Unrelenting perseverance and the glory of battle

I have been rewatching The Lord of the Rings movies this week, bit by bit, during marking and planning and in the evenings. The films are all now 10 years old at least, which is incredible as I remember very clearly the excitement of waiting for them to open at the cinema in three succeeding Decembers as a teenager.

I have always found the scenes with Frodo and Sam, in The Two Towers and The Return of the King, to be much more boring than the great battle scenes in Rohan and Gondor, with their repetitive scenery and conversations. Yes, Frodo has a tough time. Yes, Gollum is a bit suspect. Get back to the exciting bits already! I love the build-up to and the bravery of Helm’s Deep and Pelennor Fields. I remember feeling this way when reading the books, too, where it is much less broken up, and where Frodo, Sam and Gollum trudge their weary way for many, many pages of unremitting gloom before the focus moves back chronologically to see the story through the eyes of the rest of the Fellowship. My brother is reading the books now, too, and is currently stuck in the slog that is the end of The Two Towers, where these three seem to do little but walk, and I’ve told him to stick at it for the ‘good stuff’.

But it struck me just now, when the cameras move from Faramir’s return to Minas Tirith and Gandalf and Pippin’s relief at hearing he has recently seen Frodo, and focus back on the steep and weary climb into Mordor, that this is the point. The point is the unremitting gloom, or – as I suggest we see it – the unrelenting perseverance.

While we are excited watching the great battles and rejoice with the victory and sacrifice of individuals (who doesn’t want to stand up and cheer when, in The Two Towers, Theoden, Aragorn, Legolas and their men decide to ride out for one final push ‘for glory’ and are met with the blinding sight of Gandalf and the Rohirrim coming to save the day?), the main point of the story is Frodo and the Ring, and the task he has to accomplish. Gandal and the rest of the remaining Fellowship are aware of this, often gazing into the distance to try to ‘sense’ whether Frodo is still alive and if he is succeeding in his task. They gain much more of the immediate glory, but the reality is if Frodo does not play his unglamorous part, it’s all for nothing. For the enemy to be defeated, he has to keep on keeping on, down the difficult, dangerous road he treads – dealing with fatigue, squabbling travelling companions struggling with their own issues, hunger, despair, and the growing sense he has of being drawn into the enemy’s mind through the burden of carrying the Ring. This is the true courage that allows good to conquer evil – the epic handful of battles, while exhausting, are less meaningful in the long run than the constant epic of just keeping going when the easiest thing would be to lie down and give in.

Everyone wants to win a glorious battle. That’s what movies and storytelling and narrative are built around – something in us loves for events to build and build until they reach a climax of confrontation and eventual victory for good. I’ve often thought after watching films ‘based on a true story’ whether the tipping point really came where it does in the film, or whether this is heightened for Hollywood. Because in real life, aren’t we really a little more like Frodo and Sam than Gandalf and Aragorn? Most of us in difficult situations just plod along, dealing with our circumstances, our daily difficulties and the trials we face, large or small. Many of the people I am privileged to know who are in such seasons of life do not defeat them through a sudden great burst of courage, valour and skill but by picking up their courage every morning and facing a new day of trudging like Sam and Frodo.

As much as I’d like to see my life as a battle where one day I will just ‘get it’ and have a Dead Poets Society/Freedom Writers moment and ‘break through’ to that tricky class or that child I have personality differences with, I have been learning this year that I can only really take one step at a time. Sometimes we go forwards, sometimes we stumble back a little, and occasionally – yes – there will be a glorious battle. But I am seeing that in every day picking up and starting again, I am gradually gaining ground. It is not glamorous, but it is courageous.

If you are like me, and would much rather be in a few good ‘battles’ than suffer the seeming boredom of the constant difficulty of life, let this encourage you. What you are doing, the road you are taking, the ‘Ring’ you are bearing, is important. It is vital to the Fellowship. It is worth it. It will cost, just as it cost Frodo. But in the end, when you stand before the King, as Frodo and Sam do, you and the whole Fellowship will be able to fully appreciate the impact of your courageous, unrelenting perseverance.

'Then he said to them all: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?" '

*Disclaimer: I am, of course, using ‘battle’ in a loose, metaphorical sense. I am in no way suggesting that anyone should have recourse to violence or even to causing confrontation for confrontation’s sake – what I am thinking of in my own mind comes more from Ephesians 6:12:

'For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.'

I also see a great deal to value and which can encourage us within the battle scenes of The Lord of the Rings, and I'm sure one day I will blog about those too. But my point is - they're just a means to an end. The main reason they started out in the first place was to support the goal of getting rid of the Ring with Frodo.