Yeah, we know that Return of the King had 17 endings but there was still one ending that seemed to be missing entirely. An exchange between Frodo and Sam that, in this day and age, would make a perfect post-credits scene.
But it was always in our heads until last week, when artist/writer/graphic novelist Molly Ostertag gifted the whole entire internet with a fan-comic that perfectly realizes what a lot of us here in the office tend to think and talk about after marathoning all 11+ hours of Peter Jackson’s trilogy.
“I woke up after marathoning Lord of the Rings and could not do anything else until I drew this,” she wrote on Twitter. The ensuing six-part comic picks up after Frodo leaves Middle-earth for The Undying Lands with Gandalf and co., and well, just see for yourself.
https://twitter.com/MollyOstertag/status/1168656596429242368
https://twitter.com/MollyOstertag/status/1168656622933012481
https://twitter.com/MollyOstertag/status/1168656644512706561
We’ve included the first three parts up above, and you should head over to Ostertag’s Twitter for the deeply emotional conclusion (seriously, don’t say we didn’t warn you).
Molly Ostertag is the author of several graphic novels, including the award-winning The Witch Boy and its sequel, The Hidden Witch. She also draws the webcomic Strong Female Protagonist, written by Brennan Lee Mulligan, and is a writer on the upcoming Disney show The Owl House, airing in 2020.
Technically, wasn’t Legolas (AND GIMLI’S AXE) the last ship from Middle Earth?
(Sorrrry, nerd alert).
The undying lands don’t grant immortality. Frodo would be old too.
Still it’s a nice sentiment.
@1 I think so. But these few pages do give me warm tingly feelings at the back of my skull.
Also even though I knew Molly Ostertag and Brennan Lee Mulligan were friends I didn’t realize they’d done projects together.
The Undying Lands not only don’t grant youth, they accelerate the aging of mortals. Dying of bliss would be a great way to go, but it’s still lethal. Frodo would be dead by the time Sam shows up.
(edit) And why, WHY do people feel the need to make Frodo and Sam’s relationship a homosexual one? It’s not only untrue to the source material, it’s extraordinarily tacky.
I’ll be honest, when I saw the panel given with this article, my first thought was, “Wait! Is Sauron going to sue for pardon? Is there enough left of him to do that???”
“WHY do people feel the need to make Frodo and Sam’s relationship a homosexual one”
Because there’s a very widely held belief that men are incapable of having friends. If you have a man who’s close to a woman, obviously it’s because he wants to go to bed with her. If you have a man who’s close to another man, obviously it’s because he’s gay (and wants to go to bed with him).
… has someone sent this memo to historians? Because I swear, if I have to read yet another article saying that two male historical figures were probably just friends despite living together and holding hands constantly and sucking face at every possible occasion and sharing a bed and writing each other romantic letters about missing each other’s caresses…
i’m interested in this![.](//s04.flagcounter.com/mini/Jkzv/bg_FFFFFF/txt_dddddd/border_ffffff/flags_0/.jpg" width="1"/>)
Agree with @@.-@,
this relationship being a platonic relationship seems much more interesting than it being a flaming sexual passion (subdued as it is in the eyes of the beholders).
I recently rewatched the movies and felt that nowadays you would have to make them totally sexual. And I felt that this change would cheapen their relationship. Sam says: “A promise is a promise” – but with sex(ual feelings) involved, a promise is a promise plus the off chance that all of those feelings are reciprocated or something.
An unbreakable platonic bond is an interesting and an archaic notion – you just don’t see that anywhere. Making everything sexual is morally boring.
Why the presumption that this is showing a sexual relationship? Just because you’re scared of a close friendship doesn’t mean that other men can’t have one that isn’t sexual. I see nothing in the comic as requiring sexuality. I do see a couple of homophobes here.
@1, From the “Tale Of Years”:
“1541
In this year on March 1st came at last the Passing of King Elessar. It is said that the beds of Meriadoc and Peregrin were set beside the bed of the great king. Then Legolas built a grey ship in Ithilien, and sailed down Anduin and so over Sea; and with him, it is said, went Gimli the Dwarf. And when that ship passed an end was come in Middle-earth of the Fellowship of the Ring.”
My emphasis on “it is said” Elsewhere in the Appendix about dwarfs, it says “More cannot be said about this matter.”
Not definite. OK, that’s my nerd moment.
OK, one more piece of nerdery:
” Here follows one of the last notes in the Red Book
We have heard tell that Legolas took Gimli Glóin’s son with him because of their great friendship, greater than any that has been between Elf and Dwarf. If this is true, then it is strange indeed: that a Dwarf should be willing to leave Middle-earth for any love, or that the Eldar should receive him, or that the Lords of the West should permit it. But it is said that Gimli went also out of desire to see again the beauty of Galadriel; and it may be that she, being mighty among the Eldar, obtained this grace for him. More cannot be said of this matter.”
