#Lotr newsletter

[warrioreowynofrohan]

LOTR Newsletter - September 22

Happy Hobbit Day!

Unfortunately, unlike Bilbo's birthday party, in the LOTR newsletter this is not a happy day for the hobbits. As far as Frodo & friends know, it's just a good-bye party, but just as they're finishing up Frodo's wine, the Ringwraiths are invading the Shire.

From "The Hunt for the Ring" in Unfinished Tales:

Night was waning on the twenty-second day of September when drawing together again they [the Nazgûl] came to Sarn Ford and the southernmost borders of the Shire. They found them guarded, for the Rangers barred their way. But this was a task beyond the power of the Dúnedain; and maybe it would still have proved so even if their captain, Aragorn, had been with them. But he was away to the north, upon the East Road near Bree; and the hearts even of the Dúnedain misgave them. Some fled northward, hoping to bear news to Aragorn, but they were pursued and slain or driven away into the wild. Some still dared to bar the ford, and held it while day lasted, but at night the Lord of Morgul swept them away, and the Black Riders passed into the Shire; and ere the cock crowed in the small hours of the twenty-third day of September some were riding north through the land, even as Gandalf upon Shadowfax was riding over Rohan far behind.

The Rangers deserve credit for their defence of the Shire against enemies that were well beyond their ability to fight; the mirroring moments of the battle of Osgiliath in Gondor (where an army of the Men of Gondor try and fail to keep the Ringwraiths in Mordor, showing great heroism and courage) and this moment (where the Rangers of the North try and fail to keep the Ringwraiths out of the Shire, likewise showing great heroism and courage, with far fewer resources and virtually nonexistent recognition) illustrate the roles that both groups play (as later discussed by Boromir and Aragorn at the Council of Elrond).

[buggreawlthys]

Frodo turned and waved a hand in farewell. 'I wonder if I shall ever look down into that valley again,' he said quietly.

--[Pippin & Sam side-eyeing "you hearing this shit?" "is ... is this him trying to be ~secretive~??" "we're all doomed"]

[sindar-princeling]

aragorn's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week:

the fellowship breaks on his watch

forced to choose who to follow

runs over 200 kilometers in under four days

thinks merry and pippin are dead

meets the reborn gandalf (a rare win), immediately has to do a 180 and ride to edoras

immediately after that needs to ride to battle

takes part in a battle which takes place over the whole night

gets maybe 20 hours of sleep over the course of the whole week

and, I cannot stress this enough, this is all still very far from over

[ellieofthewoods]

it is a beautiful day and you are a horrible goose screaming at a ringwraith

[draquus]

I saw someone a while back complaining that Aragorn stops being interesting in RotK because once he becomes king he's too lofty and remote and loses the humanity of his character, and I just...

Aragorn lets Beregond think he's being banished for a solid five seconds before telling him he's being sent to be Faramir's captain of the guard. He refuses to tell his friends that he's getting married because if they can't figure it out then they're just going to have to wait and see. Yes, he is a great and lofty king, but he is also still clearly a man whose best friends include Gandalf and Bilbo, and who consistently trolls people as a love language.

[thethirdromana]

I love the point where Tolkien stops pretending he's writing a mid-20th century fantasy novel and just fully writes in Old English half-lines:

Still she did not blench: maiden of the Rohirrim child of kings, slender but as a steel-blade, fair yet terrible. A swift stroke she dealt, skilled and deadly. The outstretched neck she clove asunder, and the hewn head fell like a stone. Backward she sprang as the huge shape crashed to ruin, vast wings outspread, crumpled on the earth; and with its fall the shadow passed away. A light fell about her, and her hair shone in the sunrise.

There are 3-4 paragraphs like this. It's great.

[agardenintheshire]

tolkien (a studied linguist) and me (has taken their fair share of linguistic classes) staring at each other after the narrator casually drops that the hobbits just 'forgot' their languages and simply adopted the common speech as if that is a normal thing that happens out of the blue and isn't connected to at best cultural assimilation and at worst colonialism, imperialism, and oppression

[lifblogs]

“None saw her last meeting with Elrond her father, for they went up into the hills and there spoke long together, and bitter was their parting that should endure beyond the ends of the world.”

