Fascinating character study, one that seeks to blend the very gentle Book Faramir with his more badass movie counterpart. He will condone the roughing-up of Gollum, but take note, he will feel guilty about it! I like the way his men know just which buttons to push, telling him that it's for the good of Gondor that they beat up Gollum. Faramir can't resist that idea.
Here, he definitely seems to be a man who is not a natural soldier. He seems to lack the ability to compartmentalize and delegate. It's usually not the captain's job to do the actual roughing-up anyway; Faramir could very easily have given the order to go ahead and then put that away in the compartment of his commander's mind labeled "Unpleasant Jobs, Delegated." But he seems to take very seriously the ideal of not asking any of his soldiers to do something he wouldn't do himself. This speaks to me of a man who will be a great Prince of Ithilien several years down the line, but who doesn't really have that inborn soldier-ness that Boromir had. |
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