Great insights and discussion on Covenant. Even being a fan, Covenant's whining is irritable in the second book, which is a reason it's my least favorite of the first three. I think that Donaldson realized that and changed over to Hile Troy, which is another reason I don't like the second book.
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Breaking the Author/Reader Contract.
- Thread starter nikolai
- Start date
jester47
First Post
Particle_Man said:
Sorry P-Man, gotta shut you daown there. The only member of the round table that was what we today would call a hero was Percival. In mallory's version Arthur was proud and put himself before god. He broke broke the sword of the lake, and lost excalibur (there were two swords in Mallory). Lancelot was an Adulterer. Gawain was a victim of self doubt and abandoned the grailquest. In almost all stories each knight of the round table has a major moral character flaw, except Percival. King Arthur and his kngihts were a bunch of rat bastards, trying to defend and create a place that was not full of rat bastards like themselves.
Lets take a look at some saints:
St. Francis of Assisi was a pleasure seeking fighting man.
St. Augustine is known for his vices.
St. Christopher was a coward.
Most of the saints, when we know about thier lives have moral flaws. What makes them a saint is that eventually they overcame these flaws at the call of thier god. They are sanctus meaning holy, not ex-pyrosis meaning from the fire. Holy hardly means flawless. Saints are reformed. They are role models, and in todays definition of hero, they are heroes. But that is my point, originally the concept of hero and saint were almost opposites. Today we have made the word angel, saint and hero almost synonymous. Thus necesitating the concept of "Anti-hero" to encompas what hero originally meant.
Aaron.
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Particle_Man
Explorer
Wow, I guess I missed the part where King Arthur and his knights gang-raped that maiden. Oh wait, that never happened. 
Look, the fact that few of them were completely flawless does not change the fact that they pursued an ideal of being completely flawless (a prerequisite of getting the Holy Grail). And their character flaws, when there, were singular (that is, the knight was brave and noble, courteous to ladies, etc., except for X, which was that knight's tragic undoing) and did not include rape. Heck, that very willingness to pursue the moral ideal might be the quality to emulate, if one is seeking a role model. Think of these guys as more like Spiderman than Superman (the Percival of the comic book world). Spiderman is more of an Everyman hero, and he does make mistakes, lose his temper (ah, those comic book hero on hero fights... ), gives up on being a hero for a while (a sign of the reluctant hero that is way more enjoyable to consume than the Thomas Covenant version), etc., but is still a hero in the same sense of trying to do the right thing.
With Saints, I think a lot of them had rough pasts, and then became good, approaching the ideal, etc. That is when they became heroes. The point of Saints, partially, was the "if they can do it with their pasts, there is hope for you too to become morally good".
But more importantly, people later (but before the american novel) looked at these guys as role models because they were seen as heroic, pretty close to morally flawless, and pursuing an ideal of being morally flawless. The "Man of la Mancha" is an example of a man who pursues this ideal of goodness as a knight, because he has read of and been inspired by these knights. He was portrayed as mad, but that is hardly a moral flaw.
I also think that the old concept of hero, if it includes rape, should be retired from literature, quite frankly, and would hope that the modern hero, if in fact it is a modern hero, should completely replace it. I don't want my heroes raping anybody. I don't even want my anti-heroes raping anybody. (Han Solo was an anti-hero in the first version of Star Wars...he shot first -- but he never raped anyone). There are many people who feel like me, and I would bet that over time our numbers will grow, not shrink, as a proportion of the population that consumes stories (in whatever form they take). So, given all of that, it is not surprising that some people, even if they understand that Donaldson is trying to resurrect a old concept of "hero" that includes a "hero" that can rape people, is not interested in that kind of story.
