madcap maiden:
this thread is a pleasure to read. i adore these characters as well. and pipkin, i love your stories! love them! they are very moving, and you obviously know your material well.
and i very much play the pippin to my best friend's merry. she worries herself to death over me!
lostsailors:
blast, blast, double blast! here i am, being so good getting myself to bed when i just had to drop by the forum- i knew the impulse to reply to any new messages would be strong, but i thought i could fight it! but unlike our hobbits who grow and learn to be strongwilled, i have had no such inner rebuilding. i give in and reply.
i've always considered pippin to be about 17. he's just about to come of age in hobbit years, and 17 is just about to come of age in human years. it seems like a right age for pippin, not terribly young, and certainly not old enough. it's an age when you think you're invincible and you have your whole life ahead of you. pippin handles all his situations in such a manner- leaps first, asks questions later. even when he believes he is dying, it's almost as if he is surprised by the advent of death. 'so it ends as i guessed it would,' he thinks. his life is ending and he has nothing more to put to it than a "hmm. so it is."
i love pippin.
merry i imagined a bit older, about 22 i guess. he's had time to mature, he's wiser than his younger cousin, but not by much- he just carries himself better. he is still very young.
i love merry.
i also am very intrigued by the concept of soldier. like everyone else here, i can't stand war but there is something interesting about the boys who are put out on the field to fight.
in pippin's case, and merry's too, it's their innocence pushed out into darkness which is so engaging to imagine.
i'm sure it's the case with many young people in their first battle. they have no idea what they've got themselves into, or how they are supposed to act or move- they just do what they must to live.
which is what both the hobbits do, they act accordingly to their situation. when fate calls, merry stands up to the witchking, when fates calls to pippin his slay a troll. they live on the tips of their toes.
do you think they lose their innocence because of it? being in war? does darkness and battle rid one of innocence?
i have mixed feelings about the scouring of the shire being out. first off, i could care less if saruman isn't there. it was such a embarrassing moment when he showed up for the last time. you couldn't help but think, "dude. saruman. you lost. get a life." it's a bit anticlimactic. on the other hand, i would really like to see the shire affected by the evil which has spread throughout middle earth. it couldn't have been left untouched, surely. i'd like to see the hobbits nurse it back to health.
really though, i wonder to myself, if it isn't there, what happens at the end?
with this thought i flee. i have to go to bed, nasty evil posters! being so interesting, the whole lot of you!
cutie c16:
yeah by the time pippin reaches gondor he is really changed, he is no longer the care free hobbit of the shire and has grown in many ways (if not only in stature!). i always thought when i read the parts where pippin is on his own in gondor that he had now become a man. he speaks like a wise man would and not as a hobbit would. he has undoubtedly changed and i think merry has too when he is at war.
cuddlehobbit:
no, well, sorry that i'm just jumping in here. i disagree. i don't think pippin has changed so much when he comes to minas tirith. it's in minas tirith where he gets changed. he did not think much about his decision when he offered his service to denethor. afterwards he regretted it, and gandalf told him that he should have thought about it before, but that it might have been the better that he listened to his heart, not his brain when he became denethor's servant. i think his work there, and what he learned from beregond's son and his love of faramir which changed him, and of course, the siege of the town. so i would not say he came to minas tirith changed, but minas tirith changed him.
pipkin sweetgrass:
i think pippin began to change as early as moria. one cannot live through such things and not be unchanged. i think boromir's death probably left a scar as well. the palantír, i think, did *something* to him, but it's hard to describe exactly what. maybe it brought home to him the exact nature of the peril of all of middle earth.
but in gondor is where he does the most growing. war changes a person, come to think of it, any kind of violence does... but consider this: in the last debate chapter we learn that the leaders and soldiers know full well they will *most likely not* make it out alive... yet they go on.
aragorn says no one shall go unwilling, and should go with all full knowledge of the risks.
so why would pippin go?
think about it. he's seen enough to know what is exactly at stake. he goes for the shire. he goes for frodo and sam and merry. he goes for faramir, and yes, for boromir. he certainly goes for aragorn and gandalf.
