Please note: there is nothing for sale here.  You cannot buy anything on this page.  That would make this just about the only Lord of the Rings web page not selling something.  Yeah me.  Actually, I am exaggerating a little. 

 

Lord of the Rings

Just to help myself keep things straight here, I have decided to create a reference page for myself listing major characters and locations and events. 

 

 

 

 

 January 2004

Copyright © 2004 Bill Van Dyk  All rights reserved.

Image

Who they are in LOTR

In real life....
wpe5.jpg (45060 bytes) Pippin and Merry.  I frankly don't know which is which.   One of them was picked up like a child by Eowyn on her way to the battle of Pelennor Fields where she slayed the Lord of Nazgul, the Witch-King of Angmar after he killed her uncle, Theoden.  The other went with Gandalf to Minas Tirith, because he looked into the magic ball, which may have allowed Sauron to establish some kind of vulcan mind-meld with him.  In Canada, Pippin and Merry could get married, but then Frodo would have a fit. Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle-- a couple of dingbats that got a little too close to the action and had an unduly large influence on events.
9kings.jpg (10651 bytes) Otherwise known as the nine men-kings who accepted rings from Sauron to become part of his deviant power grab.  Rings were also given to the Dwarves, but didn't work very well on them.  The Elves figured out they had been tricked when they found about the master ring to control all the rings, and turned on Sauron.  The men in this picture all became Wraiths, undead creatures, obedient to Sauron.  But they also become pretty stupid.  They run into Frodo, Pippin, Merry, and Sam on their way to Rivendell, attack them, and are beaten back by Aragorn all by his lonesome-self.  Instead of regrouping below, they sort of disappear, allowing the hobbits and Aragorn to move off again.  Logically, you might think they'd hang around and have another run at the ring, or call in reinforcements like one of those flying creatures or a few orcs, or whatever.  Just seemed to me that the Hobbits got away a little too easily, without adequate explanation..  Senators.  All white, male, and rich.  And easily corrupted by gifts from lobbiests like Sauron.
aragorn.jpg (12916 bytes) Aragorn, the rightful king of Gondor, by virtue of the fact that he is descended from Isildur of Gondor, who got to be king after he won a fair and square election. 

No, of course he didn't.  He got to be king by being bigger and meaner than the other people around him. Well, whatever.  Isildur cut the finger-- and ring-- off of Sauron in a battle many years before the events of the movie.

The point is, in Lord of the Rings, people are kings because they are entitled to it, and the books don't concern themselves very much with the possibility that the poor people who actually work the earth might get abused by these "divinely" appointed "leaders".  In myth, these great heroes rule their peoples beneficently and--only when absolutely necessary for self-defense-- personally lead into battle.  I mean, right at the front of the line, where the arrows and spears are.  To show that they would never ask others to do something they would not be willing to do themselves. 

As we have seen over and over and over again, in real life, they send other people off into battle and then award themselves medals afterwards.  And so in the movie-- you can't have it both ways.  A great leader would stay out of the battle so he could make the brilliant strategic decisions that will lead to victory.  But then, you can't show him bravely charging into a sea of orcs flailing his sword around-- it would look unseemly, wouldn't it, for Aragorn to be sitting on a hillside sending signals to various divisions, to attack there or there at such and such a time, without personally feeling the bite of war.  Even Gandalf, taking a rather foolish risk, when you think about, wields his sword.  In real life, and opportunistic enemy, without any particular skill or courage, could land a lucky blow and inflict a fatal loss upon the good guys.   Whatever.

 In tone and meaning, this is the Al Gore of LOTR.  He is, firstly, the rightful king of Gondor but isn't actually serving because of various shenanigans.   Secondly, he's sensible and formal and stiff, and just not really very charismatic.
legolas.jpg (9203 bytes) This guy is so good looking that Keira Knightly says her friends envied her when they found out she was co-starring with him in "Pirates of the Caribbean".   Legolas is one of the most purely likeable characters in the movie.  He just goes about efficiently without weeping or hugging his fellow elves or protesting his eternal devotion or such silliness. He looks very cool because of the sound effects added to his arrows.  They zing.  And he seems to be able to smell evil in the air.  Or is that just Gimli? 

 It would have been interesting to see a conflict between him and Aragorn might have played out.  

