9 Tolkien Characters Who Deserve Solo Movies

On May 25th, the world will be hit with a Harrison Fordless Han Solo movie.

Bad, bad, idea (well, Star War sucks anyway, so what’s it going to ruin?).

But the concept of taking iconic characters and giving them solo films, is a potentially interesting idea.

Like if you made solo movies about Tolkien characters 🙂

I’ve highlighted the most promising choices, but this is by no means an exhaustive list, and I’d love to hear more suggestions!

1. Aragorn (otherwise known as Estel, Elessar, Thorongil, Strider…nevermind)

Aragorn is a relativity mysterious figure even in Tolkien’s extensive canon.  The Appendices of The Return of the King features The Tale of Arwen and Aragorn, which gives some details regarding Aragorn’s background.  His mother, Gilraen, raised Aragorn, then known as Estel or “hope”, in Rivendell where he met Arwen Undomiel.

But there is a tremendous gap between the love-struck Estel and the noble Ranger of  The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  There are enough hints in Tolkien’s mythos, the hunt for Gollum, Aragorn riding with the Riders of Rohan and serving as a counselor of sorts in Gondor, to have a basis for an effective film script.

And while it will be difficult to find an actor to complement Viggo Mortenson’s  gravitas, it won’t be as hard as replacing Harrison Ford as Han Solo.

2. Galadriel

Fans of only The Lord of the Rings know Galadriel as character with a striking amount of mysterious power behind Cate Blanchett’s pretty face.  But she’s honestly one of Tolkien’s most complex creations.

As a “young” elf, Galadriel rebelled against the Valar with her cousin Fëanor and left the bliss of the Valinor.  Sickened by the kingslaying of the Teleri elves, she dwelt with Melian, the maia spirit and mother of Lúthien Tinúviel.  She eventually obtained a Ring of Power, Nenya, and created the elvish haven of Lothlórien.

Galadriel’s arc of repentant rebel would be make a fantastic movie, though possibly crafting a linear story line with a climax would be tricky.  But a solo movie is not a biopic; it can focus on one specific incident in a character’s life and there are several such options in Galadriel’s history.

3. Gandalf

In The Two Towers film before he embarks from Edoras upon Shadowfax, Gandalf says :”Three hundred lives of Men I’ve walked this earth, and now I have no time”.

And just what happened in those three life times?

We honestly don’t really know.

Unfinished Tales speaks of the Istari, an order of five “spirits” sent to Middle-earth by the Valar to aid humanity in the battle against Sauron. But the tome writes of only of Gandalf’s “labors” generally. His first documented stand against the Dark Lord seems to have been at Dol Goldur.  This mystery would give the right scriptwriter ample freedom to craft the backstory of Tolkien’s Merlin.

James McAvoy once expressed interest in playing a young Gandalf. While I think McAvoy would make an effective choice, he’s a bit…young and good-looking shall we say? (And doesn’t he remind you of a certain blue-eyed hobbit?).  Before you accuse me of ageism, the Unfinished Tales states that the Istari were “never young”.

 

And if we’re going to have Gandalf we must have…

4. Saruman

Christopher Lee said in an interview for The Hobbit films that he relished playing precorruption Saruman.

Sadly, that didn’t really happen.  Instead, a stunt double (probably a mostly digital one) got to zap out some Nazgûl , and all Lee got to do was vent about mushrooms.

Saruman fell because he studied the arts of the enemy too deeply, and because of his pride (the cardinal sin in Middle-earth Peter Kreeft argues). But Lee’s wish really captures the appeal of Saruman’s preLOTR story.  Yes, his fall would be fascinating, but we also need to see Saruman as he was originally: good.  Depicting Saruman as originally good, would make his fall so much more compelling and meaningful.

Hey, it might give us the villain origin story that George Lucas never did.

And I even thought up the perfect tagline: “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain” 😉

Speaking of corruption…

5. Isildur

Given his prominence in the prologue of The Fellowship of the Ring, even casual Ringers are familiar with this king of Gondor, who both delivered Middle-earth, by cutting the One Ring from Sauron’s finger, and sealed its fate by refusing to destroy it.

