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Episode 22 - Queer Readings: Eowyn & Faramir Part 3 - Bi Wife Energy
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The final part of our 'Queer Readings' trilogy on Eowyn and Faramir. Join Alicia, Grace, and Leah as they pontificate over how Eowyn's gender queerness and Faramir's soft masculinity combine to form the Queer Relationship Voltron of "Bi Wife Energy".
Transcript
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello and welcome to queer lodgings, the queer led podcast about everything Tolkien. I'm Grace and I'm here with my usual co-hosts, Alicia and Leah. Settle in with us with a nice chilled beverage to survive the summer heat and join us for the final part of our three part series talking about queer readings of Eowyn, Faramir and their queer relationship stats. Let me tell you why it's because I love my wife and my wife is bi.
00:00:44
Speaker
Now, sometimes for my own purposes, I have already established that Aowyn queer readings, Faramir queer readings, and if any person in a relationship is queer, then the relationship is queer, at least if it gets to be its full self. But let's dig into that. Aowyn and Faramir as a queer relationship and as kindred spirits.
00:01:09
Speaker
Yeah, we've we've mentioned before they had very similar backgrounds and upbringings. They're from similar social station. They were both orphaned. They both grew up in households basically devoid of any sort of like feminine influence. I would argue that they were both overshadowed by their brothers. Yeah. Eowyn, not as fully as Faramir.
00:01:40
Speaker
But I do still think that that is a thing that is happening there. Well, the constructs of the overshadowing differ for them, but... The dynamics differ, yeah. I mean, even in terms of familial like expectations and roles. Yeah, I think that that's fair to say.
00:01:59
Speaker
yeah In letter 457, Tolkien points out that Faramir was motherless and sisterless. Aowon was also motherless and had a bossy brother. And he ends this paragraph comparing the two with, I think he understood Aowon very well.
00:02:20
Speaker
And I think if for more reasons than just the fact that they had a very similar upbringing, I think Tolkien is right. Faramir did understand Aowan very well, one because he was a very like and empathic kind of individual. And um also they have similar suffering and in their past.
00:02:44
Speaker
I mean, they they were both orphaned, ah they're they're both just surrounded by death, right? Absolutely. They're both surrounded by war. but Yeah, they're both also surrounded by war. They're living out what they think is probably the end of the world. Like that that's immensely traumatic. Yeah.
00:03:06
Speaker
and they're both living with the burden of expectation of the of their roles and their noble status, but without the agency of being able to direct the actions of their people or their families because neither of them are the heir and neither of them are the ones who are supposed to be able to lead, even though they both end up closer to that reality.
00:03:37
Speaker
That's not the understanding, the very truth. One of the more interesting differences for me is how their family dynamics are different because Theoden is more passive than Denethor is and how that manifests in AO1 and Faramir. We've already like referenced this quote earlier, Faramir was daunted by his father.
00:04:07
Speaker
He was accustomed to giving way and not giving his own opinions heir. He became a very dutiful son to try to live up to these impossible expectations that Denethor had for him. And Theoden is really passive and Eowyn is therefore very defiant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Theoden leaves Eowyn in it and charge of the people that go off to war and Eowyn's like, nah, fuck that. I'm gonna go to war too. Which is, Farmer would never.
00:04:46
Speaker
Farmer made like one contrary decision to his father. and got reamed for it, basically. And basically almost got killed for it, right? Yeah. A couple of times, actually. A couple of times. As you look at that one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alicia, can you go a little bit more into the argument that we've kind of touched upon about from lesbians for Bormir's essay on complementary trans narratives about war in particular?
00:05:19
Speaker
Yeah. So that this post that lesbians for Boromir wrote was comparing Eowyn and Denethor as complementary trans narratives. But I want to put a little twist on it because I think it makes more sense with Faramir and Denethor's place. To Eowyn, home is prison and war is escape and to Faramir,
00:05:47
Speaker
war is prison and home is escape. And both of them have their escape thwarted. Faramir, by having his return home culminate in his father attempting to burn him alive, and Eowyn by not succumbing to the wound the Witch-King inflicts upon her when that's what she wants.
00:06:09
Speaker
I want to point out, very specifically, what Eowyn says to Aragorn before he goes through the paths of the dead, that she's to be left home to be burned with the houses when the men no longer need them. Oh, that is almost exactly what happens to farm here.
00:06:29
Speaker
oh Oh, man. Yeah, what a parallel. Oh, yeah, I just this this idea of having having their escape awarded, like, God, no wonder like they they kind of come together in houses of healing.
