LOTR

I'm a little behind on that second blog for Friday, but got a little sidetracked...

The discussion on Friday covered all three books in the LOTR Trilogy. The biggest things discussed was the character of Gollum. Whether or not his tumble into the fires of Mount Doom was really an accident or him unconsciously knowing that he had to destroy himself and the Ring if he wanted to keep it forever. This discussion had some back and forths to it. Some believed that it was entirely accidental, (I was one of them) because in my mind without the "accident" of him falling it wouldn't have been a providential occurrence and Gollum would've been a martyr. Tolkien doesn't want Gollum to be seen as a martyr, or at least I don't think he does, because in Tolkien's mind Gollum was a damnable creature that made all of his decisions based on selfish reasons.

This dicussion led to another interesting question. Was Gollum redeemed in the end of the story for being the one to destory the Ring? I have to admit at first I wasn't sure how I felt about that, but the more I thought about how Tolkien felt about his own character, the more I decided that Gollum probably wasn't redeemed for his choices in the end, because he didn't want to be and because he wasn't really in a state of mind to be redeemed. He was happy because he had the Ring and he wasn't really thinking about anything else in that moment.

The third and final thing discussed was this...Who was the hero of the story? Was it Frodo, Sam, Gollum, Aragorn, Gandalf?? Who did you think the true hero was? And that question is what I leave for anyone out there reading this to ponder...Who do you think the hero is?

This Friday is the Silmarillion...should be interesting..
Until Then.
XOXO,
Julia