Latest / Mythmakers / Dead Faces in the Water! - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Bk 4 Ch 2

Transcript

Dead Faces in the Water! - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Bk 4 Ch 2 · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golden and today
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  we have a special side cast where we take an author's journey through the Lord of the Rings
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  by which we mean we're looking at it from how it was written rather than the sort of minor
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  points of Elvish or that kind of thing. We have reached in our journey chapter two of book four
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  that is the second half of the two towers and it's a chapter called The Passage of the Marshes.
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  Now when I came to write this down I realised I've misremembered it as the passage of the dead
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  marshes because it is indeed the dead marshes but the chapter title is actually just the simple
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  marshes and if you're reading it for the first time that holds back that there are dead things
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  in the water so I just wanted to try and refresh our memory as to what it was like to read this
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  for the first time. Looking at how this chapter is divided it's one of the longer ones I actually
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  have read it and also listened to the Andy Circus version of this partly because there's so much
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  golem in it so why wouldn't you and it is over an hour reading time so it's one of the longer
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  chapters but not as long as the Council of Elrond never forget that to our mammoth for chapter.
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  Anyway I would say that it is divided mainly by places this one so we go from the Gully which is
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  the sort of last part of the MNW that rocky landscape they've been clambering around in
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  for what seems like forever then the marshes themselves then there's this pit horrible pit
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  at the end of the marshes and then there's a sort of moving on there's a very small bit where
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  they're moving on from the pit haven't quite reached the gates yet but they're pretty much
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  in sight of the rampart walls of Mordor. One of the things just to note here is that golem has
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  been here before as he refers to that a number of times and so we are in the area where the film
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  the hunt for golem will probably be spending some of its time because this is a place with layers
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  of history as is so much of middle earth when you're thinking about the world building
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  that Tolkien does this is a good example to have in mind so you've got very recent history of golem's
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  recent journeys in this area but it of course goes back to stories of the Battle of Dagolad which is
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  the origin of the bodies that they later see which is thousands of years a thousand five hundred
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  well a long time ago before and one of the battles in front of the gates and of course there is
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  going forward another battle at the gates of Mordor it's going to happen later in return of the
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  king so there is a sense of history rhyming here it repeats itself but has a different outcome
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  anyway that's the sort of setup of this chapter I would say the most important thing from the
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  author's journey point of view is looking at how Tolkien is characterising golem this is golem is
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  the star of these chapters there's no getting away from it he's the star really until we meet
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  for our near he's acting here as the conscientious guide he's casting around for traces he's often
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  compared to a dog it's happened in the previous chapter and it's happening again in this one
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  repeatedly they keep going back to this idea of a dog and casting around for traces is like
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  the bloodhounds sniffing out what's the right direction there's a weird connection here
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  which I hadn't thought of until I was concentrating on this to how Gandalf finds his way through
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  Moria he also sniffes the air so clearly it's a good thing for a guide to do
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  so when we look at golem here he's full of contradictions I made a little list of the ways he appears
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  and I've written down drama queen jester cynic villain and child and dog as we've just heard
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  and the childishness comes in him singing this little song but it's like a child in a horror movie
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  you know that there's something off about them there's something wrong and it also gives a link
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  back to Bilbo so it's the reference to the riddle game that they play in in the misty mountains
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  one of those connections that weaves the hobbit into the Lord of the Rings
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  and some of you will be familiar with the latter part of this song which is about
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  catching a fish so juicy sweet because it's transposed in the Peter Jackson film from here to a
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  little bit later on when they're in the pool beneath the hideout that Faramir's men are
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  using in affiliate if you're listening to it it's quite fun because Andy circus sings it again
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  just another reason to have a listen to that audio version and this chapter is largely from
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  Sam's point of view if you read if you've listened to what I said about the previous chapter
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  I mentioned how Frodo begins to disappear and this is actually the chapter where he really starts to
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  vanish under the burden of the ring and so a lot of the narrative weight is carried by