00:06:48
Speaker
like They both had such a similar sort of sort of trauma, basically. And they both understand each other on a ah level that a lot of the people around them, I think, can't understand or don't really have the experience to understand.
00:07:07
Speaker
Yeah, and I think it's easy to overlook how similar their wounds actually are, because how they ended up at this point is is so different. Like, Eowyn ended up in this point because she was going to war against the wishes of her liege lord and farmeir's in this situation because he was forced to go into war.
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, she was looking for death. yeah He was like trying to survive, trying to keep everybody else in the city alive, basically. Yeah, it I don't know how much of it is that and how much of it is he's trying to please his father. I think it depends on if you're going book or movie here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's complicated. Like how much is he trying to be the son who lived? How much is he trying to be Boromir for his father? Because Boromir is not alive anymore.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's really clearly stated in the movie version, at least. And I'm trying to recall how it actually plays out in the book version differently.
00:08:22
Speaker
Honestly, it's that I don't remember the movie version clearly. Well, and Denethor says in both that you wish our places had been exchanged. ah Yeah. That Boromir had lived and I had died. And Denethor says, so explicitly says yes. Yes, I wish that.
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah. So yeah. So it's sort of like how much of that, that ride out to that, again, that very stupid sort of charge of the light brigade out to Australia is rooted in wanting to please his father and wanting to be the son that didn't come home. You know, it is external though.
00:09:01
Speaker
Like what's driving AO1 is an internal drive and what's driving far mirror, whether it's, whatever it is, it's an external drive. Yeah. Right. And like, they kind of have the similar experience, but they also like, they're wounded in, in different ways. Like far mirror is.
00:09:21
Speaker
physically wounded, right? Eowyn, she has some physical wounds too, but she has much, much deeper emotional and psychological wounds. Again, the contrast between searching for death and searching for something else, maybe a life under a father who loves him.
00:09:43
Speaker
um yeah I can't help but to think what a fucking relief it must have been for farmer to wake up and be like, oh, yeah, your dad's dead. Like your dad's dead. The king is back. Oh, thank God. I don't have to deal with any of that. It's like your uncle hanging out around here and handling some shit like you. You don't have to worry. Yeah. You just rest, buddy. You just rest. You just rest, baby.
00:10:10
Speaker
I'm like, oh, thank God. I can just hang out here for a few weeks. yeah
00:10:18
Speaker
Yeah. Let's get into, let's get into them hanging out for a little while in the houses of the healing a little bit more. cool I want to start this section with fuck every single person who has ever made the argument that Faramir tamed Eowyn. You're wrong. It's a bad read. It's a bad take. Yes. Yes. It's grounded in such grossly misogynistic propaganda. Yes. That if that's not what you meant to be doing, let's stop. Let's just not do that anymore.
00:10:56
Speaker
Yes, yes, absolutely. yeah yeah Like luckily most of the newer scholarship does not make that argument, but there is a ton of it out there and it's gross. A lot of older scholarship. This is kind of your baby and kind of like your whole like central thesis basically, Alicia. So why don't you take us, take us through it.
00:11:21
Speaker
ah We've talked about how Faramir has this soft masculinity. We've talked about what bi-wife energy is. We're now going to synthesize these two things because Faramir uses his soft masculinity to heal Aowin.
00:11:42
Speaker
And then the bye wife energy comes. So in killing the Witch King, what ends up happening with Eowyn is that she is left kind of like more or less. At least she doesn't really know what to do. She's fulfilled her purpose as a shield maiden. How can you really top killing the Witch King? Except that she didn't die. Yeah, yeah.
00:12:13
Speaker
So she's lived through this and is now trying to figure out who she is and what she needs to do and whether it's worth going on living. And Faramir gives her the hope that she needs to, he gives her the support that she needs to actually like find that hope and find that drive within herself to continue living. And he does that through truly seeing who she is as a person. And as Faramir is approaching Eowyn, he is coming at her as a fellow warrior. o And he says that he you know he understands that she wished to have renown and glory and to be lifted far above the main things that crawl the earth
00:13:06
Speaker
And he empathizes with her admiration for Aragorn as the greatest lord of men, but said, when he gave her only understanding and pity, then she desired to have nothing unless a brave death and battle. and Because Aragorn pities Eowyn, because she does have this great skill in battle that he he cannot use, is um how ah Melissa McCrory Hatcher is characterizing this.
00:13:35
Speaker
But Faramir, professors has loved her by saying, I do not offer you my pity, for you are a lady, high and valiant, and have yourself one renown that shall not be forgotten. Yeah, like that's that's like the moment where he's like, yeah, he he sees her. like he sees He sees her. He sees him. He sees all of it.
