I should add (because it was alluded to in the original tags but it’s an important enough point to be Post Worthy) —
What I find fascinating about her choice of identification here isn’t just what it says about how she feels about Théoden at the moment (my personal HC is that she does, indeed, love Théoden still, even if there is a lot of hurt there as well) but equally what it says about what she thinks of Éomund.
She was still very young when he died. How much does she remember clearly of him as a man and a dad? He also died doing something really stupid, which arguably then led to her mother’s death as well. What version of that story has she heard and internalized? What does she really think of Éomund’s choices and actions? Perhaps her assertion of herself as his daughter here indicates she remembers him well and fondly despite his faults, or that she actively chooses not to engage with those faults out of love for him, or that she was always shielded from the cold reality of his fate and doesn’t understand those faults. Perhaps it means she doesn’t remember him all that well and doesn’t even know much about him, but she’s constructed a mythologized version in her mind that feeds a need to come from a line that embodies the glory and honor and heroism she values. Or perhaps she knows full well that her father suffered from impulsivity and rashness, and she’s invoking that intentionally because she knows on some level that putting herself up against the Witch King, one-on-one, is an extremely Éomund-coded form of reckless courage.
We don’t know the answer. We only know that when she finds herself in a moment of great fear and courage and despair and pain, she acts to tie herself to the memory of Éomund, the father she spent only a small fraction of her life with and who has been dead and gone for almost 2 decades. And I find that extremely intriguing.
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