Frankly, if any kind of "hero" is still a "hero" after raping somebody, one wonders if there is a meaningful distinction between that sort of "hero" and villains. There surely were people that wanted their heroes to be in the mould of at least King Arthur, Galahad, Lancelot, etc. (in the sense of pursuing an ideal, sometimes failing, but certainly not raping people, torturing babies, or other "villain" stuff), that lived before Superman and other American heroes were invented. The classic "White Knight" hero is a genuine hero, as much if not more so than any "From the Fire" hero.
So I think that King Arthur, and his knights, are a heck of a lot closer to Superman than to Thomas Covenant, or even Achilles. And since King Arthur stories predated the American heroes like Superman, it is arguable that heroes as moral ideals (even flawed heroes trying and sometimes failing to achieve those moral ideals, but still pursuing *moral* ideals), including the moral ideal of attempting to achieve moral excellence, existed before the American Hero.
If "the point" is that Thomas Covenant the rapist is meant to be a "From the Fire" hero, bringing back an old trope that has fallen into disuse (the rapist hero?), then in my and others' opinions that point is not sufficient to justify reading that series of novels. I and others are not interested in that particular type of hero being brought back into the foreground of our minds. I think that the King Arthur is a better type of hero, hands down, and I think that his pursuit of moral ideals makes him different from the "from the fire" guys.
This is one place where D&D alignments actually make more sense. Rape is evil. I and others don't want to read about evil heroes. We don't mind lawful good heroes, chaotic good heroes (Robin Hood?) and anti-heroes, and some neutral heroes and anti-heroes, and some reluctant heroes and anti-heroes are fine if done well, but no rapists, please. The parallel for "from the fire" guys would seem to be high-level characters. But some high-level characters are villains.
And if you want to read about reluctant heroes who sometimes do terrible things for the greater good, try L.E.Modesitt, Jr. He has his heroes sometimes level entire continents in order to save the majority of innocent people in the world. While I find Modessitt's novels repetitive as a canon, any one of them standing alone is a book I would like to read. And he did it without any non-villain raping anybody.
Look, the fact that few of them were completely flawless does not change the fact that they pursued an ideal of being completely flawless (a prerequisite of getting the Holy Grail). And their character flaws, when there, were singular (that is, the knight was brave and noble, courteous to ladies, etc., except for X, which was that knight's tragic undoing) and did not include rape. Heck, that very willingness to pursue the moral ideal might be the quality to emulate, if one is seeking a role model. Think of these guys as more like Spiderman than Superman (the Percival of the comic book world). Spiderman is more of an Everyman hero, and he does make mistakes, lose his temper (ah, those comic book hero on hero fights...
), gives up on being a hero for a while (a sign of the reluctant hero that is way more enjoyable to consume than the Thomas Covenant version), etc., but is still a hero in the same sense of trying to do the right thing.With Saints, I think a lot of them had rough pasts, and then became good, approaching the ideal, etc. That is when they became heroes. The point of Saints, partially, was the "if they can do it with their pasts, there is hope for you too to become morally good".
But more importantly, people later (but before the american novel) looked at these guys as role models because they were seen as heroic, pretty close to morally flawless, and pursuing an ideal of being morally flawless. The "Man of la Mancha" is an example of a man who pursues this ideal of goodness as a knight, because he has read of and been inspired by these knights. He was portrayed as mad, but that is hardly a moral flaw.
I also think that the old concept of hero, if it includes rape, should be retired from literature, quite frankly, and would hope that the modern hero, if in fact it is a modern hero, should completely replace it. I don't want my heroes raping anybody. I don't even want my anti-heroes raping anybody. (Han Solo was an anti-hero in the first version of Star Wars...he shot first -- but he never raped anyone). There are many people who feel like me, and I would bet that over time our numbers will grow, not shrink, as a proportion of the population that consumes stories (in whatever form they take). So, given all of that, it is not surprising that some people, even if they understand that Donaldson is trying to resurrect a old concept of "hero" that includes a "hero" that can rape people, is not interested in that kind of story.
