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One Who Cannot Cast Away a Treasure at Need Is in Fetters - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Bk 3 Ch 9 · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives
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  brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and we are continuing
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  our look at Lord of the Rings from an authorial perspective. What Tolkien was doing as an author
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  as he wrote this long book and we have reached chapter 9 in the two towers which is the chapter
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  called Flotsam and Jetsam. So that's chapter 9 in book 3 in the way that Lord of the Rings is
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  divided up. So what is going on in this chapter? I'm sure the title itself will remind most of you
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  because it is the chapter in which we hear the story of the fall of Ice and Guard from the point
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  of view of the two hobbits. It's very much fits in with the idea about how Lord of the Rings is
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  compiled, the idea that it is a collection of memories by the friends of Bilbo and Frodo who are
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  contributing to the narrative. But here we actually see that recounted in a slab. So a story
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  within a story as Mary and Pippin tell Gimli, Legolas and Arigle what they have seen.
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  So just to give you a heads up on the structure when you're reading this chapter it falls into
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  three parts. So the first is the meeting up with the friends and finding a nice dry place to
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  have some lunch. And then there is the narrative about the Ents attacking Ice and Guard. And I
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  hadn't noticed until I was looking at this more closely that it is first of all Mary talking
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  and then the narrative baton is handed over to Pippin. I'm sure if I listened to this on the audio
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  version I would have heard the difference in accents but reading it you may not register that
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  because they speak pretty much the same way. There's not much character difference between the two
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  in the pure narrative. With some elements of rationalists from Pippin and more canonists from Mary
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  that's the main difference between them. Anyway let's look at first of all at the title Flotsam
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  and Jetsam. This is as you know UK is a maritime nation. It's well known to most people here
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  that Flotsam and Jetsam are terms particularly associated with the sea. Those things which are
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  floating on the water are Flotsam and those things which are jettisoned like thrown over in a storm
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  to lighten the vessel that is your Jetsam. And this gives the idea that what has happened to
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  Isengard is like a big storm. A big sea has rolled in and nature has taken over and it's now
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  wreckage. And that image of the sea and wreckage is often used by Tolkien. Perhaps it links back
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  to the Numenor idea of the tidal wave that destroys Numenor. It sort of runs through the imagery
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  of Middle Earth even though the sea is literally on the fringe. But also in this case it links up with
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  what is going to happen when the waters are released. So an inland sea of assault is created.
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  Okay so let's go on to the very short bit which is the reunion of friends. I think what
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  characterises this is good humour teasing. Gimli is talking about them as truants as if they had
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  any choice about being hauled off by the Orcs. And so it's all in that note of people who love each
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  other meeting again. One thing I noticed here about Legolas is how he is sort of deprecating
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  about himself and his companions. He says, and now the great ones have gone off. The great ones
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  being Gandalf and Theoden. Now obviously Aragorn is the great one in terms of the kings or about
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  or is going to be. But he himself is no lowly member of society. He is the son of a king of the
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  elves, a prince. But he never stands on that does he? It's interesting the way that Legolas is
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  happy to be part of a company. And that's one thing about him which is maybe fits with his
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  reticent. He isn't the first one to speak usually. And so I've noticed this character note just
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  on this read through and I'll carry on looking out for it that how Legolas shows his own version
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  of humility by not pushing himself forward claiming status as some other elf might do.
