Chapter 9: At the Sign of the Prancing Pony
Jacob's Thoughts (3/28/14)
Something I've noticed this read through is how innocuous most everyone's intro has been: Bilbo is reintroduced prepping adorably for his "eleventy-first birthday"; Frodo is casually introduced as the adopted nephew before being foregrounded as the protagonist; Sam is trimming the hedges, Pippin just sort of tags along, Merry just sort of invites himself; and now Strider, the heir apparent to the throne of man, the Messiah figure, the once and future King, perhaps the single most important character in this entire mythology next to only Frodo himself, is first introduced as but a cloaked figure brooding in a corner of an old inn with an old wooden pipe.
There actually feels something a touch realistic about these casual introductions: for people constantly pass in and out of each others' lives, casually, simply, without fanfare or ceremony, and then leave without leaving much of an impact or memory (we've already had a host of characters like that in the novel thus far). Only much, much later do we realize who the most important people in our lives are, who will turn out to have the greatest impact, the largest influence--and there is no way to predict that ahead of time!
Serious, if you had asked me in, say, 2005, who my closest friends would still be nearly a decade later, and who wouldn't, I don't think I would have made a single correct guess. People with whom I thought I'd be life-long friends have just kinda drifted away, while folks who made little impression on me when I first met them later turned out to be among the most important to me--and a far larger legion of them simply passed through my life like ships in the night, as I doubtless did with them, too. So I guess all I'm saying is I appreciate and admire Tolkien's method of introducing characters without even hinting at their later importance; whether that was intentional or not matters less to me than the fact that it works.
But back to the chapter at hand! After spending several chapters of trying to find different ways to say, "Man, none of this is really going anywhere, is it," it's frankly a relief to rejoin the main narrative. The Black Riders are once again an immediate threat, there are dark agents of Sauron milling about, suspicion and paranoia abound, as troubling news from distant lands hint at major events soon to come. The irony is that not a whole lot happens in this chapter either; but unlike the previous flight-from-the-Shire chapters, this chapter at least feels like there are actual stakes involved, that real tension is being built up. There is finally a sense of forward momentum.
Perhaps the most enlightening moment in this chapter for me are the hints at the actual agency of the Ring, which seems to have slipped onto Frodo's finger almost against his will. There was some scant discussion of the Ring's agency clear back in ch. 2, when Gandalf explained how the Ring abandoned its owners one at a time when it could make no further use of them; and now we get to see the Ring act in similar manner against Frodo! The Ring is no longer a mere MacGuffin, a burden, a package to be delivered like in so many spy thrillers, no--the Ring is fully capable of and willing to participate in its own adventure, and to toy with and betray the Fellowship whenever it feels like it, making it all the more dangerous, powerful, and interesting.
Perhaps it would be helpful to remember that this series is not entitled The Hobbit Part 2, nor The Adventures of Frodo Baggins, but The LORD of the Rings. This Ring really is the main character, the center of all the action, it is the one still exerting its lordship, exercising its power, still trying to call the shots, the antagonist that literally everyone else is reacting against, both for good and for evil.
This Ring really is the "LORD" of all others, and it will not share power willingly. I will be curious to track how the Ring exerts its agency in the future.
Ben's Thoughts (3/30/14)
We're finally back on track with "Prancing Pony." The tension is high, the stakes are raised and -- wait, this chapter really is much shorter than I remembered it being. I suppose in my mind, I always combined it with the next one ("Strider"), where we get the full introduction of Aragorn and more about Gandalf's whereabouts, as well as additional hints about the Black Riders. Here, the Riders are barely mentioned, but Tolkien still manages to convey the looming threat they cast over everything.
The main impression that I got from this chapter is that, boy, these Hobbits are out of their depth. While Frodo is suspicious right off the bat, what with his distrust of Harry the gatekeeper, his decisions just aren't all that sensible throughout this chapter. Let's review: first, only Frodo is traveling under an assumed name. The others are all going by their given names (Mr. Brandybuck, Mr. Took, and Sam Gamgee). This might as well be a bullhorn shouting to anyone searching for the four Hobbits that have recently disappeared from the Shire -- not least among them a Hobbit with, coincidentally, the same full name as Mr. Frodo's personal manservant! Sheesh, Frodo, you and your compadres need a better cover story.
