The Sadness of a Second Reading

27 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods, Villains

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Aragorn, Arwen, Canterbury Tales, Chaucer, Ents, Fangorn, Frodo, Gandalf, Herblore, Hildebrandt, Hobbits, Isengard, Meduseld, Merry and Pippin, Ring, Saruman, Sauron, Smaug, The Lord of the Rings, Theoden, Tolkien, Villains

Welcome again, dear readers!

We’re sure to return to villains—Orcs first, we think—but, as we reread material for the last posting, we came across a passage which so struck us that we had to sit down and write a posting about it…

Isengard is ruined. So much of what Tolkien described in such vivid detail in “The Road to Isengard”, both before Saruman decided to be a rival to Sauron and after, has been destroyed—here is the Hildebrandts’ version of it in Saruman’s early days

And here it is when Saruman’s ambition overcame his sense of mission as one of the Istari and he could tell Gandalf that their job was to strive for “Knowledge, Rule, Order”—

But Fangorn and his Ents have changed all of that—

So that, when Gandalf and his company appear, they see

“…And all about, stone, cracked and splintered into countless jagged shards, was scattered far and wide, or piled in ruinous heaps.”

On top of one of those heaps

“…two small figures…at their ease. One seemed asleep; the other, with crossed legs and arms behind his head leaned back against a broken rock and sent from his mouth long wisps and little rings of thin blue smoke.”

Not tiny Smaugs sunning, it is, of course Merry and Pippin making themselves comfortable in the wreckage of Saruman’s palace/fortress/factory. That comfort is an affront to Gimli—or, at least, he pretends that it is—but it is a source of amusement to the rest of the company and the Hobbits themselves are a source of amazement to Theoden:

“The days are fated to be filled with marvels. Already I have seen many since I left my house; and now here before my eyes stand yet another of the folk of legend. Are these not the Halflings, that some among us call the Holbytlan?”

But Theoden’s wonder is greater: not only are these figures from distant legend, but, “I had not heard that they spouted smoke from their mouths.”

This sets Merry off on a lecture, which prefigures, of course, his later treatise, Herblore of the Shire, but which Gandalf stops in its tracks, saying,

“You do not know your danger, Theoden…These hobbits will sit on the edge of ruin [ironic here, as they are, in fact, doing so—it’s Saruman’s ruin] and discuss the pleasures of the table, or the small doings of their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers and remoter cousins to the ninth degree, if you encourage them with undue patience.”

Theoden, however, shows that, in the future, at least, he will encourage them with that patience—

“Farewell, my hobbits! May we meet again in my house! There you shall sit beside me and tell me all that your hearts desire: the deeds of your grandsires, as far as you can reckon them; and we will speak also of Tobold the Old and his herb-lore. Farewell!”

Merry and Pippin, usually less-than-respectful, are quite charmed by this and behave better than usual:

“The Hobbits bowed low. ‘So that is the King of Rohan!’ said Pippin in an undertone. ‘A fine old fellow. Very polite.’”

If this is your first reading, there is something to look forward to—or, if you are Gandalf, to dread. For the more experienced, we already see the splitting up of Merry and Pippin, Pippin’s whirlwind ride with Gandalf to Minas Tirith, and Merry’s equally grueling ride to the Pelennor and his part in the last heroic moments of Theoden’s life and his final words on the subject of that earlier promise:

“Live now in blessedness; and when you sit in peace with your pipe, think of me! For never now shall I sit with you in Meduseld, as I promised, or listen to your herb-lore.”

And this brings us to the point: if you know what’s going to happen—in detail—why read this again?

The answers are many and here are only a few from an entire spectrum: it’s such a rich story that you can easily read it again and find something new every time; you’d like to escape to Middle Earth because, even troubled as it is with Sauron, it makes more sense than Here and Now; you don’t read it all, but there are scenes and/or characters you like to revisit; it has become a kind of happy yearly ritual, as Chaucer fans reread The Canterbury Tales every spring. For us, among all of the other reasons (and we would say that probably every one makes sense, in its way) there is another reason and it has to do with that knowing.

