#rohirren

[anghraine]

I'm hardly uncritical of Aragorn or his hereditary claim to the Gondorian throne, but I do think the occasional focus on how he only has a tiny fraction of Elvish blood or Elendil's/Elros's blood is ill-placed.

I mean, for one, counting generations in a single line of descent with someone as inbred as Aragorn doesn't make sense anyway.

But more importantly, it's one thing to point out how much time has passed between Isildur's time in Gondor and LOTR, or even Fíriel's time and Aragorn's. It has been a very long time, and that's part of what makes the challenge so steep for him (it'd be less interesting if he could just waltz into Gondor and be instantly acclaimed at any moment). But when it gets down to "and how many portions of X blood does he have, anyway," it's just ... ugh. Let's not.

#like ... théoden and éomer not inheriting most elvish qualities isn't bc of how many generations they're removed from mithrellas #or how many fractions of her blood they may or may not have vs imrahil and faramir #it follows from their function as fundamentally rohirren characters rather than the other way around #the rohirrim are not aligned with elvishness where númenóreanness /is/ tied to elvishness #ergo elvish qualities can persist for ages in cultures that are basically resonant with elvishness but can vanish in a generation otherwise #trying to force it into eugenics logic is gross and also doesn't work #anghraine babbles #legendarium blogging #legendarium fanwank #aragorn critical #but also. no. #anghraine rants

[anghraine]

Tolkien frequently shifted around his ideas about how language was used in Gondor and Rohan, but I wanted to settle my headcanon in my own mind. So, headcanons for the royal house of Rohan + language!

- The language of the Mark/Rohan is called Rohirren in Gondor, but the Rohirrim rarely refer to it by that name. When necessary to name it for some reason, they just call it Markish.

- The “speech of Gondor” used in Thengel’s court was the Common Tongue/Westron (not Sindarin). Most people in Meduseld could speak it already, but some resented giving it priority over Markish.

- Morwen picked up enough Markish to understand it quite well, but was self-conscious about speaking it. She was fully fluent in both Westron and Sindarin, though she more often spoke Westron, especially in Rohan. Mostly she used Sindarin when she wanted to be absolutely sure her husband/children would listen to her. Théoden, Théodwyn, and the other girls grew up with an understanding that Sindarin = serious business.

- Théoden spoke Westron and Sindarin as a child, and learned Markish later on, after Thengel returned to Rohan with Morwen and the children. He always preferred it aesthetically to his native languages (he also preferred it politically, later). But he retained enough Sindarin to use it affectionately with his mother.

- Théodwyn, born and raised in Rohan, knew Markish, Westron, and a good deal of Sindarin (though she found the latter strange and difficult). She and Éomund generally used Markish with each other and their household, but their children were brought up with both Markish and Westron from the cradle.

- Théodred knew Morwen much better than Éomer and Éowyn, and loved her dearly. He took pains to learn Sindarin and almost always addressed her in it.

- Éomer and Éowyn learned some Sindarin in their early days in Meduseld, but it fell into general disuse after Morwen’s death, and in the wake of the following years, they largely forgot it.

- Éomer has no real preference between Westron and Markish and speaks both equally well. He remembers a little Sindarin, picks up some more from Lothíriel, and even more than that in his campaigns with Aragorn and Gondor. He’s still only semi-fluent, but he’s perfectly ready to use it as well as he can when the situation seems appropriate.

- Éowyn also switches between Westron and Markish equally well. At first, she mostly uses Westron in her married life, since she can be sure that everybody understands her that way. She does become fluent in Sindarin; it’s all around her, she has vague memories of it, she’s good with language anyway, and it seems a way of showing respect to both her new people and Morwen, whose legacy she feels much more strongly after her own marriage.

- It does take a little while, so there’s a phase when she makes Faramir stop courteously using Westron with her and instead do dramatic recitations of epics in Sindarin. He makes her do it with Rohan’s epics in return, in part to get a better grasp on the language and partly out of genuine interest, and they’re both super interested in how they both tell the story of Cirion and Eorl. Apart from that one, Éowyn likes the Narn and Eärendil vs Ancalagon best of the Sindarin-language epics, though her favourite Gondor-beloved historical figure is Haleth.

