[Kalimac]

Thank you, Rae [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]. That was pretty much what I was driving at. Maybe having a dead mother gives the hero emotional baggage, but it's the interesting dramatic kind instead of the dreary, guilt-inducing kind. (Imagine Frodo shuffling, trying to explain to Primula that he's, um, moving to Crickhollow and doesn't really want her to come with him, but it doesn't mean - Mom! Of course you mean everything to me, you're not a problem at all, it's just that there's a lot of stuff I have to do, like, uh - Mom, I know I live off of family money. It's just...oh all right, you can come with us).

KingCarlton, I don't believe my previous post implies that it's simply a matter of "If Tolkien does it, it's OK." It's true that if a character's mother is dead, there's no way it CAN'T affect how they develop. Certainly Frodo's life was changed by his mother's being dead, as were the lives of Faramir and Boromir, and of course the many motherless others in the books. But the "cheap emotional" effect I was talking about is present in a lot of stories, where the authors, UNLIKE Tolkien, use the existence of the dead mother to avoid really developing the character; instead when they want us to feel sorry for him, they just turn on the "I don't have a mama" waterworks. If Tolkien really wrote like this, the dead mothers would be constantly pushed in our faces. For example, when Denethor grows angry at Faramir, Faramir would think of how cold his father has grown ever since Finduilas died, and how he's never felt truly happy since then. Frodo leaving Crickhollow would feel as empty and sad as he had on the sad distant day when his mother drowned. And other things like these - maybe these aren't the best examples but I think you get the idea. Tolkien does NOT do this; his characters live in the present and we like and pity them for their own attributes and actions, not because of their constant appeals to our pity for all the things they went through in the past, as opposed to now.

I didn't mean to imply that because the device was old that it should STOP being used; I've used it myself and probably every other person who's written more than a paragraph of fiction has done it also [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]. All I meant was that with the privileges of writing about a hero with a dead mother (greater freedom to explore for the hero, possible dramatic background story/subtext, Secret Sorrow) come certain responsibilities (not using the deceased as a crutch whenever you want the reader to feel emotional).

Here endeth the rant. Thanks for reading [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img].