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lotesseI've been watching LotR movie documentaries, and I’m sorry, but I just can’t get with their rationale that what they did to Faramir was in any way necessary. I've tried to see their point, read around, tried to fall in love with the filmic vision of my characters at this narrative point, and pretty much totally failed. Mainly because I think the Henneth Annun chapters of the book have plenty of tension, drama, and anxiety.
Because while Faramir is a decent guy, a good man, he’s still a Man, and that entails a certain amount of Not Getting It. This is what he says to Frodo, when all is revealed: “If you took this thing on yourself, unwilling, at others’ asking, then you have pity and honour to me. And I marvel at you: to keep it hid, and not to use it. You are a new people and a new world to me.” Okay thar, Captain Missing-the-Point, thanks for playing, but no.
Faramir constructs a false dichotomy: either Frodo must be an innocent, unwilling victim of circumstance, or he must he the sort of person who would use the Ring. But of course Frodo is neither. He willingly took up the Ring and the Quest, though he does entirely deserve Faramir’s pity for it. But to my mind, the main tension of these chapters lies is Faramir’s well-meaning, kind-hearted paternalism, in his persistence in seeing the hobbits as weak little things in need of protection and guidance.
Of course, this happens to all four hobbits, and more than once. Pippin only later saves Faramir from Denethor’s crazy because everyone assume him to be too small to take much notice of. More directly to the point, Theoden tries to leave Merry behind when the Rohirrim ride to war. If he’d succeeded in that, how much more grim would the story have been? Only Merry’s act of disobedience stands between Eowyn and death – and who’s to say that the Lord of the Nazgul would have survived the battle without Merry’s intervention?
By Mannish standards, hobbits aren’t worth much. Their strength is not manly strength, nor is their wisdom. They’re good at loving, and at hiding and being silent – but as Boromir demonstrates at the beginning of the Quest with his whole “thief in the night” business, Men don’t really value silence, even when they really should. Hobbits have no part in any sort of warrior ethos. And so, again and again, Men react to them paternalistically, preotecting instead of trusting, though hobbits will ultimately save them all.
In Ithilien, Frodo understands this. From the beginning, he works very hard to maintain authority and keep the upper hand: “’My part in the Company … was appointed to me by Elrond of Imladris himself before the whole Council. On that errand I came into this country, but it is not mine to reveal to any outside the Company. Yet those who claim to oppose the Enemy would do well not to hinder it.’ Frodo’s tone was proud, whatever he felt, and Sam approved of it; but it did not appease Faramir.”
Frodo’s not usually one to so nakedly grasp at authority, but he understands, I think, that he has to do everything he can to establish himself in Faramir’s eyes as something other than a victim.
Because here’s the way I think it could have gone: even after resisting the personal temptation of the Ring, don’t you think Faramir might have taken it for Frodo’s own good? In his eyes, he’s got these exhausted little hobbits, standing at the edge of great terrors. They’re being guided by Gollum and Faramir doesn’t trust Gollum. Of course, neither does Frodo, but being hobbitlike Frodo understands that sometimes the perfect is the enemy fo the good – Gollum is all he has, and so he’ll follow him. But by Faramir’s lights, wouldn’t it make a deal more sense for him to take the Ring away from these two little helpless lambs and deal with it himself, being as he is both Strong and Manly, not to mention Virtuous?
The tension that runs throughout the Ithilien scenes rests on trust and autonomy: does Faramir see Frodo as an equal, and adult, someone who can make his own decisions? Or does he patronize the little guy and distrust him with the fate of the world? Faramir is intelligent and diplomatic and thoughtful – and that acutally could work against Frodo, because the logical action might very well be for Faramir to take on the mission himself. After all, his resources both personal and material are far more extensive.
Faramir with the Ring would, of course, result in disaster, because Faramir is still too politically minded to manage it. Paradoxically, the very qualities in Frodo that would seem to be his weaknesses are those that allow him to succeed in the quest – being small and quiet and sweet, he ultimately does not desire power, and so the Ring has a very hard time twisting him. Because what could it really promise Frodo? Power? What on earth would he do with power, if he were to receive it?
Everything could have been ruined, right then and there. And the moral complexities of Tolkien's Faramir only heighten the tension, because I think some of us may very well doubt Frodo by that point too – Faramir looks awfully shiny and competent. Our uncertainty adds to the confusion, because we don't really know what we want to happen. But ultimately it is Frodo's burden to bear, and his alone, and it's a credit to Faramir's sense that he gets that.
