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.

Related articles

• The Lord of the Ring (pendepaz.wordpress.com)
• Could the eagles have flown Frodo into Mordor? (sean-crist.com)
• Lord of the Rings Movie Series- Pros and Cons (classicalconversationsgirl.wordpress.com)

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.

Related articles

• The Fellowship of the Ring Assembled (starrymantle.wordpress.com)
• Fellowship of the Ring: Boromir (starrymantle.wordpress.com)
• Man, Gandalf ... Wilder, With Urgency (wildermanonrollingcreek.wordpress.com)
• 3 Act Structure (Lord of the rings) (leenatdip.wordpress.com)
• Cerebral Madness in Middle Earth (sarcasticfox.wordpress.com)
• The Fellowship of the Ring (mayeshmagazine.wordpress.com)

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.

Related articles

• NVivo for Literature Reviews (pennwic.wordpress.com)
• 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' Joins The Billionaires Club (moviesblog.mtv.com)
• 10 things you might not know about 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' (digitaltrends.com)
• What Writers Can Learn From The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (kourtneyheintz.wordpress.com)
• First Impressions (teachingtolkien.com)
• The Hobbit Game Armies of the Third Age Launches (video) (geeky-gadgets.com)
• The Fellowship of the Ring Assembled (starrymantle.wordpress.com)

My Working Thesis Won't Work

Dwarves at the Council of Elrond in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, I've got a working thesis for my research project, but I don't think it will work in the long run, since it seems kind of obvious to me.   I need to come up with something that more people will disagree with.  For now, I'm going with "Each of the members of the Fellowship of the Ring is a hero in his own right and on his own hero's journey."  This doesn't really take the archetypes into consideration, and that's what I'm most interested in, which is why I'm not happy with it. 

Just now I thought, or remembered, that I'm confined to the first film (which I have sort of been ignoring), and I'm wondering if you can really tell from FOTR alone that each one is a hero.  I mean, it's obvious once the entire trilogy is over, but at the end of the first film, Frodo and Sam have gone off on their own, Boromir and Gandalf (supposedly) are dead and the rest are split, with Merry and Pippin captured by orcs and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli trailing them.

And, I just thought of something else that deserves its own post, so that's all for now.

Related articles

• Ten Years Later - The Cast of 'Lord of the Rings' (Part 1) (houseofgeekery.com)
• Government Department Offers New Research-Oriented Courses (thecrimson.com)
• Fellowship of the Ring: Meriadoc Brandybuck (starrymantle.wordpress.com)
• Startup Connects Students to Research Resources (thecrimson.com)
• Lego Lord of the Ring Video Game Coming To Mac (thelazygeeks.com)

Research Plan- Hero Archetypes

The Power of Interlibrary Loan (Photo credit: Newton Free Library)

I turned in my research proposal on Wednesday, and I think it was okay.  Now I'm supposed to be coming up with a research plan (through 3/27), and I need to get going, because the annotated working bibliography is due on 3/13.  What I've done so far is kind of random:  searching the web for usable (i.e. scholarly) sites, a stab at finding journal articles, and a quick book search.  Even though The Fellowship of the Ring is not a superhero story, I thought that I had found a good book for the project in Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal, by Jeffrey J. Kripal, because of the way it was described, so I ordered it on interlibrary loan, but it's not very helpful as far as I can see (it's interesting, though, and I had to keep myself from just reading it anyway).  I'm going to get more organized, starting now. 
Here's my plan:
Week 4 (this week):  Search for book reviews in Academic Search Premier (Dr. Toffee showed us in class that you can click on book review in the document type menu and it'll sort them out for you).  I'll have to skim the reviews for now, and then I'll get at least three of the books from the library or ILL.  
Week 5 (2/18):  Assuming I get the books right away, I'll read their introductions and check the index and table of contents for stuff specifically about heroes and hero archetypes.  And, I'll do the MLA works cited entries and annotations to start my bib.
Week 6 (2/25):  Articles!  Have to find them, then read them, and that may take me through week 7 (3/4).  I want to do the entries and annotations as I go so that all I have to do in order to turn in the bib on 3/13 is double check the MLA rules.
The literature review draft is due on 3/19, so I also intend to pull out the sources for that as I'm compiling the bib.  By that time, I should have a good idea (I hope!) of whatever else I'll need to write the argument essay, which I will then try to locate, and that takes me up to 3/27 (week 9). 

