This little gem from above caught my eye ...
"I so rarely hear a mature opinion outside my own circle that I'm beginning to wonder if the average mental age isn't down to about twelve"
... to which I would gently reply - you need to get out more [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
On the main topic, I think Maril has got it about right about Sam and Frodo. There are primarily three kinds of male bonding apparent in LoTR - the traditional master/manservant relationship (ie. between Sam and Frodo, or Merry and Theoden) ; the chivalric knightly love (ie. between Eomer and Aragorn) ; and the natural friendship of equals (ie. Merry and Pippin, or Legolas and Gimli).
These were literary / cultural norms in England at the time of writing LoTR, but as society and culture has changed we have become less willing to accept both the essential romanticism and the inherent inequalities therein. For example, it could be problematic now to show the love of a dogged and loyal black servant to his Confederate master. And unconditional hero-worship for a warrior leader was brutally explored in Platoon, while unconditional allegiance and respect for command was ripped to shreds in Catch 22.
The homoerotic aspect of such relationships has also been exploited in a very English way in the Lindsay Anderson film If, and more recently for comic effect in The Fast Show. As a potential aspect of male bonding it is an accepted phenomenon, and hardly anything at all to do with gay love.
The whole story, however, seems to me patently devoid of intentional sexuality or eroticism of any sort. And again, this is a reflection of the author's time and culture. The awareness we have now of the sexual undertones in traditional fairy tales, or of the Eastern myths with their occasionally rampant libido, were NOT part of Tolkien's worldview. I would cite Mallory's Arthurian epic as a typical cultural model for the chivalric nature of all the relationships in the book.
Okay ...
There is another interesting little sub-plots running through this thread - on the changing nature of language.
The English language is a pragmatic and opportunist mongrel - adaptable, shameless and willing to steal or amalgamate as required. The etymology in most sentences will illustrate that ... a helping of Latin, a little French, some colonial Indian or Caribbean, perhaps more recently a little Native American, a bit of Tuetonic - the list is endless.
It's neither a good thing or a bad thing in itself that it changes. What the changes are, and whether we like them or not, is up to us. Personally I am just old enough to remember a time when nouns were different from verbs, before synergy, foregrounding and so on ... and Satellite TV and text messaging IS taking us ever closer to Orwellian Newspeak. But we're the ones that are doing it! We get - and create - the language we deserve. Still, as a new visitor here, I am reassured that articulacy and eloquence still flourish [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
Peace
[ February 23, 2002: Message edited by: Kalessin ]
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