Tragic and Doomed

[deird_lj]

I think I've finally figured out why I don't like Aragorn and Arwen ending up together:

They're Buffy and Angel.


Seriously!

They're a couple who meet as teenagers well, when one of them is a teenager and the other one is already really old but immortal and seemingly young, and who promptly fall into an epic love story even though they're two completely different species, and get to stand around looking all tragic and doomed and heartbroken because they will forever be parted...

...and then they get married and live happily ever after.


Is it me, or is that sort of missing the point?


Buffy/Angel? Love it. Mostly. But the whole big idea behind their relationship is that it's tragic and doomed and heartbreaking, and they'll never end up together, and it's so beautiful and doomed and... doomed...


Aragorn and Arwen have a clear purpose - to be the Buffy-and-Angel, and look longingly into each other's eyes for a while before they go off and live their respective lives. That's how it's supposed to work! Having them end up together just doesn't fit.


(Which is all a long drawn-out way of saying: Aragorn/Eowyn 4eva! Woo!)

Comments

[snickfic]

Is this a commentary on A/A in the books in the movies? 'Cuz in the books they're played much less for the tragedy than in the movies; actually, they're played much less, period. I find them just impossibly irritating in the movies for all the reasons you mention.

Also, I'd argue that emotionally, they're much nearer being equals than B/A. Arwen is thousands of years old, yes, but Aragorn is also an adult. Besides, unlike Buffy and Angel they spent years getting to know each other really well (didn't Elrond raise Aragorn?). And unlike B/A, there's no indication of any fundamental personality conflicts (which isn't to say that there aren't any, but they're not in evidence).

So while I could see not being very excited about A/A, just because there's very little story of them together to be excited about, they don't annoy me at all the way B/A do.

Which is not to say, mind, that Eowyn isn't the awesomest warrior-woman type in all of high fantasy.

[deird1]

Mostly the movies - just because I've been watching them recently. And also, in the books it's ignorable, for the most part.

Good points on the age thing...

[snickfic]

About A/A in the movies, I say: Bleah. I usually fast-forward through that awful and completely gratuitous bit of flashback/dream sequence/whatever in the middle of The Two Towers, just because it is so annoying. As a friend said, "I'm not watching these movies so I can see the King of Men necking!"

[deird1]

...whereas I usually end up yelling "Choose Eowyn, you fool!"

:)

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

But wouldn't Aragorn himself be Angel, from Éowyn's point of view? The mysterious handsome stranger who's four times her own age, and seems to offer wild romance and an escape from practical reality?

[deird1]

No, no, that'd be if he was twelve times her age...


(And yes - possibly. But she's still more interesting, and less likely to just stand around looking soulful and tragic. They're active people, and make a much more interesting couple.)

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with snickfic about...just about everything. Which is not at all shocking. So in the books, they don't annoy me, I'm just not invested at all (really, almost everything between takes place offscreen).

In the movies, however, yeah, I think he's ridiculous for not choosing Eowyn (who I love with Faramir in the books, but not in the movies because there isn't enough of them, and I also don't like the guy who was cast as Faramir. Peter Jackson pretty much failed when it came to the romance), because she's far, far cooler.

[deird1]

Yeah... I like movie!Faramir's hair, but he's really not that interesting as a character...

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Ha! Which is a real shame, because I really like him in the books.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Eowyn can have whoever she wants, just as long as I get Eomer! Which is weird because I don't usually go for the strong, silent types. Maybe it's because we first see him as an outcast? *shrugs and goes back to drooling*

P.S. I don't remember the character from the books, at all. But the movies...yummy! Karl Urban uber alles! (Except Spike.) I'm totally off-point, aren't I?

[deird1]

The yumminess of movie!Eomer can never be considered off-topic. :)

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I thought I was the only one! Gah, I have such a big crush on him!

[elisi]

Hmmm. Well it's certainly a point, except they don't live happily ever after. I mean, they live happily for a very long time, but he is mortal and she's not. And once he's dead all of the other elves have long since left and she's stuck.

Also, of course, they're a re-play of Beren/Luthien. Except Beren/Luthen was seriously awesome, with Luthien being a much more take-charge kinda lady. (It's FOREVER since I read the Silmarillion, bit as far as I remember kicked all kinds of ass!)

Mostly, I don't pay too much attention to A/A. *g* (Although I agree it's a bit much in the films.)

