A Christian Nation

This is cross-posted from the Mobius Forum and SSMB. It got very little interest on the Mobius Forum and I don’t think the replies on SSMB really yielded any answers, so I’m re-posting it here (not that I anticipate anyone will read it here).  

In the more than ten years since I first became interested in global politics, I have been involved in quite a few discussions (or perhaps, more accurately, arguments) over the internet about all kinds of issues. I have learnt a lot in that time about different political philosophies, not only through my formal education at university, but also through my own research out of personal interest. I don’t consider myself to be an expert on any particular issue, but I do think of myself as an informed layman, certainly more informed than the average person, who generally shows little to no interest in politics at all. That said, there are still things in politics that I don’t understand; there’s always more to learn and I welcome the opportunity. One thing that has been puzzling me a lot recently is the concept of “a Christian nation”.

This concept has arisen in quite a lot of the discussions I’ve participated in since 2001 and not only in purely theological discussions; I’ve seen people assert that their country is a Christian nation as part of their argument in topics that one would not necessarily expect to have any religious angle. That said, I’ve been involved in these discussions long enough to know that just about any political topic can have a religious angle to some people. Online, I tend to see people (usually American conservatives) asserting that the United States is a Christian nation and my response has typically been a refutation of that. After all, unless you’re talking about demographics, the United States is most certainly not a Christian nation. It was not founded upon biblical principles; it was founded upon enlightenment principles, many of which fly in the face of Christian values. The founding fathers were not uniformly conservative Christians; they were enlightenment thinkers and, while some of them were Christians, many of them were deists (i.e. they believed in a creator god or “prime mover”, but not in a personal or interventionist god who requires worship), some of them professed no theological opinions at all, and some were publicly very critical of the Christian faith (Thomas Paine, for instance). Jesus Christ is not mentioned in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution; in fact, the only references to anything religious are to an unspecified creator in the Declaration and Article VI, paragraph 3 and the First Amendment of the Constitution, which respectively establish that there will be no religious test for public office and that the government may not create any laws favouring any one particular religion over another or religion over irreligion and vice versa—in other words, it establishes religious neutrality where the government is concerned. Indeed, constitutionally, the United States has a separation of church and state, which is enumerated by the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment, as explained by former president and founding father, Thomas Jefferson in a letter he wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 (in fact, that’s where the phrase comes from). Furthermore, the Treaty of Tripoli, which was unanimously ratified by both houses of Congress in 1797, explicitly states that the United States is in no way founded upon the Christian religion, and court decisions have generally given rise to a legal precedent supporting separation of church and state. Christianity may enjoy a majority status in the United States, but that does not make the county a Christian nation; indeed, the Constitution itself and the Bill of Rights in particular were written in part to protect minority groups from the tyranny of the majority.

That’s the kind of information I’ve drawn upon to argue against the myth that America is a Christian nation when I’ve been confronted by people making that assertion. Much of the information that conservative Christians in the United States will present is flawed or outright false; many quotes, ostensibly from founding fathers, have been incorrectly attributed to them or can be traced back to compulsive liars like David Barton of the conservative Christian group, Wallbuilders and no further. Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to persuade people who are determined to propagate this myth (or perhaps, more accurately, this lie) that the United States is a Christian Nation (Judeo-Christian if they’re being charitable or if they want to avoid angering the Anti-Defamation League), that it was founded upon biblical principles, and that it is right, necessary, or both for religion and government to be intertwined. Like arguing against a religionist’s theological beliefs, you often won’t get very far arguing against this lie; indeed, it is something they seem to cling to in much the same way that they cling to their faith, continuing to believe it in spite of all evidence to the contrary and the lack of any real evidence in support of it.

