Leelee posted the following in the wrong spot and asked that it be moved to a better place; I figured it should be under LotR rather than in either of the general discussion threads; thus:

Gandalf, most probably. As the wisest being in Middle-earth, he'd probably be able to furnish some excellent advise.

Celeborn or Elrond would be acceptable for that purpose as well.

No, I'd never befriend an Elf. You can't even look at them without wearing shades. So unpractical.

I, for one, would certainly value your friendship, Leelee, and I also would choose Frodo of all the company in Middle earth. He is also my lifelong favorite charsacter and has been since I was eleven. Maybe I would choose Sam, also.. I think most of choose for our friends those with whom we have the most in common probably more so than those we admire. With someone that you have common ground with you feel at ease opening your heart, you feel less vunerable or open to ridicule. With all that Frodo has gone through, he has grown and changed immensley and I feel he would be the most understanding. He went from a carefree and mischieveous young hobbit to one who literally bore the weight of the future of the earth on his shoulders. He endured the fear of failure and came face to face with his own frailty. Frodo had to overcome not only the ring and the orcs and sauron but he had to overcome himself, too. He has made mistakes and learned new attitudes and ways of thinking. He would certainly understand the weaknesses I have. Sam? Sam has no pretensions. He's plain and simple and he knows it but he has strength that lies under the surface. He's determined and strong in the way the earth is strong and while he may understand my weaknesses he might not share them..

One of the best parts of the story for me is the friendship between Legolas and Gimli. I love to see characters grow. Sometimes (forgive my rambling, if you can) I think each of us lives many, or at least several, different lifetimes, I know I have. Perhaps the attraction between these two began because what they each saw in the other was so completely different than what they expected. Each had grown up believing these stereotypicall things about each other's races and then when thrown into close company they discovered these were not true at all. So they learned more and more about each other, discovering they each had common weaknesses (Gimli's discomfort on horseback and Legolas's discomfort underground) and the friendship blossomed.

The friendship of Gimli and Legolas is indeed one of the most remarkable ones in the Third Age, an age where elves and dwarves are estranged form each other. Perhaps that is the reason Legolas chose to take Gimi with him on his voyage to the far West and the reason that the Powers would allow that. I think Tolkien explicated this as the reward for the pureness of friendship that can occur is "of the fea" rather than of race, or blood, or anything else.

I wrote earlier of what Gimli said to Legolas that showed his heart.Then this morning I found something Legolas said to Gimli.The two, with Aragorn and Theoden and Eomer had made it to Helm's Deep and were being beseiged by the countless army of the Orcs and others in the service to Sauron.
Gimli first speakspg 532)

Give me a year and a hundred of my kin and I would make this a place that armies would break upon like water.'
'I do not doubt it,'said Legolas. 'Bu you are a dwrf, and dwrves are strange folk. I do not like th is place, and I shall like it no more by the light of day. But you comfort me, Gimli, and I am glad to have you standing nigh with your stout legs and your hard axe.'
I guess I was surprised that both freely gave their positive feelings to one another since to do so left them in a position of weakness as it were.They could not hided behind anything. I admire that.

I don't believe it was in the nature of Legolas to be a sarcastic person. I think he had a fair sense of Elvish humour and the love that he already bore for his now inseperable friend allowed him to tease Gimli by saying sort of the same thing. But at the back of it I think he meant what he said feelingwise anyway.
Strange, I thought you lived in UK dear Vir, but that cannot be so.

Leelee, I agree with you. Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin--they all shared a bond and showed frequently how they loved each other as best friends do. In their own way, I think Legolas and Gimli were like that too. So I would like to have those hobbits for my friends, but I think I would like to have been close to Aragorn as well. He and Gandalf seemed to have a history of long "walks" together. Maybe this is something like Tolkien's long treks with his Inkling friends, particularly Lewis. You can't go on an excursion like that, you can't be "up someone's nose" for that length of time, without getting to know that person and in the end caring about that person deeply. I picture Gandalf and Aragorn knowing each other that well. And--unspoken, like Tolkien's own manner with friends--they shared a love for the great things of Middle Earth which few could share, becoming for one another that friend who could not be replaced by any other.

I don't understand. You feel that men and women can't be best friends?

