The Great Stories

On a couple of different occasions in this blog I've written about something that was "new" to me but probably old hat to a lot of other people. Here's another of those.

I've never been a huge fan of the fantasy genre, so I've never read J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy Lord of the Rings. I DID read The Hobbit when I was in high school, but it wasn't my kind of read, so I didn't even try to read the larger, more famous work. Similarly, when Peter Jackson made the films of the three novels a decade ago, I watched the first film, again decided that they weren't for me, and never bothered with the final two films.

Until last night.

My older daughter IS a fan of fantasy fiction, and I told her a couple of weeks ago that--if she were going to call herself a fan of fantasy fiction--she really needed to be exposed to Tolkien, since everything else is sort of derivative of his work. So last week we watched the first film, The Fellowship of the Ring, and last night and the night before we watched The Two Towers. The second film did nothing, really, to endear me to the genre. But I was absolutely blown away by a speech given at the end of the film.

In the film, Frodo, the main character, is discouraged. Heck, "discouraged" isn't even the right word; it doesn't go deep enough. He's despairing. He think he can't go on and complete his quest. And his friend and sidekick Sam stands and delivers a rousing speech. It was so good that as soon as it was over I stopped, told my kids we had to watch it again, and we did. When the film ended ten minutes later, I rewound back to that spot and watched it two more times (and made my kids watch it, too, to the point that I think they were actually relieved when I let them leave the room).

If I ever teach English again (Hey! You never know) I may begin the year by playing this scene, as I think it explains the purpose of literature.

Of course, you may not be as moved by this scene as I am. First, if you haven't watched the film, the visuals will make no sense to you. Second, I buried my father three weeks ago today, and I know I'm still pretty emotionally raw. I think I see my own discouragement in Frodo's despair.

I think it DOES help to know that this part of the novel was written during the height of World War II, when Hitler (Sauron in the novel) looked like an unstoppable force, and the real world full of evil. Tolkien was writing a message of hope in an age of darkness.

Anyway, here's the clip, eight years after millions of other people have seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEMdXhfO-Wk