But Isildur’s story goes beyond this one event.

A young man in the ancient Numenorean kingdom, Isildur remained faithful to his father Elendil and grandfather Amandil against the extreme corruption of the Numenorean people.  He preserved a fruit from Nimloth, the original White Tree, allowing it to be preserved, and eventually helped found the Gondorian civilization. Isidur’s evolution from young hero to wise king to corrupt man presents an IDEAL story arc.

And yes, I really want to see the Last Alliance in all its glory.

6. Fëanor
Probably The Silmarillion’s greatest character creation is the proud Noldorian elf, Fëanor. Raised in the bliss of the Valinor, Fëanor, the greatest craftsman of his age, created three gems, the Silmarils, that preserved the light of the two trees of the Valinor.  When the Enemy stole the Silmarils, Fëanor eventually swears a terrible and solemn oath to reclaim them, a decision that wreaks havoc on Middle-earth.

The proud Fëanor evokes classical characters such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet (and yes, there are Anakin Skywalker vibes as well.  I’m sorry if I just ruined the character for you).  In the hands of the right actor, the Tolkien cinematic universe could finally gain a Oscar for acting.

7. The Witch-King of Angmar

As a character in himself, Tolkien tells us little of this terrible villain.  But I don’t want a horroresque film merely about a demon.  I want a Faustian tale (we haven’t have a good one in a long time). The classical story arc is there: a man who sells his soul for power.

The Silmarillion tells us that the nine “became mighty in their day”, until they became slaves to the One Ring.  While he called the Witch-King of Angmar, the Witch-King was not the fallen king of Angmar (he ruled it after revealing himself as a Ringwraith). Tolkien hinted he was Numenorean, the proudest race of men in Middle-earth.  Ideally, a film version would depict this man’s chilling evolution from Numenorean to Wraith.  The possible backstories for this character are endless.  Maybe he was a poor man who desired power, or a rich one who desired nobility.

8. Haleth

Haleth is a very, very, minor character in The Silmarilllion, but her story has potential.

As a young woman, her people, the Haladin, were ruthlessly besieged by orcs.  Her father, leader of the Haladin, and her twin brother were both killed and Haleth protected her people for seven days before elves came to aid them.  She then becomes the leader of the Haladin until her death.

The basic narrative, people fleeing orcs, is not especially promising, but the character of Haleth is.  Her strength is appealing, but also her pride (in a literary sense).  She refuses the protection of the elves in one case and rules her people as a “people apart”.  While The Silmarillion itself doesn’t judge her, a movie that explores the strengthens and weaknesses of this woman’s decisions would be interesting.

And yes, there’s the “Joan of Arc” appeal.  Whether it’s Katniss Everdeen or Lara Croft, audiences love their warrior women.

9. Tom Bombadil

Ok, I include this one just so people will shut it.  I’m tired of people weeping over his cut from The Fellowship.  Sorry, it was necessary.

But he even Jackson himself expressed hope that this jolliest of Tolkien characters would one day come to screen.  Now, pulling this off would be difficult.  For one thing, no one really knows who Bombadil is.  Elrond and Gandalf hint that he one of the oldest beings in the universe.  Some theorize that he one of the Valar, Tulkas, the Vala of laughter and others that he is even Iluvatar Himself (a theory Tolkien denied).

But this mystery doesn’t clear up the fact that Bombadil tonally belongs in a children’s film.  Certainly, the target LOTR audience is primarily adolescent to adult, but the merry character of Bombadil, especially as featured in the small poetry collection The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, would be more suited to a children’s film.

I’m not saying it would be easy; I’m just saying that Bombadil deserves a solo movie

 

The Fellowship of Ringers and Tolkienists: Or How Dwarves and Elves Should Get Along

“I now associate Tolkien with you in mind.  Seriously, whenever, I watch The Lord of the Rings, I see you along side Frodo.”

