Can't Take His Medicine- LOTR: An Author's Journey, Bk 3 Ch 3

00:05 - Julia Golding (Host) Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and in today's episode we are continuing our author's Sidecast, which is a journey through the Lord of the Rings, and we have reached the two towers, book three, chapter three, which is called the Uruk Hai. Now I'm going to cover four main aspects in this Sidecast. The first of all is pointing out the Pippin point of view. It's the first time we've spent an extended time in Pippin's head, and what a great place that is to be. The second thing we're going to have a look at is the politics of the Orcs, because, again, another first in this chapter is we get to see behind the scenes of how Orcs conduct their affairs. The third we're going to look at the dynamic of Pippin and Merry together, something which we see more of in the Two Towers than previously. And then, at the end, I just want to just pause at some particular moments of really fine writing that I just want to share with you and talk about how and have a look at how and why they're good. 01:25 Okay, so we begin this chapter with a nightmarish awakening. Poor old Pippin is waking up and finding himself in the hands of orcs. Now, it's a common way to start a chapter. I know that as an author that waking up we all do that most days is a standard way to start, and if you are to do that, you need to make each waking up different, otherwise you get the Groundhog Day experience for your reader. So this one is a particularly nightmarish waking up. It also gives us an opportunity to recap necessary info. So, rather than the narrator downloading onto us what we need to know, pippin is reconstructing what happened in the last few moments of the Fellowship of the Ring, that so it doesn't feel forced. So we get the skirmish how he and Merry ran into the middle of the orcs. His last memory was of Boromir leaning against a tree, plucking out an arrow. Then darkness fell suddenly. Very poignant moment, and also a image that lingers and stays underlines the loss that's just been covered in the first chapter of this book. 02:48 What I find interesting in this chapter about Pippin, or one of the many things, is how he goes from passive regret to taking action, and the passive regret is characterised by him thinking of himself as a piece of luggage that is being sort of carried around by other people awaiting collection. Now the idea of luggage is a very 20th century sort of Edwardian railway idea which fits with the hobbit world, which does feel more modern than many of the other cultures. So it fits with the world of the hobbits, because you can't imagine orcs having concierges and luggage. So it's part of the big gap between him and the people who are holding him hostage. He's sort of seeing himself as other people have seen him, as he shouldn't have been there. He's a fish out of water, very clearly. But one of the things all the hobbits share in common is once they reach that point, they bounce back. And he bounces back by taking advantage of orc politics. So this is the second point I wanted to bring out is here we actually get behind the doors, the closed doors of orcs. The doors, the closed doors of orcs. 04:04 If you think about the fights to this point in Moria we never really understood much about the individual orcs here they are named. We understand their factions, we understand their politics. So we've got three main factions. We've got the orcs that have come down from the mines to avenge the, their leader. We've got the Mordor orcs, and Grishnak is their leader, and we have the Isengard orcs, who call themselves the Uruk-hai, and Ugluk is their leader. 04:42 So remember that this is written at the time of war where the allies were up against uneasy alliances between well, they shifted, but the Russians at one point until they swapped sides the Germans, the Italians and so on. You can see in the back of Tolkien's mind that he is reflecting on the fact that you're not usually just facing one foe with one agenda, you're facing many with many agendas, the Japanese as well, of course. In that war we get a snatch of Black speech and a hint of their culture, because obviously, for Tolkien, cultures start with language. Fortunately, because you have the different factions, they lapse into using ordinary language and so Pippin is able to follow the debate. I just want to underline at this point, if we're thinking about the author's journey, just how useful some version of common speech is. Unless you go the Douglas Adams route of having a babel fish to or a spell to translate things. You need to make the fact that people can communicate less of a burden. You don't want to always be going through translation. It's very important for fantasy. So if you're writing a story where people have different languages, find some way of dealing with that. So it's not a bore, unless of course the point is that your character can't understand what's going on around them. But I wouldn't hang on in that position for too long. 06:18 So we get a flavour of each of the orcs. These are deftly handled. So the minds they're the weaklings of the bunch. Basically they suffer most. In the sunshine they're only there for revenge. They're the ones who get picked off by the other orcs. The mordor orcs are the