For this assignment, one can take a look at the universally known scene from Peter Jackson’s movie Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. In this scene, all of the members of the adventuring party in the making are swearing their loyalty to the main character Frodo, who is also the ring keeper, and their quest. The purpose of the quest is to destroy the ancient dark artifact, the Ring, to stop it from corrupting the minds and hearts of the world (Jackson, 84). While giving their vows, three particular characters pledge their finest strengths: a sword, a bow, and an axe. In the original work, these offered objects symbolize the diverse yet complementing strengths of the characters in question. However, a shortcoming might be found if an expected pattern of complementing differences is broken. A parody explores an opportunity for these differences to break the characters apart rather than bring them together.
In a parody version, the scene may be adapted as: “You have my hood, and my hair, and my height.” The Incongruity humor is evident since the best-known part of an already well-remembered scene is significantly subverted. The choice of word substitutions plays on the recognizable physical elements of the characters in question – Aragorn’s hood, Legolas’ long blond hair, and Gimli’s short stature. The pledge stops being a representation of what they can bring to the table and turns instead into an example of what they look like on the surface, subverting the initial feelings of unity and heroism.
The Superiority humor can be extracted from the way these chosen elements of the pledge can be linked to some of the pre-existing aspects of the characters individually but do absolutely nothing for the common benefit. Lord of the Rings fans already knows Aragorn’s fondness for hoods which let him cover his face whenever he likes and assist in his life in the shadows. But the story, however, needs him to become a leading hero, and thus an emphasis on the hood is an element of the absurdist humor. Similarly, the pristine nature of elves is common knowledge, and Legolas might be proud of his looks, but there is no use for them in the upcoming fight.
Finally, Gimli might not want to admit it, but as a dwarf, he certainly does not possess an impressive height. With him particularly, the Superiority humor is the most obvious since, in the original work, dwarves are already prone to seeing themselves in a better light than others. The striking absurdity of his claim overlaps with the third type of humor, Release, and capitalizes on the character’s intense, excessively energetic nature.
The absurdist take on the scene that supposedly depicts individuals of different backgrounds coming together to overcome the greater evil exposes the fallacy of hasty generalization. There is no textual evidence to suggest that prolongated and poorly moderated collaboration between drastically different species might result in their differences complementing each other in any capacity. The lore presented in the story earlier on suggests the opposite. Thus, a symbolic representation of complementing strengths of some of the party members can be easily turned upside down, pointing out their differences instead and leading to potential animosity. The argument of insufficient research cannot be applied to this situation per se since this paper is based on a fictional work. Thus, the pre-established context of the world is taken into account instead of the existing basic information on the setting.
Work Cited
Jackson, Peter. Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring. New Line Cinema, 2001.