I thought it strange that Gandalf was so powerless in this chapter. Why would Gandalf drop everything (considering the stakes) to help transport Merry into the Houses of Healing? Why could Gandalf do nothing to help the wounded? Certainly Gandalf's skill in healing would surpass Aragon's?
Those problems aside, I actually thought this chapter was one of the better ones in Return of the King. Wait! Allow me to explain! One of the big critiques I've had of this series as a whole is that it never really focused on character. LOTR almost feels like a story about the land itself, with these people running about on it to fill great distances.
What I liked about this chapter is that it didn't involve the traversing of geography. The scene itself takes place in a house where people practice "leechcraft." (How's that for an anachronistic word?) There are multiple characters enclosed in a limited space. This leads to some fun moments, with Gandalf yelling at the verbose poet-healer that won't stop talking in verse. Finally, someone is called out on the strangeness of all of these random poems in the text. Meta.
Also in this chapter is one of the book's best lines: Merry waking up and saying, "I am hungry. What is the time?" And Aragon calling out Merry for what he is (hint: it's another word for a donkey).
The point of this chapter is to create yin with Tolkien's yang. The last chapter Eomer and Eowyn fought with the Witch King itself. This chapter creates balance by turning to the consequences of that battle. Structurally I think the chapter makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, as my co-readers point out, Gandalf's presence is not appropriate. His helplessness makes him seems like a weak character. Is this the same Gandalf that battled the Balrog? Gandalf the White disappoints.
Of course, Aragon healing everyone establishes Aragon as a Christ-like character. He washes the feet of the disciples here, so to speak, before he becomes king of the world. Tolkien does a masterful job of using scent as a trick of the trade: the reader can certainly smell the kingsfoil when Aragon crushes it. It establishes Aragon as a force in his own right -- if Gandalf can't even do it, who can? Aragon can!
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Monday, March 27, 2017
"The Pyre of Denethor" - Eric's Thoughts
Is Denethor a villain? I think so.Certainly he's not your typical evil lord lurking in a tower. But let's look at the facts.
Sacrifice your son for no reason at all by sending him into a pointless battle just to prove that you can? Then try to cremate him alive? Check.
Refuse to acknowledge the rightful heir to Gondor? Check.
Just plain creepy? Double check.
Of course, what makes the ignition of Denethor so tragic is that the reader realizes, right before the end, his creepiness wasn't entirely his fault. Turns out, Denethor had been watching Sauron News all along.
Of course, while Denethor would not be a man I would like to spend time around in real life, as literary fiction, he's one of LOTR's best characters. The reader can tell he WANTS to be good. He does try. After all, he's the last bulwark between the free world and ultimate tyranny. His cause is righteous.
The real tragedy is that the enigma is unanswerable. We have no pre-palantir Denethor and post-palantir Denethor to compare. Alas, the reader is only left to wonder what kind of man he might have been if circumstances were different.
Sacrifice your son for no reason at all by sending him into a pointless battle just to prove that you can? Then try to cremate him alive? Check.
Refuse to acknowledge the rightful heir to Gondor? Check.
Just plain creepy? Double check.
Of course, what makes the ignition of Denethor so tragic is that the reader realizes, right before the end, his creepiness wasn't entirely his fault. Turns out, Denethor had been watching Sauron News all along.
Of course, while Denethor would not be a man I would like to spend time around in real life, as literary fiction, he's one of LOTR's best characters. The reader can tell he WANTS to be good. He does try. After all, he's the last bulwark between the free world and ultimate tyranny. His cause is righteous.
The real tragedy is that the enigma is unanswerable. We have no pre-palantir Denethor and post-palantir Denethor to compare. Alas, the reader is only left to wonder what kind of man he might have been if circumstances were different.
Monday, March 20, 2017
"Homeward Bound" - Jacob's Thoughts
Back in my teen years, when I still played RPGs, I recall that there was a peculiar sort of melancholy that came with wondering back to the start of the map. After so many hours of game-play and experience-points, you now find that all those formidable villains that gave you so much grief when you were still trying to get the hang of the controls are now pansies, push-overs. But there's little sense of achievement, no cock-sure swagger, that comes from re-exploring those first levels; on the contrary, there's a nagging sense of waste--partly from all the irretrievable time you blew playing video-games (time that was perhaps better spent studying Spanish or Greek history or volunteering at shelters or protesting wars), but also from the feeling that you've abandoned all forward momentum, that you are exhibiting a rather childish nostalgia for places that literally never were. You are not only not moving forward with the game, you are not moving forward with your life (that might be why I finally quit playing video-games).
