So when you read the story do you see it...as Sam essentially being in love with Frodo romantically but unaware of it?
If I'm looking at it in terms of story only, not what the author means, but what is specifically written, then I think that Sam is in love with Frodo, but that it isn't a love he could ever act upon for a variety of reasons. In book canon, there is a huge class difference between Sam and Frodo. Sam is Frodo's servant. They aren't equals and will never be. In the book, Frodo is also considerably older than Sam, and far more educated than the movie Frodo seemed to be, so they weren't even of the same generation. Also, they lived in a very small world. People couldn't just take up with anyone they wanted or move on to another town if there was a scandal in their hometown. If Sam were to make a sexual play for Frodo and be rejected, he'd be disgraced and bring dishonour to his whole family. Sam is the most sensible person in that entire trilogy. I think he wanted Frodo, but that he was too conscious of convention to go for what he wanted and risk the consequences.
[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<would [...] him?</i>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]
Hi, again!
<i>So when you read the story do you see it...as Sam essentially being in love with Frodo romantically but unaware of it?</I>
If I'm looking at it in terms of story only, not what the author means, but what is specifically written, then I think that Sam is in love with Frodo, but that it isn't a love he could ever act upon for a variety of reasons. In book canon, there is a huge class difference between Sam and Frodo. Sam is Frodo's servant. They aren't equals and will never be. In the book, Frodo is also considerably older than Sam, and far more educated than the movie Frodo seemed to be, so they weren't even of the same generation. Also, they lived in a very small world. People couldn't just take up with anyone they wanted or move on to another town if there was a scandal in their hometown. If Sam were to make a sexual play for Frodo and be rejected, he'd be disgraced and bring dishonour to his whole family. Sam is the most sensible person in that entire trilogy. I think he wanted Frodo, but that he was too conscious of convention to go for what he wanted and risk the consequences.
<Would you say Tolkien had more understanding of this than Sam, or would he, too, probably not be able to say Sam literally wanted to have sex with him?</I>
Tolkein's intent always confuses me. When you look at the heterosexual relationships in LotR, they are pathetically unreal to non-existant. The entire Aragorn/Arwen relationship happened off screen, and was mostly explored through an appendix. The Faramir/Aowen relationship was portrayed in a very staid, courtly manner that felt terribly unreal. There was no emotion at all between the characters, just a sense that Aowen would settle for Faramir because she couldn't get Aragorn.
Then you get that scene with Sam in bed with Frodo, with all its heartfelt emotion. It was the only real romantic scene in the book. I couldn't believe what I was reading in that scene. You could have easily lifted it and put it in any slash story without changing a word.
<i>Do you think Tolkien was specifically using that language to say this *wasn't* just a friendship, but being more vague about just what it was, or was he hinting it was sexual?</I>
I'm not sure what he meant by it. The book was written in the 50s, so the words meant pretty much what they do now. He might have been writing LotR in an earlier style, but the audience he was writing for wasn't going to be interpreting the words the way readers would 200 years ago & he had to know that. While it's true that Tolkein was a devout Catholic, married with children; he was highly educated and raised in the British boarding schools, so he knew about same sex relationships. It's my feeling that Tolkein probably was portraying the type of relationship common to that time, the kind of romantic love that you see in <i>Brideshead Revisted</i>, where a young man falls passionately in love with another man in what is probably the strongest, most passionate connection of his life, but that they stop just short of having sex.
LotR: Sam & Frodo Part 1
Date: 2004-11-17 07:46 am (UTC)So when you read the story do you see it...as Sam essentially being in love with Frodo romantically but unaware of it?
If I'm looking at it in terms of story only, not what the author means, but what is specifically written, then I think that Sam is in love with Frodo, but that it isn't a love he could ever act upon for a variety of reasons. In book canon, there is a huge class difference between Sam and Frodo. Sam is Frodo's servant. They aren't equals and will never be. In the book, Frodo is also considerably older than Sam, and far more educated than the movie Frodo seemed to be, so they weren't even of the same generation. Also, they lived in a very small world. People couldn't just take up with anyone they wanted or move on to another town if there was a scandal in their hometown. If Sam were to make a sexual play for Frodo and be rejected, he'd be disgraced and bring dishonour to his whole family. Sam is the most sensible person in that entire trilogy. I think he wanted Frodo, but that he was too conscious of convention to go for what he wanted and risk the consequences.
<i>So when you read the story do you see it...as Sam essentially being in love with Frodo romantically but unaware of it?</I>
If I'm looking at it in terms of story only, not what the author means, but what is specifically written, then I think that Sam is in love with Frodo, but that it isn't a love he could ever act upon for a variety of reasons. In book canon, there is a huge class difference between Sam and Frodo. Sam is Frodo's servant. They aren't equals and will never be. In the book, Frodo is also considerably older than Sam, and far more educated than the movie Frodo seemed to be, so they weren't even of the same generation. Also, they lived in a very small world. People couldn't just take up with anyone they wanted or move on to another town if there was a scandal in their hometown. If Sam were to make a sexual play for Frodo and be rejected, he'd be disgraced and bring dishonour to his whole family. Sam is the most sensible person in that entire trilogy. I think he wanted Frodo, but that he was too conscious of convention to go for what he wanted and risk the consequences.
<Would you say Tolkien had more understanding of this than Sam, or would he, too, probably not be able to say Sam literally wanted to have sex with him?</I>
Tolkein's intent always confuses me. When you look at the heterosexual relationships in LotR, they are pathetically unreal to non-existant. The entire Aragorn/Arwen relationship happened off screen, and was mostly explored through an appendix. The Faramir/Aowen relationship was portrayed in a very staid, courtly manner that felt terribly unreal. There was no emotion at all between the characters, just a sense that Aowen would settle for Faramir because she couldn't get Aragorn.
Then you get that scene with Sam in bed with Frodo, with all its heartfelt emotion. It was the only real romantic scene in the book. I couldn't believe what I was reading in that scene. You could have easily lifted it and put it in any slash story without changing a word.
<i>Do you think Tolkien was specifically using that language to say this *wasn't* just a friendship, but being more vague about just what it was, or was he hinting it was sexual?</I>
I'm not sure what he meant by it. The book was written in the 50s, so the words meant pretty much what they do now. He might have been writing LotR in an earlier style, but the audience he was writing for wasn't going to be interpreting the words the way readers would 200 years ago & he had to know that. While it's true that Tolkein was a devout Catholic, married with children; he was highly educated and raised in the British boarding schools, so he knew about same sex relationships. It's my feeling that Tolkein probably was portraying the type of relationship common to that time, the kind of romantic love that you see in <i>Brideshead Revisted</i>, where a young man falls passionately in love with another man in what is probably the strongest, most passionate connection of his life, but that they stop just short of having sex.
To be continued