Tolkien’s use of language. Wow.

[the-timelord-a-tardis-stole]

In 2021, I listened to So You Want To Read Tolkien. It's a very good podcast where these three women read the Silmarillion, The Hobbit and Lotr trilogy one chapter at a time and chat about each one.

But at one point they pointed out how Boromir has all these funny little Gondor sayings. And I think this entry has been the first time I've noticed it. Like, Boromir has

Well,' said Boromir, 'when heads are at a loss bodies must serve, as we say in my country.

and

'The wolf that one hears is worse than the orc that one fears.'

But then Aragorn, well travelled man that he is, comes in with

'But where the warg howls, there also the orc prowls.'

And I just love it. It's a little language worldbuilding type thing that makes the characters feel so tangible, which Tolkien is very good at. Like of course Boromir has some weird sayings bc he's from Gondor and he's proud of that

[emyn-arnens]

Tolkien’s writing style gets criticized so much because of his heavy use of descriptions and imagery, especially of nature, but I just adore how he conveys images. Each time I reread his works, I find myself amazed once again at how beautiful, lush, and evocative his writing is. These are some of my favorites I’ve noticed as I’ve been catching up on the newsletter:

“Away eastward the sun was rising red out of the mists that lay thick on the world. Touched with gold and red the autumn trees seemed to be sailing rootless in a shadowy sea.”

“The West wind was sighing in the branches. Leaves were whispering. Soon the road began to fall gently but steadily into the dusk. A star came out above the trees in the darkening East before them.”

“After a time, as the stars grew thicker and brighter, the feeling of disquiet left them, and they no longer listened for the sound of hoofs.”

“It showed grey and pale, a line of fading light through the wood. Above it the stars were thick in the dim sky, but there was no moon.”

“But at that moment there came a sound like mingled song and laughter. Clear voices rose and fell in the starlit air.”

“They passed slowly, and the hobbits could see the starlight glimmering on their hair and in their eyes. They bore no lights, yet as they walked a shimmer, like the light of the moon above the rim of the hills before it rises, seemed to fall about their feet.”

[caenith]

It's always been so funny to me that the Council of Elrond is literally just a meeting of people who have showed up in Rivendell with different problems and just happened to do so at more or less the same time. They didn't gather there to discuss the Ring, the future of the Middle Earth or the rise of Sauron.

Nope. Each of them have faced An Issue and decided to ask Elrond for help.

Poor Elrond. He managed to avoid the kingship, but not becoming a parent figure for almost everyone in the Middle Earth.

[buggreawlthys]

So desolate were those places and so deep the horror that lay on them that some of the host were unmanned, and they could neither walk nor ride further north. Aragorn looked at them, and there was pity in his eyes rather than wrath...

- thinking about how in his wwi service tolkien probably heard of or personally witnessed shellshocked soldiers being court martialled & even executed for desertion when their trauma disabled them. in his stories he gives them the mercy they were denied in life.

[sindar-princeling]

mixed feelings about Tolkien making people of the east and south come to Aragorn for pardon like he's actual jesus christ on judgement day, but I really appreciate that Tolkien's idea of a good king is 1) realising that the true enemy is defeated, and not making the war last longer that it needs to last 2) sending free the people who used to be on the other side of the war, but now come to you in peace 3) freeing slaves 4) giving people their land (the woses's land is their own and no-one is allowed to enter without their permission, same for the shire, rohan does not become a part of the Reunited Kingdom, slaves of mordor get land of their own)

[ellieofthewoods]

gimli taking frodo to see the mirrormere makes me want to cry

“this is one of the most important places in my people’s culture and i want to share it with you” STOP IM ALREADY EMOTIONAL

and aragorn! recognizing how important it is to gimli! and telling him to go look even though they’re under pursuit and arguably don’t have the time!

[roselightfairy]

Real Legolas stans can give you a baffled half-hour outburst about how we don't understand why the HECK Legolas was given all these increasingly ridiculous and absurd stunts in the movies while his single, beautifully-written, traditionally heroic (and much more plausible) moment was omitted entirely.