“Other then Tolkien;s family and the Tolkien estate, she knows more about LOTR than anyone”.

(win, win, win).

That’s me.  A crazy Tolkien girl.  Since I first read The Lord of the Rings when I was thirteen, I’ve been absolutely obsessed with the world of Middle-earth.

I perpetually wear the One Ring on my right ring finger because that’s the finger that Frodo lost (I actually think it’d be really cool if I lost that finger too).  My cat’s name is “My Precious”.  Not Precious, My Precious.

I even started a Lord of the Rings club, the Fellowship of the Ringers, at my University.

My experience browsing LOTR online content and running my club has taught me that there are essentially two types of Middle-earth fans: Ringers and Tolkienists.

The distinction between the two groups can be discerned visually.

A Ringer would own:

While a Tolkienst would hoard:

Why do these two groups of people have to stand at two separate sides of a Crack of Doom?  If an elf and a dwarf can become friends, then Tolkienists and Ringers can certainly forge a fellowship.

After all, they have something really important in common: they both love Lord of the Rings.

Sometimes Tolkienists needs to just chill and watch “They’re Taking the Hobbits to Isendguard“.

Ringers need to realize that there’s more to Lord of the Rings than POP figures and Hobbit feet slippers.

And that’s what this blog is for.  It will attempt to create a “union between the two towers” of Middle-earth fandom.

Sometimes I’ll write as a Ringer.  I’ll speculate and comment on news from the new Lord of the Rings TV series or share the absolutely best Legolas memes from around the internet.

Other times I’ll put my English Major hat on and post as a Tolkienist; I’ll analyze Tolkien’s works and the films for the meaning that you probably never saw there before.  Or I’ll summarize and critique scholarship on Tolkien (don’t worry Ringers. Expanding your brain is fun!)

 

The One Big Omission in the “Tolkien” Trailer

There are many familiar images in the new “Tolkien” trailer.

Trees.  Edith dancing in a glade.  Dragons.  Words.  Tolkien in the scrum (yes, I cheered when I saw that bit).

But there is one form of imagery missing.

There are no crosses. No churches.  No shots of Tolkien before his beloved Eucharist.

The trailer highlights most of Tolkien’s major influences: language, the T.C.B.S., and his personal experiences in romance and war.  The dragons and light imagery evoke, if vaguely, epics (if not Beowulf or Norse Mythology directly).

Now, one can argue the extent of the influence of Catholicism on Tolkien’s mythos, but it can’t be denied that his faith was a central part of Tolkien’s life and that his faith influenced his work to a certain extent.

While Tolkien’s mythos draws from pagan sources like Beowulf  (yes, I know Beowulf has Christian elements too) or the Norse Edda and sagas, it is also seeped in Catholic imagination.

To cite just one example, take Tolkien’s assertion of the influence of the Virgin Mary on his ascetics:

“Our Lady, upon which all my own small perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founder.”

Figures like Varda and Galadriel both evoke Catholic conceptions and veneration of the Madonna.

I’m not faulting the trailer for not filling every frame with religious imagery.  I’m faulting it for including all of Tolkien’s central inspirations except his faith.

Influences aside, the film can’t accurately portray Tolkien and ignore his faith. His faith was too central to his identity.

In the trailer’s defense, the film is slated to cover the part of Tolkien’s life where Tolkien himself wrote that his practice of faith became lax (during the first years of his undergraduate study).

But “Tolkien” isn’t just focusing on these few undergraduate years.  Catholicism played a central role in Tolkien’s childhood (he and his bother Hilary served daily mass), and he resumed devout practice of his faith after a brief period of laxity in college.  He attended daily mass for most of his life, and his letters are full of references to his religion and it’s importance to him.

The trailer indicates the film concerns both these time periods, and yet, references to Tolkien’s Catholic faith are absent.

If the film focuses on Tolkien and Edith’s young love, it can’t completely ignore Tolkien’s Catholicism.  Fr. Francis Morgan, Tolkien’s guardian, forbid Tolkien from seeing or writing Edith for three years. While Fr. Francis had legitimate, if not justified, reasons for making this demand, there’s the temptation to portray him as a despotic tyrant.

