I'll bet the scene with Figwit and Arwen was a pickup, filmed after principal photography, especially because Figwit had made such a hit with fans.

Again with the agreeing with Sean. I think Frodo both failed and succeeded.

I was watching bits of FOTR this afternoon and started crying again at the Council of Elrond when Frodo says "I will take the Ring" and Gandalf gets that heartbreaking look on his face: love, and pride, and sorrow, and suddenly it hit me that Gandalf knows everything that Frodo will go through, all the suffering, and he has to let him go. Gah. Which also gives added resonance to Gandalf going with Frodo to the Grey Havens.

(Like Figwit??WTF??)

It stands for "Frodo is great... WHAT IS THAT???"

Figwit is an elf who first appeared in the Council of Elrond scene back in FotR.

His name comes from his expressions during that scene, which seem to say exactly that: "Frodo is great," while he's just sitting there listening to people talk, and then he gets a "WHAT IS THAT???" expression as he looks at something off screen.

It's a whole thing.

Ah.

And stop reading stuff in here. Come back after you've seen the movie, and can highlight whitefont that will finally make sense.

suddenly it hit me that Gandalf knows everything that Frodo will go through, all the suffering, and he has to let him go.

Kate, I noticed today that, when Mt. Doom erupts after Barad-dur falls and everyone at the Morannan understands that Frodo and Sam are doomed, if not already dead, we see Merry and Pippin both sobbing. But we also see Gandalf, with one tear rolling down his right cheek--a neat parallel to Frodo's tear after Gandalf's fall in Moria .

Katie, yes.

His strength failed at the end, but his mission was a success. I'm not religious, but Mount Doom is one of my very favorite examples in literature of God's grace - go as far as you can, and grace will bring you the rest of the way.

Beautifully put. I'm not a religious person either, in the sense of going to church or temple or believing in any specific god or the trappings of any specific religion. I've often felt that I get the same thing from books like LOTR that others get from the Bible. To put it another way: I learn how to live my life from Frodo and Sam and various characters from other books, the way some people live their lives by Jesus's example. I hope I'm not offending anyone, but Frodo and Jesus are both real to me as mythic figures, and Jesus isn't any more real for having 2,000 years of followers behind him.

And on a totally different note from my last post, I thought Figwit stood for "Frodo is great--who is that?" and referred to what some people thought as they watched that scene (oh, Frodo is so brave and wonderful and--hello, hot stuff!).

Kate, that could be it, too. But for some reason, when someone explained it to me on the TORn boards two years ago, it was also to do with the man's expressions during the scene.

I could be wrong, though. It's been two years since I had it explained to me. I'd almost forgotten about Figwit entirely.

Oh, and two other parallels between films:

(1) When Sam rescues Frodo in the tower at Cirith Ungol, Frodo says, "I'm sorry, Sam, I'm sorry for everything," a neat reprise of Bilbo's line after going all CGI on Frodo in Rivendell.

(2) Sam grabs Frodo's hand in Mt. Doom, duplicating the shot of Frodo grabbing Sam's in the river at the end of FotR.