Éomer

I'm the Man of the West, and it's time to keep week 131 going with another Friendship Friday.

It's our last one of series 17, so I'm going to pick one that should fit into a single episode, Gimli and Éomer.

Now, we start on the exact same hillside where we began with Aragorn and Éomer's friendship three Fridays ago, except this time I want you to watch the short one.

Riders, cried Aragorn, springing to his feet.

Five leagues are won, said Gimli.

Gimli rose and planted his feet firmly apart.

His hand gripped the handle of his axe, and his dark eyes flashed.

"'Give me your name, horsemaster, and I will give you mine, and more besides.' "'As for that,' said the rider, staring down at the dwarf, "'the stranger should declare himself first.' Yet I am named Éomer, son of Éomond, and am called the third marshal of Riddermark.

We have his family, essentially, including his daughter, Éowyn, who is portrayed by Miranda Otto.

We have Karl Urban as Éomer, who is Théoden's nephew, and we have someone else who is another family member but not of Rohan.

We have Boromir's brother, Faramir, portrayed by David Wenham.

But we're gonna spend a lot of time getting to know these new people, and luckily, they do a great job of making these people interesting and giving them some interesting character dynamics.

Because the tactical mistakes the king made were that he decided that Helm's Deep was sufficient to protect them, first of all, which it would not have been against the Uruk-hai, and second, he had made the decision not to seek allies.

He decided he was not going to go ask for help from Gondor.

He was not going to go get Éomer and the Riddermark Riders, who he had banished earlier.

It was Gandalf who did that.

And it has to be said, from the Council of Elrond onward, that there seems little doubt that Aragorn fully embraces his identity and was proud of it, too.

When he is challenged by Éomer, he introduces himself with a dramatic flourish like this.

Aragorn threw back his cloak.

The elven sheath glittered as he grasped it, and the bright blade of Anduril shone like a sudden flame as he swept it out.

In the movie, that is maybe a minute and a half.

It's Legolas using his magic elf eyes to spot them, and they go running off, and then they run into Eomer and Rohirrim.

In the book, it's a lot.

It's a lot of information and a lot of time spent with the three of them.

So in the scene where they're bringing that body in, that's, I think, Theomer, which is Theoden's son.

And he's in the process of dying and he dies.

So now he has no heir except potentially his niece and nephew, Eomer and Eowyn.

In the book, Theoden is not like this decrepit husk.

And so at length Éomer and Aragorn met in the midst of the battle, and they leaned on their swords and looked on one another and were glad.

"'Thus we meet again, though all the hosts of Mordor lay between us,' said Aragorn.

"'Did I not say so at the Hornburg?' So you spoke, said Eomer, but hope oft deceives, and I knew not then that you were a man foresighted.

Yet twice blessed is help unlooked for, and never was a meeting of friends more joyful.

And they clasped hand in hand.

The three of them then, including the underrated Prince Imrahil, ride back to the gate afterwards, quote, weary beyond joy or sorrow.

And they're all unscathed, like nobody wants to fight these guys.

Eomer asks a question.

At one point, Aragorn, Ranger of the North and rightful heir to the throne of Gondor, meets a group of horsemen on the plains of Rohan.

Éomer, the leader of the cavalry, is astounded to see a human traveling with an elf and a dwarf in his land, but the situation just gets more bizarre in his eyes from there.

He learns that Aragorn and his companions are looking for two halflings, creatures which to him exist only in old songs and children's tales.

What's more, the trio has just visited the Lady of the Wood, Galadriel, to him a sinister witch, and they've only good things to say about her.

To top it all off, Aragorn carries with him the sword Anduril, a thing of legend.

Imagine a hobo whipping out Excalibur before you, and you get a sense of how Éomer feels at this moment.

"It is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels," he says.

"The world is all grown strange.

This became known as the Last Debate.

Gandalf was there, along with Aragorn and Elrond's two sons Eledan and Elrahir, Prince Imrahil and Éomer.

And Gandalf started by acknowledging that Denethor had been right about one thing.

The Free Peoples could not hope to prevail against Sauron's forces by strength of arms alone.

Between the towers and stretching out north-west, Tolkien writes that there lay like a moat a great mire of reeking mud and foul-smelling pools.

and beyond that, huge piles of refuse, mud, rock and earth left over from various building projects.

In the absence of any better defensive position, Aragorn positioned his army on two of those slag hills, then rode forward into the mire of reeking mud with his honour guard, basically the main named characters in the army, Gandalf, Éomer, Imrahil, Elidan, Elrohir, Legolas, Gimli and Pippin, to challenge Sauron.

Through all this, Sauron's forces had remained quiet and largely hidden, though as Aragorn and his men approached they could see the eight remaining Nazgul on their winged fell beasts hovering above the Towers of the Teeth, waiting.

Lone men riding wild brought word of foes assailing their east borders, of orc hosts marching in the Wald of Rohan.

"'Ride on! Ride on!' cried Éomer.

Too late now to turn aside.

The fens of Entwash must guard our flank.