I’ve recently rewatched “The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy, and for the first time ever I saw the extended editions of all three films. These films have been favourites of mine since I was a child, and its always a pleasure to revisit them. The magical world of Middle Earth with all its races and conflicts and chaos and fantasy, it has always been able to capture me and not let go until the very end (ok, maybe until the ring is finally destroyed, I belong to the group of people who believe that the last 15-20 minutes of ROTK do drag a little bit). But beyond all the mythology, epic battle scenes and great visual effects -both practical and digital- that still surprisingly hold up to this day more than 15 years later, what makes the LOTR trilogy so mesmerizing and memorable are its characters. And while it may seem like an enterprise a little too complex for me to undergo in a short blog post, I want to take a look at some of the major characters of the trilogy and dissect their arcs and journeys. Disclaimer: I’ll be looking only at the film versions of the characters, for I haven’t read neither “Fellowship” nor “Towers”, and I read “King” back in 2003 before the film came out and I was just a little kid and didn’t really understand half of the things that were going on; and of course, spoilers for the whole trilogy follow.

For these dissections I’ll have to divide this post in two, since there are plenty of characters to talk about and a lot to analyze in these movies, therefore be on the look out for the second part in a few days. I’ll divide them into different groups, to make it easier to analyze the characters whitin their contexts and compare their arcs to one another; and therefore I’ll start with

The Hobbits

They’re easily the heart of these films and it’s no wonder why. The story begins with them and mostly we see the world through their eyes, from the beginning at the innocent and bubble-like Shire to the end at the terrifying and nasty lands of Mordor. Even through the visuals of the film their character gets reflected: at first wide eyed and naive, by the end scarred and destroyed to some degree, and yet full of valor and honour. Going into specific characters, let’s start with Frodo, the protagonist of the whole series. His arc is basically defined by his conflict with the ring itself, and the main question that we have here is “will Frodo be able to resist the ring?”. He began as an innocent hobbit with a lot of love for his uncle Bilbo and for his home The Shire, and it is out of this love that he decides to embark on this journey. Through all the horrors he encounters -from being stabbed by the Nazgul to being poisoned by Shelob the spider- his physic and psyche start to wither, not to mention the burden of being a ring bearer. And as Gollum joins him and Sam he starts to have an ominous influence on him, what ultimately leads him to cast Sam away from him. Finally, after rejoining Sam, when the moment of truth comes and he has to cast the ring into the fire he’s unable to. This failure makes him a more compelling character all around, and despite of this the objective is finally achieved after Gollum interferes. Still Frodo deserves some credit, even if he couldn’t resist the ring at the end and he had to be saved by someone else time and time again, he did manage to get into Mordor and put a check mate on Sauron, his resolve never faltered even after so many difficulties.

Regarding the other hobbits, the next one we’ll be looking at is Sam. Even if Frodo is the tue protagonist of LOTR, arguably the archetypal heroes journey of the story belongs to Sam. He begins as a humble gardener with a great heart, loyal and passionate, and even if he feared the unknown he decides to join Frodo in hi journey. Throughout the movies he’s always there to help and save Frodo, always highlighting the importance of his friend’s task, but never realizes his own importance in this tale. Even after Frodo tells him to go away because of Gollum’s manipulations, he remains loyal and determined to see the task through, and if it weren’t for him the ring would’ve probably fallen into either Sauron’s or Gollum’s hands way before they reached mount doom. There are those who claim that Sam is the real hero of the story and rightfully so.

Then there are Merry and Pippin, who in “Fellowship” seem to be rather just comic relief companions, but by “Two Towers” their personalities become clearer. Merry urged the Ents to join the battle against Saruman, whereas Pippin kept telling him that they were way in over their heads, but by the end it was actually Pippin’s acumen that got the Ents to join the fight. In “Return of the King” they get separated for the first time in the trilogy, and here’s where they get their chance to shine: Pippin is taken to Minas Tirith, even if he’s reluctant to see battle, and he offers his service to Denethor for a sense of debt he had because of Boromir giving his life to save both of them (also, it is because of Pippin’s senseless curiosity that they all realize Sauron’s plan of attacking Minas Tirith, as he saw it in the Palantil); there he overcomes his fear of battle when he sees his comrades falling and Denethor’s madness as he intended to burn Faramir, and by the end he’s one of the first to charge towards the hordes of Mordor – he even gets to sing in one of my favourite sequences of all the trilogy. On the other hand there’s Merry, who stays with the Rohan people and is actually eager to fight, but in battle he realizes that its not as romantic as it seemed at first, and yet, after almost losing his life he is still willing to fight for the right cause, being also one of the first to charge into the hordes of Mordor.

