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

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 today we have reached a sad chapter in the Fellowship of the Ring, because it's the final one in that volume in the Fellowship of the Ring, because it's the final one in that volume, chapter 10 in Book 2, the Breaking of the Fellowship. So in this podcast we're going to do our usual look through the chapter, but we're also going to give some thoughts on the whole shape of this first volume. So, looking at this particular chapter, it's quite brief. Actually. It falls into four sections. There's the initial section where they are posing the question about which direction they need to go in. Then there's the brilliant and fascinating confrontation between Boromir and Frodo. Then there is Frodo's experience on the top of Amon Hen and then there is the aftermath of the decision that he takes at that point. 01:21 This book finishes in a slightly different place to the place that the Peter Jackson films chose to end in, and we'll have a look at that when we reach it, okay, so first of all, it begins with a night watch. They have landed the boats on this lawn and it is a pleasant place, or Aragorn remembers it as a pleasant place, so it's a feeling of a sort of haven, or it's more like the pivot on tipping the balance. So they're even going to go one way or another and they are in that pivot point. At the moment we don't know which way they're going to go. But even when Frodo is on the watch, aragorn is restless and he has this wonderful line, which I think does make it into the film script slightly changed, but it sums up the mood of this first section, when Frodo says you know, while you're awake you're not supposed to be on watch. Aragorn says a shadow and a threat has been growing in my sleep. 02:23 I love this idea of the rangers having this extra sense that still keeps going, even when they're asleep. They're so highly trained, so highly attuned to the environment around them. And we get a nice little intervention here from Sting because Frodo draws his weapon and they see a faint blue sheen. So what is this doing in terms of story? Well, it's ratcheting up the tension. They can't hang around with this decision. If there was no sign of any enemies, then they could take as long as they like camping in this nice spot. No, this is the way the author is putting pressure on the members of the fellowship so that the decision that they have to take feels like it's made under pressure. Got to keep that tension going. 03:15 Then there's a line break and we get this lovely short sentence to take us into the next part of this first section. The day came like fire and smoke. When you actually think about that, that's quite hard to work out what's going on. And then he actually explains what he means in the next three or four sentences there's a beautiful description of the rising sun and the way the clouds feel like. There's the fire of the sun rising through the cloud, so well worth looking at, if you haven't noticed that part as a piece of description. And Tol Brandir is mentioned. Now. 03:57 Tol Brandir gets a couple of shout outs in this chapter and it's fascinating that it's an unvisited place. It's basically an island of birds because it's so sheer and it reminds me of the excessiveness of Middle Earth. There is so much created in it that we don't go there in this story. It's just there because Tolkien can see it and I think that's the richness and the depth of his world creation, in that we can all say, oh yes, tolbrandia, even though it has no relevance to this plot. It's just there as part of this feeling that we're never going to run sort of rub out Middle-earth and find something tacky underneath it. It's silver all the way through. So we now have the moment when they really can't carry on sailing down the river, putting off this decision. 04:50 And because it's a while since that decision was first laid out, though, it's been hanging over them for the last chapter or so, there's a useful recap which comes from Aragorn, and I think you need this here so that everyone can sort of gather around. It's like a mini Council of Elrond, it's a Council of the Fellowship. The day has come at last, the day of choice which we have long delayed what shall become of our company that has travelled so far in fellowship? And he lays out the various options. You can go east, you can go west. Going west means going with Boromir to the walls of Gondor, and going east, ominously, is to the fear and shadow. But he also raises the idea that they could break up the fellowship and choose to go in different directions. 