Re-reading The Lord of the Rings: chapter by chapter

[Extollager]

The Little Grey Men was one of the great books when I was a youngster. It certainly affected my imagination in a beneficial way.

 

[HareBrain]

Did you read other 'B.B.' books as a child, @Matteo? I was a big fan of Bill Badger.

 

[Matteo]

Other than Brendon Chase - which must also be up in the attic (I seem to recall the cover had a photo of the three boys, so it must have had a tv adaptation around that time) - no, I didn't.

At that time, I think I moved on fairly quickly to older kids books and so missed anything else.

Which was probably a shame.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Somehow I've never read this thread before. I have a number of thoughts... and these are my opinions... I'll try to give reference when I can, but these are my opinions.

First, I've never read Moorcock, but Tolkien's fellowship is light on common folk. Gandalf is an angel. Strider is the uncrowned king of two countries. Legolas is the son of the Elven King of Greenwood/Mirkwood. Boromir is the eldest son of the ruling steward of Gondor (he also holds the highest rank in their military). Merry is the eldest son and heir of the Master of Buckland. Pippin is the eldest son and heir of the Thain of the Shire. Gimli is the son of Gloin, whose great grandfather was King Nain II. Frodo is related to both the Tooks and the Brandybucks (the two leading families of the Shire) and is, as previously mentioned in this thread, landed gentry. Sam is the only one not of noble birth.

So birth and nobility may seem important on the surface, but do not forget that it is Sam the Assistant Gardener, not General Boromir, not King Aragorn, not Prince Legolas, not Baron Gimli, not Sir Meriadoc, not Squire Pippin, nor even Gandalf the Maia who defeats Shelob, bears the Ring, rescues Frodo, starves himself, carries Frodo to Mount Doom, and helps save Middle-earth. Birth qualified all of the Fellowship, but not Sam. Birth actually disqualified him. What qualified Sam was his work ethic, his focus, his level of detail, and his commitment to the cause. In all these areas he surpassed them all, well, except maybe for Gandalf and Aragorn.

It may be noted that Frodo calls Sam his servant and that Sam calls Frodo his master. But when Aragorn announced them to the assembled armies he said, "Praise them with great praise!" And Sam was counted as a ringbearer and awarded a place on a ship to Aman.

Do you recall the medal ceremony in Star Wars? Han gets awarded first, then Luke. Chewbacca did not get a medal. He stood behind and lower on the dais than Han. Of course this was done to fit Peter Mayhew into the shot, but Chewbacca shared every danger that Han did. Come on, it's time to end Wookie prejudice.

Back to Sam... the result of Sam qualifying himself (further by routing the ruffians and healing the Shire with Galadriel's gift) is that he is named Frodo's heir and that he is elected Mayor of Michel Delving (i.e. the entire Shire) and then named by Elessar as a Councillor of Arnor.

Earlier in the thread, I believe @Luiglin used the word species to denote the divisions of humans. I don't think this is quite accurate. We do not label Ethiopians and Estonians as separate species. We are one species with different traits. Tolkien not only includes physical differences but operational differences as well. In The Silmarillion, we learn of the divisions of the Elves. All Elves are enamored of starlight and of the workings of the world. But the Vanyar seek wisdom and enjoy the company of the Valar (the wisest of Eru's creations), while the Noldor love knowledge and crafting new designs, and the Teleri desire the peace of the flora and fauna of Middle-earth and they delight in the sound of running water which is in their latent longing to be close to the sea. In Tolkien's accounts of the arrival of elves, groups of them awoke together... fully grown. These groups, I assume were homogenous in physical appearance and operational desires. The Vanyar, Noldor, and Teleri quickly found each other, but quickly recognized their specializations. I asssume that men were created much the same.