Wherever the sun shines directly on an object, a person, there is a shadow. Shadows can be knife-edge precise or vague, still or moving, smaller than that which casts them or greater. Knowing what’s to come in Tolkien is like seeing each event with its outcome, its shadow, all at the same moment and, as so often in The Lord of the Rings, what’s to come is compromised—if there’s happiness, it’s happiness of the moment: Sauron is defeated, but the Elves fade; Arwen marries Aragorn at last, but, he being mortal, even if a long-lived one, she is left a widow for many years; Frodo survives the Ring quest, but somehow is never healed. Events cast shadows in our current life, but we only see the shadows in retrospect in this world. In Middle Earth, on second and subsequent readings, events cast their shadows before as well as after themselves. And there is a pleasure in this. One might say, “Hmph. Adolescent thinking. Really self-pity in literary disguise.” We would disagree.

One of the most powerful enhancers of emotion is contrast, beginning with the very idea of human mortality. As so many religions and philosophical systems advise: live now, in the moment, because there are just so many moments and then…?

Thus, to read Theoden’s affectionate promise to the hobbits and to know, at that same moment, that it will be broken, and very dramatically, with Theoden’s death, is, potentially, to see that shadow, which is the contrast between what is said now and what will happen then.

So, dear readers, what do you think? We imagine that you’re like us, with favorite books about which it doesn’t matter in the least that you know them practically by heart—surprise is only the first sensation—like opening a wonderful present which, once opened, you’ll use and love again and again, always grateful to the giver.

MTCIDC

Food for Thought

20 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by Ollamh in J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods, Villains

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Eating, Gollum, Isengard, Lembas, Longbottom Leaf, Lorien, Man-Meat, Mordor, Orc, Rivendell, Rohan, Saruman, Sauron, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien

Dear Readers,

Welcome!

In this posting, we’re continuing our discussion of villains, specifically in Tolkien, but, for a change, we mention the good guys, as well.

We begin with a wail by Gollum, when assured by Frodo that, if there’s no other way to go, he will enter Mordor by the Morannon, the Black Gate.

“No use that way! No use! Don’t take the Precious to Him! He’ll eat us all, if he gets it, eat all the world!” L637

It’s not surprising that Gollum would express his fear in such terms—after all, in his first appearance in The Hobbit, his first words were

“Bless us and splash us, my precioussss! I guess it’s a choice feast, at least a tasty morsel it’d make us, gollum!”

And this from a creature who appears ready to consume anything living, as the narrator says of him:

“He was looking out of his pale lamp-like eyes for blind fish, which he grabbed with his long fingers as quick as thinking. He liked meat too. Goblin he thought good, when he could get it…”

What were goblins in The Hobbit have become the Orcs in The Lord of the Rings and Gollum would still be interested in them, but now we’re told what they eat—and drink.

“Ugluk thrust a flask between his teeth and poured some burning liquid down his throat: he felt a hot fierce glow flow through him. The pain in his legs and ankles vanished. He could stand.”

“An Orc stooped over him, and flung him some bread and a strip of raw dried flesh. He ate the stale grey bread hungrily, but not the meat. He was famished, but not yet so famished as to eat flesh flung to him by an Orc, the flesh of he dared not guess what creature.”

“”We are the servants of Saruman the Wise, the White Hand: the Hand which gives us man’s –flesh to eat.”

To judge by what Merry and Pippin find when they come to Isengard, Saruman certainly didn’t stint himself, including casks of Longbottom Leaf from the Shire.

And here is a glaring contrast between the two sides in The Lord of the Rings, and it has to do with plenty and enjoyment. Saruman seems to have all the wealth in the world, but always wants more, and what he has does not appear to be shared out equally. Sauron, Gollum says, wants to eat the world, but would he ever be full?

