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.
Sounds like Grima-was-the-actual-hero-of-LoTR fanfic is ready to be written! I hadn't ever considered that Gandalf totally cheats here. Maybe Tolkien's point is that evil will not be defeated by its own tools?
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