So. Boromir. OK, Jen, here

So. Boromir.
OK, Jen, here are my thoughts on Boromir!
Along with some pix to make you grin.
First impression: What a fecking great twerp. Would someone please just kill him?
When I first met him, back when I was all of 11 or so and Mom read me the book, I thought he was a great, hulking git. Pretentious, stuck on himself, the works.
Then I read the book on a train in 1999.
Second impression: What a fecking great twerp. Would someone please just boot him in the nuts?
He wasn’t quite as annoying, but I wanted someone to inform him that, no, he wasn’t all that, and he should get over himself before getting everyone killed.
Then I saw the film.
New impression: What a fecking great tragic loss. Would someone please just smack him? Maybe he’d come to his senses.

Maybe it’s because I’m older. Or because Sean Bean is a babe (did I just type that?). Whatever it is, I’m starting to get the sense of him Tolkien was trying to give – that Boromir is a great man, a great warrior, a great leader – who is quite simply out of his depth. He’s used to being very direct – kill the bad guys, go home in glory. The thought that physical strength and good battle tactics aren’t everything is a foreign one to him, and that is why he wants to use the ring. He sees it as a sort of superweapon.
He goes along with the council because he’s used (like a military man) to following orders – but he’s also used to getting them from his father, who thinks like he does. Not from an Elf lord and a wizened old dude who is known as a troublemaker of a wizard (remember, Boromir’s dad is not a fan of Gandalf).
His inability to believe in his heart that they are right and the Ring must be destroyed is what leaves him open to the ring’s influence.
Oddly enough, it is Boromir’s attack that gives Frodo the courage to go off on his own. He’s known for days, weeks maybe, that the Fellowship can only get him so far – he’s got to go off by himself if he’s going to have a hope of getting the Ring to Mordor.
And so Boromir’s weakness, Boromir’s fall, is to the greater good.
It’s interesting to note that in Tolkien, weaknesses often prove to be good points, and strengths often prove to be weaknesses. After all, it is the hobbits’ weaknesses that have left them hidden all this time. It is their apparent insignificance that will let Frodo manage to get to Mordor without being nabbed. It is Hobbits’ powerlessness that lets them carry the Ring for so long with so little effect.
And it is Boromir’s strengths that lead to his downfall, Gandalf and Galadriel’s great power that makes them the most likely to be corrupted should they so much as touch the ring, let alone carry it.
Interesting, nu?