Anakin is to Smeagol as Luke is to Frodo?

This is a comparative look at four well-known characters in the Star Wars saga and Lord of the Rings.

One theme that the two aforementioned sagas have in common is the concept of redemption intertwined with temptation.

We are faced with two characters in Lord of the Rings that have several things in common.

Smeagol was a stoorish hobbit; his folk were also known as "the river folk". His parents lost their lives prematurely, and as a result, he was entrusted to the care of his "Matron", who is a matriarch/grandmother figure who was supposedly well off financially.

Smeagol enjoyed a good relationship with his cousin Deagol, until the latter found a simple gold ring in a stream while fishing. Upon first sight of the ring, Smeagol demanded the ring of his cousin. When Deagol refused, Smeagol murdered him in cold blood and seized the ring.

As he possessed the ring, he used it for unsavory purposes, thievery and the like, and he was ultimately banished to the wilds, where he eventually took up residence in the Misty Mountains, and routinely murdered stray goblin patrols, and ate disgusting "food". He lived for hundreds of years, completely devoted to the ring. He became known as "Gollum" for the gutteral sound that he made. His body also became repulsive and almost wraith like, and would burn upon contact with the Ring.

The life of Frodo Baggins bears similarities, but not the extremes seen in Gollum's life. Like Smeagol, Frodo Baggins also lost his parents prematurely, to a boating accident. He was entrusted to the patriarch of his family, Bilbo Baggins, one of the richest hobbits of the Shire. Like Smeagol, he also enjoyed close relations with his cousins, such as Pippin Took, but the Ring was inherited by Bilbo Baggins.

Gandalf instructs Frodo to meet him at Rivendell where they will plot how to destroy the One Ring. During this time, he gathers his Fellowship, becomes wounded in combat by dark weapons, and finally upon being briefed in Rivendell by Elrond, he sets out to destroy the Ring, with his nine man Fellowship. Eventually, this fellowship had to be abandoned due to the strong temptations of the Ring and the visibility of a large group. He uses Gollum as his guide, with the unwavering belief that Gollum could be redeemed, and become Smeagol once more.

His friends in the meantime, fight in the Battle for Helm's Deep and the Battle of Pelannor Fields.

During his possession of the Ring, Frodo might have done some deeds that would prove to be regretable, including his coveting of the Ring as he was inside Mount Doom. He was also alienated as a result of his big burden, and although he did not run off to the Misty Mountains to slay random goblin patrols, he did have to keep to the company of elves, as only they could understand the deep melancholy that he was feeling. He was eventually known as "Frodo of the Nine Fingers", in tribute of his preceived victory in Mount Doom. His features are sometimes described as smooth and elf like during their journey.

Despite this victory of man, Frodo knows in his heart that he cannot claim to be a hero. He was consumed by the Ring in the end, and only lost it when Gollum bit it off his finger and tumbled into the pit below. It may be hypothesized that in spirit, Gollum became Smeagol once the Ring's destruction took away the meaning of the Gollum identity, but I realize it is a stretch of logic that could get me fired upon by Tolkien afficianados.

Star Wars

Concerning Star Wars, we see that Anakin Skywalker was born a slave on Tatooine. He left the hum drum of his life, and shortly after boarding a Naboo Starfighter, at the tender age of 10, he successfully destroyed a Trade Federation Control Ship.

Anakin became a Jedi, enjoying the golden age of the Jedi of the Old Republic, with their resources and collective guidance of all the Jedi masters. Despite this however, his attachment to his mother leads him to Tatooine, where he allows himself to be led by the Dark Side of the Force, and slays several Tusken Raiders in cold blood ("And not just th

 

And it was an interesting read, congratulations. I also am a LOTR and SW fan, but I tend to be biased toward SW. The funny thing is that I was watching the LOTR movies not too long ago and I came to the same conclusion; truth be told, you expressed my thoughts better than I could ever hope to. The only thing missing are the details of E3, but once the final movie hits the silver screen, we can make one 100% accurate contrast.

 

I don't know if you looked around but we do have a thread that deals with Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.

 

Another similarity:
The more tangeble evil characters in both LOTR (Saraumon) and the PT (Count Dooku) who answer to an abstract evil master both look strikingly like Christopher Lee....

 

I hope you are joking because they both are Chris Lee

 

Wasn't it blatantly obvious?

I just hope no one turns this into another, Star Wars Ripped off the lord of the rings debacle.

 

That is so untrue! SW is exciting Lotr is boring!

