Meme / game: make your own Fellowship

[liv]

I nicked (and slightly adapted) this idea from casby posting in adventurers. The plan is that you have to form a Fellowship analogous to the one in LotR, using a set of characters of your choosing. (The original game was 'fictional characters you are fond of', but for my purposes it can be any reasonably defined group.) Then justify why your group would be an effective fellowship (and also at least reasonably congruent to the original Fellowship).

To get you started, I did Biblical characters. And included the NT cos I couldn't really not have Jesus in there.

Frodo: Jael (physically unprepossessing but brave, dedicated and opportunist)

Sam: Eliezer (loyal manservant able to take initiative when the situation demands)

Pippin: David (impulsive, lovable, imprudent and courageous by turns)

Merry: Jonathan (Close companion to David / Pippin, but usually the reasonable one of the partnership)

Gandalf: Jesus (Sorry, but this one's just too obvious. Unreasonably powerful but pretending to be much less so for obscure theological reasons. Benevolent, and with appropriate tendency to sacrifice himself for the fellowship and then return from the dead)

Boromir: Saul (royal, excellent warrior, but hotheaded and often misguided)

Legolas: Amos (simple nature-lover thrust into prominence by circumstances, good with words)

Gimli: Samson (strong, susceptible to beautiful women, admits mistakes)

Aragorn: John the Divine (fond of bizarre symbols and obscure prophecies, big on teleology)

Not sure about the last but I think the others would make a good fellowship if they had common cause. And Saul would be no worse than Boromir. There's at least a good mix of brains and brawn here.

Any takers?

Comments

[wychwood]

I like it. That's a nice set. I think Saul works particularly well as Boromir, even to the way they end up going bad for the sake of their country and all that.

I may have to try playing this :)

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Gandalf: I think Elijah fits best. 'specially with the whole business with falling out of favour with authority, and so on. He might be more of a Radagast, though.

Frodo: Moses, in terms of being grabbed and pushed off into a position of great responsibility and leadership for which he's not naturally suited. Moses is more of a coward though.

Aragorn: I'd suggest Joshua, assuming David has already been taken (though I think he's got too much of an impulse to lead to be Pippin). I assume you're not including deuterocanonicals like Maccabees in this...

Samson as Gimli I like...

[liv]

Oh, I see, you're giving me OT alternatives to the two I was after :-) I think Jesus is much closer to Gandalf than Elijah, though given Jesus' explicit similarity to Elijah... *shrug* Elijah is only like Radagast in the sense that both are friends with birds; Radagast is way too stupid and naive to be Elijah.

I really couldn't think of a good Aragorn. If you want David (which could work) you'll have to suggest a sensible replacement for Pippin.

But Joshua won't do as Aragorn; too stolid, all he does is warrior stuff. And even then he never thinks for himself, he's a follower, first of Moses then of God. He doesn't have anything like the presence (or I think the intelligence) of Aragorn. Maccabees would do at a pinch (deuterocanonicals is a good word!), Judah M is a better Aragorn than Joshua, but I'm still not convinced. Hmm.

[liv]

Can't see Moses - Frodo at all. Frodo is never really a leader as such, ringbearer isn't at all the same as leader. And Moses is only a somewhat unlikely hero; remember he was brought up in Pharaoh's court, he's far from being a random plucked from nowhere. And Moses has a direct line to authority, whereas Frodo just never really knows what's going on in the big picture, he just has his task to get on with.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

I wasn't specifically giving OT alternatives. I can really see Elijah as Gandalf (the Radagast thing wasn't serious). He seems a bit more practical, politically aware, and so on, than Jesus. And more of a father-figure.

Judah M was my first thought for Aragorn, I take your point about Joshua. I don't see John the Divine as such an active figure. John the Baptist lies much closer.

Pippin & Merry: Simeon & Judah? probably not as apt as David & Jonathan, though.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

mm. Point taken.

[(Anonymous)]

Come on, can you see David as Pippin? Pippin doesn't go around womanizing. Maybe he plays the harp a bit, but Pippin would never have someone's husband murdered so he could screw the widow. Problem with David generally. LoR is so chaste.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Who'd you suggest for Pippin, then?

[(Anonymous)]

They both had it thrust upon them. Moses wouldn't have been a leader if he hadn't had God kicking his butt the whole way there.

[(Anonymous)]

James? Only cos he comes in a pair with John, though

[liv]

Greetings, interesting anonymous person!

True that David is a bit oversexed whereas Pippin doesn't get any action (though I don't think you can call the whole book 'chaste'; Frodo may be chaste, but not LotR as a whole). I think it's still possible to make an analogy between David's recklessness (eg screwing the widow and thereby massively annoying God) with Pippin's recklessness in dropping the notorious stone.

[liv]

James and John would do as the 'indistinguishable hobbits' of cassieclaire's parody. Given that pretty much the only thing we know about them is that they come as a pair. But I've never found Merry and Pippin to be bland or indistinguishable in the book. So you're going to have to come up with a better argument to make me drop David and Jonathan.

[liv]

Yes, but that's exactly my point: Frodo was never a leader at all, even with quite a lot of butt-kicking going on. So definitely not Moses.