Transcript
Speaker: Hello, virtues, and welcome to Queer Lodgings, the queer -led podcast about everything Tolkien. I'm Leah, and I am not joined by my usual co -hosts Grace and Alicia today, because this intro was recorded well after the fact. Thank you so much for joining us today. Grab yourself an icy cold beverage and come hunker down in the root cellar because it is over 90 degrees today and I am dying. This is the second part in our epic ongoing series about Eowyn and Faramir, my wife energy. In this conversation we focus in on Faramir and his
Speaker: queer, question mark, identity, and the gender roles that he inhabits. He's perfect. A plus 10 out of 10. 15 out of 10. Yeah, totally. Totally. Something that, again, in starting to read Eowyn as more queer, I began seeing Faramir as more queer himself. And there's a great paper that
Speaker: kind of speaks to this, I think a little bit. It's called Middle Earth's Middleman exploring the contradictory personalities of Faramir and J .R .R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings by Kelsey A. Fuller Shafer. That is the longest paper title. Yeah, it's like I say, well, some of that's because I copied and pasted it very badly. But um so I think you're worth that. But but basically, it's I just realized I did that. But ah it's still pretty fucking long. It's still pretty long, yeah, but sort of the central thesis of her paper is sort of like that far mere sort of inhabits a a liminal state sort of caught between several competing influences and ideas and
Speaker: It really sort of highlights, I think, some of the same sort of competing influences and ideas of Tolkien himself. And as we've kind of talked about a ton of times before, I feel like, you know, being something in the middle, being liminal, being in between, that sounds really fucking queer to me. And so that sort of a state of fluidity sort of. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like in Fuller Schaeffer's paper, Faramir as a character himself highlights the complexities and the contradictions that we have talked about a ton in Tolkien, like both as a person and in his work. And I feel like this sort of kind of gave me a little bit of a window into being like, oh, maybe Faramir is a lot less cishetero than perhaps we think he is.
Speaker: I am absolutely here for the reading of Fairmere by Wife Energy, like super great ally to AON. Yes, amazing, but not for nothing. There are a lot of folks who spend some time in that space of allyship before they have comfort in like recognizing and claiming their own queer identity. And I do also see that as a ah possible journey for Faramir here. So yeah either way, yeah the relationship between Eowyn and Faramir is a queer relationship.
Speaker: I like I will die on that hill. Yes. One thousand percent. So, yeah, I just kind of wanted to to share some of that paper in particular, because I feel like I was kind of like, oh, being being caught in the middle, you say, being kind of of both both places, you say, and interesting, interesting. Sounds kind of gay. I don't know. this Sounds kind of sounds kind of bi. I don't know. We'll see. And like seeking a partner from that's true. And like, wow, like, yeah, interesting, interesting. So, yeah, let's talk a little bit about Faramir and some of the gender roles that we see him situated in in Gondor and in specifically like in his family. I feel like we've sort of talked about this a bit and the long threatened sort of episode about the House of Stewards and the relationships between them.
Speaker: might draw on some of what we're talking about here and might get repeated again elsewhere. But it's cool. Some of this has gotten repeated from the Masculinities of Middle Earth episode. Exactly. So it's all fine. It's all we're always talking about this stuff. We're piecing together one cohesive, very queer reading of the Lord of the Rings. Exactly. Yes. It's like the corkboard with the red string and it's all connected, man. So let's talk about Faramir in the House of the Stewards and some of the gendered roles that he is. I think specifically we're looking at how he's portrayed in contrast to his father and his brother.
Speaker: Yeah, there's something that's actually mentioned in that same paper where Sharma is always sort of positioned as a contrast. He's always sort of, he's always compared with other people. And he always stands out as contrasted with like his father and with his brother, which I also think kind of lends something to this the queerness of him because he's sort of like, oh, he's not like this and he's also not like this. He's like this in other ways. We'll kind of get into it a little bit more, but I feel like having him positioned in contrast to all these people in his life in particular, I feel like that's that's a very queer experience in a lot of ways.
Speaker: kind of experiencing yourself in your relationships where you're kind of like, oh, I'm not like my sister or I'm not like my brother in a lot of ways. And in comparison to Denethor, we have a fantastic line here in our show notes, our 18 pages of show notes that is just lovely and succinct. And I think this is best said in Alicia's voice. but So Denethor was a bit of a dick.
Speaker: um Honestly, what I find fascinating about how Faramir is compared to Denethor is a slight aside for Tolkien and his gross obsession with blood.
Speaker: yeah he He talks about how both in Faramir and Denethor that the blood of Westerness runs nearly true, but it didn't in Boromir. Whatever that means. i According to this, it's non -hegemonic masculinity, I guess.