Besides Tolkien got the whole idea from WWII

but anyway back to the topic.

 

"Besides Tolkien got the whole idea from WWII "

Scandalous! Did he? How could he? He ripped off WW2. I bet Hitler (the creative genius behind WW2 who created the plot and some of the major villains) will sue Tolkien for stealing his ideas. My bet is on an out-of-court settlement.

 

Truth be told. George probably got many of the ideas for Star Wars from many different sources including Lord of the Rings.

Another similarity between the OT and LOTR is Obi-wan's death and reappearance in the later films a la Gandalf.

 

Very interesting to read.
Like you I am both a LOTR and SW fan. I tend to stray more to SW bescause I have just recently become a LOTR fan.

anyway great essay.

 

Like you I am both a LOTR and SW fan. I tend to stray more to SW bescause I have just recently become a LOTR fan.

Like so many have, really.

I think things like movies and excessive merchandise angers fans of the books. Here was something they read and held close to their hearts and put in an effort to see what happens next and how the story unfolds and in the process of that effort they really became a part of Middle Earth.

Now here come some movies that hit the important parts and kindof discard the rest...though, that is a known price paid when translating a book into a movie.

 

Guys, we arent here for a general chit-chat about LotR. We just had a thread that went down that route, and I had to lock it, because it went sour.

So can we keep to topic please? Compare and contrast Anakin and Luke and Smeagol and Frodo? Perhaps other characters too? Just no general chitchat.

 

Hey Darth_Dagsy, how are things going? Hows the wife and kids.

 

Thanks for being the voice of reason here, Darth Dagsy, and thank you all for some nice and interesting points. It's good to stay on the topic and avoid degenerating into a SW vs. LOTR debate.

It seems I'll have to redo the essay, due to some rather scathing knit-picking and other acts of trolling committed against the essay on a Tolkien message board; something along the line of:

Comic Book Guy: "But Aquaman, you cannot marry a woman without gills, you're from two different worlds." (sees Nuclear missile approaching) "Oh, I've wasted my life."

Anyway, it definetely needs some revamping. but it's still a nice topic to explore, in my opinion.

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Star Wars is not Lord of the Rings!!!!!


End the story.

 

Hey Darth_Dagsy, how are things going? Hows the wife and kids.



Anyway, yes I do see the similarities there, Cie. There is another contrast to it, I think. Smeagol died with a heart full of greed, he slipped off the edge and was gone, he fell lusting for the Ring. This is different to Anakin's death, as Anakin was able to die with a pure heart and was able to become a Force ghost. Smeagol was only able to redeem himself for a short while.

Which leads to another little interesting idea, another similarity. Both characters changed due to betrayal of some sort. This betrayal had positive and negative effects on the two respected caharacters. Smeagol felt betrayed by Frodo at the Forbidden Pool, and this changed him for the worse. He reverted back to his old villainous ways afterwards. Anakin, meanwhile, felt betrayed by the Emperor, when the Emperor was slowly killing Luke. I think Vader saw everything at that moment, the truth behind all of the Emperor's lies. He thus managed to destroy the Emperor using the last of his strength. He was redeemed at that point.

 

Hey Goodfellas, the betrayals in both stories hadn't even occured to me, good perception I'd make more comments right now, but I have to go out in less than 5 minutes ...

 

Smeagol felt betrayed by Frodo at the Forbidden Pool, and this changed him for the worse. He reverted back to his old villainous ways afterwards.

this is Peter Jacksons Smeagol/Gollum though

Tolkiens Gollum ALWAYS had his little scheme to get rid of Frodo and Samwise

 

Great Essay, CieSharp. It was also neat to hear my name used. Is Deagol ever mentioned in the films?

One could also find similarities in comparing the life of Jesus to Frodo and Luke. Otherwise unrelated Mythological stories often have striking similarities. Even when they come from completely different times and cultures. Smeagol/Frodo and Anakin/Luke is a very good example of this.

 

Good thought but I dont think its even true.

 

I love healthy debate but, first GL took all the shots fro the X-wing attack on the original Death Star from WW2 footage and Tolkien proffessed that it was an allegory of the encroachment of industustialism on his very English village; a point I wish we could all appreciate and not just because I am English.

I loved your essay. I thought it was intelligent and well thought out and well argued, and I could not disagree with anything you said... how could I when you already admitted you might be wrong. I would like to say to you: "Well done" for having the courage and the nouse to post such a well informed and SMART piece of quadlibbet without the usual bollocks from people who think they know too much. Great to see/hear/read someone arguing his/her own point of view for the hell of it...

