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How Secularism gets Tolkien Wrong
I have had to check out of Ricochet for a while because I was assigned to write a book, which is cool but to get anything done on that project I needed to take a break. I came back to the site and started reading posts and sure enough that made it impossible for me not to write up a post myself. A post by @LoisLane really inspired me to write I post I have been thinking about for a very long time you can find her excellent post and fascinating comment thread here
The Lord of the Rings movies differed from the books in many ways, which is to be expected since a movie and a book are very different mediums. For instance at the “Breaking of the Fellowship” I think it was vital to the movie to show Boromir fighting for Merry and Pippin and Aragorn “avenging” Boromir. I saw the Fellowship of the Ring three times in the theater and each time the audience was on the edge of their seats as Boromir redeemed himself and they erupted in applause when Aragorn dispatched the Uruk-hai that killed Boromir.
Tolkien handled that situation perfectly in the books too and he did not need to “show” us anything, but that was because is was a book and not a movie. Other decisions that Jackson and Co. made are debatable but understandable I think due to the medium that Jackson was working in. Did Gimli, Merry and Pippin need to become so strongly comical in the movie? Did Jackson merge Gimli, Merry and Pippin’s heroism well with their comic turns? For me in the movies Gimli was basically two characters, Merry had a well-done hero’s journey and Pippin was ill-used by Mr. Jackson. Despite my quibbles with how those characters were used I understand the choices made by Jackson because of the needs of a movie. Even Arwen and Legolas are understandable in that to have the payoff of Arwen and Aragorn uniting in marriage at the end of the movie you need to see her in the movies. While I find Legolas super hero turn to be personally baffling I get the idea that Jackson really wanted some stunning visuals in the battle scenes and thought that an Elf could do things men could not do. So we see Legolas as a super hero, who inexplicitly lost a killing contest with Gimli who was not a super hero, but most people loved Legolas in the movies so what do I know?
What constantly bothers me about the movies is Jackson and co.’s inability to understand the clear Christian themes in the books or even the ability to recognize those themes causing them to butcher some of the most important characters in the books. In what follows I will focus on Frodo and Sam, Faramir and Gollum. I could bring in other characters too like Aragorn, Gandalf, Theoden and Eowyn to name a few but I think the ones I name make the clearest examples for the case I am making.
Frodo and Sam
When I first read the books at 13 I was blown away by how amazing the books were and I was totally lost in the world that Tolkien had made. At the time I was working on being confirmed in my church because my parents had told me that if I got confirmed I was free to choose to go to church or not. I wanted to be confirmed so I could choose not to go to church. So when I first came to books I was not Christian myself but I was not ignorant of Christianity either. When I first read the Two Towers my heart thrilled at the confrontation in Shelob’s lair as Frodo faced down his greatest challenge to date, from the book,
*************
Slowly the eyes crept nearer.
“Galadriel!” He called, and gathering his courage he lifted up the Phial once more. The eyes halted. For a moment their regard relaxed as if some hint of doubt troubled them. Then Frodo’s heart flamed within him, and without thinking what he did, whether it was folly or despair or courage, he took the Phial in his left hand, and with his right hand drew his sword. Sting flashed out, and the sharp elven-blade sparked in the silver light, but at its edges, a blue fire flickered. Then holding the star aloft and the bright sword advanced, Frodo, hobbit of the Shire, walked steadily down to meet those eyes.
They wavered…
***************
My reaction to this heroic moment tracked exactly with Sam when he exclaimed,
“Master, Master!” cried Sam. He was close behind, his own sword drawn and ready. “Stars and glory! But the Elves would make a song of that if ever they heard of it!”
That moment showed Frodo to be who I thought he was in the books a true and magnificent hero with a loyal and faithful friend. I had hope at that moment that these two little hobbits could indeed succeed despite the treachery of Gollum. When Frodo fell and Sam took the ring my heart fell. I knew the quest was doomed there was no way that Samwise Gamgee was going to get the Ring to Mount Doom. Frodo was our only hope and now he was dead. When Sam realized that Frodo was alive hope burst within in me but at the end of the book when the door slammed closed on Sam, it also slammed closed on my hope for the entire quest. If Sam could not save Frodo there was no hope of winning, the West was doomed to fall to Sauron, maybe forever.
