This Thing

Putting it AO3-terms to honor its original male character/original male character origins:

ok just a bit more it matters because otherwise their point was sound! eowyn’s victory over the ringwraith and his beast is uncelebrated! theoren’s focus is on the wars he inherited from his forefathers, wars with historical enemies of his people. meanwhile eowyn beheaded Depression but that victory like that fight is made invisible and everyone who notices her mourns her death instead of seeing what she has done or who she is. there’s so many readings here! it’s cool that theoden is a cool king but unequipped to fight Death and Despair and that eowyn goes in more death-seeking than any soldier in the rohirrim but gives the witch king a chance to back down rather than just going at him like a berserker. she has a purpose in that moment beyond destruction or self-destruction, and she wields it. and she loses! her sword breaks! her arm shatters! her king is already dead, crushed accidentally by his beloved steed who just wanted to serve him! it gets to me deeply that it is Not the fantasy of respect or power or being able to protect the ones you love, not really. it’s just being there, and not being pushed back so others can live the delusion that they’re protecting you from death while you have to swallow all of the grim reality alone at the end of the war. everyone is trying to help and getting in each other’s way and stumbling over each other and nothing will stop the one you love from dying and yet and yet and yet.

“The police spend very little of their time dealing with violent criminals—indeed, police sociologists report that only about 10% of the average police officer’s time is devoted to criminal matters of any kind. Most of the remaining 90% is spent dealing with infractions of various administrative codes and regulations: all those rules about how and where one can eat, drink, smoke, sell, sit, walk, and drive. If two people punch each other, or even draw a knife on each other, police are unlikely to get involved. Drive down the street in a car without license plates, on the other hand, and the authorities will show up instantly, threatening all sorts of dire consequences if you don’t do exactly what they tell you. The police, then, are essentially just bureaucrats with weapons. Their main role in society is to bring the threat of physical force—even, death—into situations where it would never have been otherwise invoked, such as the enforcement of civic ordinances about the sale of untaxed cigarettes.”

since i think many will have had the memory slip with just how many other atrocities have occured in the past 11 years, or are simply too young to remember, the last bit about the sale of untaxed cigarettes isn’t just some hypothetical, it’s a reference to the killing of eric garner