I was utterly shocked and amazed (and completely convinced that I was seeing things) when Denathor took his swan dive. I saw the movie embarrassingly late in its showing (I didn't see it until mid-February, for various reasons) and I was with my boyfriend on our first date. Needless to say, I figured I already knew everything about the movie (what with friends and family and their infernal need for spoilers), so I spent a rather large amount of time joking with my date instead of paying complete and total attention. Each time a person that was dead or dying was on screen, one of us would whisper "I see dead people." Thus, I was vaguely distracted by the guy behind us saying "Quiet, you're ruining the mood" just when Denathor started going mad.
Since I was laughing so hard (you probably had to be there to understand the humor), When I saw Denny go up in flames, I was like... "That's changed a bit." Then he started running around and took his Flaming Leap of Death, and then I was just confused. I couldn't for the life of me figure out WHY they made such a noble and powerful man fling himself off a cliff while on fire. The books were much more convincing and well-concieved. Then today reading the appendices, I saw that Denathor was extraordinarily alike to Aragorn, and then I started thinking- would Strider fling himself off a cliff? I think not.
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