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butterflySpoilers through Return of the King in the cut-tags.
Now, I haven't ever finished the books (and I probably won't try again, as I don't particularly like wanting to stab my eyes out with a bookmark so that I can avoid another line of boring yet annoying prose), but as I understand it, Arwen gives Frodo her grace there as well, though it happens much later, after the quest is completed.
What is Arwen's grace? Is it her immortality? Her right to travel home to Valinor? Do they establish this? I'd love to know.
In Fellowship, Arwen asks that whatever grace that is given to her be passed onto Frodo. Yet that is not the end of her chance to cross the sea - that moment doesn't happen until Return - "there is now no ship that can bear me hence". We also learn in Return that Arwen is weakening as Sauron grows stronger - but we do not know that she is the only one. In Fellowship, Galadriel says that she will diminish and go into the West. The time of the elves is over - is that in part because their souls cannot take the evil of Sauron this time around? Or is it merely a coincidence that the Elves leave as the evil reawakens?
I didn't question the idea that Arwen had become connected to the fate of the Ring because it made sense to me in the context of the movieverse. Arwen gave a piece of herself to Frodo in Fellowship, became bound to him, and thus the Ring, as by then the Ring was already physically affecting Frodo. Because the Ring is the very lifeforce of Sauron - the reason that that evil lived instead of perishing, it makes sense that the stronger he got, the stronger the Ring got and as it affected Frodo, it made sense to me that it would affect Arwen as well.
Also, I'm guessing that Elrond was pulling every card he had to convince Aragorn to take the mountain road. He's a father and he's finally embracing his daughter's decision - so he wants the choice that will make Aragorn alive and victorious.
Billy Boyd has the most beautiful voice.
I love that they had Sam hesitate before giving the Ring back to Frodo. And I bet he was worried, thinking about how the Ring was affecting Frodo, worried about whether Frodo could handle it - because that's just how the Ring would try to reach him. Oh, I know in the book, he laughs it off (as does Galadriel), but the movieverse Ring seems both more insistent and... smarter, if that makes sense (and it did deserve a slow death scene - it's one of the main characters).
This Ring would know better than to offer Samwise Gamgee the world - it would offer him a chance to aid his Mr. Frodo, to do for him, as he's done for Frodo for years. He's not strong enough, the voices would whisper. Your master is too precious and fragile to continue to carry this burden. You should share it - you should carry it. You could be the bearer of the Ring.
But Sam is smart enough to realise that the Ring isn't his burden - that it wasn't given to him and that he can't be the one to carry it. Someone, after all, has to think of practicalities - like finding clothes and ducking the Eye. And you can't think on such things while trapped in the slow honey-death of the Ring.
I'm so glad that there was that moment where he almost didn't give it back. Anything else would have felt too easy.
Now, I haven't ever finished the books (and I probably won't try again, as I don't particularly like wanting to stab my eyes out with a bookmark so that I can avoid another line of boring yet annoying prose), but as I understand it, Arwen gives Frodo her grace there as well, though it happens much later, after the quest is completed.
What is Arwen's grace? Is it her immortality? Her right to travel home to Valinor? Do they establish this? I'd love to know.
In Fellowship, Arwen asks that whatever grace that is given to her be passed onto Frodo. Yet that is not the end of her chance to cross the sea - that moment doesn't happen until Return - "there is now no ship that can bear me hence". We also learn in Return that Arwen is weakening as Sauron grows stronger - but we do not know that she is the only one. In Fellowship, Galadriel says that she will diminish and go into the West. The time of the elves is over - is that in part because their souls cannot take the evil of Sauron this time around? Or is it merely a coincidence that the Elves leave as the evil reawakens?
I didn't question the idea that Arwen had become connected to the fate of the Ring because it made sense to me in the context of the movieverse. Arwen gave a piece of herself to Frodo in Fellowship, became bound to him, and thus the Ring, as by then the Ring was already physically affecting Frodo. Because the Ring is the very lifeforce of Sauron - the reason that that evil lived instead of perishing, it makes sense that the stronger he got, the stronger the Ring got and as it affected Frodo, it made sense to me that it would affect Arwen as well.
Also, I'm guessing that Elrond was pulling every card he had to convince Aragorn to take the mountain road. He's a father and he's finally embracing his daughter's decision - so he wants the choice that will make Aragorn alive and victorious.
Billy Boyd has the most beautiful voice.
I love that they had Sam hesitate before giving the Ring back to Frodo. And I bet he was worried, thinking about how the Ring was affecting Frodo, worried about whether Frodo could handle it - because that's just how the Ring would try to reach him. Oh, I know in the book, he laughs it off (as does Galadriel), but the movieverse Ring seems both more insistent and... smarter, if that makes sense (and it did deserve a slow death scene - it's one of the main characters).
This Ring would know better than to offer Samwise Gamgee the world - it would offer him a chance to aid his Mr. Frodo, to do for him, as he's done for Frodo for years. He's not strong enough, the voices would whisper. Your master is too precious and fragile to continue to carry this burden. You should share it - you should carry it. You could be the bearer of the Ring.