That, I think, is the peculiar melancholy facing Frodo and company as they near the Shire. From our old friends Butterbur and Nob in the Prancing Pony, we learn that all's not well in the neighborhood. Commerce with the Shire has slowed to a stand-still, a sort of police state with checkpoints has arisen, and the people of Bree now lock their doors at night. Swiftly we learn that Saruman is likely behind it all. The Hobbits are initially non-plussed, because they have Gandalf with them to set it right--except that Gandalf declares that that's not his job anymore, that in fact he is going to catch-up with Tom Bombadil instead (because I guess Tolkien couldn't pass up one more chance for Tom to be completely useless). Besides, says Gandalf, "you will need no help. You are grown now. Grown indeed very high; among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you" (340). Don't you see, Hobbits? You have so many more experience-points now! The gang that once huddled in fear of Farmer Maggot have slain Shelob, Witch-Kings, Orcs, and faced the wrath of Mordor itself; nothing in the mere Shire can frighten them now. This should be a triumphant homecoming for them. But the knife-wound in Frodo's shoulder, the one that refuses to fully heal, says otherwise.
Now, I have some quibbles with Gandalf's reasoning here: first of all, if his mission on Middle-Earth is (vaguely) to "set things right again," then as long as Saruman is still around to wreck mischief, well then Gandalf still hasn't quite finished his mission, now has he. Nevertheless, there is still something charming about how Gandalf sets off our little Hobbit band to defeat the final Boss for themselves. It feels less that Gandalf can't be bothered to help than it is that he wants the Hobbits to see for themselves how much they've grown. That's how this whole series started, isn't it; in The Hobbit, Gandalf nudged Bilbo Baggins into a treasure-hunt with the Dwarves not so much because they actually needed his help than because he wanted to help Bilbo grow a bit, get out of his comfort zone, realize some of his potential. Frodo was forced into the Ring Quest by much more dire circumstance, but Gandalf's purposes with him are much the same: to not only save the world, but to help Frodo become more than he is, as well. It is a personal-growth that dates clear back to the episode with the Barrow-Wights, when Frodo realized:
"There is a seed of courage hidden (often deeply, it is true) in the heart of the fattest and most timid hobbit, waiting for some final and desperate danger to make it grow. Frodo was neither very fat nor very timid; indeed, though he did not know it, Bilbo (and Gandalf) had thought him the best hobbit in the Shire. He thought he had come to the end of his adventure, and a terrible end, but the thought hardened him. He found himself stiffening, as if for a final spring; he no longer felt limp like a helpless prey" (Fellowship pg. 194).
Likewise, Gandalf sends the Hobbits back to the Shire alone, so that they can realize for themselves that they now have the inner-strength and confidence necessary to solve all their problems for themselves, and not always wait for Gandalf to bail them out. According to Joseph Campbell, that is the whole point of the Hero Cycle: for the hero to not only save the world, but to save himself, to achieve Apotheosis, resurrect, and ascend to a higher level. The Cycle, as implied by the very term, ends with the Hero returning home triumphant, to save his people, as these Hobbits now do. Like Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey, our heroes come home to clear out the usurpers.
But then, one of the frequent criticisms leveled against Campbell (besides his over-reliance on patternism, reductionism, and formula) is that, in myth, the Hero rarely if ever returns. Hercules does not return home to Greece once he ascends Mt. Olympus. Aeneus cannot return to Troy, or even to Dido. Odysseus cannot stay home in Ithaca but must travel inland with an oar o'er his shoulder to pay oblations to Poseidon. Luke Skywalker does not return to his Uncle's farm on Tatooine. Harry Potter never returns to finish his senior year at Hogwarts. And Jesus Christ does not return to the carpentry shop in Nazareth.
And Frodo cannot stay in the Shire, as we will find in a couple chapters. Hence the melancholy, that I mentioned earlier, of going back. Probably because we cannot go back, not really, not ever. The Hero Cycle is not a cycle at all. Frodo is re-visiting the Shire, but not actually returning. It's like revisiting your old home-town, or the house you were born in, your old High School . You can maybe enjoy a few fleeting moments of pleasant nostalgia, but anything more than that makes you restless, makes you feel arrested, like you're wasting time. You didn't undergo all that growth just to return to where you started.
"It seems almost like a dream that has slowly faded", says Sam as they approach the Shire; "Not to me," says Frodo, "To me it feels more like falling asleep again" (341). Not only can't we return home again, we shouldn't, either. The end-credits song that closes out The Two Towers film perhaps has it right: "You can never go home."
That, I think, is the peculiar melancholy facing Frodo and company as they near the Shire. From our old friends Butterbur and Nob in the Prancing Pony, we learn that all's not well in the neighborhood. Commerce with the Shire has slowed to a stand-still, a sort of police state with checkpoints has arisen, and the people of Bree now lock their doors at night. Swiftly we learn that Saruman is likely behind it all. The Hobbits are initially non-plussed, because they have Gandalf with them to set it right--except that Gandalf declares that that's not his job anymore, that in fact he is going to catch-up with Tom Bombadil instead (because I guess Tolkien couldn't pass up one more chance for Tom to be completely useless). Besides, says Gandalf, "you will need no help. You are grown now. Grown indeed very high; among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you" (340). Don't you see, Hobbits? You have so many more experience-points now! The gang that once huddled in fear of Farmer Maggot have slain Shelob, Witch-Kings, Orcs, and faced the wrath of Mordor itself; nothing in the mere Shire can frighten them now. This should be a triumphant homecoming for them. But the knife-wound in Frodo's shoulder, the one that refuses to fully heal, says otherwise.