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  Sam's point of view and here's the one who notes the change of behavior these mercurial changes
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  of behavior in Gollum largely and when Gollum mentions Bilbo as this sentence a glint came into his
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  and Sam catching the gleam in the darkness thought it far from pleasant
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  understatement and the rule seems to be more or less that when there is a green gleam that kind of
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  gleam it's the Gollum villain the paler light is a more childlike wanting to please smegle
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  and they're flipping between the two as we see in a minute when we get to the that standout
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  conversation of this split personality but that's not yet and Sam at this point and it's referred
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  to later in the chapter he's thinking about their threat in a simple way talking describes him
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  as having a simple mind but it's not meant as um it's not meant as an insult it's meant that he's
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  he sort of calls a spade a spade and he is thinking here that they could be food for
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  for Gollum which of course is true they could indeed be food and that note is struck a number of times
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  there is also another way of telling who's in control of Gollum on the hull when he talks about his
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  unitary self that's i will stay here it tends to be smegle and when it's we he tends to be shifting
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  over into Gollum not always but you'll see that's largely what is happening so one of the things
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  that Gollum reveals is that he is scared of the sun he wants to only travel in the darkness
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  and you get this beginning of him being this more cooperative smegle he says nice sensible hobbit
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  stay with smegle note how his speeches characterized by s and f and s sounds it all goes with the
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  the whistling cringy voice and when you get the Gollum you often get harder
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  more cracking sounds but let's have a look at that a bit later on anyway so he's being more smegle
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  here this becomes to moving on from Sam fearing they're going to be food to working at how much
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  food they've got left and Frodo is the one who offers some of their lembas which smegle tries and
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  of course hates and this is where we get smegle the absolute drama queen you try to choke poor
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  smegle dust and ashes he can't eat that and it goes on he coughs and he spits and then he goes
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  nice hobbits smegle as promised he will starve he will starve poor thin smegle and this was one
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  of the things that the films did pretty well because he was rolling around on the floors or to say
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  how awful it all was complete drama queen at this point I was reminded here of the last battle and
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  I think perhaps this is something that CS Lewis might have picked up or it may be one of the
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  sources for what happened to the doors when they go through the stable because in the last battle
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  when they're through the in the stable they think they're not in a beautiful land but in a
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  horrible mucky stable with only turnips and rotten veg to eat when there's actually a feast
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  so the idea there is that some states of mind some sort of sinful or evil people cannot see the
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  good that's in front of them and Frodo says this he says to Gollum it would do you good if you try
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  but perhaps you can't even try not yet anyway and that not yet anyway betrays the fact that
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  Frodo does believe in redemption he wants to believe that Gollum can be saved it's an important
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  hope for him to carry him on this journey and then we get this one of these references to Gollum
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  being like a dog there's lots of them I won't pick all of them out but this is one that I particularly
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  like once he refuses the lembass he watches them like an expectant dog by a diner's chair thinking
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  that maybe they've got something else hidden anybody who's a dog owner knows what that looks like
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  and in the discussion about Gollum and Sam is not worried about him being upset by anything he says
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  Sam is the practical one and but Frodo actually is astute he knows he understands what's going on
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  the way this was done in the films is much more contentious so much we're arguing about it here it's
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  more of a discussion because this is really a a chapter of the changing power dynamics between
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  three people it's not exactly a love triangle it's a triangle of faith and trust and mistrust
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  probably is a better way of thinking about it and for filmic purposes they push it to make it so
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  they break up Frodo and Sam which doesn't happen in the book so it's good to actually try and
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  delete all that from your mind and reset it and read it how it's written in the book because Frodo
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  isn't ignorant here he is astute and he's trying to see beyond this present moment he's actually
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  foreseen where they're going in a way that Sam hasn't yet this little episode in the gully is
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  resolved by them falling asleep and there's this nice little detail here which sums up their
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  different behaviors Frodo's just gone to sleep Sam prods Gollum gently and then whispers in his ear
