June 7, 2002

The Harshest Critic
Brett C.

Hello, Loremaster. I am not writing to disagree with any of your ideas about the wraiths or Arwen as they were in the movie, but to raise some awareness of the issues of the arguement.

Firstly on the wraiths, you seem to be saying that in the movie thay come across a bit lame because they are constanltly letting Frodo slip through their fingers. Unfortunately if this is the case then it was a trend started by Tolkien himself - just look at how they bungle the capture of Fatty Bolger. The reining in of the horse at the edge of the river while the Hobbits are on the Ferry is actually quite realistic, since Tolkien wrote in some of his supplementary writings that the Nazgul have an aversion to running water [in the book only the WitchKing and 2 others enter the Frod after Frodo has crossed on the elf-horse].

Also, Tolkien said in writing in a prologue of a later edition of LOTR that there had been many deficiencies in the story found by the harshest critic of all, himself. But that since he was apparently the only one aware of them, he felt no obligation to go back and correct them. In hindsight did the Professor see one of these deficiencies as Arwen's limited exposure in the story? We can only speculate.