Romance in Lord of the Rings

I explored this a bit in my comment from last week, but I wanted to expand on that thought in this post. Here’s my comment, for reference: 

“Having grown up watching the Lord of the Rings and then the Hobbit, when it was adapted into the three-part film series, before ever lying my hands on a copy of the books, I also think it’s interesting how much Hollywood loves to ramp up romantic tension in the movies that don’t exist in the books.  

There’s absolutely not a hint of romance in the Hobbit, and yet the filmmakers create this grand romance between Kili and the Mirkwood elf, Tauriel, creating this weird love triangle thing with Legolas. Tauriel doesn’t even exist in the books and Legolas doesn’t come in until the Lord of the Rings.  

Hollywood just loves to create so much drama. Even going into the lost love of Thranduil, Legolas’ mother, and how it’s taboo to speak of her as the pain of the loss is still so prevalent for him. It’s a little too much and strays so far from Tolkien, in my opinion, as interesting a plotline as it is.”  

What I want to examine in my post today is the opposite of this. The one romance Tolkien explores to a higher degree, then just a pass over mention, as he does with most, is the budding affection between Aowyn and Farmir while they both recover in the House of Healing. I know we haven’t gotten to this part yet in our class reading, but wanted to cover this now as it fits with the ideas I explored last week, as remarked above.  

I find it highly interesting that Tolkien chose to go in-depth and show us how romantic feelings developed between Aowyn and Farmir, as he generally simply tells us about the others, like with Aragorn and Arwen. I loved reading this part of the books, it was so sweet, especially after everything both of them had gone through. What I find the most intriguing is how despite Hollywood loving to ramp up and create, in their movies, more romance than exists in the books, they completely overlook and glance over the romance between Aowyn and Farmir.  

Tolkien goes into considerable detail about their meetings, interactions, and Farmir expressing his feelings for Aowyn to her. The only nod or acknowledgment the movie gives us to indicate they were even aware Aowyn had switched her affection from Aragorn to someone else is a mere few second shot of Farmir and Aowyn standing next to each other and exchanging a glance at Aragorn’s crowning in Gondor. That’s it. That’s all we get. I can’t help wondering over the decision to do it this way as I’d have loved to have seen this part played out in the movies.