00:13:59
Speaker
And it's the first time anyone's actually truly seen Eowyn. Ever. Yeah. Yeah. I think a Hatcher says, you know, like Faramir highlights the idea that Aragorn only pities Eowyn while he doesn't actually pity the shadow in her.
00:14:21
Speaker
like Faramir realizes like that she has a weakness and he wants her to grow. Unlike Aragorn, like Faramir really sees Aowin as his equal. He really sees them like on the same level, which Aragorn, I don't think he ever really did. And I don't think he ever really could just because of the way that relationship worked, right? Right. Leslie Donovan and the Valkyrie reflex again makes a ah really good point. When Aowyn commits to Faramir and agrees to marry him. She says, I will be a shield maiden no longer, nor vie with the great riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer and love all things that grow. Leslie ah points out that the word only here insists that in the future she will not simply reject but transcend the limitations of her shield maiden role.
00:15:22
Speaker
only does so much heavy you lifting in that sentence. It is such a key word. Yes, yes. And I think that it queers that role that Eowyn wants to grow into and become.
00:15:39
Speaker
Say more, Alicia, about a little bit more about this, because um again, you've done a lot of work on this, and so I want you to to lead us through. Yeah. um In accepting a new role as a healer, ah many people have characterized this as a one taking on a traditionally feminine role. I would counter in the Lord of the Rings, healing is not a traditionally feminine role.
00:16:10
Speaker
the hands of the of the king or the hands of the healer. like It is very much masculine coded with the exception of Iraeth. She's the only like really named female healer that we get in the Lord of the Rings because you know they're only like four women in it at all.
00:16:34
Speaker
And i I think that in choosing healing to be her like her primary aftershieldmaiden vocation, what Eowyn is doing is through Faramir's help that he gave her in giving her hope and a reason to live, essentially, she has taken this negative expression of her masculinity, this like toxic masculinity she was previously exhibiting, and is now funneling that into a more positive manifestation of that same masculinity. I don't think that this is her being tamed and settling down and becoming a traditional woman and housewife and whatever,
00:17:21
Speaker
This is her healing something broken inside of her and turning that negativity into positivity. It's not doing away with the masculinity.
00:17:35
Speaker
Not remotely. And in fact, Tolkien is pretty clear in that if you read the appendices, because in Appendix A, he talks about that Eowyn also won renown, fought in that battle, riding in disguises, and was known after in the mark as the Lady of the Shield Arm.
00:17:55
Speaker
Eowyn's identity going forward and into history is perceived as her duality, or her actions in battle, as well as those after. That is not erased from her identity. It is, in fact, one of the biggest pieces of how she is perceived by her people thereafter.
00:18:18
Speaker
I do kind of want to highlight that like a lot of scholarship kind of erases this sort of this embrace of she's not putting down the shield basically. I feel like it's really easy to say that like Aeon was tamed or that she put down her shield or that she embraced her traditional sort of femininity.
00:18:38
Speaker
And obviously it's easy to do that because a lot of people have done it before in scholarship, which is really frustrating. And I feel like adding this deeper dimension of queerness, like not only in gender identity, but also just like in queer approaches to the world itself of like being a lady of the shield arm and also the healer who makes the gardens of Ithilien grow. I feel like that gives us such a different and more interesting and complex and more whole sort of portrait of the journey that Eowyn has really been through and how deep her healing has really gone. like It's such a shallow sort of reading to kind of be like
00:19:25
Speaker
that she gave this up, that to become you know a gardener and a healer or whatever, it's like, no, no, no, that's so shallow. Oh, here, here. Hatcher quotes a few. Oh, yeah. ah Frederick M. McBride insists Eowyn's healing is a victory, not only for Faramir, but for their civilization. An unruly impulse to transcend prescribed gender roles has been successfully thwarted.
00:19:54
Speaker
Listeners can't see my face, but I'm... it took There's another one. it one's healing comes from accepting the role that her civilization demands from her as a woman to be a beautiful helpful and cheerful companion to a man ah ah I mean, that is a way you could read it. It's just not a very good one in my opinion. I agree it is. ah It's a shallow read.
00:20:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah it does it I feel like it it flattens Aowin to a really distressing degree when I feel like it's pretty clear that a lot of care has been put into making Aowin a really deep character who can't be flattened in that way. Yeah, and we haven't even touched on the fact that Aowin rules a thillion with Faramir. Like they are co-rulers, essentially.
