On set today, I began rereading Egil's Saga, probably the greatest of the Old Norse sagas, except maybe the immense Sagas of Norwegian Kings (possibly by the same author, Snorri Sturluson) and, I guess, Volsunga Saga, which is much more fantastic and really comparable. Eat your heart out, Laxdaela Saga and Njal's Saga--neither of you can match Egil's mix of nihilism, commentary on human society and psyche, divided against themselves; hints of pagan history and legend, sense of character, storytelling verve, and more. None of you have genuine cave bears, though, so that's a ding for every one of you. Volsunga Saga gets close.
Anyway, Egil is interesting for, among other things, the sense it gives of the lives of society in ninth century Scandinavia: the grain barn repurposed into a feasting hall, the taxes laid on salt, the tribute extracted from the Sami, the dynamics of kingship and distribution of power and wealth from the king to his retainers, the interior 'wildernesses' which were settled by important men fleeing King Harald Shaggy, who were unwilling to pay his rents on land, fishing, salt, and even a hunter's quarry. And, of course, there's plenty of war and an alliance with Aethelstan the Glorious to come if I keep reading.
I think I will probably stop commenting on politics in this space. First of all, there's plenty of good political commentary already out there. Some might say too much. Second, we're mostly sick of it, right now. Third, the mythic and medieval is much more interesting to talk about for me: even thinking about Lloyd Alexander's work again has me excited, though I haven't touched the stuff in more than fifteen years. Aside from that, I'm sure I'm missing a forum somewhere, but I haven't much seen this stuff discussed seriously anywhere on the web, so I may as well do so here--especially as it's something I'm producing right now.
Fourth (or is it seventh? I haven't slept much, lately): Doom, don't think I've forgotten your thoughts on Galadriel, who I freely admit to having been too bored with to examine very closely (that sort of thing is why I like 'The Hobbit' better than 'The Lord of the Rings'), and so demand you explain for us, here, what she was about and what Jackson and his minions are missing about her. Or you can do it at your place, and I will link. Whatever. Put it on (figurative) paper before the new movie comes out, with her added in, and we can see if your perception of misperception holds up.
Definitely crashing now.
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/12/peter-jacksons-violent-betrayal-of-tolkien/266294/
ReplyDeleteI've had some time to think more about the problems with Jackson's portrayal of Galadriel. I think the failure is really two-pronged. One part is a complete misreading of the character, and the other involves a total rejection of one of Tolkien's more important themes. Which is worse, I find it hard to decide.
ReplyDeleteIn the book, Galadriel tests each member of the Company (not the Fellowship, which the group is never called; the word is reserved for the intangible of the Company's allegiance to one-another). Frodo, having carried the ring and thus far resisted its temptations (mostly), has grown enough to recognize Galadriel's ring and test her in turn. But she has been expecting (and dreading) such a test for millennia, perhaps since she first heard Sauron's words, "Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul," echoing in her ears when the dark lord first put on the One Ring and invoked its power. She is tempted, but she long ago decided that, she "will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel." When Frodo offers the ring to Gandalf, the wizard warns Frodo not to tempt him; Gandalf says that he would try to use the ring for good and yet be corrupted. Galadriel phrases the message differently; she mocks the role she would play as a dark lord: "All shall love me and despair!’" She shows a vision of how she would appear as the evil queen--so beautiful and mighty as to inspire worship and terror. This is nothing like Jackson's monstrosity, which looked like it had been shot by a Dalek and subjected to a 1963 BBC negative exposure effect.
(After having created her for the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien actually wrote Galadriel into the Silmarillion. To further make the nature of her character clear, he made her explicitly an penitent exile from the Undying Lands.)
The second failure of Galadriel is that, in the movie, she seems to represent fate--something that was simply never a part of Tolkien's cosmology. As soon as they arrive in Lorien, Galadriel announces that Sean Bean is going to try to steal the ring. This totally contradicts the notion that the elves, men, dwarves, hobbits, and (probably) ents are the "free peoples." They enjoy the freedom to choose their own fates; this was the most fundamental gift of Eru (and, according to Jack Kirby, it was the nature of Life itself). Until he betrays Frodo, Boromir always has a choice. There are also more subtle but clear rejections of Tolkien's vision of freedom to choose; Galadriel's line about things that "yet may be" being visible in her mirror is changed to something lacking the explicit rejection of an already determined future.