Characters only in the book

[Hika86]

Fatty Bolger wasn't in the movie. Poor guy, he did a great job, although he was to frightened to leave with the other hobbits ;)

[Mary]

Tom Bombadil is kind of the worst and I'm actually glad they didn't put him in the movie (although my fancast for him and Goldberry is Matthew McConaughey as Tom and Woody Harrelson in a bad wig as Goldberry, which I would pay all of the money to see).

I miss Glorfindel too, though. I understand that they wanted to give Arwen a bigger part in the movie, and I agree with that, as LotR in general is sadly devoid of female characters. But I also think the habit of turning female characters into warriors to make them "strong" is kind of insulting (and something that Peter Jackson seems to have a habit of doing), and I would rather have seen her as Arwen instead of a weird Glorfindel stand-in.

[Jenny]

I know Glorfindel was partially replaced with Arwen, to make her cooler, which was probably a good choice. I'll never turn down female representation, even if it fudges canon (see: Tauriel, and the fact that Galadriel get so much screen time). Although, that whole scene in the movie set up Frodo to be a huge weenie, in my opinion.
I feel like Glorfindel and Elladan/Elrohir could have at least made it into the movie for some sort of extended edition shenanigans, though, since I understand why they were left out of their canon roles. Maybe I'm biased because I have a weakness for cute twins and Elrond's entire family, but even Lindir has like, 3-4 whole lines, come on.

[Mary]

nancy wrote: "So Lindir, Elrond's sons and the Rangers made a bit of an impression on me. Does anyone else have any thoughts about these characters? What impressions did they make on you when you first read about them?"

I was always super interested in all of them from when I first read the books and I was pretty disappointed when they didn't make it into the movies. (I don't really count Lindir as being in the movie, as in the LotR movies he's just an unnamed background elf and you don't actually find out his name until they shout him out in The Hobbit.)

But Elrond's sons - along with Glorfindel - were always fascinating to me; it seems like Tolkien goes out of his way to depict the elves as gentle and wise and all that and I always loved the warrior elves that we get to see. It really gives you a good indication of how dangerous they can be, particularly an elf lord like Glorfindel.

And the RANGERS! It would take me years and years to talk about how amazing and wonderful I find the Rangers. I wish there was more about them in everything all the time. I have a lot of ~feelings about them. Almost as many as I have about the Rohirrim, but I'll wait and scream about them when we actually get to them in the books...

[Michele]

Seriously bummed that the Rangers are basically absent from the movies. Their presence in the book makes Aragorn much more a clan leader with a life and a history, as opposed to this lone messianic figure.

Don't get me started on movie!Arwen, I hated almost everything about what PJ did with her.

I can understand leaving Tom Bombadil out -- in fact his presence in the narrative is kind of odd, since he doesn't seem to serve any purpose. The hobbits don't learn anything useful from him, nor does he give them anything useful for their journey. Sure, he rescues them, but you could also argue that the Barrow-wights didn't really serve any narrative purpose. They both add a lot of color and dimension, and bestow a sense of the long and epic history of Middle-Earth though; maybe that's their purpose.

[Michele]

nancy anna wrote: One of my favourite things about the Return of the King is Elladan and Elrohir accompanying Halbarad and the Rangers to meet with Aragorn and then going with him the Paths of the Dead.

Yes!! The deep friendship among them is just wonderful; he's not just their king in exile, he's family.


nancy anna wrote: "The council must have gone on for hours and hours!..."

Certainly long enough for the hobbits to get hungry -- although to be honest that's not saying much ;)

I love the whole council chapter, the thought of all these people gathering together from near and far, all the races represented, to share everything they know and plan how to save their world.

[Troy]

If your really interested in elladan, elrohir, and halbarad, I recommend the short YouTube movie Born of Hope. It focuses on gilraen, arathorn, and baby Aragorn. You can see young halbarad and Aragorn playing with eachother and elladan and elrohir fighting Orcs with arathorn. Almost the entire movie is true to canon, with even specific quotes from the appendices, but it does add various things that tolkien never wrote. I thoroughly enjoyed watching. It also made me further appreciate how the three of them accompanied Aragorn in gondor

[Castillon02]

I don't think Erkenbrand was in the movie--understandably, Eomer got to take his role of "golden rescuer on a horse who has come to save the day" at the end of the Helm's Deep battle. I had way too much fun hearing everybody sing his praises, though. Everybody and their mother: "I wish Erkenbrand were here! He's so awesome he's like from the olden days when awesomeness was new!"

Also, was Quickbeam in the movie? Because he was pretty cool but it probably would have been a bit expensive to do more than one main Ent interacting with Merry and Pippin. Too bad, I really loved his elegy for the trees and being able to get the perspective of a younger, faster Ent!

Who else have we met that the movies missed? Anybody else an Erkenbrand fan or a Quickbeam fan?

[borchielein]

I love Quickbeam! He could have been so fun! But I guess it was also because of time constraint. Getting to know Treebeard AND Quickbeam would have been to time consuming... maybe...? idk

[Michele]

Didn't the first movie leave out the entire "Short Cut to Mushrooms" chapter where they meet Farmer Maggot?

[Paula]

Michele wrote: "Didn't the first movie leave out the entire "Short Cut to Mushrooms" chapter where they meet Farmer Maggot?"

The first movie left out Frodo and co. visiting Farmer Maggot's house, but it did show Farmer Maggot and a few other hobbits chasing Pippin and Merry, and then also Frodo and Sam through the cornfield and into a ravine. In the movie, Pippin and Merry had stolen some carrots and other veggies from Farmer Maggot's farm.