Sam and frodo overlooking mordo2/8/2024 Sam is the consummate faithful friend, like Rodrigo to Carlo. The Lord of the Rings is a feast of bromances, the possibilities endless-Merry and Pippin, Aragorn and Gandalf, Legolas and Gimli-but none are stronger nor more poignant than that of Frodo and Sam. Wanting to introduce us to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood but knowing my very mixed (at best) feelings about Tarantino, he argued, “But Rach, it’s a bromance!” Well, of course, he had me at that-and it was. Recently we were having a movie night with one of my brothers who was visiting from out of town and were trying to decide what to watch. But honestly, it probably has the edge because it is a bromance. My favorite opera is Don Carlos (or Don Carlo, in the Italian), and I’d like to say it is for the incomparable music. It’s a bit of a joke in our family how much I love friendship/buddy stories-bromances. I always think of story endings in that way, daring them to “surprise me.” Irony is, if they surprise me at first, they will continue to surprise me with new insights on each reread, and forever. It doesn’t mean a plot twist necessarily only the perfect and paradoxical fulfillment of all that had been set up before. A novel I read years ago concludes with the words, Surprise me and in the context of the novel, nothing could be more surprising or more perfect-just like in most of the great stories. There is a deeper magic in it, to borrow a Lewisian idea. A finale which you perhaps couldn’t have guessed ahead of time-not exactly-and yet, when it happens, it is so unaccountably fulfilling that you know it couldn’t possibly have ended any other way as though it had been ordained by the great Storyteller at the very foundation of Story itself. It seems to me that some of the stories that stay with us the most, haunting us like friendly spirits, are those whose climax and finale are both surprising, and yet, somehow, inevitable. (Though I had read all of the lead-up books in this series multiple times before the final book was published, I have read the final book only once, and have struggled to go back to the series since.) Only that, given all that had been set up in the previous books, it could have been even more powerful. It’s not that the series was ended wrong, or badly the most central ethos of it was lovely. Other beloved ensemble characters were taken down a peg, perhaps to lift up the heroism of the central character, as though it were a zero-sum game. My favorite character was given a sendoff unworthy of him and of what I thought the author had clued us in to in previous books. Not to name names, but another beloved magical series-which I will nonetheless always treasure in many ways-somewhat disappointed me at its concluding book, partly because it didn’t quite manage this bit of magic in the end, brilliantly set up as I thought it had been. ![]() It might be Gandalf one year, and Eowyn the next it might be Aragorn at first, and Sam at last. Each reader (or viewer) perhaps has a different favorite character each reader may have a different favorite depending on the season of the reader’s life. That’s one of the magical things about Tolkien: all the characters are given their due every character has an integral role to play in the fulfillment of the story’s quest, and it couldn’t have been accomplished without the whole of the Fellowship and those whose assistance and friendship they gain. (Of course, life has never been the same since!) Aragorn was my first love from that book gradually, my heart was given more and more to Sam, and then Frodo. I first read The Lord of the Rings in my teens. I was reminded of this again at church on Sunday, as we meditated on the Suffering Servant in Isaiah. But whether it is that autumnal something in the air, or perhaps the prospect of soon resuming (likely in December) the little local mythopoeic reading group that has been on hold due to Covid, or meditating on the nature of friendships near and far, including once-inseparable friends I haven’t seen in a long time, I don’t know-but for whatever reason, the subject of friendship, of the beauty hidden in human (and hobbit) failure, and of Frodo, has been haunting my thoughts persistently. Right now, so much is going on-in work, in current reading, novel revisions, my newborn little niece, and simply Life-that I want to choose my timing carefully. It is that time of year again, my favorite time-the season that runs from Hobbit Day (22 September) to Christmas-when I always long to return to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
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