Books to Movies: Tolkien and Left versus Right at Amon Hen

When Frodo and Sam cross, they end up in Emyn Muir.

The end of The Fellowship of the Ring, the movie, includes a great action sequence. 

And yet, it has always bothers me. (Possible solution at the end!)

The reason? The fellowship is on the west bank of the great river. They must decide whether to continue on to Minis Tirith or cross to the east bank and head towards Mordor. Frodo and Sam, of course, decide to break with the others, partly due to Boromir's actions but mostly because Frodo believes it is the right choice. 

Tolkien keeps exact track of where his characters are, not just in time but in space. What direction they are heading. Where the sun sets and rises. What they are near. Without being (necessarily) a military writer, he is well aware of natural barriers and the ability of troops to get access to supply lines. 

So it bothers me that the breaking of the fellowship appears to take place on the wrong bank.

The fellowship pulls up their boats at relatively flat ground, Palen Galen (again, Tolkien never forgot that characters can't simply get out of boats whenever they want). When Frodo escapes Boromir, he heads to Amon Hen (red star), which overlooks the falls and the small mountain-island Tol Brandir. When Frodo and Sam leave, they will head across the lake which is north of Amon Hen. 

And yet, in the movie, when Aragorn leaves Frodo at Amon Hen, he goes down the hill by turning away from the river and heading left.

An explanation for Aragorn's actions is below. It still drives me crazy. Based on the way the movie presents Amon Hen, Aragorn should head right, down to the flatter ground, away from the falls. 

After some reflection, I propose that Aragorn is heading south and west to fight orcs coming from Isengard. (There is level ground to the south.) I still have a problem with this explanation because Frodo appears to head in the same direction since he encounters Merry and Pippin. They are later defended by Boromir. Aragorn comes upon the confrontation between Boromir and the orcs without appearing to reverse course. 

The smaller map makes the above actions possible if both Frodo and Aragorn head south, encounter loads of people THERE and then Frodo heads east and north while Aragorn continues to head south and west. The bottleneck also explains how holding off the orcs helps Frodo and Sam get away.  

Except...how would Frodo get off Amon Hen in the face of the orc troupe without putting on the ring again (which he doesn't in the movie)? 

The implication, in the movie, is that Frodo initially came up the hill from the northeast--which means Aragorn should have as well.

I'm not sure I will ever be able to watch the movie without gritting my teeth at this scene. Tolkien never made mistakes about where characters are located/how characters move from Point A to Point B. In the book, Frodo meets no one--and Sam reverses course and returns to the lake--for a reason. The fellowship members have already scattered beyond Amon Hen. Getting down from Amon Hen is never the issue. Left or right, encountering the orcs there doesn't make any sense. 

But, yes, a good action sequence.

Happy April 16th!

 Today celebrates two things I love. 

The first is...

National Librarian Day!  I love libraries. I love the insides of libraries. I love the services. I love what they stand for. I love them. I use them. And I greatly appreciate librarians and their hard work. 

I also enjoy eggs Benedict, and today is National Eggs Benedict Day! 

The perfect picture would be a librarian eating eggs Benedict. 

I'll settle for eggs Benedict in the Portland Public Library's atrium (because one really shouldn't take them into the library itself). 

All the Ms: Madeline to Magariel

Laura Madeline: The Confectioner’s Tale: A Novel of Paris is one of many, many novels that involve a first-person narrator performing historical research. The history is presented in other chapters. Willig’s The Secret History of the Pink Carnation–which is quite fun–is of this type. So is Byatt’s Possession, which I couldn’t get into. Quite frankly, the trope needs a comedic tone for me to engage (I can read the history myself). 

Mike Maden: Blue Warrior uses the style of writing I associate with Patterson and Cussler. Straightforward, serviceable, with information packed into sentences: “A pair of dark aviators hid his world-wary blue eyes.” Not my style. But I have nothing against writers who produce this stuff and readers who truly enjoy it!

Sarah Madison: I reread Truth or Consequences quite often. It tackles the "lover can read the other lover's mind" trope with surprisingly and welcome astuteness.

Susan Madison: The Color of Hope is about yet another dysfunctional family. It isn’t fair, I believe, to not read each book for its own sake: its own narrative arc, its own underlying theme or belief system. And The Color of Hope does take place in Maine! But I don’t really understand the point of writing and reading the families-falling-apart-in-slow-motion stuff, unless it is a kind of exorcism for the reader. 

Tahereh Mafi: Furthermore is quite enchanting. I didn’t continue it since I felt, at the time, rather overwhelmed with teen books about children going off to rescue people while being misunderstood. The book is unique, however, since it presents a fantastical setting and a shrewd main character without apology. 

Daniel Magariel: One of the Boys tackles violent dysfunctional family life. Not a topic that interests me, but I was impressed that the book started with action and dialog–show, no tell–rather than someone ruminating in a bedroom about someone else in the living room and how life is ever so dreary. 

