Westley

Welcome back to Built of Stories, story addicts! I hope the winter holidays were kind to everyone, and that your New Year is off to a wonderful start! This year holds so much potential as we dive into stories we haven’t looked at before. Stories are one of those things that will always be there for you, no matter the ups and downs of life that you experience, and one of my main goals is to help the stories that you love become new and exciting again, so that you can see them in a new light. We’re going to do this for one of my favorite movies during the month of January. Let’s jump back into things and learn about The Princess Bride!

Today’s topic for discussion is the dashing hero of this beloved story: Westley himself. One of the interesting things about Westley is that most of his character development happens when he’s away sailing the seas, and, consequently, when we don’t see him. In The Princess Bride, it’s more like we see a before-and-after comparison of Westley’s character. Instead of growing and changing dramatically during the main body of the movie, Westley’s character has already been changed off-screen, and when he comes back to the spotlight, his new characteristics are tried and tested to demonstrate these changes.

When we first see Westley, he’s a humble farm boy carrying a torch for the (seemingly only) person he works for: Buttercup. Westley is a gentleman, however, and doesn’t insist on having his feelings recognizes. As as matter of fact, he doesn’t even overtly display his feelings, opting for a subtler series of hints we know as the phrase “as you wish”. He waited patiently for Buttercup to realize that he loved her, and waited longer still for her to realize that she loved him back. Like in nearly all stories, there is a moment of happiness… and then that moment ends.

Westley knows that his status is meager, and recognizes that he has no money for marriage. So he resolves to find work on a ship and set sail, returning the moment he can provide for his love. Buttercup soon receives the news that his ship was attacked by the Dread Pirate Roberts, however, and Westley was among the casualties. Later on, it is revealed that Westley wasn’t really killed, but taken in by Roberts and trained up to be the next pirate bearing that name.

When Westley comes back, we see all sorts of changes in him. He is confident and walks tall. He is witty and cunning, skilled with a sword and knowledgeable in the ways of battle. But one thing hasn’t changed: his deep love for Buttercup. Thanks to this, he is deeply hurt when he first sees her again, for while he was gone, Prince Humperdink, exercising his legal right, chose Buttercup to be his bride. When Westley returns, Buttercup and Humperdink are engaged, and Westley doesn’t know what to think. He feels betrayed, and it’s only after Buttercup explains that he is at rest knowing that she still loves him as well.

Westley is, from a writing standpoint, classic hero material. Ridiculously handsome, kind and loving, willing to die for his love – what more could a girl as for in the hero of a romance story? A lot of things about The Princess Bride are seen as massively cliche, and in some cases people who say that aren’t entirely wrong. As this month progresses, though, we’re going to look at not only what elements of this story make it cliche, but more importantly, what the author and director did with those cliches to make them fresh and interesting and humorous. We will look at one of these such elements of story this coming Monday; join us as we explore Prince Humperdink’s character!

Frodo and Sam

Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee form what’s arguably the strongest friendship of the entire trilogy. Everyone talks about Frodo and Sam’s friendship, but what makes it so powerful? As they enter the last leg of the journey, as seen in The Return of the King, what they know about each other and about the truth is tested and tried in every way possible. Sometimes they fail these tests, even the most important ones like willingly destroying the ring, like we talked about on Monday. But through it all they worked to stick by each other’s side. Let’s spend our last post of November talking about how powerful that is.

The real power behind the friendship most of the film is Sam, and that’s okay. It doesn’t take away from Frodo’s worth at all. As a matter of fact, it’s really really necessary for Sam to be the strong one, because right now, Frodo is anything but. The ring is heavier and heavier, physically and emotionally, with every step he takes. This is why one of the main roles that Sam takes on as the pair progresses along their path is Frodo’s protector. He is fiercely protective when the pair is captured by Faramir, so much that Faramir makes a quip about Sam being Frodo’s bodyguard. He’s even more defensive about Frodo when dealing with Gollum, who he doesn’t trust in the slightest. He fights through countless terrors to get back to Frodo after Frodo sent himn away; namely Shelob, the giant spider whose lair Gollum lead them into, not to mention the huge number of orcs guarding the tower where Frodo was taken after their run in with Shelob. Sam never thought of himself as fierce in the Shire, and for good reason. But he’s grown into the role of protector that’s being demanded of him fantastically, and Frodo benefits from it.

