On Love and Hobbits

I'm not going to review RETURN OF THE KING, here. I don't need to. All I need to say is it's awesome, an every sense of the word, the fitting finale for an unparalleled filmmaking achievement. It rocks. Go see it. That's all I got to say on that.

No, my friends, we're here to discuss the sexuality of hobbits.

Now, I know I'm not the first one to discuss the subject of hobbit sex, and I certainly won't be the last; but it's been on my mind, and I wanted to try to start a meaningful dialogue on the issue.

To begin with, you have to admit there's something there, something slightly, well, different, in the relationships between hobbits Frodo and Sam, and Merry and Pippin. As my wife put it, while we were watching an emotional scene between Sam and Frodo in the extended version of TWO TOWERS, "They're a little too...into each other, aren't they?" Or as my dear ol' da' might put it, "They're so up each other they can't see daylight."

For those of you who haven't seen RETURN OF THE KING, or are too repulsed to proceed any further and want to quit now, FYI, there are spoilers ahead.

So. What it comes down to is, are the hobbits gay? There's clearly more than friendship, here, as scenes of a sobbing Pippin being torn away from an equally distraught Merry and a seemingly doomed Sam and Frodo cradling each other in their arms demonstrate. But is it man-love, or something else?

I've nothing against the man-love ("Not that there's anything wrong with that!" George screams), but I believe it's the something else. It's not Sam's token wife (his "beard," one might think; and really, is "If I was going to marry, that's the girl I'd marry" a convincing statement of heterosexual love?) or the throwaway scene of Merry giving a half-hearted glance to a bridesmaid at Sam's wedding that's got me convinced they're straight. Tolkien was a bit of a prude, for one thing, and much of his writings on Sam and Frodo's relationship were based on his observations of men in combat during World War I, for another.

Personally, I'm of the belief that sexuality doesn't even come in to play, here; that, in truth, there is no "straight" or "gay" in this particular world. In this, as a co-worker of mine noted, the hobbits are more like children than anything else. They like to eat, they like to sleep, and they like to be with their friends, with whom all meaningful time is spent. Director Peter Jackson, it must be noted, is no stranger to these kinds of relationships; his excellent HEAVENLY CREATURES was the story of two teenage girls who develop an extremely close bond that goes beyond sexuality: they want to be with each other, until death or beyond, with each ardently refusing to leave the other's side and the two going to great lengths to remain together. It's love, but not love in the sexual sense; rather, it's an unconditional love combined with an unwavering loyalty, two things that are rare enough these days to be mistaken for something else entirely.

At this point, it's getting too late for me to go into the theory I developed, in the course of my morning ablutions, that LORD OF THE RINGS is one big allegory for marriage, and I think I've said enough on the subject anyway. But if you're still looking for more, try this essay on sexuality in Tolkien's writings. Or, if you're looking for a RETURN OF THE KING desktop, help yourself to this one I just scratched up.

I shudder to think what kind of Google hits this one's gonna get me...