On Rewatching the Lord of the Rings: Fatherhood

So I've begun to rewatch the Lord of the Rings. I should be reading the books, but after a long day of teaching children how to read, I am only prepared to watch the movies.

As a child, the Lord of the Rings was my first introduction to the movie theater. No, really, I had only ever watched Tarzan and The Polar Express in a movie theater before, and that had been at a carefully chaperoned event. My first solo trip to the movie theater, my borrowed money clutched in hand, was to see The Return of the King in 2004.

But my favorite film has always been The Fellowship of the Ring, for many, many reasons. One of the most important, however, to my teenage self was the sense of a father figure. I had a relatively active and involved father, but for many, many reasons my family was stretched to breaking point. I watched The Fellowship of the Ring primarily to see strong, courageous men save the world. I was not yet, after all, a feminist.

One scene that always struck me was the scene where Boromir was tackled by Pippin and Merry. It is an innocent and fun scene, one of the last in the movie. The two hobbits look like Boromir's sons, and he is laughing as if they were errant children as they try to drag him to the ground.

The horrid irony, of course, is that just a few scenes later Boromir will try to kill them all.

Fatherhood is like that, I've heard. One moment, you're playing with your little darlings. The next, you want to murder them and cover the world in a second darkness.

But somehow that scene struck me differently when I rewatched it tonight. I identified a lot less with the childlike hobbits, for instance. They struck me as immature and ridiculous, caricatures. Mind you, Frodo still seemed grave and mature, but played by entirely a too young actor.

No, I identified most with Gandalf. He had vastly more knowledge and power than anyone surrounding him (well, with the possible exception of Aragorn). The grin on his face watching the antics of shortlived mortals reminded me of my amusement at the antics of my students. He was wise and flawed, old and bent, and utterly helpless to protect those around him despite his vast power and knowledge.

Everyone is competing for his attention the whole time. Gimli wants to argue logistics. Frodo wants some encouragement. Boromir wants affirmation as an equal. Legolas seems indifferent, but he is in fact a throwaway character. But who encourages Gandalf? Is Gandalf the mother hen of this group, nurturing until his very life is taken from him?

But, really, is he even compensated for this? He's working his ass off trying to save Middle-earth, and most people are either indifferent to him or openly malign him. After about a thousand years of this, has he ever had a mental breakdown? Maybe a fit of manic depression and a little fire wizardry applied to a forest?

Of course, I know the ending to this story. He's going to his death and he has probably already realized it due to his connection to the prophetic dream-god Lorien in Valinor. I wonder how much he knew as he sat there, watching Boromir play with the hobbits.