he was there. (Like an “I’m compensating for my lack of control in being here by overly controlling everything else” kind of deal.)

What you say about the lingering effect of the deaths of Éomund and Théodwyn on Éomer (and Éowyn) is really interesting. I sort of walked up to the edge of that in an earlier story, but I’d like to re-look at that now that I have a clearer sense in my own mind of how things went down with the parents. I wonder how much of the true circumstances of their deaths the kids would have ever been told. Éomund’s death was a matter of military tactics gone bad, so they probably would have learned that over time just from a description of the bare facts. But beyond knowing that their mother became inexplicably ill and died, did they know any more about the context?

It’s really interesting to think about and something I’d love to read more about, too, if anyone else has written (or will write) on that same overall theme!

(Also, have I ever told you that your Éomer “listen up fives, a ten is speaking” gifs are one of my ALL TIME favorite LOTR memes??? ♥️)

[essenceofarda]

Why not Theodwyn or Eomund for the ask meme? If they are too obscure characters/you have no hcs for them, then Eowyn and Faramir?

Oh! I’ll do all four if you don’t mind :)

Theodwyn and Eomund: Theodwyn was a wild filly when she was young, but matured as she got older (she never was rid of that wild spirit of hers tho). She wears the pants in the family re: her relationship with Eomund 😆 

She was pregnant when Eomund died, and due to stress/grief/subsequent complications with the pregnancy died along with her unborn child. (which is why i also headcanon Éomer as very nervous whenever Lothíriel is pregnant bc he’s remembers losing his mother dying while pregnant).

I don’t have a picture of her doodled out and read to post rn but I headcanon Theodwyn as half middle eastern on her mother (Morwen)’s side. Or the Middle Earth equivalent of half Middle Eastern.

Éowyn: This is so difficult to answer bc i have so many for both her and Faramir! Like her mother, she was a wild filly as a child. She always went barefoot as a child. She also learned to ride a horse before she learned to run. When she was a very little toddler she was convinced she was going to marry Theodred when she grew up (in that way little kids think they’re obviously going to marry their parents or big siblings cause they don’t understand romance/etc yet haha). She’s bisexual. She quickly in her teen years became withdrawn due to the unwelcome and predatory advances of Wormtongue. She suffered from depression for most of her teenage years and all of her adulthood until after the war of the ring. She also suffers from seasonal affective disorder afterwards, so she periodically has bouts of lowered mood and energy, but not necessarily depression. She’s very fond of Lothíriel and (disclaimer: this is my OWN bisexuality influencing this headcanon probably haha) but in another setting she might have fallen in love with Lothíriel. Her first child was a stillborn. I imagine her and Faramir having a daughter before Elboron by a few years. Gosh there’s too many headcanons to list out right now haha. Due to her mother being half Middle Eastern, I imagine that Éowyn and Éomer are a 1/4 Middle Eastern, though they look stereotypically Rohirrim (blonde hair, light eyes and while they can tan easily they are naturally pale skinned). She breastfed her children which was frowned upon in upper class Gondorian society but she was firm in upholding many aspects of Rohirrim culture.

Faramir: Faramir i have a lot of headcanons for as well. I picture him as part Middle Eastern/Central Asian and predominantly South Asian (in fact, the ideal casting for him would probably be a Pakistani/Indian actor). He’s very devoted to Éowyn in every way (wait...that’s canon haha). Like pretty much everyone after the war of the ring he has pretty bad PTSD. But not from his father, save only the way his father died (as a book fan I’m rather against PJ’s Bad!Father Denethor). He likes his women to be fierce and not upholding to expectations of “what is appropriate for a lady to act like” due to his mother (Finduilas) being of Dol Amroth, and the ladies of Dol Amroth were/are notoriously gender nonconforming. So Éowyn is a perfect fit for him :)

Okay, that’s a lot of text so I’ll stop here for now!

Thanks so much for the question!! :D