No I do not mean that at all. In fact if the truth be known I have had far more guy friends that were as close as any brother and sister, than girl friends, though the ones I have have been for years.
No, I am talking about that particular time in Middle-Earth. Times were different, intense and knowing who I am , my personality, I think I would have been too shy to just jump in and take two such illustrious , driven men, well one higher, to my bosom in inseparable friendship-you know, sharing the deepest things of my heart .I feel the times would not have been right, no time and they had to go and do what I could not so I would not have the luxury to be with them enough like they were with one another to do this. What I meant though about seeing them as fathers was that their courage and strength, their farsightedness would have been a great comfort to me and sustained me through the months or weeks or whatever of separation from them. That is all.
Hullo dear Mellon, you have been on my mind daily now for weeks. I do hope that all is well and happy with you .
Oh and I should like to add to that that Frodo in my opinion and a deep inseperable friendship with him was possible even though h e was a guy because he was Hobbit and very different. And what is more he was leaning toward Elvishness and that would be a bridge, a bond between us. Plus the fact that he was very sensitive and gentle and not lofty. Just an ordinary Hobbit doing an extraordinary thing. I can relate to that.

I am blushing, and could now fry eggs on my face, you are too kind.
I understand about one's lover being a best friend but they were on equal footing in many ways, he the King, she the Evenstar and they both had Rivendell. But I would be very shy of such great men, they would be much above me and so I would be content to simply sit in their shadow now and then and listen to their wisdom. I could not see myself being inseperable friends with them.
And you were not wrong dear Mellon for I projected my own feelings on to Middle-Earth in some sense. I have had several guy best friends but that is because they saw me as a little sister. All the other guys stare at me and all the general make a pass thing and I am so shy I cannot even bear to be at the checkout with a guy cashier. One time, well twice really two guys got out of their trucks and chased me for blocks to ask me out. A nightmare. I find myself praying that I won't be noticed when I go for a walk with little Hasia. My friends laugh and laugh about it, my girlfriends but there it is. And to think I taught dance and performed, but that was different as I did not have to think about guys or look at them. And when I was women's editor I found it excruciating. I would be writing away and then look up and guys would be staring and I would blush crimson no matter how I tried to stop it. So no I could not do it. You all are much braver than me.
I just read this morning in a little snatch of time where Legolas is invited by Treebeard to come in the future if fortune and fate allowed and enjoy Fangorn Forest to his heart's delight.
Legolas said that he would indeed and that he had made a pact with his friend to come back. Treebeard responds by saying that any elf friend of his is welcome whereupon sweet Legolas informs the Ent that his friend is in fact a dwarf. Treebeard looks down on Gimli and then his axe and is not pleased. Legolas explains and Gimli explains what his axe if for, to trim the heads off the necks of the orcs and he has slain 24. Then Legolas adds 'in any case I would not come without him' Just like that. He longs to come but would not come if his dear friend Gimli is not welcome to come. That is so beautiful.

you are not a lawyer for Crown counsel are you dear Vir. Every day I find you more and more intriguing!
I am at the part where it seems dear Frodo lies in the cold bed of death from the sting of Shelob and there is one of my favorite and most important scenes from the movie where Sam, tears flowing like a waterfall down his face begs Mr. Frodo not to go where he can not follow, not to leave him behind.He has a choice to make and decides on taking the ring and finishing what he came for , to help see the unmaking of the Ring. And then he says his dearest wish is that Galadriel or someone would grant that he could return and find Frodo unharmed by the enemy and then he would join him.
that dear Vir is a supreme case of Inseperable friends that even you cannot find fault with. non?

No, I'd posted that Sam was sobbing at that point because he realized that upon the death of his master, he would never again be able to find the way back home since he was a) too dim-witted and b) back in Rivendell he merely spent time in the kitchens and playing with kites with the Elfies, instead of studying the maps of the whole of Middle-earth.

I'd destroy the Ring and go home.

'The devil is in the details' can be applied to Virumor's above flippant answer Leelee. Don't take all his answers at face value; sometimes he is pulling our legs.

Your query about why Sauron didn't feel Sam wearing the Ring is a good one. The only reason I can see is that his eye was probably pointed at the Battle of Pelennor Fields and overshot Cirith Ungol, thus missing Sam. Still, this seems like a lame excuse, but then maybe there is limited range when he can actually feel the Ring if he isn't looking directly at it.