05:46 And here there is a wonderful silence. There was a long silence in which no one spoke or moved. Absence of sound absence of anything is a great way to punctuate a moment. I fear that the burden is laid upon you. So, really, this is Frodo's big chapter of. Is he going to stick to the quest and he knows what he should decide, but it is a very big decision and he asked for an hour to make that. So you're still putting off the moment of actually making up his mind. 06:31 And I would like to point out here that Aragorn's response to that is quite interesting. He goes for formality. He says Frodo, son of Drogo, you have an hour. And it's like he is dipping into a more official role. It's not just friendship at stake, it's the fate of Middle-earth. And that formality reminds them that this is no longer just a matter between them, it's going back to great matters of state as were aired at the Council of Elrond. So it's a very deliberate choice to use Frodo's sort of full honorific at that point on Aragorn's part. 07:17 But immediately after we have Aragorn taking on a more formal tone, we get the typical Sam undercutting because he's muttering away. It's as plain as a pike staff it is. And we also get a dip into Sam's point of view, him noticing Boromir's gaze following Frodo and this is the chapter in which, really, sam rises up through the company to take his role, as he's already at Frodo's right hand. But this is obviously where he steps up to be his only companion. But he's still there with his plain hobbit sense. So we now go with Frodo. We're following Frodo's point of view as he walks up the hill, trying to make up his mind or really just get the courage to do what he knows he has to do, and he has this strange feeling that unfriendly eyes were upon him. Love that. But when he looks around, it's Boromir all smiles. 08:22 And in this wonderful, wonderful confrontation with Boromir one of my favorite conversations in the whole of the Lord of the Rings you get this disconnect between the superficial things going on on Boromir's face and then the ugliness and the bitterness and the anger that's roiling away inside. It's a very subtle exchange and I like the way Tolkien uses the wild to punctuate it. He used silence earlier, but here there's a moment, just when they first start their debate argument, where, as four short sentences, let's look at them. Boromir stood silent, rauros roared endlessly on, the wind murmured in the branches of the trees, frodo shivered. I don't think that the connections are deliberately pointed here. But looking at this now I was thinking that that Rauros, which is the waterfall, roared endlessly on. That's like the sort of the tug of the ring, in a way also the passage of time, of course the river being time, but it's like the undercurrent, the roaring of passion and emotion under this scene. So it feels that that waterfall is supplying a sort of audible version of what's going on inside the characters. And then the wind murmured in the branches of the trees feels like the disquiet, the knowing there were unfriendly eyes nearby that Frodo was feeling and of course Frodo shivered connecting to that. And they have quite a civilized debate about what's best to do until Frodo mentions the ring and it's a tipping point for Boromir. It's as though you know, the red flag to the bull moment. 10:30 And here we get a line which is transposed in the Peter Jackson films to the scene on the snowy scene where Boromir lifts the ring out of the when it drops onto the snowfield. Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing? I quite like that scene in the film. It's dramatic and it reminds us of the presence of the ring, but it is brilliantly. It's brilliant here, isn't it? Because that is really. It sums up everything that's going on inside Boromir. 11:11 It's this pesky small thing, the ring and Frodo that's within his grasp, which is making everyone suffer terribly. And you know there should be a quick answer to this, an easy answer. And his easy answer, of course, turns out to be highly unacceptable. So Boromir argues on, and he really does, almost he loses track of who he's talking to. He has been nursing these resentments since the Council of Elrond. Who he is now dismissing? Elves and half-elves and wizards, they'll all come to grief, he says, but not so the men of Minas Tirith. And he leapfrogs his way through this argument. Well, they have no use for it. And if Aragorn doesn't want it, then why not Boromir? He's talking about himself in the third person. Never a good sign. 12:10 The ring would give me the power of command, so he knows what it will do, how I would drive the hosts of Mordor and all men would flock to my banner. And Galadriel spoke of the same temptation from the ring. So she felt likewise that she could use it command armies. But she knew what then would happen. That's how it starts, not how it finishes, and it's also a reminder of the scene in the temptations of christ, the one where the devil offers, offers all the kingdoms of the world to bow down before. That is a. So there's a sense of, it's a