J. R. R. Tolkien is one of my favorite authors. He brings his characters to life with nothing but words, visual imagery isn’t needed.
I just finished watching The Lord of the Rings movie, and The Hobbit movie for the umpti-zillionth time. I read the novels back in the early 70s. My memory of the stories as portrayed in Tolkien’s novels is a bit foggy. Even so, I know the books are somewhat different than the movies.
In the Hobbit, Bilbo is obviously the central character, but there are many other important characters. The same is true of Frodo and others in The Lord of the Rings. I have been pondering which characters are my favorites, and which are my most despised villains.
While I like the primary protagonist in both the Hobbit (Bilbo) and the Lord of the rings (Frodo), my favorite characters with smaller roles, in The Hobbit are…
I like Beorn because, while he seems a bit gruff at first, he shows himself to be very honorable.
In the Lord of the Rings, my favorite character is Samwise Gamgee. Sam is not a minor character, but he is the essence of honorable.
On the flip-side, we could ask, who are the worst villains. In the Hobbit, for me, it is a tie between the Master of Laketown and Alfrid Lickspittle. They are both disgusting.
You may ask, what about Bolg and Azog? Well, those are definitely some very badass dudes. But they are not so “human.” The characters that are the most despicable to me are more like people I might see on the street somewhere.
Denethor, Father of Boromir and Faramir, is the character I dislike most of all. Again there are plenty of characters to hate, but Denethor’s unabashed cruelty to Faramir is beyond the pale. Once again, my feelings toward the humans and human-like hobbits is more real to me than anything I feel about the more fictional characters.
You may ask, what about Gollum? A fair question…
Gollum is demented in the extreme. He has dissociative identity disorder, or multiple personalities. Much of this is probably attributable to the impact the ring has on him. However, as Smeagol, a creature similar to a hobbit, he is quite selfish, and ends up killing his fishing buddy to steal the ring.
So, are you a Tolkien fan?
Are you as addicted to these stories as I am?
Who are your favorite characters, and why?
