Quote:
Originally Posted by Kuruharan
I will admit that the fact that Sean Bean played both Boromir and Ned Stark partially inspired these thoughts in my head...
A couple of times George R. R. Martin has cited the death of Boromir as one of the inspirations for his (supposed and overhyped – there are other authors who do it more often than he does, especially lately) practice of killing protagonists.
Recently I was re-reading that portion of the trilogy and it struck me how Boromir’s death was never particularly eye-opening or shocking to me, not at all how some people throw The Game of Thrones against the wall when they read Ned's execution or throw internet temper tantrums when they watch Episode 9 of the first season of GoT.
The first time I read LOTR (or more accurately, listened as it was read to me) I more or less took Boromir’s death in stride as just being the way things were supposed to happen. I think this was for a couple of reasons. The first is that Boromir had just done something bad so to my childish brain ( I was in 5-6th grade at the time Tolkien was first read to me) Boromir got what he had coming for trying to take the Ring. The second reason is due to story structure. Not only is Boromir’s death not at the climax of the first book, the action of his death takes place off screen. Indeed, Boromir’s death is almost anti-climactic. I know, of course, that Tolkien envisioned the story as a complete whole and it had to be split for publishing reasons and the story as a whole doesn’t focus much on Boromir, which segues into my next point: Boromir seems to my mind to be a character who was created just to die.
However, I know that there are dyed-in-the-wool Boromir fans out there, so I am curious. Are there readers out there who did find Boromir’s death surprising or is Boromir’s death just something that you take for granted?
(I know that for most of you I am asking you to delve deep into the recesses of you memory to recall your first read through of the stories.)
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## The first I read "The Passing of Boromir" I was -
IIRC - rather shocked. I'm pretty sure that I assumed Tolkien was having an an Old English moment (Boromir = Old English defence, dying heroically; Orcs = Viking invaders attacking in superior numbers). It was definitely Boromir's
Crowning Moment of Awesome. One of the best moments in the film was PJ's insertion of the scene in the snow where Boromir picks up the Ring & gives it back to Frodo - even though such a moment would be impossible in the book - it was very effective, in a non-TLOTR way.
I think the reader is meant to admire Boromir, even though he is flawed. The book is more realistic for not being about characters who are all consistently perfect. I find it very useful to compare & contrast Boromir with Denethor as well as Faramir.