But other than Sam being a protector for Frodo, we also see him as just a friend. He wants to help Frodo all that he can, offering to share the burden of the ring and anything else he can do, like rationing out food and making sure that Frodo is eating and sleeping. In so many little things we see the immense depth of how Sam cares for Frodo. Doing whatever he can to ease the weight on Frodo’s back, finding disguises for them as they pass through Mordor, even humbling himself to carry Frodo up the path to the entrance of Mount Doom when Frodo’s feet won’t carry him any farther, and all this after Frodo listening to the lies Gollum was feeding him and trying to send Sam home! For Sam to love him so much through the haze that the ring has pulled over his eyes is incomprehensible.

But perhaps my favorite thing about the friendship of Frodo and Sam is the way that Sam so clearly gives Frodo hope throughout their trek. All the time, Sam is talking about rationing their food so that they have enough for the return journey, and Frodo always looks or sometimes even verbalizes his disbelief that there will be a return journey. But as they’re almost at Mount Doom, the sides of this discussion flip: Frodo makes a comment about the return journey, and Sam’s reply tells us that he has no hope for such a thing. This highlights something so important to me: Sam has essentially given Frodo all of his hope. He’s poured his life force and everything else he had into his friend, and while he’s basically empty now, he gets to see that it wasn’t in vain.

From setting out from the Shire to the firey banks of Mount Doom, Frodo and Sam have been the friendship to beat throughout The Lord of the Rings. I thought it very fitting to close out our time together with the series with a discussion on the two of them. But, I have some other news as well. Not only are we closing out November with this post, but after some serious consideration, I’ve made the incredibly hard decision to not write for Built of Stories in December. This is our last post of the year, story addicts. But fear not; we will pick up with a new story and a new adventure right away in January! Have a great December, story addicts!

Addiction

Addiction is not a light topic, and it’s also one that most people don’t like talking about at all. It’s also very different from what I mean when I call us as a group ‘story addicts’. But J.R.R.Tolkien incorporates actual addiction artfully in The Lord of the Rings, making it realistic and tangible and visible in a way that few others have done. The way he chose to showcase the matter of addiction is not through a character being addicted to something people in our world might be addicted to, like drinking or smoking. Instead, he uses the central object of the story to reel his characters in and cause them to forsake what they know is good in favor of its evil. Let’s look at how exactly Tolkien portrays this descent today and look for parallels to addictions in our world.

The ring itself is a character, in some ways, because more often than not we hear about how it has a mind of its own. Characters mention things like it ‘wanting to get back to its master’ or it being found by someone that it ‘did not expect’. Because of this personality, the similarities to real-life addictions abound all the more. When we become addicted to something, we welcome it into our mind, where it takes up residence and takes on a life of its own, just like the ring had. From that moment on it can manipulate us into giving it what it wants when it wants it; we become its slave. But, just as seen in The Lord of the Rings, this doesn’t happen all at once. Maybe if it did, we’d notice it more when it was actually happening and be able to confront it better. But as it is, addictions are far more crafty than that. It’s a slow burn, a gradual descent into the slavery I mentioned. It’s deplorable what it does to our minds, and if we could only see it as clearly in ourselves as we do when we look at Frodo, we could be so much better off when dealing with it.

When we see Frodo struggling, however, one of the most prominent parallels that stands out to me is that between Frodo and Gollum. Both succumb to the power of the ring in their own time, and the similarities between their descents are unsettling. On one end of the spectrum, we see Gollum, a corrupted life form that you either pity or are completely disgusted by. He has no integrity left, he has two personalities fighting for dominance, and he clearly hasn’t led a normal life (as in eaten anything normal or even walked normally) in years. Visually, Frodo and Gollum are nowhere near each other; but visuals don’t really matter in this case. It’s when we look inside their motives, their actions, their hearts that we see the similarities. Frodo knows that his mission is to destroy the ring, and that this is the only thing that’ll give him some peace, but it’s getting heavier. All the time the burden that he bears is weighing down on him, whispering into his ear and filling his heart with greed for the power that it contains. This is what we were shown corrupted Gollum, and now we see it taking down Frodo as well.