Related articles

• 4 Literary Archetypes You Shouldn't Love IRL (bookclubbabe.wordpress.com)
• Mobile game review: Archetype is Halo for iPhone (bestbuymobile.com)
• Archetypes (writerswritedaily.wordpress.com)

Elrond's Council and the Heroes

The eponymous Fellowship from left to right: (Top row) Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, Boromir, (bottom row) Sam, Frodo, Merry, Pippin, Gimli. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This week, I'm supposed to be answering the question, "What have you found in a scene (using the model)?"  The scene that made me choose The Fellowship of the Ring for my research project is the council scene at Rivendell where representatives of the various groups of Middle Earthers (there has to be a better way of putting that!) are trying to decide what to do about the ring.  What I thought from the beginning is that all of the men arriving for the meeting look like heroes.  The way that they each have their own moment onscreen seems to be saying, "pay attention!  This guy is important."  And the rest of the scene bears that out.  Each of them is on his own quest, with his own priorities and agenda, which leads me to what I think is the biggest discovery I made:  they all volunteer for those reasons, not because of the reason Elrond and Gandalf see as overwhelming, that the ring must be destroyed.

And just now, writing this, it occurs to me that their individual reasons (I'm just guessing at this point) determine the outcomes each of them will experience.  Does that make sense?  We'll see. 

Related articles

• Missing Lord of the Rings LEGO MiniFigs (gadgets.gunaxin.com)
• Review - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (toysoldier.wordpress.com)
• The Crown of Elrond (neatorama.com)
• Elrond and Legolas are still waiting the dream owner! (myridgebacks.wordpress.com)
• Where the Council of Elrond went wrong (reprog.wordpress.com)
• The Fate of Middle Earth (jonnyjimison.com)

A Whole Bunch o' Heroes

Cover of Jason and the Argonauts

When I was reading the first page in the assignment packet about our research options, I got an idea from the very short explanation of myth criticism:  "Films and other works of art draw on patterns established in cultural myths."  I read down to the list of films we can use, and the one I was thinking of (The Fellowship of the Ring) was there.  My idea was that one of the myth patterns in this film is (and this is really hard to state clearly, so bear with me) a group of heroes goes on a quest together.  This came to me because when I read the statement about myth crit, I immediately thought of a few myths, one of which was the story of Jason and the Argonauts (I saw a movie of that when I was little, and it stuck with me because the army of skeletons gave me nightmares for a long time).  I also remember an episode of Hercules (the tv show), where he went to see Jason and the rest of the Argonauts.   

I want to talk to the prof about this some, just in case I'm totally on the wrong track, so I guess I'm getting up early tomorrow to make it to her office hours.

New Year, New Semester, New Research Project

 Copyright 2001, New Line Cinema
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For once, I'm getting a jump on my homework-- English 102 doesn't start until tomorrow, but yesterday I checked to see if the instructor (a Dr. Toffee; I don't know her) had anything on Blackboard.  She did.  I read the syllabus and the assignment sheets, and this blog is Project 1.  Since it is now set up and working, I guess I've made a good start. 

According to the assignment sheet for Project 1 (I put a copy in the pages block to the left of this posting so you can see it), this first post of the semester is supposed to be discussing my "initial thoughts on [my] film and approach."  What that is referring to is the topic for our research project (I also put up a copy of the topic sheet in the pages block).  I have some initial thoughts, but they'll probably change when I have more details about what's involved.  So far, I've selected a film, The Fellowship of the Ring, and my critical approach/model is myth criticism (I've sort of got an idea there, but I'll save that for a later post, mainly because I don't know much about myth criticism yet and I don't want to look like an idiot).  I thought about using The Avengers, but (thanks to my family) I'm so much more familiar with LOTR that it should make it easier to analyze.  I hope. 

And, I just realized that I'm way over the 100 words I needed to write.  It's not a problem, at least I don't think it is, but I'll check tomorrow.

Related articles

• Myth and Ideology, Spring 2013 (tedfriedman.com)
• Trusting God for Another Semester (ferlans.wordpress.com)
• Managing your time when you're not very good at it (funnelfiasco.com)
• SoTL Fellowship: Looking Back and Looking Forward (smartykatt.wordpress.com)