schemers and they're the ones with the, the fell beast waiting, just the nazgul waiting to spirit away the hobbit. So in a way they're the biggest threat because we could lose our hobbits to Mordor. But then the people who have got the upper hand at the moment are the bigger, stronger orcs who are Uruk-hai. 06:57 And he gets a speech, ugluk. We have a number of leaders who have speeches, and actually I think this might be one of the few Orc speeches and he declares that Saruman is the hand that gives us man flesh to eat. Shows you how far fallen is the white wizard, saruman. He says we are the fighting Uruk-hai. He's calling them to arms. Yurokai, he's calling them to arms. 07:27 And what's funny here is the politics comes in because Grishnak, mordor, orc starts stirring things up and the insult he gives is I bet it's not man's flesh, I bet it's Orc flesh that he gives you to eat. So each race has its own standards, doesn't it? Anyway, this results in a skirmish. Grishnak shows his cleverness by getting out of it. But it's an exciting set piece where you've got the poor hobbits prone on the ground in danger, orcs fighting around them. But it does give Pippin a chance because one of the casualties the blade is near him. He manages to free his hands quickly, loops them back to hide it, and the payoff for that moment is much later. So we know we've got this little secret which we share with Pippin, that his hands are free, and that will change how we estimate his chances of escape. 08:22 As the orcs go on in this sort of nightmarish march, where the hobbits are sometimes forced to run, sometimes they're carried, there are deft touches to coincide with the story that we have just read. So, for example, it's an important point that one of the forward parties says that they saw a rider, but that he rode off. They didn't stop him, so they let a scout go, and that is of course what actually is their comeuppance, because he carries the word to Eomer, and so on. So everything is neatly sewn up, nicely woven together. But there's also some deliberate inverses of elves here, and one of I suppose what this is summed up in is the orc cordial. So where is the orc cordial that gildor has? It's not, it's not only gildor who has it, glorfindel has it too. So the the things that they, that the elves give you to drink, lighten your spirits, are helpful, give you energy, and so on. 09:27 The orcs, who are in some versions corrupted elves, though their origins. There's various stories about their origins. They have a sort of corrupted version of that. So it is an effective cordial. It puts you on your feet, but it's also nasty. And their treatment, their healing? The elves have a beautiful form of treatment. They bring frodo back from death's door here. The treatment for mary and the knock he took to the head is rough and ready, but it works and it leaves him with brown scar. Frodo is left with a silver scar. So can you see how that, in a way, the opposite orcs are in opposition to elves, not so much to men. So that's how it lines up there and these parallels are being made. I think the Uruk-hai are more like men because they seem to be a mixed breed, but a pure orc is is more of a parallel to the elves. They get a brief moment when Pippin and Merry are able to talk to each other and of course, there's a quip between them about bed and breakfast. 10:38 Hobbits have a habit of making light of evil things, which is another of their qualities, which carries them through very dark times. So what's interesting about this chapter is in terms of the timeline. This happens before the chapters we've just read, because Aragorn and co are following on behind, but there are also some echoes of those chapters. So, so when the hobbits touch the grass, their hearts rise, as did Legolas's heart when they've reached the plains of Rohan. We feel this is a good country, a healthy country, and we get this wonderful tapestry weaving that I talked about in our last session, where the connection between the action of the previous chapter is connected to this, and here we see how the leaf brooch got broken or got dropped, wasn't broken, pulled off and dropped deliberately. 11:36 So Pippin, every now and again, there came into his mind, unbidden, a vision of the keen face of Strider, bending over a dark trail and running, running behind. He doesn't know for a fact that they're being followed and came into his mind unbidden. Is this just because they've spent time with aragorn and trust that he won't give up on them? Very possibly, or is there some other power nudging him in this direction? Who knows? There does seem to be powers of generally good and powers of generally evil at work in these lands, so it could be any and all of those things together. But he takes the decision to break out of the main charging orcs to leave his footprints on some wet earth, all very deliberate already. All thought through, he's never going to leave Mary behind anyway, so he wasn't hoping to escape. And he drops the leaf and there he sinks. 