In the movies after that scene played out I only wondered why Sam was doing something so stupid as to try and rescue Frodo. Frodo was a fool, who nearly destroyed the whole quest with his weakness and stupidity. It seemed to me that Sam could easily trot to Mount Doom and throw the Ring into its destruction. I might understand why Sam would want to rescue Frodo from charity but if he had been smart he would send Frodo away and finished the Quest without him. When Frodo says in the movie that Sam can’t handle the burden of the Ring it sounded false and self-serving. Sam was clearly not a hero but the hero of the story.
I spent a lot of time wondering about this. How could Jackson and Co., who so obviously loved the books, get Frodo so wrong? Why did they deny him every heroic moment he had in the books and why did they make Frodo so consistently stupid? By knocking Frodo down they then had to distort Sam greatly making him into more and more of a hero giving to Sam the role that Frodo was supposed to play in the tale. If you think back to the movies the only heroic action that Frodo manages is the decision to take the Ring on the journey. Surely that night in the Shire Frodo was a hero. Beyond that, he is primarily a victim for most of the movie and he has to be repeatedly rescued. Even at the end of Fellowship when Frodo does decide to leave the decision is so mixed up with the attack of the Uruk-hai that he seems partially forced into his decision instead of it being one of heroic sacrifice as it seemed in the book.
So let’s back up for a minute what did they get wrong about Frodo? They missed his wisdom and how that wisdom led Fordo to have virtue and Frodo’s virtue allowed him the power that Sam saw in the passage quoted above. In the interviews that Jackson and Co. gave in the extended versions of the movie they explained that they allowed Gollum to trick Frodo because, “Gollum needed some kind of pay off for all his scheming.” The pay off should have been simply getting Frodo and Sam to confront Shelob not destroy their friendship. So Jackson seems to make a choice to take away Frodo’s heroic moment with the Barrow wrights. He gives Arwen the heroism of Frodo at the ford. Jackson makes Frodo looks desperate instead of wise when he breaks the Fellowship and then he completely unmans the character making him into a base fool at his most heroic moment in Shelob’s lair. By constantly cutting Frodo down he then has to in turn make Sam grow bigger making him a bigger hero and wiser hobbit than Frodo at every stage of the story. Which ruins the whole heroic art of Sam. Instead of Sam becoming better and better to live up to Frodo’s example and be the companion that Frodo needs, Sam instead grows into his role because his Master, Frodo, is unworthy of the quest and Sam basically has to do the quest for Frodo. Which makes a hash of a bunch of the dialogue in the movie because the dialogue holds true to the books but the actions that are seen on the screen tell a different story.
This I think is because Jackson and this secular age in general no longer understand pity and therefore never understood the “pity of Bilbo” that in the end led to the destruction of the One Ring and the victory of the Free people of Middle Earth. Jackson keeps Gandalf’s speech in Moria about the “pity of Bilbo” but can’t follow through with the concept. Frodo was a righteous hobbit with just the right mix of sensible Baggin’s common sense and wild Took side of adventure. He was schooled in the ancient ways and knew the old wisdom of the Elves and learned at the feet of Gandalf, in other words, Frodo had Faith. This gave him greater wisdom and insight about what needed to be done and what he must do. The hero journeys of Pippin, Merry and Sam were bound up in those three hobbits seeking to be more like Frodo, to live like him, to live up to him in a way.
You see the same relationship between Aragorn and Boromir as Boromir fully realizes that Aragorn is truly a better man than he was and Boromir tries to live up that higher ideal at the end of his life. This is the Christian concept of discipleship and Jackson doesn’t see it or doesn’t seem to be able to grasp it. In the Books, Tolkien gives us a good hobbit who starts off inexperienced and grows wiser and braver as the journey goes on until he burns himself out in the face of terrible evil and is only saved by Grace, the same kind of grace he showed Gollum. In the movies, Jackson and Co. give us Frodo the good hobbit that becomes progressively more foolish and base and desperately claws at the ring pushing Gollum into the volcano and being saved from suicide by the love of his best friend. In the movie, you can make the case that the ring was destroyed by Frodo and Gollum’s mutual greed and vicious ambition instead of the “pity of Bilbo”.’
