Eowyn watches her uncle fall under the control of Grima, who has this creepy fascination with her. It's understandable because she's beautiful and proud, but as she's described, she's like ice and sunlight on a winter morning. She watches her brother be sent away and her cousin die. She is a daughter of Rohan and is everything that that entails. She does her duty until it becomes impossible for her to do so. So instead of pining away for lost love, she takes action. Eowyn disguises herself as a man and takes Merry with her to war. After Theoden falls, she challenges the Lord of the Nazgul when he says "no living man may hinder [him]" with words that are completely who she is. She says "But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him."
She is described, facing the fell beast, as a maiden of the Rohirrim, child of kings, slender but as a steel-blade, fair but terrible. And she chooses, later in the House of Healing, TO heal from the emotional trauma of losing Aragorn to an elven princess and her foster-father and uncle to the enemy. She accepts Faramir, which is an incredible point that she chooses to move on and to have a future with him despite the losses she has suffered. She suffers perhaps the most other than maybe Faramir and Frodo but she moves past that.
Speaking of losses, Buffy has to be talked about next. She sacrifices her life on so many occasions for the world, for her friends, for love. She has impossible loves and loses them. But she grows from the immature teenager who just wants to be normal to the Slayer, someone who leads an army Potentials knowing that they may die but they all choose to go anyway. She is a leader and a sister. A friend and a lover. She does the impossible and still manages to have a quirky remark or quick comeback even in the face of all the darkness that she sees. In the first season, knowing she is going to die, she still goes because that is what she has to do. She is an amazing role model because she does what she has to do even if it comes at the cost of her life....Several times.
Padme watches the loss of her husband. A physical death would have been easier than the one she watched. "Anakin, you're breaking my heart! You're going down a path I cannot follow!" He would have been such a force for good and she has to deal with the consequences of her husband's decisions. She has strength as a leader, strength as a wife, but she cannot follow her husband down the path he has chosen. Her strength, even as she dies of a broken heart after giving birth to their children, is undiminished. She fights to hang on long enough to name them, her precious babies, a reminder of who her husband was. And then she lets go because she will not watch Anakin's destruction any longer. Her daughter, Leia, has the strength of her mother and her father without the gentleness of Padme. This is why Padme is stronger. She is both strong and gentle and loses much. I admire her greatly.
No comments:
Post a Comment