I’d say a quick summary is that Tolkien makes a clear distinction between the Free Peoples of Middle Earth and those who are slaves to evil. In this context, Gandalf probably isn’t just calling him a servant as a standard pejorative, but pointing out that he’s a servant of evil.
Then, with the Mouth of Sauron, he’s puncturing his pride. Since the Mouth thinks very highly of himself, our boy Mithrandir is pointing out that he’s just another of Sauron’s slaves, with no true will of his own (since we know Sauron, at his core, is a massive control freak).
Everything built by Sauron exists to serve him, personally, and any kind of ideology he spouts is just a fig leaf. This is why his servants are helpless without him: they don’t have anything to fight for except his personal desires. When Sauron is destroyed, his empire instantly crumbles.
In contrast, the Free Peoples are able to function after losing Gandalf for a while, if less effectively, because they (and he) fight for a cause greater than themselves, which isn’t extinguished by the loss of any single person, even their greatest planner and divine guide.
I’d say that he does (or did) have an ideology. Sauron’s issue is how great his arrogance became over time, going from loving order to being completely obsessed with it and the belief that he knew better than anyone else how things should be. It’s this very ‘divine condescension’ that started his inexorable path into evil.
I guess you could say Mairon had an ideology and was generally altruistic in his objectives, whereas by the time he was renamed Sauron he’d taken it to the extreme of evil and the hunger for power.
the likes of me and Lintian only need the barest excuse to info dump about our favourite topics.
One thing I found strange about the movies is why Peter Jackson made the changes to Denethor that he did.
In the movies we get to see Denethor as a cowardly man desperate to cling to his power, to the point of endangering Gondor for his own pride. Aswell as sending Faramir to die in a suicide-attack and refusing to call the Rohirrim for help.
In the book, Denethor is still very much a prideful man with flaws, but he was atleast shown as a competent ruler despite it all. He used his forces as well he could in a war against a numerically superior enemy, he was willing to listen to his advisors, and did call for help, not just from Rohan but from all parts of Gondor that could spare men. But only later in the book do we find out ( something the movie, even the Extended Edition, fails to show) that Denethor despaired and did not believe in victory anymore because of Sauron constantly showing him Mordor’s actual military might through a Palantir that Denethor’d kept hidden.
Denethor has more flaws than that and by the end he does slip into madness, but it’s definitely something that’s expedited for a more cinematic viewing. The same goes for Isildur, who in Tolkien’s canon was heroic and selfless but the movie depicts as weak and more easily corrupted.
In the books, he’s assassinated by orcs while going to Rivendell with the intention of seeking Elrond’s counsel and potentially giving him the One Ring, as Isildur had realised he wasn’t able to master it (which he’d hoped to do in the name of good).
It’s true, I didn’t list all of Denethor’s flaws, but I felt that I could cover it with simply “a prideful man with flaws.” Ofc he also believed he could master the Ring and he was still an to Faramir and still loved Boromir a little too much.
As for Isildur in the books, I didn’t know he was on his way to Rivendel to seek council on and potentially give up the One Ring. Is that mentioned in one of the appendices, or? I’ll admit, it’s been a while since I read them.
It’s in the Unfinished Tales if I remember correctly. But yeah, Isildur wasn’t perfect (pride was his flaw shown in his belief that he could master the One Ring in the first place) but at his core he was good, noble, selfless, and strong.
The movies still stand up well, imo, but I cannot help but wonder what would have been if they’d come out a bit (maybe lot) later, when long-form TV series were back in a la GoT.
Imagine a LotR that wasn’t pushed for time (he says, about films where the theatrical cut lasted around 3 hours, lol, lmao) and they could have expanded on all the things mentioned here?
And, y’know, not done things like turn Gimli into comic relief, please and thank you ._.
Most changes can be summed up to making it better suited for cinema and more entertaining to a wider audience.
Lord of the Rings is a nice read and deep dive into middle-earth, but if it’s an exciting, thrill-chasing fantasy adventure can be…discussed.
It’s not the same sort of thrill and action as you’d expect from one of those stories of adventure typically, and if you came in seeking that you might be disappointed.
My dad is hopelessly overwhelmed with even the tiniest bit of modern tech but refuses to let me help him with stuff until either he basically folds from the stress or we have a shouting match. After which I have to wait until he cools down and then still have peal the stuff I need to help him out of him.
He’s convinced I would overcomplicate everything for him because I know how to handle modern tech.
I’ve helped him in the past. He should know I’ll make everything in such a way that it’s easy for him to understand and I do follow-ups later on…
Sorry to be stereotyping but men in their 50s really do have the most speciallist problems, don’t they? (It’s by far the worst age and gender group for me when it comes to me doing any form of customer facing support. It’s like herding feral cats.)
The moviemakers also made changes to the setting to make it look more “fantastic” than Tolkien himself pictured it, to be in line with the sensitibilities of the contemporary fantasy fandom.
Movie Barad-dur evokes an Evil Is Cool aesthetic (and was likely one of the inspirations for Icecrown Citadel in Wrath). But here is how Tolkien himself drew it:
Function over aesthetics is fitting for Tolkien’s evil, which is supposed to be not cool, but banal and pitiable.
It’s part of why I like just running around the LOTRO world: the game’s aesthetics are more down to earth than those of the Jackson movies, and thus, to me, truer to the text.
to Faramir and still loved Boromir a little too much.