Elros was Arwen’s uncle. The brother of her father.
Waving Hi again - Can’t resist a few more comments:
-Perhaps Merry & Pippin weren’t as important as Frodo & Sam, but remember: Pippin saved Faramir, who was beloved in Gondor. and Eowyn could never have felled the Witch-King if Merry hadn’t wounded him first. Yeah, that wasn’t evident in the movie.
-re Frodo’s “failure”: Nope, Frodo cannot bring himself to destroy the ring. What a big impact this had on me the first time I read the books. Later, I came to various conclusions. One is how imp it is thematically; that the ring is that powerful. Secondly, that it fits in with Tolkien’s Catholic worldview (unncecessary to enjoyment of the story, obviously). That is to say Man cannot save himself, he is only saved through God’s grace. Frodo was only saved by grace & because he had extended pity and unselfish love to Gollum. I could go on, but that’s it in a nutshell. Thirdly, Frodo’s post-traumatic-stress-syndrome is made even worse by his feelings of failure, knowing he was hailed as a hero when he knows he couldn’t complete his mission.
-If you do ever read the books, I think you will see Denethor as a tragic figure AND a FUD. Also, when you read the books read the Appendix for the Arwen/Aragorn story.
OH - another change I didn’t like in the movie: Frodo was supposed to be NAKED when the orcs were torturing him in the tower, gosh darn it!
The movie ring destruction scene is different from the book ring destruction scene. But basically Frodo indeed fails in both versions; this was JRRT’s point. One must strive for one’s goal, and act justly, despite the near certainty of failure. The fruits of this for Frodo is that the ring was destroyed, despite his failure, by Gollum’s intervention. And Gollum was there only because Frodo was just and merciful. If Frodo had followed Sam’s advice, he’d have slain Gollum long before, claimed the ring as his own at the Cracks of Doom, been overcome by the Nazgul, and delivered the ring to Sauron.
Tolkien refers to this sort of happy ending as Eucatastrophe, the sudden and unexpected good outcome for the protagonist of a story.
On edit: What that perv hobbit fancier said. 
Longevity is kind of a recurring theme with Tolkien. Elves, ents and Tom Bombadil are virtually immortal; dwarves and Numenoreans live hundreds of years, and even hobbits regularly pass 100. It’s only us inferior Men that have short life spans.
It came from my gut.
(I am NOT any kind of LOTR/JRRT expert, just another yutz on the internet with an opinion.)
I know Bilbo was supposed to be writing a book on his Great Adventure (the journey to the Lonely Mountain and back), and it’s probable that Frodo would have been able to sneak some peeks at it. So, Frodo would have known most of what Bilbo suspected of the ring. (I don’t recall if Bilbo was all that shocked when Bilbo vanished while in full view during his birthday party. I don’t think he was.)
But which method JRRT uses to fill in the backstory of the ring for the reader, I don’t recall. I am gonna guess during the scene where Gandalf tossed it into the fire, and where Frodo confirms it has glowing script along the inside, Gandalf tells Frodo (and thus the reader) his info and suspisions on it.
One of the “cliche’s” of adventure stories is one where the main characters suceed despite incredibly long odds.
How many times does the Star Trek cast face mortal danger and survive with only a torn shirt, exposing their manly chests?
How many bad guys does John McClane have to wade through each movie before he saves the day?
In Star Wars, a plucky (but naive) hero and a cynical (but still nice guy at heart) bootlegger manage to destroy a space ship the size of a freaking moon. As entertaining (thanks, mostly, to the top of the line for the time FX and a few snappy one liners) as it is, it is still a tired cliche.
Gandalf appeared to be “afraid” of the ring. His fear would be baseless unless the ring was actually, you know, so dangerous and corrupting. It needs to live up to it’s hype.
BAH! That should read:
(I don’t recall if Frodo was all that shocked…
Y’know, the above makes me kinda wonder why Aragon made it so far. Based on the charts of the ‘kings in exile’, it is obvious he is an anomaly. Based on appendix 4, most of his “immediate” predecessors lasted into their 150’s and 160’s. So why the sudden jump to 210?
My theory is that it is due to getting busy with Arwen ;). Given she’s elf-raised and presumably correspondingly prudish about sex-outside-of-procreation, they may have actually only done it a few times. Yet, that short-lived exposure to/minor ingestion of Arwen’s bodily fluids was enough to boost his lifespan a good 40-50 years!
