Continuing with my two part series about “The Lord of the Rings” and how it portrays its characters, we’ll take a further look at other supporting human characters, then we’ll look into some of the elvish characters and finally we’ll talk about other important players that don’t necessarily fall into these broader race groups, but that still play an important part in the story and are very well worthy of an analysis about their arcs and journeys. If you haven’t read the first part you can do so here, there we talked about the arcs of Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Aragorn and Boromir. And now, let’s move forward again with

The Men

Since the last time around we left off with Boromir, I think its appropriate if we continue by taking a closer look at his father Denethor and his brother Faramir. Denethor is the ruler of Gondor, but he’s no king. Years in the steward seat have made him power hungry, and thus he seeks for the ring of power, that’s why he sends Boromir to Rivendell, so he can take it back to him and with it defend Gondor from Mordor. However, the death of his elder son is slowly turning him mad: he refuses to light the beacon to ask for help from other men kingdoms, he panics when sees Sauron’s army first hand and even calls for his men to retreat (to what Gandalf reacts by knocking him out and taking control of the defense himself). His relationship with his sons is a strange one: Boromir was his elder and so he was very proud of him, whereas he always viewed Faramir as weak and unable to carry his name with honour. This actually defines the arcs of both brothers: as I said on my previous post, Boromir wanted to bring the ring to his father in order to protect Gondor; when we first meet Faramir in “The Two Towers” he himself is tempted to take the ring from Frodo and take it to his father to regain his honour. Yet, after witnessing the effects of the ring on the hobbit and how he faced off with a Nazgul in Osgilliath, Faramir decides to let Frodo go so he can complete his mission of destroying the ring and defeat the enemy. In “ROTK”, however, his father scolds him because of this, restating that he only brings shame to their house. Faramir decides to lead a suicide mission to regain Osgilliath to earn his father’s respect. Upon his return Denethor immediately assumes he’s dead and, realizing how wrong he was all these years, decides to burn his son’s body along with himself. Of course, Faramir is still alive and Denethor has gone completely mad; Gandalf and Pippin arrive just in time to save Faramir, whereas Denethor isn’t that lucky, and surrounded by flames he plunges from the talles point of Minas Tirith to his death. After surviving all this, Faramir slowly recovers and realizes, now that his father is gone, that he can live for himself and become his own man, and it is heavily implied that he’ll marry Eowyn.

Another human leader I’d like to talk about is Theoden, king of Rohan. His main arc occurs in “Two Towers”: when we meet him he’s beeing possessed by Saruman’s magic, all thanks to Grima’s influence. He’s a withering old man who doesn’t look out for his kingdom’s needs; he hasn’t even realized his son has died. Gandalf arrives and purges him from Saruman’s influence, and thus he regains his youth and his strength. But the realization of his son’s death finally comes, and this undoubtly breaks his spirit. Upon the impending threat of Isengard’s army marching towards them he orders the city to retreat to Helm’s deep, where they’ve defended themselves and survived countless times before. But here we can see how his recent loss and Grima’s treason have affected him: he’s reluctant to ask for outside help, no matter how much Aragorn, Gandalf or anyone else urge him to do so. He believes they are alone and no one will come to help them face this threat. And yet, during the battle the elves from Lothorien come to their aid, what shortly reignites hope in Theoden (and Rohan), but as the battle goes on and their numbers decrease by the minute the feeling of dread takes over him once again. Aragorn convinces him to face the Uruk Hai one last time, Theoden is willing to meet his destiny and die defending his people. And just when the battle seemed all but lost Gandalf arrived with the Rohirrim -who he had expelled as he was under Saruman’s control- and by the end Rohan is saved. In short, Theoden’s arc goes from being disappointed, distrustful, hopeless and reluctant to ask for help to becoming a leader who is able to believe, trust and hope again.