Gollum
Which brings us to Gollum and Frodo a relationship that Jackson never seems able to grasp. Jackson’s take on the relationship seems to be that Frodo sees himself in Gollum and that if Frodo can reach some good part of Gollum that will give Frodo some hope that a good part of Frodo will survive too. The characters are nothing alike though, Smeagol was a thief and liar before he ever found the Ring and Frodo was a righteous, learned and virtuous hobbit long before rightfully gaining the One Ring. The difference between the two hobbits was immense. Frodo felt pity at how over matched Sméagol was and how completely craven and destroyed Sméagol had become by being in the presence of the Ring. Jackson obviously feels sympathy for Gollum and works hard to make the audience feel that same sympathy. He works hard to give Gollum a reason to betray Frodo and same as the “good” and happy Sméagol is brutally attacked and repeatedly beaten by the Thug Faramir. At the end of the Two Towers film Gollum is brutally beaten in front of Sam and Frodo again with out a protest from either of them and then, because of the brutally of the beating, forced to crawl after them. In that context Sam’s little speech about “no hard feelings” was like pouring salt on Gollum’s wounds. Who, watching that scene in the movie could not have a little part of them wishing for Gollum to get back at his tormentors.
It seems to me that Jackson made this decision because he thought of Sméagol as Frodo’s future and that Frodo saw that too and so Jackson built up the similarities between the two characters. While in the books the two characters are in contrast. Sméagol was evil before the Ring and the Ring enhanced his evil. Frodo was good and therefore wise before the Ring and so he was in battle with the Ring. Frodo was never going to be Sméagol there is no version of Gollum in Frodo’s future. Frodo instead wanted to do what rescue work he could on Gollum and it was Frodo’s wisdom, patience and mercy that eventually made Gollum an instrument of good instead of evil. Even at the very end when Frodo was almost wholly given over to the Ring and cursed Gollum on Mt. Doom he was still struggling to show him mercy! He says to Gollum if you touch the Ring again he will die. A Frodo at his most evil was still giving Gollum another chance. Gollum was supposed to be a character in contrast to Frodo not in sympathy to him. Jackson and Co., could not quite grasp this form of mercy and grace and therefore can’t see Frodo’s wisdom in preserving Gollum’s life and so they had to make Frodo stupid and foolish and Gollum intensely clever and Sam a self-sacrificing martyr that served an unworthy master.
Faramir of the Books vs. Thug Faramir of the movies
Which brings me finally to Faramir. As a 13 year old, I wished I could have been a Sam helping Frodo succeed in his quest. I also saw myself in Faramir, Aragorn seemed too great for me, but to me, Faramir seemed relatable. His wisdom and learning were seen as a weakness, his courage underestimated, his formidable fighting power despised. I loved Faramir but in the movies I did not find Faramir I found instead a character invented by Jackson who I named Thug Faramir.
In the interviews after the Films on the extended DVDs Jackson and Co. seem to understand that they messed Faramir up and claim that they gave him a story arc, because he had no arc in the books, and they had to preserve the power of the Ring so they could not make Faramir resist the Ring even for a moment. First, let’s look at this story arc they supposedly gave Thug Faramir. In the movie, Two Towers Thug Faramir follows in the footsteps of Boromir but puts the Ring in even more danger of falling into Sauron’s hands than even Boromir did. He only repents of his evil after a Nazgul attack and Sam’s speech. This is supposed to free the Thug Faramir of his daddy issues and he becomes a man capable of being more than he was before. But even at this moment of maturity, he beats a helpless Gollum for no reason, antagonizing Gollum and making sure that Gollum has good reason to betray Frodo and Sam and then sends them on their way. So, as terrible as it was to see Thug Faramir in Two Towers I had hoped to see a better Faramir in Return of the King.
