tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493946997489326661.post3893348025315203406..comments2023-08-11T05:49:23.366-04:00Comments on Exploring Believability: Moral intention.J. Sheahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10652255892382558843noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493946997489326661.post-46677889063787261792011-01-16T13:30:12.252-05:002011-01-16T13:30:12.252-05:00Tolkein did it because it was a literalist interpr...Tolkein did it because it was a literalist interpretation of Macbeth ("No man of woman born"). He did the same thing with the Ents (the forest rises up and attacks the castle). In both cases he was disappointed with the "cop-out" nature of the prophecies.<br /><br />However, it's not much of a stretch to relate Eowyn Defeating The Witch King to the sort of GRRL POWER that accompanies the rest of her character, and every other "strong female character in an environment that does not want them to be strong, rendering them the only female combatant". Hell, we had better female warriors as far back as Bradamante, so why are we still playing around with this stuff?J. Sheahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10652255892382558843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493946997489326661.post-87796933346623856952011-01-16T10:08:39.729-05:002011-01-16T10:08:39.729-05:00Are you sure about Eowyn being a moral fable at al...Are you sure about Eowyn being a moral fable at all? Its been a while since I read LotR but I always interpreted the prophesy as merely being the kind of clever wordplay the Anglo-Saxons like. <br /><br />(If I remember correctly Eowyn rejects fighting afterwards, marries and returns to the duties she spurned in order to fight.)Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18284480067228759579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493946997489326661.post-45655378280574370022011-01-16T03:51:25.442-05:002011-01-16T03:51:25.442-05:00Also as I think I mentioned, fables are for childr...Also as I think I mentioned, fables are for children and the only reason we allow their illogical assumptions is because we are in favor of the lessons that they intend to teach. Nothing more, nothing less.J. Sheahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10652255892382558843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493946997489326661.post-86750864821240037752011-01-16T03:50:16.722-05:002011-01-16T03:50:16.722-05:00You can call it a metaphor all you want, but it...You can call it a metaphor all you want, but it's not a good argument for anything. If it was about her "feminine qualities", then she would have found a way to put those to use. <br /><br />On the baseline level, literally the only value of that scene is that She Is Technically Not A Man and thus it's okay for her to kill him. It reflects no aspect of femininity, or whatever you want to call it (I don't think I can try to define "femininity" without sounding really sexist anyways). <br /><br />The recurring concept behind Eowyn is that she's as good as fighting as the menfolk are, if not somehow better because she's a protagonist. I literally would have liked the Witch King thing if it was just her killing him - like she fights him and defeats him without any prophecy or anything. That would have indicated that "this is a strong character" (or that she is protected by author fiat) without the bizarre necessity of a prophecy to make it so.<br /><br />When Eowyn fights, it's a baseline indication: women are as capable of fighting as men. When Eowyn fights the Witch King, the indication is: Women are capable of fulfilling prophecy. Notice that I didn't say that this should extend to anything else; "Eowyn is strong" doesn't mean anything in terms of feminine empowerment except in the strictly immediate sense of "killing things". The presence of the prophecy turns it from a "hey she's as strong as they are" thing to a "uh are you serious" thing. It seems like it's there to address the fact that, you know, someone else could have killed the Witch King, but now only Eowyn (being No Man) can pull it off.J. Sheahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10652255892382558843noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493946997489326661.post-31261582482254525872011-01-16T02:35:52.032-05:002011-01-16T02:35:52.032-05:00It seems strange to me how literal you are taking ...It seems strange to me how literal you are taking the Lord of the Rings example. If you're happy with being broader than the literal interpretation of the <i>lesson</i> that women should be able to fight orcs in real life (and I think extracting a message that is not literally applicable to real life but can still be applied is kind of the point of a fable), then why are you interpreting the means of that lesson coming about so literally? <br /><br />An alternative interpretation of the story is that women are able to do some things that men cannot, and we should try not to forget this. In the book this is the prophecy; in real life it might be offering a unique perspective, or I dunno having babies or something.penixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03132124778549300327noreply@blogger.com