Often I hear about the underlying message of duty, the importance of vows and the bitter bond of oaths in Tolkiens work.
Samwise's loyalty to Frodo, the bitter end of Gollum who swore by "The Precious" to fall because of it. And let's not forget Fëanor and his sons.
Éowyn reluctantly took upon the role of ruling in Theoden's place. She then disguised herself as Dernhelm and rode to war alongside her kinsmen, leaving those entrusted to her behind.
Was she MEANT to slay The Witch-King. Was facing him redemption and/or punishment enough for abandoning her duty. I mean, I would certainly forgive her. But the themes in Tolkien's work could be more or less damning to such an act.
(I'm not an english-speaker, forgive me, I hope I'm comprehensible)
Minor spoilers from the Return of the King (book version) ahead:
"Is there no deed to do?” [Éowyn] said. “Who commands in this City?”
“I do not rightly know,” [the Warden of the House of Healing] answered. “Such things are not my care. There is a marshal over the Riders of Rohan; and the Lord Húrin, I am told, commands the men of Gondor. But the Lord Faramir is by right the Steward of the City.”
“Where can I find him?”
“In this house, lady. He was sorely hurt, but is now set again on the way to health. But I do not know -”
“Will you not bring me to him? Then you will know.”
I've wondered about this for a while, since he was one of the kings who were corrupted by the rings what was he? Was he just a spirit or ghost or still alive?
Over and over people talk of how Episode IX's ending "totally ripped off" The Avengers, because one sentence amidst it was started by Rey with a simple, absolutely minimal and VERY unsubstantial piece of epic dialogue: "I am...". Some people were more than disappointed to see such an outrageous reference to another franchise; probably because they were hoping to be.
Epic dialogue, I should stress, is NO monopoly of The Avengers; in fact, Tony Stark's words are MUCH closer to Éowyn's in her fight against the Witch King (adapted to cinema back in 2003), than Rey's words are close to Tony's:
After a brutal takedown, the Witch King lifts the armored Éowyn by the neck and brags; "You fool. No man can kill me. Die now". Stabbed by Merry in the leg, the Witch King falls to his knees, at which opportunity Éowyn removes her helmet and responds "I am No Man", confirming Glorfindel's prophecy that no man would kill him and that that was indeed his doom, followed by a sword to his hollowed face.For that matter, Stark's sentence, "And I am Iron Man", while aluding back to the first Iron Man movie, when that was in fact a secret, loses all of its weight for the very much aware Thanos that he is Iron Man. The scene really makes no sense in-universe, making it look like Stark just ran out of things to say; but R. Downey Jr. just sells it that well.
But what people UTTERLY fail to see is that Rey's fight and sacrifice are much closer to Harry's last fight with Voldemort than to either Éowyn's or Stark's standoffs:
While Éowyn outright kills the Witch King with a sword to the face and Stark steals some stones and wishes Thanos away, both Harry and Rey hold off a high energy killing curse from their nemesis. Both Harry and Rey use a defensive move against an offensive one. Neither Harry nor Rey actually kill their opponent, but really rebound their killing intent back at themselves. In both cases, this rebounding communicates the protective side as the more morally deserving.
Additionally, both Harry and Rey have near death experiences with the dead before the showdown.
And also, both of them die and are resurrected.
Truly, this scene's greatest merit was to actually pull this off unnoticeably to most who really had any complaints about it. Doesn't the single fact people don't even notice the Deathly Hallows references go to show how well done it really was?
But apart from parallels, it does introduce unique elements of mythology and choreography. The dyad dyna
