This chapter might be called “The Steward and the King,” but really I think it would be better titled “Éowyn’s Denouement,” or better still, “The Dotting of the I’s and the Crossing of the T’s.”
I’ll start with Éowyn. I know lots of people wish she had ended up with Aragorn, and from good ol’ Strider’s perspective, I honestly agree: she’s much more interesting than Arwen. But from Éowyn’s perspective, Faramir is a better fit. She never really got to know Aragorn - she’s only been in his company at all for a grand total of three days: 1) Aragorn’s arrival and departure from Edoras; 2) the day he arrived at Dunharrow; and 3) the next day when he left Dunharrow. Faramir she spent time with, and got to know, and grew to love as he grew to love her in return. I’m d’awwing really really hard over here.
I’ve also heard complaints that the badass shieldmaiden, slayer of the Witch-king, decided to trade in her martial ambitions for marital ambitions. (Aside: I’m absurdly proud of that little bit of wordplay.) Several points I want to make in response. First, a key tenet of feminism is that women can do whatever they choose to do. If Éowyn wants to be a healer instead of a warrior, then more power to her. Additionally, I can 100% promise you that as far as Tolkien was concerned, being a healer is a far more worthy profession than being a warrior. A consistent theme in LotR is that warriors are not praised for their own virtue. Boromir might have loved the arrow for its switftness, and the sword for its sharpness, but Faramir reserved his love for that which they defend. “The hands of the King are the hands of a healer,” as another example. The book is full of them. Tolkien, veteran of war that he was, was sincere about this. And also, the war was done. It is time to live life, to move on, and find happiness. Tolkien’s marriage was at the heart of his own happiness in life (more on this later), and Éowyn deserves the same. One last point on Éowyn: I’m always a sucker for moments of self-realization, and that’s what Éowyn has when she realizes she loves Faramir. To quote the chapter, “Then the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it.” Éowyn knows her heart now, and I celebrate her for it.
Moving on, Aragorn is king now. Huzzah! … OK, that’s all I’ve got.
Beregond gets a reasonable judgement here from Aragorn. It’s a classic case of doing a Bad Thing (leaving his post, killing other soldiers of Gondor trying to do their duties) for Good Reasons (the boss was a batshit would-be filicide). So he’s kicked out of the Guard and exiled from Minas Tirith on the one hand, and promoted to commander of Faramir’s personal guard on the other. Fair deal.
Ioreth again. If I ever get the chance to speak with Christopher Tolkien or anyone else who knew Edith Tolkien, I really want to ask if she was a chatterbox like we see here. Because the only explanation I can see for her as a character is Tolkien lovingly teasing her for her foibles, even as (per my theory discussed earlier) he roasted himself with the Herb-master of the Houses of Healing.
More d’awwing: so a bit about the history of their relationship. They met and fell in love when Tolkien was a teenager, Edith being a few years older. Tolkien had been orphaned, and was raised by his guardian, a Catholic priest. He did not approve of Edith, as she was a Protestant, and forbid Tolkien from continuing a relationship with her. Obedient to his guardian’s wishes, Tolkien cut off contact with her. Until the day of his 18th birthday, when he was no longer his under his guardian’s authority. That very day he wrote Edith a letter, going directly to a marriage proposal, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Now Edith was, as I said, a few years older, and being in her early 20s and in dire danger of becoming an old maid, had accepted a marriage proposal from another man. But then she received the letter from Tolkien with his proposal, and she dropped that other loser like a hot potato.
So Aragorn is now King of both Arnor and Gondor. He has completed his marriage quest and wins the fair maiden. Elrond concedes this readily enough: the Sceptre of Annúminas that he gives to Aragorn was the chief symbol of royalty of Arnor, as the crown was in Gondor. It had been kept safely in Rivendell since the fall of the North-kingdom. As I think I’ve mentioned before, the vision of Arwen’s future that Elrond foresaw in the movies was pretty much 100% spot on. She had about a normal human lifetime of happiness together with Aragorn, and they had a child together, but Aragorn did eventually grow old and yielded up his life willingly when his time came. At which point she left Minas Tirith, wandered in grief for about a year, and ended up in by-this-point-deserted Lothlórien. So there she laid down on the hill of Cerin Amroth, where she and Aragorn had first pledged themselves to each other, and died.
Another critique of Tolkien: Arwen had a son. She had more than just her husband, and it’s so tired and trite for her to just be all “woah is me life isn’t worth living” after Aragorn died. To which I say: no, Tolkien isn’t being sexist here. He’s imagining how he would feel if Edith died, and his own children were grown. Evidence of this, a letter he wrote to his children after she passed away, regarding his decision to give her the epitaph of “Lúthien”:
I have at last got busy about Mummy's grave. .... The inscription I should like is ... brief and jejune, except for Lúthien, which says for me more than a multitude of words: for she was (and knew she was) my Lúthien. Say what you feel, without reservation, about this addition. I began this under the stress of great emotion & regret – and in any case I am afflicted from time to time (increasingly) with an overwhelming sense of bereavement. I need advice. Yet I hope none of my children will feel that the use of this name is a sentimental fancy. It is at any rate not comparable to the quoting of pet names in obituaries. I never called Edith Lúthien – but she was the source of the story that in time became the chief part of the Silmarillion. It was first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks at Roos in Yorkshire (where I was for a brief time in command of an outpost of the Humber Garrison in 1917, and she was able to live with me for a while). In those days her hair was raven, her skin clear, her eyes brighter than you have seen them, and she could sing – and dance. But the story has gone crooked, & I am left, and I cannot plead before the inexorable Mandos.
That abrupt change in tone at the end breaks me every time. Tolkien himself died less than two years later. Given that, I’m inclined towards sympathy with Arwen.
(I'm not crying. You're crying!)
(I wasn't really expecting this post to be so much about Tolkien's marriage, but I'm not unhappy it worked out that way.)
So lastly, the White Tree. It is a direct descendent of Telperion, the very first tree that the Vala Yavanna created (along with Laurelin the Golden) to give light to the Blessed Realm in the ages before even the Elves first awoke. It was Laurelin and Telperion that were the source of the light that Fëanor bound into the Silmarils, and after Ungoliant destroyed them a surviving fruit of each was used to create the Sun and the Moon. And that is the light that shines out of Frodo’s Phial, and the star that Sam saw above the Mountains of Shadow was Eärendil sailing the night sky with the Silmaril upon his brow. The best stories never end indeed.
Next time, we have Many Partings. It’s so hard to say goodbye.