The Men

Mankind in LOTR lore is portrayed as flawed, weak and corrupt (much like reality), but that actually makes for good characters and conflicts. The main human character we follow throughout the series is Aragorn, who we first meet as Strider, and who secretly is the heir of Isildur and rightful succesor to Gondor’s throne. His character arc lies exactly there: he’s spent his entire life running away from his destiny, even if doing noble deeds, and is reluctant to sit at the throne. Does he feel he’s not worthy? Or is he simply chasing an illusion of freedom? It is not made clear in the films, we just know he doesn’t want to embrace his ancestry at first. He’s full of doubts and fears -we can see his guilt through his relationship with Arwen, as he knows that if she chooses to stay with him she’ll ultimately die-, and when Frodo offers him the ring he turns it down because he knows he cannot be trusted with it (though the fact that he’s able to turn it down is something noble in its own right). But slowly in the films we see his leadership and how other men look up to him. In “The Two Towers” he almost falls to his death, but upon returning to Rohan he’s ready to captain the army in the Battle of Helm’s Deep, where he’s ready and willing to die fighting alonside the men of Rohan. Then in ROTK he’s ready to accept his fate: he’s already become a leader and a war hero, and willing to march to his death in order to fight for the right cause, but it is when Elrond gives him the restored sword of Elendil that he finally accepts his destiny as the king of Gondor. He recruits the army of the undead, and after they helped at the fight of Minas Tirith he righteously releases them from their curse, even when Gimli warns him against it. And finally he leads the armies of men towards Mordor to make one last stance to give Frodo and Sam a fighting chance to drop the ring into the fires of mount doom. And then, after prevailing against all odds, he’s finally ready to take his place as the righful king of Gondor, alongside his beloved wife Arwen, who rennounced inmortality to be with him.

Then there’s Boromir, probably the most flawed and yet human character of the heroes. He’s the son of Denethor, the steward of Gondor, what almost automatically puts him in conflict with Aragorn. He wants to carry out the will of his father and take the ring to Minas Tirith, but not because he’s thirsty of power and wants to dominate the world (like his father), but because he’s seen the suffering of men and wants the ring to turn the battle in their favour. That makes him ambitious and prone to try and take the ring from Frodo, what he ultimately does, but not out of evil will, but because he believes that’s what needs to be done. After he does try to take it from the hobbit he almost inmediately realizes what he’s done and regrets his error, but it is just to late and this ultimately disintegrates the fellowship. He then gets his redemption when the Uruk Hai attack the fellowship and dies trying to protect Merry and Pippin, and finally with his dying breathes he acknowledges Aragorn as his brother and rightful heir to the throne. And while he meets his end in the very first movie, the echoes of his character keep resounding throughout the trilogy, especially in the arcs of Denethor and Faramir (more on them later). Boromir may seem flawed and weak-willed, but he’s also one of the most compassionate characters, evidenced by how after Gandalf falls after facing off with the Balrog he advocates for giving the hobbits and the rest of the companions a moment of grief, whereas Aragorn urges them all to hurry and leave the place, since the orcs will probably be there in no time. In a series defined by dualism of good vs evil or light vs darkness, Boromir is probably the most “grey” and nuanced character.

And unfortunately I have to break this off now. This post is getting way longer than I expected and there are still plenty of characters that I’d like to look at (I’m not even done with the human charactes), though then again I don’t know what I expected if the films amount to a little under 12 hours. I’ll be back in a few days with part 2 of this analysis and look into other central and supporting characters. In the mean time you could tell me who are your favourite characters in the series and which ones would you like to see me cover next. Thanks for reading and I hope you liked it. If you could share this with your friends and family that’d be of great help, and if you want to stay up to date with the contents of this blog you can always hit the follow button. Until next time!