Lord of the Rings 30 Day Challenge - Days 21-26

And now to finally finish getting caught up!  Yay!!!

Day 21 - Most Inspiring Moment
There are two moments that really stand out to me as being very inspiring.  The first, and my favorite, is Sam's speech in Osgiliath and that whole scene there as he's speaking.  In case you haven't noticed by this point, many of my favorite scenes and moments revolve around Sam.  For me, I love this whole moment because the words are applicable not just to the context of the movie, but to real life as well which I personally feel makes them even more powerful.

The idea that the darkness, the shadow is just a passing thing is so true whether on a personal or global scale.  A new day will come, the sun will shine again.  Most people have heard the quote, "It's always darkest before the dawn," I feel like Sam's words go hand in hand with that quote to an extent.  So on a personal level, this part is just so inspiring to me because it's a reminder that there is always hope and that no matter how bad things might look, there's some good out there and it is worth fighting for.

The second moment that I find inspiring is Aragorn's coronation.  I find this moment to be inspiring

because it feels like all three movies have been leading up to this point where Aragorn steps out of exile and takes his place as King of Gondor.  It's just this beautiful, solemn occasion and I think it just really brings home that Sauron has at last been defeated.  After all the tragedies and struggles they have all been through, victory truly seems to be theirs as Aragorn is crowned.

Day 22 - Character You Pity Most
Again there are two characters that I truly pity.  The first one and probably the most obvious is Gollum.  He's such a pathetic, wretched looking creature that you can pity him almost just based on how he looks.  But it's more than just his looks, I pity him for what he's become, a creature who is a prisoner even though he has no visible bonds, bound to his "precious", forever a hostage of its power.  He's a bit hard to really pity at first since he's dead set on killing Frodo and Sam to retrieve the ring.  I have to say that his actions there certainly don't do him any favors.  But I find that I truly begin to pity him when Smeagol and Gollum become two separate personalities and Smeagol becomes the primary personality seen.

You catch a glimpse of how he must have been once and it's sad to see what the ring has done to him.  And as he changes for the better, you begin to hope that maybe he will be able to be free of the ring, though of course if you've read the books you know that's not to be.  So when he relapses at the end of Two Towers, it's just terribly sad and you pity him for not being able to break free and that there will be no escape for him except through death.

The second character is Grima Wormtongue.  I know, I know, the slimy, slippery man who helps poison Theoden's mind, stalks Eowyn and banishes Eomer, how could I possibly pity him?  Because

much like Gollum, he was not always like that.  You don't really get any of his history or what made him join Saruman or anything, but at one point in Return of the King, Theoden does mention that he used to be a man of Rohan.  I pity him because here's a man who I'm sure just wanted some power and Saruman, sensing that, offered it to him and without a thought, he accepted it and suddenly found himself way in over his head.  I don't believe that Grima is truly evil, he just made some very bad choices and was left with the consequences.  One reason I believe that is in Two Towers as Saruman unleashes his army to march on Helm's Deep, a tear is seen running down his face and he just looks stunned and a bit horrified.  There's also the

confrontation, primarily between Gandalf and Saruman, at the beginning of Return of the King where Grima appears again at the very top of Orthanc with Saruman.  Here, Theoden tells him to come down, to leave Saruman and Grima bows and turns as if to go before Saruman begins to insult Rohan and Theoden.  Grima's face through that whole scene is just completely wretched.  He looks like a trapped animal.  By that point, I think he's realized what a huge mistake he made in joining Saruman and he would honestly give anything to go back and change what he did.  His loyalty to Saruman is gone, so when Saruman does begin insulting Theoden, his face just shows how much he hates what Saruman is saying.  So I do pity him because with different choices, he could have been a great man, a man of honor and strength.

