Paired characters in LotR

[davem]

First of all, anyone who wants to read the essay I mentioned:Warm beds are good can download it as a PDF here:http://www.ansereg.com/warm_beds_are_good.htm

I wonder about the 'marriage' of Sauron & Shelob - it is ultimately dead - it cannot produce offspring. Though Shelob, we have to remember, is not (as the movie presents her) simply a giant spider, but 'an evil thing in spider form' (don't think Tolkien was promoting bestiality there!). True marriage for Tolkien must produce children - which is why the other pairings - ie Frodo/Sam are not ideals, but stages in the process. They are 'reflections' of different aspects of a hypothetical 'single' being, showing alternative responses to external situatuations.

Originally Posted by Fordim

If I’m getting this right, then Eowyn’s ability to recover from this mistake when the others do not bears attention…

I suppose the 'pairing' in this case is of two different responses to the same thing. The Witch King is a 'Shadow of despair' - Eowyn faces it & slays it, Denethor faces it & succumbs, & is ultimately swallowed up by it. Eowyn, as Denethor, faces the loss of the one person she trully loves, but is not destroyed by despair - yet she is not one in whom the blood of Numenor runs almost true - she is one of the 'middle' people - we could also perhaps pair up Denethor/Frodo & Eowyn/Sam here - the 'upper class', higher beings cannot return from the mythic to the everyday world & are swallowed up in despair, & depart from the world alone, while the 'middle people' are able to live on in the everday world in peace & happiness. It all makes wonder how much Frodo ever really was an ordinary hobbit, & whether he wasn't really an 'outsider', like Galahad, sent into the world to perform his supernatural task & then depart. Though if he symbolises Sam's own spiritual side, then that begs a number of questions.

Tolkien seems to be saying that however overwhelming an eneny or a situation may seem there is always a choice, & he takes us down the two roads which those choices open up - & as you say, Gollum takes both those roads himself. So does Sam for a while, & ultimately chooses Rosie over Frodo, so we have the Frodo/Sam pairing & the Sam/Rosie pairing both co-existing in Sam from the begining - the spiritual path symbolised by his Frodo side, & the homely, hobbit path symbolised by Rosie - he takes the spiritual path as far as he can (or wishes to) & then, in the end, chooses to remain a hobbit. We could take the end of LotR as symbolising the two choices of this 'archetypal' Sam - the spiritual part goes into the West, 'dies', as does the world of magic & myth, & the hobbit side goes home to his family. The 'magic' goes away in the end, & leaves us with the everyday, & Tolkien seems to be saying that, for all the loss of wonder, that's actually for the best.