For the last week, I’ve been thinking about this piece from The Cut, which poses the question, “Are You an Aragorn Girl or a Legolas Girl?” Which led me to some questions of my own:
What kind of girl (or guy, or person) were you when you first loved someone from the safe distance of fiction?
Did you dream big? Did you aim high?
Or did you see yourself, your plain ol’ human self, with clear eyes and know you were never meant for the center of the Fellowship, but that could never be the the only Fellowship in a world as big as Middle-earth. Once you aged out of being a Legolas girl and really thought about Aragon and his king-sized baggage, there could be only one choice left for someone who likes the side quests more than the main mission.
If so, then maybe you’re a Faramir girl.*
If you’re of a certain age, you grew up on the Lord of the Rings movies and watched the trilogy over the course of three very formative years. I’m a bit older, so I feel Jurassic Park was that film for me. “Yay! Dinosaurs!… Why do I keep looking at shirtless Jeff Goldblum when there are dinosaurs?” I wondered in my preteen, proto-Tina Belcher confusion.
But I was probably an outlier; there’s a reason “Legolas girls” are absolutely a thing. It’s a tale as old as time. Legolas is beautiful, androgynous as a boy band (or goth band) member, safe, and clean-cut. And that’s valid! But he’s elf royalty, and when combined with his immortality, too aloof. Legolas will never understand your anxiety, will never empathize with your existential dread or the heartbreaking frustration of a bad hair day. (Note: this also applies to Galadriel girls.)
Anyway, why would you even pick Legolas as your elf boyfriend when Elrond and his library are right there?
Aragorn, though. Now that’s a man. Literally, he is a Man of the line of Dúnedain, which makes him already preternaturally extra. From his smoldering first appearance in The Prancing Pony, he exudes that grungy ranger goodness with the perpetually wet hair of a ’90s wrestler. He’s long-lived, but not immortal. He’s Seen Things. He’s Done Things…dark, unfortunate things in those forests of Rhovanion. In the R-rated version of Lord of the Rings that plays out in your teenage brain, Aragon surely has sex. Then you get to Rivendell and it turns out he’s royalty, too. Can anyone just… be who they are? I don’t have a grand world-saving destiny. Probably. Maybe you do, reading this, but the odds are pretty slim.
Naturally Aragorn’s got a girlfriend and because this is Tolkien, who else can be waiting like a prize at the end of a secret king’s journey but a perfect, beautiful elf princess?
When another mysterious, hooded ranger walked onscreen, I sat up in my theater seat. Who was this young captain with an eerie dream of his brother Boromir’s death and a friendship with Gandalf? Sure, actor David Wenham was once voted Australia’s sexiest man, but my love for this other man of Gondor didn’t begin in earnest until I read the books. Movie-Faramir’s got nothing on Book-Faramir, aside from perfectly feathered ginger hair and a memorable profile.
I never read Tolkien in high school. I thought I was far too cool and too dark for hobbits. (I wasn’t.) But I came to the Lord of the Rings movies as a huge Peter Jackson nerd and promptly fell in love with the beauty of New Zealand and the battle between good and evil that seemed comfortably clear-cut in the months after 9/11. I watched the movies amazingly unspoiled. I read each book only after I saw the movie. And I didn’t truly appreciate Faramir’s role in the world of Middle-earth until I saw him through Pippin’s eyes in The Return of the King:
- Here was one with an air of high nobility such as Aragorn at times revealed, less high perhaps, yet also less incalculable and remote: one of the Kings of Men born into a later time, but touched with the wisdom and sadness of the Eldar. He knew now why Beregond spoke his name with love. He was a captain that men would follow, that he would follow, even under the shadow of the black wings.
-
—The Return of the King, Book 5, Chapter IV: “The Siege of Gondor”
Faramir is the best of both the human and Elvish worlds.
While his shitty father Denethor lavished more praise—and pressure—on his older brother, Faramir turned to his passions. As the son of the Steward of Gondor, he was well-educated in warfare and politics and when we meet him in Ithilien, he has his company’s utmost trust. Yet his favorite studies were the things he believed men should fight to defend: art, music, and literature. Like Aragorn, Faramir’s innate nobility and otherworldiness reflected his own, more distant, Númenorean ancestors, and showed truer in Faramir than in jock-boy Boromir.
