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| Faramir's name is of unstated origin. The final syllable is likely the same as in his brother Boromir's name,<ref>{{ME-ref|RC|Note for page 657}}</ref> which was described by Tolkien as of mixed form<ref name="AppF">{{ME-ref|RotK|Appendix F, 'Of Men' Note 1}}</ref> and possibly combines ] ''bor(on)-'' 'steadfast' with either Sindarin ''mîr'' or ] ''míre'' 'jewel'.<ref>{{ME-ref|LROW|''The Etymologies'', entries for 'BOR-' and 'MIR-'}}</ref> The first part of Faramir's name can be consistent with Elvish roots meaning 'suffice' and 'hunt'.<ref>''The Etymologies'', entries for 'PHAR-' and 'SPAR-'.</ref> However, it is also stated that the Stewards of Gondor often bore names "remembered in the songs and histories of the ]",<ref name="AppF"/> without paying special attention to meaning. Thus Boromir's name was also born by ] of the ] in the First Age, and the younger son of King ] of Gondor was similarly called Faramir, though in the latter case the name was in Quenya.<ref>Both the Kings of Gondor and their direct descendants bore Quenya names, for example Ondohir's elder son, Artamir.</ref> | Faramir's name is of unstated origin. The final syllable is likely the same as in his brother Boromir's name,<ref>{{ME-ref|RC|Note for page 657}}</ref> which was described by Tolkien as of mixed form<ref name="AppF">{{ME-ref|RotK|Appendix F, 'Of Men' Note 1}}</ref> and possibly combines ] ''bor(on)-'' 'steadfast' with either Sindarin ''mîr'' or ] ''míre'' 'jewel'.<ref>{{ME-ref|LROW|''The Etymologies'', entries for 'BOR-' and 'MIR-'}}</ref> The first part of Faramir's name can be consistent with Elvish roots meaning 'suffice' and 'hunt'.<ref>''The Etymologies'', entries for 'PHAR-' and 'SPAR-'.</ref> However, it is also stated that the Stewards of Gondor often bore names "remembered in the songs and histories of the ]",<ref name="AppF"/> without paying special attention to meaning. Thus Boromir's name was also born by ] of the ] in the First Age, and the younger son of King ] of Gondor was similarly called Faramir, though in the latter case the name was in Quenya.<ref>Both the Kings of Gondor and their direct descendants bore Quenya names, for example Ondohir's elder son, Artamir.</ref> | ||
| Faramir was the '''Captain of the Rangers of Ithilien''' |
Faramir was the '''Captain of the Rangers of Ithilien''' during the War of the Ring. After his father's death, Faramir also became the '''Steward of Gondor'''. When Aragorn was crowned King Elessar, Faramir laid down his office as Ruling Steward, but Elessar renewed his hereditary appointment as Steward and advisor to the King. Faramir was also appointed '''Prince of Ithilien''' and '''Lord of Emyn Arnen'''. | ||
| ==Concept and creation== | ==Concept and creation== | ||
Revision as of 00:02, 18 January 2008
This article is about the son of Denethor. For the Hobbit with the same name, see Faramir Took. Faramir is also the name of Ondoher's son.In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, Faramir is a fictional character appearing in The Lord of the Rings. He is first mentioned in The Fellowship of the Ring, in which he is introduced to the story as the younger brother of Boromir and second son of Denethor II, the Steward of Gondor. The relationships between the three men are revealed over the course of The Two Towers and The Return of the King.
Faramir's character interacts with many of the major characters in Tolkien's story, and shares dialogue with several of them. He first appears in person in The Two Towers, when meeting Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee in Ithilien. Like Boromir, Faramir is presented with a choice when he discovers that Frodo carries the One Ring.
Appearances
Literature
Faramir is the brother of Boromir and the second child of Denethor II and Finduilas, daughter of Adrahil of Dol Amroth.
When Faramir was five years old, his mother died. After her death, his father, Denethor, became sombre, cold, and detached from his family. However, the relationship between Faramir and Boromir, who was five years Faramir's elder, only grew closer. Denethor openly favoured Boromir over Faramir, but there was no jealousy or rivalry between the two. Boromir protected Faramir, and Faramir looked up to his older brother.
Tolkien writes that it was Faramir's "love of lore and music" that led him to form a friendship with Gandalf, called "Mithrandir" by the people of Gondor – learning what he could from Mithrandir's wisdom and mentoring. Denethor did not approve of Faramir becoming the “wizard’s pupil”.