When reading the books as a teenager it was clear to me that the Nazgul in chasing Faramir’s men across the plains wanted to kill Faramir above all because he was then the only hope of Minas Tirith holding out against the armies of Minas Morgul, Faramir was a true threat to Mordor. In contrast in the movie Return of the King, the Thug Faramir is there again even more trapped in his daddy issues than he was before, a frightened victim of his daddy’s disapproval. Instead of resisting the evil of his father he resigns himself to commit suicide and Thug Faramir survives by happenstance. His lost appeared to me be at no great cost to Minas Tirith. What kind of story arc was that supposed to be? If anything it seemed to me, based on the movies alone, that of the two sons of Denathor Boromir was the better man. Tolkien it hardly need be said wanted us to have the opposite conclusion.
Now in the books Faramir’s story arc is clear, not nonexistent as Jackson claimed. Faramir is a wise, righteous man well-schooled in the ancient ways and the only man shown to lead any kind of prayer in the books. This wisdom helps him over and over again in the books giving him penetrating insight and the wisdom and strength of character to help Frodo and Sam on their quest and speed the Ring to its destruction. Well aware of his Father’s shortcomings he acts within the confines, that his duty and honor give him, to minimize the evil of his father. Helping the good at Gondor and Gandalf to resist the despair of Denethor. Not a victim he is a man of honor asked to make greater and greater sacrifices to maintain that honor until he is finally struck down saving his as many of men as possible. That is a story arc with preserving and a perfectly valid hero’s journey. Faramir of the books is supposed to be in contrast to Boromir and was a better man than Boromir but in the movies, this Thug Faramir is, if anything, less than his brother, who unsuccessfully tries to repeat the same story arc he had in Two Towers, in Return of the King.
Power of Faith is lost on a Secular Age
There is a theme here with Frodo and Faramir where Jackson seems unable to handle wise characters, who handle themselves with honor and dedication to their duty. In Tolkien, it is almost always true that wise characters are faithful characters that have Faith in God. I have always wondered if Jackson and Co. simply had a hard time grasping that wisdom, Faith, can actually help you make the right choices in life, that evil has a harder time corrupting you and that you can be harder to fool. I think these themes were just not in Jackson’s secular wheel house and he had a hard time figuring out how to handle these characters. With Faramir, I think Jackson made a conscious decision to replace him with Thug Faramir because he didn’t know what else to do. With Frodo I don’t think that Jackson tried to make him a foolish bumbler instead of a hero but I think that he views the story too strongly from Gollum’s eyes in the section of the story where Gollum and Frodo were together, and he needed to make other characters present in the movie that lessened Frodo’s role. In the end he just could not understand the “pity of Bilbo” even though Gandalf explained it to him.
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1 Corinthians 1:20-25 (ESV)
I quite agree about the treatment of Faramir; I think it was one of the biggest mistakes that Jackson made. And I think you make a good point about differing ways wisdom is understood, both by the characters in the book and the film, and by Tolkien and Jackson.
I remember hearing or reading something after the release of The Two Towers, about how Haldir was soooo hot, that they added that scene cuz “popular demand.”
Indeed.
And it was totally intentional. Witness the 20-minute, make-up out of whole cloth detour of Faramir & Co. dragging Frodo, Sam, and Gollum to Osgilliath…puh-leez.
And, pray tell, why would queenly Eowen, heartbroken by Aragorn pledged to another, ever look twice at Thug Faramir?
The romance of Faramir and Eowyn is one of my favorite parts. It’s understated and subtle, but I love how the two find each other through loss, recovery, and hope.
It can be easy to pick apart Jackson’s movies, but I think they should be given credit for mostly being faithful to the books. I’d say that the criticism is deserved, but if the movies were junk we wouldn’t still be talking about them. They may fall short of the mark, but it’s such a mark to aim for…
I agree the movies were in the main great and I enjoy them greatly! However messing up Faramir and Frodo needs some kind of explanation. If we saw a Superman movie and he was shot by a normal firearm and he bled we all would wonder how did the director missed the fact that Superman was bullet proof.
I think it is the fact that the movies are so good that make the loss of Frodo and Faramir so painful. I am more looking for explanation then just saying the movies are bad or poorly done. I think Jackson made some great decisions too.
