#about:eomund

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Ohhh NOOO I am thinking about the unfair comparison Theodred makes between Eowyn and her father, I am thinking about Eowyn ever bold and unwilling to be commanded and Theodred seeing a very different man charge his Eored far out into the marshes against all urging and being struck down in the mists and I am thinking about how Theodred’s angers and fears are too tied up within Eowyn’s desires for freedom and self-determination that he is always fighting an inner battle between the future he wants to give her and the lack of future he fears she will have!!! 

#about:eomund #about:eowyn #;;theodred

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I am thinking about Theodred and his incredibly complex relationship with Gondor. I am thinking about him as Prince of the house of Eorl, grandson of Thengel, growing up in a house that speaks Sindarin, a language his grandfather learned in a country with citizens that discuss Rohan’s ‘love of war’ and laud themselves for influencing Rohirric culture towards ‘arts and gentleness’ whilst bemoaning their own society becoming too much like Rohan. 

I am thinking of Theodred, the son of the ‘lesser son of greater sires’, born and raised in Rohan and lovingly entrenched in that society, loyal to the rohirrim as both an earnest act of a Prince’s dedication AND a son’s little rebellion, who tries to live up to his uncle Eomund’s traditionalist expectations whilst also abiding by his father’s image of Thengel’s royal majesty, but never quite meeting either measure. 

I am thinking of Theodred weathering the frustrating society of his Grandmother and aunts, women who returned to Gondor as soon as their husband and father was dead, and yet loving them all the same and being loved by them. Loving to write as well, not just letters and stories but poetry too, in multiple modes, even in Sindarin, facts about himself that he purposefully hides from almost everyone who knows him. 

But a Theodred who also knows Gondor in a whole other world as well, the Gondor many of the faithful fear, that has become more alike to the Rohirrim, not just in an equal valuing of military defense as well as academia, but as less grim men as well. Theodred knows the Gondor of many languages, lineages and histories, the Gondor Boromir introduces him too, the one he loves and defends. It is a Gondor that he understands as anything but a monolith, perceiving it’s own history through a thousand different viewpoints, and one that at it’s base, genuinely and loyally, loves Rohan for it’s friendship and values their connection for it’s history and it’s present. 

It’s about!! Theodred, sat on the edges of a conversation in Lossarnach about ancient poetry written by Tar-Telperien and preserved within Pelargirian archives and having to pretend that he does not have things to contribute to that discussion, not out of shame, but out of some internal thing within him that says it would be disrespectful to his own people and their ‘ownership’ of him to openly display this personal channel to his heart. This sense that, when in Gondor, he must carry all of Rohan with him, that he must be even more a man of Rohan than usual, that he must make himself uncomfortable here to fulfil the demands of an archetype he has committed too all by himself. 

#THEODRED as a man of Rohan in Gondor and a man of Rohan in Rohan but also taking Gondor with him!!! #;;theodredcanon #about:gondor #about:rohan #about:theoden #about:eomund

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HEADCANON; Theodred, Rohir Culture and Eomund

Even as a young boy, Theodred was very aware he would have to prove himself to his people, and that it would be an uphill battle to do so. Theoden rode the relief of his father’s kingship after Fengel’s disastrous reign. But time and opinions moved quickly and Theodred was the first Prince to be born in Rohan for a hundred years. Theoden still could not speak Rohirric.

Eomund, on the other hand, was a man so Rohir he could have been Eorl himself. He held and remembered ancient traditions of their people and believed strongly that their Kings should do the same. He and Theoden had a fractious relationship and that often revolved around Theodred’s upbringing. This all culminated in Eomund’s insistance that Theodred join his Eored at 14, not his father’s or one of his Captains. ‘A boy cannot become a man whilst still crying for his father.’ 

Theodred rather resented that assessment, given how little he had learned to rely on his father. But even so, when Theoden protested, Theodred intervened and agreed with Eomund’s plan, though he felt an amount of wariness towards his Uncle’s fervour. If he was going to earn the trust he would need in later life, he had to weather through his childhood as quickly as possible. And he did, aggressively, disregarding the usual instincts and fears of a child and marching into trauma and bloodshed perhaps too readily.

Not that that meant he cowed to his Uncle on anything else. They disagreed often and loudly, most particularly on the use and treatment of boys within their ranks (after he grew enough to realise the damage he had taken from it) and the familial love between them was often clouded or quashed by cultural, political and moral dogmas that neither of them could set aside. Even so, Eomund did not have to think hard before vouching for Theodred’s readiness and right to take the mantel of Second-Marshall (after Erkenbrand suffered a debilitating injury to his knee) at the very young age of 20. 

Still, they continued disagreeing and Eomund maintained his critical and sharp air around Theodred until his death when Theodred was 24. His loss was complex and difficult and left a great deal unsaid, yet also heralded even more heartbreaking loss and the new responsibility of two grieving adopted siblings that Theodred was not prepared for.

#;;theodredcanon #about:eomund #about:rohan