Friday Five – Favorite Middle-Earth Characters

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Welcome to the Friday Five! Each week we help you get to know our writers with the help of a top 5 list. This weeks category: Favorite Middle-Earth Characters.
 
Middle-Earth, like many fantasy realms, is a place where almost anything can happen. It’s inhabited by orcs, humans, elves, dwarves, and many other fantastic creatures. There are some remnants of magic, and powerful weapons forged with magic. It’s an awesome place for those willing to let themselves be taken in by it’s beauty. As it turns out, most of our writers don’t enjoy trips to Middle-Earth, so we’re going to be brief here.
 

Chris

I have seen all the movies and they’re just not something I enjoy, I’ve tried reading the books several times over the years and I’ve never made it past the first chapter of Fellowship. I did read the Hobbit though for 9th grade summer reading. It wasn’t terrible, I guess, but still hard to get through. So I’m just going to pick characters I can actually remember from the movies.

1. Gandalf – I just like Ian McKellen, he is Magneto after all.
2. Aragorn – Aragorn was kind of cool in the second and third movies, everything sucked about the first.
3. Meriadoc “Merry” Brandybuck – While I could have probably put Merry and Pippin together they have enough differences in the movies that they should be separate and they’re the only two Hobbits that didn’t make me want to throw shit at the screen
4. Peregrin “Pippin” Took – See my reasons for picking Merry they’re pretty much the same.
5. Gimli & Legolas – While it may be silly to include these two together but have Merry and Pippin separate I didn’t really like these two all that much, but their bickering and hijinks during battles were kind of neat, aside from that they could just as easily not been in the movie.

 

 

Eric

As it has been noted before, I tend to clamour over anything with knights and dragons and the like. Fantasy settings are definitely my thing. However, I’ve never read the books. I can’t do it. I made it to the point in the Hobbit where the dwarves are climbing the stairs to meet the eagles. The stairs were described for 2 whole pages. TWO PAGES! I gave up. Never tried again.

1. Treebeard – A walking, talking tree. Well, and ent. But still, he was super bad ass in the movie!
2. Figwit – Figwit is essentially a made up name for a random background character. He literally just stands there in a scene of Fellowship. Some girls fangirled over him, and gave him a name that stands for “Frodo is grea. . .WHO IS THAT?!”, and he was brought back and credited for the third movie. Just, silly!
3. Radagast – One of the few wizards of Middle-Earth. He doesn’t appear to be as strong as Gandalf, or Saruman, but he’s quite a character. He’s also played by Sylvester Mccoy in the movies, so that’s pretty awesome too.
4. Lurtz – Lurtz is the Uruk that killed Boromir in Fellowship. He’s huge and awesome! Most importantly, he helped Sean Bean add to his death reel.
5. Gandalf – What I liked best about the Lord of the Rings movies was their use and interpretation of Magic. Only in one instance, on the extended editions, do we actually see a “traditional” spell cast. A fireball. Otherwise Gandalf uses his powers to alter his surroundings and influence others. Sort of like the Emperor in Star Wars, but with a little more. . . show. It’s a very different interpretation of magic, and I thought it was fantastic.

 

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