The Minds of Heroes by Victoria Kegler

The Lord of the Rings

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Star Wars: Episodes IV, V, & VI

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The Minds of Heroes

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Victoria Kegler

“Emotion: any strong agitation of the feelings actuated by experiencing love, hate, fear, etc., and usually accompanied by certain physiological changes.” [1] There are countless stories upon planet Earth, written and spoken over millennia, where emotion and experience drive the plot and the story. How do their experiences and their emotions change them into the people that do what need to be done? The Lord of the Rings’ Frodo Baggins, and Star Wars’ Luke Skywalker, are prime examples, becoming completely different people than they were originally, driven and changed by their experiences and the emotions of those experiences.

The Lord of the Rings have been books that have always been loved by a large populace; the movies have only encouraged more love of the epic trilogy. But what goes on with the minds of the heroes that we see, read of, and love within the story? How could the events affect them? Emotions are a key part of everything, fiction or not. We are driven by a purpose, and that force of will is always on behalf of something, so there is caring for that; as a lone example. Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Frodo, Sam, Pippin, Merry, name any and you could see it; the varying results of their experiences and how they feel about them.

Tolkien writes the heroes as being complicated beings, as though they were truly real, but speaking from a strictly motion picture view, there you can see the emotions depicted by the actors to the best of their ability; and at this they do a fair representation. With the motion pictures you can see the emotion and the actual struggle play out. You can see the grief in everyone’s eyes as Gandalf falls in Moria after the Balrog, they believing him to be dead. The book has written, as they flee after the fall of Gandalf:

“Frodo heard Sam at his side weeping, and then he found that he himself was weeping…” [2] From this they leave, appearing to be driven by the memory of the quest that Gandalf has set them on in the hopes of saving all of Middle Earth. So there it is: their grief, as well as their understanding of priority, driving their deeds.

All through the entirety, the characters are going through their hardships and their challenges, each changing according to individual circumstance. Boromir, unfortunately, was unable to endure and ignore the allure of the One Ring that Frodo had,

mere inches from his own grasp, but understood what he had done as Frodo fled from him and all the others, enough to accept his death as it came in its turn.

Their emotions change their thinking, their experiences change their views. The beginning of the story has Frodo fighting to save his Shire, yet at the end, he can’t go back. The Shire isn’t for him anymore. In fighting to save it, he lost it. The days of his innocent Shire life are razed by his tormented experience in delivering the Ring to Mordor. He is too changed, too tormented by that journey, to be able to forget it and go on with the life of before.

Frodo may or may not be a well rounded example, however, he is the main character, and thus he goes through the greater part of the trials of the story. The Ring, holding the evils of Sauron, weighs upon him, torturing him. Changing him. His views of the world he knows goes from the joyous ignorance of his Shire days before his quest, to the knowing of the evils in the world beyond after the Ring’s destruction.

Characters go through transformations, a metamorphosis, they evolve past the more innocent views of their previous lives. Experiences change your perception, they change you, whether for better or worse it is up to the person.

The Star Wars Movies echo this. With one character, Luke Skywalker, going through grief, realization, and changing from the boy on Tatooine to the Jedi Knight on the forest moon of Endor. In the beginning with the murder of his aunt and uncle, Luke goes with Obi-Wan (Ben) to deliver help to the rebellion. His grief undoubtedly turns to thoughts of vengeance, to either get his revenge, or to make sure that they didn’t die for nothing. This is also where he realizes that he can train as a Jedi, with Obi-Wan as his teacher. However, the grief is even deepened with the death of Obi-Wan by the hands of Darth Vader upon the first Death Star. The thought of Luke wanting revenge enters the viewers minds, because that is what it seems to be that he wants. But, with the actions he portrays, and the guidance of Obi-Wan’s ghost, he deviates from the expected path.

The next event comes with Yoda entering the picture. Going through the Jedi training Luke learns that the Dark Side is ruled by negative emotions. When leaving there he vows to return. The following event is the one that changed Luke’s perception of everything concerning Darth Vader. His fight and the truth of Darth Vader being his father revealed. Luke then returns to Dagobah, to attempt to finish his training with Yoda, only to learn that the fact of his father is true. This, and that he is not alone in the state of being Vader’s child; he has a sister. Again, Luke experiences a death; Yoda passes on.

With the truth un-veiled and Luke experiencing feelings for his father, and sensing the good, he decides to save the one that supposedly deserves his wrath; embracing the lessons of the Jedi that Yoda taught him.

Within all of these stories, the events, the knowledge, change the people. From these experiences and learning’s, their perceptions are changed. Luke, with his assumption that Darth Vader is the evil of the Empire. Frodo with his belief of the innocence of Middle Earth.

These events, experiences, lessons, and turnings, change the minds of the people. They view things differently, and act differently than their previous selves.

The Luke of Tatooine would have killed Emperor Palpatine, or even Darth Vader, in the hate and revenge that he felt. The Jedi Luke saw the same deed as not part of what he had become, he embraced the ways that he was taught, and thus was a Jedi Knight in his mercy and disobedience of what the Emperor wished. Luke succeeded in saving his father, and in the winning of the Rebellion. In the end the Galaxy was saved.

Frodo of the Shire would never had been able to journey to Mordor, Frodo the Ring-bearer did just that. The person he was would never have succeeded without the experiences that changed him into who he became. In the end Middle Earth was saved.

It is always in the end that we realize that all the character went through was entirely necessary to the end result. They are changed, just as we are.

The Minds of Heroes

Bibliography

[1] www.dictionary.reference.com ( http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/emotion )

[2] The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, by J. R. R. Tolkien, pg. 323 (in my personal copy) [page #