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  fish and there's a note saying he restrains his thoughts about using his sword and the robe on him so
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  that's kind of the Sam is under orders not to hurt Gollum but also remember he only tied the rope
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  lightly so he may be saying things but he would never carry them out as is proved later on when
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  he spares Gollum at the key moment Sam's intention to stay awake doesn't work out and when he wakes up
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  having slept well I like this fact that he curses himself with various reproachful names from the
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  Gaffer's large paternal word horde so word horde is a very sort of a sort like an Anglo-Saxon word
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  but you know exactly what's going on here and this is the association with Sam is always goes back
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  to the shire the Gaffer his potatoes you know that that is the grounding and one of the things I
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  would say about the world building here is that the contrast in the places is always made to
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  by evoking something else and there's this hint of the shire as Sam always and you'll see there's
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  this chapter refers back to earlier places in the chapter to say there was that but this is worse
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  there was that but this is worse it's like a link paper chain link across this chapter
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  in terms of the power dynamics Sam is really the quartermaster he's the one counting the food
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  saying you know how much have we got left will it get us back but here there is an enormous
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  change it's one of those break moments in the narrative which is sometimes easy to miss it's on
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  page 231 of the three volume version of Lord the Rings where Frodo's language to Sam shifts
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  because he's saying to Sam that actually we're on a suicide mission basically
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  but Samwise Gamji my dear Hobbit here's the change indeed Sam my dearest Hobbit friend of friends
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  not servant friend of friends I do not think we need give thought to what comes after that
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  going moving he's saying it's about achieving the mission not about our own survival
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  and Sam's response is very touching he reminds me here of a disciple to John the Baptist or Jesus
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  that kind of figure the the faithful servant with the person on this mission and he reaches out and
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  touches Frodo affectionately he's weeping and then this is the bit before we get too mortal in
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  and sentimental he gets up sort of clues his rope stamps around and tries to whistle to hide his
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  emotion that sort of hiding in the emotion is that restraint of the stiff upper lip he's not an
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  English gen obviously but there is that sort of restraint of an English man which he is reflecting
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  here he is not weeping and wailing he's holding it back which makes us admire him all the more
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  because he's being strong when he's just realizing that he is very likely to die so when golem comes
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  back you get this question trust smegel now which is golem's question and that really is
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  the question that presides in this chapter and in the next few chapters do they trust smegel well
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  Sam clearly not Frodo mmm to a point then one of the unusual features in this chapter compared to
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  the rest of the book is we get one of the really short passages of description but separated out
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  by line breaks it's quite striking when you find it on the page and this is the description
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  of the marshes as they approach them I'll just read it it's only a two or three sentences on either
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  side and in front wide fends and mires now lay stretching away southward and eastward into the
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  dim light miss curled and smoked from dark and noise and pools the reek of them hunts stifling
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  in the air far away almost due south they're mounting walls of moored or loomed like a black bar
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  of rugged clouds floating above a dangerous fog bound sea so what is happening here though
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  visually that separated paragraph is to make us almost stop and look at this scenery as the hobbits are
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  it forces you to pause and take it all in for the one of the distinctive
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  things that happens in Tolkien's passages of description are these moments of looking out across
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  larger vast landscape we've referred it before but there's this idea that talking love the idea
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  of the vistas beyond the vista the places you don't see and this is one of those we never actually
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  really get to see that part of moored or over the the mountains there we go further southward
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  marine model so there's places we glimpse but don't ever see and that gives the sense of the
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  expanse of middle of and gives the depth to the well-building if the world were like a sleep
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  number mattress everything would adapt for your comfort because as your life changes and your
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  body changes sleep number mattresses adapt and shift to give you personalized comfort night
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  after night and now everything's on sale during our memorial day event save up to $1,200 on
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  mattresses for a limited time to experience a whole new world of comfort visit a sleep number store
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  or go to sleepnumber.com sleep number to a good life sleep
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  and now we enter properly into the marshes well what are these marshes?
