#sorry guys the elf nest is back on our bullshit

[scribefindegil]

Me in high school: salty about the Lord of the Rings movies because I thought that the only worthwhile adaptation was something that cleaved to the source material 100% faithfully in every respect.

Me as an adult: enlightened, aware that adapting a story to a new medium requires thoughtful choices about what to keep and what to transform in order to take advantage of the strengths of the medium being used, very interested in how people tackle this complex and nuanced problem . . . . and also still salty about the Lord of the Rings movies, because some of their adaptational choices were simply Not Good.

[garden-ghoul]

two blogs part 2

“the upstairs neighbors are being really loud and my tarot deck told me to relax can you believe this bullshit”

THE URUK-HAI

Ah, Uruk-hai. What could possibly be worse? I am here to tell you that what could be worse than being kidnapped by uruk-hai is if someone is fucking mowing a lawn outside and people will not stop walking around and moving furniture upstairs. Dump my body in a ditch and write ‘CAUSE OF DEATH: AUDITORY PROCESSING DISORDER’ on a scrap of paper tucked under my tongue. Anyway Pippin is not having a much better time than me. He wakes up from a nightmare lying tied up on the ground, looking at his scared (and also tied up) best friend. And FINALLY some Pippin interiority! He is dismayed that he has been worse than useless on this journey and also, obviously, that he is now at the mercy of a bunch of orcs. I like that his primary characteristic in Fellowship was that he kept trying to look tough when he thought he wasn’t... but as we’ll see he really is tough and resourceful!

The orcs notice Pippin is awake and start being mean to him immediately. One of them says “Curse the Isengarders!” out loud, which seems like a pretty bad idea unless you assume this orc is looking for a fight. I guess the fact that orcs have no common language between tribes is just a plot point that allows Pippin to understand what they’re saying? Basically they are just arguing about whose orders supersede who else’s orders. Some of them are even Moria orcs, and just want to do a revenge murder; why the hell did the professional warriors let them join?? Like it’s clear that the Mordor party and the Isengard party have sort of good reasons to cooperate, but I’m honestly surprised they didn’t just chase off the Moria orcs as soon as they showed up. Like who even are these guys? They don’t work for either of our masters. Deadweight. At any rate, Ugluk of Isengard doesn’t seem to want to let them leave now?? Just to show how In Command he is.

The orcs fight and a bunch of them get killed. Pippin takes the opportunity to cut his bonds on a dead man’s knife and retie them looser. Just in case. Then the party sets off again, and somehow Pippin actually manages to fall asleep while being carried by an orc. These hobbits, I swear. Anyway he wakes up later and is given some kind of... alcohol? Opiate? Some kind of painkiller. Merry gets ointment for the cut on his head, but because of Tolkien’s weird Thing this is portrayed as creepy and awful. Ugluk also tells Merry ‘You'll get bed and breakfast all right: more than you can stomach.' What. Ugluk you’re really bad at threats, that doesn’t even make sense. Well, they let Merry and Pippin run on their own legs, anyway. Everyone was tired of carrying them. The Moria orcs say they can’t run in the sunlight; Ugluk threatens them into silence. Aww.

Later they decide to run home through Fangorn--over a hundred of them. Oh holy shit how many orcs are there here?? I was picturing more like 40... but it sounds like after the northerners leave there’s around a hundred left. Apparently the Mordor orcs come back too, and there’s some delightful boasting:

‘What else did you come back for?’ said Uglúk. ‘You went in a hurry. Did you leave anything behind?'

'I left a fool,' snarled Grishnákh. 'But there were some stout fellows with him that are too good to lose. I knew you'd lead them into a mess. I've come to help them.'

'Splendid!' laughed Uglúk. 'But unless you've got some guts for fighting, you've taken the wrong way. Lugbúrz was your road. The Whiteskins are coming. What's happened to your precious Nazgûl? Has he had another mount shot under him?’

Sorry I kind of like Ugluk. He’s... fun.

The riders start to catch up, and the orc party camps out in the dark, waiting for them to attack. This seems pretty dumb--even if Rohirrim have better night vision than most humans and their horses “can see the night breeze” (ah yes... horses.... famously nocturnal animals...) it still makes more sense to attack at night. Well, while that standoff is going on, Grishnakh of Lugburz shows up and starts trying to get into Pippin and Merry’s pockets. Pippin decides to trick Grishnakh into thinking he has the Ring... for some reason?

'My dear tender little fools,' hissed Grishnákh, 'everything you have, and everything you know, will be got out of you in due time. You'll wish there was more that you could tell to satisfy the Questioner, indeed you will: quite soon. We shan't hurry the enquiry. Oh dear no! What do you think you've been kept alive for? My dear little fellows, please believe me when I say that it was not out of kindness: that's not even one of Uglúk's faults.'