Now imagine that elves actually existed and giving one a blowjob might be enough to add a decade or so to your lifespan. Why, homophobia would become a thing of the past almost overnight :p!
As far as Frodo’s lack of derring-do, that’s just not the kind of hero he is. There are plenty of other characters charging around on horses and swinging swords. His heroism is in his self-sacrifice, his endurance, his perseverance against all odds. In the final stages of his journey through Mordor virtually all that’s left of him is a grim determination to complete his task. And at that time and place, he was exactly the hero the world needed.
On the subject of his “failure,” in both the book and the films Frodo’s mission is to bear the Ring to the Cracks of Doom. That’s what he pledges to do at the Council of Elrond, and against incredible odds, he succeeds. At no time do any of the Wise (e.g., Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel) say he most destroy the Ring. He is always referred to as Ringbearer, not Ringdestroyer, and it is consistently foreshadowed throughout the story that he will *not * be able to destroy it.
So why do they go through all the trouble of getting the Ring there in the first place if that doesn’t guarantee it’s destruction? Because that’s all they can do. That’s a huge theme in the book - doing all you can do, even knowing that it may not be enough.
Here’s what JRRT had to say:
“It is possible for the good, even the saintly, to be subjected to a power of evil which is too great for them to overcome - in themselves. … Frodo deserved all honour because he spent every drop of his power of will and body, and that was just sufficient to bring him to the destined point, and no further. Few others, possibly no others of his time, would have got so far. The Other Power then took over: the Writer of the Story (by which I do not mean myself), “that one ever-present Person who is never absent and never named” (as one critic has said). … A… commentator on the point some months ago reviled Frodo as a scoundrel (who should have been hung and not honoured), and me too. It seems sad and strange that, in this evil time when daily people of good will are tortured, “brainwashed”, and broken, anyone could be so fiercely simpleminded and righteous.”
*E.g., Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel.
An interesting theory…but I’ll pass on subscribing to your newsletter. 
But actually, Tolkien was a bit of a monarchist, and his story is replete with examples of good bloodlines coming through. Aragorn was the finest, noblest & bestest descendant of Numenor still surviving. This was manifested internally in his “bloodlines”, and physically through his lifespan.
OK, that was a pretty boneheaded error on my part. Yeah, Aragorn’s nth-degree ancestor, but Arwen’s uncle.
And Aragorn’s longevity (atypical even among his recent ancestors) is attributed to the old blood flowing more strongly in his veins: He’s more like the Great Men of Old than are most, and so he lives a lifespan more befitting of them, too.
He also got to grow up in Rivendell, and spend his later years in royal splendor. While his predecessors lived rough in the northern wilds, duking it out with orcs and surly Breelanders.
Where he was swapping spit with Arwen! No, no - I’m sure this all ties back into elven precious bodily fluids somehow. And maybe fluoridation!
Begins feverishly typing newsletter.
Jackson actually has cameos in most of his movies, not just the LotR ones.
Well, hobbits don’t go in for much courtly formality. The bow probably caught them all by surprise. Besides, in Shire social circles, Merry and Pippin ranked at least as highly as Frodo. Pippin’s family was the richest in the Shire, and Merry’s family were masters of a huge plantation-like colony just outside the Shire.
Also, his recent ancestors spent most of their time fighting Orcs, and rarely died of natural causes.
Another thing to consider about Arwen’s death is that Elves could die of heartbreak, and Numenoreans could consciously choose the time of their death. Rather than growing old and feeble, a Dunedain king would hand the crown to his son, and then give up the ghost right then and there. Arwen’s death fits perfectly into both the Elven and the Numenorean traditions.
The movie altered the ending a bit. There’s no struggle after Gollum bites Frodo’s finger off. In the book Frodo’s “failure” is his claiming the Ring. It is a failure in that perspective, but it’s more complicated than that. Tolkien’s definitive take on the matter is in crucial letter 246 (the formatting is a bit screwed up, though). Center for the American Idea
Another change from the book. Aragorn does give a somewhat similar distinction to Frodo and Sam only.
choie, I’m sorry, dear, but Frodo is no hero. Even in the books where he is a little bit stronger than he is shown in the movies, his greatest acts of heroism are a) volunteering to take the Ring to Oroduin (Mt. Doom) from Rivendell and b) keeping trying until the very end. All the heroism is on the part of Sam, really. And yet Frodo is the “hero,” primarily because he is genteel and Sam is a bumpkin, a gardener with lousy grammar and local usage and accent.