But, while I anticipate the possibility of some discussion about this claim, it’s not what I’m really interested in. I’ll come to that shortly, but first I’d like to briefly describe the situation on the other side of the Atlantic, here in Europe. Quite a few European nations have established churches (mostly the ones that still have monarchies), but in practice, we are much more secular than the United States; religious belief is much lower as is the level of religion in politics. For instance, while an atheist has very little chance of getting elected to high public office in the United States without lying about their beliefs, the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Nick Clegg is openly agnostic and said as much during the televised debates last year; while it would be an issue in America, considering the frankly disgraceful displays of religious interrogation by the major networks during the 2008 election cycle, it simply isn’t an issue for most voters here. Nevertheless, I have occasionally heard people assert that the United Kingdom is a Christian nation in order to provide an argument for their positions (which are almost exclusively positions of prejudice and bigotry). When civil partnerships were being legalised in 2005, I heard a woman on the radio arguing against giving gay couples similar legal rights to married straight couples on the basis that “this is a Christian nation” and that homosexuality is condemned in the Bible. Some Conservative MP’s have occasionally argued that Christianity needs to be given “primacy” in Britain, former Prime Minister, Tony Blair has become a conservative Catholic and an attendee of the National Prayer Breakfast in the United States since resigning from office, and far-right extremist parties like UKIP and the BNP favour more Christianity in the public square, in education, and in politics (usually in order to contest Islam). Nevertheless, it is an oversimplification to assert that the United Kingdom is a Christian Nation. It is not, either constitutionally or demographically. While most people will put themselves down as Christians on the census, less than ten percent of the population ever attends church outside of weddings, funerals, and other such occasions (if they do it even then); most people are what has been described as “cultural Christians”, where religion is not a significant part of their lives and really only plays a ceremonial role, but they themselves are not sincere believers and they simply identify with the religion of their parents or grandparents. As far as the establishment of religion is concerned, however, it’s complicated, which is why it’s an oversimplification to say that “Britain is a Christian nation”. Britain itself does not, as a whole, have an established church; however, England and Scotland do have established churches, whereas Ireland disestablished its church in 1871 and Wales did the same in 1920. The established church in England is the Church of England (known as the Anglican Church outside the United Kingdom), whereas in Scotland it is the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. A lot of people mistakenly assume that the Church of England is the established church of the entire United Kingdom, but it isn’t; it’s just England. Constitutionally, there is no overt protection of religious freedom in the United Kingdom, but the Human Rights Act of 1998 and the Equality Act of 2010, not to mention the United Kingdom’s membership in the European Union all provide similar protections of religious freedom to those enjoyed in places like Germany and the United States that would otherwise be lacking.

But, as I indicated, the question of whether or not a particular country is a Christian nation is not what I’m interested in discussing in this topic. What I’m interested in is why people feel the need to propagate this idea, whether it’s true or not. What do the religionists who believe that theirs is a Christian nation hope to accomplish by either making it so or by convincing enough people that it is? I’ve spent enough time arguing against the claim that the United States is a Christian nation, but I’ve never really took the time to ask the predominantly conservative Christians who think otherwise why it is that they think this. What do they want and why do they want it? What is so potentially good about America’s recognition as a Christian nation? If there are Christians on this forum who identify with this position—that America is a Christian nation—then I invite you to answer these questions. The same applies to Christians elsewhere in the world who are similarly interested in the same kind of establishment of the Christian faith in their own countries. Of course, anybody’s input is welcome.

This is not intended as flame bait. I am genuinely interested in why people want to the propagate the idea of a Christian nation, because in all the arguments I’ve had about whether or not a particular country is a Christian nation, the question as to why people want that idea to be accepted is the one thing that’s never really been answered, at least not for me. So, please, if you’ve taken the time to read this, share your thoughts.

"I like it, but..." - Episode 7: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, continued...

Voices: “Have we met before...?”

One of the truly impressive things about Oblivion is the huge number of NPC's, who, rather than just standing around in one particular location all day, or doing nothing but minding a shop, actually go places and do things according to routines that sometimes change depending of the day of the week. Not only that, but you can interact with pretty much all of them, by engaging them in conversation (or by attacking or pickpocketing them or even drinking their blood, if you're a vampire). Moreover, unlike a lot of RPG's, more-or-less every single NPC that you can engage in conversation (you can't speak to hostile NPC's like Bandits and Marauders) usually has several lines of spoken dialogue they can give in response to topics you raise with them. This is pretty impressive. In a lot of RPG's, an NPC's responses may be limited to written dialogue, or you may not be able to engage them in conversation per se, rather they simply give a single spoken line response if you try to activate them, so it's quite impressive that almost every NPC in Oblivion can actually converse with the player... after a fashion. Of course, while this is very impressive, it's not without its problems. For instance, there are a lot of lines of stock dialogue, which you'll find repeated ad nauseum as you speak to more and more characters about generic conversation topics. But this isn't terribly objectionable, since many characters do, in fact, have unique lines of dialogue, despite having no relation whatsoever, at any time, to any particular quest, and these can often be quite amusing. No, the real problem with almost every character having spoken dialogue in Oblivion is the painfully narrow range of voices used for regular NPC's throughout the game.

