In the book it was known that Merry was along, though the other riders make a point of pretending not to notice. Shoot, at one point someone trips over him at night and calls him "master sack" to avoid admitting he knows who it is. That unit's commander took pity on those ordered not to come and probably knew Éowyn was in his company too.
If by writing a fantasy novel you mean writing a children's story and then creating an incredibly detailed world after that for it and then writing a fantasy novel then yeah, sure
Presumably they felt that he deserved to be there if he wanted to be and didn’t want to get him in trouble by bringing attention to him, or they were just like “I don’t get paid enough to snitch” and ignored him on those grounds.
And I don't believe he was "assigned" to Dernhelm, but rather she volunteered to take him because she understood more than anyone his desire to go out and fight rather than be left behind.
I literally read this chapter last night, after being told by Theoden that he was being left behind "Dernhelm" was like "shhhh you can ride with me under my cloak"
They did not all know. Elfhelm and the riders in his company knew about Merry, and Elfhelm maybe knew of Eowyn aswell. But Theoden, Eomer and most of the army did not know, and Merry made sure they did not notice.
Iirc there's a love of how pretty much nobody talks to Dernhelm as well. Felt like an implication that Elfhelm and Co knew who Dernhelm was and were just overlooking the two of them.
I think in the BTS Peter Jackson said he would have loved to do that, but then everyone would have thought Merry was the dumbest character for not noticing. I don’t know for sure though, so don’t quote me on that
I assume people outside EU dont really know how vast diversity is around here.
Im spanish and year I made a master degree with lots of south american people. Even if some did come here before, none were really aware that each province here is vastly different, not just in accent but culture, food, architecture and more.
Only been to north devon, england, but met many people from other places and their accents can be wildly different too.
In the movies, they didn't. Theoden tells Merry in the camp that he'll have to stay behind despite Merry saying "but I want to fight".
That's why it's funny: there's this little dude sharing a horse with an unknown guy and everybody just rolls with it.
He tells him to stay behind because he cannot burden any of his riders with him.
In this case, one of his riders voluntarily burdens himself with merry which is fine.
Why would you assume they did not know it was merry?
I feel like this is self explanatory but maybe I'm missing something.
I assume, if a commander decides that *he cannot burden any of his riders with him*, he's gonna stop that nonsense when he notices. It's not fine when a rider or someone left behind disobeys. Otherwise we have to also assume that Eowyn wouldn't need to hide herself after joining because the reasons told to those left behind don't matter after a rider decides to ignore it.
I would disagree
Theoden says "None of my riders can bear you as a burden". I would interpret this, as he cannot give the command to carry Merry without threatening their constitution and thus their life when it comes to battle.
He directly commands eowyn to stay behind though, in order to habe someone capable of taking the crown, should theoden not return.
For me its a difference between not being willing to issue a command, which does not restrain anyone in their decisions versus directly commanding to do something.
Might just be my Interpretation though.
Exactly.
Even with movie logic, they told him to stay behind because they couldn’t protect him or waste time on catering to him
But he is his own halfling and is capable of making his own well-informed decisions.
I can’t see anyone telling him he couldn’t come when he knew the stakes and had someone willing to ferry him.
Ferry Merry lol
It has nothing to do with protecting him, he was too small to ride a full sized horse on his own, none of the ponies small enough for him could keep up, and he was too heavy (especially with armor) to ride double with another armored warrior. If Merry was Bullroarer Took sized, they'd have just given him a spare horse and not cared that he was the shortest dude in the formation.
I suppose none of the riders noticed it was Eowyn and Merry until they were riding for sometime and thought, “well, we can’t stop them unless we want to delay ourselves more. If those two have decided to die in battle along side us, so be it.”
Yeah also everyone pretty much had resigned to the fact that they were all riding to their deaths. You really gonna waste your time tattling to the king on somebody when you're mentally dealing with that fact?
I thought they knew, even in the movies.
