I never thought her particularly cringing or fearful. She wanted to be the big warrior heroine, and then she came face to face with a badassed motherfucker. She trembled, and then she killed him.

I'm good with that.

I also thought that the EE fight scenes were a bit over the top. Being the first to take down an oliphaunt was good for me. She proved herself. However, she's on a battlefield full of people who've actually fought battles before. The EE made it way more than beginner's luck.

a bit over the top.

What, the seven-story elephants charging from out of nowhere did not clue you in to this? I think ROTK broke my OTT-o-meter, way before the EE came out.

I was good with the OTT concept just would've gone in different directions. Oliphaunts, sure. Legolas' oliphant stunt? No. Nazgul diving and dropping horsemen? Sure. Orc leader comically stepping out of the way of a 2-ton brick? No.

What, the seven-story elephants charging from out of nowhere did not clue you in to this?

Not at all. I didn't think those were out of line. The bad guys throwing the unimaginable at the good guys -- I'm totally good with that.

However, Eowyn slicing her way through everything was too much girl power for me. Killing the first oliphaunt and the Witch King is a great resume.

The Legolas stunt was very indulgent -- other than that, the theatrical didn't bother me at all. The EE did.

In the book, I didn't get the idea that Eowyn was a beginner on battlefields. She probably hadn't been in many full-scale things like the Pellenor Fields, but she had her own armor and sword in the books, no one was surprised to see her in the armor, and I got the impression she knew how to use them.

I got the impression she was trained for battle, but had never been in one.

I got the impression she was trained for battle, but had never been in one.

I always figured the line "Shield maiden of Rohan" referred to the fact that she was trained in the defense of Rohan. Did I get the quote right? Did I misinterpret? I certainly never thought it meant staying behind and polishing the armor.

Also, wasn't she being left to lead the last line of defense? That suggests some training.

That suggests some training.

I don't know that anyone's debating that point.

Now I need to work out what to google.

Ultimately, the point is that Rohirrim culture, as defined in the book, would lead her to particular character moments; but that the culture was subtly cherrypicked for the movie, and she ended up someplace different.

In the movie, (a) she gets a couple of "aint she some cunning" battle moments before her climactic battle and (b) in her climactic battle, her reactions are quite different. In the novel, she was essentially attempting suicide. The bigger and badder her adversary, the better, and she was glad to face something so terrifying. Of course, the movie couldn't leave that the same, or else she'd have willingly been squashed by the first elephant she met.

I haven't found anything yet on the weeb discussing Eowyn's combat experience or lack thereof, but I did find this interesting commentary at the Encyclopedia of Arda regarding our discussion of the importance of the omission of the barrow-wight scene:

The Movie-goer's Guide to The Fellowship of the Ring mentions a missing scene in that movie, in which the hobbits lay their hands on rare and powerful weapons in the Barrow-downs east of the Shire. Instead, Aragorn presents them with a selection of swords on Amon Sûl, and never hints that they're anything but ordinary weapons.

This missing scene from The Fellowship of the Ring raises a problem for Merry on the battlefield before Minas Tirith. In the original version, he is armed with an enchanted blade of Westernesse, and uses that weapon to make the Nazgûl vulnerable to Éowyn's own attack. In the movie, though, he finds himself in the same situation with an ordinary sword, so that (in principle) the Witch-king should have survived.

Many readers have suggested that the solution to this question lies in the Extended Edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, where we see Merry presented with an Elvish sword as he leaves Lórien. The idea that he could use this in place of his Barrow-blade from the book does indeed seem quite plausible.

Matters are complicated, though, by a scene in The Return of the King where we see Merry practising with a blunt sword in Dunharrow ('You won't kill many Orcs with that!', jokes Éowyn, and directs him to the armoury to have it sharpened). This is inconclusive, but it sits uneasily with the idea of Merry's weapon being an enchanted gift from Galadriel.