Lord of the Rings : The Towering Read - Book 3, Chapter 1
This week's late chapter comes to you from the harried mind of someone less than two weeks from helping launch a LARP.
"The Departure of Boromir" is a bit euphemistic, but not wholly inaccurate.
I do love how hobbits are such a consistently underestimated race since they're generally small and keep to themselves. Without even trying, hobbit "footprints are not easy even for a Ranger to read." We know they tend towards wicked hand-eye coordination and amazing fortitude. If they were of interested I can't help but wonder if they'd give elves a run for their money. On the other hand, that might in many ways defeat the point. Subtly is a good part of their power.
Boromir is mourned in soliloquy. Alas, poor Yorick, etc. It is what they find among the dead that makes for much more focused conversation. It's not just a band of orcs, its orcs from different regions of Middle Earth working together, and under the banner of Saruman.
Here, as Gimli remarks, "maybe there is no right choice." The Fellowship is broken, and several paths lie before them. However, I think in the end they made both the easy and the right choice, to rescue their friends in unwilling captivity and let Frodo and Sam succeed where as a group might fail.
Jackson (and the acting chops of Sean Bean) this whole film has heavily foreshadowed Boromir's fall, but I want to give him (them) credit for Boromir's redemption. Very well done.
We're given multiple heroic combat encounters when the orcs come upon the party, and even a brief stay of execution of the mortally wounded man, rather than just aftermath of the confrontation with Boromir. Seeing our party fight orcs does certainly make for a more visually charged scene, and generally makes everyone seem more heroic. I also can't fault the decision to show over tell.
Chronologically, the merging of the two chapters make sense, the events themselves overlap. Ending with both the death of Boromir and the parting of the hobbits gives us an ending with high urgency leading into the changed environment of The Two Towers. Also, it probably made things easier to kill off Sean Bean in the first movie.
"The Departure of Boromir" is a bit euphemistic, but not wholly inaccurate.
I do love how hobbits are such a consistently underestimated race since they're generally small and keep to themselves. Without even trying, hobbit "footprints are not easy even for a Ranger to read." We know they tend towards wicked hand-eye coordination and amazing fortitude. If they were of interested I can't help but wonder if they'd give elves a run for their money. On the other hand, that might in many ways defeat the point. Subtly is a good part of their power.
Boromir is mourned in soliloquy. Alas, poor Yorick, etc. It is what they find among the dead that makes for much more focused conversation. It's not just a band of orcs, its orcs from different regions of Middle Earth working together, and under the banner of Saruman.
Here, as Gimli remarks, "maybe there is no right choice." The Fellowship is broken, and several paths lie before them. However, I think in the end they made both the easy and the right choice, to rescue their friends in unwilling captivity and let Frodo and Sam succeed where as a group might fail.
Jackson (and the acting chops of Sean Bean) this whole film has heavily foreshadowed Boromir's fall, but I want to give him (them) credit for Boromir's redemption. Very well done.
We're given multiple heroic combat encounters when the orcs come upon the party, and even a brief stay of execution of the mortally wounded man, rather than just aftermath of the confrontation with Boromir. Seeing our party fight orcs does certainly make for a more visually charged scene, and generally makes everyone seem more heroic. I also can't fault the decision to show over tell.
Chronologically, the merging of the two chapters make sense, the events themselves overlap. Ending with both the death of Boromir and the parting of the hobbits gives us an ending with high urgency leading into the changed environment of The Two Towers. Also, it probably made things easier to kill off Sean Bean in the first movie.
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