sistermagpie | Movie Frodo--he just can't get a break.

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Movie Frodo--he just can't get a break.

I was having an annoying conversation today on TORC about Movie!Frodo. It really amazes me how casually judgmental and cold-hearted people can be. And yes, I know he's a fictional character, but the points being made are about wider principles in general.

I can understand people preferring Book Frodo (I prefer him myself). This isn't about people preferring Tolkien's original story to what PJ&Co. did with the characters. But here's the thing, I did this detailed post a while ago where I went through what I saw the movie doing with the F/S/G storyline, but on a basic level it seems like PJ&Co. looked at the three basic characters in canon, looked at their situation and thought, "How can we mine this for personal conflict--aka drama."

That's what dramatic writing is about. We don't have a narrator, we just have these actors inhabiting these roles. We get information based on how the characters interact with each other. This is pretty much the way we understand life as well. So it just drives me crazy when people talk about the LOTR movies adding character arcs as making the characters "self-centered" or less noble or whatever they're calling it. This conversation that annoyed me was about Frodo and pity--apparently Movie Frodo is self-centered and his sparing of Gollum is based solely on some selfish need to prove to himself that he can be saved from his "addiction problem." This proves that PJ feels that altruistic heroes are boring, so he's replaced them with self-centered ones.

Just to review, Movie!Frodo willingly sacrifices everything for a Quest he can't enjoy the benefits of--he saves the Shire, but not for himself. And he's fine with that. But apparently this doesn't make him altruistic in some peoples' eyes, because he showed signs that he would have preferred to not do that. He's selfish creature to hope he might be able to return to the Shire after the Quest, desperately enough to project it onto Gollum for a time and even take steps to make himself believe it.

That's what gets me about it, that it's so damn judgmental and cold-hearted. If someone looks at this fictional character and sees someone self-centered I think that says a lot about what they think altruism is about. Frankly, it makes me wonder if I'm talking to one of those annoying people who pretends they never think of themselves while crushing everyone them with their huge ego. We were discussing pity in the thread, some people felt was destroyed in the movie by Frodo's feeling connected to Gollum (you can't feel pity if you don't see the other person as "The Other.") I said I agreed with Tolkien that, "...pity is of two kinds: one is of kinship recognized, and is near to love; the other is in difference perceived and is near to pride." Another person claimed to agree with this, but then, imo, supported exactly the opposite by saying: "Pity is not the feeling of kinship one experiences upon encountering an old work colleague who has been unemployed for years, and divorced or maybe even homeless as a result. Pity is finding some point of kinship with Osama bin Laden, in the moment he is preparing to shoot another video announcing mass American deaths, while casually ordering one of his wives beaten off camera. Pity, as you can see from this example, is not easy."
Here's my problems with that: first, I'm really getting annoyed with the 9/11 examples, period. It's like the anti-Nazi analogy or something. Second, I think the Osama example is exactly the kind of prideful pity Tolkien described. When Movie Frodo spares Gollum's life Gollum's just tried to kill him (and what could make Gollum more "The Other" than that??). He, as the victim, is the only person who can forgive Gollum for what he's done. This other example sounds more like that kind of fake sympathy you get from people enamored of their own compassion. Me feeling pity for Osama bin Laden is practical (because it can make me more able to look at things objectively) but it doesn't necessarily say anything about my being a good person, since I've been relatively unscathed by his actions so far. It really costs me nothing to pity him while he beats some other woman or kills people other than me.