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  So what happens first is Mary and Pippin provide for their friends lunch. Now lunch is a very
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  modern word relatively speaking. If back in the old days you used to break your fast and have
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  dinner later on. Lunch is a meal that was put in to the middle of the day in a sort of Victorian
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  era luncheon. And so it's quite a new idea. So it's one of those notes which for a prehistory
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  has a modern ring about it. I think we can explain it by being part of a hobbit world which has many
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  periods in the day for eating. So in a sense it is a translation. We know that the book is thought
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  as a translation from a earlier time. So this is a modern word coming into explain one of the hobbit
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  predelitions from many meals. And also in a very hobbit fashion we are measuring time by bread
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  in that very is able to say yes the bread is so many days old. He can tell how many days of
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  past tense deliveries were interrupted as he puts it. So again that's a very hobbitish
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  way of thinking about time passing. The hobbits show themselves very competent. Give them a task
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  involving food and drink and they are your man or your hobbit for the job because they have
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  managed to divide up food for the visitors and kept some good stuff for themselves and their
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  friends. And of course just to complete this visual that we get is they are unabashed about sitting
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  down a second time. A detail here I hadn't remembered is that in fact their conversation
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  happens in three places. So first of all there is where they greet their friends by the fallen
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  gate. Then they go up into this guard room where there's a fire for the actual meal where it's
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  open to the air and then they move from there up into the opener. So it's quite nice to go back
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  to the book and look carefully at how talking describes each of these places. So you get extra
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  visuals of middle earth in your head and that you may have glossed over in previous reading.
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  So I enjoyed visualizing that as I read it through this time. And then there is a recap on what
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  has gone before and it is itself is a prelude about them noticing that the hobbits appear to have
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  grown. Gimli notices that they've got curly hair and they seem a bit taller. And Legolas is the
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  one who works out what's going on. He says you have drunk of the waters of the ants have you which
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  sounds like a sort of folktale thing of you've drunk of the waters of. So yes he's aware of
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  the legends about the entish draft. Another thing I noticed here is that when Pippin tries to
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  describe the ants here he falters and fails. If you remember earlier a couple of chapters back
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  when he's describing their eyes he's very eloquent but that is positive as something he has
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  thought up afterwards. So he's had time to compile it and Tolkien chooses to put it in there
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  in that way rather than here because what he really wants to talk about here is not the
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  ants themselves but what the ants have done. We already as a reader know what ants are like so we
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  didn't we don't need another description so they move on. So how are we going to hear this story?
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  Gimli is the one who tells us how he says we are beginning the story in the middle I should
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  like a tale in the right order starting with that strange day when our fellowship was broken.
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  So there's a preference here for putting things in the right order. The Lord of the Rings
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  attempts to do that though it does circle back a couple of times to tell stories like this
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  that have already happened it will happen again and of course the storyline of
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  Frodo and Sam happens separately but there is a preference of a to be a chronological tale
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  in Tolkien which Gimli represents here. Now there is a quick recap that is about to happen
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  but before we get there we get the detail of the long bottom leaf. It's important because
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  Tolkien refers to it again at the end of this chapter. Aragorn is obviously worrying about it as
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  his line they're smoking and it also attentive readers will realise it sets up what happens at the
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  end that all is not well in the shy and this is a seed that is planted halfway through the story
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  to alert us to that fact but we also get a nice image here which I just want to underline
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  that Strider throws himself on the ground wraps himself in his cloak and Pippin says Strider the
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  Ranger has come back and of course Strider says he's never gone away but it's notable that both
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  Pippin and Mary call him Strider very often not Aragorn so so he will always be Strider to them
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  and so it's fun to see that moment come back. So we get a recap of what we already know so it's
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  well told so when we're thinking about choices of an author don't tell us what we already know
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  so we need to sort of hop our way through the account of the captivity which we know the full details
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  of and how Tolkien does that is he connects it to the various traces where the stories came together
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  when the hunters were trying to work out how the hobbits got from one place to another
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  the dropped knives the dropped brooch these all come back and it's a very economical way of
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  reminding us without retelling us what we already know but there's also hidden away in this
