Chris Barker wrote:
> I rather fancy being a Hobbit. Life in the Shire looked very comfortable ...
> but what about Mordor and other terrorist threats? :-)
>
My heroes in LofR are Tom Bombadil and his wife, Goldberry, River-Daughter.
I can understand why they were left out of the movies, but it deprives
the mythic story of a very important piece of psycho-spiritual content.
Symbolic, Jungian, Shamanic, etc. analysis of those three little
chapters could fill a hefty book.
An individual wholly in touch with both bright and dark parts of her/his
psyche and balanced between yin and yang (masc/fem, anima/animus ...) is
not affected by the draw of evil or the battles of good and evil. Tom,
as representative of Tom/Goldberry, is unaffected by the ring. But if
Frodo left it with them for safekeeping, they'd just lose it through
inattention. It's power and drama isn't part of their story, but would
then draw another, less balanced individual to find it, become
Ringbearer and go on a dramatic Hero's Journey.
Gandalf's story is another wonderful tale of individuation, a hero's
quest for transcendence through symbolic tests of death and
transformation embedded in the overall tale.
Moose
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