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Tumblr crosspost (19 December 2020)
Mar. 15th, 2024 12:23 amAn anon said:
Ok I need to understand when Faramir has time to process his emotions after his healing...what are your head canons on this? I get why narratively we need to move through the stuff with Eowyn, Aragorn becoming king, etc, and actually in general it seems we rarely get a deep look at Faramir's innermost life but like...how can he not be seriously depressed after everything that happened?
I replied:
I do honestly wonder about this. We know that the full story of the pyre etc was supposed to be kept secret from him until he’s completely healed, which is … I mean, it’s understandable that that would be the order given, but it’s going to be incredibly difficult to keep things from him, even things in which he personally is not concerned.
So my first question is whether he’s actually accepting what he’s being told at that point and not asking further questions. He seems to have his shit together emotionally/intellectually when he meets Éowyn, at which point the secrecy would still be ongoing. Is Faramir, of all people, really not noticing that something significant is being kept from him? If he has noticed (which seems overwhelmingly probable), is he not curious/concerned about what it is? Does he have no idea what it is, or has he some educated guesses that he’s either processing or purposefully not thinking about? Or does he pretty much know already? And how does this interact with his behavior around Éowyn at this time?
It’s—at the absolute least, he would know that Denethor suddenly died and that he’s now the Steward of Gondor. We have no idea what he thinks or feels about this, you’re right. Things were so painfully unresolved between them and then just … ended. Perhaps he’ll hear about how upset Denethor was and know that he cared, at least, but we don’t know if that would help. Boromir is dead and Denethor is dead and Imrahil is off to Mordor and his own future is completely up in the air, and it just seems like this kind of awful situation before he finds out that his father tried to burn them both alive. And he doesn’t give a whisper of a hint of that!
My second question is when, exactly, does he hear the full story of what happened? It seems like it would be before his engagement to Éowyn, but there’s no sign of any kind of reaction. The book is preoccupied with other things at that point, so it’s not a major flaw, but it does seem like the Denethor-Faramir tension just dies with Denethor and that Faramir’s role as a character is thereafter subordinated to Aragorn’s and Éowyn’s, in different ways.
But I’m curious what he felt when he did hear, whether it affirmed what he already thought or was worse than he’d imagined or was a total shock. And I’m especially curious if he ever betrayed any vulnerability about it to Éowyn, or if it’s easier to be sympathetic to others’ vulnerabilities than his own, or if he didn’t want to make her sorrow and suffering about him, or if he just … couldn’t deal, and buried it for the time being. Or maybe it did come up, or he at least said something, and we just don’t see it—which would be odd, but it’s possible.
This has more questions than answers, sorry! But while I’ve thought about it a lot, and way back in the day read various scenarios for it a lot, I’ve never quite settled it in my own mind. At the moment, though, I’m inclined to think that his awareness of what happened would became clearer and clearer over time through both deduction and his natural abilities, and he’d have put together at least a basic idea of what happened before anyone guessed he had, and that he revealed little if any of this to anyone.
I don’t want to downplay his real sympathy and love for Éowyn, but I do think his personal sorrow probably reinforced them. Likely it was in some ways easier for him to focus on her and her troubles than on himself, particularly as I think he’s someone very used to self-denial.
The text definitely focuses on Faramir’s impact on Éowyn much more than the reverse, but I do like to think that she had one. It seems possible to me that her friendship in that time might have gone a really long way, even if he couldn’t yet bring himself to explain why.
Ok I need to understand when Faramir has time to process his emotions after his healing...what are your head canons on this? I get why narratively we need to move through the stuff with Eowyn, Aragorn becoming king, etc, and actually in general it seems we rarely get a deep look at Faramir's innermost life but like...how can he not be seriously depressed after everything that happened?
I replied:
I do honestly wonder about this. We know that the full story of the pyre etc was supposed to be kept secret from him until he’s completely healed, which is … I mean, it’s understandable that that would be the order given, but it’s going to be incredibly difficult to keep things from him, even things in which he personally is not concerned.
So my first question is whether he’s actually accepting what he’s being told at that point and not asking further questions. He seems to have his shit together emotionally/intellectually when he meets Éowyn, at which point the secrecy would still be ongoing. Is Faramir, of all people, really not noticing that something significant is being kept from him? If he has noticed (which seems overwhelmingly probable), is he not curious/concerned about what it is? Does he have no idea what it is, or has he some educated guesses that he’s either processing or purposefully not thinking about? Or does he pretty much know already? And how does this interact with his behavior around Éowyn at this time?
It’s—at the absolute least, he would know that Denethor suddenly died and that he’s now the Steward of Gondor. We have no idea what he thinks or feels about this, you’re right. Things were so painfully unresolved between them and then just … ended. Perhaps he’ll hear about how upset Denethor was and know that he cared, at least, but we don’t know if that would help. Boromir is dead and Denethor is dead and Imrahil is off to Mordor and his own future is completely up in the air, and it just seems like this kind of awful situation before he finds out that his father tried to burn them both alive. And he doesn’t give a whisper of a hint of that!
My second question is when, exactly, does he hear the full story of what happened? It seems like it would be before his engagement to Éowyn, but there’s no sign of any kind of reaction. The book is preoccupied with other things at that point, so it’s not a major flaw, but it does seem like the Denethor-Faramir tension just dies with Denethor and that Faramir’s role as a character is thereafter subordinated to Aragorn’s and Éowyn’s, in different ways.
But I’m curious what he felt when he did hear, whether it affirmed what he already thought or was worse than he’d imagined or was a total shock. And I’m especially curious if he ever betrayed any vulnerability about it to Éowyn, or if it’s easier to be sympathetic to others’ vulnerabilities than his own, or if he didn’t want to make her sorrow and suffering about him, or if he just … couldn’t deal, and buried it for the time being. Or maybe it did come up, or he at least said something, and we just don’t see it—which would be odd, but it’s possible.
This has more questions than answers, sorry! But while I’ve thought about it a lot, and way back in the day read various scenarios for it a lot, I’ve never quite settled it in my own mind. At the moment, though, I’m inclined to think that his awareness of what happened would became clearer and clearer over time through both deduction and his natural abilities, and he’d have put together at least a basic idea of what happened before anyone guessed he had, and that he revealed little if any of this to anyone.
I don’t want to downplay his real sympathy and love for Éowyn, but I do think his personal sorrow probably reinforced them. Likely it was in some ways easier for him to focus on her and her troubles than on himself, particularly as I think he’s someone very used to self-denial.
The text definitely focuses on Faramir’s impact on Éowyn much more than the reverse, but I do like to think that she had one. It seems possible to me that her friendship in that time might have gone a really long way, even if he couldn’t yet bring himself to explain why.