::sigh:: I just get really frustrated by this idea some people seem to have that Tolkien's characters all had only one motivation: to do what was right because it was right. And I realize this was what Tolkien wanted people to get from them. But reading the books I always thought the characters had personal motivations. I always thought Frodo was going through some serious internal conflict while he trudged along and probably thought a lot of the things Movie Frodo shows himself to think in the movies concerning Gollum and Sam. I thought all the hobbits had healthy egos and personal desires: Sam wanted to be needed and for everybody to know he was needed; Merry got a kick out of proving himself the Hobbit with a Plan in bigger and bigger situations; Pippin kind of suspected the sun didn't rise until he got up in the morning and thought it quite rude when it didn't and I suspect Frodo hoped it would be officially announced that he was surrounded by idiots. All of them wanted to be heroes, as most people do. But to hear some people talk every single one of them had the exact same motivation: to do what was right. That the moviemakers didn't use that just proves they were afraid to be daring and show real heroes because they think they're boring. Well, what was just described was boring! It makes all the hobbits exactly the same, and passive at that!

Jeez, it's weird how people are ashamed just by being human, like aspiring to be anything less than a good-deed-robot is a sign of corruption.

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I personally don't like the word pity because it has all these horrible personal connotations for me -- I prefer using mercy and sympathy even when pity is closer to the probable intent. But that's a personal thing. Quirk, I guess.

This is related to people disliking the idea that Aragorn might want to save Middle-Earth because Arwen is dying (which I really do relate to her giving up her immortality, which does mean she's dying and Elrond would totally think that that counted as imminent doom, since he still is immortal) instead of just because it needs saving. But I think it's good to have both impersonal and personal reasons. Yes, it's all well and good to say people should fight because It's The Right Thing To Do, but it's easier to do the right thing if it means protecting your honey Mary-Jo back home in Boston, you know?

Mixing the personal and the global isn't wrong -- it helps clarify the fight. It's good to see both forest and trees.

In other words? Yep. Totally agree with you.

This is related to people disliking the idea that Aragorn might want to save Middle-Earth because Arwen is dying (which I really do relate to her giving up her immortality, which does mean she's dying and Elrond would totally think that that counted as imminent doom, since he still is immortal) instead of just because it needs saving. But I think it's good to have both impersonal and personal reasons.

This attitude, IMHO, springs from the general fannish dislike of Arwen, as well as the idea that having some personal goals would somehow make Aragorn less heroic. A hero, by popular notions, has to be perfect and above ordinary desires like the desire to protect his girl. Thus in fanfiction we get the PerfectlyHeroic!Aragorn who couldn't care less if Arwen lives or dies.

Swatkat

Yes! I have been so amazed at this attitude since the movies came out, this thing of assuming that if somebody isn't perfect and has personal needs he's less heroic. Like it's less heroic to actually have something to struggle against.

This attitude is everywhere. Personally, I like my heroes flawed, thankyouverymuch - but the general opinion seems to be "Oh he's so perfect" and how can he do anything less than perfect, never mind that he's often been shown as less than perfect in canon.

Swatkat

Exactly. Think of any character that lives on the imagination and they've got to be flawed. Yet people get offended when you even suggest their favorite character is human, much less flawed.

I have exactly the same associations with pity. Tolkien apparently split it into two kinds, and the one he didn't like is the only one I really think of it as meaning. It's a way of looking down on somebody and can be anything but nice!

Mixing the personal with the global--seems the healthy person's way to go, to me!

So true. Altruism does not equal lack of self-interest. If that were the case, there would be no altruism, because there is no one who has no self-interest. So the argument is that the movie shows "human" characters while the book does not? Bunk. Even in instances where Movie Frodo did seem to act in his own interest, it was not, in the long run, for him but for the world. I mean, despite the evidence that Gollum was duplicitous, Frodo knew he needed a guide to Mordor. Why, so he could save himself? No, so he could destroy the damn Ring and save everyone.

But TORc is like that - the book is above reproach and the movie is a bastardization. Those types will always find a reason.

Yeah, it's weird how threatening it is for the idea to even present an idea that's interesting if it wasn't in canon. It always has to be some lesser thing, even when objectively it's not. It's like the whole question of Aragorn not wanting to claim the throne--it's fine if you prefer Aragorn strutting around with his broken phallic symbol to the guy in the movie, but to suggest there's something less noble about a guy saying, "But why should I be king?" is a little strange.

