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Best and Worst Fathers in The Lord of the Rings · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  created brought to you by the Oxford Centre. For fantasy, my name is Julia Golding. I'm
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  an author but I also direct the centre. And in honour of Father's Day, I thought today
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  we would do a podcast about the top fathers in fantasy, but not in any old fantasy. I'm
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  talking about the fathers in Lord of the Rings. Now, I've set myself a little rule that
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  the person that I mention has to be a father during the course of Lord of the Rings. So
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  not somebody in the appendices or somebody in myths and legends that are mentioned
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  in passing, I'm talking about the principal characters. So, who are my contenders? Well, coming
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  at the bottom of the list, I have a couple of three suggestions for the worst fathers.
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  Two of which I think most of you will agree with, one of which is going to be highly contentious.
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  So please do write in and tell me just how wrong I am. So I think the worst father in the
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  sort of straightforward sense of biological father has to be denathor. Count the ways. First
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  of all, he clearly has a favourite of one of his children. He prefers Boromir to Pharamir,
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  never a good parenting tip there. The other thing is he's highly demanding and so his children
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  never feel that they've earned his love and they always feel they have to go beyond what they
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  think is sensible to earn his approval such as Pharamir writing out in what was a kind of charge
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  of the light brigade moment for the Gondor cavalry or taking on that's in the film. In the book,
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  it's much more about doing a sort of military skirmish going to reinforce Australia.
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  So he clearly is a disaster as a father.
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  The other way in which he is bad is he tries to burn his son alive. This is why I think it's
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  quite safe to put him at the bottom of the list. He doesn't wait to see if his son recovers,
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  he sees his son as an appendage of him. It's like it's mentioned as being a sort of
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  like the old kings used to do. I'm thinking of those kings who may have buried people alive with
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  them like pharonic practices or where people would be sacrificed to go to death with somebody else.
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  He has that kind of sternness about him, ruthlessness and he's gone basically mad and has forgotten
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  that his sons are separate from him. He does have a faint flicker, which it makes it even more
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  appalling when he doesn't take that chance at turning away from this when Gandalf challenges him
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  and then of course he takes the wrong door at that point and Pharamir is saved.
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  So Dena thought, worst father in middle-earth during Lord of the Rings.
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  Coming a close second bottom of my list is Saruman. Now we don't think of wizards being
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  fathers. They seem to be in some ways kind of sexless creatures. They're kind of spirits almost
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  and they're not sort of mortal. But the ray I think of him as being a father is that he
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  creates a race of Urukhai who are in some ways a kind of genetic experiment and he is their father.
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  They talk about him as being their sort of leader their father. So he is responsible for them.
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  And that's not good, is it? Breeding a race of superhuman orcs soldiers where you've probably
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  done some very questionable scientific practices of crossing certain races in your equivalent
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  of the wizard laboratory. Not good. So Saruman doesn't get my vote here as a good father.
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  The other thing of course is that he's quite ready to sacrifice his
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  all-children. He's Urukhai children by sending them out and it doesn't seem that fast
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  or never seems to question the value of their life. That there is a, you know, they're basically
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  cannon fodder. So Saruman, terrible father. Now I said I had a controversial third pick.
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  This is a bit tongueing cheek but I've got a feeling tree beards not a great father.
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  And he's a good shepherd of the trees but he does seem to have a bit of a blind spot when it comes
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  to families because he's forgotten where the end wives are and he seems to be sort of a bit
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  absent-minded about his endlings. Ending, sorry. So I don't think tree beards makes a brilliant father.
