Good Riddance to the Scouring, Say I
My plan is to eventually write a full review of The Return of the King film (I think the occasion warrants the use of as many words as I please, rather than the traditional twenty-five), but I've got eleven minutes until my generally feeble Decipher computer finishes archiving my backups, so I'd like to take a moment right now to say good riddance to the Scouring of the Shire.
I should say up front that I'm a plot guy. That's probably why, as art forms go, I'm generally more compelled by films than books. As I was re-reading The Lord of the Rings when I was hired at Decipher, I was struck (and vigorously so, about the head and shoulders) by how very anti-climactic pretty much everything is after the One Ring gets pitched into Mount Doom.
I understand that everyone thinks its all very thematic that the Hobbits get a chance to prove how they've grown and changed and become Big People, and I say phooey. The Lord of the Rings trilogy asks the dramatic question of what will happen to Middle-earth now that the One Ring has been found. That dramatic question is answered wholly and completely in Chapter III of Book Six. It is simply not dramatically interesting to introduce a wholly new plotline that is at best a feeble reflection of the earth-shattering dramatic story that has just been told.
The fact is that theme works when it grows organically from story, suggesting itself within the bounds defined by the narrative. If Merry and Pippin had defeated the rogues and villains who'd taken over in the Shire as a sub-plot that developed as part of the action rising toward the climax at Mount Doom, that would have been entirely appropriate. As a thematic element existing outside the bounds of the plot, I think it was a very bad idea.
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