[Child of the 7th Age]

Slightly off the main question, but I think it is related....<P>OK, at the risk of taking a totally different stance than anyone else, this was actually one of the points in the movie that gave me fits once I began thinking more about it later. (As a whole, I loved RotK.)<P>This is where we get into a book versus movie thing. It is quite true that Frodo was never awarded the respect that he deserved from the Shire. But, according to Tolkien, the same was not true of Merry and Pippin or even Sam. Merry and Pippin were hailed as the heroes of the Scouring. Sam used to grumble about too much honor being awarded to the two of them and not enough to Frodo who had taken a very "passive" role in the Scouring, counselling caution and making sure no one did anything too drastic. But, since there was no Scouring in the film, PJ could not show how Merry and Pippin were regarded as the new leaders of the Shire. Instead we get the morose scene in the Inn.<P>Another thing that made me uncomfortable was that, according to PJ, the Shire had been totally isolated from the troubles and was thus wholly unchanged. Yet this was not the Shire that JRRT depicted. As Gandalf said to the hobbits, they had grown up and could go home and lead their own people to defend themselves. The folk in Tookborough were already resisting the incursions from outside even before the four hobbits returned within the borders of the Shire.<P>So I do have mixed feeling about the scene at the Inn. Hobbits are certainly insular, and the picture PJ presents at the Inn is superficially enticing and melancholy. Yet this isn't the Shire that JRRT depicts. Things have changed, and that simply doesn't come over at all at the end of PJ's movie.<P>I mean within a short space Sam would be mayor, Pippin the new Thain, and Merry the new master of Brandy Hall. The Shirelings and Bucklanders revered them not for the Ring quest, but what they'd done after returning home in defeating Sharkey. If the place was as unappreciative and uncaring as PJ insinuates, the Shire would never have accepted the hobbits in these important positions.<p>[ 2:40 AM January 05, 2004: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]