Comments on In Between

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Poor Erkenhild, daughter of two worlds and not really at home in either! You brought her inner conflict across in so few words, and I really like that you didn't limit her sense of alienation to Rohan only. That made it very believable to me. And I liked the reconciliatory ending! (If that's what it is. After all, …owyn's and Faramir's offspring might face the same difficulties one day...)

Thank you very much, Lyra! I really appreciate your insightful reviews!

Yes, although moving from Gondor to Rohan might be the change that would trigger a lot of this, I think it likely that the sense of alienation would be something she would feel in both worlds, not only in Rohan. I'm glad it was believable.

And it is meant to be a reconciliatory ending, even if it won't stop others, like Eowyn and Faramir's offspring, from encountering the same problems, maybe. I was trying to hint at that, with the reference to Erkenhild's sisters (not too schematically, I hope). Not everyone would be affected in the same way--and for some, minor feelings of alienation might  not be such a great price to pay for the broadening of their horizon.

I've always been fascinated by the ties between Gondor and Rohan and the possible cultural differences and overlaps.

I spent a lot of time digging into the question for purposes of my Third-Age novel The Princess and the Horse Lord, wherein I wanted to take a hard position on what language[s] Eowyn and Eomer might have spoken and how well-educated they would have been by Gondorian standards [very well, I decided!]. At the time, mainly on HASA and ff net, there was a subset of works about Rohan within which fanfic authors posited they were illiterate because the language of the Rohirrim of Rohan was not a written language. I objected.

Here was one of my assertions from my author's notes to that story related to that line of researcg (I was always a geek):

He [David Salo in his book on Sindarin] goes on to note that native Sindarin speakers were largely limited to Minas Tirith and the surrounding area, the Dúnedain of the North and Dol Amroth. He claims that it was most persistently used among Men as a first language in Dol Amroth. He goes on to say "In the last years of the Third Age as a result of the marriage (2943) of Thengel of Rohan to Morwen of Lossanarch (whose family was from Belfalas), Sindarin came to be spoken also by the Kings of Rohan." (He references Peoples of Middle Earth, Return of the King, and Unfinished Tales. I also found references to that effect in Tolkien's letters as well.)

I am insufferable! My point is that I really enjoyed your exploration of these connections and cultural overlap and contrasts/differences in this story!

Thank you very much, Oshun! Glad that this caught your interest! It is an interesting subject, isn't it?

There are hints that there was a bit of cultural backlash to the the pro-Gondorian attitudes and encouragement of Sindarin at Thengel's court. So I suppose it's possible that some nobles of Rohan refused to learn to read or to learn to write, out of principle, and there were clearly some who were reluctant to speak Sindarin. But it doesn't seem very likely that Eomer and Eowyn would have been part of this movement.

I may be wrong about this, but I get the impression that Morwen being ultimately from Belfalas is a post-LOTR revision. Is that right, do you think? The implications of that irritate me just a bit, because I suspect that one of the motivations was that Tolkien decided that Forlong was not poetic enough for major characters to be related to. And I like Forlong, so I'm a bit indignant on his behalf. But I suppose there are ways that Morwen could be related by blood or marriage to Forlong and still be from Belfalas and also related to the Princes of Dol Amroth. And besides, maybe I'm doing Tolkien an injustice and he just wanted to tidy up his ideas about the distribution of Sindarin.

Anyway I left all that very much in the background here!

It's always difficult to belong to two different worlds, two different cultures.

The Rohirrim would see her as an aloof woman, perhaps too refined, too distant. And the Gondoriand would see her as a "wild maiden of the North".

And Morwen is right: perhaps it's harder for a woman. Perhaps it'll be harder for Éowyn, too, in a sense. But she has Faramir. And he makes her feel they are kin.

Yes, I think that is how a daughter of Thengel might be perceived.

It may be harder for a woman--although it could be hard for a man, too. Theoden, the only son, had a role waiting for him in Rohan, of course: the heir and future king.

I was also trying to hint that Morwen, who seems to have impressed the Rohirrim, may herself have found it hard at times. She was a fully grown woman, though, when she left Gondor, so her experience was a bit different from her daughters'.

Thank you for reading and commenting!

Thank you very much, Kaylee! Glad you like it and the subject appeals to you!

Yes, Erkenhild links Faramir and Eowyn. I was also interested in speculating what other sources Faramir might have for his views on the history of Gondor and its relation to the rest of Middle-earth, besides conversations with Gandalf and his own reading.

The other ficlet I mentioned was written for the Art's Desire challenge at the LOTR community on LJ, so it will be revealed in a couple of days. It's written from Gleowine's point of view, who doesn't like Erkenhild very much. I found it difficult to get Erkenhild's point of view into the same story--and that is why there are now two, rather different ficlets!