I Know No Other Way - LOTR: An Author's Journey, Bk 4 Ch 3

0:04 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 I'm continuing our Sidecast series as we read our way through The Lord of the Rings, taking a look at it from an author's point of view. And today we have reached chapter three in book four. So that's halfway through The Two Towers. And this chapter is called The Black Gate Is Closed. So that really tells you what's going on in this chapter. And I was thinking about what is in fact a relatively short chapter by the standard of the other ones in this book, that in terms of its structure, it really is hinged around a decision or it leads up in fact to a decision.

0:59 So it's not a complicated one. They arrive, they discuss, Frodo has a decision to make and that is the structure of the chapter. And it's interesting that Tolkien wanted to separate it out from the previous material, crossing the marshes and the material to come, which is when they head off into Ithilien, because it is one of those moments on which the quest hangs on the decision of a individual. And so he is highlighting that in the choice of structure. So when you think about this as an author, remember the power of your divisions that you can do that.

1:40 You can put something in a separate package so people really focus on it. Okay, so let's think about this chapter and the decision that Frodo is taking. He is actually one of those chapters that starts with a fairly shocking and a bit misleading first line, because the first line is, before the next day dawned, their journey to Mordor was over. And I've mentioned a couple of times that in the original plan, as far as he planned, Tolkien had thought he was getting near the end. And perhaps it was when he reached the gates and thought, hang on a minute, it really isn't going to be so easy that you don't just walk into Mordor to borrow the famous Boromir phrase.

2:24 It's got to be harder. You don't want a story where the sequence of events isn't earned. So imagine an alternative where he thinks, okay, we're at the gates, they're going to smuggle themselves in on the end of a line of marching soldiers or in a wagon, pretending to be a barrel of something. He possibly ran all these different scenarios in his mind. If we're going to believe that the bad guy, if the Dark Lord is all powerful, it's got to be hard to get close. It's got to be hard to get into his land. If his world is too porous, then he's not much of a threat, is he?

3:08 So the passage after that gives you a new piece of orientation. Tolkien's very good in setting up this imaginary landscape for us. And this is the first time we've got close to Mordor. So he tells us of the main ranges of mountains. He is using words that describe them based in Elvish, and they have a meaning for him. But what I find interesting is that he doesn't tell us the meaning, but he does gloss it by the descriptors just in front of each of them. So he talks about the gloomy range of Efel Duath, the Mountains of Shadow.

3:54 So he does translate that. But then he goes on to talk about Ered Lithwi, Grey's Ash, and the Elven Sindarin, I think it is. I'm not great on Elvish, is the idea of ash. And then you go inside into places like the Sea of Núrnirn, that holds its idea of sad or bitterness. So he's not wanting to keep stop the action to give you his clever language glosses. He puts it there in the description. So you understand the context. So we now know, we get to understand there are some roots of Elvish, which we see again and again. And so we can probably do a bit of guessing ourselves.

4:34 And that is important because we're going to come towards the end of the chapter where an hidden name is actually a massive clue as to what they're going to face next. One of the interesting things about Tolkien in his imagination is his belief that evil is a corruption of the good. And you see that in such things like the Orc Race. But you get it here in terms of the buildings that edge Mordor. I'm only aware really of there being one structure other than Rhodes in Mordor, which is built by the Dark Lord, which is Barad -dûr.

5:16 But all the other towers are based on Númenórean buildings, which were put there to keep watch and were then overrun and turned to evil purposes. So what was a defensive move becomes a flipped over. And that sort of goes with the philosophy about where evil comes from. It creates little, but corrupts a lot. And the descriptors here reinforce that with some telling phrases like, none could pass the teeth of Mordor and not feel their bite. So the landscape is almost a character here, as very often it is in Tolkien.

6:02 It reminds me quite a lot of the Cold War, the way this is described. Some people listening to this will perhaps not remember that, but there was a sense of a line across Europe with these security guards on the borders, but the Berlin Wall was being constructed in the 50s. So perhaps that's not the right comparison, but certainly by the time I was reading it, that was the kind of thing I was thinking of, that dangerous space in Berlin between East and West where people would get shot trying to get across. It's that feeling of the landscape separating sides that he captures very well here.

6:46 Full of grim, but great detail. There's a moment when you get a brass fanfare and he sums it up like this. Another dreadful day of fear and toil had come to Mordor and the night guards were summoned to their dungeons and deep halls and the day guards, evil-eyed and fell, were marching to their posts. So he gives you this sense of a well-regulated, militaristic, oppressive world which keeps on ticking over every day, every dreadful day. So once he's painted that, we get, of course, a little bit of shire grounding where Sam is saying well, if the gaffer could see me now, he'd say I told you so.