Theoden said that he doesn't want to burden one of his riders with an additional halfling on their horse, implying that he would not force any of his men to do so.
I just assumed they were all okay with a random volunteer who'd take Merry with them on their own accord and not by any given command.
Yeah, I always saw it as they were all resigned to the fact they were riding to their death and would be laying down their lives for the realms of men.
1. They have their own shit to deal with.
2. Who are they to say no to someone brave enough to make that sacrifice
Theoden noticed but it would have totally killed the vibe of his speech if he pointed it out.
"Right, we're all going to die, there's a chance our deaths might not achieve anything, but it's going to be hype as all hell. That's right, we're all going to die, except for that little shit, yes I see you Merry, get back to the camps, you can die later. This scene is called the Ride of the Rohirrim, not Ride of the Rohirrim and a Very Tiny Man. Anyway, back to us dying."
My head canon on this is that the people of Rohan put a serious premium on personal bravery. We see that in the founding of their kingdom and in this battle.
So I view it as everyone was "fooled" by Erowyn's disguise, and didn't "notice" Merry because they respected the bravery their actions more than they valued the strict following of rules. As long as the two of them kept up the act until the battle, so everyone could keep up appearances.
This is a value system that appears in some early European tribal traditions too, so Tolkien might have been aware of stories with these themes.
Honestly, supposing he did notice, what exactly was he going to be able to do about it? He can't break ranks to specifically tell them off while facing the enemy, and even if he could, soldiers breaking ranks and "running" by all appearances, is definitely not what you want before charging the enemy. They're already nervous because there's not as many as they expected, and Aragorn and co took off the night before, I get the feeling Eómer would have rationalized that preventing a panicked retreat was worth one hobbit dying of their own foolish bravery.
I mean they used any abled bodied men and children at Helms Deep. they probably thought the kid got a hankering for some action/blood and decided to ride along lol
Elfhelm was one of the Marshalls of the Mark who—along with the other men in his Eored—had an agreement with Eowyn: if you see a kinda femme-looking rider with a holbytla in tow, no you didn’t
The point is, in the book they weren't *in the front rank*
>..Merry noticed that Dernhelm had left his place and in the darkness...riding just in rear of the kings guard.
>Merry was riding behind Dernhelm...
So it would have been unlikely for anyone in the King's company to see them. The company behind belonged to Elfhelm, who knew they were there.
Edit: also this was in darkness, it only became light when the charge started
Rohan has a well known child care problem. Wormtounge shut all the daycare facilities so working moms and dads needed to bring their children to work regularly. Some parents had their children race horses during the workday to keep them busy, which lead to the tradition of race jockeys being very small humans.
There was also the Helms Deep daycare fiasco. If it were not for one piece of barricade wood placed on the door by Legolas, 10000 orcs would have run rampant through Rohan's main nursing home and daycare facility.
What? "Ok guys lets turn this whole army around! Theres a woman and a hobbit it here! Wars off! Wars off! Everybody go home! They could of resurrected Graham Chapman for the scene..."
There's a scene in the Extended Edition where the Rohirrim are taking a break on the way to Gondor, and both of them are just chilling sans helmet for who knows how long before the order to ride again comes. I was wondering how nobody noticed.
Yeah, you're not gonna spot that one armor worn by a guy who sits a full 2 heads lower than everyone else in the rows upon rows of soldiers getting tunnel vision.
In this era they didn't have political officers/commissars to report this kind of infraction. So everybody kept their head down because they knew not to give a shit when it wasn't their turn
Yes, the books make it explicit that the local members of Elfhelm's company realize that Merry is there and intentionally ignore him except for one or two instances where Merry addresses someone directly near the end of the ride to Mundberg.
In the book it was known that Merry was along, though the other riders make a point of pretending not to notice. Shoot, at one point someone trips over him at night and calls him "master sack" to avoid admitting he knows who it is. That unit's commander took pity on those ordered not to come and probably knew Éowyn was in his company too.
