Snowflake Challenge, Day 3
Jan. 3rd, 2019 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ermingardenDay 3: Share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.
One of my favorite characters in the Lord of the Rings is Halbarad, who is one of the Northern Dúnedain, Aragorn's kinsman, and the leader of the Grey Company (and who was tragically cut from the movies). I love in particular what he says to Aragorn at the entrance to the Paths of the Dead:
'This is an evil door,' said Halbarad, 'and my death lies beyond it. I will dare to pass it nonetheless'
These lines are an expression of the - not selfless, but self-forgetting - dedication to goodness, even if you yourself cannot enjoy that goodness, that the heroes of the Legendarium possess and that makes them so admirable. For Halbarad's foresight is reliable, and he does in fact perish bearing Aragorn's standard on the Pelennor Fields. Halbarad's lines here make me think of what Frodo says to Sam near the end of Return of the King:
'I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.'
When Frodo first takes up the burden of the Ring, he does not yet know this. Halbarad knows, and follows Aragorn into battle anyway, because he values higher than his own life a peace he will not live to see.
One of my favorite characters in the Lord of the Rings is Halbarad, who is one of the Northern Dúnedain, Aragorn's kinsman, and the leader of the Grey Company (and who was tragically cut from the movies). I love in particular what he says to Aragorn at the entrance to the Paths of the Dead:
'This is an evil door,' said Halbarad, 'and my death lies beyond it. I will dare to pass it nonetheless'
These lines are an expression of the - not selfless, but self-forgetting - dedication to goodness, even if you yourself cannot enjoy that goodness, that the heroes of the Legendarium possess and that makes them so admirable. For Halbarad's foresight is reliable, and he does in fact perish bearing Aragorn's standard on the Pelennor Fields. Halbarad's lines here make me think of what Frodo says to Sam near the end of Return of the King:
'I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.'
When Frodo first takes up the burden of the Ring, he does not yet know this. Halbarad knows, and follows Aragorn into battle anyway, because he values higher than his own life a peace he will not live to see.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-03 07:14 pm (UTC)That's without a doubt one of the Professor's inspired themes.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-03 08:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-03 07:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-03 08:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-03 09:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-03 11:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-04 12:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-04 01:13 pm (UTC)This is one of the things I love about Middle-earth: that people mean this.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-04 08:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-04 09:06 pm (UTC)