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  I was reading in the companion to the Lord of the Rings which I've been referring to
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  at Hammondland scale thank you very much and they suggest a number of sources they refer to H.
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  Haggard's she that has which we know Tolkien admired there's an old gothic source which I think
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  he would be thrilled to know about because of his love for the gothic literature but also of course
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  there is the connection to the battle landscapes of northern France and they quote to particular ones
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  very close to the descriptions here by an officer called Alfred Bundy and the famous poet
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  C. Creed Sassoon but of course Tolkien wouldn't have needed to have read those diaries of poems
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  because he was there and he saw it himself and this whole chapter really is war literature
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  when there comes to a lineup of the great works of the First World War Lord of the Rings should
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  be in it really the hobbits are now holy in the hands of golem and this is a very long strung out
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  jeopardy remember there always has to be something at stake in your story when you're writing and in
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  this one it's the trust smegel on knocked question and perhaps we are as readers thinking when is
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  he going to portray them or if at all and but I think it's more of a question of when from the way he
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  behaves the sense that he is barely restrained by this frail promise we get a shift here as well
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  where we move from Sam's point of view to a narratorial point of view which isn't available to
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  the hobbits because they don't know they don't know that just over the ridge is the hard road to
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  Mordor and that this was the field of the ancient battle so there's a moment here where we're moving
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  to the narratorial stance but remember the concept here is these are the reminiscences of the hobbits
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  later put together by Bilbo and Frodo and the Frodo so a later reflection on this
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  though it feels a bit like talking to me and there is one as there is a wonderful summing
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  up of their dilemma by smegel this is where you've got a passage creating character
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  developing character but also telling us what's going on and it's just brilliantly done
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  this is at the top of page 233 if you've got the same addition as me because they are basically
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  saying can't we go some other way and golem this is where he gets to be the sarcastic
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  but he's making a joke at their expense really it's but it's very black humour
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  um he says oh no need to talk to go that way not if the hobbits want to reach the dark mountains
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  and go to see him very quick and he goes on to say to stress that the eye is watching this connects
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  to a later passage about what Frodo is feeling yet a little glimpse into the backstory of how smegel
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  caught himself and he's saying he now knows other ways it's I know other ways which possibly
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  smegel speaking more difficult not so quick but better if we don't want him to see follow smegel
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  he can take you through the marshes through the mists nice thick mists
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  follow smegel very carefully and you may go a long way quite a long way before he catches you
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  yes perhaps before he catches you yes perhaps keep undermining this isn't a sense of the
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  quest that's inevitably gonna succeed and smegel is part of the undermining of the foundations of
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  their hope so they go off in single file golem san Frodo i'm just underlining that here because
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  there is a change that comes later when on the other side or getting towards the other side of
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  these marshes which further emphasizes the shift from Frodo being in control to Sam being more
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  in the forefront because Sam has to look after Frodo and they shift position but let's have a look
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  at this wonderful descriptive prose of what it's like to be out on the marshes and it's done by
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  summoning up what isn't there cold clammy winter still held sway in this forsaken country the only
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  green was the scum of livid weed on the dark greasy surfaces of the sullen waters
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  dead grasses and rotting weeds loomed up in the mists like ragged shadows of long forgotten summers
