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They're more overtones.

Yes... and no.

That the two grow to love each other through their shared trauma is clear. Whether Tolkien meant that love to also include carnal lust is open to debate, which is why I wrote 'gay' not Gay.

With the increase in more positive presentations of Gays and Lesbians in film and T.V. maybe, these days, we rush too quickly to assume same sex love has to be sexual (even if it's repressed) Love between two people can take a myriad of forms, whatever their sex or gender.

It's a lovely piece of work!

Yes Frides, it's a very thoughtful piece of writing.
 
Yes... and no.

That the two grow to love each other through their shared trauma is clear. Whether Tolkien meant that love to also include carnal lust is open to debate, which is why I wrote 'gay' not Gay.

With the increase in more positive presentations of Gays and Lesbians in film and T.V. maybe, these days, we rush too quickly to assume same sex love has to be sexual (even if it's repressed) Love between two people can take a myriad of forms, whatever their sex or gender.



Yes Frides, it's a very thoughtful piece of writing.
I always considered Sam and Frodo's relationship as non-sexual and I've read that male physical affection was more commonplace at the turn of the last century and was not considered the shock horror unmentionable sin that is homosexuality. Holding hands, walking arm in arm etc was seen as perfectly acceptable. Sherlock and Watson living together, Laurel and Hardy sharing a bed and earlier Hardy kissing Nelson. None of these rightly or wrongly was considered homosexual.

Either way, it doesn't matter. Even if we find a long-lost manuscript from Tolkien saying Sam and Frodo were gay it would have absolutely no impact on the story whatsoever.
 
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I read LotR first when I was twelve and rapidly plugged Frodo and Sam as being in some sort of relationship. There are definite tones of more than friendship there...but doesn't mean its sexual.

Wind in the Willows is full of manly relationships, but you get the impression the characters might think sex as icky...like they do women.

Toad is very clearly Oscar Wilde though.
 
I read LotR first when I was twelve and rapidly plugged Frodo and Sam as being in some sort of relationship. There are definite tones of more than friendship there...but doesn't mean its sexual.

Wind in the Willows is full of manly relationships, but you get the impression the characters might think sex as icky...like they do women.

Toad is very clearly Oscar Wilde though.
Another problem caused by the English language only having one word for love. Of course any two people can 'love' each other without a sexual element. Happens all the time. As 5 minutes reflection ought to tell us.

I'm no Classical scholar but isn't it Greek that has multiple words for the different kinds of love?
 
I read LotR first when I was twelve and rapidly plugged Frodo and Sam as being in some sort of relationship. There are definite tones of more than friendship there...but doesn't mean its sexual.

Wind in the Willows is full of manly relationships, but you get the impression the characters might think sex as icky...like they do women.

Toad is very clearly Oscar Wilde though.

Well it would be a bit weird if they shagged women, what them all being animals and everything.
 
I don't know if Sam and Frodo are gay but Middle Earth Social Services should have a look at Gandalf, I mean a grown man of three thousand lifetimes of men hanging about The Shire where there happen to be all these very small humanoids and attempting to impress them with his fireworks...
 
Its interesting that JRRT shows little bias with his characters;

A noted positive example is Galadriel, (Who can afford a good lawyer)

And an interesting negative example is Eol (Who's main crime is he resembles a RL myth elf).

In his letters he definitely comes off against Gollum; Possibly because he barged in on Frodo/Sam's happy relationship?
 
At least you got Gollum. I've had two Wargs and a Troll.
Been there too. :chuckle:

May I remind the assembled company of my recent visit to all my exes' home area -

Badcocks Lane.jpg
 
Its interesting that JRRT shows little bias with his characters;

A noted positive example is Galadriel, (Who can afford a good lawyer)

And an interesting negative example is Eol (Who's main crime is he resembles a RL myth elf).

In his letters he definitely comes off against Gollum; Possibly because he barged in on Frodo/Sam's happy relationship?
Who's Eol?
 
