2025 Reread: The Return of the King

The Lord of the Rings reread is done! And I have much to say...

So, right off the bat, one thing I didn't remember at all was Ghân-buri-Ghân, who guides the Rohirrim through the hidden path on the way to Minas Tirith. I loved him and his people and thought they were a great inclusion, it shows that as far as the Men go, it's not just Gondor and Rohan that have a problem with the likes of Sauron.

Speaking of people who have a problem with the likes of Sauron: Denethor, the Steward of Gondor. I mostly remembered him as the tomato-chewing madman from the films, and while I remembered he was more complex in the books (in part because he possessed a palantír), that was about the limit of my knowledge. I was surprised to discover a genuinely fascinating character who is probably one of my favourites in the series overall now, and a strong rebuttal to the charge that Tolkien's world is too black-and-white in terms of morality, because he lives in the grey areas. I liked the dynamic between him and Pippin, and thought it was hilarious how after Gandalf spent so long warning Pippin about Denethor, the fool of a Took swore himself to his service within five minutes. Good job, Pippin! Denethor's key moral failing seems to be, in the eyes of the story, that he succumbed to despair and lost faith in the fight against Sauron after it could no longer be won by the only way he saw (force of arms), and did not know that Frodo and Sam could still succeed.

Frodo and Sam...I think here is where the "Samwise Gamgee is the real hero of LOTR" starts to emerge, as he takes over as what is essentially the viewpoint character after Frodo got captured at the end of the last novel. His one-man siege of Cirith Ungol was amazing, and his sheer determination was very impressive afterwards. I liked how, after despising him for most of the story, and inadvertently ruining his almost-redemption, he finally takes pity on Gollum after knowing what it's like to bear the One Ring for a short while, and let him go. Gollum comes back, of course, and it's a good thing, too, because he saves the world.

Gollum's fall...I knew it went like this, and not how it did in the movie, where he and Frodo struggle and fall, but Frodo clings onto the mountain while Gollum keeps the Ring for the last five seconds of his life. I get why it was changed for the film, as Gollum accidentally doing a bit of an oopsie and tripping off the side of the Crack of Doom may have come off as anticlimactic, but I get what Tolkien was going for here as this was the result of all the mercy and pity showed to Gollum over the course of the story, and Gollum of course would never voluntarily destroy himself or the Precious (except in the alternate possibility Tolkien described in one of his letters where he did redeem himself, which I love as a what-if scenario), so by the logic of the story, it had to be Gollum and it couldn't be on purpose, so it had to be like this. I can't speak for one way or the other what's better, but I get both versions of Gollum's fall.

Speaking of anticlimaxes, the Scouring of the Shire! I loved this chapter and I feel like it needs a whole separate blog post just to cover it, but I'll go over the basics here. I liked how it took the whimsicality of the Shire and made it kinda chilling, like with the Shirriffs and the Rules and all that, so typical of The Hobbit but turned into something mean and nasty, like what Saruman has become. I wasn't expecting Saruman to show up slightly earlier in a preceding chapter as a wandering beggar who essentially yells some angry words at the hobbits and then leaves, and it might have been important for foreshadowing, but I thought it was unnecessary. I think it's good that it's not in the film, though, as this chapter can't be tacked onto the end of The Return of the King in a cinematic format...it'd need to be its own film, or a short film, at least, but I imagine that film, The Lord of the Rings: The Scouring of the Shire, would have been far less popular than the trilogy.

Anyway, rambling done. I loved rereading LOTR, and I'm nowhere near done rambling about Tolkien on the Internet. I'll be reading The Silmarillion for the first time soon, and I have so much more to ramble about when it comes to Denethor, Théoden, Saruman, Wormtongue, Pippin (okay, I'm essentially just rattling off my favourite characters now), and so on and so forth. I'll leave this post here, though. The Return of the King, like the preceding instalments, was fantastic, and I eagerly await delving further into Tolkien's legendarium...

 

2025 Reread: The Two Towers

This post is still a bit behind-the-times as I finished rereading The Two Towers a couple of weeks ago now, but like I said in the last one, better late than never! I loved it, of course, Tolkien's work is fantastic (I say, stating the generally obvious).