As I've already mentioned, there are ten playable races in Oblivion; there are four races of Men, three races of Elves, as well as Orcs, Khajiits, and Argonians, and exactly eleven different voices you will hear from NPC's throughout most of the game. With the exception of the three characters played by major celebrities (Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean, and Terrance Stamp), more-or-less every NPC of a given race and gender will have exactly the same voice. And most of the races don't even have voices unique to themselves; only Redguards do, whereas all three races of Elves sound the same as each other, Orcs and Nords sound the same, as do Khajiits and Argonians, and while Imperial and Breton males have a unique voice, Imperial and Breton women sound the same. For the most part, the only exceptions to this are the occasional important NPC, like, for instance, Lucien Lachance, who, despite being an Imperial male with the exact same voice actor as every other Imperial male, actually has a reasonably unique voice. In the game's only expansion pack, The Shivering Isles, there are a few NPC's with somewhat more unique voices (indeed, Lord Sheogorath's chamberlain, Haskill has his own unique voice actor), but it would have been nice if the same bit of extra effort had gone into the main game too.

One of the truly jarring examples of this re-use of voices in Oblivion involves the characters Jauffre and Vicente Valtieri. These two characters could not be more different. Jauffre is the Grandmaster of the Blades, an ancient order sworn to protect the Emperor and uphold peace and justice in Tamriel; he is wise, kind, and friendly and, assuming you follow the main quest, will guide the player character's efforts to save Tamriel from invasion by the evil Daedric Prince of Destruction, Mehrunes Dagon. Vicente Valtieri, on the other hand, is a vampire and a member of the shadowy assassins guild known as the Dark Brotherhood, who delight in murdering people for the sake of their “Dread Father”, Sithis (and for considerable profit too). And yet, both Jauffre and Valtieri sound exactly the same, simply because they're both Bretons. Of course, I don't expect there to be no two characters that sound alike in a videogame as big as Oblivion, but it would have been really nice if just a little bit of extra effort had gone into the voice work to give a bit more uniqueness than there actually is. Would that really have been so difficult for there to be quest-related characters with unique lines of dialogue?

While I'm on the subject of voice acting in Oblivion, while it's not terrible, it can be a little mediocre sometimes. The way some lines are delivered seems to suggest to me that the voice actors hadn't always been properly briefed on what kind of emotion they were supposed to be putting into their lines (this can be especially true of the voice actor who provided the female Elf voice, I find), whereas some of the voice acting is generally pretty good (the male Elf springs to mind), and some of it is hilariously over-the-top (the Imperial male... and the Elf male sometimes). And, of course, the work done by Patrick Stewart, who plays Emperor Uriel Septim VII, Sean Bean, who plays the Emperor's illegitimate son, Martin, and Terrance Stamp, who plays one of the main quest's principle antagonists, Mankar Camoran, is very good, but it can be weird to hear such unique voices in a game where so many characters sound identical to each other.

"I like it, but..." - Episode 6: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, continued...

Dungeons: “This seems strangely familiar...”

This is part 2 of my discussion of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which, despite my complaints is still one of my favourite games ever.

Oblivion is set primarily in the Imperial Province of Cyrodiil, in the very heart of Tamriel. For a game released in 2006, over four years ago now, the world created in this game still looks incredible (especially if you have a HDTV). Sometimes I just like to wander around the wilderness of Cyrodiil, finding map markers and enjoying the scenery; the sunrise, sunset, the stars at night (and the two moons of Mundus), and even rainy days are all done beautifully. There’s no real limit to where you can go in Cyrodiil and just exploring can often be really fun. The land is honeycombed with complex networks of caves and dungeons beneath ruined fortresses, many of which you will visit as part of quests, but most have nothing to do with any quest in the game and you can simply explore them at your leisure. And therein lies the problem.

Some of these dungeons (I’ll call them all that for brevity’s sake) are quite unique and cleverly done, but most of them are very similar in appearance, to the point that it can become quite dull to go on multiple dungeon crawls. They use the same shapes in cave walls and tunnels and you will often find your character in a vast open space that looks exactly like the vast open space from the last cave you visited. And this happens a hell of a lot, even in caves that are quest-related. Granted, every dungeon is technically unique--they all have a unique layout; however, many of the elements of the scenery are reused--and I cannot help but respect the sheer amount of effort and the number of man hours that must have gone into creating all 223 uniquely laid-out dungeons across the game map; but I wonder if, perhaps, it might have been better if the developers had made fewer dungeons and focussed on making them more unique in their appearance than in just their size and shape. After all, I've played Oblivion several times now and I still haven't even found all of the dungeons, to say nothing of exploring them.

Only a short entry this time, I know. Next Saturday’s will be longer and will be concerning some of the problems with voice acting in Oblivion.

“I like it, but…” – Episode #5: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

In the summer of 2008, CJ sent me a handful of games for the PC, after I’d reformatted my old desktop machine. Most of these were old Star Wars games, such as the X-Wing and TIE Fighter flight simulators (very difficult games too, I might add), but one of them was a curious addition, which I knew nothing about. It was called The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and, based on what was on the back of the box, it looked like a swords ’n’ sorcery first-person slash-‘em-up. Not knowing what to expect, I installed the game and attempted to play it, only to find that my PC was incapable of supporting it (I imagine because of the absence of a decent graphics card). For the next few months, especially when I went back to university for my final year that September, I more-or-less forgot about Oblivion.