Oh I looooove the way he talks. Merry succeeds in making him angry and frantic--he’s running out of time! And he runs toward the forest with both of them. But unfortunately, riders. He gets very murdered. The battle moves away, Merry and Pippin are left alone in the dark, and so obviously the very first thing they do is have some lembas. Hobbits!! After having their tea (at midnight. whatever.) they crawl off toward the Entwash. Merry, who unlike Pippin has actually looked at a map in his life, says they ought to go through Fangorn despite the warnings. So they go to the eaves of the wood and look back out at the battle taking place at sunrise.

Out of the shadows the hobbits peeped, gazing back down the slope: little furtive figures that in the dim light looked like elf-children in the deeps of time peering out of the Wild Wood in wonder at their first Dawn.

GOOD IMAGERY, very sweet. Our hobbits almost stay, but it looks like Ugluk and a few others are about to get away into the forest, so they end up running. You were soooo close guys. Now instead of meeting their companions straight off, they’re going to end up with

TREEBEARD

They follow the Entwash for a while until they find a stony outcropping they can climb up. They go on quite a bit about how old and treeish the forest is (no duh) but when the sun comes out Pippin “almost feels he likes the place.”

'Almost felt you liked the Forest! That's good! That's uncommonly kind of you,' said a strange voice. 'Turn round and let me have a look at your faces. I almost feel that I dislike you both, but do not let us be hasty.’

Here he is! The reason I say HOOM every time I am thinking for the last ten years. Tolkien actually describes him as fairly humanoid, although he is fourteen feet tall and also has fourteen toes. He says he’s an ent, but doesn’t know what Merry and Pippin are. He sings the whole “all the creatures there are” song, which is very endearing, and doesn’t find them in the list. I love Treebeard’s preoccupation with true names; he doesn’t want to tell his (and at any rate, it would take a very long time to say!) and he’s absolutely honored by Pippin and Merry’s confidence when they tell him who they are. He also does some cute monologuing, and mentions Gandalf, “the only wizard who really cares about trees.” Surely Radagast must care a little, if only for birds to nest in!

Treebeard knows a lot of tongue-twisters. He knows one about Laurelindorenan (which is almost a tongue-twister itself); he would have advised people to stay away from queer Lothlorien just as Celeborn advised our heroes to stay away from Fangorn! So insular... He talks a lot about the old days, and sings some too. I love him very much. I find it hard to summarize anything to do with Treebeard if I read too far ahead; at any rate we come to a place that may be called Wellinghall, and the hobbits tell him of their adventures. Treebeard is troubled by Saruman and wonders what to do about him. He gets himself worked into a right frenzy over Saruman’s awful doings--and then says, now, I mustn’t be hasty. He’ll call a council tomorrow, but for now he explains the curiously sexist reasons all the entwives are gone.

Entwives like order, and they like to direct things to grow just so, whereas ents are more nomadic and live as herdsmen and wanderers. What the fuck Tolkien. Can you just... not... I’m not sure he has properly talked with a woman in his life. Anyway, the gardens of the entwives have been destroyed by Sauron, and nobody saw where the entwives themselves went. IMO the safest bet would be east of Sauron’s domain; he probably doesn’t have a huge amount of interest in spreading out there, far from the organized resistance in the west.

So. Entmoot. Takes place in the Derndingle. A dingle, by the way, is a landform also known as a dell, sort of like a very small valley. Not to be confused with a dale, which is both derived from the same Old English word and apparently has an almost identical definition. Thanks, Wikipedia. I’ll be sure not to get those confused. Anyway after a few hours Treebeard comes and finds the hobbits to tell them it will take a couple of days to explain everything to the other ents; he’s brought as a companion for them an ent named Quickbeam, who is so hasty that he has already decided what he wants to do about Saruman. Yowza. He’s a fun guy, laughs a lot, likes to sing. They stay at his ‘house,’ and he talks about the beautiful rowan grove he used to live in, and how the orcs destroyed it. “That seemed to the hobbits quite enough to explain his 'hastiness', at least in the matter of Orcs.” At last, after three days, the ents have come to a decision. Their war song is so delightful--its unstoppable rhythm!--that I have to put the whole thing here for you. 

To Isengard! Though Isengard be ringed and barred with doors of stone; Though Isengard be strong and hard, as cold as stone and bare as bone, We go, we go, we go to war, to hew the stone and break the door; For bole and bough are burning now, the furnace roars - we go to war! To land of gloom with tramp of doom, with roll of drum, we come, we come; To Isengard with doom we come!

Burarum! “We are made of the bones of the earth. We can split stone like the roots of trees, only quicker, far quicker, if our minds are roused!” Treebeard says this might be the last march of the ents--Saruman is powerful, after all. But better to face doom this way and destroy Saruman than to wait as he grows ever stronger for doom to find them! The ents are going to war!