- She also gradually shifts from using Westron to using Sindarin in her letters to Lothíriel, who has a very strong preference for Sindarin and is somewhat at sea in Rohan. 

- Elfwinë and his siblings are equally fluent in Westron, Markish, and Sindarin, though each has their own preference. He himself is a lover of lore and also knows some Quenya. 

#éowyn #éomer #théodred #théoden #morwen of lossarnach #thengel #faramir #lothíriel #elfwinë #legendarium blogging #house of eorl #i honestly hadn't thought of how the gondorian and rohirren versions of the ride of eorl are probably ... not the same #but i kind of love it?? #anghraine's headcanons #anghraine babbles #sindarin #rohirren #westron #linguistic stuff

[anghraine]

According to Wikipedia (I know, I know), all grey-eyed people actually have little splotches of different colour in their eyes, even if you can’t really tell (I do). Naturally, this makes me think of Tolkien and the 90% of his cast with grey eyes ... do they have the splotches? 

Is it special because they have improbably clear grey eyes or do they look more like most grey-eyed people IRL? 

Is it more silver-grey or iron-grey?

Is there some range (blue-grey, green-grey, light grey, dark grey?), and that’s why it’s so noticeable when someone has the Super Special-type grey eyes?

I just have a lot of questions!!

#this is a very deep post #but honestly i thought grey eyes were THE most boring thing to have until tolkien #and then having dark hair and grey eyes promptly became :D :D :D #i tragically don't have black/near-black hair like my parents but still #anghraine babbles #legendarium blogging #deep blogging #i wonder about éowyn's sea-grey eyes for instance #do we take that as blue-grey? stormy grey??? is it classic númenórean grey from morwen or typically rohirren grey?? #i choose to believe that some of the vast number of them have grey eyes like me of course

[anghraine]

forgive me if you've answered this, but why do you think faramir was able to go from the way we saw him in ttt & early rotk (including seemingly having some prejudices against the rohirrim) to him suddenly being softer (& falling in love w/ a rohir) once in the houses of healing? it always seemed a bit of a jump to me & occurred so fast (although i guess having a near death experience is as good a catalyst as any) & id love to hear your thoughts on it (if you have any & want to of course!)

Hmm, it’s an interesting question!

I will say that while I’ve seen the “Faramir is wrong and unfair about the Rohirrim in TTT” thing going around, I think it pretty actively rejects Tolkien’s values and themes. I don’t think Tolkien remotely intended Faramir’s arc to involve coming around to respect the valorization of war and glory in Rohan and increasingly in Gondor. He never does and he never will. If anything, it’s the reverse; Faramir’s reservations about the prioritization of martial prowess in the modern societies around him are Tolkien’s reservations, and Éowyn’s adoption of his ethos / at least partial rejection of Rohan’s is a conversion to a more mature and right way of thinking about these things in Tolkien’s treatment of it.

I mean, it’s fine for people to be uncomfortable w/ that (there’s a degree to which I am myself). But I think that people sometimes ignore that Faramir is the character most like Tolkien and part of his function is to deliver Tolkien’s views within the story and influence other characters towards the values that Tolkien held. So that’s part of what’s going on.

Jumping back in-story, though:

I think the main issue is that in TTT, Faramir is acting as a commander among his men in a very tense situation, with people he believes might have betrayed his brother to his death, and who certainly know more than they’re saying in any case (brief detour to the meta level: the ambiguity over what Faramir’s really like and what he’ll do in TTT also helps maintain tension in some very talky scenes). 

Meanwhile, in early ROTK, he’s still acting as a commander but with his own leader, whom he disagrees with about both his previous actions and their current tactics. Denethor is also his father, of course, and Faramir’s conduct there is influenced by their messy and painful mixture of love and opposition, but Tolkien notes in the letters that another major factor in how Faramir relates to him is that Faramir views himself as a Númenórean before the last Númenórean head of state. This is a big deal for him.