If the film’s only portrayal of Catholicism is a negative one, then the film will do both Tolkien, his beloved Church, and legions of Tolkien enthusiasts a great disservice.

Flash Review: John Garth’s “Tolkien and Great War”

This is, I argue, the superior biography of J.R.R. Tolkien because of its extraordinary detail.

Many biographies of Tolkien paint him as a kind of demigod; they highlight his linguistic genius, creative powers, and moral respectability.  But Garth’s book shatters this idealistic illusion.  He writes of a young man who shirked his undergraduate studies for extracurricular activities and who despaired that his fellowship of school friends was over after the Great War took its toll.

The book could very well be called Tolkien and the “TCBS” (Tea Club and Barrovian Society), as its really more about this fascinating fellowship of four than WWI.  The TCBS started at King Edward’s School and consisted of John Ronald Tolkien, mathematical Christopher Wiseman (who often good-naturedly clashed with the more spiritualistic Tolkien), romanticist G.B. Smith, and Renaissance man Rob Gilson.

Garth follows these young men from their carefree days at King Edward’s School to their time in the trenches. The four close friends maintained contact throughout the war, and they continually critiqued Tolkien’s growing body of creative work.

Garth avoids literary analysis of Tolkien’s later works (Frodo isn’t so much as mentioned) and instead focuses on the infancy of Tolkien’s mythology.  He traces the mythos’s evolution from ambiguous themes and images in poetry to full-fledged myths and stories.

A long postscript does attempt to the answer the question of why Tolkien’s work differed from the disillusioned memoirs and nihilistic poetry of so many other veterans, and the results are much more satisfactory than those offered in “A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War“.

Given its intense detail regarding the evolution of Tolkien’s mythology and the complex relationship of the TCBS, the book is a slow read.  It’s also a difficult one for those not accustomed to reading military history, as it contains as many regiment and territorial names, as The Silmarillion contains elvish names and words.

Yes, it’s a slow read, but as Treebeard would say, “anything worth reading at all, is worth taking a long time to read”.

How The Lord of the Rings Reveals the Failure of The Last Jedi

Some Star Wars fans hate Star Wars: The Last Jedi so much, that there’s currently a crowdfunding campaign to remake it.

Other than critiques of the immortally pointless Casino scene, much of the criticism of The Last Jedi comes from its supposed undermining of its source material.

Star Wars blogger Aaron Powell neatly sums up this criticism:

“Return of the Jedi never happened. Our characters failed. The Empire still lives, somehow, though we’ve changed the names. Everything’s as dire as it was after Empire Strikes Back, without explanation, and without earning it… Luke’s a loser. Han’s a loser. Leia’s a loser. There’s your characterization”.

While there are numerous examples proving Powell’s characterization, one scene captures the whole picture: Luke Skywalker throwing his lightsaber over his shoulder like it’s a mere piece of junk.

 

Luke demonstrates a total disregard for his legacy and the legacy of the Jedi. But before you argue that I’m overthinking this, that this lightsaber toss is just one of the few decent pieces of humor in the Star Wars universe, consider a similar hypothetical occurrence in Middle-earth.

Elrond, lord of Imaldris and decentent of Lúthien Tinúviel, presents Aragorn, the heir of Númenor (not just Gondor, Númenor), with Andúril, the sword that cut the One Ring from Sauron’s finger.

And imagine Aragorn just tosses the sword over his shoulder.

I mean, I wince when Frodo leaves Sting in Shelob’s Lair in the film The Return of the King.

Now, Luke’s lightsaber is much less sacred than Narsil/Andúril, but it still bears significant meaning in the Star Wars universe. It’s still a relic of a meaningful and glorious past.

Contrast Luke’s toss with Aragorn’s actual treatment of Anduril.  When Boromir lets Narsil’s hilt fall to the ground in Rivendell, the act is treated as being nearly sacrilegious.  Aragorn hurriedly restores the hilt to its resting place with near religious reverence.

