Monday, August 15, 2016

"The Passing of the Grey Company" - Jacob's Thoughts

One of the hoariest old saws of the creative writing workshop is "show, don't tell."  That this maxim only rose to prominence in the post-WWII period (and that largely thanks to the nefarious influence of Iowa) is once again demonstrated by the fact that Return of the King often ignores the maxim entirely.  For example, in this chapter, we are told all about how Aragorn had his long-awaited Skype session with Sauron in the Orb of Orthanc, and apparently (with great effort) wrested away log-in privileges from the Dark Lord, so to speak.  Likewise, the legendary Broken Blade has been reforged.  Now, these are both highly significant events that signal the advent of Strider's full transformation into Aragorn the King--yet we only learn of both events from a dinner conversation, which is frankly rather anti-climactic.  I would kind of liked to have witnessed the scene wherein Aragorn wrestles with Sauron in a battle of wills through the Palantir (my goodness, we saw Pippin do it, so why not show far-more-important Strider?!); I would also have liked to actually see the reforging of the Sword--or at least its presentation to Aragorn--with just a touch more fanfare.  It's chapters like these that perhaps encouraged the rise of "show, don't tell" in the first place.

But then elsewhere in this chapter, Tolkien runs into the opposite problem, wherein he does show, but doesn't really tell at all: case in point, the arrival of the Rangers. I had plumb forgotten that Strider was a member of that mysterious order, so little had they come up since Strider's first introduction!  In fact, the order remains a mystery: what is their organizational structure?  Their history?  How do they recruit?  What, exactly, are their missions, and how do they choose them?  The Rangers arrive cloaked, and remain thusly opaque (if memory serves) for the rest of the novel.  It's just kinda odd that a series with such a massively mapped-out mythology should both introduce and re-introduce the Rangers in such a tossed off manner, presuming a readerly familiarity with the group that he has not set up, which just feels so uncharacteristic of the Professor (even one-off Shelob gets a full history, so why not the Rangers!)

Likewise uncharacteristic: Tolkein's rather left-field introduction of the Oathbreakers, haunting the Paths of the Dead.  There had simply been no foreshadowing, no allusion, no prior reference or set-up for them this whole series long.  This has not been the case for just about every other place the Fellowship has visited throughout LoTR.  I am supposed to feel the intense fear of the company as they cross the threshold (and having Gimli serve as our POV helps a little), yet there has not been even a tenth of the world building as there was for, say, the Mines of Moriah--or Mordor itself.  Hence, this meeting with the dead simply does not pack the same punch.  It feels like Tolkien started to rush through things as he sensed himself finally getting towards the end.

Also: how the heck am I supposed to treat the dead in this universe??  Like I said, Tolkien has otherwise done such an admirable job of working out his mythology here, but it occurs to me that he has included precious little discussion throughout this series of what the Middle-Earth Afterlife looks like, about the nature of its Spirits, Gods, Devils, Heavens, Hells, Purgatories, and the like.  What are the folk-beliefs, the orthodoxies, the legends and doctrines of the dead in Middle-Earth?  Do any of these people go to Church?  Do they participate in any rites, rituals, or sacraments?  There have been a few scattered prayers of distress here and there, but no clear working out of any sort of religious system.  Given Tolkien's own open Christianity, this utter neglect of the theological is especially baffling.

I nit-pick these underdeveloped parts because this self-same chapter still reminds us that Tolkien does know how to properly set things up when he feels like it!  For here is where Eowyn first offers her blade in the service of Aragorn--which he of course refuses, but this only sets up a pay-off for later down the line when she joins the final battle.  As Ben has repeatedly noted, Tolkien could have really used a strong editor.

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