However, when I went down to Kent for Christmas with my mother and my sister, I remembered the game and decided to take it with me, to try it out on my mother’s PC--a pretty poorly put together machine, by most measures, but nevertheless better equipped to support graphically demanding games than my own. I was pleased to find that not only did Oblivion work, but it was a far better game than I had ever anticipated. It wasn’t long before I was hooked, and I spent most of the ten days I was down in Kent playing it. On one day at least, I sat playing Oblivion from not long after breakfast until I went to bed in the wee small hours of the morning, only taking breaks for lunch and dinner and to visit the bathroom--I was enjoying it that much! After the New Year of 2009, when I returned to Stirling, I missed the game a lot. I bought the previous title in the series, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and, even though it worked on my old PC well enough, I just couldn’t get into it the same way I’d gotten into Oblivion. And that, my friends, is the single reason I bought myself an Xbox 360 in January 2009--so I could play Oblivion again, without ever having to worry about compatibility issues. That’s how much I loved this game.

I still love Oblivion, though my obsession with it has dwindled lately in favour of other games (which is just as well, since I’d hate to have bought a new console only to ever play one game on it). However, as with everything discussed in this series, there are a few things in Oblivion that bug me and I’m going to discuss them here.

Levelling Up: “Micro-management is hard...”

Oblivion may look like a first-person slash-‘em-up at a glance, but it’s really a lot more complicated. It is, in fact, an RPG that simply uses first-person game mechanics (though you can toggle to a third person view, if you like, but this is largely useless in combat). You create a character, picking from one of ten fantasy races, including Elves, Men, Orcs, and even some animal-like creatures, whose facial appearance you can customise to your heart’s content. As you play through the game’s tutorial, you are given opportunities to choose your character’s class and special abilities and attributes, choosing skills from three general schools, which include combat, stealth, and magic. Naturally, as with most RPG’s, your character gains experience points as you play and levels up periodically, gradually becoming more and more powerful as you play through the game. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with levelling up; it makes RPG’s a more rewarding gaming experience and it can be incredibly fun as you unlock new abilities. Oblivion even allows you to postpone levelling up as long as you wish; since levelling up requires you to find a safe place to sleep (a bed in an inn, a guild hall, a house, or a camp somewhere in the wild--provided you’ve taken care of any nearby enemies first), you can avoid levelling up just by avoiding sleeping. If you do this long enough, you’ll have racked up so much XP that you’ll be able to level up at will for a while. But, while this can be useful in Oblivion, the levelling system is otherwise mind-numbingly complicated.

In some RPG’s (notably those made by Bioware), when you level up, you get so many points you can spend unlocking new skills. To the strategic gamer or a gamer who wants to unlock that supremely powerful spell, this makes it a lot easier to create the kind of character you want to play as. However, this is not how things work in Oblivion. No, in Oblivion, individual skills can’t be increased by dumping points into them every time you level up; you do this with your character's attributes (things like Strength, Speed, Intelligence, etc.) and these govern your skills, but the actual skills themselves level up through use. So, if you want a Marksman skill of 100 (something I’ve attained only once to date), then you need to literally train with your bow for hours. And although there are bails of hay and dummies you can use for target practice, your Marksman skill will only level up when your arrows successfully strike a living target--and the same applies for Destruction magic, Hand-to-Hand, Blade, and Blunt weapon skills. While going on quests and dungeon crawls is usually guaranteed to give you some chances to train, I’ve found that the quickest way to level these skills up is to increase the game’s difficulty level (which makes enemies take more hits to kill, but also substantially weakens the player character), obtain a cheap summoning spell, and use your summoned creature for target practice. For every other kind of skill, it’s a question of using it as often as possible. For some skills, like Sneak and Alteration, levelling up is relatively easy. For others, like the offensive skills listed above, plus Restoration magic (an extremely useful skill that saves you a lot of money and inventory space on healing potions), levelling up takes ages. You can reach your character’s maximum level (which is not fixed and is determined by your race and class) without some of your skills even reaching the Journeyman level of 50. For the first-time player, this can lead to creating a character with skills they’ll barely use and, thus, possibly never level up. Only experienced players, or those who consult online guides like the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Page, will have the knowledge needed to truly work Oblivion’s complicated skills system and, even then, it’s a lot of work, which can really detract from the enjoyment of the game.