Second, the Hobbits completely disregard common sense by 1) splitting up and 2) visiting the common room. I suppose their curiosity gets the better of them, but c'mon, my lads, you're trying to stay out of sight. As the book reminds us again and again, visitors from the Shire are rare but not unheard of; what if somebody happened to be there that knew Frodo or one of his cousins by sight? And that is quite apart from the possibility that the Riders have an agent of some sort checking out the inn, which seems the only place in the whole town where the Hobbits would want to stay for the night (and this, of course, turns out to be the case, what with Bill Ferny and possibly Saruman's squint-eyed lackey as well). Likewise, Merry goes out for a stroll -- at night -- in the town none of them know and all are unsure about. Not a good idea. Hasn't he read books like these before?
In any case, the obliviousness of the Hobbits is part of the fun. By the time Frodo is standing up on the table and drawing everyone's attention to him, the reader just knowssomething very bad is about to happen. Tolkien does a really good job of casting the Hobbits into the thick of things and showing that they are in way, way over their heads. Good thing Strider swoops down to save them.
The narrator tries to cast some suspicion upon Strider here at the beginning. He is the only person in the common room who is overtly watching the Hobbits, and we are told that the suggestion that Frodo put on the Ring comes from something in the common room itself. This is a bit odd, since we know that Aragorn wants nothing more than for Frodo to sit down and shut his stupid mouth. Who then is exerting this influence? I suppose you could say it is the Ring itself, as Jacob points out, since none of the other denizens of the Prancing Pony seem capable of sending these psychic signals. But if that were the case, wouldn't it have been easier to say so? Something I toyed with was the possibility that one of the Ringwraiths was actually present in the common room, just sans his physical black-clothed form. But I think that says too much about what the Riders knew at this point.
A quick note on the song: yes, Tolkien's occasional injections of songs and poems can be a bit jarring. I was talking to a friend the other night about the Tolkien and the Wheel of Time (the epic fantasy doorstopper series by Robert Jordan). He said that it was difficult to skim through the molasses-paced middle half of the Wheel of Time series, because one never knew what was important and what was just filler. But in LOTR, it's easy -- just skip over everything that's italicized!
I certainly see where he was coming from -- the cheeky little song about drunken cats and men in the moon is just a little too cutesy for me, and certainly far too long. I think Tolkien could have trimmed things down about 6 verses. But that was his prerogative, and I didn't find the little song too objectionable this time around. We'll revisit this theme, no doubt, as we get into the longer poems later in "Fellowship."
There are two other points that need to be addressed about this chapter. The first is, of course, Strider himself. Tolkien's introduction of him is delightful. The initial description of his clothing perfectly conveys the kind of life this man leads, right down to the leather on his boots. This description benefits even more, I think, from a lot of the material in the appendices, which reveals that Aragorn has lived a very long life to this point -- he is several hundred years old, if I recall correctly. He has served kings in both Rohan and Gondor, and has traveled much of the world many times over (Gandalf introduced him in "Shadow of the Past" as "the greatest traveler of the Age" or something like that). And yet, here this very important man is, in a backwater inn, waiting for and safeguarding four senseless Hobbits. Tells you something about the stock he puts in the quest (or at least in Gandalf's instructions).
I do note that Aragorn gets a bit of physical description when he dramatically lowers his hood for Frodo's benefit: "shaggy hair flecked with grey"; "pale stern face"; "a pair of keen grey eyes". (If Frodo was genre-savvy in the least, he wouldn't be worried about whether Aragorn is a bad guy or not; Tolkien -- and as a result generations of knock-off fantasy authors -- just love using gray eyes as a symbol of nobility. I guess because they're rarer than plain ol' blue ones?) I like that we do get a look at Aragorn, but would it have killed him to describe the Hobbits? I'm going to stop complaining about it, but it still bothers me.
The final note is the extreme burst of worldbuilding that takes place in this chapter. The Hobbits' world is suddenly a lot bigger. The brief history of Bree -- which feels much more at home placed here than the random "history of Brandybuck Hall" that we got at the beginning of "Conspiracy" (perhaps because Brandybuck Hall held only tangential importance to the main narrative) -- gives the reader a thorough overview of what to expect in this new locale (doubly important because Bree is only barely touched upon in the Foreward). Men that have dug in and lasted longer than those irresponsible Arnor folk! Non-Shire Hobbits! Heck, wandering tramp-Hobbits even get a mention! (That last brings to mind the possibility that Eriador is completely infested with lazy wandering Hobbits just itching to come across companies of Elves traveling to Lindon so they can mooch off of their free food and booze.)
