The most common complaints I hear against The Lord of the Rings are about the characters. People say that in the books they have no real personalities, or that they’re just black and white; blandly good and blandly evil. These are really odd criticisms though. They’re odd because they’re so untrue.
The characters do have distinct personalities. And they don’t act like one dimensional stereotypes either, but like people. Can you really read the books without noticing Pippin’s clever curiosity, or Sam’s humble love, or Gimli’s proud honour (and intense loyalty), Gandalf’s quick temper, Éomer’s violent emotions, and on and on. To go into detail of each personality would take a dozen metas. And hardly anyone in the story is all good or all bad. Saruman and Wormtongue used to loyal to the good guys. The Southrons are hinted at having been deceived or coerced into fighting. The Dunlendings were explicitly lied to (and not entirely in the wrong in their grudge against Rohan). All the orcs we meet, though certainly nasty, still act like people and have believable motivations. Even Sauron was once good. And as for the good guys, do I really need to remind anyone of Denethor? He never at any point gave in to Sauron, but he wasn’t exactly good at the end either. What about Boromir or Sméagol? The Rohirrim, though unambiguously opposed to Sauron’s evil, are actually pretty racist, and the story does not justify it. Their treatment of the Dunlendings and the Woses is not okay, and not meant to be. Faramir provides us with criticism of Gondor and their increasing love of war for war’s sake (and that’s not even getting into their colonization). Gimli, Legolas, and Aragon each in their turn become stubborn and recalcitrant (though not all over the same thing) and nearly cause fights with their allies. Sam — possibly the most selfless character in the story — is unreasonably suspicious and distrusting of every new person he meets (unless they’re an elf), and that trait, in a very real sense, costs Sméagol his redemption.
Having said all that the curiosity remains. If these criticisms aren’t true, why do we feel like they are? I think I might know what’s going on. I’ve recently been reading a lot about medieval literature and discovered how very, very much they loved allegories. They even loved works that weren’t that good, just for being allegories. Because that’s the kind of story people of that age were crazy for. Our own age is crazy over something else: we want character stories. That is, we want stories that focus in on the personalities, flaws, emotions, and development of the characters. And we tend to forget that this isn’t the only kind of story, nor the only kind of good story. But it is the kind of story we have a very strong love of. Lord of the Rings has characters with actual personalities and flaws, but those aren’t the focus of the story. They’re there, but we see them more at a distance, when we’re crazy about seeing them close up. But LOTR couldn’t be the story that it is if it was making those kind of close ups. It’s definitely good, and it’s particular goodness depends on it being told the way it is. We can see that it’s good, but then we also criticize it for not providing the one thing we’re nearly always looking for. If this makes sense?
Yes, yes it makes so much sense!! It’s the same with the Silmarillion – you have these beautiful, complex characters (some of the most vividly entrancing I have ever come across in terms of inspiring me to write) and they’re seen from a distance, they are secondary to the story, and it’s still so wonderful. They are there without us being inside their minds, we see them through the story rather than seeing the story through them, and I love it so much.
reblogging because this is incredibly pertinent to what I’ve been studying.
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