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Originally Posted by Fordim
but I really do want to figure out how they are unique in the story
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I suppose I must ask to what extent they actually
are 'unique' - as opposed to simply being 'extremes'. Many characters display this kind of self love, so we should perhaps beware of making it the be-all & end all of what motivates these three.
To what extent is their self love their defining characteristic? Actually, I don't seeEowyn displaying self love so much as self loathing. While Boromir & Smeagol wish to live she wishes rather to die. They wish to acheive some kind of worldly success & live to experience the fruits of it; she wishes for an end of what she sees as worldly toil & suffering.
This perhaps separates her out from them, rather than binding her in with them. Of course there is her love for Aragorn, which awakens the possibility of escape from her death wish, but as soon as she realises that he is beyond her she slips instantly back into it. So her
natural mind set is not the same as theirs. Boromir, as far as we know, has never desired to die as Eowyn does. He wishes to live & lead. Of course, a glorious death in battle ould not be anathema to him - its perhaps (as far as he's concerned) the right way to go down - in the proverbial 'blaze of glory' - but its not something he would look for in order to escape from the burden of living. In fact he seems rather to relish life. He perhaps includes his dying as part of his 'failure'. Eowyn on the other hand seems to consider death merely as a way out. 'Living' is her failure.
And Smeagol never, as far as we know, wishes for death. Like Boromir he wants success - to live forever with his precious. Eowyn may opt for death in battle - but that's natural in a scion of the House of Eorl, but I suspect that if she had succumbed to some serious illness she would not have fought it. She had no desire to live.
This is why I'm uncertain about linking them together merely through 'self-love'. Boromir & Smeagol, perhaps, but not Eowyn. We could connect her despair with Frodo's final state. They both despair of finding peace within the world, & seek to leave it. Frodo seeks healing, yes, but mainly an end of his despair & pain. He goes in the the West because of a promise of such healing. Eowyn seems to see Aragorn as a 'symbol' of such healing for herself, so when that chance is snatched away she reverts to her original state of hopelessness & wishes to end it all. How different would Frodo's state be if he had not had the option of passing West?