Latest / Mythmakers / Sidecast - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Book 2 Chapter 10

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Sidecast - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Book 2 Chapter 10 · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creators brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and today
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  we have reached a sad chapter in the Fellowship of the Ring because it's the final one in
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  that volume. Chapter 10 in Book 2, the breaking of the Fellowship. So in this podcast we're going
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  to do our usual look through the chapter but we're also going to give some thoughts on the whole
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  shape of this first volume. So looking at this particular chapter, it's quite brief actually,
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  it falls into four sections. There's the initial section where they are posing the question
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  about which direction they need to go in. Then there's the brilliant and fascinating confrontation
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  between Boromir and Frodo. Then there is Frodo's experience on the top of Ammon Hen and then there
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  is the aftermath of the decision that he takes at that point. This book finishes in a slightly
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  different place to the place that the Peter Jackson films chose to end in and we'll have a
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  look at that as we when we reach it. Okay so first of all it begins with a night watch. They have
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  landed the boats on this lawn and it is a pleasant place or are going to members it as a pleasant
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  place so it's a feeling of a sort of haven or it's more like the pivot on a tipping the balance.
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  So they're even going to go one way or another and they are in that pivot point at the moment. We
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  don't know which way they're going to go. But even when Frodo is on the watch, Aragorn is restless
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  and he has this wonderful line which I think does make it into the film script slightly changed
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  but it sums up the mood of this first section. For when Frodo says you know why you awake you're
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  not supposed to be on watch. Aragorn says a shadow and a threat has been growing in my sleep.
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  I love this idea of the ranges having this extra sense that still keeps going.
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  Even when they're asleep they're so highly trained so highly attuned to the environment around them
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  and we get a nice little intervention here from Sting because Frodo draws his weapon and they see
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  a faint blue sheen. So what is this doing in terms of story? Well it's ratcheting up the tension.
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  They can't hang around with this decision. If there was no sign of any enemies then they could
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  take as long as they like camping in this nice spot. No this is the way the author is putting pressure
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  on the members of the fellowship so that the decision that they have to take feels like it's made
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  under pressure. Gotta keep that tension going. Then there's a line break and we get this lovely
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  short sentence to take us into the next part of this first section. The day came like fire and smoke.
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  When you actually think about that it's quite hard to work out what's going on and then
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  he actually explains what he means in the next three or four sentences. There's a beautiful
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  description of the rising sun and the way the clouds feel like. There's the fire of the sun
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  rising through the clouds. So well we're looking at it so you haven't noticed that part as a piece
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  of description. And Tol Brandier is mentioned. Now Tol Brandier gets a couple of shout outs in
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  this chapter and it's fascinating that it's an unvisited place. It's basically an island of birds
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  because it's so sheer and it reminds me of the excessiveness of Middle Earth. There is so much
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  created in it that we don't go there in this story. It's just there because talking can see it.
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  And I think that's the richness and the depth of his world creation in that we can also
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  say oh yes Tol Brandier. Even though it has no relevance to this plot it's just there as part
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  of this feeling that we're never going to run to rub out Middle Earth and find something tacky
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  underneath it's it's silver all the way through. So we now have the moment when they really can't
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  carry on sailing down the river putting off this decision. And because it's a while since that
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  decision was first laid out though it's been hanging over them for the last chapter or so.
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  There's a useful recap which comes from Aragon. And I think you need this here so that everyone
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  can sort of gather around it's like a mini council of Aragon it's the council of the fellowship.
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  The day has come at last the day of choice which we have long delayed. What shall become
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  our company that has travelled so far in fellowship and he lays out the various options you can go east
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  you can go west and going west means going with Boromir to the Wars of Gondor and going east
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  on ominously as to the fear and shadow. But he also raises the idea that they could break up the
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  fellowship and choose to go in different directions. And here there is a wonderful silence.
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  There was a long silence in which no one spoke or moved. Absence of sound,
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  absence of anything is a great way to punctuate a moment.
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  I fear that the burden is laid upon you. So really this is Frodo's big chapter of is he going to
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  stick to the quest? And he knows what he should decide but it is a very big decision.