kind of temptation, the drive to power that is as old as time, so as old as the Bible. That needs to be rejected, because if you take something for power, it doesn't end well, unlike Frodo, who's taking it not with that at all in his mind, he's taking it to get rid of it. 13:13 However, having said that, boromir does land some very good arguments, and the one that I thought well, you know he's got a point really is the one where he says the only plan that is proposed to us is that a halfling should walk blindly into Mordor and offer the enemy every chance of recapturing it for himself. Yeah, that is the, and of course he calls it folly, and it is folly. And the elves and the wizards know it's folly, but they also know that foolishness, folly, is the only way to defeat such a calculating enemy as is Sauron. I would, if you haven't read this chapter for a while, do go back and just read this conversation. It's full of lovely details. There's one particular detail of this division between how Boromir is trying to appear on the outside to what's going on inside, which is summed up in a very scary moment when he rests his hand on Frodo as if he's his friend, saying oh don't worry, I'll take it from you, I'll look after it. But Frodo feels it trembling with suppressed excitement. 14:30 Horrible to see a friend turn into an enemy. To see a friend turn into an enemy and then his final collapse is quite quick in the end, but it's in masterful steps. It goes in one little speech he makes from come with me to Minas Tirith and we'll take stock there to lend it to me. That's going to go well, isn't it To? It is mine. He succumbs to the belief that he is the best person for it. So he should have it, and it's at this point we get the description. His fair and pleasant face was hideously changed. A raging fire was in his eyes. A raging fire was in his eyes. So things have turned ugly. Indeed. 15:18 Frodo escapes by putting on the ring, which is one of the few times in the book where he actually does so. So it's a big event as a result, and it turns out to be a terrible place to do it. But also note this little detail that as he runs away, the man gasps, stared for a moment, amazed. The man is capitalized. Boromir is here representing the world of men. So the ring has been offered to the elves Galadriel and refused, offered to the wizards and refused, and now it's not offered to a man, but he's sort of representing Isildur and all his race at this moment. And of course his response is also racially based because he shouts miserable trickster, curse you and all halflings to death and darkness. So this links into those moments when there is a debate about who is the best person to carry the ring, which race on earth, on Middle Earth is the best to do it. So don't miss that sneaky capitalization there. 16:30 It's a great scene and I think it's quite well done in the Peter Jackson movie. But it's quite short, isn't it? And I think the more of the debate, more acting, would almost have been great. So I think they could have extended that scene, but that was already quite a long film. But you know, the one in the book is brilliant and I felt you could add some more in from that. The one in the book is brilliant and I felt you could add some more in from that. 17:01 So, anyway, boromir says these terrible things, but his madness is short-lived and he immediately goes to remorse. And that's the tragedy of Boromir is, it's not a deep rooted evil, it's just he is driven mad by the presence of the ring. Whether or not he could have, there was no going back from this moment and he could never have accompanied Frodo any further. But running the thought experiment if he had survived, what kind of person would he have been? It's that sort of little canker nibbling away at him. He possibly would have been fine once the ring was destroyed, but, um, there is always a question mark over how he would have behaved once aragorn arrived at minas tirith to claim the throne. It's a fascinating character, boromir, um, because he has the capacity for so many good martial qualities, leadership qualities, but he also has this fatal flaw of pride, really pride and greed for power. 