Books to Movies: Galadriel and Putting Characters Face to Face

I mention in my analysis of The Hobbit--regarding chase scenes--that I consider the later trilogy's chase scene in Moria one of the most pointless of all chase scenes in all action films. 

Overall, I think the Moria scenes are well-rendered, including Gandalf's confrontation with the Balrog. The scene near Balin's tomb is especially touching, now that viewers can associate Balin with Ken Stott.

But I don't have much more to say about Moria, so I'm going to skip forward to Lothlorien and Galadriel and an interesting visual "solution" to separated characters in film.

For Tolkien, every character is limited by distance and knowledge. Characters in The Lord of the Rings continually state that they only know so much. They can't see ahead. They aren't sure what will happen when the one ring is destroyed. They are acting morally because they believe they should, not because they omnipotently know the outcome (even the books' Big Bad is limited, which is refreshing).

Even the Valar (the gods who work for Middle-Earth's God or Illuvatar), once they descend to Arda or Earth, must abide by the world's functions. They only know what is possible for them to know due to their wisdom or power but no more than that.

So, in LOTR, Galadriel  can only see within the borders of Lorien. That country is fading as is she. She is well-aware of her situation. She doesn't so much make a choice about the ring but accept a choice she made ages earlier.

Yet there is a strange scene in the film version of Towers, where Galadriel and Elrond speak by...telepathy? Not to forget: in The Hobbit, Galadriel suddenly becomes capable of transporting herself! 

What is interesting to me regarding these scenes is that Jackson is obviously trying to solve a narrative problem: how does one create a visual scene with characters who are not present physically but are present in voice or thought or opinion?

The Thai drama My School President resolves this problem in a similar way to Jackson. The two young men start talking regularly on the phone after school. But watching people phone each other isn't as interesting as watching people interact with each other. 

So, the scenes will start with them on the phone and then move to them speaking face-to-face as their conversations become more personal. The result is one of the most touching scenes in the series when Tinn comforts Gun after Gun relays the story of his father's death when he was young. 

It's a visual device that I give a pass to--

I ALSO would rather see characters interact face-to-face.

Great Heyer Character: Venetia as a Truly Independent Female Character

I am not opposed to writers using tropes, even stereotypes, in their writing, so long as they do it well. 

Georgette Heyer could produce rather tiresome types. She could also produce magnificent types who transcend their role in the text. 

Venetia is one who transcends her type. 

Venetia is presented as an independently-minded heroine. Many of Georgette Heyer's heroines are independently-minded--right up until the hero proposes and then they become coy. Venetia does not. 

To start, Venetia is a 25-year-old member of the gentry who lives in the country with her scholarly and sarcastic brother Aubrey. She is a great Beauty. She is also frank and without pretense. She and Aubrey are entirely honest with each other. 

Venetia has suitors but has honestly and without pretense told them that she is not interested. They continue to press their suits, specifically Edward Yardling, who is sententious, condescending, and absolutely sure that Venetia doesn't really mean the things she says. 

38-year-old Damerel then arrives in the region. A member of the gentry, when he was an older teen, he ran off with a married woman, who obviously seduced him. He is quite similar, in fact, to Rochester, a once idealistic young man who was sorely disillusioned and has adopted the pose of being nonredeemable out of an honest belief in his own (rather mild) rakishness (he isn't exactly a member of the Hellfire Club). 

Damerel and Venetia meet and become friends. 

Heyer is quite good at showing (as opposed to telling) the reader how the hero and heroine of her books get along. She excels with Damerel and Venetia. They share a sense of humor. They talk easily. Venetia is not in anyway shocked by Damerel's experiences. She finally feels that she has found someone that she can speak to her on her wavelength.

Neighbors and family members, however, separate them--first, by convincing Damerel of the inappropriateness of the match and then by literally distancing the couple when they cart Venetia off to London.

Damerel's acquiescence to the separation is rather irritating. Continually throughout the novel Venetia's entirely truthful and objective statements are not taken seriously by the people around her. She says the same things again and again, but no, no, no, she couldn't possibly mean them! "We" have determined that she actually thinks entirely the opposite! She's a "good girl." Venetia obviously finds this continual dismissal of her actual statements less than palatable.

For Damerel to do the same thing seems unlike him since he appears to be one of the few people (Aubrey is the other) who takes Venetia seriously. 

However, Damerel is suffering from what Venetia calls "idiotish nobility." I will allow him to be an idiot, temporarily. 

Venetia rescues the situation when she realizes that her mother, whom she believed to be dead, is actually very much alive, having divorced Venetia and Aubrey's father and married a pompous member of the Prince Regent's set. The mother is, bluntly, not good ton. If Venetia has anything to do with her, she will "fall." 

So Venetia does. 

Edward--the supposed worthy suitor--then reveals his small-mindedness and inherent spiritual meanness by trying to pull a Darcy ("I struggled against my feelings for you, but failed") without Darcy's growth (Edward determines that he should have never given into his feelings).