As far as the stuff that stood out to me this time around goes...I'll start with the Dunlendings, or as they're called here, the Men of Dunland (from memory, "Dunlendings" was first used in the sequel). I appreciate how they're done: Tolkien gives them a genuine ancient grudge against Rohan, and explores how despicable it is that Saruman took advantage of that by lying to them and stoking the flames of vengeance amongst them. The reveal that Saruman claimed the Rohirrim burned their captives alive is both horrifying in terms of a reader reaction and satisfying in terms of narrative development. Théoden made peace with them, a far better outcome than continuing to fight them.

Speaking of Théoden...what a character! I loved him so much more than I remembered. Where do I begin unpacking this guy? Starting as unnaturally old beyond his years and having fallen under the spell of Saruman and Wormtongue, feeling overwhelmed with the issues that plague Rohan, and in his feeble state, lets the realm slip through his fingers. But then Gandalf comes, snaps him out of it, sends Wormtongue packing, and Théoden returns to the man he should be, a strong king who can fight back against the forces of Isengard, and reclaims that which he lost, but was really within his reach all along. Then he tells Saruman exactly where he can shove his manipulation. He was a very compelling character, and I dread reading his fate in the next book.

Gríma Wormtongue was another character I previously overlooked. On the surface he falls into the usual treacherous advisor and sycophantic servant archetypes, and he plays those parts well, but I was interested to see the role he plays thematically for Tolkien. My interpretation is that perhaps more than any other character save Gollum, Wormtongue represents of the mundane evil that people do, as opposed to the big villains like Sauron and Saruman. He's just one guy in Rohan who is offered power (and also Éowyn) and sells out his king for it. He's pathetic, but also pitiful in how human his motives are and the fact that serving Saruman will not be a pleasant fate.

What else...Helm's Deep was epic in the film, whereas in the book it seemed like a much less significant affair, although to be fair, it was the dramatic climax of the film, whereas here it was in the midpoint of Book Three. Treebeard was much quicker to action than in the film, but that too makes sense, and ye gods that was a heaping helping of Ent-lore. I do wonder, though, whatever became of Radagast the Brown here, as the wizard who loved nature most of all, and would have undoubtedly been appalled at Saruman's actions.

But Radagast, like so much more about Théoden, may well be the topic of another post on here. I've rambled on long enough. The Two Towers is great. The Return of the King is next!

2025 Reread: The Fellowship of the Ring

I reread this weeks ago and forgot to update this blog! Ah, well...better late than never!

I thoroughly enjoyed rereading it, although I'm glad I did The Hobbit first, as sort of a gateway point back into the dense and complex lore of Middle-earth.

The main thing that stuck out to me was how much the Peter Jackson films, brilliant in their own right, of course, have come to inadvertently dominate how much The Lord of the Rings is seen! For instance, I only remembered Gandalf telling Frodo about Gollum when they're in the mines of Moria, whereas in the book, he spills all the beans to Frodo before they even leave the Shire! So not only is Gandalf a bit more forthcoming than I remember, but if even minor details like this could get forgotten, I was interested to see what more there was.

I knew about the major stuff, like the one and only Tom Bombadil...rereading his chapters was interesting. I thoroughly understand why he was cut from the films, but I loved him and Goldberry here. The whole first half (or Book 1, more properly) felt like The Hobbit 2 and Book 2 transitioned more into the LOTR that I was familiar with.

 I don't think I have much more to say that others haven't already said far, far better than me (I'm not a Tolkien scholar, far from it), except that I didn't realise how much more present Gollum seemed. Unlike the film, the book always seemed to remind me that Gollum was there, always watching and hunting the hobbitses for his Precious. Gollum being one of the most interesting characters in the series (and literature as a whole) it set up his entry in the sequel very, very well.

That's about it for The Fellowship of the Ring in terms of what I can comment on! I'll post about The Two Towers soon enough.

Also, RIP Boromir, he died a hero.

Tome of the Devourer

AntipodeanSF published another one of my flash fiction pieces, read it here!