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  like ragged shadows of long forgotten summers so there's almost like a ghost of summer present
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  in this haunted place wonderful evocation and that contrast is of what's not there
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  is further evoked by mention of the sun because the next paragraph goes far above the rot and
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  vapors of the world the sun was riding high and golden now in a serene country with floors of
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  dazzling foam but only a passing ghost of her could they see below so again this idea of
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  they're in a world of ghosts even the sun feels like a ghost I had to stop and think I was trying
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  to work out if Tolkien ever flew answers on a postcard because I'm not sure that he did
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  but we know that his son was in the RAF Christopher so and there were obviously
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  people have written about flying so he talking himself didn't have that experience which most
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  of us have of looking out of the aeroplane to the sun being above and the clouds looking beautiful
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  but underneath we know that the world below is experiencing a gray and gloomy day
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  I have to keep thinking about that did he ever fly can't think that he did but I might be wrong
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  one of the descriptions here of them moving through this landscape is of the three of them
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  together squatting like little hunted animals in the borders of the great brown
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  read thicket this is just a reminder that hobbits aren't human there is an element where they're more
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  like of course they're a kind of human but they're more they hide quickly they've got these
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  feet hairy feet there's something more creature about them and I remember listening to Martin
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  Freeman talking about how he played Bilbo I think it must be in the extended edition extras and he
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  thought about him as a hedgerow creature and you can see that in his performance he sort of
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  riggles his nose and there's a sort of slightly like a mole or like a wind in the willows creature
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  I suspect to his performance when he's in bag end and it's quite interesting to sort of just have
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  that sort of reminder that these creatures are also in their own way part of this landscape
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  a little different and that's the moment where it just pops up again one of the most difficult
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  things when you're writing a big epic like this is keeping up with the chronology particularly
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  when you've got multiple different stories so talking had a scheme where he wrote everything
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  down as what was happening he shifted things about to try and make connections so in terms of where
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  we are in the year this is the end of February moving into March February has 30 days in the
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  shark calendar all Bunts do and so we are moving from that end of winter into an uncertain spring
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  and we'll see later that he tries to connect it to the other stories that are happening by the
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  overflight of the ring rays but he doesn't quite manage to find it at the right time so he has to
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  abandon that idea but anyway let's let's carry on looking at what's going on here so we've got
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  now into the deeper into the marshes and we've got Sam as the one spotting the pale
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  sheen of the lights which golem warns them are tricky lights this of course is the will of the
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  whisper the idea of the marsh gasses releasing pale flames but they're also here more of a magical
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  flame that is to do with the presence of the dead creatures in the marsh as well I would say that
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  eerie and ghost like is the prevailing mood again when you're writing if you're having lots of
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  dark places the stony impossible emin wheel the ash heaps of model you don't want to do the same
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  kind of language for all of them you want different like lexical sets for each place and this one
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  the prevailing mood I think is that of eerie stagnant pungent all those things we get the most
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  horrific moment which has come really more or less in the middle of this chapter where Frodo is
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  wandered off he's been at the back and he's fallen behind and he's in this kind of dream state
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  nightmareish state but it's not from his point of view that we see that it's Sam who is the one
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  who goes back and he falls down and sees what Frodo has seen and it's interesting the way this is