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

Except Beren/Luthen was seriously awesome, with Luthien being a much more take-charge kinda lady.

When Tolkien's wife Edith died, he had 'Lúthien' carved on her gravestone under her own name. (And his own gravestone now has 'Beren' on it to match.) Considering that he's often criticised for not having many active women in his stories, I thought it was neat that he made the one based on his own wife the most awesome, ass-kicking and charge-taking person in all of Middle Earth. I mean, she defeated Sauron one-on-one
(well, with the help of her dog) and stood up to Morgoth himself...

[elisi]

I thought it was neat that he made the one based on his own wife the most awesome, ass-kicking and charge-taking person in all of Middle Earth.
Absolutely! They really ought to make a film of Beren and Luthien, although it'd be 90% CGI. Still, incredible love-story w. incredible heroine! (Must say that calling Huan 'a dog' is a little like calling a T-Rex a 'lizard'... *g*)

[ib-stormcaller.livejournal.com]

Um...
Didnt Arwen sacrifice her immortality to stay with Aragorn?
He has an extended life, due to being the direct descendant of Isuldur (sp) so their expected life span would probably have been around the same, no?

[rahirah]

She gave up her place on the last ship departing to the West, and once Aragorn died she basically willed herself to die. But I don't think she gave up her immortality as such; presumably her spirit would return to the Halls of Mandos for reincarnation just as that of any elf who died in Middle Earth would.

[elisi]

But I don't think she gave up her immortality as such; presumably her spirit would return to the Halls of Mandos for reincarnation just as that of any elf who died in Middle Earth would.
No - to quote Elrond when he first finds out that Aragorn is in love with her:

'But there will be no choice before Arwen, my beloved, unless you, Aragorn, Arathron's son, come between us and bring one of us, you or me, to a bitter parting beyond the end of the world.'

Actually, I think this is one of the ways that it works much better than B/A - Angel wants to be human (especially since otherwise he's doomed to hell etc), whereas Arwen has to give up her kind and an immortal life that is only good.

[elisi]

Didnt Arwen sacrifice her immortality to stay with Aragorn?
You are absolutely right! Went and looked it up, and this is what I was thinking of I think:

But Arwen became as a mortal woman, and yet it was not her lot to die until all that she had gained was lost.

[roccondilrinon.livejournal.com]

This.

If you only saw the movies, you might be inclined to think it's a bit too happily-ever-after, but even in the movies Elrond tells Arwen what will happen to her if she chooses to stay: his words are taken with minimal changes from the part of The Return of the King which describes what did in fact happen to her.

[elisi]

his words are taken with minimal changes from the part of The Return of the King which describes what did in fact happen to her.
Indeed. I love that they did that, although I grumbled at the 'seeing vision of her future son and changing her mind'. But then I also grumbled at the part where Gollum made Frodo think that Sam had stolen some of the lembas. I guess they added those parts for the sake of drama, but I'm very much a canon whore... *g*

Um, I think I had a point. I think there are Buffy/Angel parallels - something that's exaggerated in the films - but ultimately they're adults in ways that Buffy and Angel are not, and that stops it from being annoying. (Still a bit boring maybe, but that's something else!)

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

*snorfle*

[deird1]

*grins*

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

*G*

I once wrote something very similar and ended it with Lindsey/Angel 4-EVER.

[fireflyfaery.livejournal.com]

One word.

Incest.

Though apparently in the Tolkien mythos, if you read the Silmarillion, that makes it *better* ... ?

[roccondilrinon.livejournal.com]

Not really. They're something like third cousins 66 times removed (yes I looked it up). Given they're actually different *races*, I'd hardly call that incestuous.

[neutralalienist.livejournal.com]

I can definitely see a resemblance, but at least Arwen was her own person when she met Aragorn, while Angel was severely emotionally stunted and let Buffy define his redemption. (I prefer them as adults not because I want them to last forever, but because it is less unhealthy and they are more interesting as people.)

But A/A is needlessly sappy and melodramatic in the movies anyway.

(...So what would Aragorn/Eowyn be?)

[next_to_normal]

Eowyn rules, Arwen drools.

I think that sums it up.

[deird1]

Heh. I sort of thought you might have that opinion, oddly enough...

[next_to_normal]

I can't imagine why you might think that... :)