Now that I've gotten past my silliness (the bad kind of silliness, as opposed to dear Frelga's good kind of silliness), I'm going to try to respond to some of the comments that have been made.
As I said before, I do think that a good argument can be made for Frodo being a character that well reflects Tolkien's personality and experience. He certainly has the background of losing his parents at a young age, but unlike with Túrin (and Tolkien) he lost them both at the same time, and did not have the experience of bonding specifically with his mother, before losing her too. That is probably the most direct parallel between Tolkien and Túrin of all the things that I pointed out, and I really do think that it is a particularly significant point (it would be interesting to learn whether Kullervo has a similar experience in the
Kalevala, Tom). One thing that Frodo has in his favor is growing up in the Shire, since it was clearly based on the area that Tolkien grew up (in Sarehole, near Birmingham, England, as I understand it). However, while Frodo's desperate experience in Mordor could be analogized to Tolkien's war experience, Frodo was already middle-aged by then; there is no analogy for him going off to war as a young man, as there is with Túrin, and there certainly is no analogy of his losing a close friend in war as a young man, as again there is with Túrin. Plus, Frodo was a lifelong bachelor; indeed there is no reports of
any dealings with any women on a romantic level (unless you include the dalliance with Galadriel in Boorman's script
). So there is certainly no parallel to Tolkien's complicated relationship with Edith. And finally, personality-wise Frodo is not really a very good fit. Tolkien was simply much darker and more volatile and more conflicted then Frodo was (with the exception of when Frodo was fully under the influence of the Ring). I'm certainly open to the thoughts of others about this, but at this point I have to say that making this comparison makes me feel stronger about my original assertion about Túrin being the character that most closely reflects Tolkien himself.
As for Faramir, I think that like with Beren he probably reflects more of what Tolkien would have liked to see himself as then as he really was.
From a biographical point of view, he lost one parent at a young age, but rather then become closer to the other parent, he became more and more estranged from the other parent (and did not actually "lose" that other parent until he was already an adult). As Frelga wisely pointed out (in the "serious" part of her post
), Faramir was "a bookish young man who liked library and wizard's lore but whose fate and duty was to become a soldier". That does sound a lot like Tolkien. And I think that the loss of his brother, Boromir, could be analogized to Tolkien's loss of his close friends in WW I. And I suppose there is some parallel between Edith being engaged to another man when Tolkien proposed to her, and Éowyn loving (or thinking that she loved) Aragorn when Faramir fell in love with her. But again, I think the comparison starts to fall apart when looking at personality. Like with Frodo, I think that Faramir is too even-tempered and one-sided to accurately reflect the man that his primary biographer properly referred to as "a man of antitheses". Ironically, I think that Filmamir more accurately reflects Tolkien's personality then Bookamir (now that's a statement that will likely ruffle some feathers in the henhouse
).
I think the difference between my perspective and some others is that I have a less idealized view of Tolkien. For all his greatness and goodness, he had a mighty temper, he did not suffer fools at all, and he was subject to periods of deep despair. In short, I think that he was a much darker personality then many realize. Which is why I think that his most flawed (and yet very great) hero, Túrin, best reflects his life experience, outlook on the world, and personality.
That's still my story, and I'm still sticking with it.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
