![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunnyskywalkerAt the very end of Peter Jackson's adaptation of Return of the King, he makes one little change that I've been pondering: instead of returning to Bag End where he and his family now live, Sam returns to his own house. Why?
I think it has a lot to do with presence or absence of the Scouring of the Shire, and the different ways the book and movie approach coming home after a war because of it.
I'll start with the book. Here, the hobbits return to the Shire to find it drastically changed by the war. Through "Sharkey's" manipulations, they've been short of pipeweed and food and other things for quite some time, ruffians and a new list of rules keep the shirefolk from moving about or speaking too openly, the Party Tree has been cut down, and Bagshot Row has been razed, just for starters. All along, the travelers have been thinking of the Shire as an unchanging hideaway that they can simply return to when they're finished with the quest and the war. They find it isn't so. As the saying goes, you cannot step in the same river twice, for when you try, the river has changed, and so have you. The hobbits realize they have changed several times (such as when they realize how strange they'll look to the other hobbits in their armor). And so has the Shire.
Both these changes are necessary for Tolkien's version. The Shire has to change to show that a great evil like Sauron and Saruman affects everyone in time, even those who think they've nothing to do with the rest of the world. The hobbits have to change not only so they can handle their quest and the war, but so they can handle homecoming: Gandalf tells them that because they have changed, they are ready to face the changes in the Shire. Merry and Pippin use their new military and leadership skills to chase out the ruffians, Sam uses his gift of Elvish earth to re-grow the destroyed landscape, and Frodo... well, he tries to keep the hobbits from finding too many dark and violent impulses in themselves.
Tolkien ties all this in with the end of the Third Age and beginning of the Fourth, the passing of the Elves, Frodo's fate, and Sam. He shows both the drastic, irreversible changes and continuity, the way old things get recycled and remade into new. Aragorn's kingship is both the return of the old order and something new - not only is it new for most living people at the time, but he is a new kind of king, one who has been a wanderer in the wilderness. His Queen is Arwen, an Elf who remains, but one who becomes mortal. She and her children are both a continuation of the old and something new in Gondor. The Shire becomes much as it was: the new brick buildings are razed and used to rebuild hobbit holes, the water is cleaned up, the trees are replanted, and the hobbits settle down after being roused and go back to their cozy, provincial lives. But on the other hand, Lobelia is popular for the first time, Merry and Pippin become community leaders, Sam's earth makes things grow oddly quickly and lushly, and there is now a mallyrn where the Party Tree once grew. And while the hobbit children born the next year are still ordinary hobbits, an unusual number of them have golden hair.
Sam stands right in the middle of this mixture of old and new. He settles down, marries Rosie Cotton, has children, and generally acts a proper hobbit who is content with a simple hobbit's life. On the other hand, he has seen Elves. He has been to Rivendell, and to Mordor and back, and has borne the Ring. He is the one who uses foreign earth to renew the Shire, and several of his children have golden hair. At first, he is torn between the two: he wants to marry Rosie, but he doesn't want to leave Frodo after staying with him on all their strange travels - Frodo, of course, has always been a little more tied to Elves and Dwarves and wizards than the average hobbit, and now he's shifted even more away from ordinary hobbitish things. Sam wants to have both, the warm hobbit life with Rosie and children, and the strange and terrible and beautiful things he's seen which Frodo still carries within him. Frodo tells Sam he cannot always be torn in two, and comes up with the first solution: marry Rosie, and then they can both move into Bag End with him. And they do. And after Frodo goes into the West, Bag End belongs to the Gamgees.
Sam returning home from the Havens to Bag End embodies this mixture of transformation. On one hand, an eccentric Baggins has once again passed Bag End down to someone dear to him of his choosing, and Sam as Mayor and family man is the kind of respectable hobbit who always inhabited Bag End before Bilbo went off on his adventure. On the other hand, Bag End hasn't had an actual nuclear family in it in a long time (Bilbo and Frodo always had nephews and cousins over), and Sam... well, Sam used to be the gardener. Now he's a comfortable gentlehobbit and Mayor for decades running. The old Sam may have had leadership in him, but he probably couldn't have expressed it before his long ordeal with Frodo and the Ring. But now Frodo was able to pass on his home and his life to Sam, who is whole and healed in a way Frodo can't manage. He is the hobbit leader comfortable with a simple life of family and good food and not too many rules, but also a hobbit who has seen Elves and has golden-haired children and a mallyrn in the yard. By melding hobbit life and the changes he's gone through while away, Sam has taken Frodo's place in the community - but not exactly the same way; rather, he's taken the place a gentlehobbit like Frodo would have been expected to take in his position. Sam living in Bag End is Sam with both Frodo and Rosie, united.
