TT wrap-up

Discussions in Middle-earth lore, language and books.
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Guardian of the Golden Wood
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Taking my cue from @Eamila Bolger:
A wrap-up sounds great to me.
I'm going to use this first post to look back from Pippin's encounter in the Stone of Orthanc over the story we have read, going all the way back to Bag-end, and trying to bring the TT themes and elements into a wider focus. You'all should feel free to discuss anything pertaining to the story that you wish!

(1) Bag-end to Rivendell
When Tolkien sat down to write a sequel to The Hobbit he began with another party, connected the magic ring with Sauron the Necromancer, and then began a story intended to follow the road of the adventure of Bilbo Baggins - to Rivendell, only with the main part of the adventures happening off-road before (rather than after) the Last Homely House; the basic idea, then, was some adventures in the realm of Tom Bombadil. This is the main spirit of the first book, but already before leaving the Shire an encounter with a Black Rider points to some turbulence ahead - here is one who has already 'passed through' another evil magic ring! After leaving Bree, in the company now of a strange Ranger, the terrible encounter on Weathertop spells out all too clearly the peril and the menace of this evil Ring of Power.

2. Rivendell
Now Tolkien gets his full story together, histories and meanings only hinted at in 'The Shadow of the Past' are set down in concise significance, the nature of the quest - to destroy the One Ring - is settled, and the Fellowship of the Ring is born.

3. Moria
This is the turning point of the story. On the western gate is the star of Fëanor and the signs of the High Elves of Eregion - the details from Gandalf's talk in Bag-end in the second chapter are getting threshed out: here on the door - to those who see - is the name of Celebrimbor - grandson of Fëanor, he who made the Rings of Power in the Second Age. At the great Council in Rivendell we learned (just) enough of the great second age story of mortals: the Fall of Numenor, and now at the Doors of Durin we learn (just) enough to know the elf and dwarf Second Age stories: and in all, or at least both mortal and elf, is the same story: Sauron was then fair and received as a friend - and deceived: Numenor fell and Frodo Baggins bears around his neck the price a later age of the world must pay for the folly of the Elf-craftsmen of Hollin. And awaiting beyond the door is a Balrog.

4. Lothlórien
Beyond the mountains, and now without Gandalf, Aragorn leads the Company to the golden wood where dwell two high elves who distrusted Sauron already in the Second Age. I agree with Eamila Bolger that in Lórien Tolkien takes the opportunity to redraw the enchantment he had first created at the house of Tom Bombadil. Only now the magic voice of Bombadil (that all obey without question) is transmuted into a profound engagement with elvish vision and communication between elf and mortal. This communication is spelled out fully only in the cases of Frodo and Sam (and perhaps Boromir too, later, by implication), and only Frodo fully sees the Lady, although she sees all of them - 'sees' directly, of the mind, without intermediary of words or other medium, and Frodo Baggins then offers her the Ring and sees the Lady. In my opinion the scene in the Mirror is the highlight of the book, and this despite the fact that it is a deliberately non-dramatic moment: here stands Galadriel and Middle-earth, on the brink, at the moment of temptation and possible Fall - but both she and Frodo make the right choice, shoulder the consequences of their choice, and continue with what they must do: the drama is averted, leaving them only the consolations of northern art.

5. Falls of Rauros
Now we have drama! The Fall of Boromir. And also Frodo's mega-weird TV spectacle experience on Amon Hen.

-- And only now do we enter the The Two Towers; but I say again that this part of the story really begins at Moria, or with the second book of Fellowship. Yet there is a change as we step into book III, and now it seems to take Tolkien a while to get into his new stride - lots of chasing of hobbits into and over the great plains of Rohan, and the hobbits themselves running and getting lumped and bumped about - till we reach the first sign of Rohan - Éomer and his riders, and suddenly it is all happening around our ears.