And then he falls in battle, and when he wakes up, Denethor is dead and Faramir is the Steward of Gondor. Even though he still has someone he’s going to relate to in that Númenórean-to-Númenórean-lord way (Aragorn), it’s not the complex, concentrated thing it was with Denethor, nor the high-octane intensity of his situation in TTT. There’s no Ring, no soldiers, no dubious captives, no authority to answer to. He can simply act as he sees fit. Faramir with Éowyn is, I think, Faramir at his most natural, without these incredible pressures on him. He can afford to be softer, gentle, and compassionate, vulnerable in some ways, confident in others.

It’s more headcanon, but I also think that ... yes, losing his family is freeing in some ways, but it’s also horrible, obviously. And I think part of what’s going on with him is that he’s dealing with loss, first with Boromir and then Denethor, and with the latter, that loss happened with everything unresolved, and he’s got to know there are things people aren’t telling him about it. I’ve talked about it before, but I do think there’s a lot going on in his head at that point, and he’s the sort of person whose grief makes him more sympathetic to other people’s. So I think that’s part of what’s going on, too.

And then after all of that, he just falls like a ton of bricks for this incredible woman. I don’t think he’d ever have minded that Éowyn is Rohirren—IMO his TTT remark that “we love them” is foreshadowing for this—but if he did at some point, he’s well beyond giving a single fuck about it by then. As we see with the very public kiss, of course. 

So that’s pretty much where I stand on it all!

#anon replies #respuestas #faramir #legendarium blogging #anghraine's meta #anghraine's headcanons #jewel of the seashore #lord of the rings #éowyn #denethor #jrr tolkien #otp: and the sun shone #Anonymous

[anghraine]

“the gift of men” - fic

The fic is three pages long and has taken yeaaaars to write. Anyway: some cheerful Eldarion fic!

He did not choose the marriage. He did not choose the bride; he did not even choose the day. He assented to everything, decided nothing. Yet though he wed not of his own desire, he never regretted his marriage, nor his fair and laughing princess.

-

1

Eldarion had no queen.

His folk knew better than to press him on this. For one, the traditions of Gondor discouraged him from seeking marriage now, however much they might have wished it. The matter might have been different, and indeed alarming, had he no heirs; but he had many of them, son and daughter, sister-sons and sister-daughters under the law, their children and his own grandchildren, all beloved.

For another—though he now reigned alone, king without queen, he had not always lived so. Once, he had been a prince; and once, long ago, there had been a princess.

She died of old age almost a century before the kingship fell to him.

2

Certainly, none of Eldarion’s people could say he had neglected his duty. At their will, and his father’s, he took a wife before his thirtieth year.

He did not choose the marriage. He did not choose the bride; he did not even choose the day. He assented to everything, decided nothing. Yet though he wed not of his own desire, he never regretted his marriage, nor his fair and laughing princess. 

But then, he knew her well, long before the wedding-day. 

3

Eldarion always expected that he would marry Morwen of Ithilien or Gilanor of Dol Amroth.

Both, eldest daughters of princes, came from the greatest houses in Gondor; he could not say so of himself. His father might be heir to Isildur and Elendil, his mother a peredhel of the blood of Elros Tar-Minyatur and the Lady of Lórien, the two of them sprung from the highest lineages still remaining—but not from Gondor. And coming as they did on the heels of nigh on a millennium of the Stewards’ rule, Lord Denethor and his sons beloved of the people— 

Well, by then the handful of plots had long since subsided, but he knew he must marry a lady of Gondor; ideally, a kinswoman of the Prince of Ithilien. As Morwen and Gilanor were near Eldarion in age (a more pressing concern for him than anyone else), he supposed his wife would be one or the other. 

And yet she was not. 

4

In his more fanciful moments, well before his actual marriage, Eldarion cherished vague hopes of Aravain.

It was not a great love-story, nor even a great tragedy; at that age, he did not wish to marry—but he would have rather married Aravain than anyone else. By then, she was a great knight, a faithful protector, a dear friend, indeed dearer than any woman but his mother and favourite sister. But she was not at all what Gondor expected of a princess.