18:08 Anyway, we stay with Frodo and he runs up the hill and finds himself on the top of Amon Hen, where he sits on this sort of open-air throne, really, and there's a wonderful description that sums up this moment he's feeling like a lost child that had clambered upon the throne of mountain kings. So that links back to the Argonath and the great kings of Gondor. He's just a small hobbit, so he feels like a child on a huge throne. So it sort of makes the burden that he's under even more outrageous. It just feels like he's struggling with so much. 18:51 And then we get this wonderful passage which gives us an overview of everything that's going on. It's like the author view or the godlike view. It's so useful as a writer to have these moments. It ties Frodo into all the events of the plot that's about to interlace, it's about to split into many directions. So we get a glimpse of Rohan, a glimpse of Minas Tirith, a glimpse of this, a glimpse of that, so you can always tie it back to this moment. But also we get a geographic overview which lays out where the rest of the story is going to be played out. And it also brings us possibly almost the closest to Sauron. We had the moment when the eye appeared in the mirror of Galadriel, but here we have an almost being captured moment which is very powerfully described. I'm just going to read that, because the sounds of it listen out to the sound of this passage. To read that because the sounds of it listen out to the sound of this passage. 20:03 So he looks further and further over into the land of Mordor. Darkness lay there under the sun. Under the sun that's very biblical Old Testament, ecclesiastes Fire glowed amid the smoke, mount Doom was burning and a great reek rising. He said that I feel like classical sentences to me. Then, at last, his gaze was held wall upon wall, battlement upon battlement, black, immeasurably strong. Mountain of iron, gate of steel, tower of adamant. He saw it Barad-dûr, fortress of Sauron. All hope left him and suddenly he felt the eye. That's a very exciting passage to read, but just look at the rhetorical tricks pulled out there. You've got the repetition of the structure, description, so you've got mountain of iron, gate of steel, tower of adamant three linked descriptions. And you've got inversion, so he saw it comes at the end, a sort of Germanic structure, and then you've got the sort of capstone of all Barad-dûr, fortress of Sauron. 21:28 I love this particular passage for that reason really, because it helps you see the whole story. Because sometimes in big fantasy epics the worlds can feel formless and confusing and you don't really know where you are in them, just sort of vague forests or borders or whatever. You never feel that in Middle Earth, and it's passages like that that help really locate you and pinpoint you to a location. They are the dropped pin on Google Earth. There you go. I reckon Tolkien would have quite enjoyed Google Earth, just the thinking. 22:08 So we've moved from a battle of wills with Boromir and we move now to the battle that is raging in Frodo's mind, which of course has, you know, the ring is also worming its way in there. So it's him with the ring as sort of interfering the power of evil, but it's also something else then crops up. So we've got never, never, or was it verily, I come, I come to you. So that's one sort of voice, and then he's got take it off, take it off, fool, take it off, take off the ring. It's not till, sometimes later, that we find that this is actually Gandalf. He's only described at this point, when we still think Gandalf is long gone, as just the voice. 23:01 And it's very important that in this battle of the mind, that the moment of decision actually is that of free will. Under the whole sort of theology of Lord of the Rings, the burden has to be taken on willingly, as a free choice, no matter how difficult that choice is. And so, after that debate. All those two voices are in the eye. Frodo has this moment of clarity. Suddenly he was aware of himself again. Frodo, neither the voice nor the eye. Free to choose, and with one remaining instant in which to do, he takes off the ring, which is the choice not to give up to Sauron. And it's also when his purpose clarifies in his mind. So he is freely choosing to go alone into Mordor. Into Mordor. 24:04 I kept feeling there were almost biblical undertones to this particular chapter because of the temptation and the struggle of taking on the sort of sacrificial mission. And this feels like a kind of Garden of Gethsemane scene for Frodo take this cup away from me moment. But when he is able to make his mind up, there is a feeling of comfort in that A great weariness was on him, but his will was firm and his heart lighter. He now says this rather, this is really Frodo all over. Some I cannot trust, and those I can trust are too dear to me. I will go alone. So he is facing basically what he thinks is a suicide mission, alone, because he has very little hope at this point. 