Smiling Characters

[Ragnelle]

Hi,
I am new here, and working my way through the episodes. And I just want to say that I love following the close reading you are doing!
While there have been instances along the way where I thouhgt I wanted to comment, I have also wanted to wait until I am caught up, but I am not really sure how much of it will feel relevant.

Anyhow, I have worked my way up to episode 140, and in the disussion about Aragorn smiling, I became curious about this. If I remember correctly, it was said that Aragorn smiles 3 or 4 times? (Please correct me if I am wrong). The gist of the conversation was that Aragorn does not smile much, and therefore it is of note when it is said that he smiles. This both fit and didn't fit with my impression of Aragron. Yes, he is grim, and the times he smiles feels like they are important, but I also have this image of him smiling clear in my head. So I did some searching and counted how many times he is described as smiling in the tekst. And then I looked at all the instances of "smile" being used, and which characters where smiling.

My e-book gave me 76 instances of "smile" in the whole book - appendixes inculded. One I would not count at all, because it talks about the smials and have 'smile' as a spelling, but of the others I counted who was smiling (or not - a few instances is about characters not smiling), and I made a count:

21 characters smiles once, and two of them are also said to not smile, so that accounts for 23 of the instances. The remaining characters who smiles more than once, are:
Elrond: 2
Gloin: 2
Sam: 2
Biblo: 3
Théoden: 3
Frodo: 4 (and not once)
Galadriel: 4
Faramir: 5
Gandalf: 6 or 7 (Saruman tells him not to smile at him, but it is not noted in the narrative)
Aragorn: 14 or 15 (in the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen it says he became grim to look at, "unless he chanced to smile"), and once it is told that he does not smile.

Aragorn smiles more than any of them, it seems!

Now, it can be that the narrator mentions Aragorns smiles more than others because it seems remakable that he should smile. And I also thought I saw something of a patteren of when characters smiles: there are, for example, no smiles in the Field of Cormalon, which I would imagine being a smiling occation. And all of Frodo's smiles are on the border of or in Mordor. It looks like the characters' smiles are more likely to be mentioned when the general situation (or mabye in Aragorns case) makes smiles to be unlikely or not expected.

Now, this is not a perfect pattern, and all the smiles does not follow it, but can it be that smiling is a way the characters keep up their spirit when things look grim? Or that the narrator is signaling something to us: there is hope, they can still smile. I am remided of the description of Aragorn in The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen:

"His face was sad and stern because of the doom that was laid on him, and yet hope dwelt ever in the depths of his heart, from which mirth would arise at times like a spring from the rock."

I have not checked how it is with laughter - a qucik search shows 261 instances - but that might also have some patterns. At least it seems like there is more laughing than smiling reported.

I will probably have to come back to other questions or commets. I am not enterly sure where they would fit, and am still trying to find my way around the forum here.

 

[Anthony Lawther]

I think you are onto something here.

When I search on 'smil' in order to pick up instances of 'smiling' as well, I get 79 excluding the Appendices (including at least 3 from Goldberry, one of them 'her smile fading').

My sense is that beyond use of the word 'smile' or similar, there is also the sense of the conversational style that gives the reader an impression. A simple example is that even though neither Merry nor Pippin appear on your list of frequent smilers their conversations show them having lighter spirits than Aragorn (at least outwardly), giving the reader an impression of more frequent smiles.

I'd suggest that because Aragorn's words often come with a grim cast to them there is a need to specifically mention his smiles when they happen. In a similar way, description of people not smiling often accompany statements that could be ambiguous, and some of the smiles are described with modifiers for the situation: Bilbo smiling ruefully when trying to give up the Ring, Pippin smiling grimly when they get stuck in the stream bed below Woodhall, etc.

I think the Field of Cormallen, occurring so close the end of a costly series of battles with an unexpected victory, would be more a time for tears of mixed sorrow and joy than a time for smiling or laughter; some of those tears falling for the demise of the deceived and misguided Easterlings and Haradrim. I think Nienna would expect so anyway.

 

[amysrevenge]

What a great first post! I don't really have anything to add, just congratulations on catching up and way to go with the awesome thoughtful post.

 

[Ragnelle]

Thank you! I'm not all caught up, but getting there.

Anthony: Yes, I forgot about 'smiling', that gives a bit more for several of them. And, yes, I agree that the tone does a lot to convey smiles, without outright stating it.

I became curious about laughter, because it is related but not quite the same as smiling. And the hobbits all laugh quite a lot, and often groups of people laugh together (which is natural I suppose). I found that of characters, Gandalf laughs the most (22), followed by Frodo (21), Pippin (18), Sam (14) and Merry (13). Aragorn does make it to dobble digits (10), but he seems to smile more than he laughs.

Of course, minor characters will not have as much page-time, so the impression of them will not show as much up in numbers: Tom Bombadil laughs 9 times, but since he is only in a few chapters, we are told that he laughs quite often.

The numbers don't pick up the qualifiers either, or the type of smile or laughter. The Mouth of Sauron laughs four times in the very short time we see him, but his laughter is very different than Tom Bombadil's!

There are a lot of laughter in The Field of Cormallien: 9 mentions of laughter in the chapter (though one is of the laughter of the Host of Mordor failing). And there a few times laughter and tears are mixed, but as far as I can see, there are more laughter than tears.

But, to get back to my original thoghts: I was struck that Aragorn comes of as grim, yet the narattion have him smile four times (and laugh three) just in the first evening when he meets the hobbits. All of them are qualified, so that is part of what makes the impression different (a wry smile, a slow smile, a grim smile, and last a sudden smile which soften his face).

I think Aragorn's smiles often gives us a glimpse of what is underneath the grimmer exterior, like the grimness is more of a mask, and that his smiles mabye are mentioned more because they are more noticeble. They change him, or let us see this hope and mirth that is deep inside him.

I though I would attach the file with the numbers, but it was the wrong format. Not quite sure how to do it.