As a Rings fan I have been perusing various message boards passing the time til ROTK in December. Some questions have arisen. Anyone care to discuss:
-Why didn’t the hobbits get rings of power as the elves, men, and dwarves did?
-Why must fans carp over every change in PJ’s adaptation, when he really has given us all a marvelous gift?
-How does one send Howard Shore a Thank You note?
-Why has there been (thankfully) no outcry against the movies from real dwarfs/little people? The guff that it was racist has (also thankfully) already died down.
-What were the creative differences that caused Stuart Townsend to lose and Viggo Mortensen to gain the role of Aragorn?
and fellow fans -
-who is the “real” hero of the book? and, was Frodo a Failure?
well, i’ll try my best.
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hobbits are generally considered a subset of men. tolkien is never very clear with their beginnings. however, it is clear that they are overlooked by everyone, including the elves of hollin and Sauron.
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people will be critical of the work- fans have waited for a good adaptation of the book since its publishing, i would guess. some critiques have more merit than others. i, personally, am a little bummed at some changes (Faramir? Noooo!), but am happy overall.
-howard shore did an incredible job. the march of the ents/ helm’s deep score was amazing. i cried. -
tolkien’s dwarves (the dwarrow, in the original manuscripts) are not simply short people…they are their own race. they draw upon a lot of pop culture, and they are seen pretty much as good guys. so no real reason to complain.
I think that C. tolkien referred to them as resembling the Jewish people in terms of culture, clannishness, etc. but that’s another discussion.
btw- tolikien may not have been a racist, but his books reflected prominent ideas of the time- people of color were backward, evil, or pawns of rogue ‘westerners.’ though Sam has an interesting internal monologue wondering on the character of a dead Southron, and what lies made him leave his home to go to war. very deep, and is a welcome break in his black/white east/west dichotomy. -
no idea.
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for me, there are few non- heroic leads in this story. whether Frodo’s quiet determination, Sam’s loyalty (he’s one of my favs), Boromir’s struggle, the weight of Aragorn’s legacy on him, Arwen’s choice, Gandalf’s sacrifice, Faramir’s steadfastness, etc. you get the idea. this is a grand epic, and it’s hard to pin down one person all through it.
just my $.02.
It became clear at the start of filming Stuart Townsend was just too young to play the nearly 90 year old Aragorn.
Sam is the hero, though Frodo did not fail.
I’ll take this one:
-What were the creative differences that caused Stuart Townsend to lose and Viggo Mortensen to gain the role of Aragorn?
According to PJ’s audio commentary on the Fellowship of the Ring DVD, after a few days of filming with Townsend, PJ realized he’d cast Aragorn way too young. Townsend was in his late twenties; Mortensen is in his early forties.
Aragorn may appear youngish, but he’s really around 80 and has seen and done many many things by the end of the Third Age, and so I guess PJ needed an older actor to better convey that.
Nothing against Mr. Townsend, I’m sure.
Just about single person in the Fellowship, and even a few peripheral characters, played a vital role in one way or another, but if I had to name one single hero over all other I think I would have to say Gandalf. NO ONE would have done what they did without Gandalf figuring things out, arranging situations, and pushing them along the way. I’m surprised more people don’t consider it this way.
Sam…Gandalf…Sam…Gandalf…Sam…Gandalf
Hmmm
It’s a tough choice, I tell ya. I’m gonna have to go with Gandalf. He resisted the tempation of the One Ring. He stood up to Saruman. He mustered resistance against Sauron (for all of those years). His ultimate sacrifice in Moria. His invaluble council to Rohan and Gondor. His critical thinking and strategic skills. Plus, the guy just plain kicks ass!
Gandalf!!
But we should expect nothing less from a demi-god like Gandalf. He was created for this purpose, and ultimately he was just doing his job (and doing it very well).
Sam and Frodo (and Merry and Pippin), OTOH, are merely Hobbits. So small and insiginifigant that they were overlooked by all of creation. Yet they saved the world, overcame (or resisted for a Herculean amount of time) ultimate temptation, and slew the greatest evils of Middle Earth. Heroism is not rising to your expected duties and potential. Heroism is meetingwhat everyone expects of you, and leaving it in the dust.
Because not everyone “got” rings of power. The Elves made the original (3) rings. The Dark Lord made the rings for Dwarves and Men in imitation of those, and then made the One Ring (using techniques he cribbed from those more clever than himself) to rule all the rings. Only in the movie–for plot simplification reasons–did he give the rings to the Elves. Lots of other races didn’t get rings: Orcs/Goblins because he could already contol them, Ents because they never desired power and so he could not control them, Trolls…I dunno, they’re just hired help I think, Hobbits because they were never considered a “power” and what use would anyone have for them?
Because we love the work and the world so much that we have to say SOMETHING. Most of the posts I have seen have many positive things to say about the movies and some complaints as well. Everyone who is a fan of the books has ideas about what might be improved and what MUST stay the same. Each fan has a different list, of course!
Someone said that doing your job doesn’t make you a hero. I’d have to disagree with that. To use a recent, very emotional example, the firemen who ran into the towers to pull people out ARE heroes. A hero (IMHO, of course) is someone who overcomes his/her own fears and attempts something worthwhile in the face of those fears. Success is not the measure of heroism, it’s the attempt that matters.