Venetia shrugs her shoulders. She told him. Again and again and again. He didn't listen. Sucks to be him. 

Venetia returns to Damerel's country-seat to find him in a kind of stagnating holding pattern: morose and utterly unhappy. She informs him that she has made friends with her fallen mother. Like the princess in Shrek, she is now--reputation-wise--an ogre. 

The final outcome is not so extreme. Heyer, like Austen, understood that true social destruction is not entirely wise. Venetia has a powerful and wealthy uncle by marriage as well as good friends in the neighborhood. Damerel is not as irredeemable as he imagines. They will not "fall" as far as they expect. 

However, the text does make one incredibly insightful point. The uncle protests that a man of Damerel's age is set in his ways. He has established patterns that are difficult to break. He won't "reform" overnight. 

My personal feeling is that the uncle worries too much. Damerel has obviously reached a point in his life where change will be more organic and natural than forced. Still, the uncle has a point. 

Venetia once again shrugs. She knows exactly whom she is marrying. She knows exactly what she wants. She has always known, if only people would listen instead of trying to "fix" her. Her brother Aubrey agrees that she and Jasper (Damerel) will suit, and Aubrey knows her better than anyone. 

Venetia does more than behave in "appropriate" and expected independent ways. She is actually independent in her thinking. 

A wonderful character!

All the Ms: MacMillan to Mad Scientists

Gilly MacMillan: There’s a suspense/mystery genre in which women–mothers, daughters, sister, lovers—either end up in dangerous circumstances or go out of their way to save loved ones from dangerous circumstances. I don’t really get it, but then I don’t really get survivor memoirs either. What She Knew, about a son’s abduction told mostly from a mother’s point of view, is quite well-written. Not my cup of tea. (I would be more interested in the boy looking back on the event years later.)  

Robert MacNeil: And then there are all those famous people who turn around and write books because, I guess, that’s what famous people do. Robert MacNeil wrote Breaking News amongst others. News reporters getting excited about themselves interests me almost as much as actors getting excited about themselves. (Not at all.) On the other hand, the book begins by comparing reporters to Gadarene swine, who rush off the cliff to pursue unsubstantiated stories. I have to say: fantastic analogy! And to MacNeil's credit, he seems to have been open to a range of popular culture.

Elizabeth Macneal: Circus of Wonders is told by several characters about the circus life–including the internal competition–in the 1860s. 

Debbie Macomber: Debbie Macomber’s books fill over a shelf in the library. I chose a Christmas book, Christmas Letters. And I was reminded why I don’t read Debbie Macomber. I like romances. I like romances between everyday ordinary people. But I don’t care for her stuff. It’s not dissimilar to how I like fantasy and sci-fi yet can’t get into Andre Norton. I’m not sure what the reason is but I suspect, with Macomber, that the issue is tone. The book is supposed to be, I think, cute and warm-hearted and whimsical. I found the characters rather tiresome. Like I was supposed to be admiring how cute and warm-hearted and whimsical they were on every page.

Molly MacRae: Plaid and Plagiarism is the first book in a mystery series set in Scotland. So many mysteries! I have to get more and more selective.

The Mad Scientist’s Guide of World Domination gave me a chance to read a short story by Harry Turtledove, a sci-fi writer I know about but have never read. I don’t know if all his stories are written in the same style as “Father of the Groom”--a mad scientists turns his daughter-in-law-to-be into a literal bridezilla–but it’s an engaging style for a short piece: conversational and funny, rather like reading a comedian’s take on contemporary America.

Accountants as Heroes: The Auditors and The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter

Van Dine famously wrote that murder is the only satisfactory problem for a full-length mystery. And generally speaking, most of the Golden Age mystery writers agreed with him. Sayers challenged the notion with a suicide and a second-degree murder. She also wrote a few short stories--as did others--in which theft was the main mystery.

However, generally speaking, the form relies not only on murderers but on Columbo type murderers who plan meticulously and cover up their acts and even murder again.

And many, many mystery shows follow suit.
 
The Auditors, however, makes accounting malfeasance the dirty secret. There is a murder in the wings and several attempted murders/assaults. But the main issue is people stealing money for their own greedy reasons.

And it works!

It works because the stakes are fairly high. Entire lives can be derailed by the scheming, grifting, and lying carried out by management and employers.

In fact, one of the reasons that I like these heroic accountants so much is that their concern about money is not some manifestation of greed. Quite the opposite! By focusing on how things get paid for, they show a greater concern for real people and real solutions than so-called compassionate and sensitive people who look down on such "penny-pinching." The theme here is one I tackled in my story "Golden Hands," a take on Rumpelstiltskin: why assume that the king doesn't have good reasons to want more money? 

In The Auditors, the main character, Shin Cha II, is a man on a mission. He appears ruthless but is motivated by an exact understanding of the crimes and their cost. His prodigy, Goo Han Soo, is a friendly, kind young man who comes to understand his mentor better. 

