What's a Hoosier?.......
ping
None of the above.. they were friends (you could correctly say drinking buddies..) What people should take from this is Sam's sense of loyality to his friends, even willing to lay down his life for them..
Yes, I think that Sean Astin is gay.
The relationship between Sam and Frodo was a take on the relationship between a WWII British officer and his assistant (the title of which escapes me at the moment).
Friend 1 has repressed homosexual tendencies. (/sarc)
The whole of the Rings reflects an order within and without the universe. Obedience and hope, not disobedience and despair are central to the Rings. I have a poor understanding of the whole and there are those who have much more understanding of theology and literature who have discussed it.
Look on the some of the Ring sites.
Viewing the relationship on some sexual level reflects poorly on those critical thinking skills IMHO.
Friend #2 is on the mark. Tolkien is probably rolling in his grave with the way today's society has twisted the beautiful relationship between Sam and Frodo the way Friend #1 has.
Freidn 1 is a nut. Absolutely a nut. It's not there.
The relationship between Sam and Frodo has its base in the master/servant relationship but there's more to it than that. Tolkien had a very high regard for male friendship.
ecurbh, I don't know if this should even get a ring ping but we could come dump on this poor guy.
ping
Why do all friendly male relationships have to be about homosexuality?
Friend 2 was sort of right. Sam was given the task to protect Frodo and having accepted that task and being an honorable man, took that task very seriously indeed. His love was the brotherly love of warriors.
"Friend 1 observed that the relationship between Frodo and Sam (in the movies) had homosexual overtones. "
Stupid, ignorant POV that completely ignores the fact that Sam marries a big-boobed Hobbit Hottie at the end of the movie trilogy.
Friend 1 clearly has issues. Tolkien was a devout Catholic writing what he felt to be an archetypal human story in the context of Germanic folklore. It ain't about a homosexual relationship.
Their relatiuonship is actually based on British Officers and their "Bat-Men" during WWI. Tolkien who had served in the war had seen this first hand. If you watch the special features disc one on the extended version of "Return of the King" the very first documentary explains quite well. At least I think it's "Return of the King".
There is no gay overtones, if there are any, it is only the figment of people's twisted imagination. Tolkien's prose was very British, and they talked to each other this way. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens, who adapted the novels into the screenplay, though wanting to capture Tolkiens prose, were also very aware of the way audience may interpret it. For the movies, they actually toned it down quite a bit.
Part of what is wonderful about the story is how the servant was absolutely necessary in order for the Ring to be destroyed, and (in the book anyway) for the Shire to be regrown. There can be no doubt that Christian notions such as "the first will be last and the last will be first" are embodied in Sam.
Having survived through
nine billion threads about it,
I have no desire
to stir up this pot
and relive the debacle.
Search out the old threads!
HUMMMM, your friends seem to see the world as either homosexual or straight. Maybe they should EXPAND their thinking a little.
Friend 2 is correct. The book is actually more cringe-inducing than the movie in its portrayal of the Frodo/Sam relationship, in American (or at least my)eyes. The whole "dear master" thing gets hard to take at times. But there is absolutely nothing homo-erotic about it.
The other two hobbits also do not treat Sam as an equal in the first part of the book. They talk over and around him without batting an eye.
It is relevant that Frodo, Merry and Pippin are all from the very top rung of hobbit society.
OTOH, by the end of the book it is obvious that Sam and Frodo have transcended their master-servant relationship and that Sam is fully accepted as an equal by all three hobbits. In the prologue we find that Sam and his family, as a result of his deeds, have themselves become hobbit aristocracy.