Fortunately, it seems Bethesda realised this. In Fallout 3, which uses the same game engine as Oblivion and is very similar in terms of gameplay, the levelling system is much simpler. When you level up, you get so many points, which you can distribute amongst whichever skills you choose, making it much easier to increase the skills you want than in Oblivion. Although it’s impossible to raise every skill to 100, you can get more of them that high a lot more easily than in Oblivion. You can’t postpone levelling up, since it happens automatically when you gain enough XP, but I found I didn’t miss this when I recently played through Fallout 3. I expect the upcoming sequel to Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to use a levelling system more closely resembling that of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas when it’s released later this year.

In the next instalment, I'll discuss an issue I have with some of the dungeons in Oblivion.

“I like it, but...” - Episode #4

The Lord of the Rings - Part 4: Not if it lay by the highway...

This is the fourth instalment of what I hope will become a semi-regular entry on my blog, “I like it, but...”, where I will discuss films, books, games, and other such things that I really do like, but there are still a few things I'd like to complain about. This is Part 4, the final part of my discussion of the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

The final thing I would like to complain about is the mis-characterisation of Faramir in The Two Towers. In the book, there is some suspense surrounding the character when he first appears. We do not know at first if he will aid or hinder Frodo and Sam, but it gradually becomes apparent that he is a friend and he wishes to help them, though they are hesitant to let him know of the Ring. After all, this is Boromir's brother, and they dare not risk him having a similar reaction to the seductive power of the Ring by telling him about it, not to mention they are bound by an errand of secrecy and were commanded by Elrond not to reveal the Ring to anyone outside the Fellowship. Faramir knows of Isildur's Bane (the dream that Boromir had that led him to Rivendell first came to Faramir, after all), but not what it is and Frodo will only tell him that it is hidden for now. As they journey to Henneth Annûn, Faramir speaks with Frodo about Boromir and how they parted at Rauros, suspecting that it was not friendly and that Isildur's Bane was the reason for contention in the Fellowship, and he reassures Frodo that he has no love or desire for this thing Isildur took from Sauron--he would not take it if it lay by the highway. However, his words are tested once they reach Henneth Annûn. After Sam has imbibed a considerable amount of wine at Faramir's table, he lets slip that Boromir wanted the enemy's Ring. For a moment, Faramir is tempted by the prospect of having the One Ring, thought to have perished from the world, and the power it could bring him, to save Gondor and utterly destroy Sauron forever. But the moment passes and he remembers his brother, realising that his desire for the Ring is what led him to his death, and he chooses not to go down the same dangerous path. He takes his earlier words, that he would not take Isildur's Bane if it lay by the highway, as a vow and chooses to be held by them, promising to help Frodo and Sam in whatever way he can.

In the film, this was changed. Faramir was more of an antagonist when he first appeared, taking Frodo and Sam prisoner and holding them at Henneth Annûn for questioning. When he learns about the Ring (through interrogating Gollum), he ignores Sam's warning that Boromir died because he tried to take the Ring from Frodo, and decides that the Ring will go to Gondor. Only after witnessing the terrible power of the Ring and how it is affecting Frodo does Faramir realise that this is a mistake and allow the Hobbits to continue their journey (after a pretty huge detour to the ruined city of Osgiliath, which The Return of the King portrays as being within a few minutes gallop of Minas Tirith). Now, I will be honest, the portrayal of Faramir's temptation in the films is done very well. It is made clear that he feels he is living in his brother's shadow and needs to do something truly great to impress his father, Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, who has always loved Boromir far more. The extended edition of The Two Towers expands on this, showing us a scene of the three of them, Denethor and his two sons, Boromir and Faramir, together, showing us the kind of relationship these characters had with each other, how Denethor adulated his eldest son, while berating his youngest. So, as far as the films go, it makes sense for Faramir to act as he does, despite diverging from his character in the book. By the time of The Return of the King, Faramir's character is much more in line with the book and, his temptation by the Ring having given him some important character development.

Nevertheless, while the film's approach worked perfectly well, and Faramir comes out of it the kind of character he ought to be, I do wish his portrayal in film version of The Two Towers had been a bit more faithful to his character in the book. Unlike some other character changes in the films, the screenwriters, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, go to some length to defend this change to Faramir in interviews available in the special features discs of The Two Towers extended edition boxset. They argue that if a Man were seen to successfully resist the lure of the Ring, it would undermine the danger that it is supposed to pose; in other words, all Men but the very greatest (i.e. Aragorn) need to be seduced by the Ring, at least initially. But the fact of the matter is, Faramir is tempted in the book, however briefly; for a moment, it is not at all clear if he will succumb to the Ring's temptation, or if he will stay true to his word. Obviously, the thought of what he could do with the Ring does sway him, but he learns from the lesson that Boromir learnt too late and refuses the temptation, even though he knows his father will disapprove. He demonstrates a rare strength of will and this is something I like about Faramir in the book. He is an exception to the perceived rule; he is wise enough to know that there are some perils from which a man must flee. Changing him for dramatic purposes in the film didn't ruin the trilogy for me and, for some at least, I'm sure it improved it; but I wish they had kept this exception, because it shows that, while many Men would be easily seduced by the Ring's power, not all of them would be, just as I personally do not believe that all people are necessarily corrupted by power. Many are, obviously, but I do not think that that can be true of all people, and I think Tolkien wanted to show us that he did not believe that all Men were easily corrupted either.