Faramir’s leadership, skill-in-arms, and swift but hardy judgement proved invaluable in battle, and earned him Gondor's respect. During the War of the Ring, he was the Captain of the Rangers of Ithilien, which consisted of the Dúnedain of the South belonging to the line of the Lords of Westernesse. Faramir defended Gondor from Sauron on many fronts, but did not enjoy fighting for its own sake.
Early in The Fellowship of the Ring, Faramir had a prophetic dream of a voice speaking the following riddle:
Seek for the Sword that was broken:
In Imladris it dwells;
There shall be counsels taken
Stronger than Morgul-spells.
There shall be shown a token
That Doom is near at hand,
For Isildur's Bane shall waken,
And the Halfling forth shall stand.
The dream came to Faramir twice more and to Boromir once. The brothers told their dream to their father, who told them only that Imladris was the Elvish name for Rivendell, home of Elrond the Half-elven. Although Faramir wanted to go for the sake of Gondor, Boromir, claimed the right to the mission.
One night, while on guard, Faramir waded down to the Anduin river after seeing a boat there. It contained the dead body of his brother, who had been killed by Orcs.
Faramir first encountered the Hobbits Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee in Ithilien and recognized them to be the Halflings mentioned in his dreams. Faramir questioned Frodo of his quest, and Frodo revealed that he, along with eight other companions, had set out from Rivendell. During the interrogation, Faramir asked often about Boromir. Faramir also asked about the One Ring, but Frodo tried to avoid the subject. Faramir determined that Frodo was carrying one of Sauron's great weapons. At this point, he showed the crucial difference between him and his proud brother:
But fear no more! I would not take this thing, if it lay by the highway. Not were Minas Tirith falling in ruin and I alone could save her, so, using the weapon of the Dark Lord for her good and my glory. No, I do not wish for such triumphs, Frodo son of Drogo.
In the Rangers’ secret refuge behind the waterfall, Henneth Annûn, Sam accidentally spoke of Boromir’s desire for the One Ring, thus revealing the item Frodo was carrying. Despite the Hobbits’ fears, Faramir was wise enough to realize that such a weapon was not to be used and if desired, should be resisted. With this knowledge, he also realized what his brother had to face, and wished that he had gone on the quest himself — knowing that Boromir would not have been able to resist the temptation to seize the Ring for himself. Giving them provisions, he sent them on their way to continue their quest, but warned Frodo that their guide, Gollum, was a treacherous creature, and that an unknown terror lived in Cirith Ungol.
The following evening in Cair Andros, Faramir sent his company south to reinforce the garrison at Osgiliath, while he and three of his men rode to Minas Tirith. Along the way, they were pursued by Sauron's servants, the Nazgûl. Faramir rode back to help the fallen. Immediately, Gandalf rode out to their aid, temporarily banishing the Nazgûl.
In The Return of the King, Faramir arrived at Minas Tirith and reported to Denethor and Gandalf of his encounter with Frodo and Sam. Denethor became angry that Faramir had not brought the Ring to Gondor, wishing that he and his brother’s places had been reversed — since Denethor believed that Boromir would have brought Sauron's weapon to him. Denethor sent Faramir to hold Osgiliath against Sauron's armies, which greatly outnumbered their own. Although Faramir disagreed with his father’s strategy, he agreed to go.
Sauron's second-in-command, the Witch-king of Angmar, led a much larger force from Minas Morgul, and attacked Osgiliath. After Osgiliath was conquered, Faramir decided to stay with the rearguard in order to make sure that the retreat over Pelennor would not turn into a rout. He was gravely wounded by a Southron arrow shot by one of the Nazgûl. Fortunately, all of the mounted soldiers in the city rode to his aid and brought him back to Denethor in Minas Tirith.
When Faramir was returned, Denethor believed him to be dead. That blow, coupled with a vision in the prophetic palantír of the forces arrayed against him, caused him to lose his mind. He ordered his servants to build a funeral pyre in the House of Stewards for him and his son.
Denethor's temporary Hobbit servant, Peregrin Took, went to alert Gandalf and Beregond, one of the Tower Guards he had befriended. Gandalf and Beregond stopped the impending sacrifice just in time. Mad with grief, Denethor jumped onto the lit pyre, burning himself alive.
Two days later, the battle over, Aragorn came and revived Faramir with athelas in the Houses of Healing.
Faramir met the Lady Éowyn of Rohan; moved by her sorrow, pride, and beauty, he eventually fell in love with her. At first Éowyn refused his advances, only desiring to go to war to find honour in death. But soon Éowyn realized that she had come to love him in return.