*Spoilers.* 

The Auditors also supplies good villains; in fact, the eventual primary villain's  psychology is disturbingly familiar these days: I'm so righteous, my sins are necessary to combat the unrighteous. 

And The Auditors gives us some ambiguity. The department is semi-pitted against a member of upper management, Hwang Dae-woong, who turns out to be a supporter in the end. 

The tension between Shin Cha II and Hwang Dae-woong is fantastic since Shin Cha II is a "by the book" operator while Hwang Dae-woong doesn't see the harm is some nepotism, some minor grifting, some handouts. To him, that's the oil that keeps business running. However, he is inherently a moral guy: some actions truly are unimaginable. The two characters are frenemies and provide some of the best and funniest scenes in the series.

So The Auditors is well-crafted. And it provides a nice variation on the detective hero! 

Another great accountant character is Seiichirou Kondou from The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter. One of the best scenes in the light novels and manga is when Seiichirou must persuade the court that his ideas about how to handle the miasma will actually save money--a long-term solution as opposed to housing and clothing and rewarding the Holy Maiden. Another great scene is when he persuades the prince to impress the Holy Maiden by using his income to do stuff for her.

Accountants in both series are cool. However, in terms of sheer dramatic entrances, Shin Cha II wins here! 

The Dragon Character: Totally Meta

Going through characters created by "G" authors reminded me of Gannett's My Father's Dragon. And that got me thinking of the character of the dragon. 

So here is a 2023 post, reposted.

* * * 

I mention in the previous fairy tale post that dragons are just awesome! 

That is, unlike other natural, supernatural, and fantastical creatures in the fantasy universe, they tend to stand alone. They are not necessarily villainous, even when destructive. They are too cool for that. They may be good. They may be bad. Whatever they are, they are above it all. 

Books containing dragons, consequently, also seem to occupy a category of their own. They tend more towards "meta" than just about any other group of fantasy books. 

Tanith Lee's The Dragon Hoard

The Dragon Hoard is a very funny book about a wry, level-headed prince, Prince Jasleth, who has no choice but to set out to find a treasure. He joins up with a group of princes headed on an adventure, namely to retrieve a hoard guarded by a dragon. The adventure is headed by Prince Fearless, whose father is utterly indifferent to the quest and considers it mostly a waste of time. 

Jasleth ends up doing much of the heavy lifting on the quest--in a wry, level-headed, occasionally exasperated way--yet he remains good friends with his companions. In the end, the hoard is obtained without anyone conquering the dragon, who went off to see the dentist about its "nine hundred and fifty-four teeth."

Patricia Wrede's Dealing with Dragons (and sequels)

In Dealing with Dragons, Princess Cimorene escapes her tedious life at court and goes to work for the King of the Dragons (who is female). She wants the job and gets extremely irritated with princes who show up to rescue her. "Go away!" 

In Wrede's universe, having a princess is considered something of a cache for a dragon but also something of a bother. Few of them are as helpful as Cimorene and many of them run away before being rescued since they get tired of the life. 

In any case, the dragons are mostly occupied with their internal affairs and don't care much one way or the other. Having a princess is like having a BMW: a nice perk but not entirely necessary. 

Oliver Selfridge's The Trouble with Dragons

Trouble with Dragons is one of those books I tracked down when I got older, I love it so much. 

The dragons in Selfridge's book are unapologetically destructive, though they go after princesses and princes (people in shiny outfits) more than ordinary folk. But they are like tsunamis and volcanoes, a force unto themselves. 

The true villain is the Prime Minister. Since dragons in his kingdom lay brilliant sapphire eggs after eating a princess--and the sapphire eggs make gorgeous and expensive sapphire goblets--and the prime minister is making a bundle off the goblet factory--he encourages the prince/king to keep sending princesses out to be slaughtered. And it's very sad but eh, what can one do?!

Until a clever, resourceful, and wise princess, Celia, comes along to change things. 

In the end, the dragons retreat to the stars. They aren't punished--but they do need to stop burning stuff down and eating up farmers' herds of cows. So  they become legends. 

More on Characters: Types and Stereotypes

Books on writing often tout that all good writing is character-driven and that all good characters are complex. Complex characters have names and backgrounds and hobbies and tics. If they are angsty/"realistic" characters, they have dark pasts and foibles and unrelenting grief. 

But stories can be told in many different ways.

(1) Good writing can rely on types

(2) Types and stereotypes are not the same. 

(3) Good writing can also rely on stereotypes. 

(1) Tolkien relied on types. Agatha Christie relied on types. Shakespeare relied on types. Tolkien created types. So did Whedon when he invented Buffy (who is actually a deliberate reversal of a "type").

(2) Types are not the same as stereotypes. The difference is the universal quality. Types can move between cultures. Miss Marple is very English, but her type is still recognizable in her descendants, Mme Ramotswe and Mrs. Pollifax (Gilman).

Malahide gives Alleyn nuance.