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  He shows a very kindly qualities to others but one senses that maybe the way you are a father
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  as an end is very different from the human version of this. We don't see any details about that
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  but the fact that he's forgotten about where his end wife is suggests that all is not well in the
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  the family of the ends. They're on a dying trajectory so they're not great fathers are they
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  because they need their end wives in order to be fathers. There you go. So that's my rationale
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  for putting them in the not so good father pile. Okay so here we get to some of the
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  those who make it the top of my list. So coming in in my top four is Gaffer Gamji. I know I know
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  he's a bit of a windbag but he and he's a man of the earth and he hasn't got very big horizons
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  and he's always a bit conservative. It was more see into what he thinks should happen but there is
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  something really admirable about his stubbornness. He was one of the ones who stood up to
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  Saruman when he takes over the Shire and Saruman's you know all those people who are on Saruman
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  side the men who come and help sort of scour the make the Shire like Mordor. So he's got
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  real sterling qualities. He's that comogen that sort of person who won't change can't change
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  but is in some ways really admirable for it and clearly he has passed on to Sam wonderful qualities
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  of being a great good in the garden. He must have Sam himself is such a well-principored
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  hobby that you feel that he must be getting that from his parents. So I think
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  aside from the kind of the stubborn side I think Gaffer is a great father and actually if you
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  remember Frodo is also very appreciative of him particularly his potatoes. So I think he falls
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  into the good father column and now we get to the top top three. Well I've got three contenders
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  here. I haven't included Aragorn because even though in the Peter Jackson films you
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  briefly see him as a father in Arwen's future dream and that of course is carried out in the
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  appendices in the books he's not a father. So I'm excluding him I'm sure he was a brilliant father
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  he I reckon he would have been the best if he was allowed in underneath my rules but I've excluded
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  him. So that leaves me one other three. Coming in at number three is Therodon. Now obviously
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  Therod is killed before we meet him. He's been killed in a skirmish at the Fords by Orcs and so we
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  see Therodon when he's mourning his son but also under the spell but the reason why I think
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  you can count him as a great dad is he has adopted his sister's son and sister's daughter who of
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  course are Ermir and Erwin and they very much love him as a son and daughter with their father
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  and they talk about him in that way a lot of the time. Clearly he's had a ropey couple of years
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  under the influence of Grima Wormtong but before and after that time you can see that he is
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  a man of action a man who has ran his household well and they clearly love him and he has earned
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  their loyalty and he is brave and he is courageous those are all qualities which he has passed on to
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  his adopted son and daughter and also he's so tender in the way that he talks to Erwin and
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  recognizes her abilities so though he's not in favour of her riding off to war he does promote her
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  to run the kingdom in his absence which if you think about the relative roles of women in
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  Lord of the Rings is pretty much a promotion so within his own sort of well-view he is very
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  progressive so I think that Therden as someone who recognizes talent and promotes it in his children
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  is a good dad okay so here's number three and coming in at number two is Sam Gamji we only see him
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  when he is this you know he's got babies basically but we do see him as a father and his greatness
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  is shown by the fact that he goes home to them he doesn't say oh Frodo let me on the ship
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  I want to go to the undying lands no he's he's torn but his centre of gravity and dedication is
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  to the home so he the last line is I'm back you know so that is very important that he creates a
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  home and nurtures the Gamji family after all those adventures and puts aside the roving life
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  that he could have carried on with for the home life and we know in the appendices that he goes on
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  to be Mayor numerous times and it's clearly a person of importance in the Shire raising a large
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  happy family so in terms of an ordinary a man who's come through a man a hobbit who's come
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  through extraordinary times to end up as able to be a good father in ordinary times I think
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  Sam is number two on my list so who does that leave as number one when you look down the list
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  of the main characters in Lord the Rings there are quite a few of them who aren't fathers or we
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  don't know our fathers and one I've missed out who is who we do meet is Kellabon I missed that out
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  because his daughter is already has already passed away by the time the story starts so we don't
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  really see him in a paternal role so who is number one number one is Elrond now the funny thing
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  about elves amongst the many funny thing about elves of course is how long they live so once you
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  are an elf parent you are it for pretty much you know it's an eternity of being in that relationship
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  which must be incredibly difficult for both parent and child at what point is somebody grown up
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  and though that's a fantasy frame around an issue it is an issue for any parent when do you
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  consider your children are grown up and when do you let them take well not they can probably stop them
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  but when do you enable them give your blessing to take decisions that you don't like
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  and this is where I think Elrond shows his greatness I'm not talking about him being a parent
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  that his son so clearly you know they're all close there's nobody nobody's gone off in a half so
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  they're a good working good working family relationship there but it's with Arwin that we see
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  the pain of letting go and in his case of course it's a massive one of letting go forever because
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  Arwin by choosing to stay with Aragorn and taking a mortal life is separating herself from the rest
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  of the family and he doesn't her her future is beyond the bounds of the world so he doesn't know
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  if there'd ever be reunited probably not in terms of the the thinking of that world and I think
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  that this is his most fatherly quality is the fact that he let's go of her and though it is
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  obviously sad and bitter to have that parting he doesn't stop her he comes to the wedding he gives
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  her away he enables her and that is why he is my number one father in middle earth do let me
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  know if you agree with my picks and if I've missed out anybody obvious that would be terrible
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  but I hope you've enjoyed it and well done Elrond and well done to all those fathers out there
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  on your special day thank you very much for listening
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  thanks for listening to MythMakers podcast brought to you by the Oxford Center for Fantasy
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