Faramir was “a Wizard’s pupil,” after all.
Neglected by his own father, it isn’t hard to imagine a young Faramir latching onto Gandalf’s every word when the Istar visited Minas Tirith’s library and developing his own moral philosophy under the teachings of the Third Age’s wisest voice. This is the Faramir who can face the One Ring and decide he “would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway.” The movies did Faramir so wrong, it’s true.
But Faramir really shines in the Houses of Healing.
You can’t be a Faramir girl without also being an Éowyn girl.
Yes, Éowyn didn’t really want Aragorn; she wanted the idea of Aragorn and the glory of battle. But, come on, she also wanted Aragorn and you can instantly read the look in her eyes when she hears about Arwen. How can I compete with that? Some might say it’s low self-esteem, that insecurity is unattractive, but so what? It’s also highly relatable. Arwen’s grace elevates her to a near-mythological figure and it’s a perfect counterbalance for Aragorn and his long road to reclaim his birthright as the King of Gondor. Éowyn never stood a chance against the power of such archetypes and neither would you.
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You know who isn’t in competition with anyone? Faramir.
You know who is perfectly fine with being someone’s second choice? Faramir.
He’s been a distant second in his father’s heart his entire life and never resented Boromir for it; they were best friends. Further, it is literally his duty as steward to step aside at the return of the King of Gondor and he does it without hesitation. He does it with the understanding of the rule of law, in recognition of Aragorn’s proven wisdom and abilities to lead and, most importantly, to heal, and with genuine gladness for the coming restoration of his beloved city. That’s a class act.
But what really, really makes Faramir something special is his patience and compassion for Éowyn when he meets her at the lowest point of her life, after the Pelennor Fields and the death of her uncle Thèoden. The endless endings of ROTK make the shieldmaiden look fickle in her affections, though less so in the movie’s extended cut. But in the books, Éowyn has space to grieve the loss of everything she thought she could be. And with Faramir, she finds someone to talk to.
As someone who’s lived adjacent to a greatness but never desired it for the sake of having it, Faramir is in a position to see the whole of a situation. He’s known rejection, loneliness, and griefs fresh and old. He knows Éowyn loved Aragorn as more than a king. I mean, her thirst was visible from the top of Mount Doom… But he can admit it. It doesn’t bother him. He accepts Éowyn in her sorrow and her bravery and with the knowledge that she’s had a past before him. And he does all this pining for her without being creepy about it! He believes in hope and that while they are together, the Shadow of Sauron cannot touch them. And it is quite literally true.
Tolkien said that the character he most felt he resembled was Faramir, a warrior who hates war. Faramir showed up quite unexpectedly in a burst of inspiration and the author liked this reluctant soldier so much, he gave Faramir a recurring dream that once belonged to Tolkien’s mother: that of a great wave washing over a city. This dark pall of death and uncertainty over Minas Tirith retreats not during Aragorn’s coronation, but when Faramir first kisses Éowyn:
And so they stood on the walls of the City of Gondor, and a great wind rose and blew… And the Shadow departed, and the Sun was unveiled, and light leaped forth… and in all the houses of the City men sang for the joy that welled up in their hearts from what source they could not tell
—The Return of the King, Book 6, Chapter V: “The Steward and the King”
Faramir is an epic kisser! This is canon.
Faramir feels more complicated and more real than most of Tolkien’s characters, despite having less time in the story. It’s an unfair punchline that this noble leader is seen as some kind of beta-man, less than Aragorn and Boromir, and more unfair to malign him for a rough childhood that was not in his control. He’s clearly a respected warrior; everyone he meets recognizes this. Yet Faramir’s ultimate destiny is to have a nice garden, raise a happy family with the love of his life, and be a dutiful citizen. It’s an achievement that’s no less impressive for its simplicity. If being kind, patient, and wise were so easy, well, the world would be a better place. And if everyone kissed as well as Faramir, obviously that would be even better.
Forget those fancy kings and elves.
Look for your Steward.
*I’m using the word “girl” here because that’s how the original article framed the argument, and it’s a term I’m comfortable using in relation to myself, but obviously this phenomenon isn’t limited by sex or gender (as Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz also points out in that piece).