The problem with that reasoning is the fact that when Frodo, Sam and Smeagol were climbing the stair and the door opened below them and the h ordes started leaving to go to war, there was a moment when the Witch king became troubled. It states that as he rode upon his winged steed he became troubled and stopped, trying to understand the reason. He was sensing the ring right away. And he was only a puppet of Sauron with no real power other than what he was given by the dread lord.
If that being the case, to have the ring so close to Sauron would mean that at once he should be aware of it. It mattered not that his'eye' was fixed on Aragorn and the other direction.The Ring of Power had a will of it's own that caused it to ever respond to the Master, the Lord and it would call to him just as surely as he called and bent his will to it. That part just does not make a bit of logical sense to me.none.
And you would not get to rule anything dear Vir, you would be a squished pancake with no will of your own, that is if you got to live.Probably the dark lord would enjoy torturing you forever because you dared to think you could have any part in ruling. Poor boy, we loved him well.

But the unworn Ring may have called out to the Witch-King as he led his army out of Minas Morgul. For he did halt, sensing some other power within his valley and he swept the shadows with his unseeing eyes. He didn't move on until Frodo overcame the Ring's summons to put it on and grasped instead the Lady's starglass. - This occurred five pages into 'The Stairs of Cirith Ungol' in TTT.

I don't believe the Witch-King would not have sensed Frodo, Sam, and Gollum, had not they had the Ring with them.

I see what you mean dear Vir, but I maintain , in my opinion that the ring had been crafted in such a way that it was an entity unto itself. It and the dread lord were one of course because it came from him, but I liken it to a man and a woman who become one, who are inseparable friends and agree on all great points. They are separate but think as one, yet they still both have their will.
This is something to ponder. I looked up the ring in the Thain and it offers this:

The Ring appeared to have a will of its own. It could leave its bearer in order to return to Sauron, to whom it was linked. The Ring slipped off Isildur's finger in the Gladden Fields and exposed him to the Orcs hunting him. It left Gollum too when its master Sauron was stirring again in Middle-earth. Frodo was tempted to put the Ring on in the presence of the Nazgul, and thereby expose himself and the Ring to them.
and also:
The Nazgul were drawn to the Ring, and Sauron was also able to sense it. Sauron became aware of Frodo when he wore the Ring first at Amon Hen and then at Mount Doom. Sam Gamgee felt Sauron seeking him when he used the Ring on the borders of Mordor. '

So if it seemed to have a will of its own why could it not in effect call out in some way at least making the mind of Sauron uneasy even if his own powers were sufficiently great enough at that time to know instantly where the location of it was.
I just think that it did in some way keep calling to its master because it could not be at rest as it were either until it was back in his possession.

Yup, Sauron didn't know the Ring was within his realm until Frodo donned it while at the Cracks of Doom and then Sauron felt his doom. Had he felt Sam wearing the Ring aty Cirith Ungol, our story would have been rather a bust. Imagine going to all that trouble only to have Sauron to finally regain the Ring; what kind of a story would that have made?

He had the N’menoran blood, though.


Hiding somewhere. Evil is, after all, cowardly.

Are you saying they were not Siamese twins?!

I've always regarded this as a perfect explanation for why they were undecided in the end whether to stay or leave and delayed their choice : the one on the left wanted to leave, and the one on the right wanted to stay! Stalemate!

I haven't gotten to that part of the Trilogy yet (I'm re-reading and can only read a few pages a night) but I can really see these two as fast friends. They may have a few differences in upbringing and lifestyle but their motivation and desire to work for the good of middle earth and its peoples is the same so they would surely have a bond of the heart.

Agreed about Tom and Goldberry. Perfect relationship/friendship there, they didn't take things so seriously even as they were seriously friends/lovers, complimenting eachother perfectly in all things that the two really were like one. Theirs was the most beautiful relationship IMO because of what it was, just that, two people, happy with eachother.

I don't think Pippin would have had much time to spend playing with Bergil once he assumed his duties serving Denethor. After the war he would have had the time, but by then having experienced war first hand, he probably wouldn't have had the heart to be in a playful mood. I know Merry still wasn't; and they probably both suffered from post-traumatic stress symptoms, even though hobbits are quite resilient.

I haven't checked in Appendix B, but by the time Pippin and Merry returned to Gondor, Beregond had probably died of old age; and I doubt if his friendship with Bergil would have amounted to much more than meeting in a pub for an evening or two of trading reminiscences, now that they were both gaffers. Of course, I'm probably wrong.

I just ran the numbers to ensure my above proposition was plausible: Pippin was almost 29 when he first met Bergil, who was 10 in SR 1419. - from 'Minas Tirith' of RotK. Merry and Pippin journeyed to Rohan and Gondor in SR 1484, (when Merry was 102). - from Appendix B of RotK. Thus Bergil would have been 75 when Pippin returned and aged about 94.

So yes, we can assume Beregond would have died by then and Bergil, if still alive would be quite the elder gaffer.