Frankly, if any kind of "hero" is still a "hero" after raping somebody, one wonders if there is a meaningful distinction between that sort of "hero" and villains. There surely were people that wanted their heroes to be in the mould of at least King Arthur, Galahad, Lancelot, etc. (in the sense of pursuing an ideal, sometimes failing, but certainly not raping people, torturing babies, or other "villain" stuff), that lived before Superman and other American heroes were invented. The classic "White Knight" hero is a genuine hero, as much if not more so than any "From the Fire" hero.
So I think that King Arthur, and his knights, are a heck of a lot closer to Superman than to Thomas Covenant, or even Achilles. And since King Arthur stories predated the American heroes like Superman, it is arguable that heroes as moral ideals (even flawed heroes trying and sometimes failing to achieve those moral ideals, but still pursuing *moral* ideals), including the moral ideal of attempting to achieve moral excellence, existed before the American Hero.
If "the point" is that Thomas Covenant the rapist is meant to be a "From the Fire" hero, bringing back an old trope that has fallen into disuse (the rapist hero?), then in my and others' opinions that point is not sufficient to justify reading that series of novels. I and others are not interested in that particular type of hero being brought back into the foreground of our minds. I think that the King Arthur is a better type of hero, hands down, and I think that his pursuit of moral ideals makes him different from the "from the fire" guys.
This is one place where D&D alignments actually make more sense. Rape is evil. I and others don't want to read about evil heroes. We don't mind lawful good heroes, chaotic good heroes (Robin Hood?) and anti-heroes, and some neutral heroes and anti-heroes, and some reluctant heroes and anti-heroes are fine if done well, but no rapists, please. The parallel for "from the fire" guys would seem to be high-level characters. But some high-level characters are villains.
And if you want to read about reluctant heroes who sometimes do terrible things for the greater good, try L.E.Modesitt, Jr. He has his heroes sometimes level entire continents in order to save the majority of innocent people in the world. While I find Modessitt's novels repetitive as a canon, any one of them standing alone is a book I would like to read. And he did it without any non-villain raping anybody.
SableWyvern
Hero
On the original topic:
I was greatly upset by the ending to a Michael Kube-McDowell's Trigon Disunity series. It was a great read, building humanity up from the ashes of apocalypse to a star faring face set for a final confrontation with a mysterious and powerful dark enemy from the depths of space and time.
Oh, hang on, turns out they'll only become more powerful if we fight them, and if we just leave them alone there will be peace. The End.
Dan Simmons' Endymion walked a very fine line, but IMO managed to pull it off. There was some retconning - but it was handled fairly well, and the retcons often enabled multiple lose ends from the first two books to be skilfully tied together in surprising but believeable ways.
In some ways, the ending was similar to the Trigon Disunity - conflict was turned aside by pacifism. But, while I'm not particularly fond of that theme, Simmons managed to do it quite well, and -- importantly -- without a huge anticlimax.
On Thomas Covenant:
Comments on Particle Man's summary of the ending -
Personally, I don't really understand the depth of hatred for Covenant (the character, not the series). Most of his detractors seem to be holding him up to the standards of sane people in the real world. Covenant, however, is a character who is plunged into a fantasy world, where the laws by which he has no choice but to live are torn apart. So, he assumes (as quite probably a lot of people would) this world is not real. If he told anyone in the "real" world about the Land, they too would tell him it's not real. Yet, people expect him to just accept on faith that it is, and act acordingly? That doesn't make sense to me.
Hate the books if you wish. Holding the character up to ideals suited to reality, however, makes no sense in a world where reason and a critical, ingrained instinct for survival tell you that everything around you is a delusion.
BTW, four more Covenant books are in the works, the first (The Runes of the Earth) due in a few months. According the Donaldson, the Final Chronicles were planned at the same time as the Second Chronicles.
I was greatly upset by the ending to a Michael Kube-McDowell's Trigon Disunity series. It was a great read, building humanity up from the ashes of apocalypse to a star faring face set for a final confrontation with a mysterious and powerful dark enemy from the depths of space and time.
