So I don't know if this is a popular opinion or not, but I actually really like the Ents. Yes, "Treebeard" was kind of an overlong and slow-moving chapter; but given the slow-moving nature of the Ents, that pace felt thematically appropriate to me.
Part of my affection for these creatures lies in residual remembrances of my Ecocriticism seminar that colored so many of my posts a year ago; the Ents seem an apt symbol for a Nature that pushes back against us polluting, exploitative, and destructive human beings that blithely and selfishly abuse the Earth's resources like Saruman. And like the Ents, Mother Nature, which normally takes ages to change and move and adapt, has suddenly awoken in a rage and now swiftly attacks us with mega-droughts across California and Australia, melting ice caps, and super-storms that ravage the Gulf and East Coast (and that's likely just for starters).
But these Ents aren't just metaphors--they are also characters, I've realized this time around. I'd plum forgotten about the Entwives, and the forlorn melancholy of Treebeard as he sings a song of lost love that is apparently older than all recorded human history. That is a long friggin' time to still be carrying the torch for a lost lover--and I'm one to talk! Yet even sadder is that this story isn't unique to Treebeard--all the Ents have been without their lovers for ages! In fact, their entire species seems endangered because of it. What is the commentary going on here? Is this a warning against taking women for granted? (If so, that's some rich irony from a text that features so precious few female characters!) Or, less-grandiosely, is this just another symbol for how losing a lover can feel apocalyptic and like it lasts for centuries? There is some rich and elusive symbolism with the Ents here.
I'll tell you what I most enjoy about the Ents, though: through them, Tolkien actually engages with the ramifications of immortality in a way that he doesn't with, say, the Elves. Now, the Ents are not immortal, of course; but they have apparently existed for so staggeringly long, that from a human perspective they might as well be. As such, Treebeard can say things like "Let's not be hasty" repeatedly, because the truth is, compared to these hobbits who exist only in a blink of an eye by Ent standards, that Treebeard really does have all the time in the world by which to make decisions. Hence he and the Ents move so slowly, so carefully, so deliberately, and so often not at all--for if you have literally millennia to move, then why hurry? It's why they can speak so long and slowly and digressionally, as well as carry the torch for lost wives for so long--it's not like their lives are too short for that sort of thing.
It is we human beings who must rush about, as we constantly feel the dread march of time breathing down our necks with ever increasing rapidity. A physicist friend of mine, upon turning 30, decided to calculate how much time he had experienced--when you're 3, for example, a year feels like a third of your life, cause it is; and when you're 4 a fourth, then a fifth, and so forth. By his calculations, by the time most of us reach 25, even if we still later live to be 90, we have nevertheless already experienced around 80% of our lives. For by the time you are decades old, what's another year but another fraction of your life flying by?
But that arithmetic gets jacked up when we start talking about life-spans in the millenia, not mere decades. When a year is a mere 10,000th of your life, then mourning a lost lover for centuries suddenly doesn't seem like such a big, long, waste of time; and conversations that take tedious hours to finish, by Ent perspective are really only seconds long; and Ents that slowly turn into trees for ages then back into Ents again, will really have only appeared to "sleep" indeed; and of course, one will have long learned to never be hasty.
These behavioral ticks of the Ents intrigue me in part because it indicates that Tolkien really has given some thought as to the implications of super-longevity--what that would look like, how that would effect behavior, etc. Because Tolkien has apparently not given the same thought to the Elves' purported immortality. We only know Tolkien's elves are immortal because he told us; nothing about their behaviors gives that longevity away, as we mostly just find more idealized forms of humans--they may be more nimble and skilled and beautiful and serene than us regular humans, but other than that, their immortality has not caused their civilization or society to behave all that differently than ours.
Yet the Elves have lived even longer than the Ents, and will outlast them, too. So why is it that the Ents have evolved behaviors more commensurate to their massive lifespans, while the Elves still live day to day in human time? Maybe that's a small quibble, but it is one that the Ents can't help but foreground for me.
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Sunday, March 22, 2015
"The Uruk-Hai" - Ben's Thoughts
I always get a kick out of seeing the internal workings of the "evil" characters in books like this. I want to learn about their motivations, about their power structures, about just how and why their evil plans are carried out. But, sadly, getting up close and personal with the run-of-the-mill henchmen of Sauron and Saruman in these chapters makes me wonder how Sauron, especially, got as far as he did with mooks like these on his side.
