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Old 01-12-2005, 07:51 PM   #8
littlemanpoet
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Tolkien

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The imagined beings have their inside on the outside; they are visible souls. - C.S. Lewis
Child, thank you for starting this thread. The insight is positively seismic for me.

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...modern fiction focuses on the interior of the character rather than the story itself. ... Tolkien's characters are constructed differently. - Child
This is a critical insight. So often Tolkien is criticized for doing poor, or not enough, characterization. What is being said here is that, in fantasy, a different type of characterization is being used. But what is it? I'll attempt an answer below.

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Does anyone else regard the characters in LotR in the same way that Lewis does in this quotation? - Child
In a word, yes. I do. Happily.

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In what ways do specific Tolkien's characters "wear their inside on their outside"? - Child
I cannot think of a character that does not! One might suggest that those who use guile keep something hidden, but actually, the guile is one of the key attributes of their character, such as Saruman and Gollum, for example. Boromir uses guile at Amon Hen when trying to get the Ring from Frodo. There is one single instance of guile used in a morally upright way in all of LotR (to my knowledge): Gandalf is the one who sets up the plan sending Frodo into Mordor to destroy the Ring because the "wise fool" would never expect that of his enemies. That's guile and knowing your evil enemy's weakness.

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Is this way of depicting characters something that Tolkien first saw reflected in his own reading of early sources like Beowulf or the Kalevala? Or does it spring from his own world view as a Christian and a Catholic? Or from something else entirely? - Child
You can be confident that such (Beowulfian) character depiction was the norm prior to the modern novel. His faith informs his character depictions in that he portrays them as basically moral beings. Also, my sense is that Tolkien himself was a simple man, without guile. He wore his inside on the outside, if I understand his personal story correctly. Now, to say that Tolkien was without guile is not to say that he was naķve. He knew what the world is really like, or he could never have written LotR. But he was no wearer of masks. And he understood the mind of evil.

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"And Man as a whole, Man pitted against the Universe, have we seen him at all till we see that he is like a hero in a fairy tale?" Is this true, and is this why so many folk are endlessly drawn back into the story? Can we even understand ourselves as individuals unless we too regard ourselves as heroes in a fairy tale? - Child
I think the fairy tale looks at humans as moral beings instead of psychological beings, which seems to be a rather critical difference. More on that below.

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Perhaps it's no wonder then that you seem to know Frodo and the others better at the end of the story than characters from other novels, since you have gotten to understand Frodo in a way that more closely mimics a natural human relationship. - Formendacil
In the modern novel the reader is expected, encouraged even, to identify with the protagonist; to vicariously become the protagonist. In LotR Tolkien invites us to befriend his many protagonists. These are entirely different types of demands upon the reader. The former is an internal, psychological, and burdensome task. The latter is comfortable, delightful, and humane. And thus are we able to say to each other, "I can identify with Frodo/Sam/Faramir best."

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I doubt very many authors would be able to pull this off. - Firefoot
I strongly disagree. This is the way literature used to be written before the current characterization vogue. I cut my literary teeth on Tolkien and without realizing it, when I started writing, this was how I wrote. I have gone through a good four years of people telling me I'm doing it all wrong and need to learn how to do deep characterization, as it is so-called. Now that I am conscious of the answer to the deep characterization vogue (thanks again, Child!), I will work the techniques I have been using all along, and defend them against the current vogue.

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...modern fiction focuses on the psychological motives of ... one or maybe two main characters, the protagonists. And in LotR it would be difficult to identify a definite protagonist. - Lalwendė
Quite. It's in the nature of characterization for fairy story, in which each character is used to mirror the others. Each character represents a type. This does not mean that the character is two-dimensional; absolutely not! But it does mean that loyal Sam is going to be a useful mirror for traitorous Gollum, for example.

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LotR has a whole multitude of characters, so we do not need to see their interior thoughts as much as we would if it was a novel focussing on only a handful of characters; there is much opportunity to demonstrate motives and characteristics through dialogue and reactions of the many other characters. If it were just about Frodo, or even just about the Fellowship then we would need to have more interior thoughts written about as there would be less chance to have these represented by the multitudes of other people. - Lalwendė
This was very well said.

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...most of the characters [in LotR] go through changes which are not complete turnarounds for them -- they grow rather than be altered. - Encaitare
Yes.

The fundamental difference seems to be that in the modern novel, characters are at base psychological creatures, progressing from unhealth to health, whereas in LotR, and other fantasy that does it right (ex: Narnia Chronicles), characters are at base moral creatures, progressing from immaturity to maturity. This is Bilbo's journey in The Hobbit. Same with Merry and Pippin. Frodo goes through this, as Child has pointed out already. Aragorn's story spans beyond the timeline of LotR, such that his maturation can only be seen in the appendices, but it's there. This process of maturation seems most often to hinge upon moral choices. Bilbo takes pity on Gollum. Later, when Bilbo has to rescue the Dwarves on numerous occasions, his mindset is usually "looks like it's up to me" - which is a moral choice - taking responsibility. Aragorn choose courage and toil and hardship over denying his lineage, taking the easy way through life, and merely surviving. Of all the characters, it seems that Sam matures the least; and hardly needs to. He is already the accomplished "Bat-man" after the likes of WW1; that he chooses to accept his role as Frodo's helper (moral choice), and does finally take pity on Gollum - which saves the quest.
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