Speaker: ah but I think that as much as I don't want that to be kind of like the lens by which I view this family's interactions, it kind of is Because I've always read this as Faramir is too similar to Denathor and Denathor wants to be Boramir. So Denathor sees, projects all of his own like, quote unquote, weak failings onto Faramir and
Speaker: villainizes him because he sees in Faramir what he doesn't like in himself. There's a self -loathing, you know, there's a self -hatred, I feel like, in in their dynamic like because I think he he definitely sees like way too much of himself in Faramir and I think Denothor needs to go to some therapy and kind of get through some of his perceptions about himself. Yeah, then like he tries to compensate by wearing his chain mail all the time and whatever right like he's trying to be a big hard man like his son. Right. Right. And I always have this moment when whenever there's talk of like the blood of Numenor.
Speaker: It's the same thing that I i yell at the screen or the page whenever if Star Wars Phantom Menace comes up and they're talking about balance and the force or whatever like the blood of Numenor and it's like, did you guys not foresee that the balance comes to the wrong side. You're already good and you want to you want to upset the apple cart. And and with this is like the blood of Numenor. Like there's two sides of that. There's like the noble Numenor thing. And there's also like the way y 'all kept grasping for power and getting all shitty. And then there was like the big there was a wave.
Speaker: There were some opinions, like you literally broke the world. Like, you know, the cannibalism. Yeah, like, like whatever. elses And everything like maybe there are some things that were no no's and maybe we shouldn't be, you know, trying to to cast ourselves in in this image. and And it goes to honestly, this like perception sort of thing of of what elements are being pulled out. And I think Denethor and Faramir would have very different ideas of what aspects of Numenor they hoped to uphold and as descendants of Numenor.
Speaker: Yeah. And there's something to say about like Faramir's sort of his interest in like in Numenorean history and in his kind of his genealogy and like kind of his understanding. Like it's really, it's not about preserving or defending his heritage as such. It's not really about like continuing his bloodline as such, it's really because he's interested in history. He's interested in lore. He's a student of Gandalf. And so I feel like he's somebody who's interested in perhaps where he came from and sort of the lessons that possibly can be learned from that history. But he doesn't seem to have the same sort of, even if the blood of Westernness runs nearly true in him, that's not that that doesn't seem to be quite as important to him.
Speaker: as say, I don't know, maybe somebody else in in a way that is kind of more supremacist or uncomfortable. I feel like this kind of gets into a pretty stark contrast between Denethor and Faramir, which is sort of their attitudes about politics and about ambition, I guess. So in in letter 347 Tolkien says that a big part of Thanathor's failure and his mistrust of Faramir was his quote being being tainted with mere politics. Like a big part of his motivation for a lot of the actions that he takes is to preserve Gondor. It's like this is what he this is kind of what his undoing is. but preserving The of the
Speaker: the current polity of Gondor with him as the ruling steward and preserving the status quo, basically. And in contrast to that, Bormir, he's never trying to position himself as like the ruling steward. He's always second in command. He's in second in command to Bormir when he wakes up to Aragorn from healing him, he literally places himself in deference to him as like, my king, you called me, you know, basically like he doesn't have ambition, which I feel like Shafer Fuller kind of fits into this a little bit where he he desires neither political nor martial power, instead believing and articulating to Frodo in a thillion that he would welcome the return of the king. to rightfully rule and restore and heal Gondor. And that's not something that Denethor really wants, right? I think it's really charitable of you just but to say that what Denethor wants is good for Gondor. What Denethor wants is to consolidate power.
Speaker: That's what I mean. it's like he wants to He wants to preserve Gondor with him ruling it. yeah right That phrase current polity is so key. I want what's good for Gondor. That's me. I'm good for Gondor. I'm the only thing that could be good for Gondor because I am what's good for Gondor. We just established that. that yeah And we have very direct evidence that Denethor doesn't really always know what's good for Gondor. Again, in the same same paper, she contrasts the ah war strategies of Denethor and Faramir in really interesting ways that I think highlight something very important about their characters.
Speaker: She says, quote, despite his rank and bloodline, Faramir is in the trenches. Like he is alongside his men seeking survival over glory. He chooses careful martial strategy over theatrical displays of bravery, which, as we know, Denethor orders him to resort to. He orders him to line up in advance across an open field and engage directly in battle, at which point, quote, a third of Faramir's troops are killed before the retreat, and he comes close to death himself.
Speaker: So basically, like, not only is Denethor a huge dick, but he's a boomer dick whose war strategies are stuck in the past and clearly do a very deep harm to Gondor. And it's sort of like, in kind of like a sort of a side note, basically, there's another great paper by Amber Deny called Ophremode and Aristocratic Chivalry in J .R .R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. which gets a little bit more into this contrast between Denethor and Faramir in terms of pride or over mode, which is sort of kind of a complex sort of topic about it, but it's basically about like a pride that leads to a downfall. I think it might be easy to understand it in like Anglo -Saxon sort of literature, sort of the concept of hubris is sort of akin to it.