Now, I have some quibbles with Gandalf's reasoning here: first of all, if his mission on Middle-Earth is (vaguely) to "set things right again," then as long as Saruman is still around to wreck mischief, well then Gandalf still hasn't quite finished his mission, now has he. Nevertheless, there is still something charming about how Gandalf sets off our little Hobbit band to defeat the final Boss for themselves. It feels less that Gandalf can't be bothered to help than it is that he wants the Hobbits to see for themselves how much they've grown. That's how this whole series started, isn't it; in The Hobbit, Gandalf nudged Bilbo Baggins into a treasure-hunt with the Dwarves not so much because they actually needed his help than because he wanted to help Bilbo grow a bit, get out of his comfort zone, realize some of his potential. Frodo was forced into the Ring Quest by much more dire circumstance, but Gandalf's purposes with him are much the same: to not only save the world, but to help Frodo become more than he is, as well. It is a personal-growth that dates clear back to the episode with the Barrow-Wights, when Frodo realized:
"There is a seed of courage hidden (often deeply, it is true) in the heart of the fattest and most timid hobbit, waiting for some final and desperate danger to make it grow. Frodo was neither very fat nor very timid; indeed, though he did not know it, Bilbo (and Gandalf) had thought him the best hobbit in the Shire. He thought he had come to the end of his adventure, and a terrible end, but the thought hardened him. He found himself stiffening, as if for a final spring; he no longer felt limp like a helpless prey" (Fellowship pg. 194).
Likewise, Gandalf sends the Hobbits back to the Shire alone, so that they can realize for themselves that they now have the inner-strength and confidence necessary to solve all their problems for themselves, and not always wait for Gandalf to bail them out. According to Joseph Campbell, that is the whole point of the Hero Cycle: for the hero to not only save the world, but to save himself, to achieve Apotheosis, resurrect, and ascend to a higher level. The Cycle, as implied by the very term, ends with the Hero returning home triumphant, to save his people, as these Hobbits now do. Like Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey, our heroes come home to clear out the usurpers.
But then, one of the frequent criticisms leveled against Campbell (besides his over-reliance on patternism, reductionism, and formula) is that, in myth, the Hero rarely if ever returns. Hercules does not return home to Greece once he ascends Mt. Olympus. Aeneus cannot return to Troy, or even to Dido. Odysseus cannot stay home in Ithaca but must travel inland with an oar o'er his shoulder to pay oblations to Poseidon. Luke Skywalker does not return to his Uncle's farm on Tatooine. Harry Potter never returns to finish his senior year at Hogwarts. And Jesus Christ does not return to the carpentry shop in Nazareth.
And Frodo cannot stay in the Shire, as we will find in a couple chapters. Hence the melancholy, that I mentioned earlier, of going back. Probably because we cannot go back, not really, not ever. The Hero Cycle is not a cycle at all. Frodo is re-visiting the Shire, but not actually returning. It's like revisiting your old home-town, or the house you were born in, your old High School . You can maybe enjoy a few fleeting moments of pleasant nostalgia, but anything more than that makes you restless, makes you feel arrested, like you're wasting time. You didn't undergo all that growth just to return to where you started.
"It seems almost like a dream that has slowly faded", says Sam as they approach the Shire; "Not to me," says Frodo, "To me it feels more like falling asleep again" (341). Not only can't we return home again, we shouldn't, either. The end-credits song that closes out The Two Towers film perhaps has it right: "You can never go home."
"The Land of Shadow" - Ben's Thoughts
Another chapter light on theme but heavy on plot. I tend to enjoy these "traveling" chapters, where the characters must get from point A to point B. What can I say? I enjoy the journey.
Tolkien does an excellent job at evoking Mordor. Jacob believes it's anticlimactic, but I'm with Sam: all of this lead-up has finally gotten them close to their objective, but he hadn't given much thought to what would actually happen when they got inside the eponymous "land of shadow." How are they to get across that plain, filled with armies and vigilant orcs? Especially, as we discover towards the end of the chapter, the agents of Sauron are actively looking for spies that have snuck through the outer defenses?
I feel like all of us have had dreams, nightmares even, where we've been chased by forces seen or unseen. Tolkien brings that emotion home to me in this chapter. Frodo and Sam are constantly on the run, constantly having to skulk deep in the thorny bushes (of course they're thorny), constantly having to hope beyond hope that their enemies don't simply turn around or look over the edge of the roadside curb or peer behind one more bush. There's such a fine line between lying unseen in the shadows and actually being noticed and caught.