and so we see that he marches to what he feels is certain death for one thing: love. that's the only thing i would do it for. it's the only answer i can come up with. the love of a soldier for his brother-in-arms is a touching thing, and, as i said, transcends war and defeats war itself. in this case, the question is death, and the answer is love. the ugliness of war is trumped by the beauty of love. and love is a very powerful thing.
so our prince is motivated by bravery, yes, but i think more than anything else, he is goaded into action by love.
it's the only thing worth fighting for. for even freedom is useless if we cannot love. it's what makes life itself worth living.
opinions?
palantir:
i very much agree with you. going into the whole mess, pippin had too little understanding of it to want to be the big brave hero. he relied on aragorn and gandalf to make things right and be the lifesavers of the group, but he was fighting for merry. pippin thought of merry at the darkest times of his life, and it was his love for him and the brotherhood between them that kept him going, just like sam and frodo. in gondor, he realizes that not only is he there for merry, but he has a bigger role in all of this than he thought. he's got faramir's life to worry about, and he takes charge and does what needs to be done, for his love of him and though he seemed to recover quickly from his palantír incident, i think it really opened up the world from him. it made him realize that even though he didn't think he was much more than baggage on this journey, he had a part to play and was subject to temptation. i don't think he truly understood frodo's struggle with the power of the ring, and after his struggle with sauron it made it clearer how much peril all of them were in, especially frodo.
herald7:
i think pippin does learn about bravery and that there's more to the world than the shire. but i don't think his personality changes too much. at the end of rotk when sam comments on tall he is and how there are obviously more stories to tell, pippin says-
::gets book in order to be accurate::
"there are indeed. and we'll begin telling them, as soon as this feast is ended... for the present merry and i are busy. we are knights of the city and of the mark, as i hope you observe."
very reminiscent of the mischievous, cheeky fellow from the beginning of the book who took delight in teasing sam.
lostsailors:
pippin's persona does stay the same, he's still cheeky, his youthful essence is there but he has grown still, just like you said herald, after all he experiences, he comes out in the end with a greater understanding of the world, knowing now it extends beyond his small existence.
i think cuddle has a point though, pippin experiences the most character growth in gondor, but this is because everything there is so much more concentrated, war, violence, accordingly then, his rate of learning also accelerates and becomes more intense during his stay in the city. he needs to grow or he will be ruined. not all his character growth occurs in gondor however, i think experiences along the way began the process of changing his perceptions. certainly the "death" of gandalf in moria and the palantír episode. one does not come away from such things unscathed. with the palantír he looked evil right in the face, pure evil. this naive pampered kid, this innocent, face to face with the darkest force on earth.
how could it not change him?
i think it is as palantir said, up until that moment of confrontation, pippin didn't understood the grave peril he and his companions were in, he didn't fully realize the quest of the ring and all it entailed. the palantír opens his eyes to these facts.
uofjc1983:
oh this is deep stuff! and i love it!!
these are some great posts; i really can't add much more to all this truth, but what i can add is this: whether as a soldier in battle, or a sailor on a ship out in the middle of the ocean, it's all about the guy/girl next to you. granted, it's not about love in this day and age, but they're always taught to look out for the next person.
and so true, pipkin, i can't imagine pippin watching gandalf drop to a certain death in moria and have no further memory of that horror, or to be captured by orcs and fearing beyond anything he's ever known that they will eventually kill him, and yet totally forget about it. hobbits may recover quickly, but i don't think they ever forget. i agree he did a lot more growing up in minas tirith after he surveyed the big picture in the palantír, but he entered minas tirith with battle scars already.
you know, i'm guilty of only considering the bravery part, myself, and maybe just a hint of love for merry, but after pondering the entire idea that pippin did it for love, my heart just breaks for him. as mischievous as pippin is, there really isn't a selfish bone in his little body, is there? i must go back and re-read... this is why i love this thread so much. so many ideas and different angles... i love it.
herald7:
that's a good analysis of the palantír scene, lostsailors. i'm glad it looks like it'll be in rotk.
yes, pippin may not be the brightest all the time, but he has a big heart.
lostsailors:
little pippin, he's a bit spoiled, he does have a good heart. the one and only time i was ever disappointed by him was during the very first part of fotr, when he wants to keep on sleeping and tells sam to get breakfast ready and draw hot bath water. it was very funny, and true he was half asleep but at the same time you roll your eyes and think "jeez!"