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  brilliant recap there's also a really important sentence Aragorn commends Pippin for his decision
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  to throw away his brooch one who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters
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  and if you think about that as a theme it could actually be taken as a theme about the ring if you
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  can't cast it away you are in fetters to its power Bilbo in his struggle managed to cast it away
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  when we get plot spoiler I'm sure you all know when we get to Mount Doom Frodo is falling he's
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  fettered by it he can't throw it away because it's grip on his soul is so deep at this point
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  he cannot cast it away and it needs an outside intervention and in that way reminds me a bit of
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  what happens in the voyage of the dawn treta with Eustace and when he becomes a dragon
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  fantastic part of that story he cannot get rid of his dragon skin he needs an outside help in
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  that case it's Aslan the lion coming to remove his dragon skin Tolkien takes a really interesting
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  different approach to this when we need help the intervention why not be as direct as an Aslan
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  figure it can be a creature who is evil in some senses so help comes from unexpected places and
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  that's a very Tolkienian touch anyway I just thought I'd underline that here because it's a telling
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  phrase that Aragorn says they have a little discussion about Saraman at this point here we've
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  not yet met him really only through Gandalf's account of his captivity and the brief weird glimpse
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  in the forest which I've never quite got my head around it's never quite settled that it could be
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  him most likely was him but yeah it's a sort of a note of unease about that whether it was a
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  projection or if Saraman really did come up anyway he seems mostly to be hiding behind his gates
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  and his towers and this is where it goes horribly wrong for him and Mary shows that he has a better
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  grasp of his geopolitical situation than perhaps a pippin does because he says his look out is
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  his outlook his outlook is poor not only is it poor in the sense that he's surrounded by devastation
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  but whichever sides wins he is going to be a loser so the start of this story is mostly Mary
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  recounting what happened there's a fascinating sort of joining up of what happened at Helm's
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  seat with what happens in this conflict Tolkien is he was very methodical very careful about his
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  timelines and so when the horns leave here for example we know where they're going it all adds up
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  there's no loose ends and if he finds the tiniest of loose end he tries his hardest to correct it
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  which is very commendable he doesn't just leave it as a you know no one will notice because he noticed
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  he wanted to correct it so I'm just going to read a little bit of what Mary says about the horns
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  because I think it's notable that if you're going to do a retelling like this you need to
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  invest it with the emotion and the experience of the person telling it and this is one of those
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  moments so when he's describing the horns he says he's imagining what it's like to encounter one
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  without tree beard with him you stand still looking at the weather maybe or listening to the
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  rustling of the wind and then suddenly you find you are in the middle of a wood with great
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  groping trees all around you so this recalls a little bit they're sort of not quite full on horns
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  but trees on the way to being horns or on the way coming away from being horns in the old forest
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  who moved the path who dropped branches so there's a sense here of the threat of the forest
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  which Mary is familiar with being a brandy buck but you get the sense that he knows just how
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  terrifying these are and his whole account and Pippins as well is an excellent vivid retelling
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  full of this sort of emotional engagement what he's seeing not just a board account this happened
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  this happened this happened also the their anticipation of what is about to happen of course
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  it's artificial just like a monologue in a play is artificial in the sense that
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  is well organised there's no ums and urs there's a storytelling flare that feels rehearsed
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  about it but we don't hold fictional characters to realistic standards just as fictional dialogue
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  is a little bit different from real dialogue so if it tells a good story then it is serving its
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  purpose so that is what the author is doing here there's also a connection to they never forget the
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  moments to connect it to the story in the past and the story in the future so we've seen the long
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  bottom leaf connects us going forwards but Aragorn and Mary here discuss the half orcs
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  and they refer to the southerner in Bri which probably by this point most of us have forgotten about
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  but Aragorn is saying he was probably a spy of Saraman and this connects to this idea this thread
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  which leads to the idea that the shy is being undermined because if spies get to Bri it's only a
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  short hop to the shy itself so off we go on the account of the Ents attack on Isengard well worth
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  going back and just if you're looking for a little dip into Tolkien this is a self-contained
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  episode for you to sit and read for 10 20 minutes so we've got this lovely detail of the