I can further imagine Sam's mixed emotion of dread and hope as the orc-troop marches past at the end of the chapter. With each passing line that goes by, his elation had to grow; only for it all to come crashing down as the overseer with the whip noticed the pair of hobbits and forced them onto their feet. As we learn in the next chapter, that forced march is actually a blessing in disguise; it was really the only way for the two to pass across the plain, seen yet unseen as a part of the hosts of Mordor. But again, the desperation and fear that the passages convey makes the journey that much more terrifying than Pippin and Merry's in "Two Towers." The stakes are a lot higher, and our characters are a lot closer to the tipping point. How rousing is it, as well, that Sam considers going out with a bang, by killing the overseer, as he sees his master begin to flag: "At any moment now he knew that the end would come: his master would faint or fall, and all would be discovered, and their bitter efforts be in vain." Neither Merry nor Pippin considered such a course of action during their captivity. Despite their adventures, Sam is now made of sterner stuff than either of them.
The slight glimpse of worldbuilding interjected into the tale is also welcome. Jacob points out that Sam foregrounds the issue of how Sauron keeps his evil empire running properly, and while the main answer is "it's the magic," Tolkien at least makes a sally at an explanation: "Neither he nor Frodo knew anything of the great slave-worked fields away south in this wide realm, beyond the fumes of the Mountain by the dark sad waters of Lake Núrnen; nor of the great roads that ran away east and south to tributary lands, from which the soldiers of the Tower brought long waggon-trains of goods and booty and fresh slaves."
The chapter, what with its quick glimpses into the lives of the slaves of Sauron, the lethal bureaucracy of his troops, and their rumbling misgivings against their leaders, paints an effective picture of the terror and power of Mordor. It additionally highlights the growing desperation of the hobbits, as well as reminding the reader that Gollum is still a real and present threat. Somehow, the quick glimpse of our favorite "gobbler with the flapping hands" is more terrifying than all the orcs Sauron can muster.
Tolkien does an excellent job at evoking Mordor. Jacob believes it's anticlimactic, but I'm with Sam: all of this lead-up has finally gotten them close to their objective, but he hadn't given much thought to what would actually happen when they got inside the eponymous "land of shadow." How are they to get across that plain, filled with armies and vigilant orcs? Especially, as we discover towards the end of the chapter, the agents of Sauron are actively looking for spies that have snuck through the outer defenses?
I feel like all of us have had dreams, nightmares even, where we've been chased by forces seen or unseen. Tolkien brings that emotion home to me in this chapter. Frodo and Sam are constantly on the run, constantly having to skulk deep in the thorny bushes (of course they're thorny), constantly having to hope beyond hope that their enemies don't simply turn around or look over the edge of the roadside curb or peer behind one more bush. There's such a fine line between lying unseen in the shadows and actually being noticed and caught.
I can further imagine Sam's mixed emotion of dread and hope as the orc-troop marches past at the end of the chapter. With each passing line that goes by, his elation had to grow; only for it all to come crashing down as the overseer with the whip noticed the pair of hobbits and forced them onto their feet. As we learn in the next chapter, that forced march is actually a blessing in disguise; it was really the only way for the two to pass across the plain, seen yet unseen as a part of the hosts of Mordor. But again, the desperation and fear that the passages convey makes the journey that much more terrifying than Pippin and Merry's in "Two Towers." The stakes are a lot higher, and our characters are a lot closer to the tipping point. How rousing is it, as well, that Sam considers going out with a bang, by killing the overseer, as he sees his master begin to flag: "At any moment now he knew that the end would come: his master would faint or fall, and all would be discovered, and their bitter efforts be in vain." Neither Merry nor Pippin considered such a course of action during their captivity. Despite their adventures, Sam is now made of sterner stuff than either of them.
The slight glimpse of worldbuilding interjected into the tale is also welcome. Jacob points out that Sam foregrounds the issue of how Sauron keeps his evil empire running properly, and while the main answer is "it's the magic," Tolkien at least makes a sally at an explanation: "Neither he nor Frodo knew anything of the great slave-worked fields away south in this wide realm, beyond the fumes of the Mountain by the dark sad waters of Lake Núrnen; nor of the great roads that ran away east and south to tributary lands, from which the soldiers of the Tower brought long waggon-trains of goods and booty and fresh slaves."
The chapter, what with its quick glimpses into the lives of the slaves of Sauron, the lethal bureaucracy of his troops, and their rumbling misgivings against their leaders, paints an effective picture of the terror and power of Mordor. It additionally highlights the growing desperation of the hobbits, as well as reminding the reader that Gollum is still a real and present threat. Somehow, the quick glimpse of our favorite "gobbler with the flapping hands" is more terrifying than all the orcs Sauron can muster.
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
"The Tower of Cirith Ungol" - Ben's Thoughts
I've always found it a little bit silly that just when Sam needs access to the impregnable fortress, all the guards of said fortress murder each other. It's all very convenient, no? Of course, we can say it goes back to the theme of evil conquering itself, etc., and that the groundwork was laid at the end of the last book in Gorbag and Shagrat's conversation, yes, yes, it's true -- but nevertheless it seems like a bit of a copout. Chalk it up to plot reasons and move on, I guess.