The one human female character who gets major attention in the movies is Eowyn. She’s the niece of Theoden and sister of Eomer. Even if she has noble blood she’s actually a warrior at heart: her main desire is to become a shieldmaiden and help Rohan fight off the Mordor and Isengard threats. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have a big heart, she’s kind and passionate and deeply cares for her uncle and brother. She starts falling in love with Aragorn because she admires his bravery and leadership, but he assures her it is only a shadow that she loves, an illusion. When the people of Rohan are on the move towards Helm’s Deep and they’re attacked by the wargs on the road, Theoden urges her to guide the people to the hiding place, despite her wanting to fight. Then, when the battle does arrive at their hideout, Theoden tells her to stay with the women and children to give them strength. He knows she can be of more use by maintaining calm and hope for the people of Rohan than on the battle field. She does get her chance, however, to prove herself in “ROTK” as she takes part in the battle for Minas Tirith: she is even able to defeat the Witch-King of Angmar and almost dies in the process. When she wakes up the battle is basically over, and while the others are off for a final stand at the Black Gate, she meets and bonds with Faramir, implying that they’ll have a future together, nothing to wonder since they have much in common.

The Elves

There are three main elvish characters I’d like to talk about, and I’ll get the most obvious one along the one. Without a doubt, the elf the film spends most time on is Legolas, what makes it all the more disappointing that he’s basically the most boring character in the whole trilogy. Legolas spends all three movies just spitting out exposition, doing stuff that looks cool and basically yelling out things we already know (like “Orcs!” when we already see them charging at the fellowship). He basically ends the trilogy the same way he started it, there’s no big change nor big test he has to face. You could think that his arc is fulfilled by the end as Gimli tells him he never expected to die fighting alongside an elf and Legolas answers by saying “what about fighting alonside an old friend?”, but to be honest this is more of a character moment for Gimli than for Legolas; in “Two Towers” Legolas was already willing to get himself killed for Gimli when they’re captured by the Rohirrin and Eomer threatens to cut Gimli’s head off. By the time the “Hobbit” films came along they tried to make him more “interesting” by inserting him in a plot where he didn’t belong at all and giving him an awkward love triangle to work with, and it is no surprise it backfired.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about Arwen. Her story is actually a tragic one, even if she does get a happy end: she’s the daughter of Lord Elrond of Rivendell as an elf she has the right for eternal life; nevertheless, she’s willing to give all that away in order to be with her love, Aragorn son of Arathorn. Her evolution as a character hinges on her choice to either live a mortal life with the one she loves or live eternally but alone. As Sauron’s shadow grows over Middle Earth and the time comes for the elves to leave she seems poised to go with her kin, thanks to the words and visions of her father; it seems that she’s convinced there won’t be any hope in defeating Mordor. Yet, as the elves are on their way she has a vision of Aragorn and her son, what makes her return and confront her father. Here’s also where Elrond’s arc comes to a head: an influential and wise leader, always advocating for the destruction of the ring, his real struggle in the trilogy lies by accepting the fact that his daughter will renounce inmortality. At first he urges Aragorn to let her go with the elves, to what even Aragorn agrees, and one can see that he’s (reasonably) distrustful of the future king, but after Arwen confronts him about what she saw and convinces him to give Aragorn a chance to defeat Sauron, Elrond realizes there’s no changing the mind of his daughter and that if Mordor is to be beaten than the heir of Isildur should rise.