This is a great example of how Jackson would say rhetorically true to the books and put dialog in that talked about the wisdom of Faramir or the heroism of Frodo but he did not have the actions of those characters back up what people said about them or how the other characters regarded them.
The farewell scene as Frodo leaves middle Earth in the movies is just about perfect. Knowing the books that is the kind of thing I would have expected but just looking in the movies it was very hard to see why Frodo’s friends held him in such high regard.
Let me push back a little here. If you are going to tell the story of Two Towers in a visual medium then the Battle of Helm’s deep is just going to loom large. It is linchpin of the narrative for Aragorn and the rest of Fellowship and explains why the Riders of Rohan will be able to ride to Gondor’s aid. Not to mention the incredible depth of Theoden’s hero’s journey and Eowyn’s for that matter. We also get a version of Faramir in Eomer who stays honorable from the beginning but is constantly asked to sacrifice more and more to maintain his honor.
Helm’s Deep is a major event but in the books I think it does not seem to loom as large because it is all done in words and our imagination gives us all we need of the battle. But in a visual medium there really is no way to cut the battle out of the movie. It must be a massive spectacle and the audience would rightly demand that it be a visual feast of battle.
On the other hand Legolas being a super hero is very troublesome. The Elves being there were at first a device for Arwen to show up with warriors from Rivendell but when they went in their different direction they made Haldor the leader of the Elves since the they had the Elves in the battle scene already. One can very complain a lot about the way that Jackson laid out that battle and the themes he emphasized but if you are going to making a movie of the Two Towers then the Battle of Helm’s deep is going to be big.
Most of this is a mess but Tolkien gave the elves and Gandalf telepathy. Gandalf tells Frodo that he read his mind at least once and Elrond is known for knowing the thoughts of men. Denethor, Gandalf and Faramir basically had a telepathic duel when they met in Gondor before the siege. So telepathy was not invented by Jackson, but the rest of your criticism bites and is well deserved.
Jackson originally planned for Arwen to be leading Elves of Rivendell to Aragorn’s aid. There is footage of Arwen battling the Uruk-hai at Helm’s Deep. Fortunately Jackson repented of that but that still left him with Elves at Helm’s Deep and so he brought in Haldor and made the elves for Lorien. It was a mess, but maybe better than having Arwen warrior princess there.
This is interesting. For the movies I’ve always preferred Fellowship. Not to brag, but I saw Fellowship 9 times in the theaters (or is that more appropriate for confession?). Comparatively, Towers was viewed 5 times and King only thrice.
At the time I was very much an outlier in preferring Fellowship to the more action and spectacle oriented installments. On this note, I’m happy the consensus on the films has moved more towards my position over time.
But I always argued that the changes you’ve outlined are more damaging in the later chapters. But I most certainly remember watching the DVD commentary, which you cite, where Jackson talks of Faramir’s “lack of arc” as if Tolkien’s writing needed correction. Absurd!
While Fellowship establishes some problematic character arcs, the more immediate errors are ones of omission. Certainly, Frodo’s decision at the Breaking of the Fellowship doesn’t emphasize his heroism or the wisdom, but it doesn’t deny it either. I think this is more or less how they treat him throughout. Would have been nice to exposit his wisdom and virtue more, but it’s an omission, rather than a contradiction.
But I think Aragorn is largest flaw and should be talked about much more. He, like Faramir, was given a story arc rooted in contemporary pop psychology. An identity crisis for the reluctant hero. The Aragorn of the book was wise, honorable, and faithful. He wasn’t hiding from his responsibilities in the North, he was there because that is where he was needed, and when Gondor needed him, there he would be also: Not all those who wander are lost.
Jackson’s Aragorn was lost, someone in need of counseling and mentorship from Gandalf. The True King was instead a man of wisdom and honor, who had faith that Renewed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be King.
