LOTR - Eowyn and women in combat

  • Thread starter Thread starter AlphaSquirrel
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
A

AlphaSquirrel

Guest
Hi guys,
Just wondering what people think about the idea of Eowyn posing as a soldier in Lotr. It’s supposed to be a good Catholic book series, but I read on Catholic Answers that women being in combat was not only wrong, but evil, due to the natural law saying that women are nurturers, not fighters. I’m willing to accept that Tolkien was just not aware of that idea, which is why he didn’t include it in the books. I know St. Joan of Arc led people into combat, yet she didn’t kill anyone, according to my understanding. Is there anything else that I should consider? I don’t plan on not continuing my read of lotr just for this though.
Thank you, and God bless.
 
It’s a great series!
Exactly because Tolkien was Catholic, I think we should probably understand that he knew the real enemy isn’t so much corporeal or other human beings but the devil, his demons, evil and death itself. Women are most certainly called to spiritual combat: to be sure, if Saint Augustine is correct, then the devil has his city that he instigates constantly to be in enmity with God’s; that is, the Church. Still, given that woman is by nature called to be “the mother of all the living,” to place her into mortal combat seems almost to guarantee that war becomes a war on humanity itself, expanding an evil even further. Interestingly Eowyn doesn’t so much kill an enemy monster or the men but actually defeats a wraith-like creature in fulfillment of a kind of prophecy.
 
Where to start…

First, it is not always or necessarily wrong for women to wage war. St. Joan of Arc led military forces and placed cannon, although she did not personally wield weapons. Matilda of Tuscany, who has her status in St. Peter’s, did both lead and fight. And there are a fair number of cloistered nuns who have had to use polearms and axes to protect their chastity and their lives.

In general, women fighters have been fighters of last resort, defending the home. And in general, the Church has tried to make women and children off-limits for war, with women and children staying noncombatants in exchange for protection. But against bandits, outlaws, murderers, and other threats to home and homeland, Catholic women have often picked up guns or other weapons. We have a right and an obligation. We also have the biblical examples of Ss. Deborah, Jael, Judith, etc. And Mary has always been viewed as an all-conquering general when we need her most – one of her titles in Greek is Hypermachos Strategos.

Moving along to Eowyn – Lord of the Rings is Catholic, but it tells of a pre-Christian revelation world. Eowyn, as she tells you herself in the book, is a shieldmaiden. In various pagan Germanic and Norse societies, girls were taught weaponry for defense. Some of them spent their younger years as fighters,often because of a man shortage; they were called shieldmaids. There are various sagas and poems about such women. (There were also Norsewomen who took.on the legal status of Norsemen for all their lives, typically for revenge or inheritance reasons. But those weren’t shieldmaids.) One of the darker portrayals of a shieldmaid was a girl who called up her father’s ghost from his barrow and demanded the cursed sword Tyrfing from him, even though it had been his death, so that she could avenge him. Which she did, and founded a Norse dynasty too. But obviously being a shieldmaid did not work out for Brunhilde. And so on.

Eowyn, like Theoden and Eomer, are characters from the primordial past of the Germans and Norse, when they were horse nomads off the steppe. They deal with things like going fell, ofermod, oathkeeping, and snippets of Old English poetry. It’s great stuff. It is Catholic because it is lore. It shows the glory and the tragedy of the pagan world, and it hints at our redemption by Jesus still to come.

Eowyn is Eowyn. The courage is good, the suffering is sad, the hero worship is confused with love, the recklessness is stupid, the PTSD is realistic, and the way she turns away from futility toward life and love is beautiful.

(Technically, most people in Middle Earth are monotheistic, because Numenor was monotheistic. But some of the fictional Middle Earth relates to historical cultures, and speculation about them. Mostly Rohan, because Old English was Tolkien’s scholarly field.)
 
Last edited:
Tolkien was aware of that idea. It was part of His Victorian boyhood. As his friend C.S. Lewis pointed out, “Wars are ugly when women fight.” For many reasons. But no medievalist could remain ignorant of either women fighters, or of the reasons why it is good to avoid being complacent about women being in war in numbers. And Kipling was something they had read.
 
Last edited:
Thank you for the background and history. I think you are right - and I don’t think it at all contradicts women from being not active combatants in a war - that a woman certainly is in her right to defend the home from molestation or violent abuses. I knew of Matilda of Tuscany - I did not know she actually engaged personally in battle. Perhaps because the very pillar of religion, which is so fundamental to home and civilization itself, was under attack, she in a sense was defending home itself?

I might argue, however, that because of LotR’s ultimate focus on the hobbits as being the main protagonists, that the warring going on is not what is actually or even primarily important to saving Middle Earth: rather it is humility, long-suffering, friendship and brotherly love in innocence that saves mankind ultimately from Doom; though not that the struggles happening on the battlefields of Middle Earth are at all unimportant or insignificant. They are indeed demanded by duty and love of all that is good or decent in the world, such as it is. I just think the hobbit tale – Frodo and Sam – lean away from a pagan world rather strikingly; in fact, it is in my opinion rather deeply anti-pagan and pre-Christian: something they missed and got very, very wrong.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and insights. I always love to learn about history and Tolkien’s world!
 
AlphaSquirrel said:
I read on Catholic Answers that women being in combat was not only wrong, but evil, due to the natural law saying that women are nurturers, not fighters
Click to expand...
Is this official church teaching?

If women want to be in combat and if they pass requirements (which is rare and difficult to in the first place), I honestly don’t see the problem. I don’t necessarily think it’s a smart move especially if she’s a parent, but then again I don’t like the idea of fathers putting their lives in danger either.
 
