Practiced Loyalty

As some of you doubtless saw, sometimes Tolkien is a surprisingly terrible writer.  However, this week we read one of the best scenes in the whole story: Eowyn's faceoff with the Witch-King.

(For those following along, this week we read two chapters, "The Ride of the Rohirrim" and "The Battle of Pelemnor Fields."  The scene we consider comes from the second chapter.)

The Witch-King can be killed by no man, but Eowyn is a woman, and she is able to destroy him.  It's a cheeky loophole somewhat on par with Macduff being able to kill Macbeth due to being delivered C-section (and not the only Macbeth influence on our text). 

But before Dernhelm is revealed as Eowyn in disguise, the text gives us a peak into the loyalty felt by her and Merry.  Her's is considerably stronger.  The Witch-King confronts Théoden, whose horse rears up in terror and falls - with Théoden beneath him.  His body is crushed, and he is completely at the mercy of the Witch-King.  The text says:

But Théoden was not utterly forsaken. The knights of his house lay slain about him,

or else mastered by the madness of their steeds were borne far away. Yet one stood

there still: Dernhelm the young, faithful beyond fear; and he wept, for he had loved his

lord as a father. Right through the charge Merry had been borne unharmed behind him, until the

Shadow came; and then Windfola had thrown them in his terror, and now ran wild upon the

plain. Merry crawled on all fours like a dazed beast, and

such a horror was on him that he was blind and sick.

‘King’s man! King’s man!’ his heart cried within him. ‘You must stay by him.

As a father you shall be to me, you said.’ But his will made no answer,

and his body shook. He dared not open his eyes or look up.

 

Eowyn's loyalty to Théoden is much stronger than Merry's.  Merry promised his loyalty to Theoden, but it has not yet been tested.  "As a father you shall be to me," but words are fleeting.  But Eowyn "Loved [their] lord as a father."  Love is deeper than a newly made promise.  It is easier for her to show her loyalty to Theoden.  But not only is it easier, it's kind of inevitable.

I dabble in stand-up comedy.  I've been doing it for years.  If you know nothing about stand up, know this: Going to open mics is the only way to get better.  But they're late at night and it can be frustrating to wait 2 hours at a bar to get 5 minutes in front of the crowd.  But you have to keep to it.

Sometimes I take a week off.  While it's good for my mental health, it's AWFUL for my stand up.  Free time is nice - lounging around at home after a day of work.  But it's hard to get into the groove again.

I'm sure you've had this issue - if not with comedy then with going to the gym, making home-cooked meals, reading regularly, whatever.  Once you get the momentum you need it's easy to keep going .  It's always harder if you've stopped.  I can't find a source, but there's a Talmudic saying that it takes 4 people to lift a fallen cow but only one to support the cow and prevent the fall.

Doing the right thing is often considered a choice.  You choose to do good.  But I don't think that's really how it works.  Doing good is a habit; it's a way of life.  The more you do good, the easier it is to do good in the future.  At a certain point it's kind of inevitable.  You don't do good because it's the right thing to do.  You do good because of course you do.

We all have an image of ourselves.  But in order to achieve that image we have to do it.  I know that sounds obvious, but how many times have we wanted to do something and failed?  It was an inconvenient time.  We didn't have the money.  We were afraid, or hesitated for any number of reasons.  But if we were accustomed to doing it, we wouldn't accept those things as barriers.

Eowyn is able to stand up to the Witch-King because she couldn't make any other choice.  She was going to fight.  Merry has that same resolve, but without the pattern of success.  He even has to remind himself of the oath he swore.  But Eowyn didn't need to choose to fight - she fights because of course she does.

Eowyn is the goal many of us hope to reach: Where the important things become easy.  To get there, we will need to begin where Merry is: fighting a will that makes no answer.  But once that momentum gets going - oh the things we will do!


If we want to become the people who do the things we wish to do, we must do them often enough that they soon become not just easy, but inevitable.  That's the highest level of loyalty to your values - when your response is beyond question, even to yourself.

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