Samwise the Brave....

[fajrdrako]

I've been reading One Ring to Bing them All: Tolkien's Mythology by Anne C. Petty. It's a new edition of an old book by an author who is probably feeling most chuffed that her obscure academic specialty is a big deal to everyone these days.

Anyway, there was a paragraph I really liked:

George Clark argues convincingly, in "J.R.R. Tolkien and the True Hero", that Tolkien's twist on the "heroic ethos of the old Germanic world" ultimately places Samwise Gamgee as the real hero who emerges at the end of the quest to save Middle-Earth.

I really like that.

Of course, I think the "real" hero of The Lord of the Rings is Aragorn and I'd willing to argue it at length - perhaps I should write my own monograph.

Naw. I'm sure it's been done. I have other things to write.

Comments

[youraugustine.livejournal.com]

Depends on your definition of 'hero', I suppose. I've always gone with Sam; Frodo was the martyr, Sam was the hero, Gandalf was the guide and Aragorn was the . . .the word just escaped me. The one who sort of made sure there was a world for Sam and Frodo's actions to save, and who picked up the pieces afterwards.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Indeed. That's how Tolkien sees it too, I think.

My point is that Aragorn fits many of the classical patterns of "the hero", especially the mythic type as described by Joseph Campbell, whom Petty was citing: he is a prince born in exile who lives in secrecy under another name among those of another race until he learns his identity. Then he must fight countless enemies, challenges and monsters and find the right allies before reclaiming his people/land/birthright, with the aid of battle, symbols, and ties of fate to his ancestry. Before he reclaims his land he has many identities and many journeys, and one way or another to go through hell - which Aragorn did when he went to Mordor - and then to die and be resurrected, as he does with the Paths of the Dead.

Perhaps we need - and they must exist - words to describe the different paradigms of the hero. Sam is a more modern version: the man of the people (or man of the earth?) whose nobility lies in loyalty and love and who would sacrifice everything for that fidelity. This kind of hero doesn't need (or hve) the ancestry, the history predating his birth, or even the mythic symbols - though Sam does manage to make pots and pans mythic symbols in their own way. This kind of hero makes the 'humble birth' and the role of servant heroic traits in their own right. It isn't the Campbell model, but I'm sure it's a classic of another sort.

It isn't Arthurian and I can't recall any heroes of this mold from the pre-Christian classics, but it has a long history, too. Jane Eyre is the same sort of hero as Sam. I wish I knew more about Piers Plowman - I have a notion he might be of this type, though I've no idea! Other post-Renaissance classics (Cervantes, Goldoni, Moliere, Voltaire, Rabelais) use the idea of the servant who is wiser and ultimately as heroic as the master, or more so, and is the one who saves the day in the end.

[youraugustine.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, I'd hesitate in saying that either Sam or Frodo is more or less heroic/wise/the saviour than the other. Indeed, in strictest practical terms it's Gollum who saves the world, albeit utterly unintentionally.

I'd see Sam and Frodo more as a symbiosis. Sam could not have carried the ring. His focus is very, very limited: he'll go to the ends of the earth for his master and he's a good person, but I don't think he has it in him to do what Frodo did - take the entire weight of the entire world on his shoulders and know that's what he's done, on a hopeless mission. That's not Sam's character; he doesn't have that wide-reaching a mind. If someone had given him the ring to carry and told him to do it, he would have, but he would never have assumed that responsibility of his own will - which is what was necessary in the case of the Ring-quest.

Thus, Frodo and Sam are two halves of the whole that managed to make their way through to the end - although both of them failed in acheiving it.

In terms of the paradigms, the fact that Tolkien has both of them within the same story - the classical hero and the salt-of-the-earth hero - very interesting. I agree that Aragorn fits the one much better, and Sam fits the other, in the place that he held.

And I'm sure you're right. This language has terms for everything.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'd hesitate in saying that either Sam or Frodo is more or less heroic/wise/the saviour than the other.

In terms of the story as it is, I agree. If we look at the characters separately, as a exercise in speculation - I can imagine the story existing without Sam, but not without Frodo. Sam wouldn't have taken the Ring back in the Shire - or at Rivendell - even if someone had thought of giving it to him; or if he might have taken it, it would only be because Frodo gave it to him, which is more or less what actually happens when he does take it, thinking Frodo is dead and can't continue. So Sam can't initiate the heroic action of the Ring Quest, and yet his role is crucial. I wonder how George Clark's argument goes.

"Symbiosis" works for me. Sam couldn't be a hero without Frodo in his role, but Frodo wouldn't survive as hero without Sam.

I'm sure that Gollum as a fallen creature who becomes the agent of fate in restoring the world has some sort of historical parallels too, but I can't offhand think of them!

[youraugustine.livejournal.com]

I'm sure that Gollum as a fallen creature who becomes the agent of fate in restoring the world has some sort of historical parallels too, but I can't offhand think of them!

Strangely enough, neither can I. It feels a very natural conclusion to me, but then I was raised on Lord of the Rings (literally - my father read it to me when I was four or five), so my perceptions are slightly skewed. Thus, I'm not sure if it feels "right" to me because it's something that the human mind has come up with over and over again, or because that particular story is so familiar.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I was fifteen when I first read Lord of the Rings - you were lucky to discover it sooner!

The resolution of the story regarding Gollum seems 'right' to me, too, but I think that might be just because Tolkien is such an utterly convincing writer. It's right because he made it feel right, and very deftly too.

I suspect there are parallels in medieval Christian stories - something Scandinavian? saint's lives? the lais? - but I really can't think of anything. I'll have to think about it. I don't even recall what Shippey has to say about Gollum in his book about the origins of Tolkien's characters.

[youraugustine.livejournal.com]

The general concept of redemption fits with the Christian theme of it, as does the fact that even unwilling, Gollum serves the greater purpose right at the moment he thinks he's flouting it - which ties back to Illuvatar and Melkor right back to the beginning of the mythos, wherein Illuvatar says exactly that: that whatever the dark did, Illuvatar would be able to turn it and encompass it and weave it back into the proper music.

I admit most of my knowledge of Tolkien comes straight from his writing itself; I've never got into much of reading others' impressions, other than in discussions.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Good point about Illuvatar. Yes, that seems to be the theme that Tolkien built the whole concept around: the dual idea that evil would always cause suffering but Iluvatar would turn it to good again ultimately - or at least, weave it back into the music.

Until last year I'd only read Tolkien's own works, but about a year ago I went on a binge: took an online course on Tolkien that studied LOTR, read Shippey's wonderful book, and a biography of Tolkien, and his letters, and his daughter's book, and so on. Reading this book is my first return to the subject since then.