Then we reach the climax of the story: Frodo is standing on the precipice in Mount Doom. He’s holding the ring in his hand, outstretched and ready to destroy it in the fires. But when Sam calls out to Frodo, encouraging him to just end the struggle right then and there, he hesitates. Why? Because addiction’s hold on one’s mind is so much stronger than that. Frodo had all the right intentions, and yet when it came down to it, the greed that had been festering in his heart for so long was now an overpowering poison that he couldn’t help but drink. To everyone who thinks The Lord of the Rings is a typical fantasy, I ask this: when you watched, did the hero succeed? Because he doesn’t whenever I watch. He failed. He chose greed and tried to keep the ring for himself. The ring was only destroyed when two greed-riddled addicts were fighting over possession of it and they fell off the ledge. Only with the help of Sam was Frodo spared from the fate that choosing the greed of the ring destined him to.

Although he was only briefly mentioned today, Sam is so incredibly important in the journey that he and Frodo went on. We’re going to explore just how critical their friendship was during the last post of November, coming to you this Friday!

Gollum

Gollum, although he’d been mentioned in The Lord of the Rings as early as The Fellowship of the Ring, has his background explained to us as the viewers for the first time at the beginning of The Return of the King. We see that once, several lifetimes ago, it would seem, he was a hobbit, or, at least, something very like a hobbit. But everything changed when his friend found the ring of power; or, really, when Smeagol (who would become Gollum under the influence of the ring) killed his best friend to get the ring for himself. But though we’re shown the start of his descent into madness, we’re left to wonder where it went from there, unless we’ve read the prequel to The Lord of the Rings, titled The Hobbit. For those who haven’t read the prequel as much as those who have, we’re going to explore Gollum’s character and role in The Return of the King today.

Gollum was first encountered by Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins’ uncle during his adventures that are detailed in The Hobbit. This is where the Baggins family gets the ring of power in the first place: Bilbo inadvertently stole it from Gollum. The ring had already extended Gollum’s life far past what was natural; one might think that Gollum would understand this and make peace with it leaving him. But if you thought that, then you clearly don’t know Gollum, for one, or the power of addiction for another. Gollum mourned the loss of his ‘precious’ in his cavernous home for some time after this, and I do believe that he tried to let it go. But eventually his addiction demanded that he go out in search of it. So search he did. But soon after he began his search, he was captured by the forces of Mordor, who were also looking for the ring. They discerned from his babbling that he knew something about the ring, and proceeded to torture all the information he had on the whereabouts of the ring out of him. They discarded him and left him for dead when they were done with him, not expecting him to muster up enough strength to go in search of the ring himself. But go and hunt for it he did. His path led him to find the fellowship of the ring and follow them, proceeding to follow Frodo the ringbearer when the fellowship splits.

Frodo decides, in The Two Towers, that Gollum could be an asset to them, seeing as he’s been to Mordor before. So, after a brief stint as Frodo and Sam’s prisoner, Gollum becomes their guide. Toward the middle of The Two Towers, Gollum finds himself face-to-face with a moral dilemma. The two personalities trapped inside him are duelling it out; the original Smeagol doesn’t want to hurt Sam and Frodo, but Gollum wants the ring more than anything and will do anything he can to get it. Smeagol eventually commands Gollum to leave, seeming to free himself permanently. But Gollum’s cooing, lucrative voice cannot be cast out so easily. The moment Frodo seems to betray Smeagol, no reasoning of Frodo’s can be heard over the “comfort” that Gollum offers his host. This series of unfortunate events is what leads to Gollum trying to take Frodo’s life and claim the ring for himself over and over again throughout The Return of the King.

