Which character did you view totally differently as a child vs. as an adult? - Boromir
Boromir, Eldest Son of Denethor, and specifically, the portrayal done by Sean Bean in Peter Jackson’s film adaptation.
The movie Fellowship of the Ring came out when I was on the young-ish side of things. Like many, the movie was my first real encounter with the world of J.R.R Tolkien beyond the stuff that had infiltrated pop culture via cultural osmosis.
And in the theatrical version, Boromir is… a bit of a dick, but more than that, he’s portrayed as an outright sketchy dude, a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off.
He refuses to accept Aragorn’s legitimacy as Isildur’s (and by extension, Elendil’s) heir, how dare he?! He doubts the Council of Elrond at every step of the conference, he’s visibly tempted by the Ring from the moment he sees it, and seems to contribute very little until he attempts to take the Ring from Frodo and later dies at Amon Hen.
Young as I was, I did not come away with a good impression of Boromir, which to be fair, was kind of Tolkien’s original intention. He himself did not like Boromir, and made damn sure that bias was well represented in the text. Sean Bean and Peter Jackson did an AMAZING job of bringing that to screen.
But, time marches on. My experience grew, and crucially, I read the books AND saw the Extended Editions of the films, and I began, finally, to really understand Boromir on a level that it sometimes feels like Tolkien himself did not.
Of course he refutes Aragorn’s legitimacy. Aragorn isn’t even making a claim to it himself — it’s being made for him, secondhand, by some upstart elf whose people haven’t bothered to really help Boromir’s in his lifetime (at least in a way that he could see and appreciate). This Elvish out lander just shows up to the Council and five minutes later is telling Boromir that all his priorities are misplaced and this mountain man from the North is the Once and Future King? Pish posh. Boromir’s father might not be king, but he’s been doing the job for the (absentee) King for decades. Boromir’s whole family has been doing that for generations, and Boromir himself has been groomed for the job his entire life. He’s not just going to abandon his whole reality that he’s had for his entire life on the word of some random Elf he just met five minutes ago, particularly when Aragorn himself presents himself so humbly. He doesn’t see the King to Be yet, because the King has not really shown himself to the world.
Of course he doubts the Council’s plans. What they’re proposing is so incredibly obviously a strategem born out of pure desperation that only an idiot couldn’t see that. Boromir is quite possibly the most active military leader at the Council — his entire adult life has been spent on or not far from the front lines, engaging in personal battle against the forces of evil. He’s learned where and when to take risks and how to evaluate them, to understand the strengths of the men at his disposal, and what losses he can afford to or should take to achieve victory… and every inch of his experience is saying this plan is absolutely suicidal and could nearly certainly hand the Weapon of the Enemy back to Sauron on a golden platter. And he’s not wrong in the slightest. Every criticism he gives on that front is absolutely valid. It is a huge risk, the biggest risk anyone has taken with Sauron since Elendil and Gil-galad marched right up to Sauron’s doorstep at the closing of the last Age. Someone had to point that out, and since nobody else was, especially Elrond (who was present for said Avon-calling and should be more keenly aware of the risks than literally anyone else alive in Middle-Earth), Boromir decided it had to be him.
Of course he’s tempted by the Ring. That’s literally it’s M.O. More than that though, he feels the Council has missed the forest for the trees. Why are we jumping straight to the single most suicidal plan imaginable? Should we not investigate other options that might be more tactically sound first? Boromir has no desire to lead anyone into a massacre, or be led into one by someone else, even someone as famously wise as Mithrandir, whom others called Gandalf the Grey. The Ring’s power is legendary. Why not try to find some way to wield that? Surely there has to be a way. That the Ring answers only to Sauron, or someone exactly like him, is absolutely news to him at the time, and it was information he didn’t have before that moment. And even knowing that, Boromir knows that it is his Kingdom that is suffering the most at the brink of the hordes of Sauron; Gondor is taking heavier losses than anyone else at that time; he knows because he’s been leading that fight and has both seen the death and received the after-battle reports personally. That is making him just a teensy bit desperate. That desperation and anxiety is what the Ring uses against him.
What’s more, the film actually does Boromir a solid in that scene: it abbreviates the quotation and cuts out something that is crucial to Boromir’s status as an antagonist-in-gestation.
“Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing? So small a thing! And I have seen it only for an instant in the house of Elrond! Could I not have a sight of it again?“
Do you see the difference? How that TINY alteration by omission affects your outlook on Boromir’s entire character?
No longer is he outright tempted by the prospect of the Ring: he knows how perilous it is. He’s been informed by experts that no man can use it, and that any who could should be feared just as much as Sauron. And yet by this point they’ve been faced by setback after setback. They shouldn’t even be TAKING the road they’re on; it literally was their plan to avoid it!
Once more, his military instincts kick in: there are too many tactical risks associated with Caradhras. In the book, Gimli had warned them by this point of the mountain’s wicked reputation (and there’s not much reason to assume he hasn’t done so in the movie version). They are taking a longer, less secure road that could cause them all to be buried and freeze to death — which nearly happens! Better to go south, to the Gap of Rohan and from there, the road to Minas Tirith. There, Boromir knows is friendly territory. The climate is favorable. It’s well patrolled by Gondorian troops, the measure of which Boromir knows as well as his own. There, they can regroup, resupply, and move out again from a position of strength and relative safety! Why isn’t anyone listening to him?!