Nice one!


PS: Darth Deagol... Read (anything and everything by) Vladimir Propp...

 

dude i don't care for the LOTR COPARISION to star wars,

star wars rules, please don't insult star wars with LOTR AGAIN


thank U!

 

I definitely agree with what you've said. It's well written and I also see the similarities: the two movies feature two characters tempted by the same evil, one falls and one prevails (although they do sucumb to temptation at times, they overcome it at the end).

SPOILER!

Another similarity is Anakin and Gollum's demise, they both fall into lava. However Anakin's literal fall ended his good side and was the beginning of his rebirth as evil, Gollum's more human side probably ended long before Mount Doom, and of course, he doesn't survive.

Also, did anyone else see a similarity in the death scence of Eowyn's uncle/father/whatever? When he is dying, and she says she can save him, and he tells her she already has. A lot like Luke and Vader's dialouge.

END SPOILER!

That was a pretty lame observation. I'm exhausted and not thinking so clearly now.

 

Great Essay, CieSharp. It was also neat to hear my name used. Is Deagol ever mentioned in the films?

Thanks Yes, as you probably know, Deagol and Smeagol are shown in the very first scene of the ROTK film!

Good thought but I dont think its even true.

Thanks; perhaps it wasn't intentional, aside from Lucas telling Sir Alec Guinness "Kenobi is kind of like Gandalf". Perhaps Lucas enjoyed the deep themes in LOTR immensely, and brought back vague shadows of them when writing his original trilogy. Possibly

Oh and thanks for the kind words der-der-diggit. I did get into some trouble on another forum for posting this same essay. Rather than getting a nice little discussion here, I found myself in a flamewar with multiple bogeys including a pseudo-partial moderator.

Speaking of bogeys though ... George Lucas seems interested in World War II and just about everything else that's from the 1940's. He was particularly interested in air combat, which may explain why the first few Lucasarts computer games were "Battlehawks", "Battle for Britain", and later, "Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe".

He definetely got some inspiration from WWI and WWII (more from the latter) fighter combat, while Tolkien personally fought in World War I; thus the grim images of war and dying in his books.

star wars rules, please don't insult star wars with LOTR AGAIN

I am in no way trying to say LOTR > SW or SW > LOTR. I love both for different reasons. Obviously the genre is different, although I've seen plot similarities and character traits. Read Joseph Campbell's book sometime, there are like 30 basic story themes that one can build upon. Fascinating stuff!

Also, did anyone else see a similarity in the death scence of Eowyn's uncle/father/whatever? When he is dying, and she says she can save him, and he tells her she already has. A lot like Luke and Vader's dialouge.

I wouldn't call it a pretty lame observation, but I would say that Eowyn kneeling over her father Theoden's body seems to only have a strictly physical similarity to Luke and Anakin's scene on the Shuttle ramp at the end of ROTJ.

Similarities: Eowyn (Luke) and Theoden (Anakin), both fought a common dark enemy (in the ultimate sense), The Witch King of Angmar (Emperor Palpatine). The father (Theoden; Anakin) dies, the child (Eowyn; Luke) kneels over the father's body.

Differences: Eowyn (with the help of Merry of course), killed the Witch King, while her father did not do much damage to his enemy. In ROTJ, Luke did not do much (he was quite occupied with his father) , but Anakin did the act of killing Palpatine by throwing him in the DS2's chasm.

One more essential difference: While Anakin was exumed from his sins, Theoden had no such sin to be absolved from (unless you count his apathy displayed during his curse, but I think everyone will agree that he was under the influence of Saruman, and had very little recourse to fight it). Once he is cured from Saruman's curse by Gandalf, his character is relatively consistent when compared to Anakin.

Perhaps seeing his daughter kill the Nazgul Witch King may have elicited similar feelings to when the grandfather in the film "Whale Rider" realizes his granddaughter is qualified to be chieftan. How ironic, both of which filmed in New Zealand

Again, thanks for the nice discussion, everyone. Although it's not a long thread by megathread standards, I'm glad I posted here in the beginning.

 

"star wars rules, please don't insult star wars with LOTR AGAIN"



Insult? These two sagas are so incredibly similar to each other and both came from creative geniuses. How could you say that this comparison is an insult.

On a lighter note....thank you for starting this thread...after watching the last 2/3 of the LOTR trilogy today i was just thinking about the Gollum/Anakin & Frodo/Luke comparison.

Glad to hear I'm not the only person thinking this!!