But this leaves a rather large question to be answered: why? What was Gollum/Smeagol’s motivation for all of this; addiction or greed? That is, besides important, a very entangling question. It’s so full of twists and turns that we will spend all of Monday’s post sorting through this question not only in light of Gollum, but with Frodo as well. Join us as we take a look at something Tolkien did masterfully: capturing the horrible trap of addiction in the art of fantasy writing!

Gondor

Last week we saw the Steward of Gondor and his only living son, Faramir, in a closer look than we might have seen by just watching the movie. But today we’re going to broaden our scope and look at the people of Gondor as a whole. The Return of the King is a traumatic time for them, and how they respond to the situations they find themselves in set them up for how they will receive Aragorn when he returns. Let’s dedicate some time for the subjects of the kingdom of Gondor today.

Living with the history that Gondor has clearly takes a toll on its residents. With the weight of the line of infamously faithless kings on their shoulders, their lives have not been easy, and the replacement leaders (who take the title of Stewards) have not been much better. Especially when we get to Denethor. Denethor does not take the counsel of others very well, and thinks that his way to do things is the only way to do things. He is generally unwilling to do things that won’t directly benefit him, or at least that he doesn’t think will benefit him. This gives the people an image of uncaring leadership, which is never good for morale.

On top of the terrible leadership situation comes the kingdom’s history in recent battles. Denethor had sent Faramir and his men out to fight, but they had to be called home to defend the White City, for they were no longer strong enough to spare any men away from home. When they were there, they proceeded to lose the river city of Osgiliath (often hailed as Gondor’s last defense against Mordor) due to being outnumbered. They were a people heavily oppressed by the forces of Mordor.

But then-in the midst of the worst battle yet-their lost king returns to them. Not only their savior from battle, but also their savior from the long years of wandering leadership. The people of Gondor are more than thrilled. This is the piece of hope that they need to carry them through what still needed to happen to see the War of the Ring end. As we go into the last three posts of November and, as such, The Return of the King as well, we’re going to switch gears and look at Frodo and Sam’s final leg of the journey. This Friday, we will start our examinations of that side of the story with a look at Gollum!

The House of the Steward

We’ve been talking extensively about the hope that the members of the fellowship were spreading in The Return of the King, specifically last Monday. But we also mentioned one place that hope had a hard time finding its way into. The household of the Steward of Gondor was not a bright, cheery place by any stretch of the imagination. Let’s find out why its only two remaining residents, Denethor and Faramir, are so unhappy.

Even though through the absences of Denethor’s wife their recently deceased oldest son, Boromir, they are a small family, there are plenty of family dynamics to go around. The film of the month shows us (directly and indirectly) that the father-son pair have a lot of history. If you look in very recent Middle Earth history, you will find that Denethor, the current Steward of Gondor has favored Boromir, the elder son, over Faramir since the day he was born. Denethor believes that Boromir was far Faramir’s superior, and resents Faramir for being the one who lived.

Denethor himself believes in looking out for number one, even from his powerful position as steward. He is beaten down and has deliberately forsaken hope after seeing Mordor rise in power for so long right outside his windows. Faramir has an equally hopeless outlook, but on a different matter. He thinks that the good of a faithful few can and will overpower Sauron, but is stuck in a rut of trying to earn his father’s approval, which will always be cruelly withheld from him. But here’s the difference between the two: Faramir decides to do what he knows is right, even when it means sacrificing his ultimate personal goal. When faced with the option of taking the ring, he eventually decides to send it on its way to Mount Doom. His father, however, thinks that the ring should be kept to be used by Gondor, and Faramir knows this. Because he chooses to do what’s right, we see the immense heart and righteous character of Faramir on display.

Though hope is spreading like wildfire in The Return of the King, it’s never able to make its way into the heart of Denethor. This is mostly, if not entirely, his fault, however, so it’s very hard to pity him. He is consumed with the weight of the death of his favorite son and the seemingly unstoppable threat of Mordor so much that he orders his men to flee their posts and die quickly when faced with battle. Gandalf is able to corral the men into doing what’s right despite this, but is not able to save Denethor from literally setting himself on fire out of self pity.