The answer is because Aragorn and Gandalf can see that the Ring is using Boromir’s military instincts and experience against him. No longer does it tempt him with power, or salvation. It tempts him with safety, with a strategy he knows should work, and blinds him to the reality of what lesser-willed men will do once it has itself within corruption-range. Boromir, in the midst of it all, is tempted because he still fundamentally does not understand the true danger the Ring embodies and cannot see that it is playing him.
And yet… look at the other side of Boromir we get.
He fights harder than anyone else is seen to do against the Orcs at the siege of Osgiliath. He sees and respects his brother Faramir’s input and contributions and seeks to make sure that their father sees them too.
He sticks by the Hobbits closer than any other member of the Fellowship, even Gandalf. He regards it as his duty to protect them. He teaches them sword techniques as opposed to simply handing them blades and wishing them the best of luck. He exchanges banter with them and plays games with them, helping them keep their morale high. He knows that they are the ones who do not fully understand the burden this quest will ask of them, and has declared to himself that it his duty as a high-born Lord of Gondor that he shall help them bear that however he can.
When Gandalf falls, it is Boromir who ushers the group to safety — even Aragorn is too dumbstruck to act. It is Boromir, the Prince, the Leader of Soldiers, who tries to give the group a moment to grieve for their lost friend and mentor, doing his best to look out for their mental and emotional needs.
In the realm of Lothlorien, his regal and stiff-upper-lip facade comes crashing to the ground, and he lays his fears before Aragorn, accepting Aragorn, if not as King, then as an equal and a comrade he can trust enough to drop his guard around.
He gradually sees the regal heart within Aragorn awaken, and as a result chides Aragorn on the River Anduin for abandoning Gondor, and rightly calls Elendil’s heir out on the weasel-word excuses he gives. Aragorn is the absentee king. He could have returned to Gondor at any time, taken command, and lived up to his responsibilities — this fact hurts Boromir, who has had to live up to massive responsibilities himself his whole life, so to see the man who should be King talk of how there is nothing in Gondor for him is deeply offensive. Boromir didn’t shirk his duties and responsibilities, and he is far less than a king. Why then should the King be able to? Aragorn even admits he was close enough to the White City to have seen it, if not actually been there (and understating that fact to absolve himself of responsibility), yet did not step up and claim his birthright, saddling Denethor, Boromir, and Faramir with the odious and unasked-for task of leading the fight instead.
Boromir has been leading the fight as ably as he could, but now that he is becoming more accepting of Aragorn’s legitimacy, his heart fills with anger (and rightly so) towards Aragorn for shirking that responsibility and leaving it to others instead. He’s insulted by Aragorn’s assertions that “there is no strength in the world of Men”. Boromir knows that’s bullshit. He’s seen that strength every day on the battlefield, and held that strength in his arms as his men lay dying on the field. He knows the sacrifices Men have been willing to make, and so when Aragon makes that claim that men are weak, honorless fools, Boromir finally calls the old man out.
When he finally breaks under the Ring’s influence, he doesn’t say a single untrue word until he asks Frodo “if you would but lend me the Ring”.
Frodo is wise to be wary of Boromir’s warnings and protestations, but there IS great wisdom and vulnerability revealed. Once he comes to his senses, he realizes he’s the man who unintentionally broke the Fellowship. In his regret, he resumes his self-appointed calling: protecting those weaker than himself, a true Knight in the Romantic tradition Tolkien was so inspired by.
His final words (in the film) to Aragorn, who is now in the position Boromir has been in many times, cradling one of his best, bravest, and most noble in his arms as they lay dying?
“I would have followed you, my brother… My captain… My King.”
That’s pretty damn far from the ticking time bomb the theatrical version of the films (and even the books) present Boromir as.
Thanks to Sean Bean and Peter Jackson, Boromir’s cautionary tale is expanded, and given proper depth. He becomes a true character, and one of the best realized in the saga. Boromir is the son of a princely line, and has lived his whole life with those responsibilities and has shouldered them and executed them the best he could, and has made a name for himself even among the Orcs of Mordor. He is the Captain of Gondor, and despite his abrasive moments and his failure with the Ring, he never lost sight of or stopped pursuing that what was most important to him:
Beat back the darkness. Keep the people safe.
Even in death he casts a long shadow; Aragorn works to measure up to Boromir’s criticisms, and become the lord and king Gondor needs, and it propels him even further along the road he needs to take. Faramir constantly measures himself by what Boromir would have done. Denethor is beset not by Sauron’s manipulations, but by grief of the loss of his most beloved son. Even after Boromir failed Frodo, he and Sam still speak nobly of him, knowing that his failure wasn’t his true character.
Thanks to the Extended Films, I have come to love Boromir best of all of Tolkien’s menagerie of characters, and that’s no small feat considering I was meant to like him least, even by the original author.
Hats off to Sean Bean and Peter Jackson for making that possible.
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