Now I appreciate the attempt to deepen Luke’s character.  It would be ridiculous if he were the same naïve lightsaber wielding welp of the original trilogy.  But The Last Jedi changes Luke’s character beyond recognition.

His disillusionment with the Jedi is arguably justified given their murky history, but the burning of the Jedi scrolls attacks not merely the failed politics of the Order, but the very essence of their identity.  The nobility of Jedi philosophy is one of the few claims to gravitas Star Wars has, and The Last Jedi destroys it.

More significantly, Luke has abandoned his sister and the world to darkness.  Luke taking a darker side is understandable, but the sheer selfishness, even evil, of such a decision completely undermines the blue-eyed idealist of Lucas’s trilogy.

Imagine the Amazon series follows an older, postLOTR, Aragorn.  Imagine a Sauron follower takes up the Dark Tower in Mordor again.  And then imagine Aragorn, disillusioned from some tragedy or personal failure, leaves Arwen alone to mope in some in some hermitage in Mirkwood (and what would the Middle-earth equivalent to drinking green milk be?).

Such a premise would infuriate fans and completely undermine both Tolkien and Jackson’s noble conceptions of the character.

Luke does, in a sense, obtain redemption by saving the Resistance, but does this one act make up for his years of cowardly isolation?  The hologram revelation further undermines his redemption.  He risks nothing by defending the rebels.

In The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn, while not flawless, embraces his destiny as King, and selflessly battles for his people.  The film, while it deviates from Tolkien’s characterization, still presents the character with a kind of sacredness.

The Last Jedi has little respect for anything sacred.

To realistically call anything in the Star Wars universe “sacred”, is a stretch, but to fans, the Jedi Order, Luke Skywalker, the Rebels, are sacred.

But The Last Jedi refuses to treat anything as sacred.  As outlined above, it undermines the accomplishments of the original trilogy, destroys Luke’s character, and even equates the Resistance with the First Order (they both buy weapons from the same supplier).

We see this trend in other popular film franchises.

In the Marvel Universe, the heroes learn S.H.I.E.L.D. is a Nazi organization.  In The Hunger Games, Katniss learns the rebellion, or at least its leadership, is nearly as fascist and brutal as the Capitol.   In Black Panther, T’Challa learns the benevolent father he idolized committed an atrocious cruelty.

Heck, Marvel’s own goody goody Captian America is a Nazi.

This modernist trend is no doubt partially due to our own disillusionment with our leadership.  Our politicians are corrupt, our idols our sexual predators, and our athletes are dopers (big generalization, obviously).

This trend in film and literature is supposedly “progressive”. It’s an attempt to escape the simplistic “good versus evil” binary.

But the issue with the trend is that it doesn’t reflect reality.

People don’t always do the wrong thing. There’s a myriad of examples in our current society and throughout history that show leaders and ordinary people acting with altruism and selflessness.

Sure, there are plenty of Saruman’s in the world, but there are also plenty of Sams.

“A Hobbit, a Wardrobe and a Great War” Flash Review

If you are modestly interested in Tolkien and WWI, and John Garth’s superior Tolkien and the Great War is too hefty for you, John Loconte’s book might be your cup of English Tea.

Loconte provides a brief, but compelling, summary of the events of WWI and the philosophical and ideological cultural climate that led up to the conflict.

The summaries of Lewis and Tolkien’s war experiences are fascinating, and he examines Lewis’s nearly nihilistic war poetry whose existence will be a surprise to the average reader.

Loconte also provides numerous antodecotes of trench warfare, which lightens the text’s heavy exposition.

For example, he describes soldiers locking a cat into a rat-infested room, locking the door, and opening the door the next morning to find no remains of the cat.  The rats consumed every feline morsel.

The book does raise a fascinating question which it never satisfactorily answers: how did Tolkien and Lewis write such countercultural theistic works in a sea of other postwar nihilistic fiction and memoirs?

