I have just finished re-reading the chapter 'Boromir's Departure, and I am still struck with a similar feeling I get every time I read it, Boromir's death was no where near epic enough for the enormity of the moment.
I kinda realised it after the films had been released, where his death was done absolutely brilliantly In my opinion.

Tolkein could have done it so much better, describing his last moments slaying many Orcs, and the arrows penetrating his body, with his final thoughts of regret after trying to get the ring from Frodo. His last words with Aragorn are moving, but it could be so much better.

What do you think?

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^ i think that not all deaths are epic, not even in battle - something tolkien would have learnt as a soldier serving at the battle of the somme. most times, death just happens without a huge song and dance, so i like the way tolkien wrote boromir's death.

in his essay on the poem beowulf, tolkien wrote that beowulf's failing wasn't that he was a bad man, it was that he was an ordinary man (he said something along the lines of "he was a man, and as for many, that was tragedy enough"). i think the same can be said of boromir - at the end of the day, he made his mistake and died because he was just an ordinary man, and so even if the manner in which he was killed was extraordinary (death by orc is hardly common) it makes sense that his actual moment of death should be perfectly ordinary.

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Hmm, interesting points, I suppose I have become accustomed to 'Epic' movie deaths, Boromirs in the film for example. The saving grace is the last words with Aragorn, really moving.

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Yeah, "The Departure of Boromir" was not very disappointing to me. I would probably have enjoyed it more if there was more about the fighting, but it was moving enough without it. I like that chapter a lot.

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Oh, i dunno about that. After the War of the Ring, I think orcs killed a LOT of people. But still, I don't think Boromir's death was that disappointing.

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^ i know death by orc is common in lotr, i just meant in the grand scheme of things - there aren't too many murderous orcs in real life.

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Oh. Huh. That makes more sense.

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Lol @ both of you.

Do you mean 'After' or 'During', PoI? You said 'After the War of the Ring,' but that doesn't really make all that much sense, compared to the other.

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Oh, I meant by the time the War otR was over, a lot of people were killed.

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Okay, that's what I thought you meant.

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I liked that chapter. At the time I read LotR for the first time, I wasn't into gore and details of battles, and even still, I think some things should be left to the imagination.

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Well, I agree that it wasn't at all "action-packed" but it WAS my favorite chapter in TTT. I loved the whole... calm sadness of it all.

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I find myself struggling to stop comparing the book departure to the film departure... but the film managed to make it more emotional and dramatic than the book ever did- but then the book was written so many decades ago, when the style of writing was so different from the styles we are used to now.

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I think Ethelfleda made a few very good points, with which I completely agree.
But I'd like to add that while tolkien gave him and 'ordinary' death, he didn't exclude epicness (if that's a word) from his passing.
The lament that Legolas and Aragorn sing him reflects his strength and the greatness of both his life and death in a way that narration, as such, could never do.

It's not really all that bad. I mean, if your friend died in battle, you wouldn't exactly be talking to them and making it into an epic ... whatever you want to call it.

It was ok.

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