Contrast the traveling supplies of the orcs as you see them above in our text with lembas

As the elves describe it, “…it is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is more pleasant than cram, by all accounts.” To which Gimli agrees enthusiastically, “Why, it is better than the honey-cakes of the Beornings, and that is great praise, for the Beornings are the best bakers that I know of…”

Only contrast the look of West and East to see the difference. Here is what the plains of Rohan must look like:

And here is an artist’s rendering of Mordor:

It’s a striking difference topographically, but the difference is even greater in terms of behavior. Isengard is a fortress and a factory, a little Mordor set against the greater Mordor to the east. It can also be a prison, as Gandalf finds out. In contrast, think of the welcome in Rivendell

and Lorien

The West doesn’t plan to eat the world, instead, it lives in a fruitful land, which it makes more fruitful, and it offers this in hospitality to those who come in peace.

This is what is really at stake in The Lord of the Rings, that sense of bounty, generosity, and pleasure, which it must defend from what would eat all the world.

And, as always, we ask what you think, dear readers?

Thanks for reading,

MTCIDC,

Personae

15 Friday May 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods, Villains

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Alan Lee, Antagonists, Bosch, Bruegel, Christina Rossetti, Corsairs, Easterlings, Gorbag, Gruenewald, Haradrim, Minions, Nazgul, Orc, Sauron, Shagrat, The Wind, Tolkien

A man is known by the company he keeps.

Old Proverb

Who Has Seen the Wind?

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.

Christina Rossetti from Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme Book (1872)

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always!

In our last posting, we talked about villains visible and invisible and suggested that, in the case of Sauron, rather than showing him as a searchlight eye,

(This is from the LOTR Project— a great site, much recommended).

there were other and more potentially convincing ways to depict such a menacing figure.

One was seeing his reflection in his minions.

(Can you wait for this?)

Imagine that seeing him this way is like seeing the effect a strong wind has on trees.

Sauron’s minions fall into three main categories: the Nazgul, various humans, most from what appear to be the less-civilized peoples of the south—Corsairs of Umbar, Easterlings, and the Haradrim.

The Nazgul

are the most daunting, but we’re told only a limited amount about them, we see them very selectively, and their speech is recorded mainly as threats. We see the humans even less and we really don’t hear them at all. It’s the Orcs of whom we’re shown the most.

Sauron is described as once being “comely”, but his present condition (except perhaps for his eyes—make that eye) is hard to determine. Tolkien could never quite settle on the origin of the Orcs, but, they are definitely less than attractive.

Illustrators of Orcs tend, we think, to be strongly influenced by early-Renaissance northern German painters, like Bosch, who depicted devils and demons as hybrids between humans and birds and animals.

This does not, however, seem to be in line with Tolkien’s thinking. If as Fangorn says, they were created as a mockery of elves, one would presume that they would be much more human in look, but perhaps with exaggerated features, and this seems to be closer to what Tolkien had in mind, although physical description tends to be less detailed.

Here’s an Alan Lee which we think is more like what Tolkien imagined.

If they are northern Orcs—those whom Sauron employs—they tend to be smaller and paler. If Uruk-hai, primarily used by Saruman, larger and black. (Although a tracker for Sauron is described as small and black.) Here’s the contrast of the two types in the confrontation between Ugluk and Grishnakh:

“…a large black Orc, probably Ugluk, standing facing Grishnakh, a short crook-legged creature very broad and with long arms that hung almost to the ground.”

As Orcs may be a mockery of Elves, their speech sounds like it’s derived from the conversations Tolkien heard among his nco’s in the trenches—foul-mouthed (in a modified form), cheerfully abusive, and full of casual threats.

It’s also instructive to note that there appear to be no Orcs in command positions beyond captain—the rank of Ugluk and Grishnakh, Gorbag and Shagrat. Beyond are the Nazgul, whom the Orcs both dread and envy. (“Those Nazgul give me the creeps…But He likes ‘em; they’re His favorites nowadays, so it’s no use grumbling.”) When we hear these Orcs talk, then, we are being given the mass of Sauron’s soldiery, as below them there is only a babel of cries, cheers, and curses, like a translation of the baying of a pack of hounds.