Again in The Silmarillion, we learn of three kindred of humans. Together these are called the Edain, but they thought of themselves as distinct tribes. Easterlings are also mentioned in two tribes in The Silmarillion. In The Lord of the Rings, many references are made to other kindreds, Easterling, Southrons, Haradrim (a southron-Numenorean mix), men of the White Mountains, Dunlendings, men of Bree-land, Beornings, and the Rohirrim. We are not told of the operational specializations of all of any people before their contact with elves (and by extension the Valar). It is this contact that sets the Edain on their path of operational specialization... fight evil, act justly, show mercy to the less fortunate, honor the Eldar, and revere the Valar. In doing these, the Edain were blessed by the Eldar with knowledge of craftsmanship, language, and friendship... and blessed by the Valar with longer life, a fruitful land, visions, and contentment. After the Edain became the Dunedain, many of them joined evil, acted unjustly, became merciless, denounced the Eldar, and worshipped Melkor. This disqualified them from the blessings. The descendants of those who kept their operational specialization became the men of Gondor and Arnor, i.e. Aragorn, Denethor, Imrahil, etc. Gandalf lamented to Pippin something about how the blood of Numenor ran true in Denethor and Faramir but not in Boromir. Even when it ran true, it was still up to the individual to choose justice, mercy, and hope (as Faramir did) over greed, expediency, and despair (as Denethor did).

When Faramir broke bread with Frodo and Sam, he first turned to the west and showed his reverence for the Valar. Sam was unaccustomed to this and felt "rustic"... yet it felt right to him. I really think Sam is the example of a man not educated nor bred to a higher standard, but finds them for himself. He refused to measure himself by Ted Sandyman and he refused to be daunted by Strider. He clung to his own operational specialization, his own ethics, his code that allowed him to renounce the temptation of Samwise the Strong and yet still be a hero for the ages.

To paraphrase Forrest Gump, nobility is as nobility does. I think that Tolkien recognized the impact that the decisions that one generation makes can have earth shaking consequences for later generations. The men of the White Mountains dwindled and died out after their forefathers proved faithless to Isildur, while the Dunedain of Gondor continued to thrive after utterly rejecting Sauron.

Now if this all smacks of racism to you, then so be it. As for me, it echoes the cultural attributes to which I aspire... ethics, commitment to family, faithfulness, knowledge of craft, justice and mercy... and the cultural values that I hold equality, meritocracy, honor. Which probably sounds like manifest destiny. Personally, my ethinc make up is one quarter Chinese, one eighth Welsh, one eighth Swedish, but mostly English and Scottish... my first name is Brittonic, my middle name is Hebrew and my family name is Latin... the first of my ancestors to come to the U.S. came from France. My mother was born in China. I grew up on English and Chinese nursery rhymes. I am captivated by the histories of the Kingdom of Israel and the Roman Republic. I can get by speaking Mandarin, but am not fluent... and I am illiterate in Chinese. I've studied German, Spanish, and French, and can actually read Latin more easily than Mandarin.

Maybe it's the age into which I was born, but I don't feel Tolkien's works are racist. Sometimes we unintentionally insult each other. For instance, I used to run the activities for Taiwanese high school students doing a summer English camp in the U.S. Once I overheard a student, speaking in Mandarin, referring to me and other counselors as foreigners. The Mandarin word can be translated as "outside country people" or "people from beyond our borders" which is fine, if we'd been in a Mandarin speaking country. My student did not mean to insult me, to her the word only meant non-Chinese, not foreigner.

Sometimes we look for insults where none are intended. In the last twenty years, it has become fashionable among Asian-American students to find the word oriental insulting. I've been told it is analogous to African-Americans being called the N word. That's hogwash. It merely refers to geography. If I cared to... I could find words to insult Asian-Americans that are actually analogous to the N word.

Is Middle-earth as inclusive as I'd like it to be? No. The best case of inclusivity occurs when Faramir is betrothed to Arwen. She's a foreigner... although she's one quarter Gondorian and may be a third cousin to Faramir's uncle Imrahil....

I wanted to make other comments, but I've taken enough space just for this...

Ha, just watched the ending of SW, and you're right - I never realised that Chewie didn't get a medal. Either he's too tall for Leia to reach up and get it over his head, or I'd like to think that a Wookie would dismiss such trinkets as superfluous. There's no way that Han would go up and get a medal without his best friend being offered one. Yes most of the Fellowship in LOTR are not from the 'working class', but then again they are the elite warriors/ambassadors of their nations so if they hadn't gotten titles by birth they would have got them by merit; and even those handed titles have earned them in combat.

