And I like the exchange between Eowyn and Aragorn, when she calls him her "liege-lord and healer" and he says, "It heals my heart to see thee now in bliss" (p. 955). Eowyn grows and changes a lot in these books, more than some of the more "main" characters, and I love that she's found peace and self-understanding. And that she's not bitter toward Aragorn or anything. Especially since I suspect she'll end up seeing a lot of him, since she's marrying Faramir and going to live in Ithilien, very near to Minas Tirith. I like to imagine Faramir and Eowyn sometimes hanging out in Minas Tirith having banquets and stuff with Aragorn and Arwen, maybe their kids playing together. And travelling to Edoras to visit Eomer (who eventually marries the daughter of Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth). I must admit I've spent a lot of time imagining up what happens later on to all these characters.
But the rest of this chapter makes me sad. I hate endings. I hate partings. Sniff.
Favorite Lines:
"...the tree grows best in the land of its sires" (p. 952).
"You should know that above all I hate the caging of live things, and I will not keep even such creatures as these caged beyond great need" (p. 958).
Discussion Questions:
What do you think of Treebeard letting Saruman and Wormtongue go?
Do you ever imagine what happened next for characters you love after a book (or movie) has ended?
I love that you've spend time imagining the further life of Tolkien's characters! His world is so rich and you've spend so much time with these characters, it just invites you to do so!
ReplyDeleteThis is kind of a thing with me. If I love a world and its characters, I will spend all kinds of time imagining up more stuff about them. I do that for dozens of things, from X-Men to LOTR to Big Valley to Firefly. I'm always telling stories to myself in my head :-)
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