Hmm. I'll say it again: you get into some strange conversations about LOTR.

I think the only reason I might see book Frodo as more heroic than movie Frodo is because in the book, he knows more what he's giving up. In the movie he is definitly choosing to do self-sacrificing things, but it's also happening very quickly and he's being swept along. Things are slower in the book and he has more time to reflect on how dangerous it is and how much he is giving up. I think his changed age is also related to this.

But other than things like that, I don't understand the points the other person was trying to make. The Osama quote didn't even make sense to me, though I figured it out from your comments. I like Tolkien's quote on the two kinds of pity (though I'm partial to calling them "pity" and "compassion" and separating them like that, which I drew from Milan Kundera and has some etymological reasons behind it, except not in English). I think Frodo's pity for Gollum was a combination of the two. Sometimes it was only the disdainful pity, but that was enough as it kept him from killing Gollum. And sometimes it was the more compassionate sort of pity, where he really understood what Gollum was going through. There was a mix. And it might have ended up being less interesting in the movie, but as you said it's what can be shown when you don't have narration.

On a related note, I reread the third book recently and I kind of miss the moment where Sam also feels pity for Gollum (certainly the disdainful kind, but still) and lets him go. This is when he gets to fight Gollum alone while Frodo runs ahead to the crack. He wins the fight and wants to kill Gollum once and for all, yet then he feels sorry for him and doesn't.

I suspect Frodo hoped it would be officially announced that he was surrounded by idiots.

That cracked me up. :)

I do find the weirdest conversations, don't I?

But yeah, I agree with you on all those points (and I do love Sam's fight with Gollum too--not to mention Frodo's going all Wheel of Fire on Gollum!). I like that Frodo can switch back and forth between the two kinds of pity (a word I don't really like either). My favorite moment where he uses it harshly is probably with Saruman, when Saruman tells him he's grown "wise and cruel." You go, Frodo!

I found myself thinking about the Osama quote today again too and wondering if I wasn't understanding it right. I may find out if she answers me I guess.:-)

Hmm I don't remember that exchange between Frodo and Saruman. Actually, when did those two ever interact?

Have you ever read The Unbearable Lightness of Being? That's where I got that bit about pity and compassion from Kundera. I'm drunk so I'm going to tell you all about it because it seems like a good idea right now. Hope it makes sense.

he was speaking of differnt languages. In Czech (which is what he writes in) the word compassion is derived form a prefix similar to co- which means "with" and a root that means "feeling." So it means co-feeling. To feel with another, to experience what they do. Whereas languages that derive from latin have co- (with) and passio, meaning "suffering." To suffer with another. Meaning we can't look coldly upon the suffering of others. We are not unmoved. But that is a much more distant feeling, and has entirely to do with suffering. This is the one that is like pity. In the first, one feels with the other. Their pain and their pleasure and what it is like to be them. So I've always separated the two in my head like that, into pity and compassion (even though etymologically it doesn't work in English. Don't care).

wow I am quite druink

Hmm I don't remember that exchange between Frodo and Saruman. Actually, when did those two ever interact?

Just at the very end after the Scouring, when Saruman is Sharky.

Heh--you should post drunk more often. That was actually really cool about the Czech meaning of the words!

Just at the very end after the Scouring, when Saruman is Sharky.

Ah right. Though I'm not sure we can really take Saruman's comments at that time at face value--he comments on how Frodo has changed but that's also from the perspective of his own very changed position. Frodo had changed quite a lot. But I'm not sure if kicking Saruman's ass really constitutes being wise and cruel. Pre-quest Frodo might have done that, too. Anyone might do that.

I don't think Frodo was expressing pity at that point. What he did was offer mercy, in hope of redemption. By doing so he claims a position of great moral power. He claims the right of judgement, which he chooses not to exercise.