Most interesting, and something that I was completely oblivious to on previous re-reads, is the looming threat of change to the community of Bree. The "squint-eyed Southron" makes it most explicit -- times are changing, and the people of Bree had best get used to new folk in town. Of course, the sociological importance of that assertion is undermined somewhat by the fact that this fellow is most likely a spy for Saruman looking for the Ring himself (or at the very least new people to enslave), but it makes sense that, in the wake of the War of the Ring, refugees from over the Misty Mountains, or from Rohan, or from wherever, would be showing up (or, dare I say it -- immigrating?) to northern Eriador and shaking things up in the process. Butterbur is insistent that the people of Bree don't like change, and don't like things that are out of the ordinary. Their insular attitude comes across as a bit off-putting. But I imagine those same sentiments were being echoed in Tolkien's day, and, indeed, are just as relevant today. A small thing in an epic story that brings it just a little bit closer to home.
Eric's Thoughts (4/13/14)
Okay, so now after three chapters of writing scathing reviews, it looks like I have to go back to giving compliments. The chapter was a fun read.
Something I've noticed this read through is how innocuous most everyone's intro has been: Bilbo is reintroduced prepping adorably for his "eleventy-first birthday"; Frodo is casually introduced as the adopted nephew before being foregrounded as the protagonist; Sam is trimming the hedges, Pippin just sort of tags along, Merry just sort of invites himself; and now Strider, the heir apparent to the throne of man, the Messiah figure, the once and future King, perhaps the single most important character in this entire mythology next to only Frodo himself, is first introduced as but a cloaked figure brooding in a corner of an old inn with an old wooden pipe.
There actually feels something a touch realistic about these casual introductions: for people constantly pass in and out of each others' lives, casually, simply, without fanfare or ceremony, and then leave without leaving much of an impact or memory (we've already had a host of characters like that in the novel thus far). Only much, much later do we realize who the most important people in our lives are, who will turn out to have the greatest impact, the largest influence--and there is no way to predict that ahead of time!
Serious, if you had asked me in, say, 2005, who my closest friends would still be nearly a decade later, and who wouldn't, I don't think I would have made a single correct guess. People with whom I thought I'd be life-long friends have just kinda drifted away, while folks who made little impression on me when I first met them later turned out to be among the most important to me--and a far larger legion of them simply passed through my life like ships in the night, as I doubtless did with them, too. So I guess all I'm saying is I appreciate and admire Tolkien's method of introducing characters without even hinting at their later importance; whether that was intentional or not matters less to me than the fact that it works.
But back to the chapter at hand! After spending several chapters of trying to find different ways to say, "Man, none of this is really going anywhere, is it," it's frankly a relief to rejoin the main narrative. The Black Riders are once again an immediate threat, there are dark agents of Sauron milling about, suspicion and paranoia abound, as troubling news from distant lands hint at major events soon to come. The irony is that not a whole lot happens in this chapter either; but unlike the previous flight-from-the-Shire chapters, this chapter at least feels like there are actual stakes involved, that real tension is being built up. There is finally a sense of forward momentum.
Perhaps the most enlightening moment in this chapter for me are the hints at the actual agency of the Ring, which seems to have slipped onto Frodo's finger almost against his will. There was some scant discussion of the Ring's agency clear back in ch. 2, when Gandalf explained how the Ring abandoned its owners one at a time when it could make no further use of them; and now we get to see the Ring act in similar manner against Frodo! The Ring is no longer a mere MacGuffin, a burden, a package to be delivered like in so many spy thrillers, no--the Ring is fully capable of and willing to participate in its own adventure, and to toy with and betray the Fellowship whenever it feels like it, making it all the more dangerous, powerful, and interesting.
Perhaps it would be helpful to remember that this series is not entitled The Hobbit Part 2, nor The Adventures of Frodo Baggins, but The LORD of the Rings. This Ring really is the main character, the center of all the action, it is the one still exerting its lordship, exercising its power, still trying to call the shots, the antagonist that literally everyone else is reacting against, both for good and for evil.
This Ring really is the "LORD" of all others, and it will not share power willingly. I will be curious to track how the Ring exerts its agency in the future.
Ben's Thoughts (3/30/14)
We're finally back on track with "Prancing Pony." The tension is high, the stakes are raised and -- wait, this chapter really is much shorter than I remembered it being. I suppose in my mind, I always combined it with the next one ("Strider"), where we get the full introduction of Aragorn and more about Gandalf's whereabouts, as well as additional hints about the Black Riders. Here, the Riders are barely mentioned, but Tolkien still manages to convey the looming threat they cast over everything.
