Guess Who's Coming to the Disaster - Page 5
© Michael Martinez
The briefer stories also seem to focus on how women have changed the lives or fates of Tolkien's men. Mithrellas introduces a strain of Elvish blood into Imrazor's family. In fact, about the only memorable thing concerning Imrazor is that he married an Elf. Oo-rah! On the other hand, we are told that Mithrellas lived in Lothlorien and was (apparently) one of Nimrodel's companions on the road. Somehow she survived in the mountains on her own. Mithrellas is a little more interesting than her husband. Perhaps that's why she left him in the night. Maybe she just needed a really good manicure, and by the time she got it, he had passed away. But Mithrellas had two children with Imrazor; their son and his descendants were, of course, the Lords of Dol Amroth.
The House of Eorl was ennobled by Thengel's marriage to Morwen of Lossarnach (who just happened to be descended from the Lords of Dol Amroth, and therefore from Mithrellas). Morwen's legacy to her five children included the height and strength of the Dunedain, a thorough knowledge of Gondor's language and customs (mostly because Thengel didn't get along with his father and therefore lived in Gondor for a long time), and her popularity among the Rohirrim (when she finally became their queen), which no doubt enhanced her husband's reputation (and hence their children's reputations as the offspring of a beloved king and queen).
And Eowyn was Morwen's grand-daughter. Everyone seems to love Eowyn faithful niece, shield-maiden, bearer of frustrated hobbits on arduous journeys, slayer of winged steeds of the Nazgul, and champion of mankind against the Lord of the Nazgul himself. When someone complained that Eowyn turned to Faramir all too easily in the story, Tolkien pointed out that "in my experience feelings and decisions ripen very quickly (as measured by mere 'clock-time', which is actually not justly applicable) in periods of great stress, and especially under the expectation of imminent death. And I do not think that persons of high estate and breeding need all the petty fencing and approaches in matters of 'love'. This tale does not deal with a period of 'Courtly Love' and its pretences; but with a culture more primitive (sc. less corrupt) and nobler." (Letter 244)
Well, so much for the medievalists' aspirations to prove that Courtly Love exists in Tolkien. Still, it's reasonable to point out that Eowyn, at least, had never been clued into the Main Plan. Faramir knew there was a chance, however remote, that Frodo might get through and win the day for everyone. Yet Eowyn had no real hope of survival. She believed that Aragorn, who had spurned her (from her point of view), had gone off to die in battle. After Sauron finished dealing with the little armies in the field, he would turn his attention back to Minas Tirith.
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