Beautiful notes on one of my favourite chapters in TTT.
As usual, you point out to several apparently minor details that in the end turn out to be very important - Samwise the hobbit being himself as soon as he has his feet on the ground again, for instance. A great read.
"The word 'mate' here, where I was expecting 'young', initially sent me back over their entire relationship, looking not primarily for sex - which JRR never depicted between anybody in LoTR - but for a more chosen and equal relationship than I had perceived before - which is the only one in which they could have conceived having sex."I have seen people discussing Tolkien's use of the word 'mate' in this sequence before, and it indeed is an interesting item. However, I sometimes get the impression that the word 'mate' has a different contextual meaning in the US than it has in England. It appears to me that in the US it is often used in the context as 'relative', in the meaning of 'being in a relation with'- a more biological context, one might say, while in the
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You are right about how it is used among people who speak different kinds of English when referring to themselves, but ' in the savage world of beasts' it has only two meanings - as a verb, meaning 'to have sex' and as a noun referring to one member of a mated pair, which is a bond encompassing much more than sexual behavior. That usage doesn't change from side to side of any ocean and given the context it is the only appropriate meaning.
I think if Tolkien could come back from the grave to change one sentence it would be this one. I'm convinced that all the slash fiction would horrify him. But, in the metaphor he is using, 'mate' means the beast equivalent of 'spouse' and not 'friend'. Most animals protect their young and many will protect their mate/spouse, but I can't think of any beast that will take on an undefeatable foe for a comrade. I think there wasn't any other way to hit the correct emotional note that he wanted. If there was some phrase that would clearly show that officer/batman relationship at it's most intense, and it was a phrase that would have meaning for the general reader, then, I'm sure he wouldn't have used this one. And he clearly couldn't use 'young' because that would have taken away dignity from Frodo's identity as the leader.
RE: The correct emotional toneeykarJune 7 2005, 19:11:43 UTC
You are right that the only choices were 'mate' and 'young', but given Frodo's current unconscious state I don't think that 'young', with its implications of helplessness, would have been entirely impossible. Also, while all animals have young, and virtually all mammals protect them, not all animals (or mammals) have mates; therefore the choice to use the image of an animal that creates social bond with its sexual partner was deliberate. I am sure that JRR's stress was on the social bond rather than any sexual possiblities, which I gather from the context of the relationship that has been built up rather than from a single word. I can't see that JRR either promoted or closed off erotic possibilities between Frodo and Sam; that wasn't the focus of his story and doesn't make any essential difference. He could never have expected readers of later generations to rifle through his text seeking the bloody sheet, or making anything of its absence. Personally I blame Peter Jackson for the whole controversy.
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As usual, you point out to several apparently minor details that in the end turn out to be very important - Samwise the hobbit being himself as soon as he has his feet on the ground again, for instance.
A great read.
"The word 'mate' here, where I was expecting 'young', initially sent me back over their entire relationship, looking not primarily for sex - which JRR never depicted between anybody in LoTR - but for a more chosen and equal relationship than I had perceived before - which is the only one in which they could have conceived having sex."I have seen people discussing Tolkien's use of the word 'mate' in this sequence before, and it indeed is an interesting item. However, I sometimes get the impression that the word 'mate' has a different contextual meaning in the US than it has in England. It appears to me that in the US it is often used in the context as 'relative', in the meaning of 'being in a relation with'- a more biological context, one might say, while in the ( ... )
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I think there wasn't any other way to hit the correct emotional note that he wanted. If there was some phrase that would clearly show that officer/batman relationship at it's most intense, and it was a phrase that would have meaning for the general reader, then, I'm sure he wouldn't have used this one. And he clearly couldn't use 'young' because that would have taken away dignity from Frodo's identity as the leader.
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I can't see that JRR either promoted or closed off erotic possibilities between Frodo and Sam; that wasn't the focus of his story and doesn't make any essential difference. He could never have expected readers of later generations to rifle through his text seeking the bloody sheet, or making anything of its absence. Personally I blame Peter Jackson for the whole controversy.
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