Paired characters in LotR

[davem]

The Frodo-Sam pairing is interesting - Frodo is ultimately on a spiritual journey towards (or through) death to a spiritual life in the West. Sam's journey on the other hand will end in marriage & family. If there is this 'pairing' of the two, does it represent in some sense a 'single being' torn in two - one part towards the spiritual life, one to 'hearth & home'? Of course, in a sense we could see a 'distorted' pairing of Frodo & Boromir - both obsessed with doing something with the Ring, & both single mindedly rejecting the possibility of family life in pursuiit of their quest. So, does the renunciation (Frodo) or rejection (Boromir) of family ultimately & inevitably lead to loss of life?

Tolkien's ideal seems to be marriage & family, its his happy ending - for those that have them. A happy ending = marriage & children. Yet marriage always seems to be seen as the reward for struggle - Sam may start out as Frodo's 'partner', yet he ends as Rosie's, while Frodo ends up partnerless. So partnership always seems to begin as a same sex thing, where sex barely comes into it (sexual partnership always comes as a reward for struggle, & only seems to enter some character's minds once the struggle has been achieved & they are able to rest - I won;t pursue this as its off topic, but there's a fascinating article in the latest Mallorn, 'Warm beds are good:sex & libido in Tolkien's writing' by Ty Rosenthal, who points out 'Its telling that Sam Gamgee needs to be called to join Frodo at his departure from Bag End not because he has his hand down rosie's blouse, but because he is saying good-bye to the beer barrel'

Of course, the negative pairings abound - Gandalf/Saruman, Aragorn/Boromir, Boromir/Faramir, Denethor/Theoden, Denethor/Eowyn (in the sense that both face apparently ultimate depair, & one gives in & kills himself while the other stands &fights on the field - effectively Eowyn will do what Denethor will not). We could even find a pairing of Tom & Goldberry with Galadriel & Celeborn (or more significantly perhaps with the Ents & the Entwives).

So we have two kinds of pairings, it seems to me - the starting out pairings, which are usually same sex ones, where the partners seem to be reflections/aspects of one being, & the final, mature pairings of marriage partners, which is the ideal - unless one considers (& Tolkien may have done) the ideal to be the spiritual journey to 'God'.

[Tuor of Gondolin]

A pairing that struck me from the first time I read the Silmarillion (and UT) is, perhaps not too surprisingly, Turin and Tuor. Very similar in backgrounds but, even exclusive of the debatable (in various threads) effect of Morgoth's curse, one was suffused with a surfeit of pride and touchiness while the other, despite an arguably even more troubled early years, did not get too full of himself. Of course, Turin was more "extreme" in many ways, including the strong affection and committment to him he evoked in men and elves, and as a warrior.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

A very nice point about Aragorn/Eomer, Boromir88. But we can go further with this. Aragorn and Eomer are the returning/triumphant Kings and they are meeting in the midst of a conflict between their chief adversaries (Saruman and Sauron. It’s Gandalf, isn’t it, who says that their two foes conspired to bring Merry and Pippin to Fangorn?). So how does this sound: Aragorn is to Eomer, as Sauron is to Saruman? Obviously, the relationships involved are completely opposite in nature insofar as Aragorn and Eomer meet and begin with distrust but look forward to a time when they will fight together, whereas Saruman and Sauron are pretending to be allies while each plots the downfall of the other. But while we thus have the good rulers on the one hand and the evil on the other, it does point to some kind of interconnectedness I think: Aragorn is unquestionably good to Sauron’s evil, but he is clearly more powerful and noble than Eomer. In fact, now that I think about it, Aragorn presents Eomer with pretty much the same kind of choice that Sauron presents Saruman with: “help me or hinder me. Choose swiftly!” Just like with Sauron, there’s really only two choices with Aragorn: either you are with him or against him, and upon your choice depends your fate – good or evil. In this sense, I think that the Sauron/Aragorn pairing might be one of the most important in the book, in that this pairing represents in starkest (purest?) terms the choice and difference between good and evil??

Davem: as always, count on you to take a thread topic and make it even better! I very much like the idea of an evolution from masculine partnerships to domestic marriages, but as is usual with ‘tidy’ patterns, I think this one might be a bit too limiting. As your own list of negative pairings demonstrates, there are lots of ways for two men to be bound to one another that is bad (Gandalf/Saruman – what about slinker/stinker?). What’s more, there is at least one unholy and monstrous ‘marriage’ between Shelob and Sauron. That is, I realise, a perversion of the ideal expressed best by Aragorn/Arwen and Sam/Rosie, but it still is a union of masculine and feminine, but of a much darker and evil nature. So while I’m not attempting to refute or reject your point, I think there’s probably more to say.

On the topic of Eowyn and Galadriel, raised by Mithalwen, there’s another neat indication of their paired relationships that actually furthers the pairing of Merry and Frodo I spoke about earlier. Galadriel is the one who defends, and even in a sense accompanies, Frodo in his contest with Shelob; Eowyn does the same for Merry against the Witch King. The more I think about it, the more I like this Frodo/Merry pairing – and this Eowyn/Galadriel pairing.

Fascinating tidbit Encaitare: it really does show how this dependence upon pairing, particularly between genders, goes to the very heart and root (to mix metaphors) of Middle-Earth!

