Lord of the Rings

Of course a competent Steward might make the viewers wonder why he needs to be replaced by some guy who has been living in the woods his entire life. In the books Aragorn took the throne because of course the rightful king is better for the kingdom than the line of stewards; no matter how good a job the stewards were doing, the king is of higher breeding and thus more fit to rule. That sort of thing is more uncomfortable these days (and Aragorn's Numenorean blood doesn't get mentioned in the movies anyway), so it's easier to just make Denethor crazy. Feeds into the themes of Sauron corrupting everything and all that, plus it has obvious military advantages.

I didn't like Book Denethor. I never got the impression we were supposed to feel any more sorry for him here than in the movies. Tolkien in his letters certainly didn't present Denethor in a positive light.

Saruman will always be the greatest victim of the Peter Jackson's LOTR.

I feel like the movies just made Men more flawed and weaker-minded in general. Which, honestly, makes sense in the context (not knowing about Frodo, they have many reasons to think that they are already screwed) and makes for better drama, even though I don't dislike their more dignified depiction in the books.

Part of the reason for Denethor's change is tied into how the books and the films depict violence. In the books, the fight scenes are a lot more sketchy, barring one or two important characters (Helm's Deep is one of the most detailed battles, but if I recall correctly it's mostly told during breaks in the fighting, or quick glimpses of the action). Movies have to sell, and people (myself included) would rather have fight scenes than listen to Treebeard explain how Ents name shit.

Another factor is the idea of redemptive violence or virtuous violence, for lack of a better term ("Support the Troops" is similar). There's a morality in fighting, and in professional fighters. Tolkien depicted fighting for the right cause as important, but not necessarily more moral than the farmer or the scholar or the poopsmith. Boromir the war hero falls to the Ring, while the more bookish Faramir resists it. The films are more pro-violence (like Aragorn killing the Messenger in the extended edition), and a sensible war leader like Book!Denethor who succumbs to pride and despair would screw up the narrative.

I found the fight scenes terribly boring, actually.

Would much rather have had more dialogue and Ents and stuff. The not so enthusiastic depiction of violence in the books was something that I liked about them.

The ending of the books worked for me, not because kings make everything better, but because Faramir deserved a break and ruling a country isn't exactly fun, in real life, if you want to do it well. Considering that the true heroes are the hobbits, it may even have been intended to be read that way.

Book Denethor is in the end an antagonist, but he's a much more sympathetic antagonist. We can see that he might have been a good ruler in other circumstances. The same cannot be said for movie Denethor.

The worth of a leader isn't measured by how well he does in a booming economy during times of peace. Denethor cracked under pressure and most of it was his own pride, trying to make use of a magic nobody in his kingdom understands all by himself.

Also, what on Earth is wrong with Christopher Lee's Saruman?

edited 18th Sep '17 7:59:51 AM by blkwhtrbbt

For better or worse, Jackson depicted virtually every interpersonal conflict in the book with less nuance, showing the right/wrong sides with much more/less to be said for them, respectively. Christopher Lee's Saruman is a brilliant performance, but in the book he's no mere quisling ally of Sauron. He's an independent agent who temporizes with Mordor, but who's ultimately working to elevate himself at the expense of Sauron and the West. He's a coldblooded, tyrannical monster ... but some small corner of him's probably still telling himself that he's defending Middle Earth against Sauron, and he's the closest thing to a realistic hope the world's got.

But as with book-Denethor, that's too complicated a picture to paint on the big screen. Maybe Jackson did the right thing.

I really like the slow build-up towards the war in this first few chapters. I guess it makes sense for a war survivor to be able to transcribe this dreadful expectation before a battle you have little chance to come back alive from.

Now I'm not sure why Éowyn − sorry, "Dernhelm" − even bothers hiding her identity to Merry,considering they're in the same boat anyway…

They are not in the same boat. Éowyn is a woman. We are only shown the other characters' reaction to what she did when she already proved herself right by killing the witchking. We don't know what they would have reacted like if she just went there and did some fighting and then was wounded without accomplishing much.

She had no reason to assume that Merry would not be sexist just because he was in a similar situation. He had, very probably, not told her tales about the Shieldmaidens of the Shire and how women fighting was totally accepted in his culture.

The only reason she might have had to trust him was because if he had told someone about her, she could have done the same to him. But considering what was at stake, him temporarily holding the Idiot Ball,or his sexism overcoming self-preservation instincts, was too much of a risk.

First time reading The Lord of the Rings, I pictured both Merry and Pippin as female, on account of their names. I knew they weren't (gendered pronouns and all) but that's still part of my mental portrait of the characters.

She's hiding her identity from everyone (except, perhaps, Elfhelm) - why make an exception for Merry? She's "one without hope who goes in search of death." She doesn't need comfort or a confidant.

edited 19th Sep '17 6:07:21 PM by Tarlonniel

"The worth of a leader isn't measured by how well he does in a booming economy during times of peace. Denethor cracked under pressure and most of it was his own pride, trying to make use of a magic nobody in his kingdom understands all by himself."

Okay, well, wait a minute, Denethor literally never saw a Gondor at its zenith or in a renaissance. When he was born, Gondor was deep in decline, fighting a losing war against Morder and Umbar, and despite that, the country held the line against Sauron for decades. Pretty much everything Boromir and Faramir did in stymieing Mordor's advance was the product of Denethor's leadership. The films sell both Denethor and Gondor in general exceptionally short. But I think, even with his death excluded, Denethor is the kind of character who slams headlong into the ideological opposition of Tolkien's writing — his hard-nosed, unapproachable leadership and claim to rule by noble blood backed by merit rather than the Divine Right of Kings and the gung-ho Germanic lead from the front style simply would never mix with the messages the story sought to convey.

edited 19th Sep '17 8:17:23 PM by CrimsonZephyr

The difference between Merry and Éowyn is that Merry has permission to go, as long as a rider was willing to have him on their horse (which most weren't).