Sam is the only 'commoner', but he's also the only one with the determination to stick to the task at hand right to the very end and carry it out whatever the cost may be.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Is it just me, or does anyone else get the sense that the 'new' Gandalf -Gandalf the White - after Moria is somewhat different to the pre-Moria Gandalf the Gray. I was gutted to see what happened to him at Khazad-dum, and was overjoyed when he reappeared in Fangorn, and despite his initial apparent forgetfulness, he remembered his former self and went back to normal- or did he? The warm, friendly good-natured, passive Gandalf from the Hobbit and the Shire doesn't seem to be the same warrior-wizard that we see or at Helms Deep or on the Pelennor Fields.

 

[farntfar]

It seems to me he came back to normal somewhat on the journey home and even at the havens.

It was just a case of having to adopt a certain seriousness during the war. It was, after all, what he had been sent from Valinor to do.

 

[Overread]

He did change, he almost didn't seem to remember himself at first as Gandalf the White. It took a while for him to settle back toward a bit of his Grey self. What I think we see is that alongside being stripped of part of their power and selves when they are sent to Middle Earth as agents; they are also gifted a certain personality and attitude that affects who and how they interact with the peoples of the land. Radagast is clearly in tune with the wilds; Sauron appears more in tune with the "upper classes" of powers whilst Gandalf appears more so with the common person. Even though they all interact and intermingle with other groups, they've each got a focus that affects their personalities. Gandalf the White was more "upper class haughty" for a bit as he was closer to how Sauron the White was. However I suspect he was so recently Gandalf the Grey that that whole side of him wasn't gone, just suppressed from his new role.

Hence how he changes through the story from that point on and settles into a happy medium between the two states.

 

[Pyan]

I've always thought that the physical body of Gandalf the Grey died in the fight with the Balrog on Celebdil, as he specifically says that he was 'sent back':
Then darkness took me; and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell.
Naked I was sent back - for a brief time, until my task is done.
TT, Ch 5, The White Rider

So I would have thought that Gandalf the White was a 'new' Gandalf:

'Gandalf,' the old man repeated, as if recalling from old memory a long disused word. 'Yes, that was the name. I was Gandalf.'...
'Indeed I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have been.
Ibid

I agree with you, Overread - the Grey persona was 'wiped', and it's the contact with the people he knew before that softens him from the returning Maia to a semblance of his old personality.

 

[Hugh]

I've always thought that the physical body of Gandalf the Grey died in the fight with the Balrog on Celebdil, as he specifically says that he was 'sent back':
Then darkness took me; and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell.
Naked I was sent back - for a brief time, until my task is done.
TT, Ch 5, The White Rider

I hadn't understood this to mean that he was sent back in a new body.

 

[farntfar]

Yes. I had always seen the "Naked I was sent back" as almost a factory reset.
It would appear that he still had all his old memories available, but not quite as integrated into his persona as they were before. At least not until he'd had time to reprocess them.

A bit like a new Doctor has his old memories (after an initial "Oooh. New teeth" period), but can still have a new way of using them.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Better he came back in a new body than in the altogether...

Perhaps this is why he wasn't immediately recognised as Gandalf in Fangorn? Either way, I preferred the old Gandalf the Grey to Gandalf the White.

 

[Pyan]

It was confirmed by Gandalf that the person seen by Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli on the edges of the Entwood in TT, CH2, the Riders of Rohan was not him, Gandalf, so must have been Saruman. I've always wondered, because I don't think it's ever explained, exactly what Saruman was doing by himself, quite a long way from Isengard.

 

[paranoid marvin]

It was confirmed by Gandalf that the person seen by Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli on the edges of the Entwood in TT, CH2, the Riders of Rohan was not him, Gandalf, so must have been Saruman. I've always wondered, because I don't think it's ever explained, exactly what Saruman was doing by himself, quite a long way from Isengard.

