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Old 09-24-2004, 04:56 AM   #24
Fordim Hedgethistle
Gibbering Gibbet
 
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Join Date: Feb 2004
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Fordim Hedgethistle has been trapped in the Barrow!
This discussion of eros and logos, and the need to find balance (either between two or within one) is casting my whole Boromir/Frodo pairing into a new light. They are both of them 'loners' in the sense that at the breaking of the Fellowship they will each decide to go their own way -- in a sense, the breaking is a joint-venture by both of them (Frodo knows that he must go to Mordor alone if he is to save his friends, Boromir knows that he must finally seize the Ring if he is to save his city). Both of their decisions are wildly unbalanced ones, but both are corrected (Frodo's by Sam, and Boromir's by Aragorn).

But this is getting ahead of ourselves again -- to return to the Council. . .

It strikes me that we can see the entire debate as a search for a balance, or integration, of logos and eros. One the one hand is the logical recognition that the Ring has got to go in the fire, and on the other are the fears and passions of the people who are forced to realise this. I find it interesting that in the end, Frodo's 'decision' to take the burden is not a reasoned one at all -- in fact, he is hard pressed to know the reasons for taking the Ring. He is motivated only by a "feeling". Sam, Pippin and Merry also go with him for the sake of their love and for no other reason.

So in the Council we see a kind of integration in which eros (love, in the sense of love for others at the expense of self, which is more properly claritas) is swayed by the recognition of logos, but in the end, eros/claritas is more necessary or dependable. As Gandalf says, Pippin and Merry are better companions for Frodo than someone like Glorfindel -- that makes no sense, but it feels right.

And once again, I will point out that this balance is achieved by a group of men, without any women, so this is why I resist the notion of locating the logos-eros relation on a gender pairing. In fact, I resist locating them in a pairing of any kind insofar as there are many people at the Council not just two (or even two groups or kinds of people). I think that the relation between logos/reason and eros/emotion is more properly located in the relation between the group and the individual; the many and the one. It's as a group that they decide what must be done, but in the end it is for the love of his homeland and friends that a single hobbit accepts the burden of that decision.
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Last edited by Fordim Hedgethistle; 09-24-2004 at 04:59 AM.
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