In a sense, abandoning the essentially Christianity of Tolkein to the secularism today, Jackson and others fail to understand what the ring represents. They see it as power, the Ring of Power, and as any high school grad can quote, “power corrupts …” and instantly be regarded as clever. Except the ring is not power, but evil. But secularism can’t understand that as they don’t regard good and evil as things — at least not as objective things, only as subjective concepts. Thus they resort to Power, and since power corrupts, why someone like Faramir could be corrupted so easily! They thus fail to see that power can be used by good, and is in the books to great effect, but that good cannot use evil without being corrupted.
Thus we get the scene where Frodo offers Galadriel the ring and gets a vision of her with terrible power as she speaks. But though the dialogue is essentially the same, the visual presentation of it in Fellowship changes the exchange.
Well answered. You’re right.
It’s the long-distance telepathy that was invented.
Yes. Haldir was better. My rage would have been extreme had it been Arwen.
I like the part where Gandalf points out how dangerous he is and how dangerous Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are. I cross-reference it to Narnia where Mr. Beaver points out that Aslan is obviously not safe, but he’s good.
I did not have any idea that this post was here, but I was checking in this afternoon, and this is delightful!
Since I posted my own thoughts, I, too, have been working through the book again at night and just enjoying the story.
Though I’ve read sections of LotR probably every year since I fell in love with it, I have not read the whole novel in total in a very long time.
I think as someone else noted that the movies merged in some weird ways with the narratives in my mind, and this is a good reminder of where the two works really go in different directions.
I mean, I accepted the changes in the movies as I see them as wholly distinct from the books, but you’re so right about Frodo. My kid has read the novel, but he always talks about how no one would want to be the younger Baggins. I think this is the movie/book merge, and it’s beautifully expressed above.
I did order a book by Peter Kreeft to read after I’ve completed the novel again. I wasn’t, actually, a real Catholic when I fell in love with Tolkien. That came much, much, much later.
I laughed out loud at @brianwolf‘s note that one of the reasons he wanted to get confirmed was so that he no longer had to go to church.
God worked through Tolkien. Of this I have always been convinced.
Tolkien’s descriptions of these skills did not specify a distance, limit, or otherwise define their nature. Its quite fair to say that Elrond, Celeborn, & Galadriel were each capable of discerning details both major and minor without explicit conversations on the topic.
That the movie depicts Elves at Helm’s Deep is, I believe, unfairly maligned. One can argue that it diminished the desperation, and consequently, the heroism of the few true warriors garrisoned there with the civilians. But it does serve another purpose. The Elves were engaged in battle outside of Moria and Dol Guldur during these events. There is a balance, in the books, regarding how invested the Elves are in defending Middle Earth as it is set to be inherited by the world of Men. Having elves present at a major battle, relevant to the story (being streamlined for runtime) does help to better define the Elves’ view towards Men.
One can say there are drawbacks to this decision, including perceived plot holes or irrelevance, but as adaptation decisions go, it’s OK.
Amen.
People tend to make the Ring represent their starkest fears. For a while it was popular to assume that the Ring represented nuclear weapons, though Tolkien rejected that. I wouldn’t be surprised if some claim that it’s ecological devastation (give Tolkien’s own love of the natural world), or capitalism. I believe that the Ring represents power, but even more the desire to wield unlimited power. It’s the totalitarian instinct that wants to put all creation under one’s sole dominion, and ultimately it’s the desire to usurp the place of the Creator. But creatures that attempt to do so ultimately become slaves to that desire.
So the Free peoples that fight against Sauron are choosing a truly heroic path by rejecting the Ring and seeking instead to live in association with each other as equals, preserving the ideals of liberty, and placing the Creator above the creation. They represent the best of civilization. Maybe I’m just projecting my own hopes and fears on it, but that’s what I stand for, and strive against, as a Christian, as a Conservative, as an American.
I should probably also note that he worked on me, a protestant, quite well. Middle-Earth has some very catholic notes too it but works really well in the C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity style as well.
Very insightful.
Fellowship for me was the movie where nothing should have been cut. When I watched the extended editions only in Fellowship of the Ring did I feel the pain of cut scenes. The other two movies could have been tighter still.