Well, that's all I have to say about the things that annoyed or irritated me in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Despite all these complaints, it remains my favourite film series to date. Clearly this was a labour of love for the folks working on these films and they made a tremendous effort to faithfully portray the world and the story that Tolkien envisioned in his book on the big screen. They did an excellent job. Everything from the grand locations, like the city of Minas Tirith, the fortress of the Hornburg, Isengard, Barad-dûr, Rivendell, Moria, Edoras, and even quaint little villages like Hobbiton, to the tiniest little details on the architecture, costumes, and props, little things the audience may not even notice until they watch the special features, all of these things show just how much love and effort went into bringing Tolkien's fantasy world to life. Even if you don't like The Lord of the Rings, how can you not at least respect the level of effort that went into making these films, one man's imagination brought to life by the tireless labours of thousands of men and women? Believe it or not, the end credits for The Return of the King are twenty minutes long, much of them consisting only of long lists of names in very small text. If I could personally thank every one of those people for their part in this film trilogy, I would. Is it how I would have done it? In some ways, yes, in others, no. But I imagine I'd be too concerned with faithfully retelling Tolkien's story, as he told it, to do as good a job as the folks who really did work on these films. As much as I may have preferred certain elements to remain unchanged, and as much as I may nitpick over little mistakes, I sincerely doubt I could have done half as good a job adapting The Lord of the Rings to the big screen as Peter Jackson and the team he put together to do it.

I eagerly anticipate seeing his adaptation of The Hobbit next year.

“I like it, but...” - Episode #3

The Lord of the Rings - Part 3: The Niggling Little Things

This is the third instalment of what I hope will become a semi-regular entry on my blog, “I like it, but...”, where I will discuss films, books, games, and other such things that I really do like, but there are still a few things I'd like to complain about. This is Part 3 of my discussion of the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

Number one on my list of little things that irritate me in the film trilogy of The Lord of the Rings is a simple geographical error during Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas's pursuit of Saruman's Orcs with their captives, Merry and Pippin, across the plains of Rohan. When Aragorn asks Legolas what he can see with his Elf eyes, he responds; “The Uruks turn north east. They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard!” This is such an elementary mistake, which anyone who has so much as looked at a map of Middle-Earth would have recognised, that I simply cannot understand why it wasn't fixed in post-production. Nowhere in Rohan is it physically possible to turn north east towards Isengard, because Isengard is north west of Rohan, amongst the southernmost marches of the Misty Mountains. Did the Orcs overshoot their mark and actually pass through the Gap of Rohan and have to double back on themselves? That would mean they crossed the entire country of Rohan--the long way, from the Anduin to the Gap of Rohan--in just a couple of days, and on foot no less! And then, to arrive back at the edge of Fangorn Forest, they would have to have overshot their mark again and travelled too far back to the east. Do these Orcs just have no sense of direction? No, obviously not. The screenwriters (or perhaps Orlando Bloom) got the line wrong, but they could have corrected it. There was nothing to stop them from doing so and they really ought to have done, since it's such a glaring error. And it's not as if it doesn't matter, because the audience has no real knowledge of Middle-Earth's geography; the films show us a map of the place often enough and a map is available in the inside cover of all three of the special edition DVD boxsets, so the audience does know the geography of Middle-Earth. Hell, Faramir is even shown closely studying a map of Rohan and Gondor and he points at Isengard, which is clearly north west of Rohan. Mistakes like this really have no excuse, unless we're supposed to attribute it to Legolas simply misspeaking, but you'd think a Wood Elf accustomed to journeys in the wild would know better than to get east and west mixed up.

