I saw Lord of the Rings for the third time last night, and I realized the one issue I have with it. At the very end, as Frodo and Sam walk off towards Mordor together, they’re the best of friends. Sam worships Frodo, and Frodo needs Sam’s support.
Yeah, great. So what’s my problem? That’s exactly how it was in the book. Well, my problem is that two guys who live together for any extended period of time aren’t like that. It makes for a good story, but the real Frodo and Sam, after months of backpacking across miles of rocky wasteland would be more like this:
Warning: If you’re the type of person who can’t handle the idea of someone making fun of Tolkein, then stop reading right here. I love Tolkein too, but I don’t mind a joke now and then.
Frodo: I can’t go on, Sam. The ring is too much of a burden for my troubled soul to bear.
Sam: Oh, man. Here we go again.
Frodo: I just want to sleep. I’m so tired.
Sam: You’re tired? Have you noticed that my pack is twice as big as yours? And who do you think gets up an hour before you do every day to make breakfast!?
Frodo: Look, Sam, I appreciate everything you do, but you can’t understand the burden that is the one ring…
Sam (imitating Frodo): Oh it’s a burden! I’m so tired lugging this tiny ring all over! Sam, could you possibly carry me for awhile?
Frodo (getting irritated): Alright, well if it’s going to be that way, why don’t we talk about you?
Sam: What about me, “Master” Frodo?
Frodo: Your Feet! I’ve never met a smellier person! Hell, Gimli smelled better than you do!
Sam: What???
Frodo: You heard me! And have you ever considered washing your hands before you make breakfast? I swear, if I have to eat another piece of bacon that tastes like swamp mud…
Sam: Well if you’re so good at it, why don’t YOU make the damn breakfast!
Frodo: Maybe I will!
Sam: Fine!
Frodo: FINE!
[ an awkward silence follows ]
Sam: Hey Frodo…
Frodo: What?
Sam: You know what I miss the most about the Shire?
Frodo: The tobacco? Hot baths? Clean clothes?
Sam: Nah. That hot chick you made me dance with in the first ten minutes of the movie.
Frodo: Oh yeah! Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I saw her naked? Yeah, see we’d all had too much to drink and…
Hehe… That was sweet. :)If I were Sam, my smelly, hairy, Hobbit foot would be up Frodo’s ass in a heartbeat.
Bring it on Smelly!
There’s a big theory in larger academic-type circles that Sam loves Frodo in the “love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name” sense of the word.Personally, I think it’s a bunch of hogwash, but this theory comes from the same bunch of critics who insist that LOTR is a great big allegory for the time Tolkien lived in (the *Great* War), when Tolkien’s intro to the version I have insists that it’s not allegorical in any way; he created the Elfish language and mostly just wanted to write a story where people spoke it.
I completely agree with you… However, I would point out that there’s an awful lot of evidence to suggest that Tolkien did, at one time, consider Middle-Earth to be Earth’s forgotten past. Consider the obvious similiarities in landmasses, ethnic groups and even languages. On the other hand, whether he started out envisioning Middle-Earth that way or not, he clearly decided later on that Middle-Earth is NOT Earth. He says so himself, and there’s plenty of stuff to distance it. And I imagine that something you work on as long as he worked on this, can’t help but have some similarities to the world you live it. But the point I’m trying to make is that a scholarly viewpoint that Middle-Earth is an allegory for the real Earth is not entirely groundless.