As Jacob astutely points out, most of these moronic orcs are just in it for themselves -- the Mordor and Moria orcs in particular. Power is something they've seen wielded by their superiors (Grishnákh's comments about the Nazgûl come to mind in particular; on that note, I can't remember if we've ever heard of the Nine referred to by this name previously, so the first-time reader might just be in the dark about what exactly Grishnákh is referring to there) and something that has been exercised over them, and so they want what they can't have; what the system is designed in a way so that they can never have. (Sounds like a variant of capitalism, doesn't it? Work really hard at obtaining what your "superiors" and "betters" already have, even though based on your birth and circumstances, it's not something you'll ever be able to attain!)
The trouble with this system, of course, is that the evil overlord will be betrayed in the first instance by his underlings. What would have happened if Grishnákh had actually gotten his filthy mitts on the Ring? His comments to Merry and Pippin seem to indicate that he would have taken it for himself, admiring comments about the Nazgûl notwithstanding. Of course, a little orc could never have really challenged Sauron himself, but it likely would have thrown a wrench in Sauron's works nonetheless, if to a lesser degree than if someone like Saruman had managed to claim it. I guess the Nine are more like physical extensions of Sauron's will than independent entities, but I guess it's hard for an evil overlord to find good help. Orcs are effective in numbers but they will betray you or run away in fear at the earliest opportunity if given half the chance.
Saruman's orcs, or Uglúk at least, do seem to be motivated by a twisted sense of loyalty or duty to Saruman himself. Uglúk states that they are "servants of Saruman the Wise, the White Hand: the Hand that gives us man's-flesh to eat." He genuinely seems to want to return the halflings to Saruman because Saruman was the one who created (bred? spawned from a test tube?) him. The Jackson films make explicit that Saruman is "breeding" an army in Orthanc, while the books leave it more ambiguous as to where exactly these "fighting Uruk-hai" are coming from. I wonder if Saruman somehow managed to instill this loyalty in the creation process, or if he really just does treat his orcs far nicer than Sauron does his orcs (as we see in later chapters, the Mordor orcs kill one another with glee and wild abandon, while these "Uruk-hai" seem fiercely united from start to finish).
I honestly don't have too much more to say about this chapter. Pippin doesn't have too much more going on in his head than was displayed in "Fellowship" from others' observations of him; I think it's telling that he still refers to Aragorn as "Strider" rather than by his true name. He at least has the foresight to plan their escape, but of course any kind of competent captors would have checked and double-checked his bonds multiple times a day. Merry comes across as rather dull thanks to his wounds, but he certainly does not hesitate to reassert his authority of his nitwit cousin once they are freed from the circle of Riders and need a place to go. As far as the orcs' operational procedures go, it's interesting to note the orc-drink as a twisted counterpart to the lembas from Lórien and the inspiring drink that Elrond gave Gandalf to help the Fellowship, and that the Moria orcs were recruited by Saruman but don't seem to have any particular allegiance to any great power without, shall we say, harsh motivation.
I know Tolkien is trying to say something about how greed and cruelty are the architects of their own destruction, which is something that a lot of evil overlords seem to have problems with in fantasy novels. It's something of a tired trope by this point, however, and it didn't do a whole lot for me this re-read. In any case, this kind of infighting will lead in part to Sauron's destruction in Book VI. And of course, if Sauron and Saruman had really worked together, they might have had a chance to stop the forces of Good. But of course Saruman could never really commit to just being a stooge; as Gandalf told Saruman, "only one hand at a time can wield the One." Poor Saruman. His game is already up at the end of this chapter -- he just doesn't know it yet.
As Jacob astutely points out, most of these moronic orcs are just in it for themselves -- the Mordor and Moria orcs in particular. Power is something they've seen wielded by their superiors (Grishnákh's comments about the Nazgûl come to mind in particular; on that note, I can't remember if we've ever heard of the Nine referred to by this name previously, so the first-time reader might just be in the dark about what exactly Grishnákh is referring to there) and something that has been exercised over them, and so they want what they can't have; what the system is designed in a way so that they can never have. (Sounds like a variant of capitalism, doesn't it? Work really hard at obtaining what your "superiors" and "betters" already have, even though based on your birth and circumstances, it's not something you'll ever be able to attain!)