We looked at Denethor and Faramir on a small, family scale today, but on Monday, we’ll take a different angle on them. What did their decisions do to affect the people they were leading? What kind of atmosphere did this set up for the day the king returned? Join us on Monday to find out!

Spreading Hope

Last Friday we talked about how Aragorn grew and matured over the course of The Lord of the Rings. But Aragorn was an agent of an even bigger theme of the story. In September we talked about how dark of a movie that The Two Towers was, and even though The Return of the King has some heavy moments, it gets brighter throughout the film. Why is that? Let’s dive in and find out.

Even though the battle of Helm’s Deep was long, dark, and bloody, the people of Rohan were significantly more hopeful on the other side of it. They had vanquished an enemy they never thought they’d be able to overcome, and now that Eomer is reunited with his people, everyone is encouraged, including King Theoden. As we talked about on Friday, Aragorn saw the hope that they now had and knew that his own people were lacking it. Because of this, he tries his best to spur on the king of Rohan to help Gondor in their time of need. Upon accepting the cry for help coming from Gondor, King Theoden and his people became agents spreading the hope that they’d received themselves.

The people of Gondor are in an even darker place that the men of Rohan were. With the horrible line of leadership that they’d had for years and years had plummeted them into poor spirits, and watching Sauron grow in power on their very doorstep certainly didn’t help. But when the men of Rohan arrived to aid in winning their victory, they saw a spot of hope for the first time in ages. When Aragorn arrived with the army of the dead at his beck and call, however, things were looking way up. The king had returned to the land of his forefathers, and his people couldn’t be happier. But that king knew that there was one more step to turning that hope into a final victory, so out he took his people to battle once more.

Aragorn wanted nothing more than to see the ring destroyed at that moment in time, and he knew that the best way to help Frodo along that mission was to draw the armies of Mordor out of their hiding places. He had seen hope given to Rohan and Gondor, and now in giving that hope to Frodo and Sam, who haven’t been in a lighter place since the beginning of The Two Towers, he was allowing the hope that was spread to become a reality.

The hope you can trace traveling across The Lord of the Rings is a really beautiful thing to watch. By following this, we see the heart of the characters and get to know them all the more. On Friday, though, we’re going to look at a couple of people who didn’t see eye-to-eye on this hope; join us as we examine the Steward of Gondor and his son, Faramir!

Aragorn

Way back in July, we looked at a ranger of the north named Strider. He appeared mysteriously to the hobbits in Bree, and after helping them get to Rivendell, he was revealed to be the rightful King of Gondor by Legolas during the Council of Elrond. Much has happened since then, however, and he is the king that the title of the third installment of the trilogy refers to. At the end of The Return of the King he is indeed crowned King of Gondor. What happened since we first saw him adamantly refusing to accept his heritage? That’s what we’re going to explore here today.

The process of getting Aragorn to the point where he was ready to own up to the responsibility on his shoulders was not an easy or a fast one. I believe that it started when he began to let his emotional walls down and began to care for the members of the fellowship. We saw him care for Frodo first, after seeing the burden that he bore and the pain that was inflicted on him by the ringwraiths. This is what drove him to join the fellowship in the first place. As the group of nine continued to travel together, Aragorn took them all under his wing, as we can see by his reaction to the fellowship breaking. His heart breaks for Frodo, who wants so desperately to be rid of the ring. He weeps for the death of Boromir, his fellow man. His resolve is hardened, however, when Merry and Pippin are taken from them. This is the moment when he makes the decision to act on his love for another person rather than the greater good of the world. Don’t get me wrong, deciding to join the fellowship was a huge step in the right direction, but now he is seeing that he might need to help fight the overpowering evil in other ways, too.

The chase after Merry and Pippin lead the three hunters to Rohan. Here we start to see Aragorn considering the role of a king for the first time in the trilogy. He sees that the kingdom of Rohan is hurting. He sees that something is wrong before they even get to the palace, for the king’s nephew himself has been cast out of Rohan. From the moment that Gandalf casts out Saurman’s spells from King Theoden’s mind, Aragorn wants only to help the king make the best decisions he can for his people. Aragorn is voicing his opinions, and even occasionally butting heads with King Theoden. He’s seeing for the first time what a king has the responsibility to do, and he sees these people hurting and wants to make sure that he’s doing everything he can to help them, even though he’s not their king.