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah, they're equals. They're equals. And that that equality is like, again, is at the root of their relationship, which I think is so essential. There's a really quick quote from Brent Johnson in a paper, Eowyn's Grief. He tries to find ways to connect and engage with Eowyn like as her own self and tries to bring out what is like the best in her and also sort of a reminder that she's not alone in the world which I think sort of speaks to the sort of queer experience of different queer relationships and trying to see like Aylin's an active participant in the relationship and you he finds ways to
00:21:39
Speaker
break through like her walls in ways that I feel like a lot of people can relate to and especially folks who maybe have not had many successful relationships or sort of deep intimate relationships.
00:22:00
Speaker
So yeah, I i feel like that quote from there of reminding her that she's not alone in the world is kind of another like thing that really kind of gets me about their relationship and the not like the egalitarianism of it, but like the equality and the equal power dynamics of the relationship. Like it's very, very clear that they have, they are each consenting and each have the ability to engage with each other in a way that is not compromised or sort of troubled by like status or rank or relative power, which I think is really important. This is not canon. This is from Lord of the Rings Online. but But when you play through, when you get to the end game of Lord of the Rings Online, you you play through Mordor after the ring has been destroyed.
00:22:57
Speaker
And then you go into Minas Morgul and you're part of the Rangers of the Thillion as they're like retaking Minas Morgul. And while you're playing this, spoilers for a five-year-old expansion pack to this game,
00:23:18
Speaker
Aowyn shows up in disguise as Durnhelm. Not named Durnhelm takes a different name because she's there to help Faramir because she doesn't want to be left behind. She wants to help him and he doesn't want her to endanger herself. So she has like snuck in and at the point where he finds out that it's her Like there's this big reveal and then he's just like I knew it was you. And I love that so much. I love that. That's so good. Because that is my head cannon. They are co-leading. She is helping it hear him and Aragorn like do their war thing. They're cleaning up. Yeah. Yeah. They're cleaning up together for sure. She's training the army. Absolutely.
00:24:07
Speaker
I kind of wish that it was like Faramir is just like, and here's my wife, she's leading this mission with me. But whatever, fine. If you have to do a big fancy reveal, fine, whatever. But okay, we'll all pretend we didn't know. We all pretend we didn't know that, whatever. It's this game that she likes to play where she likes to, I don't know. Anyway.
00:24:32
Speaker
There is one parallel that I want to make sure that we point out and that's to identity for Mary and Aowin as they both ride into battle and how that identity is honored going into the ending of the book. So at the very end, in many partings, we have at last before the guests set out, Aomair and Aowin came to Mary and they said,
00:25:01
Speaker
Farewell now, marry a doc of the Shire and hold wine of the Mark. Ride to good fortune and ride back soon to our welcome." This isn't just Eowyn being like, I recognize that the identity you held is valid and continues, but it's Eomer also doing that, which to me also indicates that he's like, and I recognize that my sibling here, same dealio. Just saying.
00:25:26
Speaker
Hell yeah. Oh my God, guys, I think we finally fucking made it through this episode. This episode. Is this three episodes? I think this might be three episodes. Yeah. Let's. Sorry editing to him. Let's kind of tie some things together a little bit. I really, I kind of want to highlight that she has avoided what she most feared, a fate in which doing all great deeds. And also I kind of want to highlight both are content to coexist somewhere in between. This is not a ah cohesive tying together thought. This is a don't Eowyn farmere only have like one kid. As far as we know. Yeah. Note. Yeah. Yeah. What's his name again? Elbaron.
00:26:19
Speaker
Part of me is just wondering, like, i I would need to, like, take a look. Like, I think all that's said is, like, bear a bear and Aowin have a son. This is his name. And since we never get a, like, oh, and Aowin, like, bears this child, like,
00:26:35
Speaker
Oh, just saying like did you aren she found family. Oh, oh, did you find him in the woods of a billion somewhere? Oh, I think it's also it's actually something that that I consider more from the point of view of I have a number of friends who are non binary or genderqueer has made the choice to have.
00:27:01
Speaker
Children, but because it can cause like a lot of like gender fuckery thoughts are very intentional about when and how they have children and how many and so I don't know I think there's there's an element where you can look at like a lot of these in in contrast to Sam and Rosie Cotton, right? Yeah, I'm here in AON having a single child can also be this this beautiful way of documenting how they lived out their love to each other and honored who each other was. Whereas I think normally you would get this this read that's like oh well they only had one kid maybe they weren't really into each other or whatever like no no no no like this is this is care and intentional building a family and oh I love that idea that means yeah mm-hmm
00:27:58
Speaker
I'm trying to think of like, there aren't many really small families like that. No. Lord of the Rings. I mean, Aragorn and Arwen had three kids. Three? Yeah. I mean, Frodo. Frodo didn't have any siblings. But like his parents died. Yeah. Yeah. He probably would have had his parents not drown. And that's true, maybe. Yeah. Varmir lives to 120. So like, that's not what's happened there. Hmm.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah, er everyone and arwin had three kids, even though we're almost like fucking four thousand years old or whatever.