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  Ents getting stirred up so when Treet did had got a few arrows in him he began to warm up
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  as if he wasn't already angry enough to get positively hasty as he would say so there's an
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  element of humour but not mocking humour it's enjoyment I think in the nature of the Ents
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  and Mary goes on to explain just how terrifying an Ent can be their fingers and their toes
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  just freeze onto rock and they tear it up like bread crust three hobbit thing to a compare something
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  to they've just been eating stale bread but also he's picking up the fact that their activity is
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  like a speeded up version of the natural world this is nature hitting back at someone who has abused
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  them it's also very he never Tolkien also keeps the hobbit tone in this this is only only a hobbit
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  could tell it this way because there's this right note in Mary's account he says that Sarah man's
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  wizardry had been falling off recently and he hasn't got much grit not much grit not like good old
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  Gandalf so we get interjected here this down to earth common folk view of these great ones who have
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  gone off right we've ridden off he also is well corrected because I think the hobbits tend to be a
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  bit optimistic arrogant says even so even if his wizardry has fallen off there are a few safe with
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  because he has this power over others and at this point we get the flip to Pippin being the
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  storyteller because Pippin says oh the ants are safe they know what he did he's actually wrong
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  isn't he because later on it seems that Sarah man talks even tree beard round and escapes or is
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  let out of or thank to go and cause much trouble in the shower but anyway and Pippin takes over
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  as the narrator and for him in fact he gets the because is the faster quicker less thoughtful
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  hobbits appropriate because he is in the hot phase of battle and he starts with this fabulous scene
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  again a note a thing I hadn't really noticed so much so do look at this as this wonderful
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  image of quick beam chasing Sarah man across isengard by starlight again a scene we've not seen
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  partly because in the Peter Jackson film they do this quite quickly all in daylight you know great
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  special effects and everything but this is a this account includes the pauses in the battle
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  it had lost over days so give me Tolkien's account and I'll let my imagination do this
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  special effects and there's the tragic loss of beach bone who burns like a torch horrible
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  horrible death which sends them all mad and so there is a wonderful description of them
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  hurling iron posts and rocks at or thank but unable to actually hurt the tower and then tree beard
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  of the oldest living creature so he's had a few years under his belt he sees what's going on
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  and he calls for order wonderful the soundscape with this is fabulous a silence falls and there's
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  this chill laughter from the tower and then Pippin says they had been boiling over now they
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  became cold grim as ice and quiet so another powerful nature process on rock is
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  reason for ice and so this is what being evoked here and the hobbits are left among the myths and
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  the fog basically they're waiting for something to happen they're waiting while the engineers
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  get working and this reminded me of Tolkien's experience in the first world war where the
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  sappers would mine under the trenches or under the other sappers the sapping tunnels from the Germans
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  and plant explosives and blow things up so it's interesting to see it that in a way the
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  ants are doing that in their case they're diverting water but it's the royal engineers are in action
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  here and so whilst the engineers are off doing their work i.e. the ants we get this wonderful
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  hobbity meeting of Gandalf riding in at high speed and I just I just want to read it because it
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  is brilliant as Pippin says they see this great horse come up like a flash of silver he halted just
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  by us and looking down at us Gandalf I said at last but my voice was only a whisper did he say hello
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  Pippin this is a pleasant surprise no indeed he said get up you tom fool of a tuk
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  wearing the name of wonder in all this ruin is tree bid I want him quick fabulous
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  makes me laugh every time and then we get this moment which ties together some of the hints
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  that come earlier Pippin says I was surprised because neither of them tree bid and Gandalf
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  seemed surprised to talk to see each other and there had been that moment when they had talked
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  about the fall of Gandalf where there's this strange look in tree bids eyes so perhaps he'd heard
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  rumours anyway everyone is now up to speed the Gandalf has survived and there's a pithy exchange
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  he certainly Gandalf has a way of wrangling ends to make them move quickly where Gandalf gets help
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  with the horns to deal with the army upper helm steep and then he gets to say hello to the hobbits
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  in the few seconds he has to spare from them and Pippin says asks they ask where he's been
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  wherever I have been I am back he answered in the genuine Gandalf manner
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  brilliant stuff really enjoy all that anyway so that tempo has raised it a bit and offy gallops
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  off go the horns and then there's a wonderful day of waiting and I think Tolkien is really
