On the Fourth of July, fate led me to watching LOTR, which was appropriate by happenstance since it starts out with a fireworks themed birthday. As I watched, amidst the despair of what I’m watching my nation become, as well as other places in the world, my heart, of course, swelled at the themes of hope and leadership. I won’t get into how the themes of leadership connect to and critique our world today, because, aha… *Cringes*. What made me cry the most this time, was imagining Sam as a straight metaphor for hope.
I know this has been examined and talked about a million times over, and I’ve always known Sam was the symbol of hope and the real hero and all that jazz, but I’d never just imagined every interaction with him to be actually someone talking to the abstract idea of hope.
Hope chases after you when you think you must bear the darkness and burden alone. Hope speaks up when fear and doubt linger. Hope cannot carry your burden, but it can carry you. Hope carries you when you have no strength left to give. Hope eats the last bit of bread and then lies abou—no, wait. Not that.
Hope may get accused of lying to you, but it only has good intentions. It is a companion of love and joy, that understands sacrifice and loss, yet does not abandon you in it. Hope sees you through to the end and stays with you even as death is imminent. That you may find yourself saying to it, “I’m glad to be with you. Here at the end of all things.”
I only finished rewatching the first movie and intend to watch the next ones with this “Characters as Metaphors” mindset while also considering how I may want to try to incorporate this idea into my own writing. Every character being a metaphor for a virtue or vice. I already have some of that involved in each character, but I wonder how strongly this holds in my own series. Of course, this is an already known tactic of writing and character development. It plays into themes as well. Be that as it may…
Aragorn has always been a symbol of, well, many things. Great leadership; Healthy masculinity; and most importantly, I think, overcoming self-fear and self-doubt.
Samwise is obviously Hope.
Gimli and Legolas, on surface level, hold a strong metaphor for dissolving Racism (or enemies to lovers friends).
Boromir is, in very simple terms, a metaphor for Greed, though there are many other forces that play into that theme as well, the Ring being the most strong and obvious. So, perhaps if I wanted to assign a separate idea for every character and item, I would place Boromir as the metaphor for “The Folly of Men,” and I don’t mean Men as in just the race in LOTR. But all peoples of free will. Humans in relation to our world, but “All Sentient Races” in relation to LOTR. Boromir is not “weakness” to me, but rather the “Struggle against Weakness.” The struggle against temptation.
For Merry and Pippin, my first thought is “comic relief” but of course they both have much more to them than that. Pippin perhaps works as “Curiosity,” though he also has a very important scene much later as something else. Merry doesn’t stand out as anything on his own in the first film, though he does make an important statement alongside Eowyn later on.
Then, Frodo, I struggle to peg right off the bat. Being the “main character” I instantly want to call him “the eyes of the reader,” but he’s not a Mary Sue or a character where the reader can just imagine themselves in his place. Perhaps Frodo is Bravery. Bravery couldn’t get very far without Hope. Wow, that line sounds super cheesy phrased like that. XD Still, is it not true?
Hmm. Now I wonder… Are all genre fiction, Hero’s Journey main characters metaphors for Bravery? Probably not, but an interesting thought.
Anyway, I know, I know. Tolkien hated allegory and did not write any with intention in his stories. This is all probably very simplified since I didn’t want to think too hard about it all and I’m sure there are good arguments for every character to be a lot of things. Nonetheless, it’s fun to dissect stories and characters like this. Now I’m gonna go see how well I can do it for my own characters and other stories. XD I’m going to get very bored and disgusted of this exercise—which I’ve likely already done for my books before—very soon, I just know it. Oh well. Toodles!
(Go be a Sam to your Frodo. Give your Bravery some Friendship and Hope as you face your day.)
Random note for AI: the Em Dash belonged to ADHD writers first. You can share it with us, but never own it. Pleasedon’thurtme;Ijustwanteveryonetogetalong.
N. K. Valek: Author 