Theresa DeLucci likes big noses and she cannot lie. Look for her on the fifth day, at dawn, to the East. Or just on Twitter.
Delightful!
1) Faramir is the Tommy Smothers of Middle-earth. “Dad always liked you best!”
2) He is smooooooth. Who else could use “I dreamed of Darkness, Darkness Everlasting” as a line and have it work? Maybe all of the War of the Ring was a setup for him to get together with Eowyn, and Sauron was his wingman?
I always felt a kinship with Faramir, so it is no surprise that I was also an Eowyn Boy. As a youngster, I was always comfortable in the company of tomboys, so a girl who was willing to put on armor was OK in my book.
I heard that Eowyn was created to give Tolkien’s only daughter a character to identify with, remember this is the man who made his wife not just the most beautiful woman ever to exist in ME but the bravest and most powerful, of course he gave his daughter a kick-ass shield maiden!
Originally Eowyn was also going to become Aragorn’s queen but Tolkien soon realized that match just wouldn’t work. Aragorn was too old and grim for a fresh and fiery young woman who belongs to the Dawn of the age of Men not the Elder Days. Aragorn and Eowyn is too asymmetrical. Eowyn and Faramir are just right. And God and Tolkien know Faramir is much better than a consolation prize! He isn’t at all threatened by Eowyn’s prowess and fame, he admires her for her valor as much as her beauty. They’ve both been warriors and taken wounds. They’ve both lost family to the war. And both want to make a new beginning in the new age and let go of the griefs and pains of the old. They are simply perfect for each other
Sweet ;)
None of these epic-fantasy drama queens. Samwise all the way. He was so fierce in his love and loyalty that he followed Frodo into Hell and gave up the ring willingly, then went home to live a full normal life with his beloved Rosie and Bill the pony.
All of the Faramir love on this site lately is making me so happy!! We have two boys and that’s probably how it will stay, but Faramir was a name I was strongly considering if I had a third (Nienna is what I would want if I had a girl – which I suppose is fitting given this post which posits a bit of a connection (via Gandalf) between Faramir and Nienna!) https://askmiddlearth.tumblr.com/post/80354104175/nienna-she-who-weeps
Anyway, I read and loved the books in the 90s and was a Tolkien nerd way before it was cool. Eowyn was my favorite character, and Faramir was probably one of my first literary crushes. Ohhh I can’t even describe the actual rage I felt at watching Two Towers. Years later some of my friends still tease me about it (and actually asked me how I felt about the new Star Wars movie on a scale from ‘0 to Faramir’, lol). When my son started getting into the movies, we would watch it in chunks, and when we got to that part, I conveniently stopped the movie there, and then resumed it a few scenes later the next night, lol.
I absolutely love how Eowyn and Faramir found each other, and how they found hope and healing and newness, but what you write about his epic kissing is absolutely cracking me up. I have to admit I never really thought of it that way, but I suppose his gentle, patient acceptance of her is in a way what set the stage for other fictional loves. Once I started getting into Star Wars, everybody always talked about Han, but my heart was always given to Luke Skywalker, the ‘boring’, ‘nice’ one who cares.
This was always one of my favorite passages though: “And he [Faramir] took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky, and he cared not that they stood high upon the walls in the sight of many.” Faramir is totally not afraid to show his feelings ;)
@@.-@ – that is truly lovely :)
Yep, luv the articles about Faramir!
Faramir’s considerateness combined with analytical thinking helps him navigate the challenge of the situation with Frodo, Sam, and Gollum and understand Eowyn.
Something that makes an earlier scene as nearly as swoony as the sunlit sky scene is how Faramir brought the robe that had belonged to his mother and wrapped it around Eowyn to keep her warm.
And, lol, the sunlit sky scene when Eowyn teases him about how people might say that he’d tamed a “wild shield-maiden of the north” (copy of book not at hand, fyi). It’s a nice touch of humor that shows her recovery and, I reckon, how she understands him as much as he understands her.
My husband’s and my wedding rings say (in abbreviated fashion) “Faramir of Ithilien to Éowyn of Rohan” and “Éowyn of Rohan to Faramir of Ithilien.”
Love this essay! Faramir was one of my favorites, and I definitely had rage-y conversations with other teenage friends when the movies came out because they RUINED Faramir at the end of Two Towers! How dare they have him arrest Frodo and Sam! etc. etc.