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  And he asks for an hour to make that. So you're still putting off the moment of actually making up
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  his mind. And I would like to point out here that Aragon's response to that is quite interesting.
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  He goes for formality. He says Frodo son of Drogo. You have an hour. And it's like he is dipping
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  into a more official role. It's not just friendship at stake. It's the fate of Middle-Earth.
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  And that formality reminds them that this is no longer just a matter between them. It's going
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  back to the great matters of state as we're aired at the Council of Aeron. So it's a very deliberate
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  choice to use Frodo's sort of full honorific at that point on Aragon's part. But immediately after
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  we have Aragon taking on a more formal tone, we get the typical sound undercutting because he's
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  muttering away. It's as plain as a pike staff it is. And we also get a dip into Sam's point of
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  view, him noticing Boramir's gaze following Frodo. And this is the chapter in which really Sam
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  rises up through the company to take his role as he's already at Frodo's right hand. But this is
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  obviously where he steps up to be his only companion. But he's still there with his plane hobbit sense.
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  So we now go with Frodo. We're following Frodo's point of view as he walks up the hill,
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  trying to make up his mind or really just get the courage to do what he knows he has to do.
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  And he has this strange feeling that unfriendly eyes were upon him. Love that.
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  But when he looks around it's Boramir or Smiles. And in this wonderful, wonderful confrontation
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  with Boramir, one of my favourite conversations in the whole of the Lord of the Rings,
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  you get this disconnect between the superficial things going on on Boramir's face and then the
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  ugliness and the bitterness and the anger that's roiling away inside. It's a very subtle exchange.
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  And I like the way Tolkien uses the wild to punctuate it. He used silence earlier,
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  but here there's a moment just when they first start their debate argument.
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  Where there's four short sentences, let's look at them. Boramir stood silent.
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  Rauros roared endlessly on. The wind murmured in the branches of the trees. Frodo shivered.
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  I don't think that the connections are deliberately pointed here, but looking at this now,
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  I was thinking that that Rauros, which is the waterfall, roared endlessly on. That's like the
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  sort of the tug of the ring in a way. Also the passage of time, of course, river being time.
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  But it's like the undercurrent, the roaring of passion and emotion under this scene. So it feels
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  that that waterfall is supplying a sort of audible version of what's going on inside the characters.
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  And then the wind murmured in the branches of the trees. It feels like the disquiet,
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  the knowing they were unfriendly eyes nearby that Frodo was feeling. And of course, Frodo shivered
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  connecting to that. And they have quite a civilized debate about what's best to do
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  until Frodo mentions the ring. And it's a tipping point for Boramir. It's as though the red flag
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  to the bull moment. And here we get a line which is
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  transposed in the Peter Jackson films to the scene on the snowy scene where Boramir lifts the ring
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  out of the when it drops onto the snow field. Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so
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  much fear and doubt for so small a thing? I quite like that scene in the film. It's dramatic and
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  it reminds us of the presence of the ring. But it is brilliantly, it's brilliant here, isn't it?
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  Because that is really, it sums up everything that's going on inside Boramir. It's pesky,
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  small thing, the ring and Frodo, that's within his grasp, which is making everyone suffer terribly.
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  And you know, there should be a quick answer to this, an easy answer. And his easy answer,
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  of course, turns out to be highly unacceptable. So Boramir argues on, and he really does,
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  almost, he loses track of who he's talking to. He has been nursing these resentments since
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  accounts of Elrond, who he is now dismissing elves and half elves and wizards. They'll all come
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  to grief, he says, but not so the men of Minnes Tirith. And he leapfrogs his way through this argument.
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  Well, they they have no use for it. And if Aragorn doesn't want it, then why not Boramir?
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  He's talking about himself in the third person, never a good sign. The ring would give me the
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  power of command. So he knows what it will do. How I would drive the hosts of mortar and all
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  men would flock to my banner. And Galadriel spoke of the same temptation from the ring. So she
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  felt likewise that she could use it command armies, but she knew what then would happen.