Loncte hints it was their religion that differentiates them, but fails to explore even this thread with much depth.

Loconte’s attempts at literary analysis are unproductive.  While talking about historical events, he will often refer to a similar event or idea from a Tolkien or Lewis work.

A taste of his “analysis”: when talking about the resilience of British soldiers, he argues this strength is “probably not unlike” Sam’s Gamgee’s strength at the end of his quest.

Locntone’s repetitious use of speculative words and phrases such as “probably” in his analysis continually undermine his argument, and the brevity of his analysis prevents any substantial thesis from forming.

And much of his analysis provides few startling insights. Even the causal Tolkienist is likely aware that the Dead Marshes were inspired by trench carnage.

But the book is valuable and entertaining for its historical summary.

So if you want a “light” summer read that gives you a nice summary of preWWI philosophy and other Lewis and Tolkien’s war experience,s this is your Tolkienist beach read.

The Lord of the Rings is Not the Great American Read

The wild popularity of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings make it one of the front runners for PBS’s the Great American Read. Indeed, the story owes much of its initial breakthrough popularity to American readers.

PBS has not provided specific criteria for the choice.  Their only metric is “love”.

But the title, Great American Read, implies that the winning novel should exemplify, or at least engage in discourse with, American values.  It is the “Great American Read”  after all, and not the “Best Loved Book” contest.

If this criteria is used, the question arises: what are American values?

Such a question provokes a visceral discussion, as the values of the nation are debated daily with differing opinions emerging from the various political ideologies.

But I shall greatly overgeneralize, and speculate that America’s central values-whether she lives up to them or not is another question-are those of individuality, democracy, and liberty.  Indeed, most of the current political debate involves these values in some respect.

But does The Lord of the Rings engage with themes of individuality, democracy, and liberty?

LOTR is about the preservation of liberty to a certain extent. Sauron is the ultimate slaveholder.  His One Ring spiritually enslaves its bearer restricting all other liberties, as Gollum’s unquenchable lust illustrates.

But Tolkien is more concerned with spiritual slavery and control.  American discourse is usually concerned with institutional enslavement and tyranny.

There is also a pervasive rebellious spirit in American’s love of liberty.  We are eternal adolescents, often rejecting even non-tyrannical authority.

But LOTR promotes a continuous submission to just authority.  Characters such as Frodo continually submit to the guidance and authority of characters like Aragorn, Galadriel and Gandalf. But Tolkien, monarchial as his belief in leadership tend to be at times, certainly doesn’t espouse blind submission to authority.  A minor character in The Return of the King, Beregond, breaks his solemn vows and defies his lord Denethor to preserve Faramir’s life. His action is sanctioned by Gandalf, probably the supreme moral authority in the text.

Tolkien clearly believed that even justly ordained authority could become corrupt, and when such corruption occurs, disobedience and defiance are sometimes necessary.
But LOTR is full of examples of effective authority.  Examples of rebellion in the text are much rarer.  Aragorn, Gandalf, Elrond, Théoden, and Galadriel all wield power with grace and effectiveness.  The novel never implies that Middle-earth would improve by an overthrow of Rivendell or Gondor.
 

The concepts of democracy, as it involves equality, and individuality are intertwined in Tolkien’s trilogy.

Critics often accuse Tolkien of endorsing traditional notions of natural hierarchy among classes.

While this is certainly too complex an issue to do justice in this post, I contend that this “accusation” is, in certain respects, accurate.

American philosophy would dictate that any hobbit from Bracegirdle could be an effective king/leader of Gondor.

Tolkien would laugh at this idea.  Aragorn is presented as somehow innately befit to take on the mantle of king.  He is nobler than the average Gondorian citizen.  Only he can be the king Gondor needs.

The morality and reality of such a philosophy of class aside, it is certainly alien to American concepts of democracy.