00:28:35
Speaker
Jeez. Yeah, I feel like that sense of care is. Yeah, I love I love seeing it like that. Grace has like a real demonstration of care of having having the one the one child like the intentionality of yeah the love that they have for each other and yeah how they're manifesting that. Like we we don't get a ton of clues about what happens after the book page is closed, but we do get some. And it just stands out to me as different than a lot of the other expectations and norms and and what have you. And so something that's fairly unique to them.
00:29:21
Speaker
I guess like I do like this kind of end thought from Schaeffer Fuller that, quote, while on the surface it may seem that Faramir has inspired Eowyn to conform to societal gendered norms, it is perhaps a more nuanced reading to suggest that they both transgress in ways that seemingly balance their relationship nonetheless.
00:29:46
Speaker
They each seek the opportunity to perform the duties that any given situation calls for, unhindered or unrestrained by traditional gender roles, both content to coexist somewhere in between the extreme bifurcations of the traditional medieval gender binary as it suits them.
00:30:07
Speaker
I would also sort of add to that, but it's maybe even more nuanced to suggest that they specifically queer the traditional medieval and current gender binary in and of themselves, not just with their roles, but within their own identities and their own understandings of themselves.
00:30:26
Speaker
I really love the idea that coexisting somewhere in the middle is a really safe and happy place for them when they have both been sort of pushed out to the edges of their kind of own coexistence, like far a mirror, like physically being pushed out to the edges of Gondor into a thillion and into war.
00:30:49
Speaker
and Aowin sort of psychologically, emotionally being pushed out to existing on the edges of the ruling family and within her own household. I love the idea that they meet in the middle, they understand themselves to be somewhere in the middle and sort of make their own sort of center, their own little center of their own world that they kind of create together. They hold space for each other.
00:31:15
Speaker
Yeah, and they come in from the edges and become the center of their own little door circle in their world. but And that's the beauty of the ah concept of bi-wife energy and the recognition that you're in a queer relationship is holding space for your partner to be able to be their full self. Yeah.
00:31:39
Speaker
And I think very clearly, no matter how you read it, aowan and firmer do that for each other. And so I think that they're pretty healthy relationship and also a pretty darn queer one. Yes, absolutely. Wow, I think that is a fantastic note on which to end. Thank you all for sticking through our um year-long, awaited, incredibly fucking long episode. I'm not sure how many episodes this is going to end up being. It took us somewhere around three hours to record, so it's all good. Our triumphant
00:32:25
Speaker
Our triumphant pride return. This is what happens every time we don't record for a while is we're working on some nonsense like this. Right. True fashion. We have to record for like three and a half hours or whatever. Yeah. Also shout out to producer Tim, who was not on this recording today. um I hope I give him by wife energy. Oh, so cute.
00:32:55
Speaker
All right. You can find us on Apple Podcasts. Now it's YouTube music, Spotify, or stream episodes directly on Zendcaster. That is zendcaster.com slash queer lodgings, a Tolkien podcast with hyphens in between all those words. Leave us a rating. If you feel like it, please like share and subscribe.
00:33:15
Speaker
You can find us on Facebook at queer lodgings on the only thing that it's acceptable to dead name Twitter at queer underscore lodgings. We're also on blue sky at queer lodgings. You could also send us an email at queer lodgings podcast at gmail dot.com. Somehow we're still on Twitter. Somehow.
00:33:39
Speaker
finish
00:33:45
Speaker
Now sometimes people assume I'm queer and I have to say, hey, just this great guy here, but I get it a lot. I don't mean to be cruel. It's just that my wife is a bisexual. by
00:34:21
Speaker
Is it really YouTube music? They're not doing like a YouTube podcast. No, it's YouTube music. I didn't know that. all All of the social media things are making great branding decisions. say ah Great branding decisions.
00:34:38
Speaker
Like we don't recognize the Twitter changed its name. I also refuse to recognize that HBO Max has drunk HBO. Whatever. It's HBO Max. It's the most popular dog name in America. And now they're all brand rebranding to like porn site names. Podcasts are music. Okay. Podcasts are not music. Get out of here.