February 20, 2004

Response to Raggedyanndy, and Frodo 'downsized'
Bob Praz

In response to the Gondor vs Rohan poll, I must say I would personally choose Gondor. I'm more of a modern or indoors person, I'm afraid, so I would rather live in a great city with clean streets, comfortable houses, and lots of people to interact with. Also, Gondor has great craft in various areas, and has libraries filled with ancient texts and maps, which are more interesting to me. Plus, I simply think Minas Tirith would be an awesome place to live, as long as I'm on the north side (where the sun is).

As for the length of Frodo's journey through the Dead Marshes, the Weapons and Warfare book is correct. According to the Appendices, Gollum and the hobbits enter the Marshes at dawn and reach the end of them the following day.

If any of you have checked theonering.net lately, you might have noticed articles and arguments posted on whether or not Frodo was too "downsized" in ROTK. If any of you are interested, I'd like to know your own opinions on this.
Some argue that Sam's role was too large and predominant while Frodo's role became too small, if not subtle. I think this is not very true; or, anyhow, it's no different from the book. The movie actually treats the two characters very much like Tolkien did. Sam is of course the most obvious of the hobbits, and he's Frodo's support in more ways than one. Frodo, on the other hand, is the one carrying the most terrible burden. Both need each other, as Sam doesn't have the strength or wisdom to carry the Ring himself, but Frodo is so burdened and weakened by the time he gets to Mordor that he couldn't have made it to Mount Doom without Sam's support. So it's really both characters that win through together, but Sam (along with Sean Astin's performance) is the one that seems to stand out. Personally, though I think Elijah Wood's performance in ROTK was incredible, and even better than his performances in the first two movies.