Speaker: So Dinai argues that while Denethor's assessment of Faramir's character are really like his pride or his over mode, it's actually Denethor's own pride that leads to Gondor basically falling apart and leads to and and sending Faramir off to die. It's a little bit galling that Denethor sort of accuses Faramir of being the prideful one in deciding to let Frodo and Sam and the Ring go, and kind of being like, who are you to decide what's the best for Gondor, when really it's Ganathor's pride. And that kind of leads to Gondor to almost complete disaster, basically.
Speaker: There's a wee tad bit of projection going on. Totally. there yeah It's quite galling because it's sort of like, this is sort of a tangent, but in this confrontation that Denethor and Faramir have when Pippin is present and and Gandalf, and they're talking about taking retaking Osgiliath, Denethor is kind of sneers at Faramir about his decision to let Ferto and Sam go. He says, quote, ever your desire is to appear lordly and generous as a king of old, gracious and gentle.
Speaker: So from a linguistic point of view, Dunai actually points out that this is a really interesting double meaning in a lot of these choices that Denethor chooses to describe and sort of sneer and insult Faramir with. She says, quote, from Denethor's point of view, Lord Faramir is attempting to resemble his betters, the true kings of Gondor of old. While she choosing the words so gentle, which has a particular meaning of you know like you know softness or like tenderness, it also has a more archaic meaning, that is, quote, ah having the character appropriate to one of gert good birth.
Speaker: noble, generous, courtious. The older sense sort of fits really well here because Genthar also chooses the words like genteel and gracious, which also has a similar sort of archaic meaning that could be used to refer to people of high or royal social status. like basically these words that he chooses of lordly, generous, he's sort of accusing Faramir of being not only like weak and selfish, but bourgeois and like, which I find very like, that seems to be like a lot of projecting there, my buddy, like
Speaker: It's kind of calling for the really the the ruler of the House of Stewards to be calling your son a you know bougie because he wants to appear that he's of high rank and noble and gentle. But basically, we I feel like in choosing these words of genteel, gentleness, gracious. He's not only commenting on, you know, he's not only calling him, you know, bougie, but he's also commenting on his masculinity. And I feel like there's that double meeting of, like, I feel like that's pretty rich coming from the steward of Gondor, but it also presents us with a sharp contrast of how he views Barmir's masculinity and Barmir's masculinity.
Speaker: So one thing that I found very interesting about the idea of genteel and gentle and almost sort of Denethor's lens ah of that being a pejorative and all. I started looking into at what point in history we we start to get more of that sort of ironic usage or criticism, what have you. And that goes back into the 1800s. But what struck me in particular was a work by George Santayana, who lived from 1863 to 1952. This particular work was in 1911, and he coined the term the genteel tradition.
Speaker: And in that, he's... ah referencing an attempt by a group of of refined New England intellectuals to control literary and moral standards and maintain social hierarchy and encourage conservative political reforms. Now, I've always been familiar with George Santayana from the quote of those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat it. And that's something that's always echoed for me in the distinctions between how
Speaker: Denethor considers Gondor and the stewards and their role and harkening back to Numenor versus how Faramir does or how Gandalf talks about the ah history. Whereas Denethor, to my thinking at least, is is never as actually as interested in that history. And so the idea of criticizing Faramir for being more genteel is something like that, again, seems like a bit of projection that Denethor is the one who is part of this, like, Stuart class, the bourgeoisie. He's literally the ruling class. Yeah. Like, he is the one who is maintaining social hierarchies.
Speaker: and yeah wanting to to have conservative political reform and it's not you know not necessarily recognize Aragorn and wants to like maintain his own power. and so i just thought It was a tangent that i that I went on, but I was absolutely fascinated to see this writing and understanding of the idea of the genteel tradition and that the sort of like to the edge that that has. Being something that being published in 1911, certainly within Tolkien's potential real realm of awareness, especially since Santa Ana studied at both Harvard and Cambridge and spent quite a bit of his time in England and Europe.
Speaker: Well, it's like Tolkien chose words very, very carefully and I wanted to go down this little tangent from deny because I thought that but finding out that the words generous and had these obsolete meanings that are specifically related to noble and aristocratic heritage and literally having like this kind of classist sort of element to it. And I was just really amused and taken by the idea that Thanathor in trying to insult Faramir of not only being selfish in letting Frodo and Sam go and letting letting the ring go, that he's not only sort of calling him selfish and and weak and unmanly, but he's also calling him bougie. And I'm kind of like, where did you get off? like
Speaker: like you are literally the ruler of Gondor like get out of here come on and so and Denethor selfishly wants to remain the ruler of Gondor like yeah and selfishly the projection so there's also I feel like this kind of ah another layer of like this I guess you could call it like classism that kind of undergirds some of this perception of Faramir's masculinity that Denethor has. And again, I sort of feel like he needs to go to some therapy and kind of unpack some of this, because this seems like some self -loathing sort of projecting, because like again, my guy, you are you are literally the ruling class. like Nobody gets more bougie than you. so
Speaker: Yeah, I like that in Appendix A, Volkein says that he describes Faramir as able to read the hearts of men as shrewdly as his father, but what he read moved him sooner to pity than to scorn. Yes. He's really kind of at the heart of what Denethor is doing here. He's giving Faramir the least charitable read he possibly can. Absolutely. Also, Denethor gives me really big incel energy because he's like this. then Yeah, we might have to unpack that a little bit more in a later in a later episode, but this is a note to myself. Yeah, totally. But especially when you contrast him with Boromir.
