Guess Who's Coming to the Disaster - Page 6
© Michael Martinez
How often have we been entertained by war-time love stories, in which two people come together and feel something intensely in a matter of hours or days? Books and films have been using this idea for decades, if not centuries (as far as books are concerned, at least). Love isn't something which is predestined in Tolkien. It happens spontaneously and is as fierce as any emotion the human experience can digest. Why else would Aragorn wait so faithfully for a chance to woo Arwen, year in and year out? Most guys would have picked up other girlfriends along the way.
Faramir actually got to spend several days with Eowyn in a fairly secluded romantic setting. The Houses of Healing had their own gardens, and it appears that most of the sick and wounded people of the city were kept elsewhere, judging by Aragorn's long night abroad in Minas Tirith healing the casualties. And just as Aragorn seemed strong and authoritative to Eowyn, so, too, must Faramir have seemed to her. He was, technically, the Ruling Steward of Gondor. He even had to return to his duties as Steward after Sauron was defeated. It's not like she was scraping the bottom of the barrel. And when Faramir confessed his feelings for Eowyn, the two of them had spent far more time together than she had spent with Aragorn.
A man who could have been luckier in love than any other was Turin. Two Elven babes fell for him. Nellas seems to have fallen in love with Turin, but he never knew of her feelings for him, and she didn't pursue him. Nellas was a strange Elf, a bit of a recluse, and perhaps as close to a manic-depressive as the Elves might have produced (unless Feanor were a manic-depressive -- his moodiness is hard to decipher). Few people ask what became of Nellas. Was she slain when Doriath was destroyed? Did she survive its fall and live in the woods until Beleriand was ruined? Did she simply wander off and die of grief after the whole Turin story played out?
Finduilas was the other Elven love of Turin's life. Unlike Nellas, she tried to make her feelings known, but Turin seems to have turned off his female radar or something. Tolkien tried to work out the details of their relationship, and it seems that Finduilas was torn between two loves. Yet her love for Turin proved to be greater than her love for Gwindor. And it was all for nothing. Turin acted like a dutiful servant, or maybe just a love-struck schoolboy who was too shy to admit he felt anything for Finduilas.
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