Other Characters

The three remaining characters I’de like to talk about don’t easily fit in the race division I’ve had going for this article, o I’ll just group them here in one last section. Starting off with fan favourite Gandalf, who starts out as The Grey, and is basically the one that sends Frodo in his journey. Upon realizing that Bilbo has had the ring of power all these years he sets out to investigate, is betrayed by Saruman, who has fallen under Sauron’s influence, and almost gives up his life before he escapes. He meets Frodo and his friends at Rivendell and joins the fellowship after Frodo volunteers to take the ring to Mordor – to what we can see Gandalf react with sorrow. As the fellowship travels through the mines of Moria it is obvious that Gandalf knows what lies there, and when the Balrog rises and threatens the group Gandalf steps up to the challenge, and even if he manages to defeat it he seemingly falls to his death. In “Two Towers” it is revealed that the fall didn’t kill him, and his victory over the Balrog earned him the chance to be reborn as Gandalf the White, much wiser and much more powerful. He expells Saruman magic from Theoden, but after seeing the king’s reluctance to ask for help he rides off to find the Rohirrim. After the battle at Helm’s Deep and upon learning about Sauron’s plan to attack Minas Tirith he takes Pippin with him to the white city, a hobbit he has always treated with disdain. There, however, he learns to trust and not to underestimate the little hobbit, since he, much like Frodo or Bilbo, shows a courage hard to find somewhere else. Gandalf plays the archetype of the sage, the magical wise old man that helps the protagonist on his quest, but he is separated from Frodo early on and needs to face his own challenges and tests, thus showing that even the wisest of them all always have more room to grow.

Gimli, son of Gloin, is the main dwarf character we follow throughout the series. He mainly acts as comic relief and stars in some cool action sequences in all three films, but unlike his elvish counterpart Legolas, there is a character evolution to be seen, albeit a rather simple one (compared to other memebers of the fellowship). The racism between dwarves and elves is played casually throughout the movies, but it is Gimli who shows this trait the most. At Rivendell he says something along the lines “I’d die before seeing the ring on the hands of the elves!”, and while they walk through the forest of Lothorien he warns the hobbits about the elvish witch that lives there; yet, when he finally meets Galadriel he’s smithen by her beauty, the first time we see him admit a positive trait about the elves. The rest of the trilogy we see him and Legolas engage in a friendly rivalry, and by the end he admits to Legolas that he does consider him as a friend, like I said a couple of paragraphs ago. His arc is one of going from racism and prejudice to admitting the differences between the races and yet being able to recognize the positives about the elves and even considering one a very dear friend.

The last character we’ll be taking a look at is Smeagol/Gollum. One of the most interesting characters in the whole trilogy, he was once a creature somewhat resembling a hobbit, but after finding the one ring and murdering his best friend for it he retreated to a life of dwelling in caves, survivng through raw fish and wild animals, and obsessing over the ring. He loses the ring to Bilbo, and years later he was tortured by the forces of Mordor and revealed the location of the ring. He’s a survivor whose main goal is the recover the one ring, his precious. It is obvious that he suffers from a dissociative personality disorder of sorts, but I believe that at the beginning of the trilogy he was all Gollum, but when Frodo calls him by his original name in “The Two Towers” the Smeagol personality is thrown back to the forefront – it seemed like he had even forgotten his own name, and it is from this point on that we see his deliberations between the vicious and murderous Gollum and the innocent yet manipulable Smeagol. At first it seems like he’s willing to let go of all the hate and anger he’s accumulated over the years, as if Frodo’s understanding actually made a difference (the reason why Frodo shows compassion towards him, even after realizing he betrayed him, is because he knows how burdensome to be a ring bearer really is), but by the end Gollum and the power of the ring ended up besting Smeagol: he leads Frodo to a trap, and even if his plan failed he’s there to stop Frodo and Sam from destroying the ring. After the hobbit succumbs to the Sauron by the end, Gollum bites the ring off his finger and finally, after so many years of coveting, he gets that what he most desired and, of course, it ultimately kills him. Gollum is usually seen as an antagonistic figure in the saga, and with good reason, but without him the central task would’ve never been completed. Like Gandalf told Frodo in “FOTR”: “Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over.”

So that’s that. Thanks for reading and I hope you liked it. The second part turned out to be even longer than the first one, but it was a lot of fun to take a look at this other characters that didn’t get the treatment the last time around. Do you agree with the points I’ve made here or am I completely crazy? Who is your favourite LOTR character? Please leave a comment with your answer, lets get the discussion going! If you could share this with your friends and family I would really appreciate it, and if you want to stay up to date with the contents of this blog you can always hit that follow button. Until next time!