Oh, hang on, turns out they'll only become more powerful if we fight them, and if we just leave them alone there will be peace. The End.
Dan Simmons' Endymion walked a very fine line, but IMO managed to pull it off. There was some retconning - but it was handled fairly well, and the retcons often enabled multiple lose ends from the first two books to be skilfully tied together in surprising but believeable ways.
In some ways, the ending was similar to the Trigon Disunity - conflict was turned aside by pacifism. But, while I'm not particularly fond of that theme, Simmons managed to do it quite well, and -- importantly -- without a huge anticlimax.
On Thomas Covenant:
Comments on Particle Man's summary of the ending -
Anyhow, I am now going to reveal the ending of the Thomas Covenant series. Spoiler alert. At the end of the second series, it is revealed that the world is in fact fantasy, and the villain was the part of the hero's mind that hates lepers, and the whole thing was some sort of self-therapy, I guess. So for what it is worth, it was rape fantasy rather than rape.Personally, I just think that it might turn out to be a betrayal of the reader's expectations after all, but then what do I know?
I must say, I don't agree with this interpretation at all. The fact that Linden Avery and Hile Troy, and Covenant's wife (other real characters) interact with the Land mean it is more than some hallucination. While I believe it was a form of therapy, I don't think it is less than real.
I must say, I don't agree with this interpretation at all. The fact that Linden Avery and Hile Troy, and Covenant's wife (other real characters) interact with the Land mean it is more than some hallucination. While I believe it was a form of therapy, I don't think it is less than real.
Personally, I don't really understand the depth of hatred for Covenant (the character, not the series). Most of his detractors seem to be holding him up to the standards of sane people in the real world. Covenant, however, is a character who is plunged into a fantasy world, where the laws by which he has no choice but to live are torn apart. So, he assumes (as quite probably a lot of people would) this world is not real. If he told anyone in the "real" world about the Land, they too would tell him it's not real. Yet, people expect him to just accept on faith that it is, and act acordingly? That doesn't make sense to me.
Hate the books if you wish. Holding the character up to ideals suited to reality, however, makes no sense in a world where reason and a critical, ingrained instinct for survival tell you that everything around you is a delusion.
BTW, four more Covenant books are in the works, the first (The Runes of the Earth) due in a few months. According the Donaldson, the Final Chronicles were planned at the same time as the Second Chronicles.
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Tsyr
Explorer
SableWyvernPersonally said:
I am judging the character by the simple standard of "decent human being". A lot of basicly decent people do some pretty bad stuff. Rape is not something a "decent human being", to my mind, does. It doesnt matter if the world is strange, or he thinks hes having a delusion, or whatever excuse you want to try... Had he been a decent human being to start with, raping her, even under the saftey of "It's just a dream" or something, *wouldn't have entered him mind*, much less come to fruitation.
evildmguy
Explorer
In the FWIW category
I recently picked up a series of books on how to write. I got them for the purpose of improving my own game writing, not because I had any delusions of becoming a full time writer. (Okay, I did, but that's neither here nor there. ) In these books, the authors all say that writing IS a contract between the author and the reader. That usually, very quickly on, the author tells the reader what they are writing about so the reader can decide if they want to read the book or not. In short stories, it should be done in the first paragraph. In novels, usually within the first chapter.
Now, many of the people who wrote the books do say that there are times when to break the contract or to set up something different, usually as long as there are story reasons for doing so. It can't be completely in the dark that something big changes. However, the suggestion for starting authors is not to attempt to do that until they get more experience and confidence.
Interesting about TC. I haven't read them, and my wife won't let me since she figured she wasted her time for both of us, but I found the discussion interesting.