Excellent. I thought my post more than long enough with out including Aragorn but if I your thoughts would have dovetailed nicely with my own. This constant need to show Aragorn doubting his own purpose and strength was quite strange. Which is why I think they Jackson did not handle Aragorn and Sauron’s battle of will over hte Palantir very well either.
Finally,
This is so obviously correct and Faramir’s arc in the books so text book and clear that I always suspected that Jackson and Co. simply did not like Faramir and thought him too “Christian” perhaps, too hard to work into their own world view. So they ruined him and didn’t know what to say about it.
Yeah, maybe so. Maybe I should just read it all again.
Have you met LoTR nerds before? We are the L’Oreal crowd: we love to split hairs.
Faramir was a top tier character for me and my biggest source of disappointment in the movies following Towers release. I don’t know if they disliked the character, but, you’re right that they certainly didn’t understand him.
Like Brian, I personally identified most strongly with Faramir in the books.
I struggle to decide whether to agree with Brian that Thug Faramir was the worst error in the movies, or to agree with Virtuous Heathen that the reluctance of Aragorn was a worse error. I tilt toward Aragorn as the larger error, because he is by far the more major character.
Aragorn never had a doubt about his destiny. He was going to defeat Sauron, sit on the throne of a reunited kingdom of Gondor and Arnor, and marry the (figurative) reincarnation of Tinuviel, or end up in a shallow grave. His mother gave him the name hope (Estel). He fought for about 60 years, occasionally in glory, outshining Denethor as a general in their youth, then turning away, for the moment, from the crown that he could have claimed at the moment of his triumph at Umbar.
I guess I have to agree with Spin’s comment about the nerd thing.
I think you’re stretching certain movie v. book differences in directions they don’t naturally want to go. I’ll give you the Christianity in Bilbo’s pity of Gollum, but the movie kept that. But calling the Boromir-Aragon thing Christian discipleship is invention. Short version, I don’t see that an anti-Christian viewpoint explains the odious problems with the movie version.
Here’s a simpler suggestion that fits the observations much better: The movie was scripted and directed by three feminine types who fear men. That’s all, I’m afraid. In their transcription they took care to diminish every strong male character – every objectionable manipulation has that primary effect. Aragorn of the novels wasn’t diffident, he was the &#%@! King. Frodo of the novels never fell under the spell of Gollum, he ruled Gollum as a master, as you note. Faramir they cut down to size too. Only Boromir was transcribed with honor. They could afford that in their little cramped pink-lace-decorated psyche only because he was already flawed.
So that’s it – I never saw any overtly Christian principles in Tolkien’s story, but I did see that he set it within a Christian moral universe. The movie was flawed because it was made by three fat chicks with a man grudge.
Abuses of Faramir, Aragorn, and Frodo. Which is the most blasphemous?
It’s sort of like that fight over the question of whether Cthulhu or SMOD would be a better president.
I should probably clarify that this is much my position as well. I identified with Faramir far more than any other and the movie’s treatment of him was a major error that is a close second on my list of gripes. However, Brian covered virtually all of it (maybe I could split hairs over his being more susceptible to temptation–maybe).
In truth, the problem with Faramir is the problem with Aragorn. It’s the same mistake applied to both characters. But Aragorn, being the central character, has a much greater effect on the thematic core. Generally, I think it’s best to talk about them together.
Right on.
And Frodo. And Gimli and Treebeard, who are not made less noble so much as less intelligent. There’s a reluctance to imagine–even in fantasy–that a person can have genuine virtue.
And Bilbo. Actually trying to abandon his commitment and leave the Dwarves. Egad. If these people have no belief in the sacredness of duty, why act like Bilbo doesn’t either?
This may be cross-referenced to @jonahgoldberg and @jamesgawron. Some things are categorical, not just tangled webs of consequences and personal feelings.
For me Aragorn ended up in he right place. Aragorn speech at the Black Gate that was Aragron we know and love! Faramir never had a redemptive moment in the movies. Not one. For that reason I think that the worst smear was agaisnt Faramir and Frodo as opposed to Aragorn. At least you knew that Aragorn was a hero, a distinction denied to Frodo and Faramir.
Well I disagree, but I made my case already so I will leave it there.
My tags never work. This thread.