Wise, and cruel, to show that one once accounted great is is now so far beneath him that nothing Saruman could do, even attempt his murder, could bring him back down to Saruman's moral level. He forgave Saruman his attempt. Forgiveness is for oneself, as much as the other; it is to cease to allow that person to have a hold over you. Cruel, to show Saruman how utterly powerless he was.

As an aside, I still can't wrap my mind around that thread commentator you quoted, about Bin Laden. They are not speaking of pity, even in the negative, shadenfreude way that Tolkien was writing about. Do they mean attempting to gain understanding? Or empathy?

Leshii

Yes, that's what I thought Saruman meant with his words. It's cruel because in showing him mercy I think it has a lot of the connotations we associate with pity, like Frodo is looking down at him from far above.

As an aside, I still can't wrap my mind around that thread commentator you quoted, about Bin Laden. They are not speaking of pity, even in the negative, shadenfreude way that Tolkien was writing about. Do they mean attempting to gain understanding? Or empathy?

Honestly, I'm not sure. Since there were a lot of 9/11 references I got the impression that she assumed bin Laden was everyone's idea of the most evil a person could be, and so the sign of being a good person would be if you could feel sorry for him (perhaps? In that "I'm praying for you because Jesus loves you kind of way?") even while he was making a video or ordering someone beaten. But this situation didn't really seem to demonstrate anything to me.

Nothing to say about the actual post on LOTR, as I haven't read the books or seen the movies with lackluster, reluctant plans to do so--*ducks*--but I just noticed the poem in your userinfo and had to comment. Beautiful.

(Wouldja please stop throwing tomatoes? *ducks* ;) )

*splat*

Isn't it great?

*splat*

Shusu gave me a link to a site where I found it. I loved it!

*lobs one more tomato*

[i]Tolkien's characters all had only one motivation: to do what was right because it was right. And I realize this was what Tolkien wanted people to get from them. But reading the books I always thought the characters had personal motivations. I always thought Frodo was going through some serious internal conflict...[/i]

But this is *all* true. JRRT's characters did what was right because it was right, but they did so because they chose, and chose again and again to do so, in face of all apparent good reason for safety, for pride, for whatever, to do otherwise.

A good-deed-robot is exactly that; with no choice, there is no morality. And no responsibility. And no heroism, to reach for what is right, knowing it to be unobtainable.

To choose to be a good-deed-robot, to decide to let someone else define what is "good", to let someone else program your actions, to let someone else take the responsibility for your own actions, that is corruption.

Leshii

To choose to be a good-deed-robot, to decide to let someone else define what is "good", to let someone else program your actions, to let someone else take the responsibility for your own actions, that is corruption.

Yes! And this is what confuses me so much, because it's not like in the movies the characters ever make a different choice. Frodo still takes the ring, Sam still goes with Frodo, Boromir still tries to take the ring and repents, Merry and Pippin still pledge alliegance to Rohan and Gondor, Faramir still lets the ring go, the Ents still go to war. The problems people have don't ahve to do with the characters making different choices, but with the suggestion that they could have ever done something different. To me that would rob the story of all meaning, if their choices were easy. What's the point of aspiring to be someone who never has to struggle to do the right thing? Aspiring to be someone who does the right thing is far more valuable.

I think that probably the reason that a lot of people have the problem with suggesting that it could ever have been otherwise is because the books are so ... mythic. They're not human characters, and they don't particularly act that way. I love the singing as much as any other fan, but let's face it ... Aragorn in the book, who is as likely to spot a mountain and burst into poetry as slay an orc, bears little resemblance to Aragorn in the movie. The suggestion is there; obviously if he's been roaming the countryside for the last 87 years or so when he's had plenty of opportunity to assume the throne points to some serious issues with wanting it in the first place. But that's underneath the surface, and it's a lot easier just to accept him as a mythic, perfect hero.