The main impression that I got from this chapter is that, boy, these Hobbits are out of their depth. While Frodo is suspicious right off the bat, what with his distrust of Harry the gatekeeper, his decisions just aren't all that sensible throughout this chapter. Let's review: first, only Frodo is traveling under an assumed name. The others are all going by their given names (Mr. Brandybuck, Mr. Took, and Sam Gamgee). This might as well be a bullhorn shouting to anyone searching for the four Hobbits that have recently disappeared from the Shire -- not least among them a Hobbit with, coincidentally, the same full name as Mr. Frodo's personal manservant! Sheesh, Frodo, you and your compadres need a better cover story.
Second, the Hobbits completely disregard common sense by 1) splitting up and 2) visiting the common room. I suppose their curiosity gets the better of them, but c'mon, my lads, you're trying to stay out of sight. As the book reminds us again and again, visitors from the Shire are rare but not unheard of; what if somebody happened to be there that knew Frodo or one of his cousins by sight? And that is quite apart from the possibility that the Riders have an agent of some sort checking out the inn, which seems the only place in the whole town where the Hobbits would want to stay for the night (and this, of course, turns out to be the case, what with Bill Ferny and possibly Saruman's squint-eyed lackey as well). Likewise, Merry goes out for a stroll -- at night -- in the town none of them know and all are unsure about. Not a good idea. Hasn't he read books like these before?
In any case, the obliviousness of the Hobbits is part of the fun. By the time Frodo is standing up on the table and drawing everyone's attention to him, the reader just knowssomething very bad is about to happen. Tolkien does a really good job of casting the Hobbits into the thick of things and showing that they are in way, way over their heads. Good thing Strider swoops down to save them.
The narrator tries to cast some suspicion upon Strider here at the beginning. He is the only person in the common room who is overtly watching the Hobbits, and we are told that the suggestion that Frodo put on the Ring comes from something in the common room itself. This is a bit odd, since we know that Aragorn wants nothing more than for Frodo to sit down and shut his stupid mouth. Who then is exerting this influence? I suppose you could say it is the Ring itself, as Jacob points out, since none of the other denizens of the Prancing Pony seem capable of sending these psychic signals. But if that were the case, wouldn't it have been easier to say so? Something I toyed with was the possibility that one of the Ringwraiths was actually present in the common room, just sans his physical black-clothed form. But I think that says too much about what the Riders knew at this point.
A quick note on the song: yes, Tolkien's occasional injections of songs and poems can be a bit jarring. I was talking to a friend the other night about the Tolkien and the Wheel of Time (the epic fantasy doorstopper series by Robert Jordan). He said that it was difficult to skim through the molasses-paced middle half of the Wheel of Time series, because one never knew what was important and what was just filler. But in LOTR, it's easy -- just skip over everything that's italicized!
I certainly see where he was coming from -- the cheeky little song about drunken cats and men in the moon is just a little too cutesy for me, and certainly far too long. I think Tolkien could have trimmed things down about 6 verses. But that was his prerogative, and I didn't find the little song too objectionable this time around. We'll revisit this theme, no doubt, as we get into the longer poems later in "Fellowship."
There are two other points that need to be addressed about this chapter. The first is, of course, Strider himself. Tolkien's introduction of him is delightful. The initial description of his clothing perfectly conveys the kind of life this man leads, right down to the leather on his boots. This description benefits even more, I think, from a lot of the material in the appendices, which reveals that Aragorn has lived a very long life to this point -- he is several hundred years old, if I recall correctly. He has served kings in both Rohan and Gondor, and has traveled much of the world many times over (Gandalf introduced him in "Shadow of the Past" as "the greatest traveler of the Age" or something like that). And yet, here this very important man is, in a backwater inn, waiting for and safeguarding four senseless Hobbits. Tells you something about the stock he puts in the quest (or at least in Gandalf's instructions).
I do note that Aragorn gets a bit of physical description when he dramatically lowers his hood for Frodo's benefit: "shaggy hair flecked with grey"; "pale stern face"; "a pair of keen grey eyes". (If Frodo was genre-savvy in the least, he wouldn't be worried about whether Aragorn is a bad guy or not; Tolkien -- and as a result generations of knock-off fantasy authors -- just love using gray eyes as a symbol of nobility. I guess because they're rarer than plain ol' blue ones?) I like that we do get a look at Aragorn, but would it have killed him to describe the Hobbits? I'm going to stop complaining about it, but it still bothers me.