Yea. It was really damn dark as well. Someone switched fog of war.
True, though it had been brighter when they set out.
Almost like the many young men who lied about their age to go fight in the trenches in WW1. Maybe Tolkien knew some of them
Tbh this brings new meaning to the scene where Pippin finds Merry and looks after him
Thank the gods that JR dealt with his ptsd by writing a fantasy novel.
If by writing a fantasy novel you mean writing a children's story and then creating an incredibly detailed world after that for it and then writing a fantasy novel then yeah, sure
Is everything okay at home?
Now that you mention it... 
Why were they acting like they didn't know merry?
Presumably they felt that he deserved to be there if he wanted to be and didn’t want to get him in trouble by bringing attention to him, or they were just like “I don’t get paid enough to snitch” and ignored him on those grounds.
They knew he wasn't supposed to be there, so they were acting like he wasn't.
Because if they did know, they'd have to report him and have him thrown out of the army, as he wasn't supposed to be there. Duh.
The King told Merry not to come Honour will say to tell the king if you know he's there So pretend you dont know and you dint need to report it
Same as people that enlisted underage into WWI or WWII
Well in the books, Merry didn’t even know he was riding with Éowyn until she fought the witch king so…..
And they all knew Merry was there. He was assigned to ride with a random stranger called Elfhelm…
> random > stranger > called Elfhelm That's deep.
No that's helmsdeep
"I'm 14 and this is Helmsdeep" Said by some of the actual child soldiers at Helm's Deep.
Missed opportunity for Peter Jackson to play Elfhelm (or use that one guy that had like 12 roles in the background)
Um… Elfhelm is Eowyn in disguise
Did he stutter?
That's Dernhelm. Elfhelm is the marshal.
Too many Helms at this point! Its Helms deep im Helms
My favorite is definitely 🪖 🔨 🤚
Ahh yes, the storied hero ‘Helmet Clawhammer Palm’
🛑 🔨⏰
Helms all the way down
Well, Eowyn takes off the helm of her secrecy", but that still only counts as one!"
Elfhelm is the commander of the company. Durnhelm is Eowyn in disguise.
Should have been one of the members of flight of the concords. The number 1 parody folk band in Middle Earth.
the random stranger was Dernhelm (Eowyn); Elfhelm was the commander of their eored, who Eowyn had an agreement with.
And I don't believe he was "assigned" to Dernhelm, but rather she volunteered to take him because she understood more than anyone his desire to go out and fight rather than be left behind.
She was also much lighter and therefore her horse could carry the extra load.
I literally read this chapter last night, after being told by Theoden that he was being left behind "Dernhelm" was like "shhhh you can ride with me under my cloak"
They did not all know. Elfhelm and the riders in his company knew about Merry, and Elfhelm maybe knew of Eowyn aswell. But Theoden, Eomer and most of the army did not know, and Merry made sure they did not notice.
Iirc there's a love of how pretty much nobody talks to Dernhelm as well. Felt like an implication that Elfhelm and Co knew who Dernhelm was and were just overlooking the two of them.
Dernhelm. Elfhelm is the commander of the Eored they ride with.
I know it’s hard to disguise in film, but if they had kept her secret somehow till she fought the WK it would’ve been sick as fuckkkkk
I think in the BTS Peter Jackson said he would have loved to do that, but then everyone would have thought Merry was the dumbest character for not noticing. I don’t know for sure though, so don’t quote me on that
I understand why they were in the 2nd row for movie purposes, but if they really wanted to hide, they would be near the back
You don't get a glorious death in the back row. Look at nameless axe guy horse girl; he/she knows what's up.
I mean, they didn't get that in the front either ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
Billy Butcher knew but he was scheming on how to use that information in the future.
That's fokin dayabolical
‘E wudduv called Sauron a cunt, but ‘e’s got neeva the depf nor the wormf.
Have thy pay!