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  That's how it starts, not how it finishes. And it's also a reminder of the scene in the
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  temptations of Christ, the one where the devil offers all the kingdoms of the world to bow down
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  before. That is a nut. So there's a sense of it's a kind of temptation, the drive to power
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  that is as old as time, so as old as the Bible. That needs to be rejected because if you take
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  something for power, it doesn't end well. Unlike Frodo who's taking it, not with that at all in his
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  mind, he's taking it to get rid of it. However, having said that, Boramir does land some very good
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  arguments and the one that I thought, well, you know, he's got a point really, is the one where he
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  says the only plan that is proposed to us is that a halfling should walk blindly into mortar and
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  offer the enemy every chance of recapturing it for himself. Yeah, that is the plan. And of course,
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  he calls it folly and it is folly and the elves and the wizards know it's folly, but they also know
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  that foolishness folly is the only way to defeat such a calculating enemy as is sauerum.
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  I would, if you haven't read this chapter for a while, to go back and just read this conversation
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  is full of lovely details. There's one particular detail of this division between how Boramir is
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  trying to appear on the outside to what's going on inside, which is summed up in a very scary
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  moment when he rests his hand on Frodo as if his is friend to say, oh, don't worry, I'll take
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  it from you. I'll look after, I'll look after it, but Frodo feels it trembling with suppressed
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  excitement, horrible to see a friend turn into an enemy. And then his final collapse is quite quick
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  in the end, but it's in masterful steps. It goes in one little speech he makes from come with me
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  to minister earth and will take stock there to lend it to me. That's going to go well, isn't it?
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  To it is mine, he succumbs to the belief that he is the best person for it so he should have it.
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  And it's at this point we get the description, his fair and pleasant face was hideously changed,
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  a raging fire was in his eyes. So things have turned ugly indeed. Frodo escapes by putting on the
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  ring, which is one of the few at times in the book where he actually does so. So it's a big event
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  as a result and it turns out to be a terrible place to do it. But also note this little detail that
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  as he runs away, the man gasped, stared for a moment at maze, the man is capitalized.
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  Boromir is here representing the world of men. So the ring has been offered to the elves,
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  gladriel, and refused, offered to the wizards, and refused. And now it's not offered to a man,
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  but he's sort of representing, he's all doing all his race at this moment. And of course,
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  his response is also racially based, because he shouts, miserable trickster, curse you,
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  and all halflings to death and darkness. So this links into those moments when there is a
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  debate about who is the best person to carry the ring, which race on earth, on middle earth is the
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  best to do it. So don't miss that sneaky capitalization there. It's a great scene. And
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  I think it's quite well done in the Vita Jackson movie, but it's quite short, isn't it? I didn't,
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  I think the more of the debate, more acting would almost have been great. So I think they could
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  extended that scene, but that was already quite a long film, but the one in the book is brilliant,
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  and I felt it could add some more in from that. So anyway, Boromir says these terrible things,
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  but his madness is short lived, and he immediately goes to remorse. And that's the tragedy of Boromir.
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  It's not a deep rooted evil, it's just he's driven mad by the presence of the ring, whether or not
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  he could have there was no going back from this moment. And he could never have accompanied Frodo
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  any further, but running the thought experiment, if he had survived what kind of person would he have
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  been? Is that sort of little canker nibbling away at him? He possibly would have been fine once
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  the ring was destroyed, but there is always a question mark over how he would have behaved
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  once Aragorn arrived at Minnes Tirith to claim the throne. It's a fascinating character, Boromir,
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  because he has the capacity for so many good martial qualities, leadership qualities,
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  but he also has this fatal flaw of pride, really pride and greed for power.
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  Anyway, we stay with Frodo, and he runs up the hill and finds himself on the top of Ammon Hen,
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  where he sits on this sort of open air throne, really, and there's a wonderful description
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  that sums up this moment. He's feeling like a lost child that had clambered upon the throne
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  of mountain kings. So that links back to the Aragornath and the great kings of Gondor. He's just a
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  small hobbit, so he feels like a child on a huge throne. So it sort of makes the burden that
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  his under even more outrageous, it just feels like his struggling with so much. And then we get this
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  wonderful passage, which gives us an overview of everything that's going on. It's like the
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  ortho view of the godlike view. It's so useful as a writer to have these moments. It ties Frodo
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  into all the events of the plot that's about to interlace. It's about to split into many directions.
