[Glenethor]

I don't see him as sinister in the book, but there is, from the very beginning of his role in the movie, foreshadowing that he wants the ring. In the movie he seems proud ('Gondor needs no King') and concerned more with how to stop Sauron from overrunning Gondor than with the policies determined at the Council of Elrond. There are two times where I do see him as sinister, and both times he is, more or less, under the spell of the Ring: On Cahadhras where he gives Frodo back the Ring (and tousles his hair, as if he was a child) and when he tries to seize the Ring from Frodo. Now, if memory serves from this part of the text, when Boromir falls under the influence of the Ring at Rauros, Tolkien mentions something about his face twisted in a grimace of rage, or something like that. Just before he starts to run after Frodo, you see that change take place on his face (' You FOOL!'), and he is pretty fearsome then. I got the idea that Bean had actually read the text rather than the script for his characterizatiion at that point.<P>All in all, I see him, in the movie and the book, as a Man who is concerned with pleasing his father and winning back the glory of Gondor, who knows what forces are arraying against him, and who succumbs for one moment to his own desperation (was that a run-on sentence???) in hopes of pleasing Denethor and giving his people hope. He is not sinister, but rather seduced <I>in extremis</I> to take action by the will of the Ring. <P>I liked Bean's characterization. I wonder what Faramir is going to be like?<BR>