Then, the beacons of Gondor are lit. The beacons that were established for Gondor to call on Rohan for aid or vice versa. Aragorn knows this is his chance; if he can convince the king of Rohan to help Gondor, then he will have finally begun to help his own people as well. To his delight, Theoden decides to ride for Gondor.

Before they set out for battle, however, Aragorn realizes that he has to take a different path in order to win this fight. Elrond comes to the encampment to deliver the Shards of Narsil reforged into the sword of the king, and tells Aragorn that there is another army coming from the sea. There is not enough men in Gondor and Rohan combined to conquer forces to great in number. He reminds Aragorn that as the rightful king, and now with Narsil in his hands, he can summon an army of the dead from within the mountains. Aragorn hates the idea of this, but the weight of his people is heavy on his heart, and he knows he has to try.

After taking victory of the Battle of Pelenor Fields, the country looks to Aragorn to lead them in their next move. After taking counsel with his friends, he decides that the best way to ensure Sauron’s demise is to distract the armies of Mordor so that Frodo and Sam have better chances of safely making it to Mount Doom. He then leads the combined armies of Gondor and Rohan to the Black Gate, where he gives an incredibly moving speech, effectively inspiring not only his men, but everyone who’s ever heard it or read it. After inspiring the men as a whole, he turns to his friends and spurs them on with two words and tears in his eyes: “For Frodo”.

This is evidence of the heart of Aragorn. He has grown to care for his people, yes, but at his center, he loves his friends. He is convinced that he’s going to die on this mission, but if it saves Frodo and the people of Middle Earth from Sauron, he’s ready to go. He never loses faith that his friends are by his side, and they never let him down.

Once they’d succeeded in battle again and the terrible Sauron fell from power, Aragorn and the men returned to Gondor, where he was crowned king as soon as Frodo was awake again. There is much deserved celebration, the White Tree is in bloom, and we can rest along with the White City knowing that there is hope for men again.

Amid the storyline of Aragorn’s character today, we touched on the hope that he brought to his people. But this Monday, we’re going to look extensively at the hope that spread in The Return of the King!

Friendships

The Lord of the Rings is packed with fantastic examples of friendships. Tolkien has been constantly praised for his beautiful portrayals of people and their friendships with one another. We’ve dug into a lot of the individual friendships and will continue to go through them later on this month. This week, instead, we will look at groups of friends and the comradely relationships that form and/or grow right before our eyes.

In order to expound on the friendship of Legolas and Gimli that we explored on Friday last week, let’s start with the friendships found in the three hunters. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are three of the nine members of the fellowship. Aragorn and Legolas have met before, if I am remembering my Middle Earth history correctly, but Gimli has never met either Legolas or Aragorn before the Council of Elrond. Gimli is arguably the hardest person to get along with in the fellowship, so when you take into account the pre-established dynamics we talked about last Friday, it’s not hard to understand why Legolas and Aragorn tend to gravitate away from Gimli and end up spending more time with each other. They know each other, so they sort of have become the familiar safe spot for each other. Throughout most of The Fellowship of the Ring this continues, and mostly Legolas and Aragorn just bicker with Gimli when they talk to him.

But when we come to the final scene of the first movie, when they have to struggle through a betrayal and fight to keep their friends alive, when they lose Boromir, who died trying to save their hobbit friends, they find themselves alone with each other on the riverbanks. Gandalf and Boromir have died, Merry and Pippin have been captured by orcs, and Frodo and Sam have set off to Mordor. The sudden turning of the tables binds the three together, and as a group they set off to save Merry and Pippin from their fates, now dubbed the three hunters. In The Two Towers, they are ready to die for one another, and soon Legolas and Gimli are holding their friendly competition to lighten up battles that they face. But Legolas and Gimli don’t forget about their human companion, rather it’s quite the opposite; in The Return of the King when Aragorn tries to set off into Dunharrow to recruit a ghost army alone, Legolas and Gimli are right there by his side. The two of them are also two of the first to greet Aragorn in the crowd after his coronation, the looks they share no doubt reliving the moments that brought them closer together.

