Is Aragorn as you pictured him?

[Beleg Cuthalion]

Originally Posted by narfforc

A really strange thing has happened, I find it hard to remember how I visualised Aragorn, the only previous images were mainly calenders and they were very diverse. When I first read LotRs there weren't any images at all, the first I remember was the poster by Jim Cauty who also did the album cover for The King of Elflands Daughter featuring Christopher Lee as The King of Elfland (singing). So I cannot now see Aragorn without thinking of Viggo, or for that matter Gandalf without Sir Ian.

I have the same problem.

I don't think I ever really had an idea what I thought he looked like before the movies.

[Boo Radley]

I... always pictured Aragorn as somewhat taller.
Not that Viggo is short, mind you, but "Strider" had very long legs and I viewed him as being a bit older looking and... dare I say it? (Oh, why not?) a bit more gaunt.
Just my opinion. YMMV.

[The Sixth Wizard]

Aragorn's just about exactly right in appearance for me. I usually pictured him with the same shape face, hair colour and length, and beard. Although I always picture him as sort of "striding" due to his name. And Boromir should be shorter.

Of course, the character is the bit that's messed up.

[narfforc]

The one thing I remember about the calenders and the artists (especially the Hildebrandts) was their insistance of showing Tolkiens characters as if they were in some Robin Hood or Three Musketeers movie , I hated them with their pointy hats, lincoln green and lots of buckling of swash, even the films that Errol Flynn appeared in drove me crazy, for Hollywood had some strange ideas about english history, no lets make that any history, their motto was 'Don't let the truth get in the way of rewriting history'. Jackson shows Aragorn as a man that spent a lot of his life in the wild, he looked the part, I never saw an inch of dirt on a Hollywood Robin Hood and as for some of the calenders, some of the people in them looked more like they were going to a ball than a battle.

I agree with the comments of Boo and The Sixth Wizard 100%


Hi Bethberry, when I first started the parody, I imagined the characters to be like Monty Pythons, now I have a whole list of people that if a film was made of The Lord of the Grins would be ideal for their part. I will PM you with some more info.

[Volo]

No, I deffinitely didn't imagine Aragorn anything like Viggo. I imagined Aragorn as "All gold does not glitter" - not handsome, but rugged. The Viggo Aragorn for one thing didn't look like he had been in the wild for years.

I'd say Alan Lee had effect on my Aragorn. This picture from my precious illustrated version of the Two Towers.

[Finduilas]

Strangely, I can't exactly picture Aragorn, or any other character in the books. While I am reading it, pictures do form in my mind, but not in ways that I can explain, or even remember later on. But as I afore said, Viggo was not what I consider a very good Aragorn.

But, I think that if the he had been better portrayed by the movie makers, he would have done fine. So even though I don't think he looked like Aragorn, he could have been made to seem to look more like Aragorn... if that makes any sense.

[MatthewM]

I expected a mixture of responses on this, as everyone has their own imagination.

I am somewhere in between, I think, and like Finduilas said:

Originally Posted by Finduilas

Strangely, I can't exactly picture Aragorn, or any other character in the books. While I am reading it, pictures do form in my mind, but not in ways that I can explain

While I am reading The Lord of the Rings, pictures form and faces of characters do as well but I do not know if I have a permanent image on any character. I have a hard time getting the movie images out of my head, sometimes I do not want to because I like the way some characters were portrayed- I like the way Aragorn was portrayed although I do not always picture Viggo as the character- and sometimes I can not get the images drawn by artists such as Anke Eissmann, Ted Nasmith, and Alan Lee out of my head...which sometimes, I do not want to either. I have some of my own imagination in there too.

The Lord of the Rings is one of those tales in which I can read a thousand times over and still pick up on different things and picture things differently because of reading something I did not pay as much heed to the previous time.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by narfforc

The one thing I remember about the calenders and the artists (especially the Hildebrandts) was their insistance of showing Tolkiens characters as if they were in some Robin Hood or Three Musketeers movie , I hated them with their pointy hats, lincoln green and lots of buckling of swash, even the films that Errol Flynn appeared in drove me crazy, for Hollywood had some strange ideas about english history, no lets make that any history, their motto was 'Don't let the truth get in the way of rewriting history'. Jackson shows Aragorn as a man that spent a lot of his life in the wild, he looked the part, I never saw an inch of dirt on a Hollywood Robin Hood and as for some of the calenders, some of the people in them looked more like they were going to a ball than a battle.

I agree with the comments of Boo and The Sixth Wizard 100%


Hi Bethberry, when I first started the parody, I imagined the characters to be like Monty Pythons, now I have a whole list of people that if a film was made of The Lord of the Grins would be ideal for their part. I will PM you with some more info.

Oh I completely agree with you narf about the squeeky clean Hollywood types--well, excepting for Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones, who had the right balance of dust, sweat and gosh darn charm--but Richard Greene was English, that Robin Hood was English. I always thought that English heroes never broke a sweat.

Except for maybe Peter O'Toole as Henry. But then O'Toole is Irish. Come to think of it, I'll have to check that out when The Longest Day runs again this June.

But your Lord of the Grins as Pythons? Oh my. Strider as the Minister of Silly Walks. Cleese does have that sort of snooty patrician air about him when he's not Basil.

[The Might]

More or less. I think I had seen an Aragorn drawing by Alan Lee before reading LotR and so I imagined him more or less as that. But after seeing the movies it was hard to think about him as someone else then Viggo...but then again that more or less happened with all characters after I saw the movies.

[alatar]

Now that Viggo is Aragorn, I'm not sure who else would have done the character better, visage-wise. Viggo is not young looking, but nor is he old. He can dress up, when around his She-Elf, and he looks like a man that an elf would die for. When he's with his traveling buddies, he appears rough enough to handle his own. Viggo gave his battle scenes realism - he didn't appear fake.

My only complaint is his voice, as at times it doesn't appear kingly. Best (and most readily-available) example of his voice being off is when he says, "orc," at the end of FotR. It comes out too nasally, and to me kills the scene a bit.

And in regards to Viggo/Strider looking like he's walked the walk, I would note that Bear Grylls, my new hero of 'Man vs Wild' fame, has lived the life of Aragorn and yet looks...don't know the best word...but handsome enough. If you see a picture of Mr. Grylls, you will note that he too has designer face scruff.

One of book covers (can't remember which), and the Bashki movie have Aragorn looking too 'Roman' to me.

Regardless, Peter Jackson's version has overwritten my original images on my organic hard drive, which is sad.