New York City police and firemen.   Just do the job, without fanfare or ostentation.
arwen.jpg (8126 bytes) This is Liv Tyler.  As Arwyn.  Cute, isn't she?   She lives in Riverdale with Archie and Veronica.... oops.  Rivendell.   With the elves.  Glycerine tears and all.  She is an elf.  The elves in LOTR are all wise, good-looking, and brave.  Arwyn is in love with Aragorn and gives up eternal life to remain behind and share Aragorn's fate if they lose to Sarumon.   (Eowyn also likes Aragorn.  I see a reality tv-series here.  Eowyn, Arwyn, and maybe Galadriel on an island with Aragorn, and he gets to date each of them and then has to choose.)  She makes some of the dumbest speeches in the movies, about fate, and "meant to be", and such crap, which is always an explanation of why a desired outcome was really the result of our personal virtue and determination and beneficently bestowed upon us by some superior being... and not blind luck.   Whatever. It's hard to find a corresponding woman of real significance to match Arwyn. She's so weepy and austere, and she's not really directly involved like Eowyn.   
Galadriel.  No women have significant roles, really, in LOTR.  Galadriel seems particularly gratuitous.  I mean, there should be a juicy role or two for women in this fantasy world, but Tolkein obviously didn't think that women were all that interesting or important.  Frodo stays overnight in the Galadriel Hilton and he wakes up to go take a leak, and there is Galadriel, washing her hands, and lusting for the ring.  But she doesn't take it.  She understands that it would clash with her new pumps.  Hilary Clinton.  She sees the power of the ring but doesn't want to lunge for it, just yet, for fear of appear to be too brazen.
Lord Elrond, the leader of the elves.  He doesn't have much use for humans, who betrayed the elves after they helped them defeat Sauron.   Isildur, on of Elendril, Kind of Gondor, cut the ring from Sauron's hand in battle, but instead of destroying it as urged to by Elrond, he kept it.  Elrond is 6,500 years old, but doesn't look a day over 4,000.  You just wish he would get really, really angry and say something like, "Mister Frodo.  Hand over the damn ring!"

 

 John Kerry.  Elrond, like Kerry, actually served in battle.
eowyn.jpg (8432 bytes) Eowyn, Eomer's sister.  Somewhat improbably kills the Lord of Nazgul, the Witch-King of Angmar, in a plot trick lifted from Macbeth (I'll bet Shakespeare lifted it from somewhere too).  Lord Nazgul cannot be killed by any man.  So he becomes cocky and over-confident.  Then he is confronted, like so many, by a woman.  She kills him.   She also unexpected beheads one of those flying thingies.  Can't find the name of it.  And she snatches up Merry or Pippin and hauls the little hobbit off to battle so he won't miss all the fun, a dubious favor if ever there was one, but never mind.   This is a world in which it is glorious to slay or be slain.  Just glorious.  How crushingly disappointed Merry or Pippin would have been to miss the fun of slaying things and valour and all that.  Hip hip!
Eomer (no picture yet) Theoden's nephew and eventual heir.  He is four years older than Eowyn.  After the events described in the movie, he becomes King of Rohan, replacing his uncle.
boramir.jpg (47407 bytes) The worst death scene-- and there are more than a few-- in LOTR is Boramir's.  All the standard cliche's and the absurdity of Aragorn listening to Boramir's last words-- they go on for a while-- while doing nothing to try to save him. Did Aragorn know Boramir was going to die?  How did he know?  How did anybody know back then?  Why didn't he at least try to stop the bleeding, for heavens' sake?   But he just kneels and looks solemn and hands Boramir his sword-- like, maybe you want to finish it yourself in case the orcs come back, because I aint going to help you.   Anyway, Boramir is tempted by the ring and almost takes it from Frodo.   Boramir thinks he might be able to use the ring for good, to restore Gondor, but Frodo knows he's only going  to use it for mergers and corporate takeovers and before you know it, all the elves would be working for minimum wages at fast food outlets.
boromir.jpg (11395 bytes) Who is this guy?  I don't know.  Looks like Boramir.  It's his brother, Faramir.  He actually had the ring for a while-- at least, he had Frodo and Sam.  He caught Smoegel, which led Smoegel to believe that Frodo had betrayed him, which is how he rationalized leading Frodo and Sam to caves of Shelob, the spider's lair, where Frodo is stung and goes comatose. 
sam.jpg (9481 bytes) I'm not fond of scenes like that in which Sam, who can't swim, lunges into the water after Frodo who is trying to cross the lake in a boat so he can proceed to Modor alone.  In scenes like that, the writer becomes visible-- characters no longer seem driven by their own personalities, but by the conventions and cliche's of adventure epics: Sam is so loyal to Frodo, he'd even drown himself to prove it.  Right.  It's dramatic, isn't it?  A cue to this kind of phony pitch is when the music rises, to clue the audience in-- you're supposed to be so blown away by Sam's extraordinary devotion. You're supposed to believe Frodo, who had realized that every moment with others aware of the power of the ring was a danger to himself and everyone, wouldn't resent the imposition. 

If you rebel against this kind of manipulation, you find yourself annoyed and start to turn against the story, and in my case, Frodo (not Sam!) became an irritant the rest of the entire series.  He becomes stuck-up and self-righteous, and a little patronizing.  Don't forget-- he failed to destroy the ring. He chose to keep it.

Are Sam and Frodo gay?  Tolkein would be appalled at the suggestion.  That doesn't mean it isn't true.  Soldiers, athletes, and prisoners sometimes have relationships that would appear to be homosexual in nature, but these men wouldn't necessarily think of themselves as homosexual. 

