Two Towers - Arwen leaves Middle-Earth - wtf?

[JacktheRabbit]

I thought from how it looked in the movie that he already had it as well. Otherwise why would Aragorn look so happy when Legolas gave him the sword.

 

[Wormwood]

A scene was cut from TTT that showed Arwen bringing the shards of Narsil with her to Lothlorien (on her way to Helms Deep, no less).

I assume this means that Aragorn is still using his FotR sword...at least until next Christmas.

 

[Brudewollen]

Why Arwen...

The Arwen sub-plot serves more then just the purpose of creating a stronger love story within the confines of LotR, rather then the appendice in the books.

One of the major themes of LotR is that magic is leaving the world, and with it, the Elves. As magic and the Elves leave there is now this struggle to determine who will inherit Middle-Earth in their place - the world of Sauron or the world of Man (our world). In the books, Tolkein is able to explain this in long passages - scenes and conversations that just would not translate well to the screen. Through the Arwen sub-plot, combining the story of her love affair with Aragorn, with some elements of the conflict between Luthien and her father Thingol over her love for Bern from the Silmarillion, Jackson has compacted that entire complex concept into a neat little sub-plot that advances the story, is compelling on screen and also helps get some more female members of the audience into the seats. A pretty neat trick of scripting if you ask me!

As for her leaving? She's not going to - those who've read the book know that, but by creating this conflict, it moves the story along in these sequences, creates a compelling choice for Arwen to make. Character action, their development in a story, is seen through important life choices they make - without these choices, there is no development, consequently no story. If you are going to put Arwen on screen for a significant amount of time, she has to do something. Her big action will be to defy her father and go for Aragorn - love conquers all. It's more like the choice Luthien had to make for Beren when her father tried everything to keep them apart, even giving Beren a quest that would surely kill him.

 

[Dextolen]

Okay, this brought up something that wasn't even in the extended version of the movie.

In the books, Narsil is reforged for Aragorn before he leaves Rivendell. While it wasn't mentioned specifically, I believe that we see Aragorn drawing a blade that looks a *lot* like Narsil in The Two Towers. So my assumption is that it happens off camera and he already has it.

John

In one of the bonus scenes of FOTR, Aragorn is looking at his mother's statue and Elrond mentions something to the effect that the sword has been repaired.

 

[Zander]

Liv Tyler has hinted in an interview that Aragorn remains true, which suggests that Arwen stays.

 

[DM_Matt]

Altohugh I was only in middle school when I read the LOTR trilogy meaning that I either might be misremembering or may have misunderstood it at the time (or skipped something), I seem to remember feeling that there was insufficient information regarding Aragorn and Arwen, and consequently, I remember being unsatisfied with why exactly he didn't get with Eowen.

Adding more about Aragorn and Arwen makes it all clearer...that and they need more female characters and Liv Tyler is popular and the movie would benefit form her getting more screen time.

 

[shilsen]

Altohugh I was only in middle school when I read the LOTR trilogy meaning that I either might be misremembering or may have misunderstood it at the time (or skipped something), I seem to remember feeling that there was insufficient information regarding Aragorn and Arwen, and consequently, I remember being unsatisfied with why exactly he didn't get with Eowen.

Adding more about Aragorn and Arwen makes it all clearer...that and they need more female characters and Liv Tyler is popular and the movie would benefit form her getting more screen time.

You didn't miss anything. The Arwen-Aragorn relationship is only really spelt out in the appendices, and although it is handled quite well there, many readers of LotR haven't read it due to the placement. Some of the scenes and dialogue in TTT during Elrond's 'prediction' of Arwen's future are taken straight out of the appendix (esp. the description of Aragorn's body being laid in Rath Dinen and Arwen wandering through the now dark woods of Lothlorien).

I agree that having it expanded upon in the movie works very well. While I'm not a Liv Tyler fan, I do think she does an adequate job, and using the character of Arwen as PJ does allows him to make the movie a lot more contemporarily accessible. After all Tolkien was a mid-20th century Oxford English professor, so he wasn't exactly great at handling women in his work

 

[Shoon]

with some elements of the conflict between Luthien and her father Thingol over her love for Bern from the Silmarillion

When I saw the Arwen scenes (especially the ones featuring Elrond), I thought to myself: "Beren and Luthien redux".

 

[Bob Aberton]

Aah, that makes sense...

Come to think of it, I think the scene showing Aragorn being laid to rest in Rath Dinen, and subsequent one, with Arwen walking alone among the dead trees of Lothlorien, were some of the most powerful and moving scenes in the movie.

And a lot of people say that they were silly and pointless...Bring on the Fight Scenes(tm)!

 

[Mean Eyed Cat]

Originally posted by Dextolen:
In one of the bonus scenes of FOTR, Aragorn is looking at his mother's statue and Elrond mentions something to the effect that the sword has been repaired.

Correct. Or that it "can" be reforged. In the extended version of LOTR, Elrond states, "The skill of the Elves can reforge the Sword of Kings, but only you have the power to wield it."
To which Aragorn replies, "I do not want that power, I have never wanted it."

If you have the extended version of the LOTR DVD, check out this thread .

Go to the instructions for the Two Towers trailer on disk two and play it. In this trailer they show a scene where Arwen (she is cloaked like in the Two Towers movie) approaches the shards of Narsil (reforged?). To my knowledge, this scene was not in the original trailer.

To me, that means she is taking the sword to Aragorn, but, as mentioned in earlier posts, I guess we will have to wait until the release of the extended version of TTT to find out for sure.