“No living Man may hinder me!”

That is what the Witch King of Angmar said to Eowyn, for that is what had been predicted by Glorfindel.

No Living Man has a lot of meanings, though. It could have been a dwarf, an elf, a hobbit, an undead man (such as had been brought into service by Aragorn), but Tolkien chose to make it Eowyn, a woman.

This fits the story so well. LOTR is a tale of the most unlikely of beings saving the world through the most unlikely of means. The story is stocked full of examples of this theme playing out, all the way from Merry and Pippin destroying Isengard via the Ent, to Aragorn, a ranger with kingly blood facing down Mordor itself. To have that theme continued in Eowyn was a literary masterpiece, but it was also a commentary, in my opinion. She was thought unable to do such a thing, or perhaps simply not permitted. Yet she, with the help of Merry, another one forbidden from the fight, destroyed the greatest enemy at that battle.

“But no living man am I! You look upon a woman.”