by Tony Dekker (Version 1.1, July 2004)
Copyright © 2004 by Anthony Dekker. Permission is given to distribute this essay freely for non-profit use, provided that it is not altered and that this copyright notice remains intact. See also http://members.ozemail.com.au/~dekker/essays
References to The Lord of the Rings are given in the format (Book from 1 to 6 : Chapter : Page within chapter), based on page numbers from the HarperCollins one-volume paperback edition of 1992. See also http://www.lordoftherings.net/
This essay was written in Hobart, Woodbridge, Melbourne, and Canberra in April 2004, and so thanks are due to those who provided love, hospitality, and feedback.
In this short essay, I would like to share four of my favourite characters from JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings — Sam, a Hobbit gardener, solid, dependable, and who would “jump down a dragon’s throat” to save his friends (1:V:7); Éowyn, a young human woman, trapped in a cage of circumstance and convention; Galadriel, a mature Elven woman, beautiful, noble, powerful, but with a tragic past; and Aragorn, a human man, struggling to come to terms with his royal inheritance.
All four of these characters speak to us today: men and women, active and contemplative, experienced and inexperienced, eager and uncertain. All four characters have strengths that we wish to aspire to, and weaknesses that we share and can understand. This is one of the things that makes Tolkien such a great writer.
Fans of the book will recognise the passages quoted in this essay. Fans only of the movie will recognise most, and may find that others enrich their understanding of the characters.
Samwise (Sam) Gamgee is above all else a gardener. That is how he describes himself when, in wartime, he meets Faramir in the wilds of Ithilien (4:V:18). Faramir knows the evils of war all too well, and hates war even when it is necessary (4:V:10), so he gives this calling the respect that it deserves when he says:
“Your land must be a realm of peace and content, and there must gardeners be in high honour.” (4:V:20)
But Sam is not only a gardener, he is a Hobbit with many other practical skills. He learned rope-making and knot-tying from the family business run by his grandfather and uncle (4:I:9), which is why he has such a great interest in Elvish rope (2:VIII:5). Sam also has a great love of cooking, and carries his cooking gear and precious box of salt all the way into Mordor (4:IV:6), although in the final extremity he is forced to discard it (6:III:6). As Aragorn tells a different Hobbit, on another occasion, if you can’t throw a treasure away when you need to, it is holding you in chains (3:IX:5).
Yet while Sam still has his cooking gear, it does much to ease the difficulty of the terrible journey he and Frodo must make. In both the book and the movie, Sam’s cooking of rabbits after the terror of the Black Gate is a much-loved scene:
“But be good Sméagol and fetch me the herbs, and I’ll think better of you. What’s more, if you turn over a new leaf, and keep it turned, I’ll cook you some taters one of these days. I will: fried fish and chips served by S. Gamgee. You couldn’t say no to that…” (4:IV:8)
Sam’s loyalty to Frodo is one of the great themes of the movie and book. Although Sam soon finds that the journey he has volunteered for is far worse than he ever expected — indeed, he soon wishes for nothing more than to simply go home (2:VII:11) — he never fails, even when it seems that the journey will end in death (6:III:2). To help Frodo complete his task, Sam is prepared to suffer hunger and thirst, and even lets Frodo have Sam’s share of the food and water as well as his own (6:II:14).
In the end Sam has to carry Frodo up Mount Doom (6:III:9). But this difficult journey teaches Sam great strength, so that, like the other great characters (Gandalf, Aragorn, Galadriel, and Faramir), he is able to refuse the temptation of the One Ring (6:I:5). His greatest moment of triumph is perhaps the defeat of the giant spider Shelob, an evil creature from an earlier and even darker age:
“Sam came on. He was reeling like a drunken man, but he came on. And Shelob, cowed at last, shrunken in defeat, jerked and quivered as she tried to hasten from him. She reached the hole, and squeezing down, leaving a trail of green-yellow slime, she slipped in, even as Sam hewed a last stroke at her dragging legs. Then he fell to the ground.” (4:X:3)
Sam’s one flaw is his tendency to be quick to anger, usually with Gollum (6:II:11). No doubt Sam’s eventual success as Mayor of the Shire (6:IX:9) and as husband of Rosie (6:IX:4) is an indication that he eventually learns to control his temper. Yet even though his anger is excessive, it is based on a sense of justice, which is a noble thing. And in spite of his anger, he does feel tolerance and pity, even for Gollum (6:III:12). Certainly his offer of “fried fish and chips” (4:IV:8) is an attempt at friendship.
On the whole, Tolkien’s association of Sam with his box of salt (2:III:9) is no accident, for Sam is indeed the “salt of the earth.”
