Tolkien's chapter that made C.S. Lewis cry, and what film loses

What could Tolkien have written that made C.S. Lewis, the man who gave us Narnia, cry the first time he heard it? The answer lies in one chapter of The Lord of the Rings, "The Choices of Master Samwise," and in the letters Tolkien wrote while working on it, in the middle of the war and with his son away from home. I think that chapter is a good example of how some things get lost in adaptation, even when the people making it have great respect for the source.

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films (2001 to 2003), starring Elijah Wood and Sean Astin, were my gateway into Middle-earth. I love them. But by the end of this piece, I hope you'll know a little more not only about the world Tolkien built, but about the man behind it.

Why the epic battles of The Lord of the Rings aren't the whole story

When we talk about The Lord of the Rings, and especially when we discuss the adaptations, we tend to focus on the big moments: the battles, the armies, the monsters and the incredible places. Please don't misunderstand me. I love all of that. I love the Battle of Helm's Deep. I love the Balrog. I love the Riders of Rohan charging across the Pelennor Fields.

Those are extraordinary moments, but sometimes we focus on them so much that we forget what makes them matter in the first place. And that's something Tolkien explores himself.

Faramir loves only what the sword defends

In The Two Towers, Faramir and Frodo have a conversation in a chapter called "The Window on the West." Faramir talks about war, about weapons, and about what it truly means to defend something. He imagines the White Tree flowering again in the courts of the kings, the crown returning, and Minas Tirith at peace, a queen among other queens rather than a mistress of many slaves. Then he says something that, for me, sums up so much of Tolkien's writing: "I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."

I think that's a very important distinction. Faramir isn't saying fighting is pointless. He recognizes that it's sometimes necessary, but he doesn't love war for its own sake. He loves the things war is supposed to protect. I think that's something I've come to appreciate more and more in Tolkien, especially as I've gotten older.

Because in the end, what are all these people fighting for? Not only to defeat Sauron. It's so that there's still a world worth living in afterward, so that people like Sam can go home. So that there are still gardens to tend, families to raise and friendships to enjoy.

Tolkien's 1944 letter to Christopher about Sam and Charles Williams

There's another letter that makes this point beautifully. In December 1944, Tolkien wrote to his son Christopher about some things his friend Charles Williams had said. Williams had been reading parts of The Lord of the Rings and realized something: even though the story contains all these enormous battles and acts of heroism, its true heart was somewhere else. It was in freedom, peace and ordinary life.

In the letter, Tolkien tells Christopher he's glad he enjoyed the next three chapters, that the third batch should reach him around December 10 and the last around January 14, and that he'd be eager for more comments when Christopher has time. He calls Sam the most closely drawn character, the successor to Bilbo from the first book, the genuine hobbit. Frodo, he says, isn't so interesting, because he has to be high minded and has something like a vocation. The book will probably end with Sam. Frodo will naturally become too ennobled by achieving the great quest and will pass West with all the great figures, but Sam will settle down in the Shire among the gardens and inns.

Tolkien then passes on Williams's view that the great thing is that the story's center isn't in strife, war and heroism, though those are understood and depicted, but in freedom. Even so, Williams agrees that these things need a great world outside the Shire so they don't go stale through habit and become humdrum. Tolkien clearly thought this was worth sharing with his son, and I think that's wonderful.

Why the story had to return to the Shire

Years later, in that huge letter to Milton Waldman, Tolkien explains why the story has to return to the Shire. Even after Sauron is defeated, the story isn't over. There are still things to be written. There are still wounds that haven't healed, and life has to go on.

That's easy to overlook when we talk about adaptations, because it's easy to sell a Balrog to anyone, right? It's a huge flaming monster carrying a whip. Of course people will love that. It looks great. But it's hard to explain why a little hobbit sitting beside his friend in a dark tunnel, trying to gather the courage to keep going, matters just as much.

This isn't a criticism of the epic scenes. Tolkien wrote those scenes, and he clearly understood their role in the story. But I don't think we should make them the only thing we talk about. If we do, we might miss some of the things that make Middle-earth so special in the first place.

How Peter Jackson's films handle Sam's choice after Shelob

I think this is the hardest part of adapting Tolkien for television or film. How do you put all of this on screen? How do you show an audience Tolkien's vision of friendship, his experiences of loss, his thoughts on mercy, or why he placed such importance on the courage of ordinary people? So much of that sits at the heart of the writing itself.

Take "The Choices of Master Samwise." After Sam fights Shelob, a large part of the chapter is Sam completely alone, trying to decide what to do. He's grieving, arguing with himself, and torn between his love for Frodo and his responsibility to finish the quest. On the page, Tolkien can take us through every detail of that. But how do you film it?

I think Peter Jackson's films offer a great example here. I think Sean Astin gave a wonderful performance as Sam, especially in the moment he believes Frodo is dead. You can see how heartbroken he is. But the films didn't convey the long inner struggle Tolkien wrote to the same degree. We see Sam's grief, we see him take the Ring, and eventually we see him rescue Frodo.

In the book, Tolkien makes us live with Sam's decision. We understand why he considered leaving Frodo behind. We understand why he thought it was his responsibility to go on alone, and we understand how much that decision cost him. There's something very important in those pages. I don't think this is necessarily a failure of the films. They're different ways of telling stories, and there are things cinema can convey brilliantly that a book can't in the same way.

My worry about more Middle-earth on our screens

This is what worries me. The more Middle-earth appears on our screens, the more our conversations will inevitably turn to whether the armor looks right or whether the timelines make sense. Look, those discussions are fine. I enjoy many of them myself. But I don't want them to become the only conversations we have.

There's so much about Tolkien that you might never discover if you only experience Middle-earth through its adaptations, and I think that's a real shame. Not because there's anything wrong with discovering Tolkien through film or television. Quite the opposite. I think that's great. But I hope those adaptations encourage people to discover the man behind them, rather than becoming the only version of his world that people know.

Why The Choices of Master Samwise means so much to me

I suppose that's why "The Choices of Master Samwise" means so much to me. Here's this little hobbit who has just lost the person he cares about most, completely alone, trying to work out what he's supposed to do next. He doesn't have all the answers. He doesn't even know whether he's making the right decision. But he knows he can't give up.

When you start looking into Tolkien's own life, I think you can begin to understand why he valued that so much. A man who lost his closest friends in one war, writing this while his son was away in another. Then he reads it to his friend, who cried. I don't know. I find something deeply moving in all of that.

Sometimes I think we forget that behind this vast world, and these extraordinary legends so many of us love, there was a real person. A man who had friends, lost people, worried about his children, experienced kindness, and had some truly profound things to say about what it means to be a good person.

I'm not suggesting we stop enjoying the adaptations. I think it's wonderful that we're getting more Middle-earth and that new generations are discovering these stories. But I sometimes worry that the more Middle-earth we get, the less we talk about Tolkien. I think that's a shame, because there's so much to discover about him.