[Kin-strife]

My own personel images of the characters in the lord of the rings seem to change with each rereading. I remember when I first picked up the lord of the rings after my sister raving about it I had not yet read the Hobbit. I launched into the first chapter without having any iea what a hobbit even looked like. The first image that came into my head became Bilbo. That image was of mean looking, well built, bald, ex-nazi name of Baron Strucker (I think) complete with monicle who I had recently seen in a Marvel comic-book. I never made it past the first chapter on that reading and when I then came to read the Hobbit it took a severe session of banging my head against the wall to get the Baron out of there. After I returned to the lord of the rings, for some inexplicable reason, Frodo had blue hair in my mind and kept it right up until the end. When aragorn was first introduced as Strider he was an old man with atrophing organs. As the book went on he kept getting younger, at the rate he was going he should have been a foetus by the time he was crowned. Tom Cruise played the part of Boromir and Father Christmas stepped in for Elrond. Only two characters remained the same with each rereading. One was Gandalf. Gandalf was, is, and always will be in my mind the same tall, proud, wise and noble Gandalf that stood in the centre of the Lord of the Rings poster, illustrated by Jimmy Cauty that's been stuck up in my sisters bedroom for as long as I an remember. I am far too fond of this Gandalf for Ian Mckellan (or however you spell it) to make an impression on me. The other fixed image is that of Legolas, which is so similar to the Legolas in the film that I have trouble sleeping at night.