Company of the Ring

The number nine is chosen, as the book's author J. R. R. Tolkien states, to match and oppose the nine Black Riders or Ringwraiths.

They note, too, that the Company is diverse both in culture and in personal qualities, and bound together by friendship, a model very different from the western image of the lone hero.

[1] Set in the fictional world of Middle-earth, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.

A hobbit, Frodo Baggins, is to bear the Ring to the land of Mordor to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom.

[T 8] Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli give Boromir's body a boat burial;[T 9] they then set off in pursuit of Merry and Pippin.

This desired type of community, as seen in the Company of the Ring, is specifically diverse, in culture and in personal qualities, a team bound together by friendship and relying completely on the strengths of each individual member to forward the common cause.

This is the reverse of the character of what Tolkien states is the evil assemblage that opposes the Company, who are "homogeneous, discordant, and intensely individualistic.

[3] The Christian theologian Ralph C. Wood writes that "the greatness of the Nine Walkers lies in the modesty of both their abilities and accomplishments.

[6] She notes that Tolkien was a philologist, fully aware of the etymologies of these terms, and the resulting slight differences in their meanings.

[9][10][11] Laura Gálvez-Gómez specifically likens the Company of the Ring to the Arthurian order of the Knights of the Round Table.

[17] The diminutive scale of the four hobbits, and of the dwarf Gimli, was achieved by the use of several methods, including scale doubles of film sets, forced perspective, and green-screening to combine reduced images of hobbits and dwarf with unscaled images of the other members of the Company.

Sketch map of Middle-earth during the Third Age The Shire Old Forest Bree Rivendell Erebor Esgaroth Moria Isengard Mirkwood Lothlórien Fangorn Mordor Gondor Rohan Harad commons:File:Sketch Map of Middle-earth.svg
Image map with clickable links of the north-west of Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age
Nine Walkers vs Nine Riders: the free Company of the Ring is opposed to the enslaved Nine Nazgûl . Tolkien made the two groups match in number but differ sharply in character. [ 3 ] [ T 1 ]
Scholars have likened the Company of the Ring to the Knights of the Round Table . [ 8 ] Detail of The Arming and Departure of the Knights , 19th-century tapestry by Edward Burne-Jones , William Morris , and John Henry Dearle
The members of the Company as portrayed in Peter Jackson 's 2001 film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring . From left to right: (top row) Aragorn , Gandalf , Legolas , Boromir , (bottom row) Sam , Frodo , Merry , Pippin , Gimli . [ 13 ] The casting is widely admired. [ 14 ] Even Tolkien scholars hostile to the films admired the casting and costumes. [ 15 ] The hobbits and dwarf were made to appear to scale by methods including scale doubles of film sets, forced perspective , green-screening , and choosing actors of differing heights. [ 16 ]