The trouble with this system, of course, is that the evil overlord will be betrayed in the first instance by his underlings. What would have happened if Grishnákh had actually gotten his filthy mitts on the Ring? His comments to Merry and Pippin seem to indicate that he would have taken it for himself, admiring comments about the Nazgûl notwithstanding. Of course, a little orc could never have really challenged Sauron himself, but it likely would have thrown a wrench in Sauron's works nonetheless, if to a lesser degree than if someone like Saruman had managed to claim it. I guess the Nine are more like physical extensions of Sauron's will than independent entities, but I guess it's hard for an evil overlord to find good help. Orcs are effective in numbers but they will betray you or run away in fear at the earliest opportunity if given half the chance.
Saruman's orcs, or Uglúk at least, do seem to be motivated by a twisted sense of loyalty or duty to Saruman himself. Uglúk states that they are "servants of Saruman the Wise, the White Hand: the Hand that gives us man's-flesh to eat." He genuinely seems to want to return the halflings to Saruman because Saruman was the one who created (bred? spawned from a test tube?) him. The Jackson films make explicit that Saruman is "breeding" an army in Orthanc, while the books leave it more ambiguous as to where exactly these "fighting Uruk-hai" are coming from. I wonder if Saruman somehow managed to instill this loyalty in the creation process, or if he really just does treat his orcs far nicer than Sauron does his orcs (as we see in later chapters, the Mordor orcs kill one another with glee and wild abandon, while these "Uruk-hai" seem fiercely united from start to finish).
I honestly don't have too much more to say about this chapter. Pippin doesn't have too much more going on in his head than was displayed in "Fellowship" from others' observations of him; I think it's telling that he still refers to Aragorn as "Strider" rather than by his true name. He at least has the foresight to plan their escape, but of course any kind of competent captors would have checked and double-checked his bonds multiple times a day. Merry comes across as rather dull thanks to his wounds, but he certainly does not hesitate to reassert his authority of his nitwit cousin once they are freed from the circle of Riders and need a place to go. As far as the orcs' operational procedures go, it's interesting to note the orc-drink as a twisted counterpart to the lembas from Lórien and the inspiring drink that Elrond gave Gandalf to help the Fellowship, and that the Moria orcs were recruited by Saruman but don't seem to have any particular allegiance to any great power without, shall we say, harsh motivation.
I know Tolkien is trying to say something about how greed and cruelty are the architects of their own destruction, which is something that a lot of evil overlords seem to have problems with in fantasy novels. It's something of a tired trope by this point, however, and it didn't do a whole lot for me this re-read. In any case, this kind of infighting will lead in part to Sauron's destruction in Book VI. And of course, if Sauron and Saruman had really worked together, they might have had a chance to stop the forces of Good. But of course Saruman could never really commit to just being a stooge; as Gandalf told Saruman, "only one hand at a time can wield the One." Poor Saruman. His game is already up at the end of this chapter -- he just doesn't know it yet.
Saturday, March 7, 2015
"The Uruk-Hai" - Jacob's Thoughts
So I once read something by Tolkien's old friend C.S. Lewis (I think it was a preface to The Screwtape Letters), wherein Lewis gave his theory of Hell as a place where everyone is trying to consume everyone else. Besides being a sadly apt description of our late-capitalist global economy, this theory has stuck with me because it also explains why Hell is so miserably self-defeating.
I bring this up because, up till now, Mordor has just been so frighteningly competent, right? The Nazgul are terrifyingly efficient, Mordor's spies are everywhere, their forces grow exponentially, and they always seem to be at least a step ahead of our heroes. We've discussed before how Sauron's goal is total control over everything and everyone, and he appears to be well on his way to accomplishing so. I don't know the mythology near as well as Ben, but I have to think Sauron actually thinks of himself as the good guy, the epic hero, the one who brings absolute order to this world of interminable chaos. Sauron has probably been able to attract so many forces and allies precisely because he promises them total power over others.
Key word: Others.
Because the key flaw, the inherent vice, in this quest for total power is that the sort of people most attracted to it mainly only want it over others, not over themselves. And thus when someone else wants the same power that you want, even a nominal ally, your entire system becomes unstable.
