Who is your favorite bad guy in the Lord of the Rings?

[Lord Denethor]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

Welcome to the Barrow-Downs, Lord Denethor!

I am surprised that your namesake has been ignored by the major designers of figurines. Do you attribute this to the manner that Denethor was presented in the movies as contrasted to how he was presented in the books?

Thank you! I used to be active here around 2006 or so. I rediscovered this site and figured a new start would be nice.

I do think Denethor’s been ignored because of PJ’s depiction of him in the films, yes. I don’t blame John Noble at all, I think he was great as the Lord of Gondor. But PJ and co. disregarded almost all of the good descriptors of Denethor that Tolkien wrote, both in the book and letters, such as the noble personality, and the fact that Denethor was stronger in mind than Boromir and more akin to Faramir. The movies rendered Denethor into a meme with the tomato-eating, degraded his character by betraying his noble, strong personality in favor of a weak-willed suicidal maniac. His suicide fell flat on screen, it’s supposed to be a very sad fate for such a man. But the general audience never picked up on that because of how he was portrayed on film. Alas.