Why Does "They Have a Cave Troll" Work?

Examining why a line in Fellowship avoids the ‘cringe’ label

Mae govannen, friends! Josh here.

Today’s guest post comes to us from Landen Swain. Landen (@landenswainwrites) is a best-selling author, avid reader, and content creator currently residing in Bucks County, PA, but will soon be moving to Nashville, TN to pursue a further career in education. He writes about Christian dating culture, loyalty programs, and is currently writing several works of fiction across numerous genres. If you want to hear about his upcoming works, including his developing cultural analysis of meme culture, you can follow him on social media or subscribe to his newsletter. 

Today Landen has written about why a line of Boromir’s that might have come across as cringe actually works. I enjoyed his in-depth examination of this moment from Fellowship and am excited to pass it along to you all. Hope you enjoy!

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Boromir about to say “They have a cave troll.” Credit: New Line Cinema

Why Does "They Have a Cave Troll" Work?

Examining why a line in Fellowship avoids the ‘cringe’ label

By Landen Swain

Let me set the scene. The Fellowship, under the decision of the Ring Bearer, pivots on their journey to Mordor after meeting mountain shaking resistance from the dark wizard, Saruman. The company delves deep into the overrun Dwarven city of Moria, trapped in the heart of the mountain, forced to venture through to the other side. Gimli, the only Dwarf in the Fellowship, discovers his dear uncle Balin’s tomb. While in the burial chamber, the ever curious Pippin touches a skeleton sitting on the edge of a well, accidentally forcing it backwards, causing a loud ruckus, and alerting the whole host of Moria to the Fellowship’s whereabouts. 

Running out of the chamber to check for incoming foes, Boromir, played by award-winning actor Sean Bean, narrowly dodges a few goblin arrows, hears a terrifying roar, and then ducks back into Balin’s Tomb. Closing the doors alongside Aragorn, Boromir catches his breath for a brief moment and then lets out the line:

“They have a cave troll.”

In the Great Eye of some, this line sits on the verge of being cringe, which is a hotter debate than anything going down at the Council of Elrond. In my opinion, the line works in The Fellowship of the Ring. However, it may not have worked in, say, a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) project.

MCU movie watching experiences have given me memories on par with the Charge of the Rohirrim and a few choice Lord of the Rings scenes; I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve cheered, and felt a rush of goosebumps all because of a Marvel superhero movie. But in recent years, due in part to the proliferation of new ideas and an accompanying dip in quality post Avengers: Endgame, the MCU’s reputation has suffered. Part of their problem is the track record of cringey, cartoonish dialogue, such as when Dr Strange says “Scooby-Doo this sh*t” and questionable choices like an entirely too long gag of giant, screaming goats. The running joke is that the MCU is liable to unironically include millennial humor such as “he’s right behind me, isn’t he?” in its films, which Thor actually kind of did in Thor: Love and Thunder. 

If a teenager who is unfamiliar with Peter Jackson’s trilogy read the cave troll line out of context, they may think it was a line from Ant-Man, and as a result, read it with the cringey energy and delivery the MCU has regressed into being known for. But in context, I think the line works for Boromir, and actually enhances the whole Moria scene.

Give this man an Oscar (or a Ring)

But why does it work for Boromir and The Fellowship of the Ring? For starters, Sean Bean’s line delivery. The Lord of the Rings benefits from incredible casting and a powerhouse roster of performers, of which Sean Bean is no exception.

Not to troll (pun intended) the Star Wars sequel trilogy, but let’s compare this line to the “They fly now? They fly now!” dialogue in The Rise of Skywalker. Bean’s delivery comes with a hint of gallows humor, unintended to be a laugh line but it comes across as one because it’s delivered with a sarcastic flare. The line relieves some tension without dousing out the mounting flame of tension versus trying to be a knee slapper. 

Rise of Skywalker, on the other hand, undermines the danger of the moment by attempting humor for humor’s sake. It comes across like they added the jetpack troopers to set up the comedic moment rather than the comedy coming from the moment itself.

Immersion in the Lore

When Boromir tells us that a cave troll is coming, it lets the audience know that the terrifying sound down the hall has a name so that when the cave troll breaks into the room, we’re not left wondering if it’s a troll or just a really large goblin. Back to the Star Wars comparison: when C-3PO, Finn, and Poe notice the flying troopers, they act ignorant to information that’s commonly known. Jetpacks are extremely popular in the Star Wars Universe. The Mandalorians, whose warrior culture prominently features weapons and jetpacks, are legends in the galaxy. Jet troopers had already been featured in 2005’s Star Wars: Battlefront II. Additionally, the Clone Army itself comes from the DNA of a bounty hunter with a jetpack, so the concept of Finn, a former stormtrooper, not knowing they have flying capabilities doesn’t make any sense.

Remaining in the Moment

Going back to the accidental funny nature of Boromir’s line, it’s funny because we, as the audience, perceive that he is genuinely annoyed, and so the laugh comes almost as an accident. Take Voldemort’s laugh in the last Harry Potter movie: after declaring to the battle worn Hogwarts crowd that “Harry Potter is dead”, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named cackles like a man who just recently learned what laughing is. The sound of the laugh is awkward and uncomfortable to the scene watcher, but it doesn’t take you out of the seriousness of the moment. Here’s an egotistical, genocidal maniac who rules through fear and lives in an echo chamber of kiss-ups obeying his every whim because they’re scared of him. He thinks he just defeated his worst enemy and now he’s unstoppable. Much like a billionaire laughing way too loud, it’s funny to us watching on the outside because it’s awkward. However, no one in the scene perceives it as such in the moment. 

