[HCIsland]

It seems to me they will be really using the Paths of the Dead as the moment when Aragorn siezes his roll as King and becomes the Aragorn we're more used to from the book. Aragorn emerges from the paths with all doubts removed. Crawling through long, dark tunnels and emerging reborn on the other side is a very common metephor and it doesn't take a psychologist to figure out why it continues to work.<P>As for the why, this is part of the explanation but the bigger part is that these movies are already stuffed with characters and PJ has shown that if he can tell the story just as effectively without them, they go. Just ask Fatty Bodger, Bombadil, Bill Ferney, Glorfindel, etc. This is going to sound harsh, but Halbarad and Elrond's sons simply aren't needed. They work great in a 1000 plus page novel but in a film (even three, three hour films) they are simply too much detail.<P>H.C.<p>[ August 27, 2003: Message edited by: HCIsland ]