On Love Triangles

[the_firedoor]

Because that post made me think. Mainly because, although love triangles generally don't faze me all that much, that example Meru gave of the whole Aragorn/Arwen/Eowyn triangle actually did sort of irritate me, even though, like Meru, I ended up really liking Eowyn/Faramir (ridiculously cute, my friends ^^). And I think that what pissed me off

Comments

[hitokirinome]

I wouldn't necessarily say it's more healthy for all involved for the person in the middle to make a choice. I've been in a love triangle before. Three of us that had known each other since before grade school. Grew up together and then suddenly in middle school when we all finally realised we had hormones, a triangle developed. Him, her and me. She, of course, is more pretty and popular than I was, but he would argue with me for fun and play video games with me. He chose her in middle school, they dated for probably a year, and then when high school started, she chose someone else, and continued to choose someone else. In the end she went off and married someone else, despite the fact that he was there, the entire time, being her best friend and pining for her, and she knew he was.... and then there was me on the other side, getting pissed at her for doing that to him, trying to be there for him and be HIS best friend and pining for him.

Really, in the end, when we all went to college or got married in her case, no one got chosen. No one got who they wanted. And sure, it hurt, for a while, but it was survivable.

I think written love triangles always seem to be more melodramatic than the real thing.

And on Eowyn... I dunno, I think it might've been somewhat in her character to react that way to Aragorn. She was the only adult for a long time, surrounded by men who were either her relatives, ugly as hell/traitors, or servants and thus not even in her field of vision because she's a noblewoman who is going to marry a nobleman. So Aragorn coming in with Gandalf and the rest, making everything better again, it wouldn't surprise me that she would see him as a knight in shining armour. She didn't know him very well and he was handsome and strong and new in her little world. It would make sense that she would become infatuated with him. You can be a strong woman and still be infatuated with a man.

I think something people have to keep in mind is that LotR was supposed to be written as if the people in it were living in a medivael setting, and in that sort of world, there is no women's lib. There are no feminists. Women, even strong and willful women, wanted to be married as soon as possible. Truthfully, I don't think Eowyn ever really loved Aragorn, I think she had a crush, or puppy love. She had him on a pedastal and had her own vision of him. Faramir was a better match for her in the end, and I think that's what Tolkien was trying to portray. Not that Arwen was prettier and better, but that Eowyn didn't really truly love Aragorn, she just thought she did.

Err... My two cents. LOL That got long.

[kitsune_muse]

*laughs* And for possibly the first time ever, I agree with you, Rhye.

[hitokirinome]

LOL. Accident, I assure you. ;)