Legolas laid down his paddle and took up the bow that he had brought from Lórien. Then he sprang ashore and climbed a few paces up the bank. Stringing the bow and fitting an arrow he turned, peering back over the River into the darkness. Across the water there were shrill cries, but nothing could be seen.   Frodo looked up at the Elf standing tall above him, as he gazed into the night, seeking a mark to shoot at. His head was dark, crowned with sharp white stars that glittered in the black pools of the sky behind. But now rising and sailing up from the South the great clouds advanced, sending out dark outriders into the starry fields. A sudden dread fell on the Company.   'Elbereth Gilthoniel!' sighed Legolas as he looked up. Even as he did so, a dark shape, like a cloud and yet not a cloud, for it moved far more swiftly, came out of the blackness in the South, and sped towards the Company, blotting out all light as it approached. Soon it appeared as a great winged creature, blacker than the pits in the night. Fierce voices rose up to greet it from across the water. Frodo felt a sudden chill running through him and clutching at his heart; there was a deadly cold, like the memory of an old wound, in his shoulder. He crouched down, as if to hide.   Suddenly the great bow of Lórien sang. Shrill went the arrow from the elven-string. Frodo looked up. Almost above him the winged shape swerved. There was a harsh croaking scream, as it fell out of the air, vanishing down into the gloom of the eastern shore. The sky was clean again. There was a tumult of many voices far away, cursing and wailing in the darkness, and then silence. Neither shaft nor cry came again from the east that night.

Also, when I was first reading these books, I was going really really fast and I missed the couple of mentions of "Legolas and Gimli are friends now, isn't that weird?" and so I do believe THIS was the scene that bowled me over and strapped the goggles to my face:

'Praised be the bow of Galadriel, and the hand and eye of Legolas!' said Gimli, as he munched a wafer of lembas. 'That was a mighty shot in the dark, my friend!'   'But who can say what it hit?' said Legolas.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

LOTR Newletter - Prologue

Thoughts as I read:

Delighted to learn from @astronicht that the Red Book of Westmarch is in fact a reference to the Red Book of Hergest, a Welsh medieval book that contains among other things the Mabinogion. I’ve been reading and rereading LOTR for over 20 years, and only now learning that there are piles of references that I’ve been missing. Thank you! your observations are always a delight!

I love the way Tolkien fully treats his Middle-earth writings as a reality. That’s been done by a lot of people, of course – in the 1600s and 1700s when novels were rarer it seems like it was viewed as almost required to provide some fictional ‘source’ for your story that you had merely edited. But Tolkien does it more convincingly than many, including writing of Hobbits as still existing and in the present tense (“they avoid us now with dismay and are becoming hard to find” and “Hobbits have never, in fact, studied magic of any kind”). He’s writing a mythology, not just a novel; and a key characteristic of a mythology is, I think, that the people who made it believed it. The words of one reviewer of The Hobbit express this quality wonderfully: “Has the air of inventing nothing. He has studied trolls and dragons at first hand and describes them with fidelity.”

I’m very amused that some of the hobbits’ characteristics are those of Tolkien, such as not liking complicated machinery and “being fond of simple jests at all times” (something he said of himself).

“[Hobbits’] elusiveness is due solely to a professional skill that heredity and practice, and a close friendship with the earth, have rendered inimitable by bigger and clumsier races.” ‘A close friendship with the earth’….what an evocative and intriguing way of putting it!

Tolkien seems to have a thing for dviding his fantasy races into three groups corresponding to hill/mountain-likers (Harfoots, Noldor), water-likers (Stoors, Teleri) and tree-likers (Fallohides, Sindar). The Harfoots are also said to associate more with Dwarves (as do Noldor), the Stoors with Men (and Tolkien’s main groups of Men are also more associated with water, due to Númenor), and the Fallohides with elves.

Hobbits are shorter than I remembered! I was thinking of 3-4 feet as normal, but Tolkien says “between two and four feet”, with the Bulkroarer (an exceptionally tall hobbit) at four foot five. Two feet tall is tiny! Harfoots (most hobbits, and probably including Sam) are on the shorter side; Fallohides (Tooks and Brandybucks are said to have more Fallohidish background, so that includes Frodo, Merry, and Pippin) are on the taller side.

I am amused that the one governmental service that Tolkien does consider essential is the post-office.