Peter Jackson takes an entirely different tack. When the hobbits return, the Shire has not changed. Only they have. This is a different experience of soldiers returning home: sometimes, the war doesn't seem to have touched it*, and the trouble is trying to fit back in when suddenly it all seems so strange, and they seem to have been doing fine without you. Sam manages to fit back in, maybe a little more confident than he was before (he isn't so shy around Rosie now). Frodo can't, and finally goes to the sea with the Elves. Peter Jackson moves Frodo's line about not being torn in two: instead of using it to unite the halves of Sam's life and move Sam and Rosie into Bag End with Frodo, he uses it in his farewell to get Sam to leave Frodo and the Elves and the rest behind. Sam has to choose one or the other. Not that his memories of Frodo and the rest won't always be a part of him, but that to go on and be whole, he has to wholly commit himself to one part of his life. He has to move past the war and step out of Frodo's shadow.
Sam returns to a small gardener's cottage with flowers in the front. Instead of entering the now-familiar green front door of Bag End, he enters a yellow front door. Instead of melding his Frodo-side and his Rosie-side into one and going on by transforming Frodo's role, Sam goes on by taking a path separate from Frodo's. The only remaining link is the Red Book - and in this case, Sam continuing the story isn't about that transformation, the recycling of the old with the new, but of moving past from that story and continuing one more entirely his own.
Now, I can't really say that I love one version vastly more than the other. Both are fascinating takes on the idea of homecoming and going on with life after a war, and I can imagine both scenarios as being possible and true. Tolkien's version took more thought for me to untangle (and I still feel there's more I haven't gotten yet), which is something I love to do - but on the other hand, if Peter Jackson hadn't changed Sam's house, would I have ever done so? And his version still feels true and meaningful to me. But fortunately, I don't have to be torn in two and choose one - I can have both. So I guess maybe I'm more like Tolkien's Sam :D
*Of course, it might have, but not in the drastic ways Tolkien's version shows. This might be the kind of changes where the people back home say, "Really, a war in that distant place? I must have missed the news. By the way, you'll have to take a little extra when you go to buy groceries since food prices have gone up since you left. I wonder why?"
I think it has a lot to do with presence or absence of the Scouring of the Shire, and the different ways the book and movie approach coming home after a war because of it.
I'll start with the book. Here, the hobbits return to the Shire to find it drastically changed by the war. Through "Sharkey's" manipulations, they've been short of pipeweed and food and other things for quite some time, ruffians and a new list of rules keep the shirefolk from moving about or speaking too openly, the Party Tree has been cut down, and Bagshot Row has been razed, just for starters. All along, the travelers have been thinking of the Shire as an unchanging hideaway that they can simply return to when they're finished with the quest and the war. They find it isn't so. As the saying goes, you cannot step in the same river twice, for when you try, the river has changed, and so have you. The hobbits realize they have changed several times (such as when they realize how strange they'll look to the other hobbits in their armor). And so has the Shire.
Both these changes are necessary for Tolkien's version. The Shire has to change to show that a great evil like Sauron and Saruman affects everyone in time, even those who think they've nothing to do with the rest of the world. The hobbits have to change not only so they can handle their quest and the war, but so they can handle homecoming: Gandalf tells them that because they have changed, they are ready to face the changes in the Shire. Merry and Pippin use their new military and leadership skills to chase out the ruffians, Sam uses his gift of Elvish earth to re-grow the destroyed landscape, and Frodo... well, he tries to keep the hobbits from finding too many dark and violent impulses in themselves.
