Overt and Covert Agendas

Gimli and Legolas (Photo credit: Dunechaser)

The Rivendell scene is all about motivation.  Each of the fellowship members has his own reasons for volunteering for the quest, and these reasons reveal character.  In each case there is an obvious motivation and one or more underlying purpose, even for those who seem much less important than Frodo and Aragorn, the obviously heroic individuals in the group.  I find that I'm suddenly interested in Legolas and Gimli.  Legolas signs on in order to support Aragorn (he defends Aragorn from Boromir's verbal attack, and it's clear from Aragorn's reaction that the two of them are friends), as well as to carry out the mission of destroying the ring (hey, top-elf Elrond says it has to be done, so it's reasonable to assign that motive to the only elf who volunteers).  But then there's Gimli.  He's so loudly against the participation of any elf that he makes himself a bit ridiculous ("NEVER TRUST AN ELF!!!), yet his stated fear of the elves taking control of the ring is itself ridiculous, since they already have it -- Frodo having turned it over to Elrond by setting it on the stone table.

And, Gimli is obviously in agreement that the ring must be destroyed-- it could be because of the possibility of the elves getting hold of it, but he seems to accept that it has to be done for whatever reason, so he hops right up and tries to smash it with his battleaxe, which shatters on impact, leaving the ring undamaged, unlike Gimli himself, who seems to have been injured in the attempt.  The most likely reason he joins the quest then, based on that evidence, is simply to destroy the ring, but he uses his anti-elf prejudice as a justification.  This is ironic, since he has only the word of Elrond, the elf, that it must be done.  Which leads me to wonder, what about Elrond?  What are his expectations or hopes for this council?  His behavior is sort of alien, in the non-human sense, or maybe it's just that he is a kind of king among elves and tries to stay above the rest of them.  This idea is probably not going to find its way into my paper, but it's interesting anyway.

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The Essential Scenes in Fellowship of the Ring

Elrond (Photo credit: Dunechaser)

The two scenes I am using for my analysis (so far, that is) are the call to action (the council of Elrond) and Boromir's final test.  I may have to go into his final battle as well; in fact, I think I'll probably have to do that.  At any rate, I'm working on each one separately, which is proving to be the best way:  working on the Rivendell scene, I'm getting ideas for the later scene where Boromir succumbs to the ring and "attacks" Frodo. 

As the scene progresses, each of the heroes reveals his agenda for the quest, and it seems as though the different outcomes are inevitable from that point on, particularly for Frodo, Boromir, and Aragorn.  Since I'm looking at the film as having its own . . . completeness (I can't think what else to call it), the quest of the fellowship as a group ends when the film does, at least for my purposes.  Why this matters is something I will save for my next posting.

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New Ideas for the Research Project

Bilbo writing There and Back Again in Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring; note subtitle "A Hobbit's Tale" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yes, I know I've fallen behind, so you can expect to see several entries in the near future.  I've been working on my literature review, mainly focussing on hero archetypes, and I think I've reached the point where it's not going to get any better.  Therefore, I'm moving on to the research paper itself, and I just got some more ideas by watching The Hobbit:  An Unexpected Journey yesterday.  There's an interesting contrast between its overall story and that of The Fellowship of the Ring when it comes to the makeup of the band of questers in each.  The guys in The Hobbit are NOT all heroes, unlike the fellowship members.

Once I noticed that, I started having some self-discussion (am I inventing that term?) about what the difference means, which led me to some other thoughts about what exactly makes the FOTR guys heroes that The Hobbit's characters lack.  And I'll talk about that next time.

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