Great title for a thread! Who couldn't help but be curious about Lush's self-revelations!
First let me point out what was posted in that other thread: if you want the book and not the movie, by all means read the book. Movies based on books are not the books! Anyone who reads this forum knows there are hundreds, if not thousands, of interpretations of Tolkien’s words. If anyone thinks that Peter Jackson shouldn’t have his own interpretation, then they are incredibly selfish. The only difference between Peter Jackson and us is that he made a movie. I personally believe that Jackson did a good job in not insulting the books, as other people’s cinematic interpretations have done.
Putting that aside, I agree with Arwen Imladris. I think that line is very ambiguous. It may or may not indicate physical or emotional attraction. Lush could be right, but I can’t find anything else indicating Aragorn might have had a sexual attraction to Éowyn. That’s not to say that one could not interpret that sentence along those lines.
Looking at it from Éowyn’s perspective, though, there is even more room for interpretation. Many on this and the other thread characterize her attraction to Aragorn as a “crush.” This is terribly unfair to Éowyn on many levels. What was it, exactly, that she was attracted to?
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And she now was suddenly aware of him: tall heir of kings, wise with many winters, greycloaked, hiding a power that yet she felt. –III, 6 The King of the Golden Hall
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”You are a stern lord and resolute,” she said; “and thus do men win renown.” –V, 2 The Passing of the Grey Company
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Faramir’s words portray her state of mind clearly:
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You desired to have the love of the Lord Aragorn. Because he was high and puissant, and you wished to have renown and glory to be lifted far above the mean things that crawl on the earth. –VI, 5 The Steward and the King
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Éowyn’s attraction to Aragorn had little to do with love, but with a desire to be loved for the sake of ambition; not bad ambition, necessarily, but an ambition to share in the power and nobility of that great man. Éowyn desired to capture all those great things embodied by Aragorn for herself, and for her people. It took Faramir to point out the truth that all those things that Éowyn desired from Aragorn, she already possessed in her own person. Aragorn, to her, was a means to an end, so there was no real love, nor, for that matter, any real sexual attraction for Aragorn at all.
Once Éowyn realizes this, she says: “No longer do I desire to be a queen.” –VI, 5 The Steward and the King. She doesn’t have to be a queen to be valiant, noble, and great. She already is. And people claim that Tolkien was sexist! BAH!