Tolkien ties all this in with the end of the Third Age and beginning of the Fourth, the passing of the Elves, Frodo's fate, and Sam. He shows both the drastic, irreversible changes and continuity, the way old things get recycled and remade into new. Aragorn's kingship is both the return of the old order and something new - not only is it new for most living people at the time, but he is a new kind of king, one who has been a wanderer in the wilderness. His Queen is Arwen, an Elf who remains, but one who becomes mortal. She and her children are both a continuation of the old and something new in Gondor. The Shire becomes much as it was: the new brick buildings are razed and used to rebuild hobbit holes, the water is cleaned up, the trees are replanted, and the hobbits settle down after being roused and go back to their cozy, provincial lives. But on the other hand, Lobelia is popular for the first time, Merry and Pippin become community leaders, Sam's earth makes things grow oddly quickly and lushly, and there is now a mallyrn where the Party Tree once grew. And while the hobbit children born the next year are still ordinary hobbits, an unusual number of them have golden hair.
Sam stands right in the middle of this mixture of old and new. He settles down, marries Rosie Cotton, has children, and generally acts a proper hobbit who is content with a simple hobbit's life. On the other hand, he has seen Elves. He has been to Rivendell, and to Mordor and back, and has borne the Ring. He is the one who uses foreign earth to renew the Shire, and several of his children have golden hair. At first, he is torn between the two: he wants to marry Rosie, but he doesn't want to leave Frodo after staying with him on all their strange travels - Frodo, of course, has always been a little more tied to Elves and Dwarves and wizards than the average hobbit, and now he's shifted even more away from ordinary hobbitish things. Sam wants to have both, the warm hobbit life with Rosie and children, and the strange and terrible and beautiful things he's seen which Frodo still carries within him. Frodo tells Sam he cannot always be torn in two, and comes up with the first solution: marry Rosie, and then they can both move into Bag End with him. And they do. And after Frodo goes into the West, Bag End belongs to the Gamgees.
Sam returning home from the Havens to Bag End embodies this mixture of transformation. On one hand, an eccentric Baggins has once again passed Bag End down to someone dear to him of his choosing, and Sam as Mayor and family man is the kind of respectable hobbit who always inhabited Bag End before Bilbo went off on his adventure. On the other hand, Bag End hasn't had an actual nuclear family in it in a long time (Bilbo and Frodo always had nephews and cousins over), and Sam... well, Sam used to be the gardener. Now he's a comfortable gentlehobbit and Mayor for decades running. The old Sam may have had leadership in him, but he probably couldn't have expressed it before his long ordeal with Frodo and the Ring. But now Frodo was able to pass on his home and his life to Sam, who is whole and healed in a way Frodo can't manage. He is the hobbit leader comfortable with a simple life of family and good food and not too many rules, but also a hobbit who has seen Elves and has golden-haired children and a mallyrn in the yard. By melding hobbit life and the changes he's gone through while away, Sam has taken Frodo's place in the community - but not exactly the same way; rather, he's taken the place a gentlehobbit like Frodo would have been expected to take in his position. Sam living in Bag End is Sam with both Frodo and Rosie, united.
Peter Jackson takes an entirely different tack. When the hobbits return, the Shire has not changed. Only they have. This is a different experience of soldiers returning home: sometimes, the war doesn't seem to have touched it*, and the trouble is trying to fit back in when suddenly it all seems so strange, and they seem to have been doing fine without you. Sam manages to fit back in, maybe a little more confident than he was before (he isn't so shy around Rosie now). Frodo can't, and finally goes to the sea with the Elves. Peter Jackson moves Frodo's line about not being torn in two: instead of using it to unite the halves of Sam's life and move Sam and Rosie into Bag End with Frodo, he uses it in his farewell to get Sam to leave Frodo and the Elves and the rest behind. Sam has to choose one or the other. Not that his memories of Frodo and the rest won't always be a part of him, but that to go on and be whole, he has to wholly commit himself to one part of his life. He has to move past the war and step out of Frodo's shadow.
Sam returns to a small gardener's cottage with flowers in the front. Instead of entering the now-familiar green front door of Bag End, he enters a yellow front door. Instead of melding his Frodo-side and his Rosie-side into one and going on by transforming Frodo's role, Sam goes on by taking a path separate from Frodo's. The only remaining link is the Red Book - and in this case, Sam continuing the story isn't about that transformation, the recycling of the old with the new, but of moving past from that story and continuing one more entirely his own.