An in-universe explanation, of course, is that Sauron's attention is directed elsewhere, namely, the battle of the Pelennor Fields. Orcs were never particularly reliable or trustworthy servants, and here that problem is clearly laid out. They're tribal to the extreme, so that when one leader gets into a tiff with another leader, the two tribes duke it out until nobody's left at all. Then the last man standing gets to have the first word with the boss about how the other guy was the "rebel" (to use Shagrat's words). I suppose it says something interesting about narratives; Snaga and Shagrat were concerned that Gorbag's men were the first ones to escape out the gate, because then they get to frame the narrative to the higher-ups. I wonder if this is something that happens regularly: a massive, pitched battle between two warring orc-factions that decimates the guard of a critically important structure designed to prevent anyone from sneaking into Mordor and, you know, destroying the Ring of Power. You'd think an evil overlord could find better help.
The textual clue that Shagrat is holding the mithril-coat and Sam's sword also kind of takes the sting away from the climax of Book V: the reader now knows that Frodo's safe and sound, at least for the moment, back with Sam, and that Sauron and his minions weren't really about to begin torturing Frodo when Gandalf and Co. reject their demands at the end of "Black Gate Opens." I vaguely remember feeling a little disappointed at some of the tension being taken out of these chapters when I realized that Frodo and Sam were fairly invulnerable, after all.
Of course, the text deals with more than just physical vulnerability. As Jacob pointed out, Frodo's sudden snap from grateful freed captive to crazed, Ring-addicted Gollum-figure is an abrupt one. In my mind, Frodo's ongoing PTSD after the Ring is destroyed is one of the most powerful themes of this final book. Tolkien also cleverly lays the foundation for the climax between Frodo, Sam, and Gollum here, as he has done throughout the entire text.
I will note that Sam's reluctance to give the Ring back to Frodo is, in the text, described this way: "Now it had come to it, Sam felt reluctant to give up the Ring and burden his master with it again." I appreciate this ambiguous line. Sam's concern for his master seems perfectly natural, and on the one hand, we did just witness Sam overcoming the Ring's temptation and press forward towards a more noble goal. It's tempting to think that his reluctance to hand over the Ring to its original bearer is nothing more than his own charitable impulse. But we know how the Ring operates. It's wholly insidious. If it can't claim an individual through outright, overt temptation, it works slowly from within to corrupt and destroy. It makes Sam's overtly self-sacrificing impulse take on a more sinister tone. Given enough time, the Ring could consume even the best of hobbits (as we of course see in the climax). And this theme of subtle corruption of course has its own real-life parallels. Our lives can take dangerous turns if we aren't constantly making proper course-corrections.
This chapter was very plot-heavy. We start grappling with more weighty issues, as the crushing weight of the Ring bears down on Frodo, starting in the next chapter.
An in-universe explanation, of course, is that Sauron's attention is directed elsewhere, namely, the battle of the Pelennor Fields. Orcs were never particularly reliable or trustworthy servants, and here that problem is clearly laid out. They're tribal to the extreme, so that when one leader gets into a tiff with another leader, the two tribes duke it out until nobody's left at all. Then the last man standing gets to have the first word with the boss about how the other guy was the "rebel" (to use Shagrat's words). I suppose it says something interesting about narratives; Snaga and Shagrat were concerned that Gorbag's men were the first ones to escape out the gate, because then they get to frame the narrative to the higher-ups. I wonder if this is something that happens regularly: a massive, pitched battle between two warring orc-factions that decimates the guard of a critically important structure designed to prevent anyone from sneaking into Mordor and, you know, destroying the Ring of Power. You'd think an evil overlord could find better help.
The textual clue that Shagrat is holding the mithril-coat and Sam's sword also kind of takes the sting away from the climax of Book V: the reader now knows that Frodo's safe and sound, at least for the moment, back with Sam, and that Sauron and his minions weren't really about to begin torturing Frodo when Gandalf and Co. reject their demands at the end of "Black Gate Opens." I vaguely remember feeling a little disappointed at some of the tension being taken out of these chapters when I realized that Frodo and Sam were fairly invulnerable, after all.
Of course, the text deals with more than just physical vulnerability. As Jacob pointed out, Frodo's sudden snap from grateful freed captive to crazed, Ring-addicted Gollum-figure is an abrupt one. In my mind, Frodo's ongoing PTSD after the Ring is destroyed is one of the most powerful themes of this final book. Tolkien also cleverly lays the foundation for the climax between Frodo, Sam, and Gollum here, as he has done throughout the entire text.
I will note that Sam's reluctance to give the Ring back to Frodo is, in the text, described this way: "Now it had come to it, Sam felt reluctant to give up the Ring and burden his master with it again." I appreciate this ambiguous line. Sam's concern for his master seems perfectly natural, and on the one hand, we did just witness Sam overcoming the Ring's temptation and press forward towards a more noble goal. It's tempting to think that his reluctance to hand over the Ring to its original bearer is nothing more than his own charitable impulse. But we know how the Ring operates. It's wholly insidious. If it can't claim an individual through outright, overt temptation, it works slowly from within to corrupt and destroy. It makes Sam's overtly self-sacrificing impulse take on a more sinister tone. Given enough time, the Ring could consume even the best of hobbits (as we of course see in the climax). And this theme of subtle corruption of course has its own real-life parallels. Our lives can take dangerous turns if we aren't constantly making proper course-corrections.
