J. R. R. Tolkien was adamant that The Lord of the Rings was not an allegory, but this did not preclude him from drawing upon his life experiences when writing his fantasy epics; he made a distinction between taking inspiration from the real world and directly copying it. Many of the characters in The Lord of the Rings and the rest of Tolkien’s legendarium were inspired by people whom he personally knew. For example, Arwen and her ancestor, Lúthien, were modeled after Tolkien’s wife, Edith. Like her, they had fair skin, gray eyes, and dark hair, and Tolkien wrote that Lúthien was the most beautiful of all Elves. Another example was Treebeard, whose booming voice was inspired by that of Tolkien’s friend and fellow author, C. S. Lewis. But what about himself?

Though the race of hobbits had much in common with Tolkien, none of the individual hobbits were particularly similar to him. Rather, the character from The Lord of the Rings with whom Tolkien felt the greatest kinship was a Man of Gondor. In a letter to a fan named Mr. Thompson, Tolkien wrote, “As far as any character is ‘like me’ it is Faramir – except I lack what all my characters possess (let the psychoanalysts note!) Courage.” At first, this seems surprising; beloved as he has become, Faramir was far from the story’s most prominent character. However, upon a closer inspection of The Lord of the Rings and of Tolkien’s life, the similarities between them become clear.

Tolkien and Faramir Had Some of the Same Passions

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Faramir and Tolkien shared some biographical details. For instance, each had a brother. However, Faramir’s brother, Boromir, was older, while J. R. R.’s brother, Hilary, was younger. Both pairs of siblings got along well. Despite Denethor’s favoritism, Faramir did not hold a grudge against Boromir, and according to Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings, Boromir was “the helper and protector of Faramir.” Hilary Tolkien was not a very public figure, but by all accounts, he and his brother had a strong bond as well. J. R. R. gave one of his sons the middle name Hilary; in turn, Hilary named his dog Bilbo and called him Baggins when he misbehaved. Faramir’s personality was also similar to Tolkien’s. In the chapter “Minas Tirith” from The Return of the King, a Gondorian soldier named Beregond described Faramir as “wise and learned in the scrolls of lore and song.” This “lore” included history, mythology, and language. Faramir was a scholar at heart, like Tolkien. The extended edition of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King strengthened this similarity by showing Faramir’s creative side. In a conversation with Pippin, Faramir said that he “wasted many hours” of his youth “slaying dragons.” Boromir was always the more dutiful soldier, while Faramir preferred to pretend that he was off on adventures, the type that Tolkien so loved to imagine.

The more significant commonality between Faramir and Tolkien is that they were reluctant soldiers. For Faramir’s entire life, the threat of the Dark Lord Sauron loomed over Gondor, and Faramir grew up training to be a military leader. The War of the Ring officially began with an assault on the city of Osgiliath on June 20, 3018 of the Third Age, and Faramir was present for this inaugural battle. He, Boromir, and two other Gondorians were the only survivors of the sudden attack. Faramir continued to fight in the War of the Ring until the Siege of Gondor when an attempt to defend Osgiliath left him gravely wounded. Though he survived, he was unable to participate in the Battle of the Black Gate, the clash that finally put an end to the Dark Lord. The Tolkien brothers were also veterans of a global conflict: World War I. Hilary enlisted as soon as the war began in 1914, but J. R. R. waited to do so until 1915 so that he could finish his studies at the University of Oxford. Once his exams were complete, he joined the 13th Service Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers. He fought in several battles, including the notoriously bloody Battle of the Somme, but like Faramir, he was unable to see the war through to its end. He contracted trench fever on October 27, 1915, and he was deemed unfit for service throughout the rest of the conflict.

Tolkien Used Faramir to Communicate His Beliefs About War

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Tolkien despised armed conflict, but he felt that it was sometimes a necessary evil, and Faramir shared this viewpoint. In the chapter “The Window on the West” from The Two Towers, Faramir told Frodo Baggins,

War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

Though Faramir did not say this in any of Jackson’s films, he still expressed his disdain for war, such as in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, when he cynically remarked, “War will make corpses of us all.” Neither Faramir nor Tolkien wanted to fight, but they felt that it was their duty to do so. Though Tolkien did not lose a brother to war like Faramir did, several of his closest friends died, and his experiences in the trenches haunted him for the rest of his life.

There is one major difference between Faramir and Tolkien. Faramir was defined in large part by his dysfunctional relationship with his father. Denethor blatantly favored Boromir and showed nothing but disdain for his other son. He even said that he wished Faramir had died in Boromir’s place. Most who interacted with Faramir in The Lord of the Rings learned that he was just as strong and virtuous as Boromir, if not more so, but Denethor was unable or unwilling to see that. Faramir tried desperately to prove his worth to Denethor, hence his willingness to ride to Osgiliath during the Siege of Gondor even though he and his father both knew it was likely to lead to his demise. By contrast, Tolkien seemed to have a good relationship with his father, though not a long one. He was only four years old when his father died, so he was raised solely by his mother until the age of twelve when she passed away as well. Perhaps the loss of Tolkien’s parents is the reason that so many characters in The Lord of the Rings are orphans.

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Tolkien’s original intent was not for Faramir to be a reflection of himself. Faramir was not even supposed to be a part of The Lord of the Rings. In a letter to his son, Christopher, Tolkien wrote, “A new character has come on the scene (I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him, though I like him, there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien): Faramir, the brother of Boromir.” Since Faramir apparently emerged from Tolkien’s subconscious, it is unsurprising that he embodied some of the author’s strongest beliefs. As Tolkien further developed the character, he took notice of the autobiographical elements and leaned into them. For instance, in the novel, Faramir had a dream about a great wave crashing over him, which was instead given to Éowyn in Jackson’s trilogy. This dream was based on one of Tolkien’s own recurring nightmares.

Faramir was one of The Lord of the Rings’ most compelling characters, and the fact that Tolkien drew upon his life experiences contributed to that; it gave Faramir depth and grounded him in reality. Tolkien was even more similar to Faramir than he claimed because despite what he wrote in his letter, all evidence points towards him being brave — and not just because he fought in one of history’s most horrific conflicts. When he was 21, he proposed to Edith even though they had not seen each other in five years and she was already engaged. This easily could have ended in disaster, but he did not let fear stand in the way of true love. He also dedicated his life to writing fantasy, a fledgling genre that most of his peers considered childish at the time. Even if Tolkien did not recognize it, these were courageous actions, and like Faramir, he eventually gained the recognition that he deserved.

The Lord of the Rings

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The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

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The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Summary

The Lord of the Rings is a long-running fantasy franchise created by J.R.R. Tolkien. The core series consists of four primary books: The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, the Two Towers, and The Return of the King, all of which have been adapted into films. The Lord of the Rings core franchise centers around Frodo Baggins, a living being known as a hobbit, and a group of heroes from the various kingdoms such as the kingdom of man, the kingdom of dwarves, and the kingdom of elves. Together with the great wizard Gandalf, the group will embark on a perilous quest across Middle Earth to take The One Ring to Mount Doom to destroy it, before it can corrupt anyone and return to the hands of the evil entity known as Sauron, hellbent on conquering all of Middle Earth. The original novel/prequel films, The Hobbit, stars Frodo’s uncle Bilbo Baggins as he embarks on a quest from the comfort of his home and seeks the treasure of a dragon known as Smaug. Bilbo stumbles upon The One Ring on his quest, and finds himself amidst a great war. The most recent media for the franchise is the currently airing The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, airing exclusively on Prime Video.

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