Okay, so what do you think NOW?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

StW:

What you say about the antihero and the modern audience is an interesting point- but it seems to me that Jackson (& Walsh & Boyens) were rather schizophrenic in this case. After all, they spent a very great deal of effort (and screentime) reworking Aragorn as the reluctant nolo regi sort, I would assume because they reckoned modern filmgoing audience would dislike Tolkien's Man of Destiny. But then this approach to the revised character doesn't really square with the badass- it's as if Eastwood's reluctant gunfighter of Unforgiven suddenly morphed into Harry Callaghan.

This I think (in my personal opinion) to have been mistaken. Tolkien's original surge of popularity hit during the late 60's precisely among the same folks who were protesting American 'imperialism' in Vietnam and the like: yet the hippies didn't seem to mind the Returning King as written. And this was a generation raised on Hemingway and Salinger and Faulkner. As Tolkien was at pains to point out, there's nothing wrong with fairy-tales, even for adults; and that includes fairy-tale heroes like Aragorn. We're not expected to identify with him: that's what the hobbits are there for.

******

Another perplexing moral inversion occurred to me- especially perplexing in that the scene and the very dialogue are reprised from the book, but turned on their heads. In the movie, as the Three Hunters in Fangorn become aware of the mysterious old man,

Aragorn: 'We must act quickly, before he can put a spell on us'

whereuopn the three attempt an ambush (naturally unsuccessful).

Compare this to Tolkien's version:

Then suddenly, unable to contain himself longer, [Gimli] burst out: 'Your bow, Legolas! Bend it! Get ready! It is Saruman. Do not let him speak, or put a spell upon us! Shoot first!'

Legolas took his bow and bent it, slowly and as if some other will resisted him. He held an arrow loosely in his hand but did not fit it to the string. Aragorn stood silent; his face was watchful and intent.

'Why are you waiting? What is the matter with you?' said Gimli in a hissing whisper.

'Legolas is right,' said Aragorn quietly. 'We may not shoot an old man so, at unawares and unchallenged, whatever fear or doubt be on us. Watch and wait!'

If there is one single overriding theme of the Lord of the Rings it is that the end never justifies the means- that the moral course is the only course, no matter what self-interest or even the Greater Good might dictate. Anything else is a form, greater or lesser, of Boromirism. The *whole point* of the Ring is that Might never, ever makes Right.