Always a creature of contradictions, she was, in fact, a princess: at once the most Dúnadan of Queen Lothíriel’s daughters—she had been fostered in Dol Amroth for that reason—and very much the Lady Éowyn’s niece. But after years in Gondor, she regarded herself as more Aravain than Athelflaed, more akin to Morwen, Glóredhel, and Gilanor than her own sisters, more Dúnadan warrior than Rohirren princess; after the first shocks, so did Gondor regard her. 

He knew she would not have accepted him even had he dared offer, yet no man could have asked for a more faithful captain or friend; she remained at his side for nigh on a century—until old age took her, and then, she too died. 

5

Throughout Eldarion’s childhood and youth, he knew his father best as a victor of distant triumphs, the great Elessar who brought glory and riches to Gondor, an occasional towering presence. In his early years, it was very occasional; Gondor had many enemies, eager to try her battered armies, and from the first, Elessar declared himself determined to recover all that the Dúnedain had ever lost, but for Rohan and drowned Númenor. 

The Queen, Eldarion’s mother, did not reign in these absences; the Steward Faramir did, by law and—though Eldarion did not understand it at the time—policy. Gondor knew and loved Faramir, and found so many changes easier to bear with the Steward ruling from Minas Tirith. 

But by good fortune, Faramir and Arwen held each other in the highest regard; he always requested her counsel, she accorded him every honour, and Eldarion only ever knew them as close allies and friends.

Indeed, he thought it perfectly natural that the Steward and the Queen should rule Gondor together, for he remembered little else. And as a boy, he thought it perfectly natural that they should rule over him, too.

6

As a young man, he did not think so quite as much, but he had a mild temper, and appreciated that his mother simply asked him about Glóredhel. 

Eldarion had never thought much about Glóredhel one way or another, though he had seen her many times. She was several years his junior, of an age with his sister Telperiën; indeed, Glóredhel and Telperiën used to laugh and whisper together when they were in company in either Minas Anor or Emyn Arnen, and remained faithful friends. She had a lighter temper than her sister Morwen and her various cousins, including Aravain; she enjoyed songs, and dancing, and tales of victory; she had a pleasant voice and a fair face. Eldarion, without ever imagining her as a bride, had always liked her well enough. 

He said as much to Arwen, who nodded thoughtfully, and said nothing more; but Eldarion understood what went unsaid, and soon found himself easily assenting to a marriage.

So did Glóredhel; she listened as he stumbled through an explanation, then laughed and said yes, of course.

7 

Over the year of their betrothal, Eldarion took pains to acquaint himself better with Glóredhel, finding her as fearless, frank, and curious as he remembered her. 

“It will be an adventure,” she said once, and he could not help but smile—a weakness, if weakness it was, that often beset him around her. He could not quite say that he loved her on their wedding-day, not as he did later, but he was happy to take her hand in his; happy to hear the King call her daughter; happy to bury his fingers in her golden hair.

It turned white with a terrible quickness, yet not before her time. Their son and daughter were grown with children of their own, and Glóredhel’s sister-son, taken into their household in his youth, had become a renowned loremaster, and Éomer of Rohan had come to grieve over his sister with them. Yet it all seemed impossibly fast to Eldarion, each moment passing instantly onto the next, until he stood weeping between Faramir and Elessar as Glóredhel was borne into Rath Dínen.

She had lived over seventy years, and Eldarion had lifetimes ahead of him.

#eldarion #anghraine's fic #faramir #chaucer meme #arwen undómiel #legendarium fic #legendarium blogging #glóredhel of ithilien #there's so much i had to keep cutting out bc it wasn't relevant enough #which is for the Best but ;_; #like #glóredhel has a super good relationship with aragorn and will just listen to him by the hour #and tiny glóredhel would try to trail after him and climb his robes #(when he was around) #glóredhel's sister-son is the barahir who writes the tale of aragorn and arwen (he's morwen's son) #telperiën is named for celebrían more than the queen of númenor (and glóredhel is named for the hadorian rather than elves) #telperiën is the favourite sister he mentions in passing #aravain is basically gondorian alanna of trebond #faramir is basically the earl of southampton #he dies shortly after glóredhel does #anywayyyyy #aragorn #the southampton au #ugh still need a better name. given that it's not an au!