Speaker: who, again, we can impact this a little bit more, but in in so terms nomenclature, Boromir could be a little bit of a Chad, perhaps.
Speaker: Do we have anything else we want to talk about between Denethor and Faramir before we talk about Faramir and Boromir? Not that's not going to come up later. Yeah, I was going to say, I feel like we need to kind of bring it, let's, let's bring in Boromir into the conversation because I feel like the dynamic around contrasting Boromir's masculinity with Boromir's masculinity and contrasting those with Dennathor's perceptions of the pair of them are a good thing to look at together. Yeah.
Speaker: If you were curious as to what I named this section of the notes, it was, and Boromir was a himbo.
Speaker: but Yeah. Yeah. I really love the read that Boromir was probably possibly Ace because yeah I feel like Tolkien kind of keeps creating these sorts of characters. We've seen the character of Boromir before. It specifically, he actually says in the appendix, he was a man after the sword of King Eonor of old, taking no wife and delighting chiefly in arms, fearless and strong, but caring little for all the things that Faramir cares about, really. So it's sort of like these sorts of folks exist in Middle -earth, obviously, and Tolkien keeps kind of naming them as such. He keeps pointing them out.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like Boromir was into a lot of things and very little of like the business of being the eldest son of a ruling family, which was you know getting married and popping out some heirs, right? It is fascinating to me that Denethor is so stuck up Boromir's ass when that is literally Boromir's only job as Denethor's heir is to continue the family line. Boromir has done nothing to do that as far as we know. And yet Denethor absolutely is infatuated with Boromir.
Speaker: Yeah, <unk> it's really something like battle glory adventure and and sort of this idealizing of one's son and like dismissal of another. Yeah, it really reminds me of when I was making my mind up about what what I wanted to do go to college for. And my grandmother was like, you need to go to college to be a doctor. Like she wanted to like live vicariously through me and my achievements. And I was like, no, I want to go into art. Yeah. Maybe this is why I like Faramir so much. I'm learning more important about myself right now. ah I mean,
Speaker: Barmere is absolutely, absolutely went to a liberal arts college in Barmere. Yeah. well like Absolutely. Sorry, not a finance bro, even just business major. Yeah. He's a business major who's there on scholarship. He's there on a football scholarship. Yes. Yes. And doesn't actually attend class, but does very well at the games and yeah. Yeah. I going back into a little bit about some of that conversation about about pride and about over for mode. This isn't really kind of the place to get into it and read Amber do nice paper because it gets it's a really fascinating look about this particular form of pride in particular but like
Speaker: In thinking about pride, Boromir's pride deceives him. It makes him think that he can take the power of the ring for himself. right like He thinks that he has the ability to use the ring to not only protect Gondor but bring the fight to the enemy. And Faramir, of course, is the complete inverse of that. He understands that, oh, the ring is completely beyond. like Never mind my the my using it. It's beyond anybody's uses of it. And I can't bring this back to my father. I can't bring this back to Gondor. Nobody can use this in order to save Gondor. you know And I sort of feel like, again, Denethor
Speaker: pride looks a little bit more like Boromir's pride in that Dennathor thought that he could use the Palantir and make good decisions based on what what he saw in there without kind of being humble enough to kind of understand that maybe Sauron was manipulating him and making him see what what he thought. I had the the thought today while thinking about this episode that like That was where we would be red -pilled into some real Q shit today if he was if he was online today. I was kind of like, oh, you know, he would be one of those guys who would go down the rabbit hole and he might end up you and some doing some really gnarly stuff based on some misinformation and disinformation and conspiracy theory.
Speaker: I feel like getting back into this kind of discussion about pride and sort of where Faramir's humility stands and stark contrast to both his father and his brother in wielding power and wanting power. I think a really important thing to note here is that Boromir sees the humanity in other people. And I don't think Boromir or Denethor do. I think Denethor sees people as tools to use to maintain his power. And I think Boromir sees people as obstacles or helpers towards his own glory.