12:34 There, I suppose it will lie until the end of time and this, that particular line, has a nice payoff in a couple of chapters time. So when you're reprising action where we know what happens basically we want to get to the bit where there's the fight you can do summaries, but do them in an interesting way and give them emotion, and here's a sentence which does that. Evil dreams and evil waking were blended into a long tunnel of misery, with hope growing ever fainter behind. That skips over the couple of days when they're in this, charging away, trying to escape before they get caught and take the hobbits back to Isengard. So they see that the Rohan forces, the Eored, has seen them and the stakes are rising and there's a debate amongst the Orcs. 13:31 Back to my second point about Orc politics. The Northerners leave, grishnak returns with reinforcements and there's another discussion about where the Hobbits should be taken. And you get to see that the Saruman, the newcom, newcomer, new kid on the block, on the dark side, his lieutenants are all very proud of their wizard and Grishnak is saying you, you don't know the half of it about Sauron and his powers, and he mentions the Nazgul. And Grishnak does seem to be extremely well informed. We'll come to that in a moment. But Ugluk shows that he is a very intelligent commander because he notices this and he says you seem to know a lot more than is good for you. So these aren't just Kabul cut out, bad guys, these are orcs with their own agendas and their agendas conflict. 14:33 Anyway, they race for the forest, the poor northern orcs get overtaken. Their attempt to escape didn't go anywhere and then they get dumped on the ground within sight of the forest, but not quite lost in it yet, and they could see that the Rohan people are surrounding them. And what I like about here is poor old Pippin. So even though he's done really well in a heroic sense, he is also still the same old Pippin and and it's nice to keep that humorous touch even in these dark moments running alongside All that he, pippin, could remember about Rohan was that Gandalf's horse, shadowfax, had come from that land. He didn't pay attention in class, did he? But we all love him for it, did he? Uh, but that's we all love him for it. 15:29 Okay, here's one of my explainers. When I bother to look something up, and I hope that you enjoy finding this, uh, finding this out, as much as me. What is a furlongs? They stop within so many furlongs of the forest. A furlong is an eighth of a mile, which, in another way of putting that, is 220 yards. You know that you can imagine walking a mile, um, so it's an eighth of that distance and not very far, of course, using a furlong. The only time I hear furlongs mentioned now are in connection with horse racing, and it's interesting. Oh, it fits in, doesn't it? It's deliberate that the Rohan culture, which is all about horses, the measurement is furlongs. It's also a measurement which works for bow shots. If you think about the kind of breakdown of how far you can shoot an arrow, a furlong is a good measurement for that. Horses running bow shots. So that's where Tolkien uses it Horse racing and Tolkien. 16:33 This gives a chance for us to see the third of my points, which is the relationship between Merry and Pippin. We know that they've been a sort of friendship group from the start, but what we see here is how they support each other. They support each other with what I think of as trench humour. I feel as though we're hearing a little bit of the kind of conversations that Tolkien would have experienced as a young man fighting in the First World War, where something so utterly awful and ghastly you make light of. So they've just had this horrible experience of being dragged across the plains of Rohan, and you've got to love their understatement Merry's first words, as he lies close enough to Pip in to say anything. I don't think much of this. That's a very familiar British understatement there. 17:31 I enjoy seeing the Rohan riders from the point of view of the people they are attacking because, even though Pippin and Merry know they aren't the target, they are aware they could be caught up in whatever happens next. And they're very scary because of their silence. Their tactics creeping in under the cover of darkness and silently polishing off a few guards sort of the people keeping watch on the outer edge of the Ork encampment remind me of the kind of things you read in Fenimore Cooper, the kind of tactics of Native Americans, as Tolkien would have read in those Boyzone-style adventures. But he's giving that tactic to the Rohan riders. Is there a connection here between horse-riding warriors and Native Americans of that sort? I don't know, but that's what it reminded me of. 18:26 And then we get a twist. We're told by Ugluk that Mahur and his lads are waiting as reinforcements. So we know that they don't win the battle of the Orcs. We've already heard that, but still we're getting a bit of jeopardy that it could mean there's a breakaway group. Maybe Eama was wrong, maybe they didn't get everybody, and so on. So even we kind of know the outcome. But by just putting that detail in we're kept on tenterhooks a little bit. Then the Orc politics comes back in again. So whilst Ugluk is dealing with an incursion into his ranks, grishnak makes his move. 19:07 And what's particularly striking here is the revolting physicality of Grishnak. This is the first time we're really up close and personal with a hairy, sweaty, foul orc, and it's poor old Pippin and Merry that gets tucked under his arms and there's a line here where he's