This chapter was very plot-heavy. We start grappling with more weighty issues, as the crushing weight of the Ring bears down on Frodo, starting in the next chapter.
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
"Many Partings" - Jacob's Thoughts
We've touched lightly on this point before, but my memory remains hazy, and what's more, the text never once makes it explicitly clear: what the heck is the deal with the Rings, anyways? What exactly were their powers? What was their initial purpose? Why were they forged in the first place? What benefit did they offer? Why are the fates of so many races now tied directly to them? Why exactly is it that not only the Elves, but the Maiar themselves, must needs diminish because the One Ring was destroyed? When our homeward-bound party encounters a degraded, begging Saruman on the road, he spitefully rails against Galadrial and Gandalf that his one solace is that they tore down their own house when they tore down his, too. How so? What exactly does he mean? Galadrial and Gandalf don't exactly contradict him.
The Elves, likewise, prepare to emigrate across the seas now that the power of the Rings are destroyed--though why they must merely relocate away from Middle-Earth, as opposed to go extinct or ascend to some other spiritual realm or whatever (unless the Grey Havens are some sort of obscure euphemism for death that I'm missing), I remain totally in the dark about. Why are their destinies tied up with the Rings, in a manner that, say, those of Men are not? The Hobbits never had any Rings of Power, so I understand them being unaffected by the equation--but the race of Men sure did, and not only are they not negatively affected by the One Ring's destruction, but they rise to dominate the Fourth Age. Again, why??
There's just this bizarre dream-logic about everything concerning the Rings--but even that cop-out explanation won't fly, since everything else in this text is presented as grounded in a material world with a lived history and real consequences. The Rings are integral to this world, but Tolkien stubbornly refuses to ever articulate why. When the One Ring was simply the last horcrux of the Dark Lord (to use an incredibly anachronistic analogy), I was willing to just go along with it; but if the text is going to insist on foregrounding the broader web of relations between the various Rings of Powers, then I have no choice but to call the text out on its own maddening vagueness.
The fact that the destruction of the Ring has all these other collateral effects is presented by the text as self-explanatory, when it is not. Everything about the Rings remains as opaque and inscrutable in the end as they were in the beginning. These are not mere pedantic side-points to fuss over, but ostensibly the entire focus of the series--it's entitled The Lord of the RINGS for crying out loud! Yes, yes, I'm sure that The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales and 12-volume History of Middle-Earth and whatever maps everything out much more explicitly; but frankly, I shouldn't have to do a bunch of extracurricular homework to understand the underlying mechanisms of the novel I've already agreed to read. Of all of the numerous exposition-dumps I've waded through across this series, could there not have been at least one, somewhere, somehow, that clearly lays out for me what the heck the deal with the Rings are?
Don't get me wrong, I've still enjoyed the journey over all, it's a pleasant series to read; but my flailing ignorance about the Rings--an ignorance induced by the text itself--is really starting to bug me.
The Elves, likewise, prepare to emigrate across the seas now that the power of the Rings are destroyed--though why they must merely relocate away from Middle-Earth, as opposed to go extinct or ascend to some other spiritual realm or whatever (unless the Grey Havens are some sort of obscure euphemism for death that I'm missing), I remain totally in the dark about. Why are their destinies tied up with the Rings, in a manner that, say, those of Men are not? The Hobbits never had any Rings of Power, so I understand them being unaffected by the equation--but the race of Men sure did, and not only are they not negatively affected by the One Ring's destruction, but they rise to dominate the Fourth Age. Again, why??
There's just this bizarre dream-logic about everything concerning the Rings--but even that cop-out explanation won't fly, since everything else in this text is presented as grounded in a material world with a lived history and real consequences. The Rings are integral to this world, but Tolkien stubbornly refuses to ever articulate why. When the One Ring was simply the last horcrux of the Dark Lord (to use an incredibly anachronistic analogy), I was willing to just go along with it; but if the text is going to insist on foregrounding the broader web of relations between the various Rings of Powers, then I have no choice but to call the text out on its own maddening vagueness.
The fact that the destruction of the Ring has all these other collateral effects is presented by the text as self-explanatory, when it is not. Everything about the Rings remains as opaque and inscrutable in the end as they were in the beginning. These are not mere pedantic side-points to fuss over, but ostensibly the entire focus of the series--it's entitled The Lord of the RINGS for crying out loud! Yes, yes, I'm sure that The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales and 12-volume History of Middle-Earth and whatever maps everything out much more explicitly; but frankly, I shouldn't have to do a bunch of extracurricular homework to understand the underlying mechanisms of the novel I've already agreed to read. Of all of the numerous exposition-dumps I've waded through across this series, could there not have been at least one, somewhere, somehow, that clearly lays out for me what the heck the deal with the Rings are?