It would be wrong to confuse the content of Peter Jackson's movies with Tolkien's novels.
I think Jackson read too much into Frodo and Sam's friendship and played up the bromance angle.
Similarly, I felt Jackson's complete demonising of the Orcs went against Tolkien's intentions. Having fought in WW1, Tolkien realised that even the hated Huns were people with hopes, wishes and feelings too. Hence the very important scene, omitted by Jackson, where a couple of Orcs in Cirith Ungol are looking forward to a time when the war is over and making plans to head south with a few of their trusted comrades.
Also, I don't believe that Orcs were routinely cannibal, as depicted by Jackson, although I believe they would eat man-flesh on occasion. But that's a different species, rather like some humans eating primate bush-meat today.
 
You mean theres been a film?

The books unfilmable.
It would be wrong to confuse the content of Peter Jackson's movies with Tolkien's novels.
I think Jackson read too much into Frodo and Sam's friendship and played up the bromance angle.
Similarly, I felt Jackson's complete demonising of the Orcs went against Tolkien's intentions. Having fought in WW1, Tolkien realised that even the hated Huns were people with hopes, wishes and feelings too. Hence the very important scene, omitted by Jackson, where a couple of Orcs in Cirith Ungol are looking forward to a time when the war is over and making plans to head south with a few of their trusted comrades.
Also, I don't believe that Orcs were routinely cannibal, as depicted by Jackson, although I believe they would eat man-flesh on occasion. But that's a different species, rather like some humans eating primate bush-meat today.
Always, LOR the book has early English/Anglo-Saxon/Scandinavian literature and cultural norms as its backing. The man is still the world expert on Beowulf in its literary and cultural context. The close friendship of male warriors/seekers is standard. But I do think that he intended Orcs to be all-bad all the time. They were created by the lord of the rings to be his operatives, and would have been classed with human-created industrial development. You don't want to think about what those guys were heading south to do. They ate anything that didn't outrun them, including other orcs.

Jackson and the other film writers are just as LOR knowledgeable as the rest of us - he just was expressing his love for the books in the medium he knew. I really hate parts of it and miss things he had to omit, but I accept his process. Interesting to me is that as a teen-aged girl I had an overview of the books that is not his. I basically read the battle scenes as heavily formulaic from early English literature. I never envisioned them. Frankly I've been known to skim them. Jackson as a kid apparently just totally got off on the battles - which is why we see so much of them and nothing of Tom Bombadil.
 
Always, LOR the book has early English/Anglo-Saxon/Scandinavian literature and cultural norms as its backing. The man is still the world expert on Beowulf in its literary and cultural context. The close friendship of male warriors/seekers is standard. But I do think that he intended Orcs to be all-bad all the time. They were created by the lord of the rings to be his operatives, and would have been classed with human-created industrial development. You don't want to think about what those guys were heading south to do. They ate anything that didn't outrun them, including other orcs.

Jackson and the other film writers are just as LOR knowledgeable as the rest of us - he just was expressing his love for the books in the medium he knew. I really hate parts of it and miss things he had to omit, but I accept his process. Interesting to me is that as a teen-aged girl I had an overview of the books that is not his. I basically read the battle scenes as heavily formulaic from early English literature. I never envisioned them. Frankly I've been known to skim them. Jackson as a kid apparently just totally got off on the battles - which is why we see so much of them and nothing of Tom Bombadil.

Fair comment and I don't suppose the Orcs were planning to open a genteel tea-room in the south.
It's just that Tolkien appeared to include that scene to show that even the most brutal of enemies were themselves sentient beings, capable of harbouring aspirations and plans for the future.

As for Bombadil, he's certainly a divisive character but, by omitting him, Jackson also ditched the Fog on the Barrow Downs chapter which, I found one of the most evocative.

Will be interesting to see if the Amazon LOTR series includes that.
 
Fair comment and I don't suppose the Orcs were planning to open a genteel tea-room in the south.
It's just that Tolkien appeared to include that scene to show that even the most brutal of enemies were themselves sentient beings, capable of harbouring aspirations and plans for the future.

As for Bombadil, he's certainly a divisive character but, by omitting him, Jackson also ditched the Fog on the Barrow Downs chapter which, I found one of the most evocative.

