Merry, Pippin and Hobbit Kickassery

"Merry and Pippin sat on the bottom step, feeling both unimportant and unsafe," (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers).

Oddly enough, they felt safer sitting on the giant talking tree.

In my opinion, Merry and Pippin are the two characters in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers who perform the greatest of deeds while receiving the least amount of recognition for what they have done. Take, for instance, the siege of Isengard.

If Isengard had been allowed to stand; then, the War of the Ring would have been won by Sauron. Instead, Merry and Pippin help to rouse the Ents and overthrow Sarumon. This prevented the forces of darkness from attacking Helm's Deep on both sides. Sounds pretty freaking epic, doesn't it?

For Gimli, Aragorn and Legolas, the novel focuses on how brave/strong/true they are while displaying their epic deeds IRT (or in as real a time as you can have in a novel). Merry and Pippin, however, recount their deeds to the aforementioned heroes while they're having dinner. Because nothing is more heroic than dinner theatre.

It's like a reverse lemon squeeze.

As someone who is less than the societal ideal of masculine, it is interesting to see how that masculine ideal developed. Tall, brawny, bearded (except for Legolas), brave and selfless are the adjectives that can be applied to the heroes of LOTR. Meanwhile, the hobbits are short, fearful, selfish, childish and frail. But it's the hobbits who regularly save the day.

But it's the "heroic" construction of the masculine ideal that we all hold to. It's a limiting ideal, and one that not everyone can live up to. Helm's Deep would have fallen if not for the actions of Aragorn...and the actions of Merry and Pippin. As a society, maybe we should remember that you don't have to be Aragorn to be kickass.

Objectively, what's better-second breakfast or an undead army to fight your battles?