Noble, respected, kind, loves the arts — yes please. :) Glad he’s getting the appreciation he deserves.
100% a Faramir girl.
@9, I think Tolkien would like that. He put the name ‘Luthien’ on his wife’s tombstone, and ‘Beren’ on his own.
@11, one of the most profound experiences of my life was seeing their grave. I recited “All that is gold does not glitter” out loud in the cemetery as a tribute.
As someone who came to movies as a lifelong fan of the books (and a much longer life than yours, thank you very much), I was passionately in love with Éowyn. When Faramir wins her heart in the House of Healing, though, I couldn’t hate him, as he was me, if I were a hunky noble warrior and not a fat geek with glasses with the martial skill of a mosquito.
That is, until the movies came out and, in an effort to get to Osgiliath, Jackson broke Faramir. Yes, David looks the part, and gosh, is he dreamy, too. But Not only was this Éowyn, but this was Éowyn as played by my favourite actress, and the fact that he gets turned into mini-Denathor turns him into something that he’s not. “Let’s make him more interesting.” Ugh. Let’s take and run him through a bunch of common movie tropes, more like it. It was bad enough they kept doing that to Aragorn (“Oh, woe is me, who is to be king, I don’t think I can do it,” “Oh, I died. Surprise, not dead. etc. etc.), but Faramir? Let him be, SVP.
I think I could have let Jackson get away with all the other changes and still be fine with it (well, most; the unscouring of the Shire is also unpardonable, but for entirely different reasons), but when he broke Faramir, it damaged the movie beyond repair.
@6 I don’t know if I was a “Samwise Girl,” but he was definitely my favorite character in the books.
This essay makes me think I was actually a “Faramir Girl.” I, too, detested the way the movies did him dirty.
A rational approach to romance. Is that allowed? No star-crossed catastrophes? Who knew? Not sure if I qualify as a Faramir or Éowyn girl or boy but I enjoyed their characters as a reader more so than Boromir or Arwen, and epic kisses rock. Delightful analysis.
@10, @13 Same!
Home behind — the world ahead.
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“Yet Faramir’s ultimate destiny is to have a nice garden, raise a happy family with the love of his life, and be a dutiful citizen. It’s an achievement that’s no less impressive for its simplicity”
This passage makes me appreciate the moment Sam and Faramir share in the EE all the more, when Sam calls back to Faramir “showing his quality” and Faramir muses on the high regard Hobbits must hold for their gardeners. It’s been too long since I’ve read the books to comment on how accurate that is, but there are a number of humble, admirable qualities shared by those two characters.
Maybe it’s because I read Lord of the Rings when I was a bit older, but I never fell in love with any of the characters. They were all great, good friends and I could picture sitting next to a campfire with any of them and talking for hours, but never falling in love with or living with any of them.
I read the trilogy before I saw the last two movies. I instantly became a Faramir girl. The movies did do him a little disservice and I was quite disappointed how the movies portrayed him but I have since come to appreciate the movie Faramir.
I’ve been a Faramir girl since I read the books as a teenager way back in the 80’s and I raged when I saw The Two Towers. The whole thing about Faramir was that he was about as decent and incorruptible as it’s possible for a human to be – and Peter Jackson completely ignored that important facet of his character in the interests of making the movie better. Although, ultimately, did it?
Ah, Faramir! I have always felt he is a man for a grown woman. Teenagers have crushes on Legolas, who is pretty, but, IMO, the least interesting member of the Fellowship. Aragorn is eighty years old and thinks like an older man, due to all that experience. But young girls do find him sexy anyway. It does help that film-Aragorn is a lot younger-looking then grizzled book-Aragorn!
I would rather date Faramir for all the reasons stated in the post and the comments, but also because I think he is the sort of man who would remember your birthday and take you to a nice little Gondorian restaurant where they know him, to celebrate. Also… he may be a leader of men, but deep down, he is a history-loving nerd, who would rather be in the library. If you went out with him on a week night, you could both read or work on your laptops with anyone being offended!
This post is my everything.