The films' messing up of things galls at me, because those are my absolute favorite chapters of the whole epic. We go from "What's taters?" to "I love him, whether or no," and then on to "do not love the bright sword for its sharpness." Sigh.
Because while Faramir is a decent guy, a good man, he’s still a Man, and that entails a certain amount of Not Getting It. This is what he says to Frodo, when all is revealed: “If you took this thing on yourself, unwilling, at others’ asking, then you have pity and honour to me. And I marvel at you: to keep it hid, and not to use it. You are a new people and a new world to me.” Okay thar, Captain Missing-the-Point, thanks for playing, but no.
Faramir constructs a false dichotomy: either Frodo must be an innocent, unwilling victim of circumstance, or he must he the sort of person who would use the Ring. But of course Frodo is neither. He willingly took up the Ring and the Quest, though he does entirely deserve Faramir’s pity for it. But to my mind, the main tension of these chapters lies is Faramir’s well-meaning, kind-hearted paternalism, in his persistence in seeing the hobbits as weak little things in need of protection and guidance.
Of course, this happens to all four hobbits, and more than once. Pippin only later saves Faramir from Denethor’s crazy because everyone assume him to be too small to take much notice of. More directly to the point, Theoden tries to leave Merry behind when the Rohirrim ride to war. If he’d succeeded in that, how much more grim would the story have been? Only Merry’s act of disobedience stands between Eowyn and death – and who’s to say that the Lord of the Nazgul would have survived the battle without Merry’s intervention?
By Mannish standards, hobbits aren’t worth much. Their strength is not manly strength, nor is their wisdom. They’re good at loving, and at hiding and being silent – but as Boromir demonstrates at the beginning of the Quest with his whole “thief in the night” business, Men don’t really value silence, even when they really should. Hobbits have no part in any sort of warrior ethos. And so, again and again, Men react to them paternalistically, preotecting instead of trusting, though hobbits will ultimately save them all.
In Ithilien, Frodo understands this. From the beginning, he works very hard to maintain authority and keep the upper hand: “’My part in the Company … was appointed to me by Elrond of Imladris himself before the whole Council. On that errand I came into this country, but it is not mine to reveal to any outside the Company. Yet those who claim to oppose the Enemy would do well not to hinder it.’ Frodo’s tone was proud, whatever he felt, and Sam approved of it; but it did not appease Faramir.”
Frodo’s not usually one to so nakedly grasp at authority, but he understands, I think, that he has to do everything he can to establish himself in Faramir’s eyes as something other than a victim.
Because here’s the way I think it could have gone: even after resisting the personal temptation of the Ring, don’t you think Faramir might have taken it for Frodo’s own good? In his eyes, he’s got these exhausted little hobbits, standing at the edge of great terrors. They’re being guided by Gollum and Faramir doesn’t trust Gollum. Of course, neither does Frodo, but being hobbitlike Frodo understands that sometimes the perfect is the enemy fo the good – Gollum is all he has, and so he’ll follow him. But by Faramir’s lights, wouldn’t it make a deal more sense for him to take the Ring away from these two little helpless lambs and deal with it himself, being as he is both Strong and Manly, not to mention Virtuous?
The tension that runs throughout the Ithilien scenes rests on trust and autonomy: does Faramir see Frodo as an equal, and adult, someone who can make his own decisions? Or does he patronize the little guy and distrust him with the fate of the world? Faramir is intelligent and diplomatic and thoughtful – and that acutally could work against Frodo, because the logical action might very well be for Faramir to take on the mission himself. After all, his resources both personal and material are far more extensive.
Faramir with the Ring would, of course, result in disaster, because Faramir is still too politically minded to manage it. Paradoxically, the very qualities in Frodo that would seem to be his weaknesses are those that allow him to succeed in the quest – being small and quiet and sweet, he ultimately does not desire power, and so the Ring has a very hard time twisting him. Because what could it really promise Frodo? Power? What on earth would he do with power, if he were to receive it?
Everything could have been ruined, right then and there. And the moral complexities of Tolkien's Faramir only heighten the tension, because I think some of us may very well doubt Frodo by that point too – Faramir looks awfully shiny and competent. Our uncertainty adds to the confusion, because we don't really know what we want to happen. But ultimately it is Frodo's burden to bear, and his alone, and it's a credit to Faramir's sense that he gets that.
The films' messing up of things galls at me, because those are my absolute favorite chapters of the whole epic. We go from "What's taters?" to "I love him, whether or no," and then on to "do not love the bright sword for its sharpness." Sigh.