7:38 And it does feel as though they've come to a dead end. So what are they going to do? They're in an impasse and Frodo, he refuses really to accept Gollum's view that obviously they can't go any further. And this is where Frodo is, in some ways, that he's very, he's most heroic. And his face was grim and set, but resolute. And he follows simple logic. I know no other way. Every time I read this, I ask myself a question that Tolkien raises later in this chapter, which is, we never do find out what other way Gandalf might have planned.

8:25 There is no, because he's shocked when he hears about going through Cirith Ungol. So what other way was there? I don't know that he ever answers it. Maybe Gandalf never actually, in terms of the plot, Gandalf never has to say, oh well, if you followed my plan, I'd have gone around the back. It doesn't seem as though there's an easy answer. So Frodo's quite right. I know no other way. And this actually prompts what I think is probably the best summary of the threat that Sauron poses. And surprisingly, it's actually from Gollum that this comes. He says, if the Dark Lord gets the ring, he'll eat us all, if he gets it, eat all the world.

9:13 So he wants to consume and destroy. And I think it's very vivid. And it's simple words, simple stakes. And then you get the little phrase, which is let past to start, but comes back again. He says, give it, meaning the ring, back to Smeagol. So what is going on in this? I don't know, but I'm wondering if Tolkien actually knew what was going to happen. Sometimes as a writer, if you don't plan, I mean, I expect Tolkien knew the ring was going to go into the fire. He had a sense of where his ending was going, but he didn't know the route to get there.

9:58 And he's probably reached a point here. I feel he's reached a point that he has written himself to the edge of what he knows. Philip Pullman has a phrase about writing into the dark. He's in one of those dark moments. He doesn't know the next steps. So I get the sense that this debate is almost a debate he's having with himself. He's hoping the characters will show him a way out of it. That's my guess. That's what I feel myself when I write things, that I meet these moments. And this is what I feel here. There are obviously earlier versions of this in the papers, but I think that it still holds true that when the first drafting of this, he was looking for that chink of light that would show him a way forward.

10:43 Frodo is the person who is kind of representing the stuck author, shall we say. He's saying what comes after must come. I'm going to go ahead, whatever happens. Sam is showing his own heroics by saying that whatever happens, he's not going to go alone. And within this little group of three, Tolkien comes to the realisation that if anyone is going to come up with an alternative, it will have to be Smeagol, Gollum. And he's hinted at it already, of course, when he talked about maybe she will help, which had come in the previous chapter. And he is the one who has the alternative.

11:25 That is logical, isn't it? Because Smeagol has come out of Mordor, so he will know a way back in. So he provides the answer. And that's very often when you're writing, you'll find that the answer is there amongst the elements you've already assembled. You just need to work out which one it is, which of the clues it is, or which thread it is that you tug that will release that particularly knotted point of the plot. The points of view that you get in this chapter are fascinating because you've got largely Sam, you get a bit of Frodo, and you get a bit of the narrator.

12:05 And Sam is interesting here because he is getting to understand what Tolkien puts down as a slow but shrewd mind. He understands the two halves of Gollum and Smeagol, slinker and stinker. And he realises, having heard that discussion, he's the one who knows that Gollum's already been plotting, that the two halves have reached a truce and a temporary alliance. But what's really fascinating is the danger there, if you think, oh, well, Sam knows what's going on, it would make Frodo look a bit of an idiot in contrast.

12:50 And Tolkien's very clear that that's not the case. In fact, he underlines that Frodo is the officer in this little squad trying to invade Mordor. And so he goes to the edge of the little cleft where they're hiding out, the dell, and he's granted a kind of vision of the state of affairs, seeing the movements of peoples. And he sees it's not the armies of Gondor arriving, but it's further allies for the Dark Lord. So knowing that, knowing there is no easy way in, of course, he didn't expect there to be, he takes the first step in his decision, which is saying, Smeagol, I will trust you once more.

13:40 And he goes on with this phrase, may the third time prove the best. The companion to Lord of the Rings points out that this is an old adage, which you find in things like Sir Gawain in the Green Knight. Sir Gawain in the Green Knight, the test of Sir Gawain is the rule of three. It's three times he has to pass the test. And it is actually a rule of narrative three times. That if you're wondering how many times you attempt something, twice that fail and once they succeed, it seems to be a pattern which our storytelling brain likes. But anyway, that has become a sort of saying, and Frodo is using it here.

14:25 Because they have, it's not that Gollum has failed them twice, it's more that they have trusted him in small ways twice and he's not failed them. So this big gesture of trust is the moment when, may it prove the best, that's what's going on here. But Frodo goes on, because occasionally there are these prophetic moments in Lord of the Rings, the sense that this world does have a direction, a shape, a guiding hand. And sometimes it's the insight of a character that points the way. Aron's done this, Galadriel's done this, Gandalf's done this, and Frodo does too.