And I don’t believe that this was a conscious “statement” on the part of Tolkien. It is entirely consistent with much of English literature, up to and including current day such as Harry Potter, to portray the working class as comic characters, who quite often have great virtue, but are never the true heroes. When in The Two Towers Frodo says that people will want to hear more in tales about Samwise the Brave, the book says:
Even in the movie, Frodo is several times patronizing of Sam, as clearly believing that Sam doesn’t and isn’t capable of grasping the big picture. This doesn’t mean that Frodo didn’t appreciate and truly love Sam, but it is not a relationship of equals, but very much a master/servant or upper/lower class relationship. The impact of this is slightly reduced in the books by virtue of the fact that Frodo is actually about 50 years old, while the other three hobbits are much younger, in their twenties. So some of Frodo’s talking down is because Sam really is a lad in comparison to him, as are Merry and Pippin.
As I said earlier, the malice of the Ring itself contributed to its own destruction. But as several others pointed out, Frodo and Bilbo get credit because they used Gollum with mercy, while Gollum himself began his possession of the Ring with murder. In this sense, Frodo fulfilled his Task.
THe movie really was totally unfair to Denethor. Denethor is, in the books, almost as much of a throwback to the Men of Numenor as Aragorn himself, and Faramir strongly resembles him. Boromir, although brave, strong, and noble, is a lesser man: ‘more like to the swift sons of Eorl than to the grave Men of Gondor he seemed to me,’ Eomer says of him. Denethor and Faramir have wisdom, depth and subtlety as well as martial skill. But Denethor, despite or perhaps because of their dissimilarity, loves Boromir far more than Faramir. Unlike he is shown in the movie, Denethor is not a vain coward, a glutton, or a lover of luxury, and he is far too proud to be ambitious in the usual sense. Faramir tells of Boromir asking Denethor how many hundreds of years it takes for a Steward to be acknowledged as King, and Denethor says something to the effect of while it might be only a few for ordinary people, it would be far longer for them in Gondor. “In Gondor ten thousand years would not suffice,” says Denethor. Boromir has thwarted ambition, but Denethor has the subtlety to take pride in service without the compensatory renown of kingship.
Ultimately, however, it is the Palantir that leads to Denethor’s destruction. The Palantir can not lie, but it absolutely can deceive, and in truth the situation for Minas Tirith is worthy of despair. And Denethor has allowed his grief for Boromir to drive him into wasting his son Faramir’s life, as he believes, and I think seeks to escape his sense of guilt for that, as well as sending Boromir to Rivendell (and thus ultimately his death), rather than Faramir. Between despair and remorse, he cannot stand to live anymore.
BTW, I understand why they portrayed Denethor as they did in the movie, and I don’t blame them. I just want choie to understand that Denethor “really” wasn’t like that.
Oy! - good summation of Denethor’s character.
We’ll have to agree to disagree about Frodo though. Don’t see Frodo the way you do. There are many heroes in LOTR and many kinds of heroism. There are the dashing swordsmen, the unassuming hobbits , the younger brother, the shieldmaiden, the wizard, the gardener. But there is also Frodo, the suffering servant who gives up his life for his friends, who gives up the world so that others may have it. Frodo trudged through Mordor for the sake of Middle Earth. Sam trudged through Mordor for Frodo. Both motives were good. I think Frodo’s was more heroic.
just call me “perv hobbit fancier”
Sure, Frodo meant well, although I will point out that he did not knowingly sacrifice himself. But Sam was the one who was able to keep going, and to me, heroism is more than just good intentions. And Sam certainly knew it was for Middle-earth. He would not have taken on the task himself, because it wouldn’t have occurred to him (or anyone else) that it was his place to do it.
Please don’t get me wrong; I don’t want to disparage Frodo. It’s just that he gets all the credit (at least in Middle-earth), while Sam did far more of the actual heavy lifting. I’m just glad that Sam eventually built a ship and went to the West himself, because he was the one who really earned it.