 

 

 
denethor of minas tirith 2.jpg (13630 bytes) This is Denethor, steward of Gondor.  He's not a king.   Gondor's kings have gone missing (until Aragorn asserts his divine right).   Denethor is so smart that he realizes that Gondor is going to lose to Saramon and his orcs and trolls and decides he should do what he can to pass on his hopelessness to his people.  Gandalf smites him, literally, with his staff and takes over defense of Minas Tirith.  Denethor is an interesting character.  It is said that he "knows too much", and almost as much about reality as Gandalf, but, instead of fighting, he gives in to despair.  In LOTR, there are only two types of leaders opposed to Saramon.  The militarists who want to fight-- sometimes mindlessly, like Gimli-- and the madmen who have surrendered to despair or evil and fail to do their jobs.   Given the nature of the foe, that is perhaps "realistic", within the terms of this reality.  The Hobbits, for example, mean no harm to anybody-- they are the movies' Switzerland--  but they too are threatened by Saramon's evil.  The deck here is stacked.  In real life, we do have the Hitlers, and history mocks those who tried to make peace with him like Anthony Eden.  It is possible, in my view, that Eden might have been a hero in a different time-- say 1917.  There are no Gandi's or Martin Luther King's in LOTR. Jacques Chirac.
gimli.jpg (12032 bytes) Comic relief?  "Nobody throws the dwarf!"   But also a saving grace of the series.  Without Gimli, I fear the entire schematic would have been too pompous and ridiculous.  Ironically, it is Gimili's ridiculousness that saves the movie.  War is ridiculous.  It is inherently absurd.  In real life, the rich start and end wars and benefit from them; the fighters, like Gimli, invariably pay the price.  He's the Jessica Lynch of LOTR Donald Rumsfeld, without a doubt.
saruman.jpg (9282 bytes) Thank you, thank you, for making Saruman smart and physically attractive.  Without Saruman, this might have been just another Star Wars with elves.   But Saruman brings a level of depth and charisma to evil, a sense of misguided power, and a suggestion of how seductive evil might look to struggling warlord or chieftain trying to choose between one side or the other.  The only thing missing is some suggestion of what it is Saruman wants other than power for its own sake.  Power for its own sake is not an unbelievable motive, but I'm one of those perverse people who believe that most wars and movements and politics can be understood as the manipulation of events for the purpose of accruing economic advantages.  Or chicks.  Chaplin conveyed more with his Hitler dancing with a globe than Saruman does with all his speeches.  I don't know.  It's not unbelievable that he just wants power.   Sure.  Go with it.  I would have liked a scene of Saruman in a penthouse with chicks and cool toys.  Karl Rove.
gandalf.jpg (7990 bytes) If there was a wise men of fictional universe contest, Yoda would be about dead last, and Gandalf would be near the top. At least he knows how to talk properly.  But maybe he's not all that smart.  He tells Saruman about the ring in Bilbo's possession, and then Saruman turns around and joins the dark side.  Err.. I mean, Sauron.  So really, Gandalf, who later gets angry at Pippin for making noises in the cave of Moria, could do with a little humility.  Colin Powell.  The only member of the administration with any real brains. Like Powell, Gandalf is planning to leave Rivendell as soon as the election results are in.
smoegol.jpg (9431 bytes) Smoegol was formerly a hobbit-like creature.  The scene wherein he takes the ring from his cousin is a weak one to me.  He is entranced by the ring.  He wants it.  He actually kills for it.  You are given to believe that he merely feels something about this ring-- because he doesn't see or know anything special about it-- that leads him to want it so badly.  It doesn't do anything for him other than drive him into the bowels of the Misty Mountains and destroy him.  But he irrationally pursues it.  I kind of thought he should have been the one to toss the ring into the fiery furnaces of Mount Doom.  He understood better than anyone else, save Gandalf, it's corrupting, spiritually destructive power.   It might have been a transcendent moment-- Smoegol seizing the ring and considering at that very moment what it had done to him, and what it might do to others, and then himself leaping into the abyss. Dick Cheney.  He scoots around secretively behind the real leader.  Actually, he looks a lot like him too.
frodo.jpg (9846 bytes) As I've indicated elsewhere, I'm not a fan of Elijah Wood's Frodo, but then, I find most of the Hobbits annoyingly wholesome and chummy.  I don't think they have to be annoying just because they are, after all, wholesome and chummy.   I'm thinking of the difference between, say, a hobbit played by Peter Sellers (say, in "The Party" or even as Inspector Clouseau), and a hobbit played by Jerry Lewis or Matthew Broderick.  Frodo reminds me too much of a reformed smoker, or a young preacher. He seems to start to believe that he really is worthy of the task, but to believe that you would have to believe that a hobbit's understanding of the world is far larger than you would expect, given the other attributes of hobbit culture, the gentility, the preciousness, the small-mindedness (remember, Bilbo was considered quite a renegade for going away and having an "adventure").  There's something wrong with the character, and he's at the heart of the story.  That's all.  He's the George W. Bush of this story, for better or worse.  He's not really cut out for fighting so he is surrounded with bigger, braver men who take the actual risks.  But he's got the ring, dammit, so he's in charge.  He's the star, he goes to bed early, he doesn't have a clue of what's really going on, but has a single-minded attachment to the task at hand..