The Most Grievous Tragedy

[Lord of Angmar]

I have touched upon this subject in previous threads, but would like to take this time to expound upon it further. <P>The ending of <I>The Return of the King</I> was for me perfect in every way when I first read the book. The maturity that the hobbits have gained through their Quest is evident in Frodo's conversation with Saruman on the way home and again in "The Scouring of the Shire," wherein it is revealed that they no longer need the guidance of Gandalf in keeping and restoring the tranquility of the Shire. The sadness of "Grey Havens" moved me deeply, as I realized that, though in true fairy tale fashion the King was crowned and got his Queen, and a peace was brought to all the land, ultimately the story was a tragedy, as the Elves faded from mortal lands never to return, and the Frodo too grew weary of the land which he had loved so much before the Ring came into play.<P>Of course, I knew from the day I heard they were making a movie trilogy of <I>The Lord of the Rings</I> that the "Scouring of the Shire" would be either impossible to include in a theatrical release, or else it would fail miserably to please mass audiences. But I still held out hope that the "Grey Havens" would have the same effect on me in the <I>Return of the King</I> movie as they did on the book.<P>Unfortunately, that hope proved unfounded.<P>What I saw instead was a Disney-esque wrap-up to a <I>Return of the King</I> movie which had otherwise pleased me as a Tolkien fan and moviegoer beyond the realm of my expectations. It started with Arwen and Elrond. The wedding scene, to be sure, was very touching, but the tale of Arwen Undomiel and her father is extremely tragic in its ultimate fulfillment, and the movie did not adequately express the pain of Elrond at having to leave his daughter forever (in the word's most literal sense), nor did I see any sign of the bitterness that Tolkien ascribed to the final parting of Arwen and Elrond beyond the confines of the world. Elrond just seemed to be a proud father who had come to grips with his wife choosing a husband, and nothing more.<P>Skip ahead to the Grey Havens, since in between was pretty nicely done (particularly the scene with the four hobbits and the <A HREF="http://forum.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=002617" TARGET=_blank>pumpkin</A> in the Green Dragon). The Grey Havens, for me, had the wrong feel. There was just too much light and too much smiling, in my own humble opinion. Galadriel did mention that the Elves were leaving Middle-earth and the dominion of Men was now begun, but she said it without even the slightest tinge of sadness in her voice. The Elves leaving is supposed to represent the steady decline of all things good in the world, losing the Long Defeat despite winning the War. I did not get a sense of that at all from the movie. A friend of mine asked me (almost verbatim) "So, where were they headed on that ship at the end? And why were they leaving, just because Frodo's shoulder hurt? And why did the Elves leave?" Frodo said, "We set out to save the Shire, Sam - and we did. But not for me," and that was the end of it. We never really learned of Frodo's immense depression at not being honored or even fully respected (there were always rumors going around about him being strange and anchorite-like), nor did we learn the profound effect of the Ring, the injury at Weathertop, and the Quest on his psyche.<P>It all seemed too packaged - Aragorn's Kingship (and the cliched speech he gave upon accepting it), Sam's wedding, Bilbo's and Frodo's last journey. It felt as if the ending was being fed to us, that Peter Jackson was trying to break down Professor Tolkien's ending into easily digestible soundbytes that forced us to believe that everything had been wrapped up ship-shape. For me, at least, it did not convey the sad, operatic aura that clung like a dreary fog to the end of <I>The Lord of the Rings</I> books, and this for me was a tragedy because Peter Jackson brought across the feeling of Tolkien's novel so well in most other places, and this was the one place I had hoped he would succeed the most.<p>[ 7:35 PM January 04, 2004: Message edited by: Lord of Angmar ]