What Can We Learn From Frodo?
As Frodo and his friends made their way into the heart of the Shire, they met with resistance. Eventually, the heroes had to lead the citizens of the Shire in revolt against Saruman and his henchmen. Frodo, despite knowing what had to be done, was saddened by it all. He was adamant that mercy should be given to all, and that the revolt should seek to preserve as much life as was possible. He had personally learned the spiritual lessons of mercy: since he had once shown mercy to Gollum, Frodo was able to receive mercy himself after he succumbed to the temptation inherent in the Ring. He had come to know first hand the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer, where forgiveness is had only if one has a forgiving spirit.
– Henry C Karlson III, “J.R.R. Tolkien: A Catholicized William Morris?” Mid-Atlantic AAR Conference, Baltimore. 27 March 2009.
Comments are closed.
Before I deliver the paper this quote is from, I will be presiding at another section of the conference. Will any of the Vox Nova readers be there? Let me know.
Henry,
This looks very interesting. I have always been struck by the deep “Catholicity” of Tolkien’s work. I’d be very interested in the rest of your paper.
I always thought this part (the “Scouring” and in particular the contrast between Frodo and Merry/Pippin in their reactions) is a very interesting case where Tolkien neatly illustrated the dilemma between what Frodo has become, and what is needed to save the Shire (as typified by Merry/Pippin). Or the combination of the ideal Frodo represents, with the practical action of the others.
RM
Robert,
I hope one day I will be able to get the paper, or a longer version of it published (I had to produce an edited version of a long essay I wrote; in doing so, I changed, and added things not in the original, but also removed much of what was in it).
The Scouring of the Shire is one of the most important elements of The Lord of the Rings; sadly, it wasn’t able to be filmed. I can understand why, but without it, much of Tolkien’s ideas are lost. There is much more to it than Frodo (although what we see in Frodo is important, and what I bring out here). Ultimately, it helps serve how Tolkien develops ideas which we find in Morris, but Christianizes them; the Shire is Tolkien and Morris’ perfect society, destroyed and yet restored. How so? Morris believes the way for such restoration lies in a good version of the socialist revolution, Tolkien says no such restoration can be had without grace.
It strikes me that Jackson’s judgment that the scouring was “extra stuff” after the climax of the story underscores how he fundamentally doesn’t understand LotR as a story. Something which strikes me rather more on rewatching the movies after the initial thrill of seeing the imagery.
Darwin
I think Jackson did some good, and some which wasn’t good. The Two Towers really messed things up, and showed where Jackson didn’t understand Tolkien. I can understand why the Scouring, important as it is, wasn’t done, but I would have left it open so it could have happened, and even filmed it as a short extra, once the movies were making money. To do it justice would require at least 30 minutes. I think excising much of what Jackson added to the movies, things which made no sense, there would have been time. Nonetheless, Jackson’s movies are closer to Tolkien than most film adaptations, and Shippey does praise Jackson for that. So, while I think mistakes were made, I am not hostile to Jackson; I just realize making a movie, people will get things wrong.
I’m not hostile to him — I think he made the best movies that he knew how to make. (And I got a lot of hours of joy out of them, before it got to the point where the mangled dialogue started driving me crazy.) But it strikes me that much as he clearly loves the books, he doesn’t really fully get them.
Darwin
Of course, I agree with that; especially when you find in the interviews on the dvds scriptwriters talking about Tolkien as if he were a bad writer. They really didn’t get the genre or what he was doing.
The point I was trying to make above was that, as a major Tolkien fan, I can understand the Jackson films without having the complaints “purists” make of them. I can see them and watch them on their own, for their own merits. And this with the fact that the Scouring of the Shire is one of my favorite parts of the whole series. There were some really bad decisions which were made for the films (Two Towers having most, but not all, of them); but, again, in the scale of things, it’s not as problematic as the fact that people who have not read Tolkien will do so with the Jackson hermeneutic (of course, growing up, I did have the Rankin and Bass version in my head, which didn’t hurt me from reading the books, though I think it was closer to Tolkien than Jackson, so that might have helped).
DC — Excellent points. I agree with you both about Jackson’s version — visually beautiful, in many ways I think the ‘look’ he captured (of course largely the product of the artists Howe and Lee) was amazingly ‘on’ and I think even Tolkien would have thrilled to see some of his imagery so marvelously brought to life (the Argonath…Moria…Minas Tirith).
But you are correct that it becomes clear neither Jackson nor Walsh/Phillipa truly ‘got it’ — their work is a somewhat ‘postmodern’ take on Tolkien, the most striking featur eof which is usually an unhealthy obsession/fetishization of Elves and a contingent complete denigration of Men as hopelessly corrupt and pathetic (except for the ‘elf-like’ Aragorn). Both of which are manifestly NOT Tolkienic themes. I think too that’s not just a ‘purist’ complaint, which can be overlooked in the interests of the demands of the commerical film industry — I think it represents a profound philosophical misunderstanding or distortion of the books. Coupled with the awful, indeed unforgivable (in my view) reduction of Dwarves to comic relief (though that is more motivated by filmmaking convention, I think, rather than misreading), it makes my return visits to the films more grating. Fellowship was near great, but the others I’d almost prefer to watch with the sound off most of the time (if not for the score).
RM
It’s something along the lines of how some adaptations of Jane Austen novels make it clear that the adapter and director see them primarily as “romance novels”, and have thus missed out on much of what’s going on.
Though having always been the argumentative sort, I must confess that in my initial paroxisms of affection for the movies I spent many an hour back when they were coming out arguing with purists on Tolkien discussion forums.
Some elements, of course, I never found all that defensible: Arwen warrior princess; Aragorn the great self doubter; the great Aragorn/horse/Arwen kiss; the unconscionable changes made to Denethor’s character;l and the Gimli-as-running-gag adaptation choice.
Still, there are some parts of those movies that are abidingly beautiful film.
There were many things wrong, Darwin of course naming some. I would add another great error was Faramir taking Frodo to Gondor. That just was completely off for so many reasons.
I too was very disappointed at the complete violation of Denethor’s character, the distortion of Faramir, as well as the weakening of Theoden and especially the treatment of Rohan and the Rohan/Gondor relationship. Emblematic of the screenwriters’ overall misunderstanding of the Tolkienic concept of Men, replacing it with cynical, postmodern conceptions. Especially in contrast to the glorification of Elves (though to be fair, one does have to be familiar with the Silmarillion and the tales of the Elder Days to get a more balanced view of Elves).
All that said, the standout exception was Boromir — not only did Bean do a fine job portraying him, but I think in this case Jackson & Co. actually may have presented a more ‘human’ figure than the original, especially in the Director’s Edition. Certainly a more sympathetic one. It is the lone thing I think may actually be a refinement (I’d not dare to say ‘improvement’) over the original.
RM
Have you ever listened to Peter Kreeft’s talks on this subject?
Zach
I’ve some of his works on Tolkien, but I have not listened to any of his talks. They are ok, but not exceptional.
I think some of the best books to get on Tolkien include anything by Shippey, Pearce’s Tolkien Celebration, and the Two Volume Tolkien Companion. Flieger is also good, though I think misses things because some things could be explained better if Morris was brought into the conversation (which is the point of this talk).