Speaker: m And Boromir sees people as people, which is why he's a good commander. It's why he is later a good prince in Aethelion, and it's why he's able to help Eowyn in her moment of utter despair. I think, though, Denethor and Boromir would both be inclined to say that they, considering the big picture and the the state of Gondor and and all that. Faramir is actually the one who who does take that that larger picture view. We have a note here from letters letter He, meaning Faramir, was daunted by his father, not only in the ordinary way of a family with a stern proud father of a great force of character, but as a Numenorean before the chief of the one surviving Numenorean state.
Speaker: And I think one of the things that that's always key for me in considering Faramir's perspective is that he is willing to step aside from his own glory or perceptions thereof to try to do what is the best for the most people, whether he's yeah correct in that or not. He puts aside his ego. yeah That is his intention to to try to put the good of others before the good of himself and that's why he lets Frodo and Sam and the Ring go. That's why he doesn't have the same instinct toward the Ring that his brother does of like take it and use it as a weapon. Right out to Peter Jackson.
Speaker: I do feel like Boromir at the very end, as as he is dying, I sort of feel like an argument could be made that he kind of has a bit of a turn and he kind of understands like what he's been, what he's done and what how he's been seeing other people. And that he's kind of like, oh yeah, no now now that I'm dying, I kind of see. And and again, again that having that confrontation and that moment with the ring, I think is sort of like what sort of wakes him up to that.
Speaker: But again, since since he dies, we don't really get to see the sort of the consequences of that revelation, which is a real shame. But I do think that it kind of it does give Boromir a pretty crucial difference in in in his pride as opposed to Denethor's, because obviously, Dethor's pride devolves into, again, and into suicide. And he does not follow the same path that either one of his sons does. And it's a ah real shame. And Alicia got really excited. Yeah, that gasp was me having an idea. it's So you were talking about how Boromir came upon that realization at his death,
Speaker: I would argue he came upon that realization before his death, and that realization caused his death. He sacrificed himself for the obvious, and that's why he had a good death. Yes. Yes. Agreed. Agreed. Whereas Denethor learned nothing, and his death was a bad death. His death was meaningless. and Very unnecessary. Which I think the movie did such a good job of just showing how meaningless Denethor's death was, even though it made no actual temporal sense that he could possibly have run that far while flaming. But him just jumping off flaming and it zooms out and there's this huge battle. I mean, the absurdity of it certainly comes through, which I think I really appreciate. Yeah.
Speaker: So, why don't we get a little bit more into Faramir's sort of masculinity and... The thing we've been dancing around for the last 20 minutes? Yeah, let's get into it since... Well, because we were we were talking about like his relationships and I feel like that that kind of like that kind of ah highlights a lot of his thing, but let's kind of get into it a little bit more. So the thing that we're kind of dancing around are the perceptions of masculinity and the ways in which masculinity is embodied here, right? So Dennathor Boromir having a very different conceptualization of masculinity as Faramir does. And I want to delve into that and why that's queer, like why Faramir and the masculinity that he embodies is
Speaker: more analogous to a queer identity than maybe say and his brother and his father present as the norm. Yeah, Alicia, can you and and kind of get into like talking about like soft mask and again kind of like positive masculinity again that we've kind of talked about this a little bit in in our toxic masculinities episode but why don't you kind of lead us through some of some of this Yeah, sure. um So soft masculinity is, it's honestly a marketing term. It's a type of masculinity that is grounded in the rejection of sexism and traditional gender roles.
Speaker: It blurs the lines between femininity and masculinity by embodying traditionally feminine traits such as empathy and vulnerability while remaining rooted in the male part of the gender spectrum. That is from a study called the Positive Masculinity Framework. Um, it is used in marketing all of the time. It started coming about in the 1980s and has in, uh, you know, the new man kind of phenomenon and is kind of morphed into soft masculinity. And I think Farmir is a fantastic example of this, especially when you look at him in comparison to all of the other men in his family.
Speaker: and I feel like we would call soft masculinity more like positive masculinity today. Do you think that that's right? I think in some ways, yeah, there are definitely parts of this that would roll under positive masculinity. It's really specifically the kind of rejection of the traditional gender roles in soft masculinity that like makes it read a little more queer to me than just like straight up positive masculinity. But I do think it is a type of positive masculinity.
Speaker: There's a really great quote, again, from Schaeffer Fuller, that's, quote, while he, Farmer, seems to inspire the idea of gendered conformity in Aowin, he does not wholly embody it himself, again, falling somewhere between the middle of two spectrums, somewhere between embodying the behaviors and values of the masculine and feminine, and caught halfway in between. I feel like that sounds very, very queer and also kind of embraces and kind of gets around the soft masculinity and the positive masculinity and deepens it a little bit more in terms of Farmere obviously has these qualities and also I feel like he kind of queers them in some pretty big ways.
