Every story has a cast of characters that we follow and watch and come to love… but what about the background characters? The nameless masses who rarely get our attention? This column examines my favorite background characters who deserve a moment in the spotlight.
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The Movie:
‘The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers’
The Character:
A zombie! (Maybe)
The Scene:
Why He Deserves A Moment In The Spotlight
Despite having watched all three Lord of the Rings movies dozens of times over the years, I’m still finding little moments I never noticed before, and this one may be the weirdest of them all: at 0:10 in the clip above, we can see Rohan soldiers barricading the door to the keep of Helm’s Deep. But if you pause the video at the right moment, you can see what looks shockingly like the pale, emancipated hand of a zombie.
I know this isn’t a zombie, but it sure looks line one, doesn’t it? Alternately, considering how the fingernails almost look like claws, it may also be the hand of a vampire; compare the hand here to Nosferatu’s hand from the upcoming 2024 remake:
While this is certainly the hand of a random soldier that’s stained with Uruk blood and covered in bruises, it’s still fun to imagine that an undead creature of the night came to defend the Rohirrim from Saruman’s hordes, and subsequently went on fun adventures with its new horse-buddies while guzzling mead, camping out in Dunharrow, fighting on the Pelennor Fields, and finally duking it out with orcs at the Black Gates, while never gaining any glory or being remembered by the masses. But he was still there, just out of sight, helping erect barricades and doing his part to save Middle-Earth and its people from Sauron.
Imperfect Glass 