Faramir briefly served as a Ruling Steward, and began preparing the city for the arrival of Aragorn, who was now King of Gondor. On the day of the King’s official coronation, Faramir surrendered his office. Aragorn, however, announced that as long as his line would last, Faramir and his descendants would be Stewards of Gondor.
Aragorn appointed Faramir as the Prince of Ithilien and Beregond to be the Captain of his guard, the White Company. As Prince of Ithilien, he and the Prince of Dol Amroth became King Elessar's chief commanders. His duties also included acting as resident march-warden of Gondor's main eastward outpost, rehabilitating the lost territories, as well as clearing it of outlaws and Orcs and cleansing Minas Morgul of evil remnants. Faramir also fulfilled the traditional role as Steward, acting as the King’s chief counsellor and ruling Gondor in his absence.
With Éowyn, he settled in Emyn Arnen, where the two had a son named Elboron. After Faramir’s death at the age of 120, his son succeeded him in all of his titles. Barahir, Faramir's grandson, wrote The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, which was inserted (in an abbreviated form) in the Thain's Book by the writer Findegil, and appears in The Lord of the Rings as part of Appendix A. Barahir may have been the son of Elboron, but nothing directly indicates this conclusion.
Adaptations
In the BBC's 1981 radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, Faramir is voiced by Andrew Seear.
In the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, Faramir is played by David Wenham. Wenham jokes that he got the role because he and Sean Bean, who played Boromir, both had large noses. A minor change is that in the book, Faramir and his brother are dark-haired and, following a statement in Unfinished Tales, lack beards, but in the movie, they have fair hair and are slightly bearded.
In Jackson's films, Faramir does not at first let Frodo, Sam, and Gollum go, but decides to bring them and the Ring to Gondor. He takes them west to Osgiliath and not until the Nazgûl attack the city does he release them. This change received some criticism, and the character in the film was jokingly dubbed "Filmamir" or "Farfromthebookamir", among other names.
Jackson's explanation is that he needed another adventure to delay Frodo and Sam, because the episode at Cirith Ungol was moved to the third movie, and so a new climax was needed. In fact, according to the timeline given by Tolkien, Frodo and Sam had only reached the Morannon at the time of the fall of Isengard. Jackson also argues that it was necessary for Faramir to be tempted by the Ring because in his films everyone else was tempted, and letting Faramir be immune would be inconsistent in the eyes of a film audience. Co-screenwriter Philippa Boyens and actor David Wenham defended the changes to Faramir's character in order to increase dramatic tension: Faramir's "sea-green incorruptible" nature in the book would not have " well filmically". Wenham also found Tolkien's original "dramatically dead", despite having not read the book.
Several fans remain unimpressed and unconvinced by the cast and crew's justifications; for these, Faramir was rendered too much like Boromir and thus the contrast between the two was severely weakened. Another criticism concerning the characters' portrayal was the Rangers' treatment of Gollum, who is beaten up, and Faramir's implicit compliance. In the book, Faramir calls the creature Sméagol instead of Gollum, and told his men to "treat him gently...but watch him."
In the extended edition of The Two Towers, Jackson included an invented flashback scene showing that Denethor had neglected him in favour of Boromir, so that Faramir wanted to please his father by bringing him the Ring. (The relationship is similarly strained in the book, but his father's favouritism does not seem to affect his decisions in Ithilien.) Overall, the added scene in the extended edition present Faramir in a far more favourable light.
Faramir is a bonus playable character in the video game The Return of the King. In a bonus video track within this game, Wenham said that "Faramir and Boromir were brothers, and it isn't beyond possibility that Faramir would have gone to Rivendell instead. And if that happened, Faramir would have survived and returned to Gondor."
Names and titles
Faramir's name is of unstated origin. The final syllable is likely the same as in his brother Boromir's name, which was described by Tolkien as of mixed form and possibly combines Sindarin bor(on)- 'steadfast' with either Sindarin mîr or Quenya míre 'jewel'. The first part of Faramir's name can be consistent with Elvish roots meaning 'suffice' and 'hunt'. However, it is also stated that the Stewards of Gondor often bore names "remembered in the songs and histories of the First Age", without paying special attention to meaning. Thus Boromir's name was also born by Boromir of the House of Bëor in the First Age, and the younger son of King Ondoher of Gondor was similarly called Faramir, though in the latter case the name was in Quenya.
