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Wanna let's talk about Boromir and Frodo? I'm watching FOTR for th one hundred and eleventieth time, and I have a need to reflect on some of my speculations about their characters..and speculate on some of my reflections on Boromir too. ;)

I've always been very saddened at the thought of the happy innocent boy Frodo being called to such a heavily burdened task, and the turn his life takes forever. The truly saddest over-all message in the movies. He gives up life as he knows it, and happiness as he will ever know it, in order to secure and protect the happiness and lives of the many.

I don't see Boromir and Frodo as so different.

What has Boromir given up? I don't recall it being elaborated on in the books, but where are his wife and children? Correct me if I am wrong on this. Wouldn't surprise me at all. But, I don't recall he has any. I do remember that there aren't many children in Gondor, anymore.

Was Boromir overcome by greed and want of power like Grima Wormtongue? I don't think so. All of his life was spent battling valiantly in a hopeless effort to protect the innocent from goblins and orcs.

Look at how he died; one of the most tear-jerking scenes ever filmed IMO -- the music, the valor, the reaching arms and stony face of ancient history standing silently by, almost in a gesture to beg forgiveness? He died, not trying to save the ring or the ring-bearer, but to save the lives of two seemingly insignificant hobbits.

Why would the son of Gondor give himself up to that fate? What causes such a man to completely lose faith?

He spent months with Merry and Pippin on the journey to Mordor, teaching them how to carry a sword and how to use it effectively; a skill they will come to need desperately soon. When in the mines of Moria the bridges started to shake, he grabbed up and jumped across with Merry and Pippin instead of Frodo - and the ring. After Moria, when the two hobbits had fallen on the snow in tears for Gandalf, he begs to Aragorn for them, for pity's sake.

As I watch the movie I think I know. They are like children to him. In his mind they become like sons to him. Maybe they are like the only sons he never had? Or maybe sons he had were killed by an orc raid?

Before I would dare
To judge such despair
I would look for the seeping
For children are weeping and evil is creeping
And wonder from where

How many children has Boromir lost to those orc raids on Gondor? How many has he seen butchered? Does he know first-hand the sad fate of hobbits and children who are taken by raiding orcs -- for their legs, because they don't need those to stay alive? I wonder how an orc knows that?

It was surely in those gruesome cracks that the evil of the ring was able to seep-in to corrupt him. Not through greed or lust for power.

All of the good guys in the LOTR are honorable, and brave, and have given up something to the needs of the many. But, particularly, the characters of Frodo and Boromir have suffered the sad times and the evil corruption of the ring, and so are, to me, the saddest. I can hope that Frodo finds some happiness wherever he sails. But, for Boromir, those times of rolling on the grass and 'roughhousing' with Merry and Pippin, I speculate, were some of his best.

Great heady post for a late night, MBY! Good food for morning thought! - I have said a lot about Boromir in the past, let me think about him again with your post in mind! - Pints have made me sleepy tonight, and I am about to turn in.

Awesome thoughts MBY. I always liked Boromir, and agree with your ideas 100%! He is one of those tragic hero figures we see in Ancient Myths, which is what LoTR ultimately is!

MBY: Very good posting, things that make you go hmmmm. Had not thought about it that way at all. Since I'm now rereading LOTR along with the Atlas, I'll keep that view in mind.