"Helm's Deep" - Eric's Thoughts

I remember the taste of chewing cardboard as a child. It tastes something like this disaster of a chapter on oh-so-many levels.

Eagerly, I began reading this chapter. I expected epicness--and left it scratching my head. This is where Tolkien's character development and POV is really lacking. I simply did not identify with any of the characters particularly. The result? Meh. I wasn't really invested in the battle.

There are logistical problems as well. The battle made no sense. Theoden suddenly decided to charge when they were apparently outnumbered and pushed into the caves. Then, suddenly--wait for it--the charge apparently was so successful that the orcs were routed.

But wait! Now there are trees to the rescue! And Gandalf! And Dinkerbell too, err, I mean, Erkenbrand with--wait for it--1000 troops! Apparently 1000 troops and some trees were all that was needed, in addition to a magnificent charge, to route this force that is previously portrayed (between lightning flashes) as a bottomless mass of orc-power.

Literary critics have a word for this. It's called god out of the machine. In other words, everything is suddenly fine because the author says it is! The trees were in no way foreshadowed, and the charge against this infinite molasses morass of orcs just simply isn't plausible. Very disappointing.

That isn't to say there aren't great moments. Legolas and Gimli's competition is the highlight of the chapter and builds on their friendly rivalry. To be honest, all you become interested in, rather than the survival of these people, is whether Gimli or Legolas chop off more heads.

I know the only thing I was counting was the number of pages remaining in this chapter.

"The King of the Golden Hall" - Eric's Thoughts

I couldn't help but notice how flat all the characters are in this chapter. Something about these good guys just rings hollow. When Gimli threatens again to start a pointless bout, and Aragon gets upset about his sword being touched, I felt myself resisting the urge to roll my eyes. Not again, I thought. Surely Tolkien could push the boundaries of character development farther than that. Not so.

Thank goodness for Grima Wormtongue. Finally evil that seems palpable! The whole story we're just hearing about this protean threat that is brewing in a far off distant land. Even the dark riders -- they're nothing but creepy headless horsemen that have good noses. But Grima finally represents an evil that is much more sinister than the black-and-white, good/evil Balrog/Gandalf confrontations we're having. In this chapter, Gandalf and Wormtongue essentially battle wits for the ear of a king. Grima is smart, and eloquent. I found myself rooting for him in this chapter, especially since I knew that Gandalf would cheat.

Indeed, Gandalf doesn't win by intelligence. Rather, he implements a wizard-cheat-code and uses his staff to reign holy light from the sky. It's still a fun confrontation, but I would have liked to see Gandalf win on the merits.

Grima is fun because he represents the true strength of Mordor -- that the good guys can't even agree amongst themselves. Mordor, while supposedly evil, at least is united and strong in purpose. Grima represents the opposite of this.

As an aside, I wonder what Sauron's point of view from all this is? Is he really even all that bad as the protagonists make him out to be? Perhaps all he's trying to do is eliminate the annoying Gimli's in the world, so that less page-time is devoted to growling about insults to honor and drawing an axe in response. In light of all that, Grima Wormtongue actually seemed pretty reasonable, and I thought made a few good points.

The highlight of the whole chapter is when Wormtongue is faced with the unbearable thought of spending more time with these self-righteous prigs, or fleeing. Having had enough, he rightfully chose to get the heck out of there, his eyes flashing madness at the hopeless thought of spending more time with Gimli and Co.

"The Road to Isengard" - Jacob's Thoughts

In contrast to the refreshingly clipped pace of events that lead up to the Battle of Helm's Deep (seriously, every chapter seemed to have some new, grand development that kept me engaged), Tolkien is now certainly taking his sweet time building up to the climactic confrontation between Gandalf and Saruman.

It's an anxious balancing act Tolkien's trying to pull of here: string the audience along just long enough, and the final show-down will pack just that much more oomph; but string it along for too long, and the tension crosses the line into tedium.  Seeing as how the Table of Contents assures me that I'm still at least 2 chapters from Book III's ostensible climax, Tolkien frankly has me a little nervous.