Speaker: Like in letters, in letter 457, Tolkien says that, quote, he's been accustomed to giving way and not giving his own opinions. And while retaining power of command, it's sort of like he's modest and fair -minded and scrupulously just and very merciful. Again, it's sort of like the straddling that sort of like both what we might traditionally consider to be masculine, which is, you know, strong and stern and in command, but is also very but merciful when we might consider to be a little bit more feminine, you know? Yeah, when when I gave my my version of this paper, I had a bit of a visual bit in it where gender is the spectrum, right? Like there's there's masculine on one end, there's feminine on the other end.
Speaker: And I would argue Faramir and Aowin are kind of in the middle. I would think that Aowin is probably more like maybe true middle, maybe be very slightly masculine leaning. And I would think that Faramir might be like a couple of degrees farther masculine than Aowin. That just like my gut feeling is where, that's where I would put them. But yeah, like I don't think you don't get a full picture by only sticking Faramir in just a masculine box. yeah Well, so there's also like what the perception of other Gondorians and other people in the the story have of Faramir and
Speaker: There's a quote where Beragon is going around and and explaining to Pippin, giving us the exposition of Boromir versus Faramir, and some of the things that he points out are laudatory of Faramir, but in this like this aspect of like, oh, well, people wouldn't assume because he's sort of that way. sort of statement. And so like what he actually says is he he's bold and more bold than many deemed for in these days men are slow to believe that a captain can be wise and learned in the scrolls of lore and song as he is and yet a man of hardyhood and swift judgment in the field but such as Faramir.
Speaker: less reckless and eager than Boromir, but not less resolute." And like what strikes me is that like this guy's going around and talking to Pippin, and he's like, no, I have to do like the apology for how we perceive Boromir's masculinity. like He is actually a really cool masked guy. He's great. He's great at what he does. The song thing, you know it it's fine.
Speaker: But I think that actually speaks to a lot of like primary worlds, biases, and everything like that that, that Tolkien has baked into the cake here. But yeah really, there's there's a lot to that I see in in Fire Mirror that It's like, well, the soft masculinity, the some of the queer coded ways that he's spoken about. And at a certain point, like maybe we don't get to know how far Amir identifies, but certainly his men and the people around him are making note of the perceptions. Yeah, I want to point out Baragond is the man who
Speaker: murdered a bunch of people to save Faramir and was exiled from Minas Tirith because of it. He became Faramir's captain of the guard as punishment slash tribute, yeah. Reframing this as a crush now. Frankster Aragorn was like, oh, you can no longer stay here, but you get to go with Faramir, isn't that great? Yeah. But yeah, reframing that as a huge crush. And I'm kind of like, I feel like a lot of people are like a baragond. I think that a lot of them have a crush on Faramir. I mean guilty. Yeah, super guilty.
Speaker: Yeah, I feel like, again, kind of getting into this sort of positioning of Faramir in the middle, again, Faramir is like Fuller Schaeffer says, quote, Faramir is perhaps as Tolkien himself, you know, strove to be the model student and teacher, leader and follower. He does not try to be more like Boromir or more like Aragorn. He is content to be a man in the middle. He's content to be like himself and kind of both and. And I'm kind of like, oh, it sounds like something a good bisexual would say. Why not both? um
Speaker: But yeah, I think that what Baragon says about Boromir is so important because he does highlight like how much the people have gone to her really love him and really respect him, not just for his battlefield prowess, but specifically for these other gentler, more feminine sort of qualities. Yeah, I do just want to reference Stephen Brett Carter's paper, Faramir and the heroic ideal of the 20th century or how Aragorn died at the Somme, which is doing a lot of overlapping with this Faramir like in between paper because they are looking at Faramir as an embodiment of a World War II commander.
Speaker: So if you're interested in that, hit that paper up too. Yeah. There's actually, there's a lot more scholarship on Eowyn than there is specifically focusing on Faramir, I have found. And so I feel like these two two papers and Amber Junai's offers some a much needed perspective on him. And I hope that more people start looking more into Faramir specifically and his queerness because There's definitely some gaps out there. Well, hopefully we're, we're plugging some of them. Yeah, hopefully. But yeah, I feel like this, this is a really good paper because it's sort of highlighting how during world war one, the
Speaker: classic strategies and the ideals of war completely fell apart. It completely broke down. And like it's grounded in something far darker and far more, as Carter puts it, grounded more in humility and peace than in glory and combat. And I feel like this, again, Denethor ordering him to charge like the the charge of the Light Brigade, Freon gets his company decimated and almost kills him. It's again sort of reflective of that old ideal of war and glory and something that is completely contrary to Faramir's very lived experience of
Speaker: what strategies will work now in the world and what strategies need to be taken in order to in order to survive in this ongoing conflict you know with Mordor. i kind of wanted ah This is all and another a little bit of a tangent in in terms of far more experience of war and there is a really great tangent that Shafer Fuller goes on into that gets into about how Faramir's experience of war is very different from other characters because she says, quote, his battlefield is a liminal space between reality as read through the lens of Orientalism in human conflicts and fantasy as read through Tolkien's own terminology of eukatastrophe.