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People these days always talk about whether or not Frodo and Samwise were gay or not.
There are two ways I think about that topic.
First, I think it ignores the idea that Frodo’s friendship with Sam was one of brothers in arms from the same small town who went to war and survived horrific circumstances by relying on each other. It doesn’t have to be more than that and, given Tolkien’s background, I suspect it wasn’t any more than that in his mind.
Second, if you’re going to dismiss the first idea and say that Frodo wasn’t straight, having people decide he was gay actually erases (and I use that word deliberately) the idea that Frodo was simply asexual. If I remember correctly, he never showed romantic interest in any female OR male in the entire book, other than in a general “they’re beautiful” kind of way. Frodo was already a middle-aged Hobbit when he left the Shire, unmarried and without a hint of any relationship.
Frankly, I favor the first idea, but if we’re opening things up to alternate interpretations, Frodo is ace.
Note: I haven’t read the dozen+ other books from Tolkein’s notes, etc. beyond The Hobbit and LotR, but that’s my memory and interpretation of things.
#teamrosie
I’ve always liked to believe Sam “got his girl” in the end, else what was that all about?
Of course Rosie was a beard, you homophobes.
#scathingsarcasm
No, thanks. It’s not only non-canon, but it makes Sam a complete jerk who married and had kids, while being secretly gay with Frodo, which is completely out of character for someone as loyal as he is. Plus, as many have pointed out, there’s such a thing as friendship. Not every close relationship between two dudes is a secret gay romance, even when the two guys involved are in fact gay.
@10: Well, I don’t know any male friends that are so close to each other that they share long mouth-to-mouth kisses and then one lays his head upon the other’s lap. You either did not read the whole comic, or your definition of non-sexual/romantic relationships between males is extremely weird.
I am all for homosexual representation in media of all forms, and I understand the importance of young people being able to see themselves in the characters they read about.
But…
I’m really sick of people saying Frodo and Sam are gay. It’s never about homosexual representation, it’s always about insecure guys afraid of anything and everything slightly related to emotion. It’s a by-product of the culture of toxic masculinity in which we live. I’ve heard the same shit for 20 years and I am just sick to death of it.
Frodo and Sam are a wonderful example of a close, platonic friendship between men. We should be holding it up as such, and using it to show other young boys that it’s okay to hug your friend. That sharing your feelings and telling someone you love them doesn’t make you gay. Use them as representation for *that*, because its just as desperately needed in our media landscape today.
The author served in WW1 and probably experienced the close relationship that only brothers in arms experience. I believe he was portraying that sort of relationship with Frodo and Sam.
Tacking a gay spin on popular platonic relationships with two characters of the same or opposite sex is pretty immature. I’m not the thought police though. The artist/writer isn’t wrong for sharing this. She put her thoughts down on paper and shared it with the world. But ‘gayifying’ anything and everything, in my opinion and clearly in the opinion of others, is…taxing.
In this case, it’s insulting to the sentiment that the author clearly intended. In dark times as friends become enemies and when we face death and give up all hope and realize how little we can actually trust ourselves to get through said darkness, we need a companion or a friend like Samwise. The author went to war and lost friends in horrific ways. But no doubt it was through the bonds of friendships he made that he was able to carry on. The bonds we form as humans are all formed in times of grief, pain and darkness.
This strip is to say that underneath every kindred friendship between two men is a burning lust for one another. It’s to say that their shared trauma plays little to no role in the reason they’ve grown so close, rather that they’ve been secretly madly in love and in lust over one another he entire time. It’s to call their shared pain and suffering a lie, an exaggeration, a guise.
As someone said, things like this put the idea into young men’s minds that showing affection towards other men or expressing love or care for their male peers is strictly homosexual. It’s a terrible message to send because it causes confusion. It puts a straight male’s love for his friends into direct conflict with his sexuality. I’m sure that the sentiment expressed in this strip is the same one that has caused many men (straight or otherwise) to keep people in their lives at a distance and to shutdown emotionally so as to not be suspected of being “queer”.
Ok:
1) Sam is clearly attracted to his female partner Daisy
2) Sam is loyal so him having an affair undermines his whole character.
3) Not being able to accept that two men can be close without being attracted to one another is tragic.
I don’t know that the people who insist on making slashfic (or slashcomic in this case) aren’t able to accept platonic male-male friendships. I think they just enjoy making male-male pornography. But because female-oriented porn tends to be so verbal, and more about relationships than explicit images or imagery, they “get away with it” being socially acceptable. I can go to any grocery store and find trashy romance novels for sale, aimed at women, but male-oriented porn (visual or verbal) usually requires special-purpose businesses.
Are there many men, homosexual or otherwise, who write slashfic to any degree?