"The Muster of Rohan" - Eric's Thoughts

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. If Lord of the Rings started with Return of the King, I would guess no one would ever read on.

As Ben and Jacob have noted, this chapter, among others before it, are obviously transitional chapters bridging the characters from the battle of pelennor fields to where they were before. To refresh everyone on what happened here, the chapter involves moving the riders towards Minas Tirith, Merry eating with the King, Merry almost being left behind, and Merry being picked up by a rider called Dernhelm.

Sadly, like the chapters that come before it, something is lacking that makes the prose lack an "oomph" factor. My initial thought is that it lacks a compelling POV character to drive at least an emotional arc while the external conflict itself is non-existent. Merry, not developed as a character, seems to be a poor choice to drive the narrative.

That's not to say that there aren't a few moments that are interesting. For me the most compelling part is when a messenger shows up from Minas Tirith and begs for aid from Théoden. King Théoden rises to the challenge and summons the army -- wait for it -- which (disappointingly) is only 6,000 strong.

And that goes to another problem. Something I found really odd is how few men the forces of good seem to have -- yet they manage to put up a fierce resistence to the supposedly numberless hordes of Sauron. Perhaps that just goes to human tenacity, but personally I think it's a plot whole. It almost suggests that Sauron doesn't have that much either, say like 30,000-50,000 troops at best. That's nothing to sneer at, but in a modern world of over 5 billion people, Sauron would have significant trouble conquering even Alaska (population 736,732). If anything, the low amount of "Team Gandalf" forces seems to suggest the Dark Lord himself is not really that powerful. (Especially since that paltry force breaks Sauron's forces in Pelennor.)