Here are some of the people and books I didn't like because I felt they broke the contract:
Tolkien - I hope the flames will be kept to a minimum but I don't like Tolkien. I am basing this on the movies, which is not the books, but I have (unsuccessfully) tried to read the books for 15 years now. I never feel pulled into them. However, in the end, the promise given to me was that Frodo was the only one able to carry the burden of the ring and he couldn't do it in the end. In the end, imo, there is NO hero, at least with regard to the ring, because of how the ring is destroyed. There were other things in the movie that I didn't like, that are supposed to be directly from the books, but that ending really made me mad. Again, contract broken for me.
Jordan - Ugh. This is one of those situations where I am embarrassed that I liked him and defended him, even got some people to read him, and after book ten, I refuse to read him again. He was good up through book six of WoT but after that, he seemed to be milking the series rather than writing what he started to write. I mean, he went from 2-3 major things happening per book to sometimes nothing important happening! It was a book of plot that moved nothing else along! Ugh.
KJA - I hated his Star Wars books and was flabbergasted when he became the authority. I thought that it was obvious what Zahn had done in setting up Jade and Skywalker and when KJA didn't have them together, it didn't make sense. (I LOVE Zahn! Love his books!) I loved how Zahn made that more definitive, lest that happen again. However, in this case, the contract he broke felt more that he wasn't writing in the Star Wars universe. It wasn't even good in some books. He never seemed to get the characters down as well as others. (In contrast, Kathy Byers (Truce at Bakura) didn't have good science but the characters and plot were good.) KJA did the same thing with the X-Files books he wrote. I never felt he got the characters of Mulder and Scully down compared to some other authors. I also didn't think much of his ideas for the books themselves.
I agree with Weiss and Hickman assassment as well. I liked Chronicles and Legends but nothing else after. Death Gate was so anti-climactic that I was pissed they wrote what they had. I knew that they had written Summer Flame for the SAGA system and that's probably why the books starts as it does, to get the reader in the mindset that this isn't DND anymore. However, it was too big of a change and I think they should have done it another way. They wrote heroic books and it felt as if they were trying to be "more real" later on but it ended up feeling like they broke the contract compared to what they had done before.
Simon Hawke never got me with his Dark Sun books. In fact, even within fantasy, I had such a hard time buying the underlying premise of his Dark Sun books that I never finished them. I always felt he made it too easy for his main character and felt cheated that I didn't see the hero struggle more.
Clancy let me down in becoming more about the battles and the fighting rather than the characters and in what they were caught. I think it was the Bear and the Dragon that I didn't like and so stopped reading them. They aren't reading like my thriller/suspense novels that I liked but novels on tactics and battles with too much detail.
Grisham is still interesting to me, although I haven't read Painted House and maybe one other, but they are starting to be the same. However, the last book was done well and was different from his usual lawyer novels such that I will probably check out his next book.
Crichton probably let me down when he wrote a sequel to Jurassic Park, more than likely due to publisher influence. That just isn't how he writes. While I liked the book okay, I think he should have refused, as he did for number three. Otherwise, I think I get exactly what I expect from Crichton and I enjoy reading him. (Too bad the movie Timeline SUCKED! I really hate it when they change his movies (Timeline for Walker and Rising Sun for Snipes) for the stars they have.)
Of the writers I like whom I think follow through on the contract, it would be, in no particular order: Elaine Cunningham, R.A. Salvatore, Margerat McCollough, Lyndon Hardy, Thomas Reid, Lisa Smedman, Katherine Kurtz (adept series), Wurtz and Feist (Empire), Troy Denning, and a few others.
There are authors I don't like but I can't say if they break the contract or not.
Good discussion! Thanks!
Have a good one! Take care!
edg
Alternity Pimp
I recently picked up a series of books on how to write. I got them for the purpose of improving my own game writing, not because I had any delusions of becoming a full time writer. (Okay, I did, but that's neither here nor there.