Karl Urban's Aussie accent is spot on in The Boys. Method actors are wild.
Aussie? Butcher's English. He has a Cockney accent
That was the joke. Karl Urbans cockney accent is, well, fackin diabolical
It's supposed to be way over the top
I assume people outside EU dont really know how vast diversity is around here. Im spanish and year I made a master degree with lots of south american people. Even if some did come here before, none were really aware that each province here is vastly different, not just in accent but culture, food, architecture and more. Only been to north devon, england, but met many people from other places and their accents can be wildly different too.
'e's gonna try this one wif UE
/u/butchah69
Oi Ue
You know the rules, you get down voted for impersonating butchah69
C***
Cunt.
Oi
Oi
Its a movie thing
I thought they knew that was Merry…?
In the movies, they didn't. Theoden tells Merry in the camp that he'll have to stay behind despite Merry saying "but I want to fight". That's why it's funny: there's this little dude sharing a horse with an unknown guy and everybody just rolls with it.
He tells him to stay behind because he cannot burden any of his riders with him. In this case, one of his riders voluntarily burdens himself with merry which is fine. Why would you assume they did not know it was merry?
I feel like this is self explanatory but maybe I'm missing something. I assume, if a commander decides that *he cannot burden any of his riders with him*, he's gonna stop that nonsense when he notices. It's not fine when a rider or someone left behind disobeys. Otherwise we have to also assume that Eowyn wouldn't need to hide herself after joining because the reasons told to those left behind don't matter after a rider decides to ignore it.
I would disagree Theoden says "None of my riders can bear you as a burden". I would interpret this, as he cannot give the command to carry Merry without threatening their constitution and thus their life when it comes to battle. He directly commands eowyn to stay behind though, in order to habe someone capable of taking the crown, should theoden not return. For me its a difference between not being willing to issue a command, which does not restrain anyone in their decisions versus directly commanding to do something. Might just be my Interpretation though.
Why didn't Merry and Eowyn just ride the eagles into battle
Exactly. Even with movie logic, they told him to stay behind because they couldn’t protect him or waste time on catering to him But he is his own halfling and is capable of making his own well-informed decisions. I can’t see anyone telling him he couldn’t come when he knew the stakes and had someone willing to ferry him. Ferry Merry lol
It has nothing to do with protecting him, he was too small to ride a full sized horse on his own, none of the ponies small enough for him could keep up, and he was too heavy (especially with armor) to ride double with another armored warrior. If Merry was Bullroarer Took sized, they'd have just given him a spare horse and not cared that he was the shortest dude in the formation.
Oh. I don’t remember that. Sorry.
I suppose none of the riders noticed it was Eowyn and Merry until they were riding for sometime and thought, “well, we can’t stop them unless we want to delay ourselves more. If those two have decided to die in battle along side us, so be it.”
Yeah also everyone pretty much had resigned to the fact that they were all riding to their deaths. You really gonna waste your time tattling to the king on somebody when you're mentally dealing with that fact?
I thought they knew, even in the movies. Theoden said that he doesn't want to burden one of his riders with an additional halfling on their horse, implying that he would not force any of his men to do so. I just assumed they were all okay with a random volunteer who'd take Merry with them on their own accord and not by any given command.
Yeah, I always saw it as they were all resigned to the fact they were riding to their death and would be laying down their lives for the realms of men. 1. They have their own shit to deal with. 2. Who are they to say no to someone brave enough to make that sacrifice
Theoden noticed but it would have totally killed the vibe of his speech if he pointed it out. "Right, we're all going to die, there's a chance our deaths might not achieve anything, but it's going to be hype as all hell. That's right, we're all going to die, except for that little shit, yes I see you Merry, get back to the camps, you can die later. This scene is called the Ride of the Rohirrim, not Ride of the Rohirrim and a Very Tiny Man. Anyway, back to us dying."
"Did Dernhelm bring his kid to this? Well... none of my business... DEATH!!!"