A stereotype, on the other hand, is a cliche specific to time and place. Ngaio Marsh claimed she was using characters (unlike Christie), not types in her mysteries when actually she was using stereotypes. Don't get me wrong--I enjoy Marsh, but I don't think her characters are transferable beyond a very specific time and place. Alleyn belongs specifically to his upperclass English milieu and there is little of him that survives beyond it. He is a collection of time/place-based cliches: the reticient, fastidious, upperclass British detective working amongst worshipping subordinates in the 1940s to 1950s. 

In 1937 Lost Horizon, Howard

is the Terry character.

(3) Charlotte Perkins Gilman uses stereotypes in Herland. Van is the questioning (good) and progressive intellectual of his day. Jeff is the soft-spoken idealizer of women. Terry is the brash, domineering he-man. They are specific to a utopian polemic and don't need to function much beyond that.

More importantly than types versus stereotypes, Gilman is consistent. She could be more critical of Van (as my Terry is) but once she establishes their characters, she doesn't suddenly change mid-way through the story, forcing them to behave a certain way, so she can achieve an end. Terry's obnoxiousness is grounded in a particular perspective that doesn't vary and isn't inherently conspiring. Terry never lies, and he isn't deliberately scheming. In fact, Van feels some sympathy for Terry, trapped in a world that is outside his comfort level.

I believe that being fair with the reader is 90% of what keeps a story a story, rather than a lecture. I generally dislike "character remembers an important clue from years earlier" moments. But IF the story establishes that such memory retrieval is possible, then having the memory resurface doesn't bother me as much. 

Stereotypes can not only be fair, they can be very funny. In the Monk episode "Employee of the Month," almost all of the characters are stereotypes: the inept stock boys, the weedy manager, the disgruntled retail worker. The stereotypes are so accurate, so right-on, they are hilarious, but they are hilarious within a very specific time, culture, and place. A type, like Monk himself, has more universal qualities. Monk IS the Sherlock Holmes of his time and place and therefore, carries within him the universal qualities that made Sherlock Holmes universal. 

So stereotypes have their place. However, to truly invest in a story, types are more useful in long-run than stereotypes. In my critique/tribute to Herland, I give Terry not only more background but stronger arguments. He doesn't merely stand in for something; he considers what he wants and thinks. 

A human being faced with a new world potentially provides a universal experience. 

The Self-Sufficient Teenage Character: Jean George's Sam

A number of years ago, my mother commented that she found the behavior of a set of characters unrealistic due to their age. The characters were Jamie and Sammy from Cynthia Voigt's Sons from Afar. I didn't disagree. However, since I liked the final confrontation--in which Jamie and Sammy face down men in a bar--I simply increased the ages of the brothers in my head. (The cover makes both young men considerably older than their ages in the book.)

However, the issue underlies a great many plots. To a degree, readers accept the independent decision-making of teens in fantasy literature. The tropes require that they act alone without adult supervision. And historically, teens have often been left to their own devices, for good or for ill, whether anyone appreciated the gesture or not. When Bianca mentions in Last Man Standing that she was once a shift manager but when "you're ten, you just want to go out and play," she is echoing a historical reality. 

On the other hand, the brain literally doesn't stop forming until the late teens to early twenties--which is why forcing a young teenager to make a life-altering decision is bad sense at the very least and evil at the very most. The executive part of the brain that decides NOT to bungee-jump off a cliff using curtain cords begins to make itself felt. 

Between childhood and young adulthood are a number of steps. Kids begin to ask "big" questions regarding abstract ideas from ten to eleven. Before then, when a child says, "What does it mean to die?" the child likely means, "So, is that worm really dead or what?" though adults often leap to the more abstract problem. 

Even at ten to eleven, how abstract depends entirely on the child's exposure and experience, including the kinds of stuff the child hears around the dinner table. I remember conversations about religion at home when I was that age. I didn't form full--and layered--opinions on the issues until much later. 

As for confidence, I suggest that the degree of confidence held by a child comes done to mimicry and experience or lack thereof. In some ways, young children are more confident on camera--and more natural--because they exist pre-self-conscious adolescence. They will also mirror what they know and see.

In His in Herland, when my editor expressed doubts about my narrator's reflections (would a thirteen-year-old boy truly be that objective?), I shifted the time of the narration to later. He is the same character looking back. He admits that at the time, he simply did what was expedient and fit his interests. At one point, regarding his mentors, he reflects,

"Still, there’s something to be said for a society that doesn’t dissolve into Twitter wars at every turn, hysteria followed by self-praise. My strong feelings is the ultimate savagery—so states my Troas upbringing. I didn’t think that at fourteen going on fifteen any more than I considered the impact of social pressure on moral thought. I didn’t think about comparing cultures. There was nothing to compare. Life was what it was. I wanted to run across the world without stopping. Upend everything. Offer me a weapon, I’d have taken it."