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  brilliant at capturing these moments where you're waiting on the verge of battle and then slowly
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  things begin to change eyes and guard began to fill up with black creeping streams and pools
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  they glittered in the last light of the moon as they spread over the plane just go back and read that
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  wonderful wonderful description of the arrival of the water it has a fantastic cadence so after that
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  there are shorter sentence great white streams hissed up smoke rows in billows as the water gets
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  into the inner workings of the sort of industry of all thank and then note how it changes this
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  is wonderful star one great coil of vapour went whirling up twisting round and round or thank
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  until it looked like a tall peak of cloud fiery underneath and moonlit above so the twisty
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  sentence twists like that cloud description I've mentioned before that there is something poetic
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  about Tolkien's descriptions and this is another example of that and then we get this wonderful
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  image of the hobbits there we sat high up above the floods and watched the drowning of eyes and guard
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  two little figures witness to this momentous occasion there we sat there in version there we sat
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  not we sat there watching it gives that sort of underlines this moment and then we get
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  them saying of all the steams and the fogs that result the next day it was a misty moisty morning
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  that's almost like a nursery rhyme version of misty moisty is something we might say here in a nursery
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  rhyme and so that's what settles on in after the battle and pipin says he feels safe
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  first since Gandalf came back because they were worried with the wizard to deal with as it was
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  put elsewhere pipin says I could sleep so though they're making light of it they've clearly had
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  a tough time both hobbits unable to sleep and who could blame them so I get a sense here that
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  once Tolkien finished writing that he sat back and thought what if I've forgotten because there's
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  this moment when Gimli says what about worm tongue it's almost you can feel like the author's
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  trying to remind himself oh yeah I've got that little thread to pick up and then pipin describes
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  the arrival of master worm tongue and he describes him as a queer twisted sort of creature
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  this is sense of the evil side is a result of the twisted of the good evil isn't his own creation
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  it takes something good and twists it and that's carried out here even in the nature of worm tongue
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  who could have once have been a good advisor of men twisted himself into this other shape
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  and Gandalf hasn't missed a trick here he has told tree beer to expect him
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  and has told him to put all the rags in one trap and then we get one of the things that this
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  moment serves is it shows us a way of seeing the devastation because we watch worm tongue try and
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  move across it and tree beard is watching him there is a sort of compassion here and he would
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  hike him out if he drowns but he watches him go through the waters and crawl up the steps like a
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  dragon rat dragon not be dragon interesting use of a word there and meaning the same of course
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  and that is the completion of that idea of putting the rats in one trap
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  and then the hobbits are given the instruction to prepare for the arrival of guests
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  and tree beard has this lovely phrase here just to show how young Rohan is there have been many
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  lords in the green fields in my time and I have never learned their speech or their names
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  they're just sort of like mayflies passing through anyway but he does give them just look after
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  their needs and then there's this funny detail here where the entse to prepare for 25
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  when I was reading the readers companion to this the Hammond and Skull book they've worked out
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  or someone's worked out there is actually 26 people and the suggestion is that maybe they counted
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  Gimli and Legolas as one because they're sitting on the same horse it could be just an awful mistake
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  why not for any way I thought that was quite funny
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  and as we come to the end of this excellent chapter there's no peril in this chapter because it's
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  all over they're sitting relaxing so in for us it's a kind of breather chapter after the dramas
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  of Helm's Deep and the Pearl so we already knew everybody survived because they're there to tell the
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  tale so it's like a chapter which you can expand and relax and lay on your back smoking your pipe
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  equivalent chapter but it does end on an ominous note because Aragon who has been smoking away
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  listening he's been worrying about that detail of the long bottom leaf and he concludes
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  Sarah Mann has secret dealings with someone in the shire I guess and this of course is setting up
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  what we see right at the very end of the whole story that indeed Sarah Mann has been meddling
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  in the things that the Hobbits love most so that was Flotsam and Jetson the wonderful chapter to read
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  just on its own because it is self contained with a whole story in it and we have to wait till the
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  next chapter chapter 10 to actually meet the big baddie of this piece Sarah Mann so that's a lot
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  to look forward to in the next episode thank you so much for listening
• 30:34
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