For how should I engage with this chapter?  Is this like in an RPG, wherein half the purported fun is just running around exploring this world, having conversations with the various characters?  Because that's what Gimli and Legolas' wistful conversations of old haunts feels like; same with Merry and Pippin recounting the discovery of Tobacco amongst the Hobbits before Gandalf thankfully saves Theodun from the tedium. I know Ben hasn't been a fan of Merry and Pippin in Book III, and for valid reasons; nevertheless I did find their laid-back reunion with the remainder of the old Fellowship, smoking pipes and sipping wine amidst a devastated yet victorious battle-field, to be just too darn charming to hate on.  This was humor that felt well-earned.

Nevertheless, the question arises again: what is the raion d'être of this chapter?  Is this just a break after the break-neck pace of the preceding chapters?  Some long-delayed character development?  A release of the tension?  Some world building?  A reminder that no one seems to know what Hobbits are?  So much of this prose, while pleasant enough, feels a little extraneous, obstacles to getting to the good stuff.  This chapter's most charming moments feels like it could have easily been merged into the following chapters without much of a loss.

Also, it just now occurs to me: I know part of the joke of Merry and Pippin in this chapter is that they are so blase around these earth-shattering events, but how are they so blase about seeing Gandalf again?  Gandalf has basically come back from the dead, transformed into a being even more powerful than before; shouldn't the import of that strike to the heart of even Merry and Pippin?  Not that I need a constant string of characters swooning over a resurrected Gandalf, but at least an acknowledgment, or even a flippant "Aren't you dead?", feels merited here.

"Helm's Deep" - Ben's Thoughts

Again I turn in comparison to Jackson's film, because "Helm's Deep" is ever so bland. Where is the emotion, the danger, the tension, that Jackson managed to eke out of these sparse pages? Assuredly valid complaints can be made about the length of the battle scenes in the film. Yes, it dragged on too long. But in the film you can feel the bone-weariness of the soldiers who are defending this fortress, and the near-despair of Theoden that leads him to what amounts to a suicidal charge from the keep to face the armies of Saruman head-on.

It's also interesting that here, the charge doesn't seem that suicidal at all. The king and Aragorn manage to sweep the armies before them, to the point where they are "cowering" between the king's forces and the wood of Hurons that has crept up behind the orcs during the night. The text makes it seem like the orcs are all but finished even before their "final doom", Gandalf and Erkenbrand (an unintentionally hilarious name; small wonder Jackson dropped it from the film -- although he did keep the also ridiculous "Gamling") are icing on the cake, so to speak, of the orcs' destruction. They don't even have to get the heads a-rollin' -- the orcs in their terror flee into the woods where, we are told in an over-dramatic pronouncement, "from that shadow none ever came again." Sigh. I love Tolkien's prose, but perhaps the battle scene was too much for him.

Or perhaps I'm overlooking the fact that this battle chapter seems devoid of emotion because Tolkien had actually been part of a number of battles in World War I and couldn't bring himself to translate what he felt about the experience to the text. Despite Aragorn and Theoden's bleak predictions about how sour the battle is going, you just don't feel it from reading the chapter; in fact, Tolkien has his characters wisecracking throughout and even includes an interlude where Aragorn has a chat with some nasty rude orcs. The gloss perhaps hints at Tolkien's distaste for combat. You won't find drawn-out descriptions about exactly how Aragorn or Gimli hacked orcs to pieces, nor anything about spurting blood or screaming wounded. It's all quickly swept over in an oddly detached way.

It'll be interesting to see how I perceive the battle of the Pellenor Fields, found in Book 5, this time around. I will note that Tolkien skipped over the Battle of the Five Armies (in The Hobbit) entirely (whereas Jackson spent the better part of 2 hours depicting it in his latest film, a true bastardization of The Hobbit if there ever was one. More on that of course if we ever get to those films). High fantasy novels, of which Tolkien is credited as a founding father, don't get very gory or bloody, but in this day and age it makes one pause when all of that is just sped over with barely the bat of an eyelash.