15:10 Because he warns Gollum that he, Gollum, is the one most at risk. Because the desire of it, that being the ring, may betray you to a bitter end. And the conclusion there, it's a kind of mixture of Sam's point of view and the narrator. Sam is approving of Frodo's sternness. And there's a sort of overall conclusion reached at this point, to help us see Frodo as this noble, heroic figure, which not to mistake his kindness as softness.

15:53 Kindness is not blindness, is what's put here. And I think one of the things that the film did as a disservice to the Frodo character is by casting it so young, you miss out on this mature Frodo taking the decisions. Because of course, the Elijah Wood version of this seems so incredibly young. You don't get that sense of leadership. And it's good to do that reset in the brain to think about Frodo and its character, how far he has to fall with the ring from this authority, the wisdom that he has. There's a sense of his maturity and wisdom here in these moments.

16:38 So Gollum is given a chance to sort of make his case for what they should be doing. And he has this connection back to the tales he was told as a young proto -hobbit, or when he was in the Smeagol and Deagol phrases of his life, with tales out of the south. And it's an interesting way to restate the history of Numenor, which we may have forgotten by this point, because the early discussion of that was way back in Fellowship of the Ring with Aragorn on the road. In fact, before that, it was with Tom Bombadil, wasn't it? But here, it's just summarized again, and it's necessary to summarize it because Gollum is giving the context that he's describing.

17:28 But it's one of those passages that does lots of jobs. It reminds us, it lays out the land, gives us the historical perspective. And it also introduces the idea of the fall of the Dark Lord, Sauron. And there's this mention of when he lost the ring, and Gollum says about there being only four fingers on the black hand. This is interesting, isn't it? Because he's kind of disembodied in the eye, but yet he's seen in the palantir. It's possibly a case where, a bit like the Black Riders, where the shape is clothed in things like robes and gloves.

18:17 But anyway, so it suggests that Sauron does have a physical body as well as that eye. Never quite worked that out in my mind. If you know a bit more, let me know what you think the answer to that is. And then follows a argument mainly between Sam and Gollum. And what I think is interesting here is that you can tell that everybody is frustrated. None of them want to do this, but all of them have to. Frodo because of his promise, Sam because of his loyalty, and Gollum because of his promise to Frodo. So one of the things to learn as an author is that sometimes what people are really feeling can be displaced into something that isn't directly about that.

19:06 So rather than say, Sam was really miffed about it, you actually do it through how he's reacting in this argument. You very clearly get a sense of where they all stand on their current situation, because they're so tetchy, so grumpy. So Sam recognises he's not being fair to Gollum. Why did you bring us this way then? It wasn't Gollum's fault, but he feels that. And he's also pushing back. There is no easy answer. But he's saying even the answer that Gollum is giving sounds too easy. He's correct. Of course he's correct. But then what are they supposed to do?

19:47 But we get the hints that all is not well. Remember in the previous chapter, Sam had noticed the green and the pale light. We get a glimpse of the green gleam when the question is asked, is it guarded? And a second reading, exactly why the green gleam is flashing. But first reading, we're thinking that's a danger sign. There is some kind of guard there. And Gollum also shows here, in another foreshadowing of what later happens, is how he twists an order to suit his purposes. Another reason to distrust him, of course, which both Frodo and Sam are well aware of.

20:28 Because he says he was given an order when he left Mordor to seek the precious. But he goes on to say, but not for the black one. I didn't do it for him. So we see how he can take the words and twist them to his own purposes. So Frodo, of course, is in this invidious position where he's well aware of all these doubts, but he's still got to make a decision. And there's a good summing up of this, which lays this all out. I'll read it because it's worth. This is what the action is in the chapter. It's the decision that comes after realising all of the uncertainties facing him.

21:14 Frodo felt a strange certainty that in this matter, Gollum was for once not so far from the truth as might be suspected, that he had somehow found a way out of Mordor, and at least believed that it was by his own cunning. For one thing, he noted that Gollum used I, and that seemed usually to be a sign on its rare appearances, that some remnants of old truth and sincerity were for the moment on top. But even if Gollum could be trusted on this point, Frodo did not forget the wiles of the enemy. The escape may have been allowed or arranged, and well known in the Dark Tower.

21:54 And in any case, Gollum was plainly keeping a good deal back. This is where the book feels more like a spy thriller, a kind of John le Carré almost. If you think of Gollum, he is a spy, but which side is he working on? Does he know the full agenda that his masters has for him, knowing what he might do? So it's a fascinating psychology, involving both Frodo analysing how to trust or not trust what Gollum says, plus what Gollum knows and what he doesn't know and what he's hiding.