Jamie and Sammy, however, are behaving with diplomacy, insight into human behavior, and mature confidence in the moment. How likely is that a response from a 12 and 15/16-year-old? (I think there is more than one answer to that question!)

What about Sam from My Side of the Mountain? 

I reread the book recently and found it as enchanting as I did as a youngster.

I'm not entirely sure I believe in it. Sam is drawn, by the author, as about fourteen. Wikipedia states he is twelve. He sounds about eighteen. He performs tasks that are possible for a self-possessed fourteen-year-old--to a degree. 

That is, I was able to buy into almost everything that he accomplishes--except skinning the deer. 

George has a decent scene where Sam nearly kills himself from carbon dioxide poisoning when he starts a small stove fire in the tree home. He badly frightens himself. In addition, several times he points out that he made mistakes the first month. And he picked up just about everything he did or knew from books. 

Yet George presents Sam as able to properly skin a deer without the result turning into a weird, smelly, grub-infested mess the first time around. 

Again, Sam has no prior practical experience. And I'm afraid that this is one place where I think that it would take Sam about ten deer before he would master the procedure and achieve a lack of non-rotting grossness--so he can make himself a deer suit. 

However, the impulse to leave, to head out, to try to live off the land is an impulse that I  believe could reside in, okay, a fourteen-year-old (again, I increased the age in my head). Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild explores this impulse. The issue is not a hatred of parents--as George properly emphasizes--but an eagerness to head out into the unknown. 

Just--it helps to remember that the young man that Krakauer chronicled died from mistaking one plant in his book for another. 

Books to Movies: Fellowship, Bill the Pony, and Animals are a Lot of Work

In the movie, Bill the pony, shows up when the Fellowship leaves Rivendell. In the book, Bill shows up much earlier since he was obtained in Bree. (I will discuss much later how Tolkien never forgets the importance of supplies.)

Bill isn't used in the movie between when the four hobbits and Aragorn leave Bree and when Frodo arrives at the Ford. Having the hobbits and Aragorn trek through the area on foot makes more visual sense. It also emphasizes the horse chase when it does occur. 

And, too, it means not having to deal with an animal until necessary. 

Animals are notoriously difficult for filmmakers, rather like children on camera. Watch Adam and Jamie from Mythbusters try to get a duck to quack or a skunk to spray: their attempts bring home how suspiciously compliant animals on film appear to behave. Or, to be less cynical, how good their trainers are. 

In truth... 

Animals are not compliant at all! 

Plus there are the thousands of forms the filmmakers have to sign in order to be able to declare "No animals were harmed in the making of this movie..."

On that note--Bill, who is sent away before the Fellowship enters Moria, does survive in the book!  

Animals That Talk and Why the Blogger (Mostly) Doesn't Care for the Trope

Re-post from 2005.

In a recent post about horses, I comment that I prefer books about animals to include humans. 

I'm not a huge fan of books which use animals exclusively (no people). The animals do all the same things humans do and wear the same kinds of clothes and have the same kinds of relationships and the only difference seems to be that they live in burrows or whatnot but otherwise, they are really just humans with furry faces. 

And I don't get it.

I'll leave Watership Down alone since I've never read it and I saw only 1/4 of the movie when I was a kid; I got so scared, my mom took me outside and let me run around the lobby and eye the candy counter. But I have never understood the appeal of Brian Jacques' books (and please don't hate me, Brian Jacques' fans!) As far as I can tell, it makes precious little difference in Brian Jacques' books whether the heroes are mice, rats, frogs, humans, coyotes or whatever.

Let me elaborate.

In Beatrix Potter, the animal-ness of the animals is intrinsic to the plot. They may be temporarily "dressed up" but they always revert to their animal natures, and their animal natures are at the crux of the stories. Peter Rabbit is acting like a rabbit, sneaking into the farmer's garden to steal cabbages. The squirrels in Squirrel Nutkin act like squirrels. Sure, they talk but their animalness is never forgotten. You couldn't replace Peter Rabbit with George Ape. (Speaking of simians, the same is true of the Curious George books.) C.S. Lewis does this in the Narnia books. There's no point in the animals acting human; there are plenty of humans acting like humans (poorly and nicely) to go around. [And I quite enjoyed Zootopia, especially the "naked" animals, since living arrangements are connected to animal-ness.]

Having written the above, though I don't much care for anthropomophized animals overall,  at least with Beatrix Potter and H.A. Rey and Lewis, I get it. 

I still prefer my protagonists to be human. Even that old-time classic The Wind in the Willows didn't change my mind. Really, I'm a humanoid-chauvinist.

After all, why write a book about frogs or moles or rats acting like humans when, voila, you could do a book about humans acting like humans!?

Here's what I think may be the answer. The appeal (and C.S. Lewis says as much in his autobiography and in Out of the Silent Planet) is the idea of animals and people being pals, hanging out. It isn't the biology that people like (a la Gerald Durrell); it's the image of animal-ness (or creature-ness) within the human sphere: something you can buddy up to but won't eat you. Similarly, many people like the idea of conversing with animals, as if animals would say more back than "Mine. Mine. Mine." or "Feed me. Feed me. Feed me NOW." The lion or badger or panda is a friend.