Number two on my list is a filming error that recurs a lot in The Two Towers and The Return of the King, though I can't say I've noticed it in The Fellowship of the Ring. Watch the scene where Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas arrive at the site of the battle between Éomer's men and Saruman's Orcs on the edge of Fangorn Forest. If you're paying attention, you may notice something peculiar about our heroes. Look at them closely. Do you see it? That's right, all their clothing and equipment has been reversed, implying that they're all suddenly left-handed, when the three of them have clearly been portrayed as right-handed up until now. Why did the actors get into costume like this? Simple answer; they didn't. For whatever reason, the film's horizontal axis has been inverted: the image was filmed the right way round and then mirrored in post-production. Why? I have absolutely no idea. It seems totally pointless. For the record, this is a legitimate technique in filming, where leaving a shot the original way round would create a continuity error or some other kind of inconsistency, and during my fourth year at university, while working on a group assignment to make a short film, we did use this technique in one shot; if I remember rightly, it was to stop the camera from crossing the line of action, which can be confusing to audiences. But if a shot is inverted at all, it really ought to be done in a way that's inconspicuous, which The Lord of the Rings completely fails at. Perhaps they were trying to correct apparent geographical errors, though I cannot understand what those errors may be. In none of these scenes where the image has been mirrored does it seem that leaving the image the original way round would have created any inconsistencies or geographical errors, and, if you've got an eye for detail like I do, it's quite distracting to watch Aragorn going from holding Andúril in his right hand and a torch in his left hand one moment to him holding the torch in his right hand and Andúril in his left the next. Perhaps, like the Dread Pirate Roberts and Inigo Montoya, he can fight almost as well left-handed as right-handed, but that doesn't excuse the strap of his quiver being over his right shoulder in one shot and his left in the next, which we also see with Legolas. Unless a character is completely symmetrical (which is almost always impossible if you've got characters carrying weapons), inverting a shot ought to be avoided or at least done at such distances that these details cannot be easily seen.

Number three on my list is the army of the dead and how Aragorn goes about recruiting them. This is a bit different from the book, where a small army of Aragorn's own people, Dúnedain of Arnor, arrive in Rohan shortly after Saruman's defeat, bearing a message from Elrond advising Aragorn to take the Paths of the Dead in order to bring aid to Gondor. This small cavalry of horsemen accompanies Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas on the Paths of the Dead and, once they have recruited their ghostly army, they journey south to Pelargir, the City of Royal Ships upon the River Anduin, where they defeat the Corsairs of Umbar with the aid of the dead. After that is done, Aragorn releases the Men of Dunharrow from their curse and they depart. With Pelargir liberated, Aragorn and his company gain reinforcements from the city and commandeer the Corsair ships to take them up the Anduin to the landings of Harlond, below Minas Tirith, where they are able surprise Sauron's forces, who were expecting their allies from Umbar. With Aragorn's arrival, the tide of the Battle of Pelennor Fields is turned and the forces of Gondor and Rohan are victorious. In the film version of The Return of the King, however, this is enormously simplified. The Dúnedain make no appearance. Elrond delivers his advice to Aragorn in person, when he brings the sword, Andúril to him at Dunharrow. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas go alone into the Paths of the Dead and they keep the army of the dead in their service until the end of the Battle of Pelennor Fields, where they are shown to be instrumental in taking down at least one Mûmak and cleansing Minas Tirith of Sauron's Orcs; they seem to simply wash over the battle like a green tide of death, leaving none of Sauron's forces alive.

For me, I felt that this cheapened the victory somewhat. In the book, it is more-or-less mortal Men and mortal Men alone who defeat Sauron on the Pelennor, with the notable exceptions of one Dwarf, three Elves (the two other Elves besides Legolas, are Elladan and Elrohir, the sons of Elrond, who ride to Aragorn's aid with the Dúnedain), two Hobbits, and one wizard, who never actually seems to use any magic in the battle and, in fact, spends most of his time trying to keep up the morale of the soldiers defending the city. This is, arguably, the point of The Lord of the Rings; it is the story of the end of the time of the Elves and the beginning of the time of Men. There is a reason the Last Alliance of Elves and Men was called the Last Alliance; never again would Elves and Men stand shoulder to shoulder against evil in such great numbers as they did during Sauron's defeat at the end of the Second Age. By the time of the War of the Ring, it is time for Men to assert themselves, to stand alone and face evil without aid from Elves or supernatural forces like the army of the dead. In the book, no Elves marched to the aid of Rohan during the Battle of the Hornburg and no ghosts helped Gondor defeat Sauron on the Pelennor. But in the films, Men only finally stand up for themselves, by themselves, with the tools and the wits they have, in the final battle before the Black Gates of Mordor, and even then it is only the destruction of the Ring that brings them victory. Again, as with Aragorn only deciding to become King late in the story, perhaps this was to give the race of Men some character development in the films; they could depend on the old order of magic and mysticism to hold their hands part of the way, but the final task was given to them to handle alone. Some might think this is better, and I can, of course, appreciate the argument, but, like Aragorn's change of character between the book and the films, it doesn't sit that well with me, and I wish they had been a little more faithful to the book. Though, as far as the army of the dead is concerned (and the removal of Aragorn's fellow Dúnedain), I suspect it was a matter of time constraints that moved most of their action to the Pelennor, which is understandable. A book can be as long as the author wants it to be, but there's only so much time a studio can expect an audience to spend sitting down and watching a film.