Or perhaps it's just because Saruman's orc army is just "The Dragon" to the ultimate "Big Bad" figure in this book -- Saruman himself. We'll get to him eventually. Of course, as Gandalf pointed out, Saruman, too, is just another stepping stone towards fighting with Mordor. I can just imagine Sauron observing this battle with interest, and knowing that the fate of Gondor might be sealed prematurely by Saruman's victory. Sadly for him, Saruman is utterly trounced, both here and on the home front, as we'll see in the next chapter.

"The King of the Golden Hall" - Ben's Thoughts

The Rohirrim as a people always seemed a little bland to me. I think Tolkien does a fine job of capturing the singularity of the Elves and (to a lesser but still present extent) the Dwarves, but Men, for some reason, are basically just stick figures.

Jacob already compared this chapter to Jackson's film, and I agree with his sentiments -- here I'm left wondering what exactly did Gandalf do to free Theoden from Grima's influence -- and would like to add that Jackson did a wonderful job of characterizing Theoden and Eowyn. The movie characters feel like real people whereas here they are just cardboard cutouts. Eowyn, granted, will receive more characterization from Tolkien in Book 5, but Jackson wisely made her a major character in the second film. Here she just swoons over Aragorn (while he looks "troubled") and stands stoically at the doors of Meduseld while the men ride away to war (Tolkien gives with one hand, in allowing Eowyn to command the household in her relatives' absence, but then takes away with the other, with that final, traditional glimpse of the lonely woman in the empty house).

Theoden, as well, comes across in the films as a complex and realistic character. He grieves over his son's death, he is in turn defiant and defeated by the war that is coming to him unbidden. There is a marvelous scene in the film that is comprised of quick cuts between the Uruk-hai marching on Helm's Deep and Theoden being dressed in his armor by his guards, with Theoden reciting the poem that Aragorn relates to the gang throughout. The poem is marvelously depressing, and the lighting and editing of the scene is simply masterful. Theoden finishes the recital (omitting the last two lines from the text version) with the statement, "How did it come to this?" Gives me chills every time, with the follow-up images of the orcs' banners blotting out the sun. Of course, the movie manages to dilute the emotions of that scene with something like an hour and a half of orcs getting hacked to pieces by Our Heroes, so there's that. But the characterization and staging of that scene encapsulate some of the beautiful work Jackson put into the trilogy.

In comparison, Tolkien places the poem at the beginning of the chapter. It is still marvelously depressing; the poem talks about how Eorl the Young, the legendary forefather of the Rohirrim, is both an inspiring figure and long dead. The implication of course is that the long years have brought an end to countless generations of Eorls, who will not and cannot return. Legolas underscores the sorrow of the poem with his comment that even without understanding the words, " 'it is laden with the sadness of Mortal Men' ", thus translating that sorrow to the plight of Men in general.

It is interesting that Tolkien begins the chapter introducing the first kingdom of Men that the gang encounters with this rumination on the fleeting and transitory nature of human life. He certainly draws out the differences between the Elvish kingdoms and that of Rohan; the dark halls and almost buffoonish guards surrounding Theoden are a sharp contrast to what the reader remembers of the grace of the Elves in Lorien or Rivendell. But what is he trying to say by drawing our attention to these differences? If I recall, this meditation on human life does not extend into later chapters, which are more interested in taking care of Saruman and moving the gang on down the road to Gondor. I'll have to watch the Rohirrim closely in future chapters. They are certainly depicted as less High and connected to otherworldliness than the men of Gondor. It's just strange that Tolkien begins the chapter with such a somber meditation and then drops it in favor of Eomer's downright jolliness at the end.

I don't have a whole lot to say about the rest of the chapter. Gandalf isn't particularly creepy here; he doesn't bother to sleep at the beginning of the chapter, but then, neither does Aragorn. The dangerous power he displayed in the last chapter is fairly roundly dispelled by the Rohirrim taking him as their mascot at the end of the chapter ("Our king and the White Rider!") Onward to Helm's Deep, I guess.