Faramir was the Captain of the Rangers of Ithilien during the War of the Ring. After his father's death, Faramir also became the Steward of Gondor. When Aragorn was crowned King Elessar, Faramir laid down his office as Ruling Steward, but Elessar renewed his hereditary appointment as Steward and advisor to the King. Faramir was also appointed Prince of Ithilien and Lord of Emyn Arnen.
Concept and creation
Faramir's appearance toward the end of The Two Towers apparently was as much of a surprise to Tolkien as it is to his readers. "I am sure I did not invent him," he wrote. "I did not even want him, though I like him."
Originally, Tolkien employed the use of thou and thee in The Lord of the Rings to show a "deliberate change to a form of affection or endearment." His son presented the original drafts in which such usage was employed for one chapter, "The Steward and the King":
The 'sudden change' in which he referred here...is possibly to be seen in their first meeting in the garden of the Houses of Healing, where Faramir says (RK pg. 238): 'Then, Éowyn of Rohan, I say to you that you are beautiful', but at the end of his speech changes to the 'familiar' form, 'But thou and I have both passed under the wings of the Shadow' (whereas Éowyn continues to use 'you'). In the following meetings, in this text, Faramir uses the 'familiar' forms, but Éowyn does not do so until the last ('Dost thou not know?', RK p. 242); and soon after this point my father went back over what he had written and changed every 'thou' and 'thee' to 'you'.
Long after completing The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien would write, "As far as any character is 'like me', it is Faramir." Faramir's relationship toward war in Tolkien's story reflected that of Tolkien himself, who was a soldier in World War I and fought in the Battle of the Somme. Tolkien bestowed his dream of "darkness unescapable" upon Faramir's character, who relates it to Éowyn in the fifth chapter of The Return of the King. Of this, Tolkien wrote, "For when Faramir speaks of his private vision of the Great Wave, he speaks for me. That vision and dream has been ever with me – and has been inherited (as I only discovered recently) by one of my children, Michael."
See also
References
- ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1955). The Return of the King. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Appendix A. OCLC 519647821.
- Tolkien, J. R. R. (1955). The Return of the King. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. "Minas Tirith". OCLC 519647821.
- ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954). The Two Towers. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. "The Window on the West". OCLC 1042159111.
- Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954a). The Fellowship of the Ring. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. "The Council of Elrond". OCLC 9552942.
- Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) . The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. #323. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
- Tolkien, J. R. R. (1955). The Return of the King. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Appendix A. OCLC 519647821.
- Cameras in Middle-earth: Filming The Two Towers SEE DVD Documentary
- "The Reading Room". Caption Contest 33!!!!!!!!!!!! - Filmamir! er... Farfromthebookamir! No wait... it's Faramir!. Retrieved 2006-10-01.
- "The Next Reel". GreenCine. Retrieved 2006-08-16.
- "Understanding". There He Came. Shandy. Retrieved 2007-06-20.
- The Lord of the Rings film trilogy - From Book to Script: Finding the Story (DVD). New Line. 2003.
- Eskew, Phil (2004-12-28). "The Two Towers". The Nit Picker's Guide to the Lord of the Rings. Retrieved 2007-06-20.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Bitterness". There He Came. Shandy. Retrieved 2007-06-20. Cite error: The named reference "crit" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- "The Nature of Faramir: A Response". Archives. TheOneRing.net. 2002-12-24. Retrieved 2007-06-20.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - "The Faramir Changes: Arguments Against". Archives. TheOneRing.net. 2003-02-12. Retrieved 2007-06-20.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - Hammond, Wayne G.; Scull, Christina (2005). The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion. London: HarperCollins. Note for page 657. ISBN 0-00-720907-X.
- ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1955). The Return of the King. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Appendix F, 'Of Men' Note 1. OCLC 519647821.
- Tolkien, J. R. R. (1987). Christopher Tolkien (ed.). The Lost Road and Other Writings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. The Etymologies, entries for 'BOR-' and 'MIR-'. ISBN 0-395-45519-7.
- The Etymologies, entries for 'PHAR-' and 'SPAR-'.
- Both the Kings of Gondor and their direct descendants bore Quenya names, for example Ondohir's elder son, Artamir.
- Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) . The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. #66. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
- ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1996). Christopher Tolkien (ed.). The Peoples of Middle-earth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 68. ISBN 978-0-395-82760-4.
- ^ Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) . The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. #180. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
External links
- Faramir at The Thain's Book
| Preceded byDenethor II | Stewards of Gondor | Succeeded byElboron, then Barahir and the descendants |