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  So we get a glimpse of Rohan, the glimpse of Ministeria, the glimpse of this glimpse of that.
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  So you can always type back to this moment, but also we get a geographic
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  overview, which lays out where the rest of the story is going to be played out.
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  And it also brings us possibly almost the closest to Saron. We had the moment when the eye appeared
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  in the mirror of Galadriel, but here we have an almost being captured moment, which is very
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  powerfully described. I'm just going to read that because the sounds of it, listen out to the
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  sound of this passage. So he looks further and further over into the land of Mordor, darkness
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  lay there under the sun, under the sun. That's very biblical Old Testament, Ecclesiastes.
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  Fire glowed amid the smoke. Mount Doom was burning and a great reek rising.
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  You see that? For like classical sentences to me. Then at last his gaze was held, wall upon wall,
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  battlement upon battlement, black, immeasurably strong, mountain of iron, gate of steel,
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  tower of adamant, he saw it, baradur, fortress of Saron, all hope left him.
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  And suddenly he felt the eye. That's a very exciting passage to read, but just look at the
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  rhetorical tricks pulled out there. You've got the repetition of the
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  the sent the structure of description. So you've got
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  mountain of iron, gate of steel, tower of adamant, three linked descriptions. And you've got
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  inversion. So he saw it comes at the end of a sort of Germanic structure. And then you've got
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  the sort of capstone of all, baradur, fortress of Saron. I love this particular passage
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  for that reason really, because it helps you see the whole story. Because sometimes in big fantasy
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  epics the worlds can feel formless and confusing and you don't really know where you are in them,
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  just sort of vague forests or borders or whatever. You never feel that in middle earth.
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  And it's passages like that that help really locate you and pinpoint you to a location.
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  They are the dropped pin on Google Earth. There you go. I'm talking with a quite enjoyed
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  Google Earth, just a thinking. So we've moved from a battle of
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  wills with Boromir. And we move now to the battle that is raging in Frodo's mind, which of course
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  has, you know, the ring is also warming its way in there. So it's him with the ring as sort of
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  interfering, a power of evil. But it's also something else then crops up. So we've got never, never,
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  or was it verily I, I come, I come to use. That's one sort of voice. And then he's got take it off,
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  take it off, fool, take it off, take off the ring. It's not till sometimes later that we find that
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  this is actually Gandalf. He's only described at this point when we still think Gandalf is long gone
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  as just the voice. And it's very important that in this battle of the mind, that the moment of
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  decision actually is that of free will. Under the whole sort of theology of Lord of the Rings,
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  the burden has to be taken on willingly as a free choice, no matter how difficult that choice is.
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  And so after that debate, or those two voices are in the eye, Frodo has this moment of clarity.
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  Suddenly he was aware of himself again. Frodo neither the voice nor the eye, free to choose.
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  And with one remaining instant in which to do. He takes off the ring.
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  She's the choice not to give up to Sauron. And it's also when his purpose clarifies in his mind.
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  So he is freely choosing to go alone into Mordor. There is another.
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  I keep feeling there were almost biblical undertones to this particular chapter because of the
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  temptation and the struggle of taking on the sort of sacrificial mission. And this feels like a
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  kind of garden of guassemony seen for Frodo take this cup away from me moment. But when he is
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  able to make his mind up, there is a feeling of comfort in that. A great weariness was on him,
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  but his will was firm and his heart lighter. He now says this rather this is really Frodo all over.
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  Some I cannot trust and those I can trust are too dear to me. I will go alone. So he is facing
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  basically what he thinks is a suicide mission alone because he has very little hope at this point.