Will be interesting to see if the Amazon LOTR series includes that.

The Amazon series is based on the Second Age of Middle Earth, so no Barrow Downs.

Going back to the relationship between Frodo and Sam, Tolkien wrote that it reflects that of officers and their batmen in World War I:

https://johngarth.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/sam-gamgee-and-tolkiens-batmen/
 
Always, LOR the book has early English/Anglo-Saxon/Scandinavian literature and cultural norms as its backing. The man is still the world expert on Beowulf in its literary and cultural context. The close friendship of male warriors/seekers is standard. But I do think that he intended Orcs to be all-bad all the time. They were created by the lord of the rings to be his operatives, and would have been classed with human-created industrial development. You don't want to think about what those guys were heading south to do. They ate anything that didn't outrun them, including other orcs.

Jackson and the other film writers are just as LOR knowledgeable as the rest of us - he just was expressing his love for the books in the medium he knew. I really hate parts of it and miss things he had to omit, but I accept his process. Interesting to me is that as a teen-aged girl I had an overview of the books that is not his. I basically read the battle scenes as heavily formulaic from early English literature. I never envisioned them. Frankly I've been known to skim them. Jackson as a kid apparently just totally got off on the battles - which is why we see so much of them and nothing of Tom Bombadil.

We see much of the battles because this is what big budget films are all about - spectacle and action. Tom Bombadil is inherently, incredibly naff, I think it would be very difficult to do him in on screen, especially in a film where you have a roughly 2hr runtime, even if FOTR was three hours, I doubt he would be there. Let's be honest, he's the first thing that would be cut by anyone with commercial considerations.
 
We see much of the battles because this is what big budget films are all about - spectacle and action. Tom Bombadil is inherently, incredibly naff, I think it would be very difficult to do him in on screen, especially in a film where you have a roughly 2hr runtime, even if FOTR was three hours, I doubt he would be there. Let's be honest, he's the first thing that would be cut by anyone with commercial considerations.
I like the Tom Bombadil part of the book, but it has no significant role in the wider story, and I admit it wouldn't be well received by an audience. About as well as the pointless and annoying inclusion of Radagast in The Hobbit movies, I imagine.
 
I like the Tom Bombadil part of the book, but it has no significant role in the wider story, and I admit it wouldn't be well received by an audience. About as well as the pointless and annoying inclusion of Radagast in The Hobbit movies, I imagine.

Except that Bombadil gives the Hobbits their swords (taken from the Barrow-Wights).
Also the Fog on the Barrow Downs chapter is one of my favourites and serves to illustrate the first truly creepy landscape the Hobbits encounter after leaving the cosy domesticity of The Shire.
 
Except that Bombadil gives the Hobbits their swords (taken from the Barrow-Wights).
Also the Fog on the Barrow Downs chapter is one of my favourites and serves to illustrate the first truly creepy landscape the Hobbits encounter after leaving the cosy domesticity of The Shire.
Yeah, I think it serves important purposes in the book, and in the world-building of the wider mythology. It's just not necessary for an adaptation of the story. Personally, I love to see a more faithful screen adaptation of the books, Bombadil, Barrow Downs and all, but the adaptation we got is still pretty damn good in my opinion.
 
Going back to the relationship between Frodo and Sam, Tolkien wrote that it reflects that of officers and their batmen in World War I:

Were they all Bruce Wayne or were some other guys?

I like the Tom Bombadil part of the book, but it has no significant role in the wider story, and I admit it wouldn't be well received by an audience. About as well as the pointless and annoying inclusion of Radagast in The Hobbit movies, I imagine.

Good analogy, I'd imagine any version of Tom would be at least as annoying as Radaghast.
 
Tom Bombadil isn't so bad if you take out the songs. I used to hate him and couldn't see the point but, like others, loved the Barrow Downs and the fog and the wights. However, on re-reading much later, I can see how he stands for the old spirit of the land, his saving of the hobbits from Old Man Willow and then again from the wight in the barrow, doesn't advance the story much but it is a wonderfully atmospheric bit of writing.
 
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