interrogating them. There was a light like a pale but hot fire behind his eyes. The other person who has pale lights behind their eyes, of course, is Gollum. It does seem to be part of the evil influence of the ring, this, the light of greed that lights up inside those who are desperate for it, and so it's natural that this clues in Pippin. Sort of the thought process is prompted that he's after the ring, and here you just want to say not fool of a talk, but clever old toot toot. 20:07 I do wonder, just as a sidebar here, if Grishnak, who seems to be very well informed that's what Ugluk told us he knows about the ring he seems to have met Gollum, whether or not he's going to be a main character in the hunt for Gollum, seems like he's there, being served on a plate for the filmmakers if they wish to run with him. Mary picks up on the hints that Pippin has been making and they start to negotiate, but there's a chilling rebuff that Grishnak isn't having it. He knows that he's, the more powerful they are in his power. But the hobbits don't give up at that point and they even go as far as to say now's the time to do a deal. They're really, really brave and clever and what they get back in response is an outraged I'll cut you both to quivering shreds. So there is no give in this evil character. He is all about getting what he wants and it is his greed and his anger that is his downfall, because as he unsheathes his sword because he feels he's going to lose his captives, he's going to kill them first. The sword catches on the light of the fires in the distance. He's then shot. He tries to run off and a spear is put through him. That's the end of grishnak and that leaves the hobbits lying on the ground. 21:36 And there's a lovely point, sort of little detail here. In the film it's done as like almost being stamped on by a horse, but actually in the book version these horses are so clever they don't try and stamp on the hobbits, they leap, leap lightly over them. So the we've been told that the Rohan horses have extra good night sight, so we now see it in action. And then we get this wonderful moment. Suddenly, merry and Pippin realized that, without moving, they were now outside the circle. So what do our hobbits do? Well, well, they're going to sit and have a little bit to eat, aren't they? And sort of take stock. So this is where you get Lembas and hobbits meeting, and I thought I would just read that little bit, because it sort of sums up so much about both the gift of the elves and hobbits, the taste brought back to them, the memory of fair faces and laughter, and wholesome food in quiet days. 22:35 Now, far away, that's like everything orcs aren't. For a while they ate thoughtfully, sitting in the dark, heedless of the cries and sounds of battle nearby. So no longer their business. Hobbits are keeping out of the big people's business having their picnic. So, as they crawl away and get free of the danger, there's a moment when they look back to see what's going on. 23:09 Tolkien does these moments extremely well, that moment where someone stops and pauses, taking in stock what's going on behind them. So, as they are about to reach the forest, the sound had died away. Evidently Malhur and his lads had been killed or driven off. The riders had returned to their silent, ominous vigil. It would not last very much longer Already. The night was old In the east, which had remained unclouded, the sky was beginning to grow pale. This moment they're just. It's like seeing the fight about to get going. 23:47 So you hold the tension by having someone bringing it to our attention as readers, and on they go into the, into the wood, should say. Of course, the payoff from Pippin cutting, cutting his bonds is that he's able to get them free. That's why they're able to crawl away, that's why they're able to eat lembas and so on. So good, good old pippin. And as they go away, talking underlines as they walked, they compared notes, talking lightly in hobbit fashion, of the things that have happened since their capture. No listener would have guessed that their words from their words, that they had suffered cruelly and inlly and been in dire peril, going without hope towards torment and death, or that even now, as they knew well, they had little chance of ever finding friend or safety again. Again, this feels like something from experience. Just imagine what it was like as a young man, knowing the chances of being killed on the western front were huge. It feels as though light talk was probably what people did. So I can't help but feel that he's been there where the hobbits are in real world as opposed to where the hobbits are in real world, as opposed to Rohan, as happens between Frodo and Sam. 25:15 Merry and Pippin think about themselves as book characters, and it's very sweet that Merry says you seem to have been doing very well, master Toque. You will get almost a chapter in old Bilbo's book and of course he has got you've just read it almost the chapter. There is this meta level in Lord of the Rings where it refers to its own nature of being a book, which makes it quite a modernist work in many ways. So that's one of those moments where we are reminded that, yes, this is a chapter in a book. And then we get a wonderful passage which I want to read, because they enter into Fangorn. They've been in, of course, the old forest before. So how are you going to make this different? Well, they're on their own, of course. They don't have the others. They don't have ponies, others, they don't have ponies. 