Re: TTT

[John Paul Davis <johnd at antioch-college_edu>]

 >  He *knew*
> you cannot waltz back from a war and simply pick up where you left off.  That's
> why the scouring of the shire is so important.  Not just for what it shows us
> about how the four hobbits have been transformed by their experiences (Merry
> and Pippin as action heroes, and Frodo as the sad voice of wisdom), but because
> it shows that even the shire could not remain aloof and untouched by what's
> been going on.  As Saruman says in the book (I'm paraphrasing) "you little
> hobbit lordlings thought that you could turn Saruman out of his home and ruin
> his plans, but that when it was all over, you could just come home to your
> comfortable little holes.  Well, one bad turn deserves another."  

I too wish to see the scouring of the Shire played out in the movie. For 
me the whole trilogy is about the Shire, about it as something worth 
protecting, as something that makes the good kind of people necesarry to 
win the war, etc.

(God, I wish
> I was going to be able to see Christopher Lee play that scene!!!!)  Frodo's
> wound never heals.  The movie *cannot* end with a "and they all lived happily
> ever after".  That would be a betrayal of the whole theme of Middle Earth, that
> happiness is not "ever after" in this world, and that sacrifice has a real
> cost.  Yes, the book has a sort of happy ending, in that Sam gets a family,
> they rebuild the shire, and Frodo and Bilbo get to go off to Valinor, but it's
> a *bittersweet* ending, because it's all about *passing*.  Frodo and Bilbo are
> effectively dying when they get on that boat.  They leave all that they know
> behind for a new, eternal life, free from pain and suffering.  Sounds like a
> Christian description of death and heaven to me. 

Hmmm. Insteresting take on it. I did not get the impression that the 
mortal characters would live eternally- I got the impression that they'd 
die during the voyage or soon after arrival.
I think most important in the story is not the promise of an afterlife 
of some kind but rather the emphasis on the price healing exacts on 
those who do healing's work. That and the fact that healing is *not* a 
return to a golden past: there is no *total* healing in that sense. The 
Shire, and all Middle Earth are healed, but never the same as they once 
were.

- John

np: Lonesome Day Blues - Bob Dylan

-- 
John Paul Davis
Center for Community Learning
Antioch College

++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Ned Flanders: Let's just agree to disagree
Principal Skinner: I don't agree to that
Mrs. Krabapple: Me neither
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

---------------
Unsubscribe by going to http://www.actwin.com/OtR/