A) It is just a story, relax

B) She had to be in the battle so that she could do the ‘but I am not a man’ switcheroo on the bad guy
 
Eowyn is my favourite character.

It’s not wrong or evil for women to fight in combat if they are not being forced into it.
 
Lea101 said:
Is this official church teaching?

If women want to be in combat and if they pass requirements (which is rare and difficult to in the first place), I honestly don’t see the problem. I don’t necessarily think it’s a smart move especially if she’s a parent, but then again I don’t like the idea of fathers putting their lives in danger either.
Click to expand...
I don’t see it in the Catechism.
 
AlphaSquirrel said:
It’s supposed to be a good Catholic book series, but I read on Catholic Answers that women being in combat was not only wrong, but evil, due to the natural law saying that women are nurturers, not fighters.
Click to expand...
This is someone’s opinion, not Catholic teaching.

There is nothing immoral about women serving in combat. If there was, we would not have a saint called St. Joan of Arc. Her not personally killing anyone is secondary given that she was dressing as a man and leading troops whose mission was to kill - she wasn’t leading them out there to sing Kumbaya in the fields.

You need to be careful when reading stuff on Catholic Answers or any Catholic site because there are invariably people, even including some priests, who present their own opinions in such a way that they could be mistaken for Church teaching. If it’s not directly covered by the Catechism or Canon Law, it’s somebody’s personal opinion and may be ignored.
 
Last edited:
AlphaSquirrel said:
Hi guys,
Just wondering what people think about the idea of Eowyn posing as a soldier in Lotr. It’s supposed to be a good Catholic book series, but I read on Catholic Answers that women being in combat was not only wrong, but evil, due to the natural law saying that women are nurturers, not fighters. I’m willing to accept that Tolkien was just not aware of that idea, which is why he didn’t include it in the books. I know St. Joan of Arc led people into combat, yet she didn’t kill anyone, according to my understanding. Is there anything else that I should consider? I don’t plan on not continuing my read of lotr just for this though.
Thank you, and God bless.
Click to expand...
Eowyn’s story is a very sad and moving one. She had to forsake many pleasures otherwise granted to a princess in order to take care of her uncle, Theoden, who was fooled into believing he was terminally ill and was entrapped in a web of lies and deceit. And it was not just Theoden’s moral and physical health that was deteriorating, but the entire kingdom was slowly being worn down politically through treacherous leadership in the form of Grima Wormtonoue. Always pretending to want to defend the king, Grima was just furthering his suffering. Eowyn had to watch this every day, and was unable to do anything.

And Grima wasn’t just after her uncle but Grima had his eyes on Eowny too. He wanted to take her as his wife, against her will, and use her to become king. Effectively he would have raped her and taken her birthright. Just thinking about it was terrible for her. Nobody was prepared to defend her. She was left alone.

Eowyn riding to war was an escape from this. It was her way of seeking out and confronting reality. Compensating moral suffering by chivalric action. In literary terms it was he coming of age, or in romanticist thinking it was the journey a human needs to discover their true identity and place. It is noteworthy that she did not continue to be a soldier all her life but that she rode out on this one campaign only. It was her cry for help. A desperate action that quite inadvertently brought down the greatest adversary of all, second only to Sauron himself. It was all part of a godly plan and Eowyn played along with that plan. Thus she isn’t an egoistic hero but an altruistic hero.

The later actions of Eowny are also interesting. She enters a brief romantic phase with Aragorn, but understands her place cannot be at his side. Then she marries Faramir, who has a similar life story, watching his once proud and good father slowly being consumed by evil, and an elder brother who was similarly well meaning but unable to resist. Farmir and Eowyn both changed the course of history by being disobedient, chosing what was morally right over obeying orders.
 
Last edited:
Thank you all for your comments. There are several ideas here that I had never really considered.
 
Women defended themselves going back to ancient times. The Russians had female infantry and pilots, combat pilots, during World War II. The United States had WACs and WAVES, who while serving in support roles, could have found themselves in combat situations.

Saying “it’s just a story” does not answer the question.

www.catholic.com

Women in Combat: Contra Naturum

The real problem is that sending wives, daughters, and mothers into combat is morally wrong. It is evil. Why? Women are designed to give and nurture life.
www.catholic.com www.catholic.com
 
In the book, Eowyn mentions about women not living by the sword but nevertheless dying by it. She, like probably the rest of Rohan knew they were going to war and also knew that she and the other womenfolk were going to be killed whether or not they fought back or not. She chose to fight back.

Non-combatants suffer from war as much as soldiers do. We are spoiled here in the US. To us, war takes place in distant lands and civilians are unaffected by it. To others unfortunate enough to be in the middle of this, war is brutal.

So women may not be soldiers but they can still die in war just the same.
 
Point taken.

However my point still stands. I spent my early childhood in a war torn country before immigrating here. My earliest memories are of grenade launchers and guns, my father taking us kids and my mother to safe places and having to flee in the middle of the night. I was not a soldier but I have experienced war. I’m one of the lucky ones. I have friends who have been orphaned.

War is brutal especially for those who do not have the means to fight back but nevertheless live in the middle of a war zone.

Widows and orphans in the US do suffer but at least they are not at risk to violence and death the way the widows and orphans are in places like Syria.
 
Last edited:
My parents knew war first-hand. The difficulty here is that some say others cannot know the pain of war without being there. Imagine living in Detroit and hearing automatic gunfire at night.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top