Fans and readers interpret things in a different way depending on what they're looking for. A lot of the point of reading Lord of the Rings is being utterly transported ... escapism at a very basic level. The characters aren't human (the hobbits are most human, and the most easily recognizeable characters to sympathize with, no matter how our sympathies lie in the movies) and so, when escaping to that realm, it's blasphemy for someone random to decide that Bursts Into Song!Aragorn has human qualities ... and faults. Me, I prefer the faults. Much more interesting that way.

Um...I know a lot of people who actually do burst into heroic or lyric song at the drop of the hat. It was very comforting to meet them, actually, because it always seemed a perfectly natural impulse to _me_. If you don't believe me, try hanging out with filkers or SCA bards. (Especially the incredibly multitalented Michael "Moonwulf" Longcor, who stalks around looking and acting as much like Aragorn as he can get away with. He really is good at sword-and-board, archery, black powder shooting, historical research, guitar, singing, songwriting, SCA leadership, and at least ten other things.)

The thing about the book characters is that they do have very human story arcs going. But Tolkien assumes you don't need to be told much about them, because you'll get all the hints. Relationship with Arwen? Hint. Friendship and collaboration with Bilbo? Hint. Sneaking around the entire known world, spying out the land and learning the players? Hint, hint, hint.

But why would you need it spelled out? You can almost hear Tolkien shaking his head. Of course Aragorn's a poet; he's a smart guy who was educated and raised among elves so of course he can improvise and translate verse in his sleep. (And really, improvising verse is incredibly easy if you are around folks who do it enough. It used to be a very popular game among educated pre-industrial societies.) Of course he wants the bloody throne; he loves his people and he doesn't want them to disappear into the mists of history and the gullets of trolls. He's longer-lived than most humans, so he can afford to take his time planning out his moves. The real conflict isn't "do I want the throne", but rather, "do I want to leave Rivendell and the North for Gondor?"

And that's where I have my problems with Jackson et al. I mind the hamhanded insertion of motivational badfic. Instead of presenting Tolkien's non-modern characters with non-modern psychologies driven by non-modern cultures and ideas, we get stock Hollywood characters dressed in Tolkien clothes. Borrrrrrrring.

Oh, well. No big deal. Another twenty, thirty years and somebody'll dramatize the books right.

Maureen

The thing about the book characters is that they do have very human story arcs going. But Tolkien assumes you don't need to be told much about them, because you'll get all the hints. Relationship with Arwen? Hint. Friendship and collaboration with Bilbo? Hint. Sneaking around the entire known world, spying out the land and learning the players? Hint, hint, hint.

Hint hint what? We're told certain things about Aragorn and the other characters and we're not given modern personal motivations and character development. The story of Aragorn and Arwen isn't cleverly given in hints, it's given in the appendix. I don't think Tolkien would have been shaking his head that we weren't getting the hints, I think he'd be shaking his head that we'd want these kinds of details about what was motivating the characters--an ability to translate poetry like other noblemen of one's time is not character development. If we want that, we have to project it ourselves, as I certainly like to do with the hobbits and I think you're doing by saying Aragorn's motivation is, "Do I want to leave Rivendell for Gondor?"

And that's where I have my problems with Jackson et al. I mind the hamhanded insertion of motivational badfic. Instead of presenting Tolkien's non-modern characters with non-modern psychologies driven by non-modern cultures and ideas, we get stock Hollywood characters dressed in Tolkien clothes. Borrrrrrrring.

Well, I had nowhere near these kinds of problems with the movie characters--in fact I always find it odd what other people's experience of stock Hollywood characters are because I can easily imagine the stock Hollywood versions of these characters and these Jackson's ain't it. They're different from Tolkien's more iconic characters, but they're not just stock Hollywood types either.

Luckily, there's always Bakshi.

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Movie Frodo--he just can't get a break.

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Bursting into song

Re: Bursting into song