24:52 So that's the end of that section on Amun-Hen, and then there's a brief final section where we go back to the rest of the company and they're still debating what's to be done, not realizing that some of the decisions are being taken elsewhere, out of their power. And it's interesting that you get an insight into the attitudes of the company with Gimli and Legolas both not that keen on the idea of going to Mordor, nor are the hobbits, so if it was left to a company vote they would not be heading into the shadow. But Sam is absolutely aware of what needs to be done. He, he knows what his master is thinking. So his plain hobbit sense again wins out. And Aragorn is saying to the rest of the company it's interesting the way it's phrased it says it's not our place to tell Frodo his decision. There are other powers at work, far stronger. So he has a sense of the greater destinies that are at play here. 26:00 Boromir's return and the strange manner in which he returns and Sam's instant apprehension of what Boromir has been up to, ie no good. It prompts the breaking of the fellowship. It's they scatter, they're all running off in different directions and Aragorn gives out orders to the Gimli, legolas and Boromir to, you know, run after the others. But he says to Sam follow me, come with me. But he doesn't slow his pace. So he too is really part of this scattering impulse. And we later find out that Legolas and Gimli hunt orcs. They don't actually really go and look for anybody. So there is this sort of madness that takes over the company at this point which sends them off in different directions. And Sam is the only one who keeps his head. He works it out. 26:56 Frodo can't fly back to the boats, and here's the last of my biblical references. Here is that he feels very much to me like Simon Peter flinging himself into the water to go to his master, which is an event that happens after the resurrection. When Peter sees Jesus on the shore. There's this line where he flings himself out of the boat fully dressed and wades to the shore. Very Sam-like and I wouldn't be surprised if Tolkien, as a Catholic who went to church pretty much every weekend, might have this in the back of his mind and like another Peter throwing himself into the water, moment when he can't walk on water and begins to drown. Sam also has the same experience. Save me, mr Frodo, I'm drownded. And that actually means Frodo's got to take the ring off so Sam can see the hand trying to pull him out of danger. 28:00 And then there's this sweet exchange at the end where Frodo's saying look, you can't stop me, sam, I'm going to Mordor. And Sam says, of course you are, and I'm coming with you. That could have been the end of that particular chapter. But there's a little addendum to. In fact there's a description of them paddling their way across to the eastern bank and it's noted here that it's very hard work doing so and question mark whether Frodo would have managed it on his own anyway. He could have fallen at the first hurdle trying to get across the current. But they do eventually land and are setting off on the eastern shore, which we know is the the decision point. They're going east. But there's also another little addendum which I don't very often bother to read because it's the, you know, coming soon, and it's right. 29:03 At the end it says here ends the first part of the history of the War of the Ring. The second part is called the Two Towers, since the events recounted in it are dominated by Orthanc, the citadel of Saruman and the fortress of Minis Morgul that guards the secret entrance to Mordor. It tells of the deeds and perils of all the members of the now-sundered fellowship until the coming of the Great Darkness. And the third part tells of the last defence against the Shadow and the end of the mission of the Ringbearer in the return of the King. So that answers the question about what are the two towers? So not sure that Minas Morgul really does dominate two towers in the way that is suggested here. But there we are. We have reached the end of the Fellowship of the Ring. So the first thing obviously, when we do our little overview of the book is it's not really the end of anything. 30:00 Tolkien conceived of the story as one whole volume and you probably know already that it was paper rationing that meant it was divided into three parts in the 1950s to make it a sustainable printing. 30:17 But the effect of that is, I think, quite elegant and actually it's a happy accident that it happened like that, because book one is now neatly seen as a Hobbit centric story with the addition of Strider, with the introduction of the Black Riders. That's book one, and book two is really the story of the Fellowship and it has its dark moments in Moria and its light moments in Lorien and its sad moments with the breaking of the Fellowship. So I think that the Fellowship of the Ring. In many ways, I love all of this book. I wouldn't be doing this podcast if I didn't, but it's certainly in terms of what it offers the reader. It's so rich and so varied that it's a very satisfying story to read in this volume and I certainly remembered when I first read it, immediately turning to the Two Towers, because it made you want to read on. So we have reached the breaking of the fellowship and we will reconvene at a later date to start on the two towers. 31:44 - Speaker 2 (None) 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. Thank you.