The final note is the extreme burst of worldbuilding that takes place in this chapter. The Hobbits' world is suddenly a lot bigger. The brief history of Bree -- which feels much more at home placed here than the random "history of Brandybuck Hall" that we got at the beginning of "Conspiracy" (perhaps because Brandybuck Hall held only tangential importance to the main narrative) -- gives the reader a thorough overview of what to expect in this new locale (doubly important because Bree is only barely touched upon in the Foreward). Men that have dug in and lasted longer than those irresponsible Arnor folk! Non-Shire Hobbits! Heck, wandering tramp-Hobbits even get a mention! (That last brings to mind the possibility that Eriador is completely infested with lazy wandering Hobbits just itching to come across companies of Elves traveling to Lindon so they can mooch off of their free food and booze.)
Most interesting, and something that I was completely oblivious to on previous re-reads, is the looming threat of change to the community of Bree. The "squint-eyed Southron" makes it most explicit -- times are changing, and the people of Bree had best get used to new folk in town. Of course, the sociological importance of that assertion is undermined somewhat by the fact that this fellow is most likely a spy for Saruman looking for the Ring himself (or at the very least new people to enslave), but it makes sense that, in the wake of the War of the Ring, refugees from over the Misty Mountains, or from Rohan, or from wherever, would be showing up (or, dare I say it -- immigrating?) to northern Eriador and shaking things up in the process. Butterbur is insistent that the people of Bree don't like change, and don't like things that are out of the ordinary. Their insular attitude comes across as a bit off-putting. But I imagine those same sentiments were being echoed in Tolkien's day, and, indeed, are just as relevant today. A small thing in an epic story that brings it just a little bit closer to home.
Eric's Thoughts (4/13/14)
Okay, so now after three chapters of writing scathing reviews, it looks like I have to go back to giving compliments. The chapter was a fun read.
Now, the beginning was really dry, with all of the geography and historical descriptions. Proably better to put all that in an appendix. I think describing the actual town was good, with its stone houses, and describing the Prancing Pony was fine too, and a good choice. But strangely enough the hobbits themselves have never been described. Nor did I see any description for Nob or Bob.
Early in the chapter, after the gatekeeper scene, there’s a jarring point of a view switch where suddenly the narrative is no longer covering Frodo, but is omniscient viewpoint of the gate itself. Tolkien writes:
“As soon as [the gatekeeper’s] back was turned, a dark figure climbed quickly in over the gate and melted into the shadows of the village street.”
Obviously this foreshadows that the black riders are in Bree, but a paragraph break would have been really helpful in letting the reader know about a different point of view.
Going back to the inn scene, I still remember Nob after all of these years. Good old Bob. Nob and Bob. (Oin and Gloin, cough cough). And Barliman Butterbur too, what a great name. I remember his absent mindedness as well, which though cliché, for some reason this innkeeper in particular stuck with me.
Nob states, about his role as a servant, “It’s hard work for two legs, but I don’t get thinner.” Interesting to compare this to Shire ideals, where fatter is sexier. Here in Bree it seems beauty is correlated more with skinniness, as Nob seems to suggest that he wants to get thinner.
The best parts of course are the Strider interaction and the accidently slip the ring on at the table scene. Strider blames Frodo for being an idiot, but it may be the ring itself betrayed Frodo, showing that even the best-laid plans could go amiss. I think Frodo was right to try and shut Pippin up, but better yet they should have just stayed in their rooms.
Of course, then they may not have met Strider, though it seems that Strider was aware of the ring and Frodo Baggins, so I think Strider would have found them anyway. Long story short, the hobbits never have seemed very bright so far. Even Merry, who cautions them before they go into the common room, decides to take a stroll when black riders may be about.
All of this goes back to Gandalf’s blunder. Certainly I can understand to some degree the hobbits incompetence—they are inexperienced adventures who don’t really know yet what they’re up against, besides Gildor’s warning. But Gandalf, he should have known about this, and he should have sent Frodo packing much sooner than he did. Wasn’t the language of Mordor on a golden ring enough? The stupidity of the wise old wizard still astounds me. All of this could have been easily avoided, but then I guess we wouldn’t have a story then, would we?
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