Maybe as I'm writing this post, a point will come to me. At the moment, I have no real point to writing this, but I have a blog, I have time now that it's summer, and this just occurred to me and I found it interesting. So here we go!
In my post about War of the Rohirrim, I made a small section about how Eowyn was ordered to return to Edoras and lead her people, even though she didn't want to. I don't know what prompted this thought, but it suddenly dawned on me that a character in the Chronicles of Narnia had much the same choice and command: Prince Caspian, in Voyage of the Dawn Treader (my second favorite of the books).
For comparison sake, here's the book exchange between Eowyn and Aragorn (I couldn't find an exchange like this between Eowyn and Theoden):
"Lord," she said, "if you must go, then let me ride in your following. For I am weary of skulking in the hills, and wish to face peril in battle."
"Your duty is with your people," he answered.
"Too often I have heard of duty," she cried. "But am I not of the House of Eorl, a shieldmaiden and not a dry-nurse? I have waited on faltering feet long enough. Since they falter no longer, it seems, may I not now spend my life as I will?"
"Few may do that with honour," he answered. "But as for you, lady: did you not accept the charge to govern the people until their lord's return? If you had not been chosen, then some marshal or captain would have been set in the same place, and he could not ride away from his charge, were he weary of it or no."
"Shall I always be chosen?" she said bitterly. "Shall I always be left behind when the Riders depart, to mind the house while they win renown, and find food and beds when they return?" (Return of the King, 766-767).
She does go on to say that she's only being left behind because she's a woman, but that's a topic this post isn't about.
Here is the exchange with Caspian:
"Friends," said Caspian, "we have now fulfilled the quest on which you all embarked... To you, my Lord Drinian, I entrust this ship, bidding you sail to Narnia with all the speed you may... it is my will that the Regent, and Master Cornelius, and Trufflehunter the Badger, and the Lord Drinian choose a king of Narnia with the consent--"
"But, Sire," interrupted Drinian, "are you abdicating?"
"I am going with Reepicheep to see the World's End," said Caspian.
A low murmur of dismay ran through the sailors....
"Caspian," said Edmund suddenly and sternly, "you can't do this."
"Most certainly," said Reepicheep, "his Majesty cannot."
"No indeed," said Drinian.
"Can't?" said Caspian sharply, looking for a moment not unlike his uncle Miraz.
"Begging your Majesty's pardon," said Rynelf from the deck below, "but if one of us did the same, it would be called deserting."
"You presume too much on your long service, Rynelf," said Caspian.
"No Sire! He's perfectly right," said Drinian.
"By the Mane of Aslan," said Caspian, "I had thought you were all my subjects here, not my schoolmasters."
"I'm not," said Edmund, "and I say you can not do this."
"Can't again," said Caspian. "What do you mean?"
"If it please your Majesty, we mean shall not," said Reepicheep with a very low bow. "You are the King of Narnia. You break faith with all your subjects, and especially with Trumpkin, if you do not return..." (Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 259-261).
Caspian then loses his temper and storms into his cabin, but Aslan comes and tells him that he needs to return to Narnia. He has a sad parting with Lucy and Edmund, but he does return, marry the love of his life, and... everything after is explained in The Silver Chair (my favorite of the Narnia books).
The most obvious shared theme between the two of these is a ruler's promises to their people. Eowyn accepted the charge of ruling, so she must keep her word; Caspian had built faith with his subjects and his friend Trumpkin the dwarf that he would be breaking if he abandoned Narnia. Furthermore, both of these exchanges have someone compare the leader to a lower-ranking person. Aragorn tells Eowyn that a captain or a marshal couldn't just leave even if he wanted to, meaning that neither can she. Rynelf the sailor has the temerity to tell his king to live by the same standards that he expects from his sailors.
Of course, if you read the books or watch the movies, you'll know the biggest difference between the two: Caspian does what he is told, while Eowyn disguises herself and joins the Rohirrim in their attack at Minas Tirith. I think another difference that appears in the exchanges are the emotions behind their desire to leave their post. I tried to look back and find Caspian's reasons for wanting to go beyond the end of the world, and I couldn't really find anything specific; but it seems implied that he wants the adventure. It comes across as hopeful, looking forward to something. Eowyn, in sharp contrast, is filled with despair. It's not super clear in that particular exchange, but later on, when Aragorn is healing Eowyn, Gandalf says this to Eomer:
"Think you that Wormtongue had poison only for Theoden's ears? Dotard! What is the House of Eorl but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among their dogs? Have you not heard those words before? Saruman spoke them, the teacher of Wormtongue. Though I do not doubt Wormtongue at home wrapped their meaning in terms more cunning. My lord, if your sister's love for you, and her will still bent to her duty, had not restrained her lips, you might have heard even such things as these escape them. But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?" (849).
Eowyn--partly under the powerful influence of Wormtongue--had given up on her country and her kindred. The only thing she really had to look forward to, or so she thought, was dying honorably with them in battle. She was running away from something, not running toward something as Caspian seems to be.
Ultimately, of course, both characters end up with a happy ending. Eowyn marries Faramir and lives in peace with him in Ithilien. Caspian... well, The Silver Chair is largely about Caspian's great griefs, but if you read that book, you'll know he had a happy ending, too.
And no, no point has really come to me as I was writing this. But it remains interesting to me, to think about two wildly different characters in completely different books that were faced with such a similar choice.
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