#about:rohan

[abrazimir]

That being said I am once again thinking about how Boromir was nearly universally loved and accepted in Rohan. I’m thinking about Eomer’s shock at news of his death, I’m thinking about how Theoden grieved him, I’m thinking about Boromir vehemently defending the Rohir at the Council of Elrond. I’m thinking about how Boromir did not just blankly accept Rohan’s allyship, I’m thinking about how he included them in his mind as ALSO his people, that he was able to shift his manners to suit both Rohan and Gondorian society seamlessly. I’m thinking about!! Boromir’s heart!!! 

[eohere]

I’ve said this before but Theodred’s title of Prince does not afford him as much special treatment as one might expect. He still is of course, the King’s son. But in terms of his authority, he is closer to the other marshals of the riddermark. And, pertinent to what I’m thinking of now, he has a place amongst the working of the Kingstead, it’s farms and storehouses and cattle slaughter. Theodred doesn’t have a croft that he farms by himself per-se, but in times of high labour he is commonly expected to join in the efforts. He sews and tills fields, harvests, drives cattle in for winter, hunts boar in the autumn and helps with the cultivating of wild foraging plants throughout the year. Indeed, Theodred is quite the farmer, well aware of wisdoms and practices and such needed for the job, feeding their people being the major concern for Rohir royalty. He keeps a good head of food stores and a lot of his riding out was originally for the purposes of seeing to food shortages and advising or organising relief. Theodred has even spent time with the more nomadic herders of the Eastemnet, keeping an eye on what are known as the ‘kings beasts’, herds owned specifically by the crown and loaned out to the herders who make the best bidding every ten years. 

[eohere]

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. 

[eohere]

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.