[Eurytus]

After reading all the above posts I can say that Saucepan Man has my general point of view pretty well nailed down. As I have mentioned in this thread and the previous ones in the film forum, I like the book. It is one of my favourites. It contributed greatly towards the overwhelming fondness for books that I now have.
The point I really started by arguing against was the type of poster for whom ANY change from the book is flawed since the book is in itself flawless.
Hence I felt compelled to list some of the ones I have seen.

I have read countless books since LOTR and some of these have pointed out the flaws in LOTR that were not always apparent at the time. My point about the simplified nature of evil is really based on the view that great books get you to think. And moral questions are often the ones that promote the most interesting thoughts. LOTR is far too simplistic in a moral sense for this to work. We are told far to often what to think. What are opinion should be. Who is evil and who is good. A great book would simply paint the characters as they are and give enough information about their actions, their motivations and the consequences thereof that the reader can judge for themselves. Is this person evil? Are they misguided? Can I understand where they are coming from?

I think that the comments above about the book only seeing things from the Hobbits POV are valid, and that this is a factor in the two dimensional characters. However, I would say that the choice of which viewpoint to tell a book from is the authors, and if they choose one which restricts their story then it is a mistake in my view.
I would also state that Legolas in particular is two dimensional to an extent that is not excused by the book’s POV. A character whose viewpoint we do not see can still be interesting and be shown to have hidden depths. The greatest characters in Dickens are never the ones that possess the POV. They are the secondary characters, the Fagins, Micawbers etc.
With Legolas I get the impression that Tolkien put him there because the Elves needed a representative. He does not really accomplish any specific tasks. He does not undergo any GREAT changes, short of liking Gimli. He undergoes no real spiritual growth. He is just there. When he’s not specifically mentioned you forget that he’s there until he’s mentioned again.

And as to the lack of a sense of loss? Well I can see that Frodo has a bittersweet ending to his story. That’s true. But the fact remains that the events in this book are portrayed as being an Era Ending War. Something that will change the world. OK, Sauron is destroyed but there is relatively little damaged. We are told continuously that the West is facing almost certain destruction, there is no real hope (well just a fool’s hope) and they cannot win. Well in those circumstances, in real war, things get nasty. Some will find reserves of humanity they never knew they had, but many others will regress to brutality, an every-man for himself attitude. Old enmities are settled, historical slights avenged, children slain, women raped…..it really does resemble hell on earth.

In LOTR the moral compass is always pointing in the right way. Those that fail this test are usually shown to have had some flaw prior to their fall. As if to justify it. How much stronger would Boromir’s loss have been had he been a great man? Maybe even superior in strength of character and kindness to Aragorn. Instead we are led to dislike him almost from the first. Hence his fall is not really a tragedy at all. We don’t really care.
As I say, I like LOTR but it does bug me when people claim it is without flaw and that to change any aspect of it is akin to blasphemy.