Don't get me wrong, I've still enjoyed the journey over all, it's a pleasant series to read; but my flailing ignorance about the Rings--an ignorance induced by the text itself--is really starting to bug me.
Thursday, March 9, 2017
"The Battle of the Pelennor Fields" - Eric's Thoughts
I can never remember how to spell Pelennor. Hopefully Ben did, because I copied/pasted his title into this post.
As the tardy reader now among the group, I get to have the pleasure of analyzing Ben and Jacob's analyses -- and critiquing them! Ben it looks like thought this chapter was "masterful," while Jacob found the chapter as a good teaching example of the term "anti-climax." I tend to agree with Jacob. For what should have been an epic war scene, I found myself for the most part disengaged. Now, let's be clear: the chapter wasn't bad. Stuff certainly was happening. But I think the chapter could have been a lot better than it was -- and it needed some more work. It could have been an amazing chapter. Instead it's only ok.
While I was reading, I asked myself: why is this stuff not grabbing me? Ben previously talked about how he thought Tolkien's prose was some of the best fantasy writing ever. It's hard to disagree that Tolkien uses some brilliant descriptions and turns of language. But the parts don't necessarily add up to the sum. The text often reads dry (this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened). There just aren't any compelling moments that put you inside the a character's head. I think that's the primary problem here -- stuff happens, sure, but the stuff is meaningless without a compelling character to guide us through the battle.
Tolkien tries to guide us through the chapter through the eyes of Dernhelm (oh wait! Eowyn), but she's sadly an extremely undeveloped character that only previously made one or two cameos. (As for Merry, well, ya'll know my thoughts on Merry.) Further, there doesn't really appear to be any consistent POV throughout the chapter, and Tolkien instead seems to take an omniscient narrator role in saying this happened, and then this happened.
For me, the most interesting part is when Aragon raises his banner in the ships -- I found it intriguing that Aragon had stars on his banner in addition to the tree of Gondor. A good little detail. However, then the chapter went back to the "then this" flow. And then I was drumming my fingers again.
So, my verdict is the chapter had a few moments that made me forget I was reading. And the chapter wasn't bad. I just think Jacob is right that Tolkien seems to be rushing here.
As the tardy reader now among the group, I get to have the pleasure of analyzing Ben and Jacob's analyses -- and critiquing them! Ben it looks like thought this chapter was "masterful," while Jacob found the chapter as a good teaching example of the term "anti-climax." I tend to agree with Jacob. For what should have been an epic war scene, I found myself for the most part disengaged. Now, let's be clear: the chapter wasn't bad. Stuff certainly was happening. But I think the chapter could have been a lot better than it was -- and it needed some more work. It could have been an amazing chapter. Instead it's only ok.
While I was reading, I asked myself: why is this stuff not grabbing me? Ben previously talked about how he thought Tolkien's prose was some of the best fantasy writing ever. It's hard to disagree that Tolkien uses some brilliant descriptions and turns of language. But the parts don't necessarily add up to the sum. The text often reads dry (this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened). There just aren't any compelling moments that put you inside the a character's head. I think that's the primary problem here -- stuff happens, sure, but the stuff is meaningless without a compelling character to guide us through the battle.
Tolkien tries to guide us through the chapter through the eyes of Dernhelm (oh wait! Eowyn), but she's sadly an extremely undeveloped character that only previously made one or two cameos. (As for Merry, well, ya'll know my thoughts on Merry.) Further, there doesn't really appear to be any consistent POV throughout the chapter, and Tolkien instead seems to take an omniscient narrator role in saying this happened, and then this happened.
For me, the most interesting part is when Aragon raises his banner in the ships -- I found it intriguing that Aragon had stars on his banner in addition to the tree of Gondor. A good little detail. However, then the chapter went back to the "then this" flow. And then I was drumming my fingers again.
So, my verdict is the chapter had a few moments that made me forget I was reading. And the chapter wasn't bad. I just think Jacob is right that Tolkien seems to be rushing here.
Thursday, March 2, 2017
"The Steward and the King" - Jacob's Thoughts
Yeesh, Tolkien just doesn't know how to do romance, does he.
Or women generally.
I mean, look: I get that it was the '50s, it was a different time and era, gender roles were much more rigidly codified, it was genuinely remarkable that Tolkien even bothered to include a female-warrior in the first place--let alone one who quits herself as impressively as Eowyn does, what with the way she defends Theoden when all else flee and slays the Witch-King in combat. But then Tolkien undercuts her achievements by having Faramir tell her: "You desired to have the love of the Lord Aragorn, because he was high and puissant [...] But when he gave you only understanding and pity, then you desired to have nothing, unless a brave death in battle" (299). Apparently, she fought not for honor or glory, but only because her crush didn't like her back. That's...not as interesting.
Then when Faramir offers himself as her Silver Medal (way to sweep her off her feet there, bro), she promptly forswears that whole soldier life she fought so hard for and declares: "I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren" (300). 'Cause all a girl really wants, apparently, is for a cute guy to show her her true nature: to be a nurse and a nurturer. (Nursing and Home & Family Development, the two most stereo-typically feminine majors at BYU). Again, that's...not as interesting.