So, all that said, Frodo is the hero of LOTR. All the others mentioned make tremendous efforts, have fears to overcome, but Frodo travels the longest road. Gandalf fears that he will fail to overcome Sauron but does the best he can. Sam fears that he will make the wrong decision (about every 5 minutes or so) but makes decisions, and right ones, on a regular basis. Frodo became THE hero when he said “I will take the ring” and then carried through. Before that he had no idea what sort of danger was out there. He had hints from Gandalf, but no real understanding of the risk. After being pursued by the Black Riders and stabbed by the Morgul knife he chose to continue the quest despite his fears of dying or becoming a wraith.
Frodo did not fail; the ring was destroyed. He might have failed without his companions–most especially Sam!–but failure would not have changed his status as hero.
Sheesh, you’d think I was writing a Master’s Thesis or something. Clearly I’ve spent too much time thinking about this. Maybe I’ll go earn a living for a while or something.
re Frodo’s “failure”…
didn’t he succumb to the lure of the ring at Mt. Doom ?
It was Gollum’s leap at the ring that sent it into the fire. Frodo did fail at the end. He couldn’t destroy the Ring. Luckily for him he only lost a finger iirc.
Frodo’s (guaranteed, IMO, for quite some time) failure at the Cracks of Doom was ameliorated by his two great triumphs: showing mercy to Gollum (who then stayed alive long enough to get that ring into the fire) and, to a lesser extent, showing such admirable kindness and friendship to Sam that he carried him through the darkest parts of their journey, when Frodo was unable to go on.
As for question 2, I don’t carp over every change that Peter Jackson made. Some of the changes were quite logical, given the transition to a different medium. For instance, in the scene before Theoden’s throne, we don’t need the line about “And when all the men were dead, he [Wormtongue] would have his share of the women”, because seeing Wormtongue leering at Eowyn conveys the message perfectly well, on film. Likewise, it was necessary that a lot of things (Bombadil and the Old Forest and the Scouring of the Shire, for instance) be left out, in order to fit the story into nine hours. What I do complain about is the unnecessary and uncalled-for changes which were made, such as Faramir almost succumbing, rather than “Were I to find this thing laying by the wayside, still I would not take it”.
And the hero is definitely Samwise. Sure, Gandalf was important, and as the firefighters at the World Trade Center illustrate, doing one’s job can be heroic. But remember, Gandalf was also extremely powerful. Faramir’s organized retreat from the Witch-King, for example, was more heroic than Gandalf zapping him, because Faramir wasn’t able to zap him. Faramir was doing his utmost, while Gandalf was only putting forth a moderate effort. Even against the Balrog, where he faced a foe of his own level, Gandalf was not utterly heroic: He fully intended to just walk away from the bridge, until the 'Rog ensnared him and pulled him down.
Now look at Sam. He willingly starved himself, so that Frodo would survive the trek to the Mountain, and even knowing that there would not be enough for the way back (and willingly facing death by starvation takes a lot of bravery for anyone, much less a Hobbit). He fought off orcs, and defeated one of the nastiest beasties who walked Middle-Earth at the time. He even, without any intimidation or coersion from anyone else, had the Ring in his possession, and gave it up willingly, just because he was asked… And nobody else in the history of Middle-Earth had ever managed that.
thanks for the posts - I have been starved for LOTR discussion lately, I guess.
To answer my own hero question, when I read the books when I was really young (long ago), I always saw Sam as the hero. But nowadays I would vote for Frodo, or make it a tie between the two. Sam is Everyman; Frodo is the tragic hero.
I think you could make a good case to consider Frodo and Sam to be one “hero unit”. Their fates are so intermingled, that it’s hard to deliniate them. Having said that, if I had to pick only one, it would be Frodo. He schlepped that ring from the Shire to Mordor and although he faltered at the end, no one else had to deal with the burden of the ring as he did. Anyone who thinks it’s not Frodo, think of LoTR w/o Frodo. No Frodo, no quest.
I think all four hobbits are “the hero,” and that the events of the Scouring of the Shire make that pretty clear - Gandalf has merely been bringing out the hero in all of them.
Gandalf is a supernatural creature, and thus heroic but not the hero.
Aragorn is The Hero in an archetypal sense, but this isn’t really his story. This is one chapter in his own heroic story, and an important one - he finally claims his rightful throne - but he is not the hero of the War of the Ring. I wouldn’t mind reading some of his earlier stories, in which he is the hero, though.
One could make an argument that there is no one hero and that Gollum is the antihero of the story. I won’t make it here, as I can’t articulate it as well as it deserves, nor do I agree with it, but it’s an interesting arument nonetheless.
Frodo failed to resist the Ring, but he did not fail the Quest. If Gollum hadn’t been there, who knows what would have happened? How strong was Samwise by the end? Could he have thrown himself and Frodo off the Cracks of Doom to save the world? I suspect, in this universe, Illuvatar would have provided - the outcome merely would have been even more tragic than it already was. But we can’t know that.
And yes, I’ll be dashing off a thank-you note to Shore directly - I love his use of place-themes.