But to address a question I posed in the initial post: why so many pairs? I still don’t have much of an answer, but could it have something to do with the fact that evil is so consistently organised around and identified with singularity?:

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.

And is this perhaps the mistake that Boromir, Denethor, Eowyn and Gollum all make? To think that they can and should be alone in their lives’ journeys? That they only need rely on themselves? If I’m getting this right, then Eowyn’s ability to recover from this mistake when the others do not bears attention…

[davem]

First of all, anyone who wants to read the essay I mentioned:Warm beds are good can download it as a PDF here:http://www.ansereg.com/warm_beds_are_good.htm

I wonder about the 'marriage' of Sauron & Shelob - it is ultimately dead - it cannot produce offspring. Though Shelob, we have to remember, is not (as the movie presents her) simply a giant spider, but 'an evil thing in spider form' (don't think Tolkien was promoting bestiality there!). True marriage for Tolkien must produce children - which is why the other pairings - ie Frodo/Sam are not ideals, but stages in the process. They are 'reflections' of different aspects of a hypothetical 'single' being, showing alternative responses to external situatuations.

Originally Posted by Fordim

If I’m getting this right, then Eowyn’s ability to recover from this mistake when the others do not bears attention…

I suppose the 'pairing' in this case is of two different responses to the same thing. The Witch King is a 'Shadow of despair' - Eowyn faces it & slays it, Denethor faces it & succumbs, & is ultimately swallowed up by it. Eowyn, as Denethor, faces the loss of the one person she trully loves, but is not destroyed by despair - yet she is not one in whom the blood of Numenor runs almost true - she is one of the 'middle' people - we could also perhaps pair up Denethor/Frodo & Eowyn/Sam here - the 'upper class', higher beings cannot return from the mythic to the everyday world & are swallowed up in despair, & depart from the world alone, while the 'middle people' are able to live on in the everday world in peace & happiness. It all makes wonder how much Frodo ever really was an ordinary hobbit, & whether he wasn't really an 'outsider', like Galahad, sent into the world to perform his supernatural task & then depart. Though if he symbolises Sam's own spiritual side, then that begs a number of questions.

Tolkien seems to be saying that however overwhelming an eneny or a situation may seem there is always a choice, & he takes us down the two roads which those choices open up - & as you say, Gollum takes both those roads himself. So does Sam for a while, & ultimately chooses Rosie over Frodo, so we have the Frodo/Sam pairing & the Sam/Rosie pairing both co-existing in Sam from the begining - the spiritual path symbolised by his Frodo side, & the homely, hobbit path symbolised by Rosie - he takes the spiritual path as far as he can (or wishes to) & then, in the end, chooses to remain a hobbit. We could take the end of LotR as symbolising the two choices of this 'archetypal' Sam - the spiritual part goes into the West, 'dies', as does the world of magic & myth, & the hobbit side goes home to his family. The 'magic' goes away in the end, & leaves us with the everyday, & Tolkien seems to be saying that, for all the loss of wonder, that's actually for the best.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

It seems that there's a couple of ways of 'dividing' the few pairs we've looked at so far: by gender (men and women); into 'spiritual' or 'moral' and 'physical' or 'simple'; in terms of fulfilment and sacrifice(?).

Is there overlap? It seems as though the characters who are on spiritual journeys (as pointed out by davem) end up with sacrifice and no female, while those on more physical journeys/quests ens up with the fulfilling female.

But even as I write this it seems not to work. Aragorn's journey ends with the fulfilment of marriage and children, but his journey is as morally implicated as is Frodo's and there's no way we can call him a simple person like Sam! What's more, this pattern would seem to relegate women to the rather limited role of domestic "fulfillers" (to coin a new phrase). The purpose of the women is to be paired up with the appropriate male hero at the conclusion of the journey? I don't think there's anyone here who'd be terribly comfortable with this idea (or is there?).

[Mithalwen]

Yes but from what I remember of the History of LOTR volumes of HoME, Arwen was such a late development in the story that she does seem to have been created specifically for Aragorn to marry and so to mirror the Beren/Luthien relationship. Although she is so passive compared to Luthien....


and where do that most interesting and really the only three dimensional m/f couple in LOTR fit in (Faramir and Eowyn if you really were in any doubt about who I meant!) ?.... They are not as major characters as Frodo and Aragorn, but they have their physical and emotional journey, their tough choices and find their reward... and their beautifully complex courtship was reduced to a smug smile on celluloid...... aargh

[Boromir88]

This to me is a suprise how no one has mentioned the Denthor-Boromir, Denethor-Faramir, Faramir-Gandalf, relationships.

I mean Denethor has many of the same qualities as Faramir, wise, cunning, Denethor was very good in the defense of Minas Tirith. Faramir thought a lot and both are comprable swordsmen, but being two "positives" they repel. Where Boromir is the total opposite of Denethor, he doesn't care about strategy all his strategy is, go into the enemy and hack them to pieces, "opposites" attract.

Then you have Faramir-Gandalf, where as Denethor put it, Faramir was "gandalf's pupil." Gandalf is sort of like that father figure to Faramir, that he never had, because Denethor favored Boromir. When Faramir does decide to listen to his father, which was the failed attempt to retake Osgiliath (probably the one mistake Denethor made), Faramir comes close to death.