And yet, Tolkien certainly challenges traditional notions of class in his trilogy.
Sam Gamgee comes from a lower class of hobbits, as indicated by his family’s speech and profession. The lower classes are often written off as one homogenous entity incapable of individual distinction and renown (especially in tales filled with upper class people). But Sam transcends stereotypes to make an extreme individual impact on the course of history.

Tolkien thus confirms the worth and dignity of the individual.  But his concepts of individuality hardly compare with American’s values of rugged individualism or economic autonomy.

And that fact remains.  LOTR is full of traditional characters whose authority and nobility are rarely questioned. And the story’s central theme is not the development of a more equal society, but the overthrow of a great spiritual evil.

While LOTR engages with discourse of, and even confirms some American values, there are other books that do so to a much larger degree.

The rebellious adolescent spirit of Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or the resistance to intellectual governmental tyranny in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 are clearly more American than concepts of immortality in Tolkien.

And it’s not just the fact that Tolkien is British.  English George Orwell’s Animal Farm is much more concerned with American themes (institutional tyranny, equality etc.), and is therefore a more suitable choice.
But yeah, I’ll still probably vote for The Lord of the Rings.  The thought of anything else winning just breaks my heart.

 

The High Cost of Atonement in Middle-earth

While the meaningful body count in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit is surprisingly low, the deaths that occur present two of the most interesting character arcs in the tomes.

Both The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring close with the death of two beloved characters: Thorin Oakenshield and Boromir (please, please, don’t make another Sean Bean joke. I. get. it.)

Boromir dies because of his pride.

He tells Frodo before he attempts to take the Ring:

“The Ring will give me the power of Command.  How I would drive the hosts of Mordor, and all men would flock to my banner!”

Boromir desires the Ring to obtain glory for himself.

Of course, Boromir clearly attains redemption even after his moral fall.  As he lies dying, Aragorn assures him:

“You have conquered. Few have gained such a victory. Be at peace! Minas Tirith shall not fall!” (to find this quote, I grabbed The Fellowship of the Ring, expecting to find the death of Boromir at the end of it.  Curse you Peter Jackson and your plot reconstruction!)

Boromir attains redemption by fighting to deliver Merry and Pippin from the orcs.  But this redemption comes at a heavy cost.  Boromir’s life is demanded of him.

Thorin’s sins are similar to those of Boromir.  He is motivated by not only greed, but also pride.  Above all else, he desires the Arkenstone, which will mark him as truly the King under the Mountain.  He is willing to sacrifice the lives of his kin to preserve his great hoard.

Thorin, like Boromir, eventually obtains redemption by fighting in the Battle of the Five Armies with the elven host and the men of Laketown.  As he lays dying, he reconciles with Bilbo (who he threatened to toss off a cliff to his death) before dying.  He tells Bilbo:

“Farwell, good thief…I go now to the halls of waiting to sit beside my fathers, until the world is renewed”.

So, Thorin attains restitution for his sin and a heavenly afterlife of sorts.  But like Boromir, this forgiveness comes at a high cost.  The highest cost.

But what does these deaths tell us about Tolkien’s philosophy of forgiveness?  Did he believe that sins can only be forgiven through one’s bloodshed?

Well….yes.  A devout Catholic, Tolkien certainly believed that humanity’s sins could only be forgiven through blood.  But not humanity’s blood: the Precious Blood of Christ.

In portraying Boromir and Thorin dying for their sins, Tolkien is not representing the Passion narrative, but evoking it.  The wage of sin is death.

Boromir and Thorin’s deaths attest to the graveness of sins such as pride and greed. A simple, “I’m sorry for Bilbo for trying to throw you off a cliff” wouldn’t suffice for restitution (or, if we’re going the preschool way, maybe Thorin could color Bilbo a picture? 🙂

For grave sins, sometimes grave restitution is necessary, which is why in the Catholic sacrament of Confession,  the priest gives the penitent a penance, often a short prayer, to say in reparation for his or her sins.

To Tolkien, sin is not something easily dismissed.  It’s the gravest evil in the universe, and Boromir and Thorin’s arcs reflect this.