He was mistaken twice, although (having just quickly checked the book) they didn't see his face clearly the second time, so could be forgiven for thinking it was Saruman. Yes it is odd that Saruman wanders the woods alone, although we know that he USED to be a good friend of treebeard's and Eomer had warned them that he wandered about hooded and cloaked.

To be wandering the woods at such a time with his hoardes ready to sally forth seems odd, but maybe we can conjecture that he saw something in his palantir, so was either rushing to aid his uruk-hai (but was too late) or was looking to find or disrupt Aragorn's company or perhaps even seeking Gandalf?

 

[Hugh]

I'd never thought about this before - it does seem odd behaviour to wander about like that at that time.

However, now that I'm actually typing, I remember reading somewhere that perhaps he was out and about hoping to get a sighting of his Uruk-hai who he hoped might be returning with a few halflings, and whose arrival was overdue.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I'd never thought about this before - it does seem odd behaviour to wander about like that at that time. However, now that I'm actually typing, I remember reading somewhere that perhaps he was out and about hoping to get a sighting of his Uruk-hai who he hoped might be returning with a few halflings, and whose arrival was overdue.

Still seems odd though. How did he get there, by horse? Quite a distance to travel back to Orthanc; and all this whilst his troops are marching on Helms Deep. Seems odd for him to be travelling so far abroad, only to scare away their horses.

 

[Avelino de Castro]

Ah, if you'd paid more attention to the Prologue ...



I've always supposed the tower Frodo sees in his dream is that one. I'm surprised Google thinks it was Minas Tirith. As you say, that makes no sense. I don't think it was mean to be a premonition.

(ETA: the light and thunder is surely just him being woken by Merry.)

I found Tom Bombadil to be important to the story. Maybe I'm jut thick, but he embodies the innocence of the natural world. He lives outside the troubles of men and orcs and elves. But as Gandalf says he too will eventually be destroyed if the sauron gets the ring.

 

[Avelino de Castro]

I really enjoyed the first few chapters of Fellowship. I think the slow, easy pace of the Shire is reflected in those early chapters and help to show just how brave the Hobbits are going completely out of their comfort zone. I also have to say that the first time I read the part where Gandalf (literally ) fell, I jumped a few chapters to see if he came back!

My mother read me this book when I was about eight or ten, and when Gandalf fell i was so upset she reassured me he was going to come back.

 

[Overread]

Saruman used to walk the woods and was pretty much convinced he was master of the lands surrounding Isenguard. He had no fear of the Ents, considering them basically gone feral (to trees) and that even if they did start to debate the possibility of joining the war, chances are it would be over before they'd get round to making a choice. He might have been scouting or just stretching his legs away from the dark forces he'd raised. Whilst he raised them he never had any love of them. Clearer air not full of the stink of industry and orc.

 

[Extollager]

I'd never thought about this before - it does seem odd behaviour to wander about like that at that time.

I think I've had it in the back of my mind -- with very little justification from the text -- that the figure was that of Saruman, but not Saruman in the flesh; he was "bilocating"; this was a projection. I link him to the figure of Wither in C. S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength. It is just possible that Tolkien was influenced by that sequence. In the Lewis novel, Mark Studdock has become increasingly uneasy about his involvement with the sinister National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments and is looking to escape; and he suddenly sees an apparition of its Deputy Director wandering towards him.

I said "very little justification" rather than none, in that Saruman is a wizard, he is a sinister figure indeed, it seems plausible that he would be capable of "bilocation" if that is a possibility in Middle-earth. Tolkien, so far as I recall from many readings, has given us no or almost no basis for thinking that it is. Sauron seems to be able to project his "shadow" if his name is spoken aloud, but Tolkien makes it impossible to assert that that is precisely what he has done (I'm thinking of the scene in The Fellowship of the Ring in which Frodo speaks Sauron's name aloud, Gandalf rebukes him, and there's a momentary darkening.)

So -- I like my notion of Saruman's "projection" being seen, but it's nothing I can prove either by internal or external evidence.

 

[Hugh]

I like it that here we have a seemingly straightforward incident in the LOTR and yet none of us is sure as to what exactly is going on.

When I was young, I used to think it was just an example of Saruman being mischievous/malicious, and gave no thought to the bigger picture.