Speaker: And basically she sort of contrasts how he sort of embodies sort of like this weird sort of perception of reality in Tolkien's own work in that Faramir's enemies are sometimes monsters, like actual monsters, but at other times so very human. Like we get to see sort of Faramir fight against the named humans, like the Haradrim. And he must work, or, as Shafer -Fuller puts it, suffer his way from real world warfare to reach the ultimate fantasy resolution.
Speaker: She points out that Faramir's, quote, discomfort with his own part in the conflict suggests an awareness of his positionality that transcends fiction and touches our reality as one caught between the roles of perpetrator of dehumanization and as victim of aggression. And I feel like this kind of highlights the role of Gondor sort of in the secondary world and also sort of our perceptions here from the primary world as like Gondor's role in colonialism and the New Menorians role in colonialism of Middle Earth.
Speaker: Shafer Poore points out that ah we are put into this comparison of the men ah of Gondor are technically perpetrators of dehumanization against the men of Harad, and yet Tolkien places Faramir in a sympathetic defensive position, where we empathize with the victimhood of Gondor, the perpetrator. Right, and so I like as Faramir fights for the safety of Gondor and the survival of his people It's like he does that only because he must and it sort of places us in a position of sympathy when you know we can kind and of zoom out a little bit more and sort of see like ah hold on when Numenoreans came over the seas and established the kingdoms of Gondor and honor and who were they displacing? Who were they perpetrating this violence against? you know How long have the Haradrim been there? How long have the Easterlings been there? So this is a sort of a tangent that's kind of outside of the scope of this episode, but I feel like we shouldn't kind of gloss over this particular contradiction of being in the position of resenting war and violence while also being sort of forced to perpetrate violence and war himself because I feel like this so again sort of highlights the inherent contradictions that Tolkien has in his works and in himself and so sort of gives us a little bit more trouble sort of to work with in terms of
Speaker: Harfar Amir feels about what he needs to do in order to survive and also what kind of but kind of monstrous things is he perpetrating himself, even as he is trying to defend himself and the people that he loves from monstrous things. I want to do an episode about colonialism so fucking bad now. i know there's There's a lot to kind of get into. ah There's a lot to get into, particularly I think with like with Gondor, even if if you were just going to like stick within like the ah third age.
Speaker: And like, it's like the second age is like, you know, where all the Numenorean conquest stuff happens. But it's sort of like, if you just focus in on the third age and what's going on in the battles of the War of the Rings with all these different peoples, it's sort of like... o Maybe we need a three -part series, first, second, and third age, because we touched on this. The first age is all colonialism, too. Noldorian colonialism. Yeah. Noldor in colonization, good lord. um but yeah I mean, it's systemic in both the primary world and also the the fictional world that Tolkien creates. And he does not imagine a history that is divorced from this systemic oppression. Right. We can call him on that.
Speaker: Yeah, and what Tolkien sort of does, as Schaeffer Fuller points out, he recasts Orientalist tropes that were common in older literary examples. Basically, Faramir participates in this whitewashed fantasy war against men with darker skin that ally themselves with monsters and like literal embodiments of evil. But, importantly, he takes no pride or joy from this involvement Schaefer Buller kind of goes on to say that Farmere himself sort of transcends this particular sort of paradigm. I don't really agree with that so much, but if you want to read a little bit more about it in in her paper, she kind of gets into it a little bit more. But I don't really agree that he necessarily transcends this Orientalist sort sort of framework.
Speaker: like I don't know if Tolkien ever did. Yeah, exactly. And so I'm kind of like, I don't think Tolkien, I don't think Tolkien did either. And so, but I feel like having this tension inside Baramir of being a victim and a perpetrator at the same time, is something really messy and difficult to deal with that I think a lot of queer people can probably relate to, especially queer white people ye and white women to a degree. So I felt like we're going down this little, thank you for letting me go down this little tangent, but I thought that it was kind of another little like a good highlight because so much emphasis is placed on Faramir's reflections about war and about
Speaker: who he is fighting and about seeing his enemies as people. And yet the contradiction in that is that his enemies are never given voice or character and are used as props for us to understand Farabir's character. Yeah. That is a flaw of the narrative. Yeah. and Do we want to get into some more of Faramir as JR Tolkien's author insert a bit? Oh, we could because what, what a lovely, soft, sympathetic man with a lovely supportive relationship has Tolkien written as his quote unquote author insert.
Speaker: ahw Yeah. And yet, when one reads Tolkien's letters, he has some very problematic views on gender roles and relationships and things like that, and yet he sets Faramir up with a very non -gender role -conforming relationship. Yeah, I feel like he's a little bit of a Gary Stu and maybe like a touch of like aspirational, maybe. but And Tolkien claims that as far as any character is like me, it's far a mirror.
