Miranda otto quote
"I am no man" is the quote i will never forget from miranda otto as eowyn. It was jus brilliant. It showed eoywn that women can be in battle as well. Thats the best quote in lord of the rings trilogy.
shareAn inspiring line sure, but a little out of context. "No man can kill a wraith" means no man or woman, not merely one with an XY chromosome.
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The Heroes Journey -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_WrYAKBJVI
Just for clarity and such. The line is not 'no man can kill a wraith'.
The line 'no man can kill...' is in direct reference to the Witch-king, one of the wraiths in particular.
The movie didn't go into any backstory on this but the movie doesn't conflict with the books so here goes.
Way back before the times period in which the LOTR is set, an elf prophesied that the Witch-king would not die at that time. "Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man shall he fall."
I'm sure that prophecy was taken to mean that no *person* could not kill the Witch-king. And the Witch-king surely took it as an indication of near immortality on his part, at least in terms of battle with men.
In the end, it was not by the hand of 'a man' that the Witch-king fell. It was by the hand of a woman and, in the books, with assist from a Hobbit (who wounded the W-k at his own peril thus rendering the W-k easier for Eowyn to defeat.)
Prophecies are words and words can be interpreted in many ways. And one might also suppose that a prophecy comes to a person who doesn't have the details down. (since, in most cultures, prophecies are spoken by prophets but ultimately divine in nature.)
So did Glorfindel, the person who spoke the prophecy quoted above, know that it would be a woman and a Hobbit that took down the W-k and he was playing a trick by the way he phrased it? I don't necessarily think so, although others might disagree with me.
Regardless, this is the kind of fuzzy setting that Tolkien loves. We have to work out for ourselves what that prophecy meant and what did Glorfindel know when he spoke it and how much did the prophecy influence people over the years, etc.
And then we can try to work out why Tolkien wrote it this way? Eowyn despaired of being a woman. She felt left out and left behind and disregarded for her gender and for the roles she was expected to play. As Dernhelm (literally, hidden-helm) she laughs when the Witch-king mocks her with his line, "No living man may hinder me!". She knows all too well that she's not a man. She's fey... riding to death. She has no hope of defeating the W-k. But to be told she can't do it because no 'man' can? That's rich, isn't it. (for her)
The same for Merry. In the book he's along for the ride (with Dernhelm/Eowyn) from Rohan to Gondor and everyone knows he's there but he's not supposed to be there. "He might have been just another bag that Dernhelm was carrying. Dernhelm was no comfort: he never spoke to anyone. Merry felt small, unwanted, and lonely." When it's time to leave encampment he's told to ‘Pack yourself up, Master Bag!’
But in the end, it was his small size and overlooked nature that allowed him to creep close to the Witch-king and wound him. He was a Hobbit and terrified. Hobbits are good at hiding, not fighting. But he loved Eowyn and Theoden and he was determined to do what he could so she would not die alone (again, like Eowyn, this implies he doesn't think he's going to survive this). As he crawled toward them, the W-k heeded him no more than a worm in the mud. And from behind, just before the W-k can deliver the death blow to Eowyn, Merry stabs him behind the knee, cutting sinew and the W-k stumbled forward with a cry of bitter pain, and his stroke went wide, driving into the ground.
This prophecy is not a 'rule' set forth that sets out how something will happen. It's a culmination of how two folks felt powerless in a fight against evil that mattered very very much. They watched those they care about leave them to join this fight and they despaired that they mattered. But they didn't give up, they didn't whine. They just did what they could and in the end it mattered very much.
That's how it works in LOTR. People make choices and those choices matter. And it's not the great warrior that kills the Witch-king. It's a woman and a Hobbit. And it's not a great warrior that destroys the Ring and ultimately Sauron, it's again... Hobbits. Plain folk.
yeah, the line itself is silly, that she can kill him with easy just because she is a woman
The stupid have one thing in common.They alter the facts to fit their views not the other way
It's not that she could kill him just because she was a woman.
The prophecy was that he would be felled by 'no man'.
She did kill him. Maybe she was destined to kill him. Maybe Glorfindel who spoke the prophecy knew she would kill him. Maybe Illuvatar (god of Middle-earth) knew she would and spoke through Glorfindel.
It wasn't a rule that would set conditions for actions like a Magic The Gathering card. It was a prediction or maybe a vision of what was to come.
The prophecy didn't say 'only a woman can kill him' --- setting forth a rule that must be followed. It said 'he wouldn't be killed by a man' --- describing a prediction/vision of something that would happen in the future... albeit somewhat vaguely as many prophecies are.
And the prophecy provided for ambiguity and potential mis-interpretation even as a prediction/vision.
Tolkien loved language and he loved using words in very precise ways and playing with words and phrasing things in archaic or ambiguous ways. (I have been party to many discussions about precisely what Frodo means when, at the Crack of Doom, he says: "I have come... But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. This Ring is mine." Tom Shippey discussed in his book Author of the Century: https://goo.gl/flhMmg.)
This prophecy is ambiguously and oddly phrased. I believe Tolkien did that purposely because he loved language and wanted *language* to play a role in events. Something was said that seemed to mean one thing but, in effect, meant something else.
Additionally, what Eowyn did wasn't easy. She was gravely wounded physically and psychically from her encounter with the Witch-king. She was kept from death only by the hands of Aragorn who had special healing powers. I'm not sure any of the physicians could have healed her.
How is that easy? The whole concept of *easy* would never come up if there had been no prophecy and a man had killed the W-k. We wouldn't have people saying 'ah.. he had it easy'.
This story is full of depth and one can't look at it in the same way one can superhero movies or elaborately constructed video game worlds. Those are not telling the same sorts of story that LOTR is. We have to dig deeper. We have to make connections between events. We have to understand the background that Tolkien was bringing to his writing (such as his love of language, myth and his devotion to Catholicism).