We see the first cracks in Mordor's philosophy of power in this chapter, as we follow the Uruk-Hai running across the plains with Merry and Pippin. We soon begin to learn that these orcs are not a disciplined unit, but a haphazard composite of Mordor and Sarumanian forces; supposedly they are all on the same side, but really they can barely stand each other. Their cruel taunts of Merry and Pippin are constantly interrupted by their own petty infighting and bickering. Everyone accuses each other of treachery, and/or of trying to cheat them out of their reward. The lead orc Uglúk must decapitate 2 goblins early on just to maintain his (very fragile) control.
Merry and Pippin are able to exploit this fundamental selfishness to trick an orc into separating them from the main group in exchange for a non-existent Ring--this, in fact, is how they escape. And though Tolkien does not state this explicitly, I have to suspect that the Riders of Rohan are able to so completely decimate the orcs and goblins precisely because the latter did not stand united when they fought back. But then why would they? They were never united in the first place, for they were all trying to consume each other. They willfully lived the doctrine of Hell, and they literally burn because of it.
I recall that Gandolf first sold everyone on carrying the Ring to Mordor because, quite simply, Sauron would never see it coming; Sauron desires is absolute power, and so it never occurs to him that anyone would want anything else. This blinds him to altruism, heroism, friendship, selflessness and self-sacrifice, and is thus how Frodo and Sam are able to sneak right under his nose. This also blinds him to the weakness of his own militias--for no matter how large his forces get, they will never be truly united, for they are will always be at each others throats. The Eye of Sauron sees much, but it does not see all.
I hereby posit that this is the first chapter wherein we get a hint of how Mordor can be defeated.
I bring this up because, up till now, Mordor has just been so frighteningly competent, right? The Nazgul are terrifyingly efficient, Mordor's spies are everywhere, their forces grow exponentially, and they always seem to be at least a step ahead of our heroes. We've discussed before how Sauron's goal is total control over everything and everyone, and he appears to be well on his way to accomplishing so. I don't know the mythology near as well as Ben, but I have to think Sauron actually thinks of himself as the good guy, the epic hero, the one who brings absolute order to this world of interminable chaos. Sauron has probably been able to attract so many forces and allies precisely because he promises them total power over others.
Key word: Others.
Because the key flaw, the inherent vice, in this quest for total power is that the sort of people most attracted to it mainly only want it over others, not over themselves. And thus when someone else wants the same power that you want, even a nominal ally, your entire system becomes unstable.
We see the first cracks in Mordor's philosophy of power in this chapter, as we follow the Uruk-Hai running across the plains with Merry and Pippin. We soon begin to learn that these orcs are not a disciplined unit, but a haphazard composite of Mordor and Sarumanian forces; supposedly they are all on the same side, but really they can barely stand each other. Their cruel taunts of Merry and Pippin are constantly interrupted by their own petty infighting and bickering. Everyone accuses each other of treachery, and/or of trying to cheat them out of their reward. The lead orc Uglúk must decapitate 2 goblins early on just to maintain his (very fragile) control.
Merry and Pippin are able to exploit this fundamental selfishness to trick an orc into separating them from the main group in exchange for a non-existent Ring--this, in fact, is how they escape. And though Tolkien does not state this explicitly, I have to suspect that the Riders of Rohan are able to so completely decimate the orcs and goblins precisely because the latter did not stand united when they fought back. But then why would they? They were never united in the first place, for they were all trying to consume each other. They willfully lived the doctrine of Hell, and they literally burn because of it.
I recall that Gandolf first sold everyone on carrying the Ring to Mordor because, quite simply, Sauron would never see it coming; Sauron desires is absolute power, and so it never occurs to him that anyone would want anything else. This blinds him to altruism, heroism, friendship, selflessness and self-sacrifice, and is thus how Frodo and Sam are able to sneak right under his nose. This also blinds him to the weakness of his own militias--for no matter how large his forces get, they will never be truly united, for they are will always be at each others throats. The Eye of Sauron sees much, but it does not see all.
I hereby posit that this is the first chapter wherein we get a hint of how Mordor can be defeated.