I'm sure it's the only end to that particular character arc that Tolkien (so thoroughly a product of his time and place) could have imagined for Eowyn, but it remains a disappointing one. Her final fate is especially frustrating since there have been so few other female characters at all in these novels; I think there's been, what, Tom Bombadil's girlfriend Goldberry that Frodo pervs on? Arwen, with even less to do than the movies give her? I think Galadriel is the only genuinely powerful female we encounter, though like Gandalf the White, we hardly ever see her in action--and like a proper lady, she consents to "diminish and fade" rather than accept the Ring when it is offered her in "The Mirror of Galadriel". Moreover, the way she contemplated that offer with "All will love me and despair!" indicates that Tolkien apparently believes that all women really want deep down is not power, but to be loved. Now, I understand that no one should ever accept the Ring, its corrupting influence is not gendered; nevertheless, the implicit message of Galadriel's choice is that a wise woman knows to refuse power, even when it is freely offered her, and then fade into the background--which is, at best, a mixed message.
Ernest Hemingway has a famous short-story collection called Men Without Women, and the same could double as a sub-title for Lord of the Rings: The Ents, recall, have not seen their Ent-wives in literal ages. Neither Bilbo nor Frodo appear to have any sort of mother figure or romantic partner or love interest in their lives; for that matter, the entire Hobbit posse is a boy's club without the slightest hint of feminine influence in their lives. In fact, come to think of it, their domesticity and love of cooking almost seems to mark them as feminine themselves, thereby rendering female Hobbits superfluous (as though cooking and domestic chores were all women were good for). The Peter Jackson films show the orcs spawning from the ground, which they might as well do, since there is no mention of Orc-women anywhere in the text that I can recall. Overall, Tolkien appears to consistently forget that women are half of humanity and are absolutely essential for the existence of our species--at least, so I conclude based on the way he seems to have to keep reminding himself to include women-characters in the first place.
Or women generally.
I mean, look: I get that it was the '50s, it was a different time and era, gender roles were much more rigidly codified, it was genuinely remarkable that Tolkien even bothered to include a female-warrior in the first place--let alone one who quits herself as impressively as Eowyn does, what with the way she defends Theoden when all else flee and slays the Witch-King in combat. But then Tolkien undercuts her achievements by having Faramir tell her: "You desired to have the love of the Lord Aragorn, because he was high and puissant [...] But when he gave you only understanding and pity, then you desired to have nothing, unless a brave death in battle" (299). Apparently, she fought not for honor or glory, but only because her crush didn't like her back. That's...not as interesting.
Then when Faramir offers himself as her Silver Medal (way to sweep her off her feet there, bro), she promptly forswears that whole soldier life she fought so hard for and declares: "I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren" (300). 'Cause all a girl really wants, apparently, is for a cute guy to show her her true nature: to be a nurse and a nurturer. (Nursing and Home & Family Development, the two most stereo-typically feminine majors at BYU). Again, that's...not as interesting.
I'm sure it's the only end to that particular character arc that Tolkien (so thoroughly a product of his time and place) could have imagined for Eowyn, but it remains a disappointing one. Her final fate is especially frustrating since there have been so few other female characters at all in these novels; I think there's been, what, Tom Bombadil's girlfriend Goldberry that Frodo pervs on? Arwen, with even less to do than the movies give her? I think Galadriel is the only genuinely powerful female we encounter, though like Gandalf the White, we hardly ever see her in action--and like a proper lady, she consents to "diminish and fade" rather than accept the Ring when it is offered her in "The Mirror of Galadriel". Moreover, the way she contemplated that offer with "All will love me and despair!" indicates that Tolkien apparently believes that all women really want deep down is not power, but to be loved. Now, I understand that no one should ever accept the Ring, its corrupting influence is not gendered; nevertheless, the implicit message of Galadriel's choice is that a wise woman knows to refuse power, even when it is freely offered her, and then fade into the background--which is, at best, a mixed message.
Ernest Hemingway has a famous short-story collection called Men Without Women, and the same could double as a sub-title for Lord of the Rings: The Ents, recall, have not seen their Ent-wives in literal ages. Neither Bilbo nor Frodo appear to have any sort of mother figure or romantic partner or love interest in their lives; for that matter, the entire Hobbit posse is a boy's club without the slightest hint of feminine influence in their lives. In fact, come to think of it, their domesticity and love of cooking almost seems to mark them as feminine themselves, thereby rendering female Hobbits superfluous (as though cooking and domestic chores were all women were good for). The Peter Jackson films show the orcs spawning from the ground, which they might as well do, since there is no mention of Orc-women anywhere in the text that I can recall. Overall, Tolkien appears to consistently forget that women are half of humanity and are absolutely essential for the existence of our species--at least, so I conclude based on the way he seems to have to keep reminding himself to include women-characters in the first place.
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