Speaker: ah Except that I lack what all of my characters possess, let the psychoanalyst note courage. That's letter 337. Like this is his claim and he's also saying, well, you know, i that there are pieces that I don't reach of what I would like my characters to, which the narrative of The Lord of the Rings is absolutely more edited than Tolkien's letters.
Speaker: Despite those being compiled in a way in which, well, gosh, we know we've not seen all of them. So yeah, as evidenced by the recent release of yes. And we still have more that is not published. Correct, how fascinating. But in that like he gets to revise the character of Faramir to come closer to the ideals that he might himself wish to hold or might wish to embody. And so I think we get a little bit of the reason why Faramir gets to be his best self is because the author is working toward that. Whether the art author is aware that he is also creating a very queer character they're in a very queer relationship, you know, sometimes you just stumble on to truths. Sometimes we speak things because we can't say the truths. I don't know. Fascinating.
Speaker: Fascinating as to one's level of self -awareness and happiness. I don't know do we need to like content warning that we're not saying dirt was queer. wait yeah Oh, granted, if you've made it this far into the episode, surely you're on board with the only context in which I would ever even actually attempt to infer that would be just to give some internet trolls like apoplexy. But I think what it does point to actually is that the
Speaker: inherent humanity in all of us and in queer relationships is absolutely ah something that Tolkien can recognize, the humanity in relationships. And he happens to have written characters that can be and interpreted through a very queer framework in a very beautiful relationship. Yeah, yeah. I feel like Shafer Pooler puts it really well in saying, an author does not truly belong in their story world, but they do tend to write and embellish for dramatic effect what they themselves know and understand best.
Speaker: Bowermere articulates for the reader the breadth of Tolkien's influences that were incorporated into Middle -earth, as well as ways in which those influences conflicted with Tolkien's own morality, and thus needed to be challenged, discussed, and modified. And so I feel like in Faramir, Tolkien's bringing a lot of so um some of that contradictory nature, in the middleness nature, sort of not quite sure, and I guess not saying like not quite sure of like himself, but like, because I feel like Faramir is very certain in his own selfhood.
Speaker: and particularly in contrast to his brother and to his father. Like, I feel like he seems like he's very certain of his selfhood and who he is, but he also has this sort of, like, as Schaeffer Paul puts it, this initial sense of unbelonging, in that he he's always standing in contrast to the world, his own world outside him. Well, if that isn't a queer ideology, right? Yeah, right. It's like, Jesus. Yeah. Like that feeling of otherness, I feel like in contrast to to maybe to Eowyn, he always sort of seems like he's very
Speaker: centered and grounded in his own identity in a way that Eowyn just isn't allowed to. I feel like because she is raised as a woman. And I feel like that that sense of otherness and unbelonging for Faramir is more rooted in a, I don't quite fit into this world because of who I am, is sort of in contrast to Eowyn's sort of feeling of like, I don't quite fit into this world I don't quite know what I am and the world is trying to push me into being something that I know that I am not.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's a good read. And I i wonder like how much of it is because who Faramir is, is closer to what he was assigned at birth. And therefore he's he's a little off, you know, he likes singing and stuff. He's a little weird. A bit bookish. Yeah.
Speaker: Yep, yep. Bit nerdy. But yeah, I feel like that's a really great, like, a really great read of being like, he's a bit closer to what he was assigned at birth and an Aowin. Aowin isn't really. And I feel like that gives us a little bit of a contrast in sort of how they see themselves and kind of how their, I guess, gender journey or identity might unfold. whereas I feel like Faramir, we don't really get to see his Dendro identity, sort of, or Dendro journey unfold on the page anyway. We are
Speaker: tiptoeing straight into how far mirror and ao winner are kindred spirits. yeah the are Now me I do not like to label I just keep my marriage stable and sure as the fish loves women. I love my wife and my wife loves women. It is once again Alicia from the future. Thank you for joining us today ah while we have been discussing Faramir. I am so excited for you guys to hear what we have to say about Eowyn and Faramir's relationship next time in part three of what was supposed to be a one part episode. We cannot shut up.
Speaker: Thank you all for listening today. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, previously known as Google Podcasts, Spotify, or any place that you choose to stream podcasts. You can also stream us directly on Zincaster. That's Zincaster .com slash queer lodgings to Tolkien podcasts with hyphens in between all of those words. Please leave us a rating and like, share, and subscribe. It really does help us out a whole lot. You can find us on social on Facebook, which is queer lodgings, Twitter, which is queer underscore lodgings, Blue Sky, which I always forget about. We're there too at queer lodgings. And you can also send us an email to queer lodgingspodcast at gmail dot .com. We really look forward to receiving your emails.
Speaker: and they do very much help us ah put episodes together and it's so nice to just know that people are listening. Thank you, bye.
Speaker: Sorry, it looked like Grace was going to say something. Oh, I totally was. And then I lost track of it. and Sorry everything, Tim.
