From: gh@sei.cmu.edu (Gaurang Hirpara)
Subject: Re: Tolkien's characters
Organization: The Software Engineering Institute
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 12:38:43 GMT


In article <1992Aug6.191452.7601@athena.cs.uga.edu>, fuller@athena.cs.uga.edu (James P. H. Fuller) writes:
|> 
|> yarvin@highlite.uucp (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
|> 
|> > I'm puzzled most by your defense of Tolkien; he has his merits, but few
|> > would place characterization among them.  Tolkien's characters have few
|> > human drives; where he actually tries to humanize them (the hobbits,
|> > Boromir), the result is plastic and unreal, or simply unconvincing. 
|> >
|> > ...
|> >
|> > need more.  It's not enough for Tolkien to tell me that Aragorn loves
|> > Arwen; I have to know _why_ Aragorn loves Arwen, and more important
|> > I have to _feel_ why Aragorn loves Arwen, I have to be able to sense
|> > what kind of person Aragorn is, or (for me) the characterization is
|> > completely failed no matter how hard Tolkien tries.
|> 
|>      Aragorn has genuine good and human qualities and a functioning con-
|> science as well as merely a firebreathing super-ego that never lets up, and
|> he is depicted so often as being on the good-guy team that most readers un-
|> critically accept him as a good guy, one worthy of admiration and indeed
|> adulation.  But I think he is *considerably* more flawed than is generally
|> noticed, in the sense that his courage is entirely dependent on a knowledge
|> of extraordinarily great personal strength.  When this is taken from him (in
|> the fragment of his story that gets tucked away in the Appendix) -- or rather,
|> when he merely *suspects* that it will be taken from him and that he will
|> have to endure a time of weakness and debility, he folds as badly as Denethor
|> did and croaks.

	Hmmmm. Well, well, an assessment of Tolkien from a seemingly
	contemporary political angle. I dunno, the argument sounds rather
	ridiculous to me, but that's just my opinion. 

	In any case, I simply can't see where you get the information
	for most of your references? Firebreathing super ego? He has a
	sense of duty sure, but that's been pounded into him from the 
	life he's been forced to lead. By the time we are introduced 
	to Aragorn, he's lived almost a century (someone check this),
	and he seems almost weary of the whole business. 

	He's spent half his life in effective exile from the woman he
	loves. He knows some monumental things have to happen before he can 
	win her, most of which are beyond his control. And pray tell, what
	is wrong with courage derived from a belief in his own personal
	strength? Not to suggest that's the only place his courage comes
	from. He knows his own weaknesses and limitations, we see him
	express that himself (the doubt after the fall of gandalf for one). 
	When he takes the Paths of the Dead, he'd rather not, he's unsure
	if he will survive the trip, but he does it anyway. Not out of 
	some vague confidence in his personal strength, but this time 
	because he knows that if doesn't Gondor will more than likely fall. 

	As to his giving up of his life, I think you've completely missed
	the boat on this. The entire reason that the Dunedain are in exile
	was because their Numenorean forefathers had become vain and 
	clung to life beyond all joy, and this led them to develop 
	obsessions with avoiding death. The Fall of Numenor can be 
	attributed in part of the greed of the folk, both in material
	terms and the greed for immortality.
	
	Aragorn is the last of the Numenorians, and in giving back the 
	gift of life, he rejects utterly the ideals put forth by the 
	Black Numenorians. He does not "fold as badly as Denehthor", as 
	you put it. Denethor sought to take his own life before his time 
	(and that of his son as well). These practices were also common	
	among the Black Numenorians (the slaying of kin to ease one's
	own death). 

	Some feel that he deserted Arwen in doing this. Keep in mind
	several things. Arwen knew exactly what to expect. The mortality
	tasted bitter when she finally accepted it, but she knew the
	day would come. Aragorn knew this as well, and in his final 
	speech he tries to comfort her as best he can. Ask the same 
	question he did, How long would you want the two to live? 
	Tolkien constantly makes reference to the issue of losing and 
	gaining some intangible "life force" (he doesn't call it that
	but the term will suffice). Aragorn has lived all his days to	
	the fullest, and to live any more would only bring him 
	suffering. Arwen has lost all that she had gained from her 
	years on the earth. If she lives any more, she will gain 
	nothing more, and stand to lose as well. In the sense that these
	two, like the story itself, are part of a grander mythos, 
	their deaths come when all they have finished living. For that 
	is the fate of Men in this world. They are not bound to it,
	and after death (which is GIFT of Eru to Men) they leave the 	
	world forever, to some fate that none of the world's inhabitants
	know. 
	

	

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