The first meeting with Éomer sets the scene for the story in Rohan - all this talk of war and trust in the words of a stranger and legends springing up out of the green grass. And then suddenly we have this night-time hallucination of Gandalf who is perhaps only a sending of Saruman (cf. the ambiguous figure in white seen by Frodo in the Mirror) while Peregrin Took and Meriadoc Brandybuck have taken up with a walking, talking tree!

After the Falls of Rauros we enter a different Middle-earth, more properly, the South of Middle-earth; where the vegetation is different and the old towers that are but ruins in the North still house great lords and magicians and some forgotten, ancient, elvish, seeing-stones. It is indeed the world that Boromir has talked about at the Council of Elrond, ultimately here is the surviving remnant of Numenor of old, but it is interesting that Tolkien chooses to lead us to Gondor only by way of Rohan, Saruman, and the Ents.

My basic sense of this part of the story - Rohan, Fangorn, Isengard - is that, having worked through the 'high magic' at the heart of the story in Lorien Tolkien is now easing it down and showing us how this same 'magic' appears to - and is even employed by - mortals, like us.

For what it is worth, I think that the story of Saruman is prefigured on the gates of Moria. Saruman and Wormtongue are surely lesser versions of the 'unfriend' who poses as a 'friend' pointed to on the Doors of Durin; Third Age versions of Sauron the Necromancer of the Second Age.

And then we have the Riders of Rohan! Beloved by all good hobbits; because the Rohirrim are but hobbits at a more primitive and martial age of their history; Meriadoc travels in time as well as space, hearing a language spoken around him that he seemed to recognize but, though spoken more slowly and sonorously than the tongue of the Shire, he cannot fathom the meaning of. It is just as when I listen to Old English. The barrow mounds on the road to the gate of Edoras, the appointed ends of Eomer and Theoden - the first, king who will be, who accepts Aragorn as a fairy-story come to life on their first meeting, and the second the king who has listened to craven counsel but now hearkens to the name of the Lady and the hope of the wizard, and who rides out to war and, though not yet, his death.

And then, finally, we have a Palantir and the hobbit Pippin is questioned silently by Sauron the Ensnarer. The face and the mental-speech of Sauron has been framed in a dark globe of crystal.
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I hope I understand everything that you say well, but I am having a bit of a hard time trying, sorry 'bout that. There is a red line for me though, when I read all this.
What I see when I read your wrap up, is indeed how we change not only landscapes, but also races.
In the Fellowship of the Ring we go from the Shire through Bree - a short encounter with men but not the royal, 'higher'' men from the South - to Rivendell. Hobbits and Elves mainly, and their strength. Even Aragorn seems to be more Elvish than human.
But the Elves - and we know Tolkien loves them, they were the firstborn - are no longer the heroes of the story: they are important side kicks (forgive me... my small vocabulary of English doesn't help when I try to sort things out in my head) but they cannot solve the 'problem'.
From Elves we go through Moria and again to the Elves, this time the Lothlorien Elves. Still the journey doesn't end. These races, who once worked together, cannot help out now.

And now comes the time of men, in TTT. The Fellowship is no longer the main character, they are divided and end up in parts of the human world. This is where the battle is held. Of course there is still 'magic'. There's Saruman, there's Fangorn. There's the ents, what a breath of fresh air.
But the main focus seems to lie not only on Frodo and the ring, but also on Aragorn and his journey to his destiny.

That's what I notice when I read TTT and your wrap up.

I am not sure that I understand what you mean about Saruman and Moria...

To me Gríma is still an unfortunate servant who has been betrayed by evil, but who wasn't evil at first. He is a marionet in the hands of an evil wizard...
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Guardian of the Golden Wood
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@Eamila Bolger, i agree with most of what you say above. But i do not understand what you mean by 'a red line' - that seems to indicate that i have said something that you cannot and will not accept, but i am not sure what it is unless you mean Wormtongue.