And finally, Haldir has to die in The Two Towers film to atone for the grievous sin of bringing the elves to Helm’s Deep.

 

 

 

 

Is the Tolkien Estate Milking Tolkien Fans?

Last week Harper Collins announced it is publishing yet other work by the late great J. R.R. Tolkien.

Harper Collin is publishing The Fall of Gondolin, a story which Tolkien began writing while convalescing from trench fever contracted during his military service in World War I.

Since the publication of The Silmarillion in 1977, Tolkien has posthumously published over twenty books (counting the Histories of Middle-earth).

Clearly, the world needed to hear the full tale of Tolkien’s mythos as told in The Silmarillion and the Histories of Middle-earth, but as more and more, sometimes very slim, volumes are chocked out from the presses, some fans are calling foul play.

A further complication is that some of these posthumously publications’ subject matter appeals to a small academic audience such as The Fall of Arthur, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrin, and The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun. As a lover of medieval literature and poetry, I found the above titles fascinating.  But their high style and subject matter make them unlikely reading material for most fans of The Lord of the Rings.

Fans charge the Tolkien Estate with “unethically” profiting off Tolkien’s name. The editors find an obscure manuscript of Tolkien’s detailing an obscure medieval story and slap Tolkien’s name on the cover to catch the eye of a browsing bookstore Ringer (if he’s expecting hobbits, he’s in for a rough surprise!).

So is The Fall of Gondolin merely a money grab for the newly Christopher Tolkienless Tolkien Estate?

This new volume is considered the completion of a trilogy proceeded by The Children of Hurin and last year’s Beren and Luthien.

Tolkien considered these three stories to be the “Great Tales” of the Elder days (this trilogy doesn’t have an official name yet, but the “Great Tales” trilogy works).

The Children of Hurin features the same story as told in The Silmarillion, but with greater detail, dialogue, and scenes (not to mention gorgeous illustrations from Alan Lee). The volume forms a complete, coherent, and linear narrative.

Last year’s Beren and Luthien however, departed from the “expansion” model set by The Children of Hurin.  The volume features a prose draft of the tale and lengthy verse version.

The prose draft is different enough from the prose version in The Silmarillion to be worthwhile.  Most notably, the draft features in place of Sauron, Tevildo, the deliciously evil Lord of the Cats.

If Tolkien had stayed with this draft, we might have had The Lord of the Cats instead of The Lord of the Rings given Tevildo serves Sauron’s function as Morgoth’s minion! (Though I suppose a cat could have been the Lord of the Rings: a cat with giant paws so the One Ring could slip onto his one of his claws…oh speculation!)

The verse version of Beren and Luthien is strikingly beautiful, and fans certainly deserved to experience the tale of Middle-earth most “famousest” lovers in the medium it was meant to told in.

Apparently, this new book will follow the model of Beren and Luthien, as opposed to the more novel like structure of The Children of Hurin.

 

The Silmarillion tells the history of the fall of elvish fortress of Gondolin, but in a very condensed form (In my Ted Nasmith illustrated edition the fall of Gondolin narrative is less than five pages).  There’s so much material missing, that the new volume will, guaranteed, provide lots of new material.

BG Falcon Media, reports that “The novel is said to be written in a style very similar to that of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy”.  The Children of Hurin’s style is a higher form of diction than LOTR (similar to parts of the The Silmarillion) and Beren and Luthien is primarily in verse form.

If The Fall of Gondolin’s prose resembles that of The Lord of the Rings, the work will be more accessible to broader Tolkien fandom–and therefore maybe convert some reluctant Ringers into Tolkiensts.

Also, the tale of Gondolin’s destruction has never been completed in satisfactory fashion.  Tolkien himself never wrote an “all threads tied up” ending (see the “infamously” complete ending of The Return of the King movie 🙂 )

This new volume has a complete ending, pieced from various notes of the professor.

So is the Tolkien Estate milking fans with The Fall of Gondolin?

No.

Will they do it with other Tolkien manuscripts in the future?

Maybe.

Will I buy these works anyway?

Definitely.