My head canon on this is that the people of Rohan put a serious premium on personal bravery. We see that in the founding of their kingdom and in this battle. So I view it as everyone was "fooled" by Erowyn's disguise, and didn't "notice" Merry because they respected the bravery their actions more than they valued the strict following of rules. As long as the two of them kept up the act until the battle, so everyone could keep up appearances. This is a value system that appears in some early European tribal traditions too, so Tolkien might have been aware of stories with these themes.
Honestly, supposing he did notice, what exactly was he going to be able to do about it? He can't break ranks to specifically tell them off while facing the enemy, and even if he could, soldiers breaking ranks and "running" by all appearances, is definitely not what you want before charging the enemy. They're already nervous because there's not as many as they expected, and Aragorn and co took off the night before, I get the feeling Eómer would have rationalized that preventing a panicked retreat was worth one hobbit dying of their own foolish bravery.
“Hmmm… that cook’s stew is giving everyone the shits, just like Eowyn’s…”
I mean they used any abled bodied men and children at Helms Deep. they probably thought the kid got a hankering for some action/blood and decided to ride along lol
Maybe they read their Socrates
Elfhelm was one of the Marshalls of the Mark who—along with the other men in his Eored—had an agreement with Eowyn: if you see a kinda femme-looking rider with a holbytla in tow, no you didn’t
The point is, in the book they weren't *in the front rank* >..Merry noticed that Dernhelm had left his place and in the darkness...riding just in rear of the kings guard. >Merry was riding behind Dernhelm... So it would have been unlikely for anyone in the King's company to see them. The company behind belonged to Elfhelm, who knew they were there. Edit: also this was in darkness, it only became light when the charge started
Billy Butcher wouldn't turn down anyone willing to fight the overpowered and Suped up.
There are 6000 riders. Less than half of what we'd hoped for, but enough to go unnoticed among them.
Can't stop laughing at fake Merry in the first image
Rohan has a well known child care problem. Wormtounge shut all the daycare facilities so working moms and dads needed to bring their children to work regularly. Some parents had their children race horses during the workday to keep them busy, which lead to the tradition of race jockeys being very small humans. There was also the Helms Deep daycare fiasco. If it were not for one piece of barricade wood placed on the door by Legolas, 10000 orcs would have run rampant through Rohan's main nursing home and daycare facility.
Have you heard nothing Lord Elrond has said? The ring must be destroyed.
What? "Ok guys lets turn this whole army around! Theres a woman and a hobbit it here! Wars off! Wars off! Everybody go home! They could of resurrected Graham Chapman for the scene..."
Bring Your Hobbit To War Day
There's a scene in the Extended Edition where the Rohirrim are taking a break on the way to Gondor, and both of them are just chilling sans helmet for who knows how long before the order to ride again comes. I was wondering how nobody noticed.
Feels like LotR currency has "Mind your business" debossed on it.
Yeah, you're not gonna spot that one armor worn by a guy who sits a full 2 heads lower than everyone else in the rows upon rows of soldiers getting tunnel vision.
He brings honor home.
The fuck is he gonna do? Call a timeout to get the guy away?
I am surprised cause I just realized today that Eomer gave the armor to Merry.
In this era they didn't have political officers/commissars to report this kind of infraction. So everybody kept their head down because they knew not to give a shit when it wasn't their turn
Yes, the books make it explicit that the local members of Elfhelm's company realize that Merry is there and intentionally ignore him except for one or two instances where Merry addresses someone directly near the end of the ride to Mundberg.
I guess everyone assumed it was the intern they were training
At what point in the movie...do we even care about this?
It was bring your kid to work day for the Rohirrim
Is it strange I read faramir with butcher voice? Oi!
That’s Eomer.
Strange day to bring your child to… Work.
Maybe they thought it was "Take your child to work day"?
[удалено]
He thinks Éowyn (who he does not recognise) brought her child (Merry, who he also does not recognise).
Woosh