A To Z Blogging Challenge 2026. Women In Speculative Fiction. E Is For Eowyn

 Today’s post is not about a writer but a character - in fact, a female character  from a novel written by a man. 

I’m talking about J.R.R Tolkien, of course, the author of classic heroic fantasy - the best known being The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings. Tolkien didn’t have many female characters in those books. There were, as far as I noticed, no women in The Hobbit, only “The Sackville-Bagginses”. We know, from Lord Of The Rings that one of them was Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, a relative of Bilbo and Frodo, but she isn’t mentioned by name in The Hobbit. In the films, there were two women, Galadriel and a character invented for the films, who falls in love with one of the Dwarves. Neither of them was in the book.

But the women in Lord Of The Rings are all strong, including Lobelia. There is the Elven queen Galadriel and even Goldberry, the wife of Tom Bombadil. Elf maiden Arwen, the beloved of Aragorn, was given a lot more to do in the film than in the novel, where she mostly sits sewing a banner for her lord throughout the book. There is more about her in the Appendices, of course, and she does fight her father, Elrond, over her marriage to Aragorn. 

But the strongest and most interesting woman in the novel is Eowyn, the niece of Theoden, the King of Rohan. Rohan is inspired by the Saxons culturally, though the Riders of Rohan are passionate horse lovers, while the Saxons didn’t generally ride. Eowyn is a shield maiden, that is, a female warrior. She is very, very good at it, and much respected for her abilities.

However, in the end she is a woman, responsible for looking after her uncle when he is under the influence of the evil Grima Wormtongue, and when the men go off to battle she is left to look after the kingdom. Theoden certainly considers this a compliment; she is, after all, competent and loved by the people, and he trusts her. Eowyn doesn’t see it that way. 

She certainly has a crush on Aragorn, though it’s as much hero worship as romantic feelings. 

But she wants to be of use in the fight against Sauron, and disguises herself as a man, Dernhelm, and smuggles hobbit Merry along, as he, too, has been told to stay behind and wants to come along. I got the impression when reading it that the men in the army knew perfectly well who she was and supported her. Her brother, Eomer, would probably have sent her back if he had known she was there.

Later, Gandalf points out to him that he had his heroics to do while she didn’t have any such thing. 

You probably know from the film, if you haven’t read the book, that she and Merry between them manage to kill the Witch King of Angmar, leader of the Ring Wraiths, who thinks he is safe because he has been told he will be killed by no man, and then finds himself being confronted by a woman and a hobbit, neither of them a man. Ah, technicalities! Dare I mention that Tolkien created the walking trees, the Ents, because he found the forest coming to Dunsinane in Macbeth irritating? And by the way,  all the female Ents, the Ent Wives, are missing. They are a dying race. 

Eowyn does get a happy ending. While in hospital she meets Faramir, the new Steward of Gondor, whose Dad had died while trying to kill himself and Faramir. They fall in love, he kisses her passionately in public - only in the book, not the film - and they decide to get married, clearly much to Aragorn’s relief. Eowyn decides she has had enough of fighting and killing and wishes to become a healer instead. I think Faramir would support her in whatever decision she makes, but that is the new career she decides on. They live happily ever after. 

Tomorrow I will be posting about Kate Forsyth.