In the final part of this blog rant, I will be discussing one huge change that I personally think works very well from a dramatic perspective; but, due to what I consider to be hugely important thematic reasons, I really wish the films had been more faithful to the book in this case. Indeed, this final complaint is the single greatest thing I object to in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

“I like it, but...” - Episode #2

The Lord of the Rings - Part 2: Aragorn's Destiny

This is the second instalment of what I hope will become a semi-regular entry on my blog, “I like it, but...”, where I will discuss films, books, games, and other such things that I really do like, but there are still a few things I'd like to complain about. This is Part 2 of my discussion of the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

One of the most enormous changes to the plot between the books and the films is also one of the things that irritates me. Aragorn, as anyone who's seen the films or read the book will know, is the heir to the throne of Gondor. In the Return of the King, he comes to Gondor's aid in its darkest hour, wielding the sword Andúril, reforged from the shards of Narsil, and he is crowned King of both Gondor and Arnor after the Ring is destroyed and Sauron is defeated. In the book, there never really seems to be an obvious point where Aragorn questions his heritage; whether he wants to be King or not is unclear, though, if what he says to Éowyn is any indication, it may be that all he really wants is to simply live in peace in Rivendell with Arwen, the woman he loves, but he feels he has a duty to bear his part in the war with Sauron and to lead the race of Men to victory against their oppressor. That means he has to become King, whether he wants to or not, and he has accepted this reality from before we, the readers, have even met him. Of course, it is possible that there was some coercion from Elrond involved; as Bilbo tells Frodo when he reaches Rivendell, Elrond has decreed that Arwen will not be the bride of any Man less than King of both Gondor and Arnor. It could be that Elrond, being at least as wise as Gandalf (possibly wiser), realised that Aragorn was the last, best hope for Men in Middle-Earth and refused to allow his daughter to wed with Aragorn until he had fulfilled his destiny; so, it is entirely possible that Aragorn, at some point, didn't want to be King, but that Elrond threatened to withhold from him the one thing he truly desired in order to motivate him. Even reading the appendices, which give Aragorn and Arwen's backstories, doesn't make this terribly clear, and a lot of it is down to interpretation. One thing is clear though: Aragorn intended to become King when the Fellowship set out from Rivendell. Indeed, he originally intended to go with Boromir to Gondor and it is only after Gandalf is lost in Moria that he begins to consider going with Frodo all the way into Mordor; only the capture of Merry and Pippin by Saruman's Orcs at Parth Galen, near the Falls of Rauros changes his mind.

In the films, it's another matter entirely. Aragorn makes it clear (especially in the extended edition), that he has no wish to be King. Ostensibly, he fears the same weakness that Isildur succumbed to; he does not want power, because he is afraid of being corrupted by it. The sword is not reforged until later in the story (in The Return of the King, in fact) and Aragorn sets out from Rivendell with the same basic intent as Gimli and Legolas--to help and to protect Frodo on his dangerous journey to Mordor with the Ring. Only on the eve of the Rohirrim's ride to Gondor does Aragorn change his mind. Elrond arrives at Théoden's encampment at Dunharrow, bearing the reforged sword, Andúril, and he persuades Aragorn to put aside the Ranger and become the man he was born to be. With Gondor in dire need of a saviour and no one else who can do the job, Aragorn accepts his destiny and takes the sword.

Now, to be perfectly honest, this change may serve a cinematic purpose that I've underestimated. Perhaps the screenwriters, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, felt that Aragorn didn't have much character development in the book and wanted to fix this by making his journey one of realisation and acceptance of his destiny, whereas in the book, he had already done all of this and was simply fulfilling his destiny. Perhaps the intent was to make Aragorn a more interesting character, by having his most important character development happen on screen, rather than before the audience even joins the story. I can understand that, honestly, and, if that's the reason, I may even withdraw my objection to this change. Perhaps. But there's something about it that doesn't sit well with me, though I don't think I can articulate it as well as I did with my objection to the changes made to Gandalf. Just to be nitpicky though, I fail to see how Elrond could have arrived at Dunharrow so quickly. He must have really rode that horse of his hard to make it all the way from Rivendell to southern Rohan in what could not have been more than a couple of days. It took the Fellowship much longer to journey south from Rivendell--Gandalf said it would take forty days to reach the Gap of Rohan on foot. Do horses really confer that much of an advantage?

This seems like a good segue into Part Three, where I will continue to discuss some of the more minor details about the films that irritate me.