Chapter 4: The Field of Cormallen
I know, I know, I should hold my horses and wait for you two to catch up; but after the dynamite climax of "Mount Doom," I was just giddy with excitement to return to the Front to formally witness the fall of Sauron and defeat of Mordor up close and personal! So was it worth it to barrel ahead like this?
Sure. I guess.
Probably anything and everything was going to feel like a come-down after "Mount Doom"; nevertheless, after all of this struggle and set-backs and existential threats, the end of the War of the Ring can't help but feel rather perfunctory. It just sorta...ends. Frodo and Sam are promptly picked up by Gandalf and the Eagles. Sauron rises as a great shadow and promptly disperses to the winds--as opaque and incomprehensible as he ever was--as does the massive Mordor military alliance. The Orcs do not carry forth under new leadership, or break apart into a series of Rump States or guerilla fighters or roaming militias, they just simply...scatter. (Where to? Tolkien appears as uninterested in saying as he is in discussing Sauron now that he's dead).
There's an off-hand reference to the forces of Man entering into Mordor to destroy some fortresses, but no reports of armed resistance from the denizens therein, nor of mass-surrender, nor of all those countless slaves being liberated. Rarely has such a massive war had such a clean and decisive finale, with so little messy fall-out.
Don't get me wrong, if any set of characters deserved a completely happy ending, it's these folks. But it's almost a little too neat; Frodo's missing finger is the absolute extent of their losses, they even get their clothes and gifts from Galadriel back--and it might as well have been with a bow on top. I know we still have that delightful little detour, "The Scouring of the Shire," to look forward to, but at the moment all I really see coming is the longest denouement ever, and there's not really a whole of lot of dramatic tension therein.
Ben's Thoughts (6/9/17)
This chapter always occupies an awkward place, because it contains both the conclusion of the climax and the beginning of the denouement. The smashed-together feel of the chapter does not serve it well, in my opinion.
I wish I could offer Tolkien a better alternative. I feel like the stinger at the end of "Mount Doom" ("Here we are at the end of all things, Sam") is such an evocative closing line that I hesitate to make a recommendation that it should just be turned into a mere line prior to a section break. A different writer might have turned the four paragraphs of the Eagles and Gandalf saving the hobbits into a larger section; indeed, perhaps an entire chapter in and of itself. Such a theoretical chapter could have involved a more complete description of the battle before the Black Gate from Gandalf or Aragorn's perspectives -- or even from Legolas or Gimli's, since the text is so intent on separating itself from Gandalf or Aragorn's personal thoughts (the better to keep them as heroic savior figures, I suppose). The section could have heightened the tension that the reader has felt since the end of Book V, the question of "so what?" The Ring is destroyed, but what does that mean for the characters we know and love? Did Pippin survive, did the forces of the West triumph?
The trouble is, as Jacob pointed out in his comments, that Tolkien doesn't seem to care much about getting Frodo and Sam from point A to point B; it's all just rushed along without much thought or energy spent on the journey. I do find myself wishing we got a little more insight into what hold, exactly, Sauron had over his minions (especially since we had fairly complex insights into the lives and opinions of the orcs in the preceding chapters), and how exactly his end affected them and their involvement in the war. How it's resolved is all very hand-wavey and convenient.
As for the rest of the chapter, it's just tripe. Pure sugar. Even at my height of Lord of the Rings awe, I rolled my eyes at the bard trotting out with his lute or whatever like a character in the animated Disney "Robin Hood" movie and singing about Frodo's mystical journey or whatever. C'mon. A war just ended. Probably thousands of people lost their lives at the battle before the Black Gate, and Frodo just got his finger bitten off. It's still too raw to sing about it like it was a long-ago tale. And the way the Fellowship is reunited, especially with Merry and Pippin being all like, "Naw, ya'll, we so important now" is just ludicrous. This is a meeting that shouldn't be as joyful as Tolkien tries to make it out to be. So to conclude: not a good chapter. And the last part is unadulterated tripe.
Eric's Thoughts (7/22/17)
Jacob and Ben came down too harshly on this chapter, in my view. As Ben points out, the chapter is really divided into two chapters.
The first mini chapter involves the forces of good conquering the forces of Sauron and the rescue of the Hobbits. I think Ben and Jacob's criticisms are unfair. The Ring is destroyed. That was the true battle between the forces of good and evil. After all, as Tolkien demonstrated in the last chapter, this actually is not a battle of force. It is a battle of the minds and will (e.g. Sam lifting Frodo, and Frodo being light). It is a battle of small, relatively helpless hobbits versus the might of a powerful empire. It is the battle of everyday folks imposing their will against evil. If Frodo and Sam triumph, Sauron is vanquished. If they fail, then Sauron triumphs. The fate of the little people bearing the Ring determines the fate of Middle Earth.
To dive into an actual battle after the Ring was destroyed, or create guerilla holdouts, would have been inconsistent with these important themes and anti-climatic. Mount Doom elevated Lord of the Rings into the realm of literary. I would argue Tolkien's approach to the forces of evil so suddenly crumbling only builds on that. Tolkien continues to establish through this chapter that the forces are merely an idea--when the idea is destroyed, evil quickly is vanquished. I wholeheartedly agree with Tolkien's approach here. Swords ringing against plate mail would have rang hollow.
(However, I do agree this chapter should have been split into two chapters--the battle and rescue as one chapter, and then the hobbits waking up and finding themselves among old friends as another.)
The second mini chapter involves the king of Gondor kneeling to the hobbits. In my view, contrary to Ben's argument, the second part of chapter is hardly tripe. The hobbits have just literally descended into the bowels of hell and destroyed the root of all evil through both Frodo and Sam's mercy. (Note that the hobbits could not destroy evil by any direct act, but only indirectly--through acts of mercy and kindness.)
This chapter progresses the characters of Frodo and Sam. Who would have thought that the gardener from the Shire would have the most powerful lords of the world kneeling to him, and being praised with great praise? The hobbits deserve their triumph, and I felt pleased that they were awarded such boons. This chapter works to help resolve everything. The book could have ended with this chapter, with perhaps just a little more package tying.
What is interesting, though, is that the Return of the King continues for a while yet. This of course goes against classic story structure, where normally after the climax, the story quickly resolves. Instead, Tolkien pulls a strange one and continues the story. We shall see how this unusual structure holds up on the re-read. But, if I remember correctly, at this point we are so invested in this world, and the last few chapters have been so interesting, I am not prepared to leave Middle Earth just yet.
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