I really liked this chapter when I was younger. For me, part of the fun of reading about adventures is not only seeing new places, but also vicariously acquiring loot. Really adventures are often about the loot, and gaining artifacts or mastery of self that allow progression into the next stage of the adventure. The Brothers Grimm are a classic example of this. In those stories, the pauper or prince would acquire a magical item that allows justice to be done in the world, and a wrong righted. In the Grimm stories, heroes are given a tablecloth that magically provides food for those that are starving, guns that never miss, and bags where men with sticks jump out to beat on the bad guys. When I read these stories, I felt like I too had acquired something magical and used it to right a wrong.
We like this archetype because the stories illustrate the principle that the good man will acquire the artifact that will allow good to triumph over evil. We like this archetype because so often in real life evil very often triumphs over good. This is why stories like Game of Thrones upset us so much. Because we recognize that they mirror reality much more than the fairy tales of magical artifacts: good men die, and evil men triumph and rule. North Korea is a current example of a regime where pure evil is what controls. And there are many, and have been many. I wonder how many good regimes have existed in proportion to bad ones? The United States has its problems, but for the most parts citizens are allowed to live their lives without fear of execution. In terms of human history, I suspect that this is a relatively new phenomenon, and that the number of evil regimes far, far outweighs the number of good.
The gifts in this chapter are not quite as fun as some of the ones in Brothers Grimm. Notably Frodo gets a vial of light that will serve him later against the giant spider. Sam gets a bit of earth (and rope). Merry and Pippin get belts, as does Boromir. Aragon gets a sheath. Most surprisingly, the wafer bread they get proves to be the most valuable, as Frodo and Sam would not have survived Mordor without it.
Gimli asks for a piece of hair, which draws out his character nicely. So for Gimli (hair) and Sam (earth for gardening and rope), the gift giving serves the dual role of giving a boon and developing character. What's interesting is that the "character-development" gifts serve no purpose as to the adventure. So this is a different take than the utility of the gifts in Grimm, where a gift given will undoubtedly serve a useful purpose later on in the story, helping the hero triumph. Rather, these gifts are keepsakes for after the war, and allow for the forging of new friendships (dwarves and elves) and keeping a piece of Lorien in the Shire.
The belts, of course, are of no utility in the adventure (unless the belts allow them to be recognized as "elf-friend," which I do not remember if they do), and no utility in character development. The belts rather are just gifts that allow for the other gifts to be accented. At this point Merry and Pippin and even Boromir are all very flat characters, and so perhaps there is some wisdom in giving them flat gifts as well, so as not to distract from the gifts of significance. I dunno.
Gifts are also a part of the Campbellian cycle. Frodo has been given the vial that will allow him and Sam to defeat the spider. So despite the interesting twist that some gifts will be useful after victory has been achieved, the gift-giving still somewhat falls in line with classical storytelling methods.
What's interesting to me, then, is how the ultimate quest of LOTR isn't to gain some ultimate artifact, but to destroy one. That to me feels like another great twist on a classic archetype.
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