The other group of friends I want to get to today are the four hobbits. We talked about Merry and Pippin in October, and later on this month we will explore Frodo and Sam’s friendship very thoroughly, but I want to talk about the four of them as a whole today. They all knew each other from growing up alongside one another in the Shire, and as a matter of fact, Merry, Pippin, and Frodo are all cousins. If we said that Aragorn and Legolas were safe spots for each other, then I don’t even know how to describe what the hobbits were for one another on these adventures. The hobbits were literally thrown out of everything they knew and were comfortable with and into a world of orcs and sword fights and danger on every side. During The Fellowship of the Ring, they cling to each other, not really knowing what’s going on. In the scene where the fellowship breaks, they prove that they are all willing to die for one another. Even when separated for the vast majority of the rest of the series, they hold onto the hope that the others are still alive, and rejoice when their hopes were proven right in Gondor.

There were so many other friendships that we could have looked at today, it’s kind of ridiculous. But I chose to highlight not only some of my favorites but also some of the most profound. These friends are so loyal, so invested in one another that it melts the viewers’ (or readers’) hearts every time they experience the story. This coming Friday, we’re going to revisit a character that, while we looked at his role way back in July, he’s done a lot of changing since then. Join us as we look at what makes the king referred to in The Return of the King so important!

Legolas and Gimli

Welcome to November, everyone! We’re enjoying the month of Thanksgiving and the transition from Halloween to Christmas, but I hope that we’re all also looking forward to getting back into The Lord of the Rings! This month will close out the series on the trilogy as we look at The Return of the King, and it is packed full of great things. This month we’re going to look at some new characters, some that have been with us through the entire trilogy, and some underlying themes of the epic story. We’re jumping right into the action today with one of the most iconic duos from this story. Let’s see how they’ve developed throughout our time with them.

If you look at the extensive history of Middle Earth, the vast majority of which we will not be touching on today, you will see that, at one point in time, the elves and the dwarves worked very closely together. They combined their various skills and building materials to aid each other in the construction of their majestic civilizations. But soon an arrangement between the two races went sour, ending with the murder of an elven ruler. This sent the elves and the dwarves down a path of hating each other, and by the time we see Middle Earth in The Lord of the Rings, we are several thousand years into this severed relationship. Dwarves and elves don’t speak to each other, and if a dwarf is caught trespassing on elven lands they are treated as prisoners, and vice versa. This is why the friendship between Legolas, an elven prince, and Gimli, a proud dwarf, is so unexpected and rocky at the beginning.

As individual people, Legolas and Gimli are similar in areas. They both care about their friends very deeply, as seen during several occasions on their journeys as a fellowship. Gimli looks out for the hobbits fiercely, and Legolas is very close with Aragorn. But almost unintentionally, Legolas and Gimli get closer to one another as well.

It starts out as all snarky, insulting comments made by each of them toward the other. They both argue about what the fellowship should do in different situations, and always try to get on the other’s nerves. But battles with the armies of Saruman and Sauron force the pair to learn to work as a team, and soon they’re even lightheartedly competing for who can slay the most orcs. As they see the discord in Rohan and Gondor, they internally begin to realize that they need to stick together, and by the time we get to The Return of the King, there’s no fighting between the two of them at all. When we arrive at the final battle at the Black Gates of Mordor, Gimli vocalizes the strangeness of an elf and a dwarf fighting side by side. But Legolas is quick to reply with that if they are friends, then it doesn’t matter what race they come from. The simple line has touched many people, and it’s become one of the most famous of the trilogy.

The friendship of Legolas and Gimli is one of the copious examples of how even good things come from hard, bad times. We’re going to explore other such examples this month, as well as a couple of the hardships that surface in The Return of the King. This Monday, we’re going to broaden our scope a bit, going from just the friendship of Legolas and Gimli to friendships found in the trilogy in general. Join us as we look at bigger sets of friends, specifically the hobbits and the three hunters!