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  So that's the end of that section on Amanhen. And then there's a brief final section where we go
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  back to the rest of the company. And they're still debating what's to be done, not realizing that some
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  of the decisions are being taken elsewhere out of their power. And it's interesting that you get an
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  insight into the attitudes of the company with Gimli and Legolas, both not that keen on the
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  idea of going to Mordor, nor are the Hobbits. So if it was left to a company vote, they would not
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  be heading into the shadow. But Sam is absolutely aware of what needs to be done. He knows what his
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  master is thinking. So he's playing Hobbit sense again wins out. And Aragon is saying to the rest
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  of the company. It's interesting the way it's phrased. It says not our place to tell Frodo his
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  decision. There are other powers at work far stronger. So he has a sense of the greater destinies
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  that are at play here. Boromir's return and the strange manner in which he returns and Sam's
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  instant apprehension of what Boromir has been up to, i.e. no good, it prompts the breaking of the
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  fellowship. It's they scatter. They're all running off in different directions. And Aragon
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  gives out orders to the Gimli, Legolas and Boromir to run after the others. But he says to Sam
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  follow me, come with me. But he doesn't slow his pace. So he too is really part of this scattering
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  impulse. And we later find out that Legolas and Gimli hunt auks. They don't actually really go
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  and look for anybody. So there is this sort of madness that takes over the company at this point,
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  which sends them off in different directions. And Sam is the only one who keeps his head. He works
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  it out. Frodo can't fly back to the boats. And here's the last of my biblical references here,
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  is that he feels very much to me like Simon Peter flinging himself into the water to go to his
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  master, which is an event that happens after the resurrection when he sees when Peter sees
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  Jesus on the shore as this line where he flings himself out of the boat fully dressed and
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  weighed the shore very Sam-like. And I wouldn't be surprised if Tolkien as a Catholic who went to
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  church pretty much every weekend might have this in the back of his mind. And like another
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  Peter throwing himself into the water moment when he can't walk on water and begins to drown,
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  Sam also has the same experience. Save me Mr Frodo, I'm grounded. And that actually means Frodo's
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  got to take the ring off. So Sam can see the hand trying to pull him out of danger.
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  And then there's this sweet exchange at the end where Frodo's saying, look you can't stop me,
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  Sam, I'm going to model. And Sam says, of course you are, and I'm coming with you.
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  That could have been the end of that particular chapter, but there's a little addendum to in fact.
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  There's a description of the Thames paddling their way across to the eastern bank. And it's
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  noted here that it's very hard work doing so. And question mark whether Frodo would have managed
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  it on his own anyway. He could have fallen at the first hurdle trying to get across the current.
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  But they do eventually land and are setting off on the eastern shore, which we know is the
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  the decision point they're going east. But there's also another little addendum, which I
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  don't very often bother to read because it's the, you know, coming soon. And it's the right at
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  the end. He says, here ends the first part of the history of the war of the ring. The second part
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  is called the Two Towers, since the events recounted in it are dominated by Orthank, the Citadel
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  of Saruman and the fortress of Minis Morgal that guards the secret entrance to Mordor.
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  It tells of the deeds and perils of all the members of the now-sundered fellowship
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  until the coming of the great darkness. And the third part tells the last
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  defense against Sashado and the end of the mission of the ring bearer in the return of the king.
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  So that answers the question about what are the two towers. So not sure that Minis Morgal really does
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  dominate two towers in the way that it suggested here. But there we are. We have reached
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  the end of the fellowship of the ring. So the first thing, obviously when we do our little overview
• 29:55
  of the book, is it's not really the end of anything. Talking conceived of the story as one whole
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  volume. And you probably know already that it was paper rationing that meant it was divided into
• 30:10
  three parts in the 1950s to make it a sustainable printing. But the effect of that is
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  I think quite elegant and actually it's a happy accident that it happened like that.
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  Because book one is now neatly seen as a Hobbit-centric story with the edition of Strider
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  with the introduction of the black writers. That's book one. And book two is really the story of
• 30:44
  the fellowship. And it has its dark moments in Moria and its light moments in Lorian and its
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  sad moments with the breaking of the fellowship. So I think that the fellowship of the ring in many
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  ways. I love all of this book. I wouldn't be doing this podcast if I didn't. But it's certainly
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  in terms of what it offers the reader. It's so rich and so varied that it's a very satisfying
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  story to read in this volume. And I was certainly remembered when I first read it immediately
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  turning to the two towers. Because it made you want to read on. So we have reached the
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  breaking of the fellowship and we will reconvene at a later date to start on the two towers.
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