Éowyn, however, was meant to stay in Edoras and temporarily rule in her uncle and brother's stead while they were gone, and permanently if they were to perish in the field of battle.

Merry is lucky enough to find someone who would carry him. Éowyn is actively neglecting her royally-commissioned duty so she can have her moment of glory on the battlefield. So of course she wouldn't reveal herself.

The movies also kinda set up a friendship between Éowyn and Meriadoc, with her arming him in Dunharrow and so on and setting up that conversation with Éomer where the filmmakers put Éowyn and Merry firmly in the same boat of "wants to go but can't because people don't think they've got it in them", while that connection isn't really in the books (to the best of my memory) and where Merry bonds more with Théoden and not Éowyn.

I'm running on memory-fumes here though, so I'm somewhat open to being corrected.

edited 20th Sep '17 1:52:37 AM by GoldenKaos

Merry doesn't explicitly have permission, but the reason Theoden gives when telling him to stay is that none of the riders can bear him. Once on the journey there's a definite implication that the others in Elfhelm's eored are deliberately looking the other way as far as Merry's presence is concerned - at least, that's how it looks to Merry, but of course it may actually be Dernhelm they're pretending not to notice (or both). And yes, Merry's connection is very much with Theoden in the book, not Eowyn.

Denethor was a competent ruler, but also a flawed one. His arrogance and his treating Faramir like dirt are what leads to his despair and downfall. Yes Aragorn has Divine Right and the benefit of his Numenorean Longevity (Aragorn is actually only a year or so younger than Denethor) that allows him to lead from the front where Denethor can't any longer, but he also lacks Denethor's arrogance.

Along with his birthrights, personal merit gives Aragorn a stronger claim to the throne than Denethor. Tolkien is saying, in effect, that "unapproachable leadership" is inferior to Aragorn's style of inspiring love in his followers, and it's hard to argue that he's incorrect.

Denethor is also blinkered in thinking only of Gondor, at the expense of everywhere else. His preferred plan for the Ring was to bury it under the foundations of Minith Tirith, which (in addition to Gandalf pointing out he's misunderstanding the nature of the Ring) amounts to saying that once Minith Tirith falls, nothing else matters and it's okay if the world is conquered. Granted, Gondor is powerful, but there are other realms fighting Sauron that needn't be written off like that.

Aragorn, on the other hand, has spent around a century travelling the world and understands and can love Gondor while also understanding and valuing other places.

Moreover, in Tolkien's eyes, Denethor's central flaw is that he trusts too deeply in temporal power. He believes the war will be won by Gondor's military strength, or not at all, while Aragorn understands his role better, as distracting Sauron until the ring-bearer can complete his quest. Denethor would never have agreed to commit forces to the attack on the Black Gate.

I agree that the movies did a terrible job of Denethor - his story is written as a classical tragedy, a great man destroyed by his flaws, and the movie turns him into an outright villain and his story into a farce.

It's an even greater shame because they got a fantastic actor to play him.

Absolutely, yes. He makes Fringe one of my favourite-ever TV shows.

While he's certainly more of a jerk, I wouln't call movie Denethor a "villain". He's just kinda lost track of reality.

The fact movie Denethor isn't really a straight villain as much as completely insane is something empathized in the extended edition.

I don't think he's a terrible character in the films (John Noble is certainly doing his goddamn best), he's just far lesser than his book counterpart.

If Denethor's movie shtick was moved to, say, the Master of Lake-Town or some other minor despot, he could be a fairly interesting addition.

Personally, if I had to pick the single greatest mistake with movie Denethor, it was removing his palantir, even in the extended edition, as this takes away both the premier demonstration of the raw strength of his will and character (that he battled Sauron mentally for years and never gave in) as well as removing one of the root causes of his descent into madness. Without these factors, movie Denethor is a much weaker, less tragic, more one-note character.

Of course, I still think the weakest adaptation of Denethor is in the Rankin/Bass Return of the King, where he only gets one scene and just comes across as a decrepit, borderline-senile old man. They did remember the palantir in that version, though...

Changing how he died didn't help either. :/

To be fair, the idea of having a nobody halfling and his gardener carry the Ring right into the middle of Mordor is a pretty daft plan on the face of it.

It's really a matter of how a character feels towards Gandalf. Elrond, Galadriel, Aragorn, Faramir, and Theoden (after Wormtongue is dealt with) all trust Gandalf's judgement on the matter and do what they can to support the quest. Some of them have to meet (and test) Frodo for themselves before they make their judgment, but when a wizard says "this is our only chance, and Frodo is our best hope," they are prepared to believe him.

Denethor doesn't much like Gandalf, and certainly doesn't trust him, and so sees the plan as madness. One wonders if things would have gone differently if Denethor had met Frodo personally, as Faramir and Boromir did.

And to be fair, the original plan was the Fellowship, though it was clear that they would have to improvise and adapt that plan on the fly as they got closer to Mordor, and it was always Aragorn and Boromir's intention to go to Gondor.

But then, when you phrase the plan as 'two members of a race known to be sneaky, easy to overlook, and surprisingly resistant to the all-corrupting artifact engage on a covert infiltration mission to the enemy base that enacts an instant-win condition if successful, and every other option is bad' then it doesn't seem so silly.

Plus, there was a LOT of "the Ring came to Frodo" and "Frodo was meant to have the Ring" going on, the Wise are obviously big believes in fate, which is probably justified given the setting and its pantheon.