i was thinking one of my classes today, between my bouts of near unconsciousness and because i always pay attention to everything in school, how interesting it was which king (king and steward, to be exact) each of the young cousins ended up with. merry, who was a bit of a stout heart, pretty serious and thoughtful, ends up with the kinder theoden. theoden is a warm man, who can lighten merry's heart by promising to engage him in a conversation about pipe weed.
pippin, the mirth rocket, however, who could learn the use of the word responsibility and the skill of reservation, ends up with the decidedly grave (and slightly insane) denethor.
merry gets the more delightful leader almost as a reward for always being so serious, merry follows theoden out of love and loyalty. pippin however, in the presence of denethor, learns to reserve himself. he offers his service out of awe and pride for the king.
ah, maybe this isn't as interesting as i thought. i just woke up from a nap and now i'm hungry. my thoughts are a bit bleary... i'm not certain what i just wrote makes any sense at all!
one more random thought before i embarrass myself further:
backing up a bit, someone was mentioning fate. i think fate is a very important element of pippin's character. at first it seems as though pippin does not have any great big actions in the course of the story. sure, people like us can endow his troll slaying with all sorts of importance, and it is a great huge moment for him, but in the end, does the dead troll equate as much as, say, the witch-king's death, who merry helped kill? er, not exactly.
this is only at first though. if you look again, to pippin's smaller actions, most lead to lead to greater results. example, when pippin runs to get gandalf to save faramir. it doesn't seem like a great huge momentous action, but in the end, not only is he integral in saving the life of the captain, he also stops gandalf from meeting the witch king head-on thus giving merry and éowyn their chances to finally shine. in the film, the moria sequence plays out like this, pippin drops a skeleton down a well. not a big thing, but it later appears, the racket the falling debris causes clues in a horde of orcs to the fellowship's location, which ends up clueing in the balrog, who "kills" gandalf. a very little action leading to a huge result, but had pippin not dropped the skeleton, therefore not waking the orcs and the balrog and had gandalf not fallen, would gandalf ever have become the more powerful gandalf the white?
hmmm!
does fate act through the unwitting young hobbit? i was just wondering. what do you guys think?
aaaaaaaaaaah... fooooood... i'm so hungry!
uofjc1983:
hmmmm, lostsailors, very good verbage to feast on... i mean, to read! actually, i just ate a late supper myself, but i've thought about the troll vs. the witch king thing at times myself. as you, i don't believe jrrt wasted any action whatsoever in his story; from frodo to pippin and gandalf to gimli, nothing is missed. every action pippin does that is remotely small in our eyes has a reaction somewhere down the line... some obvious, some not. pippin's pebble down the well to frodo's bar room jig on the table in bree, and sam's fire for herbs and stewed rabbit. each created the reactive storyline (if there is such a thing!); as you said, gandalf fell in moria, frodo "reveals" himself to strider, and faramir's army discovers a couple of hobbits in their midst, only to aid them on their journey. nice, lostsailors-- and you made perfect sense!
as far as the pampered pippin telling sam to get his water and breakfast... well, i can't post my response to pippin here! joking, of course!
herald7:
it makes sense to have pippin paired with such a difficult person. he's had it easy on this quest in a lot of ways, being the pampered, "useless" hobbit. being in difficult situations is how you learn.
pipkin sweetgrass:
well, actually i think pippin was probably spoiled, but not too bad. his father, paladin, was a farmer before he became thain. this means the same things here and now as there and then... even if your father owns the farm you still have to work on the farm. i would imagine pip most likely had a good physique from working the fields. he was privileged to be sure, but i'm equally sure he had his fair share of work, and that means 7 days a week. he was most likely to have been taught the work ethic at a reasonable age, i would imagine.
cuddlehobbit:
i think, especially at the beginning, pippin was a real snob. he was lovely, of course, but he was snobby towards sam.
and i disagree. being a farmer did not mean the same for the hobbits as it means for us. it might be the most respected thing to be in the shire, don't you think? his family was wealthy, and the way he treated sam at the beginning wasn't really on "equal levels." but he stops that very soon after going on the quest, and loses that snobbism just as he uses part of his naiveté.