Anghraine

ngl I have yet to read any justification for Aragorn's argument that Théoden's edicts should not apply to him in Rohan that I didn't find deeply annoying.

I just saw yet another one on Tumblr, which ultimately was not very different from the rest. The argument was that given actual Anglo-Saxon customs, it is Théoden's requirement that everyone relinquish their weapons (often great heirlooms, which Andúril is) that is unreasonable, not Aragorn's distaste for doing so. In other permutations, it's Háma who is being short-sighted in not accepting Aragorn's greater authority. But essentially the idea is that Théoden's command itself is sketchy and Aragorn is the one being reasonable.

None of this addresses the actual problem, though, which Háma himself does.

Yes, Théoden's insistence that warriors relinquish their swords or other weapons is clearly framed as dubious and a marker of Gríma's malign influence over him, much like the use of the Rohirrim's language as a shibboleth. This is perfectly evident even without bringing in Anglo-Saxon history. Yes, Aragorn has good reason to be uneasy about leaving Andúril lying around with a random door warden. None of that is the problem.

Aragorn does not only argue that Théoden's decree with regard to weaponry in his hall is a bad idea. He argues that it is not his (Aragorn's) will to give up his weapon and that "it is not clear to me" that Théoden's will as king of Rohan should override his own as heir of Elendil "of Gondor."

There are a number of issues at play here:

I reblogged this graphic for Fíriel (f!Faramir), which I originally posted on 25 October 2015:


2020 addition:

I made this five years ago and I still have a) a ton of feelings about this verse and b) yet to write most of it.

Tagged: #it's definitely become a ot3 in my head though #i was re-reading some of my scraps and drafts and just. consumed with emotions #one scrap is just entirely about fíriel and denethor's relationship #i wanna write more about fíriel and éowyn's #there's 'a hard matter' with fíriel and aragorn figuring out What Now #there's théoden surviving as an outcome of denethor stuff and returning in honor and glory to rohan with éomer and éowyn at his side #there's pippin's love for faramir becoming a sort of scaled-down version of gimli and galadriel with fíriel #gandalf telling young fíriel his true maia name #AND WHAT ABOUT ELROND #esp if i go with my headcanon that the stewards' 'royal origin' is tindómiel...? #there's just #so much #...fíriel's nose is a bit different in my head but otherwise the second picture is especially super close to how i picture her #anyway

diocletianscabbagefarm replied to this post:

fun trivia but apparently only Theoden spoke Sindarin and Gondorian, but not rohirric

I replied:

I don’t remember Tolkien ever saying that tbh. Théoden instituted a requirement that every person allowed entry to Rohan had to speak the language of the Mark (we don’t know what it’s called), unless they were Gondorian.

One of the interesting things about Théoden’s restriction on entry of any non-Gondorian who doesn’t speak the language of the Mark (assuming I recall it correctly) is that he is probably not a native speaker, himself.

Before Théoden was born, his father Thengel noped out of Rohan, went to serve the Steward in Gondor, married a high-born Gondorian lady, and had three children there, including Théoden. Thengel only reluctantly returned to Rohan when the Rohirrim summoned him to take up the crown. (We don’t know what Morwen, Théoden’s mother, thought about it, but she was the one who had to leave her homeland for a place where her husband didn’t want to go even to be king.) Théoden would have spent his early years with Westron and Sindarin around him, not Markish (or whatever they call it).

It’s possible that Thengel saw to it that his elder daughters and Théoden were taught the language of the place they would one day return to, but not at all certain. We know that Thengel insisted on “the speech of Gondor” being used in his house as King of Rohan, which seems a frankly extraordinary thing to do (linguistic use is very politically loaded! especially in Middle-earth!). If he insisted on the use of Westron or Sindarin in Meduseld, it doesn’t really seem likely to me that he’d have used Markish in Gondor.

Théoden was still a small child when the family went to Rohan (he had two more sisters born in Rohan, including his beloved Théodwyn, Éomer and Éowyn’s mother). He would have learned Markish once there, certainly, and it was presumably the younger girls’ native language. It’s not that he doesn’t speak it himself! But it is interesting that the language that he himself would have had to learn becomes the marker of who authentically belongs in the Mark.

Of course, this policy is partly (perhaps mostly) due to Gríma’s influence. But nevertheless, Théoden is so much King of Rohan, in many ways an embodiment of the Rohirrim in the wider narrative, and his court seems deeply rooted in the culture of Rohan in marked contrast to Thengel’s.

And yet Théoden was born in Gondor to a Gondorian Dúnadan and a prince who assimilates into Gondorian culture to such a degree that he doesn’t want to be king of his own people. I just … wonder about what Théoden even thought of the whole situation, and what led to the choices he made about how he would rule Rohan, and how it impacted his relationship with, say, Rohan-born Théodwyn and the upbringing of her children as well as his own.

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So I'm twenty-six today, and it feels rather odd, but I had an awesome birthday. My mother bought me a pot of daffodils, and I spent hours at Powell's Books (the local bookstore with over one million books at this location, hell yeah) and had ultra-bittersweet hot chocolate (yum!) and then went to the Mongolian grill. Also I don't have homework, for once!

As well as being the 2056th anniversary of Julius Caesar's death, March 15th is mentioned in Lord of the Rings as the day that Théoden died. Wow, thanks Tolkien - but hey, doesn't that mean it's also the day that Éowyn slew the Witch-King?

Why, yes. Yes, it does. So to finish off the fabulous day I've just had, I'm going to do a picspam of a fabulous character: Éowyn, and mostly Éowyn's shining moment on March 15th.

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