Day 23 - Least Favorite Character

Arwen.  She just irritates me.  First of all, I'm not a Liv Tyler fan, I feel like she generally plays pretty much the same character in a lot of her movies.  So to me, Arwen is Liv Tyler with the ability to speak elvish.  "But she's so pretty!" I've had people tell me.  Yeah, so?  Cate Blanchett and Miranda Otto are both gorgeous and they can act, so they win!  Okay, moving on, I will say that I have no issues with Arwen in the books because, well, she's not really in the books much which is my first issue with the movies.  I get that Lord of the Rings is rather short on women and they were wanting to give the women a little more screen time, I really do get that, I just wish they hadn't made Arwen the one they gave more screen time to or I wish they'd gotten a different actress.  Like I said before, Arwen, in the books, really is a very minor character.  She's appears more in the background than anything else, but what you do see of her makes her seem like an interesting character. What is said of her that I recall is that she appeared fair, noble, queenly and there was wisdom and knowledge in her glance.  I don't feel that Liv Tyler really embodied any of those qualities other than fair in her depiction of Arwen.  Quite frankly, for all that she's not around

much, I find her to be a far more likeable, interesting, and useful in the books.  Besides that, one character I love in the books is Glorfindel, this really cool elf who leaves Rivendell to go searching for Aragorn and the hobbits.  He's the one who finds them and sets Frodo on his horse Asfaloth and gets him to safety.  So I was already torked that they completely cut his character, but even more so when I found that they were basically replacing him with Arwen.  Not cool at all.  So besides the fact that I just disliked her in general because I don't feel that Liv Tyler really portrayed the character well at all (I mean that voice, all breathy and everything.  Ugh!), she also replaced a super awesome character, which I simply cannot forgive!

Day 24 - Scariest Moment
Shelob, Shelob, Shelob!  I HATE spiders, and I mean HATE spiders.  They just creep me out with all those legs and their hairy little bodies and - okay, I'm stopping now.  Honestly, I've never liked them, but they started really freaking me out after my family moved back into Albuquerque and I started finding them everywhere around the house.  There were even times when I found them crawling on me!  And I don't mean just harmless little garden spiders or whatever, I mean lots of Black Widows and other poisonous

monsters running amok.  So I'm really not a spider fan, which means that when Shelob suddenly appears, I freak out.  It is just not right for a spider to be that big!  I also hate it when she gets Frodo.  I always have to resist yelling at the screen, "No, no, you idiot, look up, up!  No, don't turn around, she's above you!  What are you doing?!  *sigh*  Never mind, she got you."  Thankfully Samwise the Brave appears and vanquishes her which makes him even more awesome in my book.  Now if he could just come destroy all the spiders around my house and then take me back to Middle-Earth with him!

Day 25 - Favorite Quote
Well seeing as I've already mentioned my favorite quote about three or four times, I feel like this

question is a bit superfluous, but just in case you've forgotten, my favorite quote is Sam's speech in Osgiliath.  So you can watch the rather fantastic and wonderful video above with the full speech or read it.  Your choice. :)

"I know.  It's all wrong.  By rights we shouldn't even be here.  But we are.  It's like in the great stories, Mister Frodo, the ones that really mattered.  Full of darkness and danger, they were.  And sometimes you didn't want to know the end.  Because how could the end be happy?  How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?  But in the end, it's only a

passing thing, this shadow.  Even darkness must pass.  A new day will come.  And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.  Those were the stories that stayed with you.  That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.  But I think, Mister Frodo, I do understand.  I know now.  Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't.  They kept going.  Because they were holding onto something."  When Frodo asks, "What are we holding on to, Sam?", Sam pulls him up and says, "That there's some good in this world, Mister Frodo... and it's worth fighting for!"

Day 26 - Favorite Larger-Than-Life-Foe
The Balrog.  Dun dun dun!  Seriously, the Balrog is just an awesome bad guy.  Balrogs were Maiar (angelic beings) that were corrupted by Melkor (a seriously bad dude) and forced to serve him.  Gandalf was also one of Maiar so part of what makes this battle so interesting and epic is the fact that he's basically fighting one of his own race, albeit an evil one of his race.  The Balrogs' history is just fascinating so, personally, they're some of my favorite bad guys.  The Balrog that Gandalf fights is one of the last of it's kind, a dying breed.  Called Durin's Bane because it killed Durin after the dwarves' mining disturbed it, the Balrog wrecked havoc in Moria, forcing the dwarves to flee and even some of the elves of Lorien.  The Balrog's presence in Moria prevented the dwarves from returning to their home.  Like I said, the Balrog was a seriously tough foe to the point that, even though Gandalf was finally able to destroy it, he also died in the process before being brought back as Gandalf the White.  Anyone who can kill Gandalf is a seriously powerful and bad dude!