26:15 But here you get a sense of age, in the way of right back in the beginning of time age, and then you get a snapshot of the Rohan culture as well, which is beautifully done and it's taken from the sort of ancient literatures that Tolkien loved. So this is Merry. He's now leading the way, because he did pay attention in class. He led the way under the huge branches of the trees, old beyond guessing. They seemed great. Trailing beards of lichen hung from them, blowing and swaying in the breeze. 26:46 So when I was saying that my last point is about the fine writing, this is where we see it. So when you talk about something is old, and then if you give it a trailing beard, you add the gravitas and the age. Out of the shadows, the hobbits peeped, gazing back down the slope, little furtive figures that in the dim light look like elf children in the deeps of time, peering out of the wild wood in wonder at their first dawn. So how can you point out something is old without saying it was very old? What you do is you find an image from something which is so ancient, way back at the beginning of time, seeing a first dawn, and then we get this wonderful passage about the beginning of the battle, far over the great river and the brown lands, leagues upon grey leagues away. The dawn came red as flame, simple, powerful, punchy sentence. Loud rang the hunting horns to greet it. The riders of Rohan sprang suddenly to life. Horn answered horn again. 28:00 So here's the association with Rohan, with horns coming in at this point. I think it's the first time we hear them. Actually, mary and Pippin heard, clear in the cold air, the neighing of war horses and the sudden singing of many men. The sun's limb was lifted, an arc of fire above the margin of the world. The drama of the sunrise, the drama of the onset of battle are connected. Then, with a great cry. The riders charged from the east. So they're charging with the sun behind them. That gives them the advantage. The red light gleamed on mail and spear. The orcs yelled and shot all the arrows that remained to them. The hobbits saw several horsemen fall, but their line held on up the hill and over it and wheeled round and charged again, and so on. 28:53 The singing riders that's an image that feels operatic, ancient, and we get them singing again in the Battle of Palenor Fields. There's this youthful energy about the riders of Roh Rohan, even when they're led by their old king. They themselves are associated with this, with the sun and red and gold, those colors. That's their sort of cultural vibe, whereas if you think about Gondor, it's the sea, it's silver, a white tree and so on. So he's contrasting his cultures here. But anyway, I love this moment. It's like a little foretaste of the great charge that happens at the battle of Pelennor Fields. 29:44 And here we have just to finish this. Merry and Pippin escape. They're not sure which way the battle is going to go and we get the outside knowledge. So remember, the conceit behind the book is it's compiled with the memories of their friends, so they do know eventually what happened in that battle. And so Bilbo, it's Frodo writing it, isn't it at this stage? So it was. 30:08 They did not see the last stand when ugluk was overtaken and brought to bay at the very edge of fangorn. I'm interested here that ugluk is treated like a worthy ally. He's not exterminated. Very often you feel as though orcs are just there to be kind of killed in vast numbers, swatted like flies. Here emma gets off his horse and fights him man to man, man to Uruk-hai. So it gives a sense of this whole other culture of orcs and their characters which we hadn't seen before this chapter. And no wonder other fantasy writers have gone away and written about orcs as their own independent sort of imaginative world. And I just want to finish with another bit of fine writing, which is the very evocative last line. 30:59 So the writers win and put the bodies of their enemies on a pyre. So ended the raid and no news of it came ever back to Mordor or to Isengard. But the smoke of the burning rose high to heaven and was seen by many watchful eyes. Who are those eyes? Isengard is looking because, it seems, Saruman, possibly that mysterious figure figure may have come to see what's happening. The hunters Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, see it, but there's a sense of a bigger overwatch, maybe eagles, maybe Nazgul. So this is one small skirmish in a much bigger battle, with the stakes being shared. So from this open ground where people can watch, we are now heading under the eaves of Fangorn where we're going to start to meet some very surprising new arrivals in the story. So join me for next time when we meet Treebeard in chapter four. 32:09 - Speaker 2 (None) Thank you for listening thanks for listening to Mythmakers podcast brought to you by the oxford center for fantasy. Visit oxfordcenterforfantasy.org to join in the fun. Find out about our online courses, in-person stays in Oxford, plus visit our shop for great gifts. Tell a friend and subscribe wherever you find your favourite podcasts worldwide.