22:39 So when they push Gollum, he does not name Cirith Ungol. The translation of Cirith Ungol is Spider Cleft, but the narrator does gloss that for us. And it's notable that at this moment when the narrator is stepping in, so the Hobbits writing about this in the future, of course, is one of the explanations for this backward looking explanation, is a moment to connect it to the other narrative which we've just left. And it's the one moment in this chapter where Gandalf is most present.

23:22 Frodo doesn't know Gandalf has survived, but we're connected here to the moment when the Palantir is thrown out of the of Orthanc. So here, again, it's these moments where if you unpack it, you're doing lots of things. You're saying, this is where we are in the two narratives. That's how far those lot have got. This is what's at stake over there. But they are, in terms of Gandalf, always thinking about Frodo. And really Gandalf is very present in this last section as Frodo makes up his mind. Even with just a little dream he has of him riding on an army of Oliphants, he stays with Frodo.

24:10 And the narrator describes Gandalf thinking about Frodo always with hope and pity, which are really the chief values in Lord of the Rings. Hope and pity and love, of course. And then there's one of those beautiful little sentences of the small person up against the massive odds. Frodo is fully aware of how inadequate he is to the task. When you have a hero, he shouldn't, well, the ancient Greeks used to have people like Hercules. We have, I suppose, superheroes, but superheroes are only interesting when there's kryptonite around.

24:53 There is no need for kryptonite with a halfling because they've already got the odds set against them. We need to have a feeling that they cannot do this easily. And here he was, a little halfling from the Shire, a simple hobbit of the quiet countryside, expected to find a way where the Great Ones could not go or dared not go. Remember, we're on the doorstep of Mordor, which is where all that Aragorn can do in a few weeks' time is march up blowing his trumpets, pretending to attack one of the Great Ones. They can't get in. It has to be the little person who does.

25:38 And what we get as we run up to this decision, which is the seesaw moment in the adventure, we're going to go in by the gate, we're going to try this other way, and the decision is the action, but we get a moment of prolonged stillness. We get an overflight of an eagle looking down, or an imagined eagle. We see the characters from above, these small characters hidden in the landscape. And then following that, the Black Riders overfly at altitude.

26:24 And the stillness is very powerful. It's underlining that, it's like when you get those talent shows, for example, where they're giving a verdict and they run on with the drumbeat saying, and the answer is, and that keeps going, you suspend the decision point so much to build the tension. In a quieter way, this is what's going here. So again, when you're writing, if you've got some moment where someone's declaring or deciding something, don't rush your fence. Spend the time to make it work. And Frodo, in fact, has a couple of things which helps him shift.

27:05 First is the arrival of the Men of the South. They are described very much like an Ottoman army or a crusading, as in a Islamic crusading army, how they would be described in a medieval world or drawn in a medieval manuscript with their gold rings and their dark eyes and so on, and colourful, coming from the South. And adding to the idea of what it seems as an exotic to the Northern kingdoms is Sam's thought that, okay, if they're men from the South, maybe they've got olyphants with them.

27:46 Here we are very much in a medieval world, because an olyphant is an old word for an elephant. Elephants appear in strange and wonderful forms in medieval bestiaries, because people didn't know what they actually were like. And his poem reflects that. It's the sort of, I haven't seen this thing, but this is what I think they're like, including such nonsense ideas that they never lie on the ground or even to die. It's that idea of the imperfect knowledge of something you're hearing about in a kind of Chinese whispers game, where it goes from person to person, you never quite know. And you see that Sam is curious.

28:26 He wants to know if there's an olyphant and Gollum really isn't, that's another difference in their character. But Sam's openness and excitement about the world and his recitation of what is a shyer poem in this most unshyer-like, unfunny situation is what prompts laughter and laughter is said, it released him from his hesitation. The shyer and Sam helps him make the decision. And he goes back to the idea, which is how we started in this conversation, that trusting Gollum for a third time will hopefully produce the way into Mordor that he requires.

29:12 And Gollum gets the last word in this chapter. He says, soft and quick as shadows we must be. So it ends in uncertainty. But we have moved on, we have made the decision, we are progressing. So we started having been told we arrive. And now we've been told, actually, there's a long way, not much further to go, because the way is shut, you can't go in that way. And so the stillness is broken. And they move on into one of my favourite chapters, because they're going to reach Ithilien, which is going to be a green breath of fresh air after the dust and the ashes and the marshes that we've been spending, and the rocks that we spent the last three chapters lingering in.

30:07 Thank you very much for listening. Thanks for listening to MythMakers Podcast, brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. Visit OxfordCentreForFantasy.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.