But Sam is smart enough to realise that the Ring isn't his burden - that it wasn't given to him and that he can't be the one to carry it. Someone, after all, has to think of practicalities - like finding clothes and ducking the Eye. And you can't think on such things while trapped in the slow honey-death of the Ring.
I'm so glad that there was that moment where he almost didn't give it back. Anything else would have felt too easy.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-23 07:13 am (UTC)Frodo and Bilbo are afforded the right to take the ships because they carried the ring.
The time of the elves is over - is that in part because their souls cannot take the evil of Sauron this time around? Or is it merely a coincidence that the Elves leave as the evil reawakens?
This is far more connected to the stories in the Silmarillion. The elves have been slowly leaving Middle Earth for long years. This is just the final trickle. Essentially, the elves represent ages past, and magic in the world, and the udon't really feel a place in a world where men are ascendant.
Indeed, the elves would have left for good a long time ago, but Galadriel and Elrond hold on until Sauron is defeated and the torch is fully passed.
I'm guessing that Elrond was pulling every card he had to convince Aragorn to take the mountain road. He's a father and he's finally embracing his daughter's decision - so he wants the choice that will make Aragorn alive and victorious.
Herein is another case where the movie underwhelms the actual story. Elrond himself has spent thousands of years opposing Sauron. He doesn't need some additional motivation to help Aragorn.
More of a point, he is the closest thing to a father Aragorn has anyway. (Aragorn's father having died when he was a child)
As he has been a foster father for many of Isildur's line.
The bigger story, is that Aragorn, having asked for Arwen's hand, has no heir. The best case is that they'll overthrow Sauron and Elrond will leave Middle Earth and his daughter, and Isildur's line behind (as he lost his brother thousands of years ago to the choice to be mortal). Even the best outcome is tinged with sadness.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-28 09:17 pm (UTC)Does that mean that Gollum could have gone West? Sorry, right. In a bit of a silly mood.
I liked having Arwen actually in the thing before she marries Aragorn. I mean, if she just showed up at the end, having only been a Random Background Elf, I would have gone "Huh?" - this is why I'm also glad they introduced Rosie in Fellowship.
The whole elf thing - do they explain why the elves leave or is it just because they're tired of hanging out with the mortals?
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-28 09:59 pm (UTC)Good points. I just felt underwhelmed by how much of Arwen's part was shown in RotK, and I sort of hope there will be additional EE scenes that help me make more sense of it.
The whole elf thing - do they explain why the elves leave or is it just because they're tired of hanging out with the mortals?
In many ways, that's a much bigger problem for the men, as they don't handle natural death very well when they begin to encounter the eternally young Elves.
It's sort of a "divine" plan thing regarding the different natures and destinies of Elves and Men that underlies the Silmarillion. Basically, the elves awoke long before men, and were invited to leave Middle Earth and go west to Valinor - something of an Eden-like paradise. Which happens to be a place Mortals aren't allowed - passage of time being a major issue. The destinies of men lie "beyond the circle of the world" - IE that mysterious great beyond of the afterlife. Tolkien's Elves don't have an afterlife.
This is where all that "sea-longing" stuff comes from. Elves like Legolas, who never made the journey west, hearing the call and going to their destined home. Or in the rarer case of Galadriel, returning at last. That Frodo, Sam, and later Gimli are granted passage to Valinor constitues a major boon.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-28 10:07 pm (UTC)So will Valinor just exist forever? Will Frodo, Sam, and Gimli die there, as they're mortal?
And what's the deal with the light shining out of Frodo?
Will you get tired of all my questions and tell me to buckle down and make myself read the damn books already?
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-28 10:32 pm (UTC)Won't really get tired about it. I have those pretentious college papers on Tolkien, so I love to talk about it. Though I'll pimp the books anyway (particularly the Silmarillion and the posthumous volumes) because I think they're an excellent insight into worldbuilding and mythic construction.
So the mortals are resenting the elves for not getting wrinkly? I can see that. So will Valinor just exist forever? Will Frodo, Sam, and Gimli die there, as they're mortal?
Valinor is essentially an undying land, and many of the elves are tens of thousands of years old come the War of the Ring. One presumes that Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, and Gimli would have had to be granted immortality (and eternal youth) if they were allowed in.
The specific deal with Valinor is that Middle Earth began as a flat world, until a group of mortals, corrupted by their fear of death and goaded by Sauron, attempted to invade Valinor thinking it would bring them immortality. (It wouldn't have. Mortality is the "Gift of Men".)
In short, the flat world was broken and remade as a globe, and Valinor removed from the circle of the world. Only the designated Elvish ships can now take the "straight road" (as opposed to following the curve of the Horizon) to Valinor.
As per the light shining out of Frodo. I presume you are referring to the Philter that Galadriel gave him, which he takes out in Shelob's lair. Essentially, it's magic drawn fromt the stars.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-29 10:49 am (UTC)That idea makes me happier. Because it would all be too sad if they went to the Undying lands and then died anyway.
