Written by Mr. Mouseburger 1st Jul 2005
At the battle of Pelennor Fields, the Rohirrim are fighting insurmountable odds. Half defeated and disorganised, they are marshalled in to one final charge at the enemy by their King, Theoden.
They charge at full speed towards an increasingly perturbed Orc line when Theoden's charge is interrupted by the swooping of the Witchking's Nazgul. The beast picks up Theoden's horse, with him still seated in it, and throws them both across the field. The momentum causes the dead horse to roll on top of Theoden crushing him.
He would have suffered the indignity of being eaten alive by the Nazgul were it not for Eowyn defending him. His dying words to a sobbing Eowyn (well, she is a girl after all!) are, "I go to my fathers, in whose mighty company I shall not now feel ashamed."
The death of Theodin not only allows a charicter that had previously been a dissapointing king (Sauraman's spell) to redeem himself in a final act of heroism, but it sets up another act of heroism in the eventual defeat of the dreaded king of the Nazgul.
Gustav Graves: Mr. Kill!
Lawrence Makoare: Yes sir!
Graves: show Mr. Theoden how you got your name!
Lawrence Makoare: Yes sir!
Graves: and then do me a favor and add "animal" to this write-up since the horse is the thing that crushed him!
Old Mr. MouseBluffer: We'll see about that, peon.
Mr. Brigg's henchperson: Ooh! I hope, I hope!
An amusingly made point, but being crushed by your horse does not qualify as "animal"
If a film were set in a bizarre parallel universe where horses were beasts with suicidal, lemming like tendencies, who ambushed unwary travellers by dropping on them from a great height, then "animal" would apply.
old bluffer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If this film were set in a bizarre parallel universe
Which it is BTW.
Also out of curiosity, how does this qualify as a Blaze of Glory? Theoden's final battle was pretty cool and he was a fairly good military strategist but there wasn't anything particularly glorious about how he goes out, unlike, say, Boromir.
If the fell beast threw him around like a rag doll and then he got back up and threw him several yards away and then Theoden got up and, despite wounded and having broken several bones, slew every Orc around him. Then the Witch-King approached again and Theoden slew that (or alternatively killed Gothmog, the one villain in this movie who wasn't given an on-screen demise) before the Witch-King slammed his flail into his stomach before Eowyn stepped in, that would be a Blaze of Glory.
But since that never happened, I'm not so sure this really qualifies.
> Which it is BTW
I agree with you about Blaze of Glory - I don't think it qualifies either. However, Mouseburger is something of a hard-core Tolkien fan (probably because he looks like a hobbit) and probably disagrees.
OB
Summon Mouseburger for explanations!
Shouldn't he be credited as King Théoden?
Another point I forgot to mention earlier. The creature the Witch-king of Angmar is riding is a Fell Beast, but the writeup implies that it's called a Nazgûl. It's actually the Witch-king who is a Nazgûl, so the Killed with: section should be changed to 'Fell Beast and horse'.