Maybe this is why I like him better: the sexy, powerful, movie-star guy gets all the girls, but the geeky ones are more my type. (Once again, I’m reminded that literary interpretation is often about more about the reader than about the work!)

Somehow Viggo has never really stuck with me, and in my imagination book-Aragorn is a little bit blurry. Guess I am missing out!

I agree, but when I first read the books, I’d already seen the first film. So even though Aragorn is a far less interesting character than Faramir in the books, my mind’s eye was full of Viggo Mortensen relentlessly bringing the sexy. Book-Aragorn is quite dull a lot of the time, although it is a bit badass when he confronts Sauron with the palantir. 🙂

There’s just something stern about Aragorn, always having to think about his legacy (or maybe my view is colored by reading the Appendix). It’s like he is TOO conscious of his place in the stories. I think he would be a lot less fun on a daily basis.

I know Tolkien wrote a letter about this, and I’m just trying to remember what it was. He said what he thought would have happened if Gollum had been let alone and gotten more hobbity, and although I can’t remember it exactly, I know it still ended with the Ring being destroyed.

But in the end, what if Gollum hadn’t turned to his darker self? I always think it is confounding how evil occasionally achieves good.

Oh, definitely. It just always makes me wonder what could have been.

Me too! And if I’d been helping out Frodo and Sam so helpfully all the time, and then Sam had fussed at me for no good reason, I might very well have fed them to a giant spider myself. Huh.

It is better in the books. I definitely think so, though I guess we’ll see whether I hold that opinion throughout ROTK. In the films it gets very repetitive, and I was mad about the whole mess where Frodo tells Sam to go home. So not what would have happened.

Since I will probably be late reading ROTK in spite of my resolution, I say with conviction: It is okay to be a little late! 🙂

That makes me feel a bit better! I’m looking forward to ROTK. 🙂