Now, I can't really say that I love one version vastly more than the other. Both are fascinating takes on the idea of homecoming and going on with life after a war, and I can imagine both scenarios as being possible and true. Tolkien's version took more thought for me to untangle (and I still feel there's more I haven't gotten yet), which is something I love to do - but on the other hand, if Peter Jackson hadn't changed Sam's house, would I have ever done so? And his version still feels true and meaningful to me. But fortunately, I don't have to be torn in two and choose one - I can have both. So I guess maybe I'm more like Tolkien's Sam :D
*Of course, it might have, but not in the drastic ways Tolkien's version shows. This might be the kind of changes where the people back home say, "Really, a war in that distant place? I must have missed the news. By the way, you'll have to take a little extra when you go to buy groceries since food prices have gone up since you left. I wonder why?"
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-22 10:14 pm (UTC)I think Peter Jackson's choice, to have him stay in Bagshot Row, suggests almost that instead of fusing the two halves of his life, Sam has just chosen one half--the hobbity half--and set aside the Shelob-killing, elf-friending part of himself. Bag End, after all, is now associated with those odd, troublemaking Bagginses, who have always had one foot outside the Shire. "I want to see mountains again, Gandalf, mountains!" Bilbo says. The Shire isn't quite enough for him anymore.
(Nor, really, is it truly enough for Merry and Pippin--traveling to Gondor in their old age, being entombed by the side of their king...it's kind of a show of allegiance, of belonging, and they left their families behind to do it. I don't think that Sam is the only one left "torn in two" by their adventures.)
Now I want to reread the books, starting with The Hobbit. I'll be back in three weeks or so. ;D
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-22 10:23 pm (UTC)The way you phrased that made me think, "Oh, Peter Jackson made Sam like book!Eowyn!" Hanging up the shield, getting married, filling the more expected role - with the rest as memories, but not part of the present life.
And you're right about Sam not being the only one torn in two. Actually, I think most of the Fellowship goes through this - look at Strider/Aragorn and his many ways of being torn (adventuring vs. wanting the girl back home, Wild & Vaguely Creepy Ranger vs. Noble Destined King, wanting to follow Frodo vs. wanting to follow Merry and Pippin...). Gandalf is just visiting Middle Earth in the first place, and might not have come back after he died. Legolas and Gimli start out determined not to like each other because of the ancient rivalry, but in the end Gimli leaves the dwarves and goes across the sea with Legolas (and Legolas takes a dwarf with him - what would his father say?).
Now I want to reread the books, starting with The Hobbit. I'll be back in three weeks or so. ;D
Hee, yes :D I reread the last few chapters of RotK for this, and now I want to sit down with them all too.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-23 05:36 am (UTC)So...I guess we've stumbled upon a theme, eh? :)
(and Legolas takes a dwarf with him - what would his father say?).
I don't know, but I'd really love it if Christopher Tolkien dug up a draft of that conversation. XD
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-23 05:50 am (UTC)Poor Aragorn - he has more identities than a con man. He's Estel, the kid who doesn't know his heritage, then Strider and Thorongil and who knows what else wandering in the wild, and when he finally gets comfortable with being Aragorn, the Man Who Will Be King, does he get to keep his name? Oh no. He's Elessar now. It's no wonder he chooses Telcontar as his family name - sure, it's properly noble and Elvish, but it's also Strider. He unites the parts of his life too.
I'd really love it if Christopher Tolkien dug up a draft of that conversation.
Especially if it includes Legolas arguing that it's not fair, Galadriel approves of Gimil! She said he was fair-spoken!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-23 02:49 am (UTC)I understand why PJ left out the Scouring, and I think it was a good decision for the movie. But making Frodo the one hobbit who was transformed by the experience... it feels believable in the movie, because Frodo's trauma was so obvious. But perhaps someone who had been to a war and back would not have written it that way.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-23 05:39 am (UTC)Sam and Merry and Pippin seeming more or less the same after coming home in the movie is a little less believable when you look at it closely. Though since we don't see what they get up to every day, really, maybe we're supposed to assume that they may have problems, but they were always the cheerfully resilient hobbits to begin with so they recover and adapt quickly? And Frodo was always sensitive and serious, so that just compounds the greater trauma? I don't know. That shot of them looking uncomfortable with their half-pints has to carry an awful lot.