Even as a kid, the idea never appealed to me. I wanted a lion cub, yes, but I never thought it would like me. My attitude was reflected in my reading material. As mentioned, I didn't much care for Wind in the Willows. I love the Narnia books but mostly for the people and their quests. I read Animal Farm and yes, it's great, but I couldn't get into the movie. I adore the movie Babe, but I think Babe is an exception. (The animals are very animalish and the whole sheep-herding thing is necessary to the plot--that is, it isn't pigs and sheep and dogs pretending to be humans; it's pigs and sheep and dogs acting very piggy and sheepy and doggy. Beside, James Cromwell is so very, very great.) As mentioned in the previous post, I read and reread Black Stallion and then Frog when I was younger, and I loved them but never picked up another horse book except Black Beauty, which bored me senseless. I quite enjoy the older BBC version of All Creatures Great and Small but honestly, the thing I like best about it is that the vets actually put animals down.

Let me clarify that.

No, I don't like watching animals get killed, but I like people treating animals like animals and not like people in animal clothing.

As far as I'm concerned, my cats consider me a food bowl and their degree of love ends about two feet past the food bowl. They aren't little people. They're animals. They're kind of dumb; their learning capacity is about the same as a two-day old amoeba. They are more fun to watch than fish and less involved than dogs. But they aren't people. If they were people, I'd want them to get jobs and pay part of the rent. Not to mention the fact that they puke on my rugs and never change the litter box and like to play "I'm on this side of the door/now I'm on this side of the door" twenty times a day. One endures this with toddlers because they grow up. One endures it with pets because they are cuddly enough (and company enough) to pay off the downside. (And you can leave them for long weekends.) With anyone else, the house visit would end very quickly.

Which may explain my complete disinterest in the possibility of me and my cats exchanging views on the universe. [I do love the manga series A Man & His Cat, in part because the cats are treated like animals, not little people, but mostly because the story has expanded to include everything and everyone in the main character's universe!]

The Character of the Wild Animal with the Heart of Gold

When I was growing up, it was a given that girls love horses. I'm not sure where the idea came from. I liked horses and I took horse-riding lessons. But I never got into the whole unicorn/horse subculture, not even My Little Pony (slightly too young for me). 

I did, however, adore the book The Black Stallion by Walter Farley and Frog: The Horse That Knew No Master by S.P. Meeks. I didn't read anything else by those authors or in that genre. But I LOVED those books. 

I suspected then and I know now that I was as much in love with the humans in the books as with the horses. That is, I have never much cared for stories about animals alone (there are a few exceptions). What I still remember about The Black Stallion is the scene where Alec's parents see him leave the ship with a horse that is 15+ times heavier than he is. And with Frog, I was half in love with Roy Scott, the officer that saves Frog in the beginning, by the end of the first read-through. 

In both cases, the main human character meets the animal half-way. It isn't that different from Peter and The Wolf in the  Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman's film. They understand each other better than all others. On the island, Black comes to Alec's rescue when he destroys the rattlesnake. In Frog, Frog capers for help when Scott is knocked out and Frog can't rouse him. 

Wild animals will turn on their so-called owners, as will domesticated dogs and cats with the owner's rotting corpse. But that's part of the attraction with The Black Stallion and Frog. They are never entirely tamed, and their handlers know that. They remain on the edge of wildness. 

When I was younger, I always wanted a panther--and at that time, one could get one's picture taken with baby panthers. I never did. I didn't want a carefully controlled and monitored panther. I wanted a real one, just like I wanted a real lightsaber that could, you know, take my legs off. 

The desire for danger lurks, even as we get older and wiser.

Art for Art's Sake: Sister Boniface

I have mentioned elsewhere that in my younger days, I had a somewhat low opinion of "art for art's sake" since it seemed mostly an excuse for people to write whatever they wanted and then expect other people to admire it. "Art," I tell my students, "is about an audience." People CAN write whatever they want--and I've come to believe that there is, in fact, an audience out there for everyone and everything--but art is more than a diary entry.

However, in the last few years, people who love LESSONS and LECTURES and POLEMICS and LABELS seem to be taking over all areas of life, not just politics and certain types of religion. Consequently, I think that art for its own sake--for the sake of composition and narration and show-don't-tell and sound and characters and plot and setting and tropes--should be praised and promoted. 

One of my favorite defenses of art for art's sake comes from Sister Boniface, Season 1. In defense of Operation Q2, an invented show obviously based on The Avengers with Diana Rigg and Patrick Macnee, Sister Peters passionately proclaims the following:

Operation QT isn't blasphemy. It brings millions of people so much joy. There's nothing unholy about that. Every week, the heroes in the story fight evil and win...God gives his blessing to these good people in the practice of their art.