On Saruman and Moria: over the last few years i've spent a lot of time reading the drafts of the story (in the Home volumes) and this has changed how i read the published story. What the drafts reveal is that the entrance to Moria was a turning-point in the imagination of the story - when it was first reached Strider was a hobbit and the story was envisaged as around the same length as 'The Hobbit' - this was late 1939.
When Tolkien resumed writing in late summer 1940 he had resolved upon the story that we know and, before he picks up the story again at Moria he rewrites the Council of Elrond to tell the sequel to his (1936) 'Fall of Numenor' so as to encompass Gondor and Strider, who is now the heir of Elendil. It is only now that he forms the clear idea that this story is set in the Third Age.
So when Tolkien starts again at Moria he redraws the western gate (literally, he redraws the symbols on the Doors of Durin) so that they tell a further part of the story of the Second Age. It is only now that he adds to earlier chapters references to the Elves of Holin and works out the story of the making of the Rings of Power and the One Ring - a story in which Sauron, just as with the men of Numenor, appeared as a friend and gave fair sounding counsel, which deceived them. (So the riddle of the Doors of Durin, written by Celebrimbor, now takes on a new meaning because Celebrimbor, who first made the Rings of Power, took Sauron to be a 'friend' and was deceived).
In other words, only now, as the Company enter Moria, does Tolkien have a clear vision of the Second Age as the Age in which the Necromancer appeared as a friend and his foul words were mistaken as fair counsel - to the doom of both Numenor and the High Elves of Eregion.
And so what happens next, or so I surmise, is that this vision of Sauron the Deceiver of the Second Age spawns the sub-stories of Saruman and Wormtongue in the Third Age, who play a similar role - the unfriend who appears as a friend, the one who speaks foul words that appear fair.

As for Gríma not being evil at first - are we not told that not even Sauron was evil at first? I think Tolkien, throughout the book, shows us stages of the fall of human nature. Ted Sandyman was not evil at first, and perhaps he is not even evil at the end. But we see his choices, which take him down the path of evil; just as Saruman made his choices, just as Sauron once made his, and just as Wormtongue made his.
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Ah, sorry @Chrysophylax Dives ! Language thing here. I meant a red thread but that might not be English either?
I don’t know the English for it. A line that links all. I believe it comes from Ariadne’s thread in Greek mythology? We call it a red thread.
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Guardian of the Golden Wood
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@Eamila Bolger - my daughter's name is Sheni, which is the Hebrew word for scarlet, which appears in the Bible in the story of the birth of two twins, the first to appear (his hand, only) is marked by a scarlet thread (*huut ha'sheni). I think this is the origin of your red thread.

I sat down with the intention of deleting the reply above and trying to put things better. But as you have replied I will leave it and simply try again in a new post.
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There's even more red threads in the Bible, like Rachab's chord!
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Guardian of the Golden Wood
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:) It makes the expression 'red thread' curious, no?

I gave my daughter also an English name, which is what I call her. But her Hebrew name is beautiful.
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Guardian of the Golden Wood
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On my wrap-up, I am coming to this reading from another, of perhaps three years ago, which was different: Katie W. (her family name and the fan site she used I need to look up) set herself the goal of writing up her reading of each chapter, and of course some good discussion arose also in the comments. Katie's reading was significant for me especially because she declared Book II, Chapter IV, 'A Journey in the Dark' the heart of greatness; and though I had not stopped to think that before, I saw that she was right (as did other commentators).

With the Doors of Durin at the entrance - the border with Eregion - and the Balrog and the Fall of Gandalf waiting within, here in the Mines of Moria we have both the elemental heart of the story and a vision of the craft that will tell it. The riddle on the Door is 'friend' and the twisted meanings of this word - the face of the unfriends we meet in the story, is now set into motion and will generate (though Tolkien does not yet know it when he draws the Doors of Durin) the question that Treebeard asks himself of the two hobbits and Eomer asks of Aragorn on their first meeting: 'are you friend or foe?'

