"Flight to the Ford" - Jacob's Thoughts

I'm still waiting for Ben to catch up with us and fill us in with his Encyclopedic knowledge of Tolkien mythology about what exactly is the meaning and importance of "Elbereth," and why that word seemed to drive the Black Riders away at the climactic moment at the end of the chapter previous. I even contemplated just waiting another week and, you know, be more responsible myself and spend this time working on my various 20-page finals (one more year, one more year, one more year...)

Nevertheless, I was so tantalizingly close to the end of Book 1 (and I also wanted to procrastinate as much as reasonable), that I just couldn't resist.  But as thrilling as that conclusion was, I'm still left with unsettled questions in my mind: why exactly didn't the Black Riders just finish the job the night they stabbed Frodo?  What was it about shouting "Elbereth!" and/or Strider flinging torches at them that sent the Black Riders scrambling, exactly?  If they're so violent and powerful (as we've already seen), and if even an elf can hardly stand up to The Nine (as we learn in this chapter), then what's to stop them from dismembering 4 frightened hobbits and a single man they've got outnumbered in the dark, which we already know is their home turf?  And if they can just telekineticly make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth and make your sword fall apart (as we see them do at the ford), why not just do that to Frodo when they've got him cornered, so that he can't slash at them or cry enchanted words at them or whatever?  I need my villains to feel more competent than our erstwhile heroes in order for their defeat to feel fully satisfying.

For that matter, why did it take so long for them to track down and cut off our motley crew of hobbits again, particularly if our heroes are now sticking to the main road and there's not one but two choke points at rivers and bridges?  Why wait till they're almost on the cusp of Rivendell, where there's already elves riding out to reinforce them, before they attack?  For that matter, if Rivendell is already so aware of the deathly importance of their quest, why only send out one guy to help them out, instead of, say, an entire battalion?  Will any of these questions be answered in the next chapters at all?  All these hanging mysteries are like static on the radio, disrupting my ability to enjoy Book 1's climax.

Two comments on the film version: I am still irritated after all these years with Peter Jackson for undercutting and blunting the impact of Frodo's lone stand against the Black Riders by shoe-horning in Steve Perry's daughter pouting all sexy-like in her Elfin dominatrix outfit across the ford; it was a relief to override that scene in my own imagination with the original here once more.  However, everything else the film does in the lead up to that moment is, frankly, more internally consistent and intelligible than what Tolkien has written down here, viz: the Black Riders disperse simply because Strider is a total bad-ass of a fighter; but rather than lingering around all day and traveling days more, as in the text, our little Fellowship take off at once for Rivendell as fast as they can, for the Black Riders regroup almost immediately and are hot on their heels.  Maybe Tolkien should've been a screen-writer, to help reign in his most meandering tendencies.

Also,  while blundering across the stone Trolls from The Hobbit might have perhaps been a delightful call-back earlier in the novel, it feels jarring and out of place here, what with the tone so very different and the stakes so much higher.

Nevertheless, it's impossible for me to be a total crank about this chapter: I've repeated so often that even I'm getting kinda sick of it, that my favorite theme in this book is that of a light shining through the darkness, and here in Book 1's final scene, we see that theme get bumped up to the next level!  For here we have all nine Black Riders, and they don't even bother covering their heads anymore (I'd forgotten that detail), letting their cold, merciless eyes shine in broad daylight, so self-confident are they, so complete is their control, so total is their victory.  Up till now, the darkness has never been more powerful.

But then, lo, behold!  Down the river comes a "cavalry of waves," with "white riders upon white horses with frothing manes."  Even more important, across the ford is "a shining figure of white light; and behind it ran small shadowy forms waving flames, that flared red in the grey mist that was falling over the world" (another detail I'd forgotten).  Whatever these are, they drive into the retributive flood the remaining Black Riders who had wisely held back (to no avail), saving Frodo.

And just what is that shining figure of white light with its attendant shadowy forms waving flames?  The paradox is that, unlike my earlier questions, I actually don't need that particular question answered at all: for right now, it is enough for me to know that as dark as was the darkness, the light was more powerful still, that it shined brightly no matter the grey mist falling over the world, and swept away the dark ones suddenly, in an instant.