December 21, 2002.
Archery vs. Backgammon. Discuss.


Yes, I have a crush. Yes, I have a crush on a character in a movie. Yes, I have a crush on Aragorn in The Two Towers.

It is a bad one.

It has been a long time since I felt this fresh, sharp, silly infatuation with anyone, real or invented, so long that feeling this way actually feels a little bit awful, and it reminds me of the untold horrors of my college days, when getting a really serious crush was, for all effective purposes, like coming down with a disease — one I knew wouldn't last forever, but one that would always string me along cruelly, for as long as it wanted. The bigger the crush, the truer the pain.

People, it is All About Aragorn right now.




And it is trouble. It is a full-blown case of Hero Lust.

I'm not going to get deep into spoilers here. All you need to know is that in The Two Towers, Aragorn continues his long ascent into the perfect, classic romantic film hero that was only hinted at in the first installment of the trilogy. And he does it well. He is part sword-wielding bad-ass, part understated strong man, part tormented, doe-eyed loverboy.

Note that I have it bad for Aragorn, not for Viggo Mortensen, the man who plays him on the big screen. Yeah. I have a question for you. Have you ever seen Viggo Mortensen clean-shaven, wearing street clothes? I saw some footage of him as himself, out of character, and I was disappointed. Viggo as Viggo just seems to be a normal fellow (and what sort of a name is "Viggo," anyhow?).



But dress Viggo up in worn leather chaps, and give him a sword, and smear all manner of earth and sweat on his fair skin, and, well, he almost burns straight through the film.

I would not mind if Aragorn — er, Viggo — never shaved or showered again in his life. He is like Samson. He is pure hero with that matted hair, and stubbly beard. But he is lost without it: he wakes up in chains and ruins.

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Now, despite my heady infatuation for old Aragorn, I know I'm still not ready to forget about my beloved Tobey Maguire. These two men are worlds apart, and I'm not ready to compromise either world.

See, as I was just explaning earlier this week to my friend Amy, if an evening spent with Viggo-as-Aragorn means archery practice and rustic beer guzzled straight out of big iron jugs, then an evening spent with Tobey Maguire means a few games of backgammon and plenty of witty repartee (yes, Tobey plays backgammon. I would have to learn how to play). Tobey represents the quiet, dark-haired bookish boy I have daydreamed of for half my life. And when you have a terrible crush like this, it's never necessarily about the one person you have a crush on — it's about a million other things that go along with that person. For me, there's always a musical/literary analogy running under these crushes:



OK, OK, Bono is probably a terrible parallel for Aragorn. But you see how everything connects. I can't throw out Tobey, because inevitably that would mean throwing out The Smiths, Oscar Wilde, libraries, seltzer water, the color silver, clove cigarettes, upholstered furniture, swimming pools, moonlight, and the rush of adrenaline you get when you're driving down steamy city streets in a sleek car at night.




(Dear reader, just ignore the fact that I am probably eight inches taller than Tobey Maguire. It's worked for me so far.)

The sequel to Spiderman doesn't come out until 2004. By then, our Aragorn will have reached his royal pinnacle in the final installment of the Rings trilogy.

Let's get back together in 2004 and discuss further. In the meantime, I'm keeping my options open.