Before the Doors of Durin stands Frodo Baggins of the Shire, with the One Ring upon his breast. Here on this door Tolkien drew a picture around his vision of the greatest elf-craftsman of the Second Age of Middle-earth, the grandson of Fëanor, he who made the Rings of Power: one who was great - far greater than any hobbit might ever dream - and yet fell to the One Ring. What chance now a mere hobbit? This question, demanded by the idea of the Ring that has formed in Tolkien's mind, is resolved in a reworking (in legendary not mythical terms) of this fundamental question in the person of Théoden, who between Edoras and Orthanc learns to recognize first friend and then foe (only at Orthanc, I think, does the king properly see who his Gríma truly is, and was).
Eat earth. Dig deep. Drink water.

Guardian of the Golden Wood
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:hammer:
Eamila Bolger wrote: Mon Nov 23, 2020 9:48 pm I hope I understand everything that you say well, but I am having a bit of a hard time trying, sorry 'bout that. There is a red line for me though, when I read all this.
What I see when I read your wrap up, is indeed how we change not only landscapes, but also races.
In the Fellowship of the Ring we go from the Shire through Bree - a short encounter with men but not the royal, 'higher'' men from the South - to Rivendell. Hobbits and Elves mainly, and their strength. Even Aragorn seems to be more Elvish than human.
But the Elves - and we know Tolkien loves them, they were the firstborn - are no longer the heroes of the story: they are important side kicks (forgive me... my small vocabulary of English doesn't help when I try to sort things out in my head) but they cannot solve the 'problem'.
From Elves we go through Moria and again to the Elves, this time the Lothlorien Elves. Still the journey doesn't end. These races, who once worked together, cannot help out now.

And now comes the time of men, in TTT. The Fellowship is no longer the main character, they are divided and end up in parts of the human world. This is where the battle is held. Of course there is still 'magic'. There's Saruman, there's Fangorn. There's the ents, what a breath of fresh air.
But the main focus seems to lie not only on Frodo and the ring, but also on Aragorn and his journey to his destiny.

That's what I notice when I read TTT and your wrap up.
Sorry, while clarifying the 'red line' as a red thread I lost sight of your original use of it, and was still trying to defend myself!*

Yes to what you say about the races in the North and the South and their relationship to the Ring. I think of it as Tolkien drawing the Ring by drawing in turn what the Ring - or some version of its magic - means for the story in relation to each race or being ('race' is perhaps not fitting for the singular Bombadil and Goldberry). The biographical insight here, I think, turns on seeing the shadow cast upon a sequel to The Hobbit by the 'Fall of Numenor,' - which had introduced the novel idea of a division in time between myth (First & Second Ages) and History, or Legend, which is what came after the great world-changing Fall of Atlantis, as it was told in the North.

This division between myth and history had yet to be drawn when the story of Bilbo Baggins was composed. When he began a sequel, however, he evidently saw it as situated in the age of myth - of the Silmarillion stories. Exploring the mythical dimension of The Hobbit gave him Tom Bombadil, but gradually - and strangely, by way of Weathertop - took the story out of myth and into legend; with all that you say about the mortal protagonists in the war in the South of Middle-earth. Fangorn stands out here, as you indicate, most deliciously placed in legends of Men.

Somehow, when J.R.R. Tolkien drew the Doors of Durin, he marked not only the riddle of speaking aloud the silent signs (the elvish letters), but also a most curious sign of an entire age of myth, the age of Numenor - its symbol, because its failure, the very word 'friend.' This mythological mistake of Elves and Men, drawn in humanoid body in Durin's Bane, Balrog of Moria, mythical face of the unfriend, bears - peculiarly yet significantly - upon the subsequent stories of Frodo Baggins and the One Ring and, as you rightly insist, "also on Aragorn and his journey to his destiny"; these are rectifications, in an age of legend, of the mythological errors of an earlier age of the world.

* Google: 'to cross the red line': The Red line, or "to cross the red line", is a phrase used worldwide to mean a figurative point of no return or line in the sand, or "a limit past which safety can no longer be guaranteed."

:)
Eat earth. Dig deep. Drink water.

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