) In these books, the authors all say that writing IS a contract between the author and the reader. That usually, very quickly on, the author tells the reader what they are writing about so the reader can decide if they want to read the book or not. In short stories, it should be done in the first paragraph. In novels, usually within the first chapter. Now, many of the people who wrote the books do say that there are times when to break the contract or to set up something different, usually as long as there are story reasons for doing so. It can't be completely in the dark that something big changes. However, the suggestion for starting authors is not to attempt to do that until they get more experience and confidence.
Interesting about TC. I haven't read them, and my wife won't let me since she figured she wasted her time for both of us, but I found the discussion interesting.
Here are some of the people and books I didn't like because I felt they broke the contract:
Tolkien - I hope the flames will be kept to a minimum but I don't like Tolkien. I am basing this on the movies, which is not the books, but I have (unsuccessfully) tried to read the books for 15 years now. I never feel pulled into them. However, in the end, the promise given to me was that Frodo was the only one able to carry the burden of the ring and he couldn't do it in the end. In the end, imo, there is NO hero, at least with regard to the ring, because of how the ring is destroyed. There were other things in the movie that I didn't like, that are supposed to be directly from the books, but that ending really made me mad. Again, contract broken for me.
Jordan - Ugh. This is one of those situations where I am embarrassed that I liked him and defended him, even got some people to read him, and after book ten, I refuse to read him again. He was good up through book six of WoT but after that, he seemed to be milking the series rather than writing what he started to write. I mean, he went from 2-3 major things happening per book to sometimes nothing important happening! It was a book of plot that moved nothing else along! Ugh.
KJA - I hated his Star Wars books and was flabbergasted when he became the authority. I thought that it was obvious what Zahn had done in setting up Jade and Skywalker and when KJA didn't have them together, it didn't make sense. (I LOVE Zahn! Love his books!) I loved how Zahn made that more definitive, lest that happen again. However, in this case, the contract he broke felt more that he wasn't writing in the Star Wars universe. It wasn't even good in some books. He never seemed to get the characters down as well as others. (In contrast, Kathy Byers (Truce at Bakura) didn't have good science but the characters and plot were good.) KJA did the same thing with the X-Files books he wrote. I never felt he got the characters of Mulder and Scully down compared to some other authors. I also didn't think much of his ideas for the books themselves.
I agree with Weiss and Hickman assassment as well. I liked Chronicles and Legends but nothing else after. Death Gate was so anti-climactic that I was pissed they wrote what they had. I knew that they had written Summer Flame for the SAGA system and that's probably why the books starts as it does, to get the reader in the mindset that this isn't DND anymore. However, it was too big of a change and I think they should have done it another way. They wrote heroic books and it felt as if they were trying to be "more real" later on but it ended up feeling like they broke the contract compared to what they had done before.
Simon Hawke never got me with his Dark Sun books. In fact, even within fantasy, I had such a hard time buying the underlying premise of his Dark Sun books that I never finished them. I always felt he made it too easy for his main character and felt cheated that I didn't see the hero struggle more.
Clancy let me down in becoming more about the battles and the fighting rather than the characters and in what they were caught. I think it was the Bear and the Dragon that I didn't like and so stopped reading them. They aren't reading like my thriller/suspense novels that I liked but novels on tactics and battles with too much detail.
Grisham is still interesting to me, although I haven't read Painted House and maybe one other, but they are starting to be the same. However, the last book was done well and was different from his usual lawyer novels such that I will probably check out his next book.
Crichton probably let me down when he wrote a sequel to Jurassic Park, more than likely due to publisher influence. That just isn't how he writes. While I liked the book okay, I think he should have refused, as he did for number three. Otherwise, I think I get exactly what I expect from Crichton and I enjoy reading him. (Too bad the movie Timeline SUCKED! I really hate it when they change his movies (Timeline for Walker and Rising Sun for Snipes) for the stars they have.)
