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Wise Warriors in Tolkien, Lewis, and Rowling Volume 25 Number 1 Article 11 10-15-2006 Wise Warriors in Tolkien, Lewis, and Rowling Ernelle Fife State University of New York at New Paltz Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Fife, Ernelle (2006) "Wise Warriors in Tolkien, Lewis, and Rowling," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 25 : No. 1 , Article 11. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol25/iss1/11 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Discusses the concept of the wise woman warrior, focusing primarily on Éowyn, Orual, and Hermione Granger but bringing in other characters from the works of Tolkien, Lewis, and Rowling as well. Additional Keywords Lewis, C.S.—Characters—Orual; Rowling, J.K.—Characters—Hermione Granger; Tolkien, J.R.R.—Characters—Éowyn; Women This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol25/iss1/11 Wise Warriors in Tolkien, Lewis, and Rowling Ernelle Fife The phrase "wise warrior" sounds like an oxymoron, like "military intelligence." But wise warrior is an apt description of Athena— goddess of wisdom, reason, agriculture, and civilization, who was born, fully armed, from the head of Zeus, and whose shield bears the head of Medusa. She is mentor and guide to numerous heroes, and is seldom a deity of aggression, but of defensive warfare, battling to protect the city and the home. Her philosophy would be best expressed by Tolkien's Eowyn, in her response to the Warden of Gondor, the master healer who laments that "the world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them." Eowyn points out that "It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two [...]. And those who have not swords can still die upon them" (Return of the King 292)—witness, for example, the death of Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In Tolkien's Middle-earth, the Enemy has already begun the war; that is evil's function, to breed enmity and hatred. To do nothing in response does not prevent a death, but merely turns a war into a massacre. Knowing when to fight, what to fight for, and how to fight take wisdom. In this paper I will analyze the role of the wise warrior, particularly the female wise warriors, in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, C. S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces, and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Female wise warriors should not be overlooked, discounted, or dismissed as minor characters, sidekicks, or failures. It is only the unwary reader who misjudges them the way Denethor misjudges Faramir, in Beregond's words, being "slow to believe that a captain can be wise and learned in the scrolls of lore and song, as [Faramir] is, and yet a man of hardihood and swift judgement in the field" (Return 44). Substitute the word "woman" for "captain," and similar misconceptions hold for many characters stemming from culturally determined gender distinctions. Rowling's Mrs. Figg is a good example. Readers were probably quick to Mythlore 25:1/2 Fall/Winter 2006 147 Wise Warriors in Tolkien, Lewis, and Rowling accept Harry's assessment of her as a batty old lady on her first appearance in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (22), but she is far more. Being a squib, a person born to magical parents but without magical abilities, Mrs. Figg can not protect Harry as can the witches and wizards of the Order of Phoenix, but armed with her string bag of canned cat food, she is a valued watcher whom Dumbledore trusts to help guard Harry (Order of the Phoenix 20-24). Gender distinctions, however, are not limited to humans; I am not claiming that gender is a masculine construct created as part of men's political oppression of women. Tolkien's Ents are a good example of gender distinctions that can produce harmful consequences even among non­ humans. The Ents, such as Treebeard or Fangorn, are wanderers; in anthropological terms, they are at the hunter-gatherer stage of development. The Entwives are more settled; they have progressed to the farming stage. In Treebeard's story, the Entwives seem to be a combination of Hobbits and the deity of the first creation story in Genesis: the Entwives ordered the flowering trees and plants, herbs and grasses, "to grow according to their wishes, and bear leaf and fruit to their liking; for the Entwives desired order, and plenty, and peace (by which they meant that things should remain where they had set them)" (The Two Towers 99). The later parenthetical phrase always brings to my mind a picture of Tolkien carefully laying out all his story notes and linguistic references on the dining table, deliberately and thoughtfully beginning to craft the next few chapters of his epic ten minutes before Mrs. Tolkien wants to set the table for dinner. Entwives, keepers of the garden, along with hobbits and elves, seem to have a sense of place; they are grounded, as are the mature farandolae in Madeleine L'Engle's The Wind in the Door. The Entwives have much in common with hobbits, particularly with Samwise Gamgee. As Faramir comments to Frodo, "Your land must be a realm of peace and content, and there must gardeners be in high honour" (Towers 368). Sam is the gardener, the most grounded of the hobbits, the one with the greatest sense of place; thus, it is fitting that he is the one who never leaves Frodo, but is his guardian more than his servant. He goes on this quest not merely out of friendship and loyalty as do Merry and Pippin, but because he is following a call, as he tries to explain to Frodo: "I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way. [...] I don't rightly know what I want: but I have something to do before the end, and it lies ahead, not in the Shire. I must see it through, sir, if you 148 Mythlore 95/96 Fall/Winter 2006 Ernelle Fife understand me" (The Fellowship of the Ring 127). These w ords follow him and echo through his mind and soul when he must choose to take the One Ring and fulfill the Quest, believing Frodo to be dead (Towers 432-35). Gareth Knight refers to this type of quest as "the magic of service," although he is referring to the quests in Lewis's Narnia Chronicles (68). Sam is also the character who is the least tempted by the power of the One Ring, perhaps because he is so grounded: the only reality for Sam is the Shire; power and conquest are simply not important to Sam. His unquestioning offering of service, his lack of aggression, and his domestic nature are deemed "feminine" characteristics, but they should not be so gendered. Faramir also possesses these characteristics, though Eowyn does not. In many ways Faramir is as strong as, if not stronger than, Aragorn, but his story (like Eowyn's) seems short-changed. He is a fitting companion to Eowyn, as I will discuss in more detail later, but he is also a counterpoint to Sam. Faramir has the most vision and makes the wisest decisions all of the humans. He is a warrior, not by desire, but by necessity to defend his city: "War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, not the arrow for its swiftness, not the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Numenor; and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present w isdom ." (Towers 355) Mars would never make such a speech, but Athena would. In their quest, or rather anti-quest, the Fellowship of the Ring undertakes a difficult journey full of dangers and trials to lose rather than to find the One Ring. What is gained from this anti-quest is counter-balanced by what is lost. The Ring is destroyed; but much that is good can be unmade, and learning can be lost. The Third Age of Middle-earth, the age of Wizards and Elves and Ents and much of their wisdom, will pass away. Even the hobbits are no longer part of the reader's sense of reality. Victory always carries a price, but this price is freely paid by those who chose love over power, guidance over control. To have a sense of belonging or of place is to know that one is part of a larger plan, even if that plan seems dark; to be guided by a greater entity or power, even if that power seems to be wearing an Invisibility Cloak.
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