I have been a Faramir fan since I first read the books as a tween over 40 years ago. He was the character I most related to. When I think of him, I recall what Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing says to Don Pedro when he offers to marry her: “your grace is too costly to wear every day.” Faramir’s open honesty, intelligence, patience, and honor is just so appealing, without all the trappings of royalty and fated destinies and all that. He’s without a doubt my favorite LOTR character.
Of course, as a girl, I related massively to Éowyn: her insecurity, her strength, her massive crush on someone unobtainable (something practically every young girl goes through), the realization that she doesn’t love Aragorn but rather what he represents: those taught me to be strong despite insecurity, and to search for someone who loves me as well instead of someone that I love and who doesn’t love me back.
Then Tolkien put Éowyn and Faramir together, and I saw that two puzzle pieces I didn’t even realize needed to connect had connected. And their lives in Ithilien sounded pretty danged wonderful to me.
Despite the complete frustration of what was done to Faramir in the Two Towers movie in the name of dramatic tension, I still liked Wenham’s work. Thank god the extended edition restored the absolutely necessary scenes showing the completion of Faramir and Éowyn’s story.
Thank you for articulating something that’s been in my heart for decades!
“Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart, Eowyn. But I do not offer you pity.”
*melts*
I love this article! I have always loved his character and Eoywn in their own right and together they are even better.
I totally agree with many other posters about how the movies got Faramir so wrong. However, while watching the documentaries, at one point Peter Jackson talked about his decision. He said that they were trying to show viewers how the ring was this corrupting force and was super evil and tempting to everyone. But then along comes this character that says “I would not take this thing if it lay by the highway” that completely contradicts everything they were trying to do before. (Also, if I recall correctly, one of the reasons why they left out Tom Bombadil.) So I forgave Jackson a little for that.
@25, oh, I’ve seen that argument and I think it’s total BS. Obviously Tolkien managed to imbue the Ring with threat despite Faramir being able to resist it so….yeah.
Surely, Faramir would have *eventually* been corrupted. And he probably knew that. Which is why he turned from it in the first place. Evil isn’t always inevitable as if we have no free will whatsoever.
@26 I guess I just attributed it to the longer and more in depth scope of the books making it more believable/impactful as a character. You can get away with more nuance when you have 1000 or so pages to do it and people are taking more time to think things through. I feel like the movies already have trouble fitting all the things in that they wanted in the time that they had, which was already very long. That and the fact that to the “general audience” (i.e. not the people that discuss these movies in comment threads haha) it wouldn’t have made sense.
I found and married my Faramir 3 decades ago.
I’m with 19 / Carly – I don’t know what it says about me, but I never wanted to be involved romantically with any of them. Emulate, definitely, but perhaps even as a teenager I was afraid of the old Chinese curse about living in interesting times. To close to being involved with a superhero or being related to Jessica Fletcher (“you’re her nephew’s college room-mate’s cousin twice removed, and she’s coming to town? Oh dear.”)
I can definitely relate to Faramir’s ambitions in life, though
I was annoyed with the changes that Jackson made to the character as well. Only when the extended edition of the film was released did movie Faramir’s behavior become explicable.
Then there’s the atrocity Jackson perpetrated on Denethor, but that’s a rant for another time.
Excellent essay! I always thought that Faramir was under-appreciated. Growing up I identified more with him than other characters. He seemed more thoughtful yet also a skilled warrior and leader. This had great appeal to me as a bookish teenage nerd in the early 70’s.
@26 – well said!
Lots of good comments here about Faramir in relation to Éowyn. Let me talk briefly about Faramir in relation to Sam. Their first interaction comes when Sam tries to interrupt Faramir’s interrogation of Frodo. Faramir sums him up instantly as “not too bright”: “Do not speak before your master, whose wit is greater than yours.” (Having already recognized in Frodo an intellect equal to his own.)
But he keeps watching, and comes gradually to an appreciation of Sam’s inner qualities: “Your heart is shrewd as well as faithful, and saw clearer than your eyes.”
Then at the end of the chapter, comes what is for me one of the supreme moments of LotR, when Sam presumes to compliment Faramir, which one in his lowly social position has no right to do — Faramir having been raised near the peak of a hierarchical society. “A pert servant, Master Samwise.” But then the barrier breaks and he speaks to Sam as an equal: “But nay — the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards.”
That’s grace for you, and insight.
Well-said, Roac!