Lord of the Rings is a masterclass on using humor to enhance a scene, not distract from it. While there’s some moments that teeter towards veering off course, Peter Jackson is able to use his talented cast’s comedic timing to move the momentum along. A prime example: Gimli standing on top of the wall in the Battle of Helm’s Deep, knocking Uruk-hai off the ladders, boasting his kill numbers. The Legolas-Gimli stat padding competition shows the developing comradery between the two, helps establish the early dominance of the Helm’s Deep defenders, and serves as a great transition sound for the Uruk-hai’s surprise ascent up the bridge. Sure, Gimli is the comedic relief of the Orc Hunter trio, but his humor serves a purpose and is more reactionary rather than the whole point. 

With each subsequent watch, my appreciation for how Lord of the Rings utilized humor as a tool grows. Jackson didn’t oversaturate even the extended editions with jokes, but throughout the movie there’s a chuckle awaiting the watcher even in some of the most dire of moments. Each line that acted as an intended iconic line was delivered with enough sincerity and gusto to make it work, but the groundwork was always laid to allow for the line to make sense and not feel forced, unlike some of the worst of the MCU. 

Simply put: Boromir’s cave line and the Lord of the Rings script as a whole works because of sincere acting, excellent casting, precise comedic timing, and taking Tolkien’s world and characters seriously. 

Meme’d to the Shadow

One additional reason that The Lord of the Rings has continued to succeed has to do with how culture–specifically internet culture–has changed in the past twenty years. 

Aside from being pieces of art and beautiful adaptations of a popular book series, the films owe part of their continued success to their memeability. Mostly from a lens of appreciation, nearly every line in Lord of the Rings has been remixed for comedic use, whether that’s Boromir’s other notable meme contribution of one does not simply walk into Mordor or Legolas’ they’re taking the Hobbits to Isengard. 

While the memes are fun, they can go either way in terms of furthering or hindering our collective enjoyment of Lord of the Rings. With Fellowship (the movie) being released in 2001, it largely avoided immediate widespread meme treatment, partially because our concept of what a meme is hadn’t really been formed into what we know them to be today. Nor were there many commonly used forums for having a good laugh at the expense or in enjoyment of Lord of the Rings. Most of the jokes we see now became popular after the film’s release, and by that point, the trilogy was already established as classics in the minds of fans. We can have a good laugh about some of the details of Peter Jackson’s trilogy while still appreciating their timelessness. 

MCU and recent Star Wars films, on the other hand, either grew up in a period where meme culture was well established and rampant. It’s been an uphill battle for these modern film franchises because everything fans don’t like gets blasted to oblivion, with memes being the deterrent of choice. While there’s a lot to be said about The Hobbit film trilogy, one of the things working against it that wasn’t working against The Lord of the Rings as much is that meme culture is developed rather than developing.

But for a lot of our present-day entertainment consumption, we suffer from meme culture conditioning us to immediately find something to make fun of or create content for ourselves. There’s whole careers on YouTube dedicated to reactions and simply finding things wrong with films, and the ripple effect of those kinds of videos has trained to be mercilessly critical, incapable of enjoying as we once did. When it rains, it pours, and when you get on the internet’s comedic bad side the memes pile up until a point where people who have never seen or listened to a project say it sucks. As the truism goes, there’s a lot of things that truly are enjoyable when you don’t have someone yelling in your ear that it isn’t. 

In the case of Sean Bean’s delivery, it came at a time when we weren’t so familiar with the term cringe and had not yet developed our insistence on memeing every moment to oblivion. Sure, some fans passionately dismissed other scenes, like Éowyn’s “I am no man” line, as forced cringe, but they were the minority then and social media did not amplify their reactions at the time like it has the power and potential to do so now.  While I believe Boromir’s line should escape the cringe critique, had memes and their cultural impact altered the way we consume media back when Fellowship of the Ring debuted in theaters, I fear our modern appreciation for the line may not be as prevalent. 

Thankfully, by and large, Boromir’s sarcasm about the impending cave troll is generally well received, as is the rest of the Lord of the Rings movies. What follows that line is an epic battle against a whole host of goblins, the terrifying reveal of the Balrog, and one of the most soul-shattering deaths in cinematic history. The Moria journey could have existed without Boromir’s cave troll line, and an editor easily could have cut it, but thankfully it was included, the cave troll fell, and The Lord of the Rings continues to stand the test of time, cringe tests, and memes. 

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Appendices

• It’s a cosmetic change, but I’ve recently renamed two of the sections here at JwT! “LOLs of the Rings” and “Tolkien Talk” are now “Laughs of the Rings” and “Lore of the Rings”…I think it fits a lot better with the “Live, Laugh, Lore of the Rings” that’s this newsletter’s unofficial motto haha

• Will Bluesky or Threads be Twitter’s true successor? I have no idea, so I’m on both. I feel thin, sort of stretched…like an user spread over too many social media platforms. Anyways, find me on Bluesky and/or Threads if you’re there!

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