Éowyn was a lady born in difficult times, when evil was rising again in Middle-earth. Her father, the Chief Marshal of the Mark of Rohan, was killed by Orcs when she was seven years old (Appendix A:II:7), and not long after, her mother died also. These childhood events must have had a great impact on her. She was brought up by her uncle, King Théoden, “whom she loved as a father” (5:VIII:10). This made it all the more terrible to see her uncle decay under the influence of Grima Wormtongue, and to see the royal House of Eorl lose its honour (5:VIII:11).
Her desire to restore the leadership of the royal family and deal with the difficulties facing her people were not unrecognised by the Rohirrim. Háma, one of Théoden’s key lieutenants, recognises her bravery and the love the Rohirrim have for her. That is why he suggests that she rule over the Eorlingas in the army’s absence (3:VI:19).
Éowyn “had a spirit and courage at least the match of” the men around her (5:VIII:10), and a feeling that her destiny was to perform some great deed. She probably did not know of Glorfindel’s prophecy that the Witch-king of Angmar, leader of the Nazgûl, would not fall by the hand of a man (Appendix A:I(iv):8). Yet Éowyn found the role of a woman (even a royal one) in Rohirrim society to be a terrible constraint, and a barrier to what she knew she had to do. She expressed it this way:
“But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death… [I fear]a cage… To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.” (5:II:13)
But, as she says, “where will wants not, a way opens” (5:III:14), and she rides to battle in disguise. In a triumphant moment that all fans of the book (and movie) love, she does that which all the men around her are incapable of, and restores hope to the despair of the Pelennor Fields:
“ ‘No living man may hinder me!’ … ‘But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.’ … Still she did not blench: maiden of the Rohirrim, child of kings, slender but as a steel-blade, fair but terrible. A swift stroke she dealt, skilled and deadly… A light fell about her, and her hair shone in the sunrise… Her shield was shivered in many pieces, and her arm was broken; she stumbled to her knees… Then tottering, struggling up, with her last strength she drove her sword between crown and mantle… and a cry went up into the shuddering air, and faded to a shrill wailing, passing with the wind, a voice bodiless and thin that died, and was swallowed up, and was never heard again in that age of this world.” (5:VI:3–4)
Yet Éowyn remaineds a troubled woman, scarred by Grima’s attempt to conquer her by crushing her spirit (5:VIII:10), and also struggling with uncertainty about her role in life, and with an unhealthy focus on dying gloriously in battle (5:II:13). And so we share the joy when we discover that her time in the Houses of Healing has healed her spirit as well as her body, restoring to her a sense of peace and a new (and equally important) goal in life:
“I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.” (6:V:8)
Galadriel (whose name can be translated as “Lady of Light”) appears in The Lord of the Rings as an old—an almost unimaginably old—woman, with thousands of years of experiences, joys, and mistakes behind her. She was born in the Undying Lands in the West, a princess of the High Elves (the Noldor). Sadly, she was one of those who gave in to anger when the Silmarils were stolen, and who rebelled and went to Middle-earth, from whence the elves had originally come (as is told in The Silmarillion).
In the time of The Lord of the Rings, most Elves in Middle-earth were the Grey-elves and Green-elves of Rivendell, Lothlórien, and the Woodland Realm. Very few of Galadriel’s own people remained in Middle-earth. Elrond of Rivendell was one of the Noldor, but Galadriel’s husband Celeborn was not, and so she must have been lonely, and longed to rejoin her people in the Undying Lands. But she must also have feared the apology and the acknowledgement of her mistakes that would have been necessary when she arrived. Indeed, in an earlier age she had said:
“For that woe is past… and I would take what joy is here left, untroubled by memory. And maybe there is woe enough yet to come, though still hope may seem bright.” (The Silmarillion:15:3)
Galadriel also bore one of the three great Elven-rings: Nenya, the adamant Ring of Water, through which she protected Lothlórien and struggled constantly against the mind of Sauron. As she says to Frodo:
“I know what it is that you last saw… for that is also in my mind… But do not think that only by singing amid the trees, nor even by the slender arrows of elven-bows, is this land of Lothlórien maintained and defended against its Enemy… even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought. But still the door is closed! … This is Nenya, the Ring of Adamant, and I am its keeper.” (2:VII:13)
Galadriel uses the power of her Ring to heal both her land and her people. Sauron’s attacks include dark thoughts as well as dark creatures such as Orcs. One of the most touching moments in the book is when she breaks down the wall of hostility between Elf and Dwarf, washing the hostility out of Gimli’s heart, and leaving a space in which a wonderful seed of friendship with Legolas can grow:
“ ‘Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram, and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla, and fair were the many-pillared halls of Khazad-dûm in Elder Days before the fall of mighty kings beneath the stone.’ She looked upon Gimli, who sat glowering and sad, and she smiled. And the Dwarf, hearing the names given in his own ancient tongue, looked up and met her eyes; and it seemed to him that he looked suddenly into the heart of an enemy and saw there love and understanding. Wonder came into his face, and then he smiled in answer.” (2:VII:4)
If only all travellers and refugees were welcomed that way!
