Replies

Pinging my fellow Faramir fan to put in any of the points I leave out...

In the books, Faramir is a noble guy. He's a pretty good warrior and also intelligent and somewhat sensitive. This is in contrast with Boromir, who is Mr. Musclebound, quite frankly.

The actions he took in Two Towers (the movie) are completely incompatible with his character as established in the book. He treats the hobbits badly, he hinders their errand, he does basically everything but take the Ring himself (admitedly the Extended Edition helps here a little)

And he doesn't really get the chance in RotK (movie, again) to redeem himself, being mostly-dead for most of the movie. The ride across the Pelennor was heroic and noble and stuff, but also kinda stupid. He didn't come across as much of a strategist. Just a poor abused son. (Which is also interesting and he very much needs a hug, but that's beside the point).

In the book, his scenes with Eowyn help show his character... which is then cemented at Aragorn's coronation, where he's clearly helping establish Aragorn as the rightful ruler of Gondor. Anyone think Denethor would have done that?

This is kind of hard to portray on film, admittedly. There's rather more tension if Faramir might take the ring, if he hauls them off to Osgiliath... and so the filmmakers miss their chance to have one human character (besides Aragorn) who demonstrates the strength not to take the Ring. Makes you wonder why they think so little of Men, huh?

And Faramir's driving motivation is made out to be that he wants to please his father, not that - I think the book supports - he is a noble man and guided by what he sees as his duty.

Hmm. Much more blather than I'm sure you wanted. Oh well!

> Hmm. Much more blather than I'm sure you wanted. Oh well!

Not at all!--I thought it was a very sharp and interesting analysis. I had noticed some of the points you make, but you caught some things I missed, notably the part about how Faramir doesn't get an opportunity to redeem himself in the movie and is reduced to an abused son; and also the point about how Faramir's motivation is nobility in the book vs. trying to please his father in the movie. I agree with your gist. One thing I'd add that fits with what you're saying is that IMO in the book Faramir's nobility redeems Boromir's mistake, whereas in the movie Faramir flirts with making the same mistake, which I think significantly changes and detracts from the character. I noticed that they also made Frodo somewhat less noble in the movie, but paradoxically with Sam they skipped the scene where he's tempted by the Ring, which I thought was a good scene that added to Sam's character. There was a cartoon version of RotK which included that scene, and which also portrayed Eowyn's battle with the Nazgul Lord more accurately.