The wisdom of Samwise Gamgee

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.

Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.”  

In watching Lord of the Rings, Samwise Gamgee taught me three things.

1. Never forsake a friend, no matter what.

2. There is always hope, even when things seem the darkest.

3. To always have strength in the face of adversity.



"There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tower high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."

When I first began writing my novel, I had no plans for my characters. I was thirteen and just writing a story for fun. It was going to be full of adventure and suspense and awesome battles and duplicity. It was only until after I had finished the book and began growing up myself that I discovered there was more to a story than just great plots.

Heart.

 

 

 

 

Embedding personality, appeal, and emotion into my characters proved to me more of an adventure than all the plotlines together. At first I had no idea what kind of personalities I even wanted them to have or what I wanted those personalities to accomplish.

 

"I don't know how to say it, but after last night I feel different. I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way. I know we are going to take a very long road, into darkness; but I know I can't turn back. It isn't right to see Elves now, nor dragons, nor mountains, that I want - I don't rightly know what I want: but I have something to do before the end, and it lies ahead, not in the Shire. I must see it through, sir, if you understand me."                

 

 

 

 



Gradually as I began to understand the development of characters in other books, movies, and people around me. The more I recognized certain quirks, traits, and behaviors, the more I was able to map out what kind of person I wanted to create in each of my characters.

 

When I first watched Lord of the Rings, I was struck my Samwise's part in the Trilogy. Basically, with no Sam, there is no story. At least, no story worth telling. Pretty sure it would all be doom and despair, because Frodo would have given in to the Ring and everything good would have been destroyed.

 

And I began to want to create characters like that. Characters that are indispensable. Irreplaceable.

 

It's quite fun.

 

:D