As a woman capable of terrible mistakes, the One Ring could easily have corrupted Galadriel, but she has learned the hard way that defeat is not as terrible as winning by embracing evil. When she renounces the temptation of the One Ring, tears spring to the eyes of the reader or movie-goer:
“ ‘For many long years I had pondered what I might do, should the Great Ring come into my hands, and behold! it was brought within my grasp… And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!’ … She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad. ‘I pass the test,’ she said. ‘I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.’” (2:VII:14)
This is perhaps the defining moment in Galadriel’s life, because it finally resolves the issues of her past, and her long-delayed decision to return to the West, where she was born.
Like Éowyn, Aragorn lost his parents early in life. His father Arathorn died when he was only two years old (Appendix B:8), and he was brought up by his many-times-great-uncle Elrond, for Aragorn was himself partly of Elvish blood: his distant ancestor Elros was Elrond’s brother (like Arwen, Elros had renounced his immortality, and had died six thousand years earlier).
When he was twenty, Aragorn first learned of his royal identity, and his inheritance of the shards of the sword Narsil (and the responsibilities that came with it). The difficulties of that time (which was also when he first met Arwen) drove him into the wild, into a life of service (and training) as a Ranger.
Aragorn first appears in The Lord of the Rings as “a strange-looking weather-beaten man sitting in the shadows” (1:X:8), but his value is shown by the way in which others speak of him. Bilbo the Hobbit wrote poetically of what lay beneath the exterior:
“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
(1:X:8)
The wizard Gandalf calls him “the greatest traveller and huntsman of this age of the world” (1:II:18), and puts great trust in him. Tom Bombadil (a character who does not make it into the movie) speaks of “sons of forgotten kings walking in loneliness” (1:VIII:12), for the work of the Rangers was done without looking for reward or appreciation. Only much later, Butterbur (landlord of the inn at Bree), having finally seen some of the evils that he had been protected from by the Rangers, says:
“I don’t think we’ve rightly understood till now what they did for us. For there’s been worse than robbers about. Wolves were howling round the fences last winter. And there’s dark shapes in the woods, dreadful things that it makes the blood run cold to think of.” (6:VII:5)
Aragorn’s “deep roots” are his sense of duty, of right and wrong, of mercy, and of honour (which encapsulates all the others). When Gandalf falls in Moria, Aragorn is the one who takes over leadership of the Fellowship, not because he has the desire to lead, but because it is necessary (2:V:11). Entering the Paths of the Dead, Aragorn shows both his courage and his sense of duty (5:II:10). When Éomer shares his confusion about the times in which they live, Aragorn expresses beautifully his sense of right and wrong:
“ ‘How shall a man judge what to do in such times?’ … ‘As he ever has judged… Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.’” (3:II:18–19)
On the last desperate march to the Black Gate, Aragorn reveals the mercy that comes from knowing his own doubts, in dealing with those too frightened to continue (5:X:4). Throughout the book, we often see the frost of Aragorn’s doubts. For example, after the death of Boromir, Aragorn cries out:
“Now the Company is all in ruin. It is I that have failed. Vain was Gandalf’s trust in me. What shall I do now?” (3:I:2)
But he resolves this doubt by relying on his sense of honour, and his knowledge that what is right has priority over what is smartest, and he chooses to follow Merry and Pippin, who need him most, even though they are seemingly completely unimportant in the greater scheme of things:
“My heart speaks clearly at last… we that remain cannot forsake our companions while we have strength left. Come! We will go now. Leave all that can be spared behind!” (3:I:7)
This is far from being the only time that Aragorn expresses doubt. But as Aragorn grows, and learns to deal with situations by making the most honourable choice (even if it is the most difficult), his doubts ease:
“ ‘I am Aragorn son of Arathorn… the heir of Isildur Elendil’s son of Gondor…’ Gimli and Legolas looked at their companion in amazement… He seemed to have grown in stature… and in his living face they caught a brief vision of the power and majesty of the kings of stone.” (3:II:14)
And indeed, Aragorn reaches Gondor at last, and is crowned in triumph; but it is the path of unselfish service, beginning with his time as a Ranger, and continuing with his role in the Fellowship of the Ring, and the defence of Rohan, that makes him the King that Gondor needs.
So there they are: four of my favourite characters — two humans, and two nonhumans; two men, and two women; but characters that we can all relate to in various ways. All of them show courage, honesty, and love, in spite of the difficult times in which they live. All of them make important contributions to the defeat of Sauron and the destruction of the One Ring. And all of them act as examples for us, as we strive to deal with our various problems. For those who would like to explore these and other themes in The Lord of the Rings in more detail, I would recommend Following Gandalf, by Matthew Dickerson (Brazos Press, 2003).