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  written in the film they do it Frodo falls right into the pool and he's got dragged down by these
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  sort of eerie creatures it's all very much in your face here it's actually spread out between
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  the three of them Sam falls and sees and it's described as a sort of grimy window that he's
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  looking through but we don't then get a sentence saying what he saw we get his exclamation
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  about faces in the water column gives the explanation of where they came from the battle and the
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  marshes have eaten up the graves of the fallen warriors and it's Frodo who gives us the
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  gothic poetry description of the eeriness of what you see in the water it's worth reading because
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  it feels the cadence is very haunting in the pools when the candles were lit they lie in all
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  the pools pale faces deep deep under the dark water I saw them grim faces and evil and noble faces
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  and sad faces many faces proud and fair and weeds in their silver hair but all foul all rotting
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  all dead a fell light is in them rearrange that it becomes a poem repetition the sense of
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  internal rhymes it's one of his heightened moments that Tolkien gives in description through the
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  the voice of Frodo and it's interesting that Gollum picks it up I felt I felt I felt
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  feels almost a bit like a Greek play with the chorus coming in it Gollum can be thought of as
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  the chorus he goes yes yes all dead all rotten he sort of re echoes what the hero has just said
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  also men and all so dead marshes there was a great battle long ago and so on and he gives this
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  echo of what Frodo has said an explanation of where they came from and then he moves into a
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  typical Gollum moment of having tried to reach them Sam suspects he tried to eat them remember
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  there's this theme of who's food for whom in this chapter and then he ends with this weird off
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  color note of Gollum the Jester where he says that if the hobbits aren't careful they will go down
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  and join them and light little candles don't look at the lights yeah so I suppose I added
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  Greek chorus to the list of things that Gollum is doing in this chapter at this point we get
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  the overflight of Wonder Ring Raves and I mentioned how in this epic world building Tolkien is trying
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  to connect this to the other stories he found that his chronology was out of sync we know the ring
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  goes into the farm the 25th of March we're now right at the beginning of March she hasn't got long
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  really and the events don't quite link up so what we get instead is an overflight which then
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  goes back into Mordor I think a reader will anyway make the connection because they have just come
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  out of reading a book where the Ring Raves appeared a couple of times in the air scaring those
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  characters and perhaps it's more like thinking about a general air service like in the second
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  World War when you heard the drone of the approaching Luftwaffe it didn't really matter it
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  is the same plane as your friend's or it's the same overflight the same sense of threat coming
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  from the evil nation with the risk of being discovered or destroyed if spotted and of course
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  this must have felt very close to what Tolkien was experiencing at the time because he was on
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  fire watch as an air raid war and at this time when he's writing this in Oxford because of the
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  fear that there would be a bombing campaign in Oxford so after the Ring Wafers overflow there is
• 33:13
  a shift in all everybody's relationship remember this triangle this is what this chapter is about
• 33:21
  this triangle of relationships golem becomes more forning and less reliable in some ways because
• 33:29
  he's been reminded of the threat Frodo becomes silent lost in this nightmare-ish world that he's
• 33:36
  in and he's vanishing the idea that he is getting a foothold in the race world he's shown here by him
• 33:46
  becoming well no longer driving what's happening Sam puts him in front of him because he's worried
• 33:55
  that he's going to stumble off the path or just stop walking and we get a very sudden shift
• 34:01
  the only I think it's the only one in this chapter where we suddenly move to the point of view of
• 34:05
  Frodo where we hear how heavy the ring is feeling how he is obsessed or fills invigilated by the eye
• 34:14
  watching him and he is being there is another psychological battle going on here which is really
• 34:23
  where it's being forked for Frodo it's internal as well as the external struggle his is internal
