The Middle Earth Popularity Cup

[Aganzir]

++skippy

Grrr I hope you're ashamed of yourself for forcing me to choose between Boromir and Saruman!

Not that it was that difficult, I would just have hoped both of them had survived.

There are many things I don't like about Boromir - patriots like that are always a bit scary, putting the needs of their country above their own. However, Gondor was apparently his true love for the good of which he did all his deeds, and who am I to judge that?

I love his pride and his dry sense of humour. Also, he seemed to treat Gandalf and others as his equals - he never indicated he thought he was above them, but neither did he accept without a word everything that Gandalf or Aragorn said. He had a mind and will of his own.

Some day, I'll draw that death scene.

Okay

--skippy

++BOROMIR

[the phantom]

Boromir is great. He's the member of the Fellowship that I can really identify with. I mean, the plan to send the Ring to Mordor was madness, and they avoided capture only through amazing circumstance and in the end the mission failed. Frodo didn't destroy the Ring. Hardly a surprise since at the beginning of the book he was not even capable of throwing the Ring into his cooking fire at Gandalf's request.

Boromir's reaction to the whole thing seems downright sensible, and were I in his position I imagine I would've tried to snatch the Ring just as he did.

Besides being brave, hardy, a great captain, and all that stuff, he was simply one of the most realistic characters in the book.

++Boromir

[mormegil]

I don't much care for either, but I really dislike Boromir so...

++Saruman

[Groin Redbeard]

Ooh, this is a hard choice, I really like both of these characters. However, I shall vote for the character that I most identify with. For king and country!

++Boromir

All my reasons for voting for him are already stated.

[Nogrod]

I'm kind of agreeing with many here that we should eliminate Skip indeed for presenting us with such a choice.

But aren't these two, Saruman and Boromir so much alike?

Both were great heroes of their days and both were confident they could win the war themselves in a way they saw it fit. Also they both had to perform a treachery on their friends to succeed - and they both died because of that (remember that most of the heroes do survive the war in the LotR unlike in more modern stories).

I do like Boromir as a person more but I find Saruman much more fascinating. And also because there will be an ample Boromir -fan club around I will try to even this out a bit.

++ Saruman

[skip spence]

It was close but in the end Boromir won by 8 votes to 7. Saruman will have to scurry away and cause trouble elsewhere.


Now for two character accounted wise. One is, according to Lal anyway, a non-violent hippy-meister who invites his weird friends to his homely house. The other has the biggest eyebrows in the free world and one of the worse tempers too. According to some sources he eats Hobbits.

Gandalf vs. Elrond

[Thinlómien]

++Gandalf

No question. Such a gentle and wise person with amazing sense of humour and a temper that gives him an edge.

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

++Gandalf

There is no contest in this for me, regardless of who he's up against. When you're a much abused kid and you have to turn to books for a proper role-model, the one who provides it will forever have a more than merely special place in your heart. That consideration aside, Gandalf is at turns rather predictable and astonishingly unpredictable. And when the war was over, though he was largely responsible for moving the free peoples toward victory, he didn't go around hogging credit. He did the job he was sent to do, and when it was done, he surrendered his stewardship without any apparent regret or complaint. "Well done, thou good and faithful servant." Would that our so-called "public servants" did their jobs half so well, with half as much humility.

That said, Elrond's a good steward, too, but he did not have to bear the weight of the future of all Middle-earth as Gandalf did. He also did what was needed (and perhaps asked) of him, and did it well. There likely would have been no king to whom Gandalf could surrender his stewardship, but for Elrond; even so, without Gandalf, there would have been no Middle-earth free of Sauron's threat for that king to rule.

Rather an unfair match-up, I think, but it does not change my vote.