And I'm guessing this stuff is covered in the Silmarillion? It does sound pretty interesting. And I do hate only knowing material second-hand, no matter how I trust my source.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-29 10:24 pm (UTC)Understandable. The Silmarillion comes in sections - creation myth, pre-history, and then various tales. If you've ever read the Eddas or Kalevala, Tolkien's trying to do something similar. The more you'd want to delve into Tolkien - it's in there.
The other thing you might really enjoy is Tolkien's famous lecture "On Fairy Stories" (http://larsen-family.us/~1066/onfairystories.html), a defense of fantasy literature.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-01 06:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-09 09:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-09 01:35 pm (UTC)Well, at the very least, they should get to stay young and healthy until they die. Oh! And since the elves are all magic and in a magic land, they can darn well use their magic to prolong the mortal's lives.
(realizes that the world isn't really that fair. has decided not to care in this case because... Frodo)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-23 07:24 am (UTC)Her right to travel home to Valinor, I think. That's how I took it when I read the book, at least. There's that scene where Frodo finds Arwen and Galadriel in a garden or something, and Arwen gives him a necklace (I think? I need to reread the books), and later Frodo fingers the necklace and thinks about going over the Sea. So. Yeah. Think that's it.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-28 09:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-29 04:19 am (UTC)*beat*
"Dude."
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-29 10:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-23 07:32 am (UTC)But the Queen Arwen said: 'A gift I will give you. For I am the daugher of Elrond. I shal not go with him now when he departs to the Havens; for mine is the choice of Luthien, and as she so have I chosen, both the sweet and the bitter. But in my stead you shall go, Ring-bearer, when the time comes, and if yout hen desire it. If your hurts grieve you still and the memory of your burden is heavy, then you may pass into the West, until all your wounds and weariness are healed. But wear this now in memory of Elfstone and Evenstar with whom your life has been woven!'
And then she took a white gem like a star that lay upon her breast hanging upon a silver chain, and she set the chain about Frodo's neck. 'When the memory of the fear and the darkness troubles you,' she said, 'this will bring you aid.'
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-28 09:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-24 02:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-28 09:12 pm (UTC)And yeah, I liked the Aragorn/Arwen thing from the first time I saw them together in Fellowship, but I imagine that if I hadn't, that kiss might have been a converter. And then there's the second kiss, which is softer and so loving. And then she just smiles and laughs and it's so beautiful. And I love her moment of uncertainty before the kiss.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-29 05:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-29 10:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-28 08:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-12-28 09:19 pm (UTC)Arwen's grace; elves diminishing
Date: 2004-01-08 02:14 pm (UTC)Tolkien was Catholic, converted in his youth when his mother converted, and while he would have abhorred putting Christianity directly into these books (if they relate to real history, it's to a pre-Christian world) there are a few images and feelings which do translate in. Galadriel gives Frodo the light of the star, Earendil. The whole history of Earendil is in the Silmarillion, but for my purpose now it's enough that he was a mariner who rescued a jewel from Sauron's predecessor, Morgoth, and ends up as the morning star. But the very story of Earendil is suggested by a text Tolkien knew well from his study of ancient languages--an Old English poem about Earendel, a mariner who brought news of Christ to his land.
So... back to Arwen. Her "grace" isn't exactly a ticket on the ship, but it might be close. I've been thinking of it that the grace is the gift of closeness to Valinor (the Paradise of this created world, with its resident pantheon of demigods or angelic beings), closeness to God. If Hell is separation from God, then grace is closeness to God, and here the closeness is real in a geographic sense. Something like that. This is clearly not a well-formed thought in my head, it's just sort of spilling out.
As for the elves diminishing--it's man's time, there's a feeling of predestination about that. That's because Tolkien was trying to write a mythic prehistory of heroic times, that then had to lead into the history of "ordinary" men. But within the mythos, the reason for this is the rings. Sauron created his one ring to control all the others. The elvish rings could not be used after the One Ring was created, or all their works would be tainted... until it was lost. Then they were free to use them. Lothlorien and Rivendell were sustained in part by the power of two of the elven rings. They were still tied to the one ring, though, and the destruction of the One would destroy the power of all the rest as well.
So Galadriel is fiercely ambivalent about Frodo's quest. It *has* to succeed, and yet she'd much rather the ring had remained hidden, because once it surfaced it represented the end of all she'd created, all her power in Middle-Earth.
(The three rings have different powers, and the only one we know for sure is Gandalf's; he carries the ring of fire, which has the power to kindle hearts, and it helps him as he encourages the last great alliance to form.)
Man, I love all the backstory created myths just as much as the novel.
Re: Arwen's grace; elves diminishing
Date: 2004-01-08 05:18 pm (UTC)That is interesting, and you do get a bit of the sense of that in the movie. Fascinating stuff.
Also, and this is something I learned listening to the dvds - the transformation of Galadriel is based on the assumption that her ring is one of water. Hence the colors and such.
Re: Arwen's grace; elves diminishing
Date: 2004-01-09 09:52 am (UTC)Re: Arwen's grace; elves diminishing
Date: 2004-01-09 01:36 pm (UTC)Thanks.