Sunday, March 1, 2015
"The Riders of Rohan" - Ben's Thoughts
Both Eric and Jacob speculated that "Departure" was a more fitting beginning to Book 3 than we had originally thought. I think Jacob is probably right in that there seems to be no good place to begin Book 3. It's somewhat awkward to completely leave the urgency and menace of the Ring to follow secondary characters (Aragorn was always secondary in "Fellowship"; Gimli and Legolas were tertiary at best). But I stand by my belief that it would have been better to do what the movie did: leave us with Aragorn's decision to follow the orcs at the end of Book 2 and launch into the chase in "Two Towers."
This chapter is certainly long enough to have been split into two. The solution, I think, is place us a bit more into Aragorn's head in a preliminary chapter called "The Long Chase" or something similar, and clue us in a bit more as to what the decision to follow the orcs really means to him. I say this because, as Jacob points out, Aragorn begins to come into his own here with his declaration to Éomer that he is the heir of Isildur:
"'Elendil!' he cried. 'I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, Dúnadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil's son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly!' Gimli and Legolas looked at their companion in amazement, for they had not seen him in this mood before."
What has brought on this sudden willingness in Aragorn to proclaim himself? Two things, of course: one was the death of Boromir and his promise to him that he would save Gondor and her people. And second, the fact that Aragorn is no longer fulfilling a role as leader of the Fellowship and guardian of the Ringbearer -- he has moved on to something else (and searching for Merry and Pippin is merely a step or even a distraction along the way; he mentions several times how he longs to go to Gondor and how he will likely end up before Théoden before all is said and done in Rohan). Aragorn has accepted that his role in the War of the Ring will be a leader of Men, and it would have been nice to get some contemplation about that realization and some reconciliation with his role in the last book.
Of course Tolkien gives us none of those things; I'm not sure if he believes the reader should figure it out for him or herself or if he believes it's just so blindingly obvious that there was no need for it. I suspect the latter; Tolkien apparently had everything so worked out in his mind ahead of time that sometimes his trajectory didn't quite translate onto the page as effectively as it did, no doubt, in his internal outline for the tale. In any case, that is what I would have liked to have seen at the beginning of this book rather than the awkward placement of Boromir's death followed by this over-long chapter: the chase coupled with Aragorn's perspective on (frankly) the differences between Books 2 and 3, which would also help the reader abandon Frodo and the Ring until we are ready to return to them at the end of this book (which is a fairly effective transition, if I remember correctly), followed by the more plot- and exposition-driving "Riders of Rohan" chapter, with the meeting with Éomer, the description of the present politics of the Gap, the investigation of the orc corpses, and the encounter with Saruman. Thoughts about how this split would have worked?
A couple of other things: Tolkien goes out of his way to discuss how the Rohirrim are supposed to be very different from the men of Gondor. He talks about how they have no writing system, for one, and sets them up to be more "wild cards" in that they could potentially side with Sauron over the West because of their ignorance (Vikings on horses, natch). But then we meet Éomer and he doesn't seem all that different from any of the other Men we've met, except in his immediate acceptance of Aragorn as his superior and his ignorance about Elves. Théoden and Éomer never fail to make the right choices regarding the war and who their allies should be, once the business with Wormtongue is cleared up in a few chapters. I just wish these supposedly "lesser" men could be, well, a bit more flawed than they actually turn out to be.
The narrator spends quite a bit of time inside Legolas and Gimli's heads in this chapter, but, sadly, I feel like they came out of it just as flat as before. Legolas gets to be all different and Elf-y, with his lack of need for sleep, great eyesight, and somewhat prophetic foreshadowing of the destruction of the orcs at the border of the forest. But what of his thoughts, his motivations? Why is he driven to follow Aragorn and find the hobbits? We don't get any of that. Similarly, Gimli's lack of hope and fatigue is touched on, but not his motivations, personality, background, etc. These characters remain flat. I suppose it could be to highlight Aragorn's transformations (he even gets some backstory in that he hints at serving as the Rohirrim in some other guise than he presently wears in years past, before "young" Éomer was born), but it seems an unfortunate oversight for characters that will be with us for the rest of the trilogy.
Finally, I enjoyed our Saruman cameo -- not sure why he chose to impersonate Gandalf here with the hat instead of the hood, but it adds a nice ambiguity to the end of the chapter. I'll probably discuss more about Saruman and his motives and actions in future chapters, but I wish we saw more of him. He's one of my favorite characters. Next up… Merry and Pippin and Fangorn Forest. Ugh.
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