• 34:30
  and we get a little glimpse of that here but we do return back to Sam so we reach
• 34:37
  almost the last part of this chapter which is the pit so they're coming out of the marshes and
• 34:44
  it becomes a landscape which is described a lot in terms of how it affects the throat
• 34:50
  first world war of course use poison gas and I feel there's an echo of this here there's a bit
• 34:57
  of reek their mouths are parched they've been a long way since they had fresh good water
• 35:04
  and it's called no man's land that is a first world war term as well no man's land
• 35:11
  written slightly different but no man's land is what Tolkien decided to call it
• 35:18
  and remember I've talked about the paper chain of you thought that was bad this is worse here
• 35:26
  that's what they're thinking the land in front of Mordor like the desolation of smoug in the hobbit
• 35:33
  this is worse the area in front of Mordor is worse because in the marshes as this beautiful phrase
• 35:44
  there was a haggard phantom of green spring something something was growing there despite everything
• 35:50
  but here nothing lived and even the sunlight was defiled and the characters are described as
• 36:00
  little squeaking ghosts that wandered among the ash heaps of the dark lord it does remind me
• 36:07
  of first world war poems will Fredo in that kind of image of the small person lost in the no man's land
• 36:17
  in the nightmare world they retreat to the pit which is described as a foul sump of oily many
• 36:25
  colored ooze that I think this is definitely a first world war image because the oil of course
• 36:33
  the machinery of war the tanks and so on artillery is one of the most obvious sources of an oily
• 36:41
  ooze and sump is an oil sump so it's laying underneath this so of course you can get a natural world
• 36:48
  oily sheen and we're not wrong to think that because in a 1968 interview quoted in the companion guide
• 36:56
  talking told the Birmingham Post that he remembered miles and miles of seething tortured earth
• 37:06
  perhaps best described in the chapter about the approaches to Mordor it was a searing experience
• 37:14
  that's what he remembers of northern France read for northern France read the land just in front of
• 37:21
  Mordor and he goes on to say in this text that the gully now seemed a place of peace and beauty so we've
• 37:29
  gone from the marshes seeming a haggard spring to that gully where they got fresh water being
• 37:37
  relatively idyllic compared to this so when you're creating a world don't forget to use the
• 37:45
  elements within the world to push the experience from bad to worse to even worse it's a very effective
• 37:53
  strategy then we get the great golem and smegel debate it's interesting here I mean
• 38:01
  made famous by the film brilliantly done brilliantly read obviously by Andy Circus in the audio
• 38:07
  version but also reads brilliantly you're just reading the book one of the things that is
• 38:13
  interesting in this sort of almost like political debate trying to persuade himself to do something
• 38:18
  to break his word to Frodo one of the interesting things here is what it reveals about golem is
• 38:27
  what he thinks he would do with power there is an element of innocence child like toddler like
• 38:35
  innocence to golem which is part of his tragedy because what he wants to do with the power is not
• 38:42
  be hurt he wants to be strong in the way that someone who is bullied wants to be strong
• 38:49
  and what he thinks is the best life he could live is having lots of fish
• 38:56
  so his wants are relatively innocent well you know within golem terms that is
• 39:05
  and he does hear sound like a drug addict desperate for the next fix of the precious which is why he
• 39:14
  isn't going to be reliable he can't keep his word because of the you know he is not reformed
• 39:23
  and also in this when you're thinking about planting seeds for future chapters talking drops
• 39:30
  in here the mysterious she who might help him unanswered questions are one reason to make a reader
• 39:41
  move on you want to find out why something is happening or what it's referring to
• 39:46
  and this is one of those times where he just drops it in who is this she that Sam's thought
• 39:53
  but he can't wait to find an answer because Frodo is at risk and he pretends to wake up
• 40:00
  so that golem moves back from Frodo and there's a sort of change in mood here from Frodo
• 40:08
  who is refreshed for once feels he's coming to an end he's almost like okay almost near the gates
• 40:14
  right you know won't be long now kind of thing and in a way this refers back to what Tolkien had
• 40:20
  thought in his letters to Christopher he vastly underestimates how much how much narrative he's got
• 40:27
  to go so perhaps he's having a little joke at his own expense here of saying oh yeah you thought
• 40:33
  you almost finished did you so Frodo is standing in front of the author here but there is another
• 40:40
  presence here of there's a third overflight of one of the ringrays at this point which really
• 40:47
  spooks golem and this particular chapter ends with a kind of forced march where they have to make
• 40:58
  golem move on Frodo has to get stern with him because he's now he doesn't know who is more scared of
• 41:04
  breaking his word the ringrays more door in front of him memories at the past you know he's
• 41:11
  he is a tortured soul clearly and this is reflected in the weary end of this chapter it ends in a sort
• 41:21
  of ominous eerie silence where they're left hearing nothing but the wind hissing in their ears
• 41:31
  and that takes us right up to the gates of Mordor where if you're reading for the first time
• 41:38
  you might think you're almost there but there's a lot more to come isn't there so I hope you've
• 41:44
  enjoyed the passage of the marshes and I look forward to returning to chapter three to see what
• 41:52
  happens when the black gate is closed we're actually coming to one of my favorite bits of the book
• 41:58
  amongst all the darkness there is a wonderful moment of light thank you very much for listening
• 42:08
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