Of the writers I like whom I think follow through on the contract, it would be, in no particular order: Elaine Cunningham, R.A. Salvatore, Margerat McCollough, Lyndon Hardy, Thomas Reid, Lisa Smedman, Katherine Kurtz (adept series), Wurtz and Feist (Empire), Troy Denning, and a few others.
There are authors I don't like but I can't say if they break the contract or not.
Good discussion! Thanks!
Have a good one! Take care!
edg
Alternity Pimp
Storm Raven
First Post
Particle_Man said:Wow, I guess I missed the part where King Arthur and his knights gang-raped that maiden. Oh wait, that never happened.
I take it you are not familiar with the story of Uther and Igraine? Or Lancelot and Elaine?
Donaldson isn't doing anything of the sort. Covenant is not a hero. He is a messiah, an unheroic messiah. Much of the work is dealing with the difference between being a hero and being the "chosen one".
And your assessment of the Arthurian characters in this vein demonstrates that it has been a long time since you read about them, and look back with rose colored glasses.
Storm Raven
First Post
evildmguy said:
For Tolkien, that's the point - mortals can only be saved from the evil that Sauron represents by the grace of God. It is a statement driven by religious sentiment.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
evildmguy said:
Well, that's what you get for relying on a movie to convey the story, which is in many ways worse than relying on Cliff Notes because a movie doesn't try to directly explain the themes in the work. I can see how you get this impression, in part, from the movie. But it also would constitute a misreading of the real contract (if you choose to see one as being there). To push the metaphor, all contracts have plenty of fine print that should be carefully examined, and that fine print is, of course, the text of the book.
Frodo isn't really the only person who can carry the ring. Any hobbit will probably do as long as they are sufficiently innocent and have their heads in the right place (Lotho Baggins or Ted Sandyman would be bad choices, for example, but Farmer Maggot would probably be an excellent choice being a tough, no nonsense kind of guy). But Frodo takes it up as his personal burden and not a burden for anybody else. Frodo has a bit of a maryr complex (which gets borne out at the end so maybe it's well placed).
As for the destruction of the ring, you were warned earlier in the movie that Gollem yet had an important part to play and the issue comes around in a couple of circles. Bilbo and Frodo's pity of Gollum allows him to survive so that he can not only betray Frodo to Shelob but also save the world by causing the destruction of the ring. So that very pity for pitiable creatures is what saves Frodo from the corruption of the ring in the end. In a certain light, Frodo therefore IS the architect of the destruction of the ring (had he followed Sam's advice, the quest would certainly have failed at this point). It's just that the destruction happens in an unexpected way. It isn't his strength and determination that win the day because those are spent (and it takes the strength and determination of his servant, Sam, to get him close enough). It's one of the very factors that makes him and hobbits so resistant to the ring in the first place: inherent kindliness and the ability to have pity and show mercy.
Another interesting comment. When Gollum swears on the ring to serve the master, Frodo says the ring will exact a terrible price for breaking that promise. And it sure does. In his moment of triumph, Gollum is destroyed.
All of this is a bit more clear in the fine print of the trilogy, I think, than the summarized version on the silver screen.
nikolai
First Post
evildmguy said:
There are lots of fantasy fans who dislike Tolkien, for all sorts of reasons. You are not alone, and - even if you were - I wouldn't flame you for which books you do or don't like. The standard response to your points are:
- The book is very slow to start. And isn't in the sword and sorcery prose style many people like. Tolkien takes a different path in having more evocation of the world and less action. This makes the book very rich, but also makes getting into it hard.
- The "failure" of the quest is part of the atraction of the book for many people. It reinforces the power of the ring, and the fortitude of Frodo in making it as far as he did. It also (despite the books status) make LotR an anti-fantasy: the quest is to destory the artifact - not gain one - and the hero doesn't achieve the goal himself. The "failure" gives the book the bittersweet ending, as Frodo - even though he "succeeded" in destroying the ring - is broken in doing it.
I can see why you didn't like the book because of these aspects. But I guess my point is, without them, I wouldn't like it so much.
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