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Originally Posted by Bêthberry

But is this criterion of "being human" necessarily one that fits LotR?

A reader needs to be able to connect with the characters in the story. I'd never connected with Boromir, as he just seemed bratty and headstrong. The movies have helped me take a second look.

True, it is a modern value and suggests that the normal state of human beings is to be conflicted, but the heroic or warrior values which Tolkien was working with operate on different assumptions. There, the interest lies in those who, despite their conflicted state and the challenges that face them, are able ultimately to uphold their word, their value, their responsibilities. I'm thinking mainly of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Did not Boromir return at Parth Galen, even when the entire Fellowship was against him? Even when he sinned?

This was the crucial flaw of Byrhtnoth (he of that Old English word ofermod in The Battle of Maldon, that he forgot his ultimate responsibility to protect his people and instead became mired in a personal code of honour (at least, according to Tolkien's analysis of him).

I was just talking about that this morning with the kids.

To quote Nickelback, "And they say that a hero can save us. I'm not gonna stand here and wait." For some reason, this seems appropriate.

To 'humanise' Boromir is to confuse the heroic mode that Tolkien is writing in with modern psychological relativism. I always found Boromir interesting because I think Tolkien was writing a critique of modern male hegemony, but he isn't someone I pity or like. Everyone has his or her own tastes, of course, but I'm not sure if it does a service to the story to make Boromir 'likeable'.

I now understand his 'story,' his motivations, and he seems less of a cardboard cutout antagonist ("Boromir want Ring. Want Ring now!") and more the proto-Sam who sacrifices/overcomes.

It also, of course, makes it far more difficult to depict Aragorn's heroism in a sympathetic light and this was also a great failing of the movies. I remember having the movie ruined for me several times by folks around me who invariably broke out in derisive laughter and chatter at some of Aragorn's movements. It is Aragorn who should be given the focus of heroism, whose heroism should be tenable and real and believable in today's system of values and that Jackson utterly failed to do. He glorified the wrong guy.

The movie is a bit messed up, and I may have written on that somewhere.

Okay, I think I've said enough.

Definitely not!