"A shadow & a thought"

[Kuruharan]

I think that there is something to what HerenIstarion says.

However, just to take an amble down this path to see where it leads…

We can all see that Aragorn was not an evil man, so that aspect can be summarily dismissed. I can’t even really think of any overly negative aspects of his personality that could qualify. The next obvious avenue of inquiry is his destiny.

At that time Aragorn’s future held three possibilities. The first was that he would become king of Gondor after Sauron was defeated. So, a possible shadow here would be Eowyn wanting to become a queen (for whatever that would be worth). While Eowyn might have liked being queen, she was already royalty and just does not strike me as the type to want the ceremonial trappings of…ceremonial trappings (since the other main job of being queen would be to make little princes). I think that can be discarded.

The second possibility was that Sauron would obtain the Ring and mash Aragorn into a nice pasty mulch. This definitely seems to be more along the lines of what Eowyn was thinking. She was consumed by an inordinate desire to be turned into a nice pasty mulch. Under this line of reasoning, what Eowyn desired (more or less) was Aragorn’s death, to which she had attached her own. This is, to say the least, not a very nice kind of love.

The third possibility was that Sauron would be defeated but Aragorn would croak in a glorious scrap. I think this one would appeal to Eowyn the most. Yes, she wanted to die, but I think that she wanted to die gloriously. There is no point to dying gloriously if there are no poets and other such sensitive types to compose glorious odes in your memory. My impression of Eowyn is that she was the forlorn type of hero who wanted to be hacked up in action, have bards compose sagas in her memory, and have everybody get all weepy and sob over said sagas when they were recited.

Well, perhaps that is a little overstated. However, I do think that perhaps the desire for death could be a shadow in the sense of evil. However, I realize that this still makes the problem exist in Eowyn rather than in Aragorn.

Perhaps if there is more to add regarding shadows in Aragorn’s personality, because I must confess I find my reasoning unconvincing.

Of course, that may just be me stubbornly sticking to my first idea.