I love what Sister Peters proclaims, not only because it is a defense of art for art's sake but because of what she is defending: a kind of kitschy, schlocky television show. It's a great defense of art AND of "just because others don't like it doesn't mean I shouldn't!" 

Books to Movies: Fellowship, Keeping Characters Characters Plus More About Mary Sues

How much can you change until the character is no longer the character?

Scriptwriters and directors are constantly changing stories until they no longer even vaguely resemble the original plots. 

But what about characters? Most Miss Marples are decent representations of the type even when their movies are completely unlike the books. The movie Christmas with Holly based on the Lisa Kleypas's book Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor changes the brothers' ages and backgrounds but retains their relationship. 

What about The Lord of the Rings?

In the book, Gandalf--rather than Elrond--wants Frodo to be the ring-bearer. In the movie, Gandalf resists that suggestion and is pained by Frodo's decision. 

Frankly, I prefer movie Gandalf here. Book Gandalf seems a little too "I'm a wise wizard--I must prophecy." However, the underlying care for Frodo is consistent between movie and book as is the curmudgeonly wizard who cries, "Fly, you fools."

In both the book and movie, Boromir is belligerent with Aragorn--in the book, because he thinks Aragorn needs to prove himself; in the movie, because "Gondor needs no king." I think the objections, in both cases, come from the same sense of pride and tunnel-vision that characterize Boromir overall (plus his great honor and toughness).

Book and movie Aragorns are quite different in some ways. The Aragorn of the book has already accepted his role and fate. He isn't terribly concerned about the ring's power. He isn't uncertain or guilt-ridden about his role. He is, well, honestly, something of a Mary Sue.

However, Tolkien's Mary Sues aren't annoying in the way that many Mary Sues are--the sense of history throughout the books implies that although we readers may be meeting this character after the character has figured out a course of action, the character has paid for that knowledge and is willing to live with the subsequent fall-out.

Galadriel, for instance, is a saintly Elvin queen who rejects the ring. Of course, she does! But she also exudes a sense of sorrow or sorrow mixed with happiness. She made tough choices long before we meet her. She gave things up. She is now bearing the weight of her decisions.

Aragorn is the same. And he isn't entirely perfect. He becomes troubled near the end of Fellowship since he can't decide whether his duty calls him to help Frodo (as he and Gandalf planned for Gandalf to do) or to go to Gondor. When Merry and Pippin are carried off, Aragorn blames himself and his indecision for what happened that day. And at the end of the trilogy, though he is happily married to Arwen, he, like Galadriel, carries about him a sense of sorrow. Out of all the members of the Fellowship, he seems to bemoan its end the most. 

Duty is a positive in Tolkien's world--and duty is not incompatible with having to give things up. 

In general, Jackson and Jackson's scriptwriters do a decent job retaining the core of Tolkien's characters. The inner struggles, ambiguity, and range of reactions are in the book. The trilogy takes those elements and brings them to the fore.

Darcy's Possibly Happy Childhood

Because Darcy is glum and untalkative, some fan fiction tries to suggest that he has trauma.

I don't agree (and neither does Darcy, actually).

Austen siblings often have close relationships.
Henry & Eleanor Tilney protect each other,  
& their rakish brother, against their father.

It is customary to give heroes and heroines difficult family relationships. After all, it is more dramatic! And, to be fair, a number of Austen's characters do have dysfunctional home lives: Anne Elliot, Henry Tilney, Edmund Bertram, and Elizabeth herself. On the other hand, Catherine Morland, the Musgroves, Elinor's immediate family, and Emma all have good relationships with their families.

Even those without good relationships rarely spend time agonizing over their family issues--not a lot of Freudians in this crowd!

Darcy is one of Austen's characters who had a very happy childhood. His own description follows:

As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own.

In other words, Darcy's pride though partly the result of how he was raised is not in any way the result of poor treatment: neglect or abuse.

Not only is Darcy's pride not the result of poor treatment; it isn't even the result of deliberate brainwashing: "Son, you are better than anyone else; don't you forget it!" Darcy's pride is actually much closer to that described by C.S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters. In a letter to Wormwood, Screwtape suggests how to exacerbate (spiritual) pride:

[She makes the] quite untroubled assumption that the outsiders who do not share [her beliefs] are really too stupid and ridiculous...it is not, in fact, very different from the conviction she would have felt at the age of ten that the kind of fish knives used in her father's house were the proper or normal or "real" kind, while those the neighboring families were "not real fish knives" at all. Now the element of ignorance and naivete in all this is large...

Screwtape then goes on to discuss how Wormwood can use this perspective to push the cliquey idea of "us versus them."

The attraction of a clique or set to someone like Darcy is not the attraction of being superior to others ("We are so much more beautiful, successful, likable than you"), which is the Crawfords' type of pride in Mansfield Park. For Darcy the attraction of the clique lies in MY family, MY friends, MY people versus Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Collins, Lady Catherine, etc. etc. etc. 

Darcy's "MY" extends from his happy childhood.