Throughout all of the Orc conversation, there runs a joint theme: criticism of superiors (no names—but even up to Sauron himself) and fear of being heard doing so, as when Gorbag says:

“They don’t tell us all they know, do they? Not by half. But they can make mistakes, even the Top Ones can.” “Sh, Gorbag!” Shagrat’s voice was lowered, so that even with his strangely sharpened hearing could only just catch what was said. “They may, but they’ve got eyes and ears everywhere; some among my lot, as like as not…”

This suggestion of internal spies reflects a basic uneasiness to be found everywhere under Sauron’s rule: no one trusts anyone else at any level in what Frodo calls “the spirit of Mordor”, leading to murder between rival bands of Orcs and even between individuals, as Sam and Frodo witness, when soldier and tracker trade threats and insults before tracker kills soldier with an arrow.

So what do Sauron’s minions mirror, which would provide us with any clearer image of the nearly-invisible villain?

Certainly, we might see that he is incapable of gaining any kind of following at all among the dominant peoples of western Middle Earth. First, his armies are led by the ancient undead, who frighten their own side as much as they do the enemy. Second, his human recruits are half-civilized people from the far south, plunderers, with no stake in things beyond gain. Third, the bulk of his armies are made up of creatures who are, in a sense, not genuine, but simply mockeries of actual living beings and whose loyalty to their maker is, at best, questionable, even as they fear him.

Thus, we might imagine that, for all that he is powerful enough to command magic ghosts and armies of primitive men and mutants, Sauron is, ultimately, fearful, suspicious, and divisive and so transparently a source of instability that he can neither convince nor menace any of the free peoples of Middle Earth into having anything to do with him.

So, as always, we end by asking you, dear readers, what you think? And, as always, we thank you for reading.

MTCIDC

Now You Don’t See Me, Now You Don’t

07 Thursday May 2015

Posted by Ollamh in J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods, Villains

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1984, Antagonists, Big Brother, Hobbits, Invisible, Palantir, Paradise Lost, Prince Valiant, Ramayana, Ravana, Saruman, Sauron, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Villains, Visible

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

Imagine this—and we’re sure it’s happened to you. You’re working, somewhere by yourself, maybe downstairs. It’s late. Very. Everyone else is long asleep. And you suddenly, for no easy reason, look up. It’s nothing. Nothing…visible. Is it something you heard, then? But what? Is it even a sound—and certainly not something distinctive, like things in old horror movies—chains, groans, thumping footsteps from overhead—but maybe something very quiet—almost nothing more than the disturbance of familiar patterns like appliance hums. In fact, maybe it’s the silence under the familiar patterns which magnifies it. No matter what it is, it’s there. And, at the moment you actively take notice, the creepy feeling catches hold, and you sit, listening ever more intently. (Holding your breath is optional, but a popular choice for times like this.)

Recently, we wrote about two kinds of villains, those we called “open-ended” and those we called “terminal”. Another classification which might spring from that eerie feeling described above: villains visible and villains invisible.

Let’s return for a moment to that not-so-quiet place where your work was disturbed by…what? If you were a small child, perhaps it would be easy to give it shape from a fairy tale book you’d read, or a movie you’d seen. One of us, for example, was haunted in far childhood by a Hal Foster Prince Valiant illustration in which Prince Valiant has been drugged by Morgan le Fay. Every night, creatures like those in the picture would creep out of the eaves doors at the far end of the room and clutch at the bottom of the bed…

As we’re adults (sort of), however, do we necessarily embody whatever it is at such moments? And there’s that second question: do we want to? For all that we may be creeped out, is there some odd, perverse pleasure in being creeped out? Certainly those who make horror movies think so! But is there a difference between seeing what scares you and only feeling it?

With that in mind, suppose that you’re not you, spooking yourself (yes, pun intended) late at night in your living room, but Tolkien constructing a long and complex combination of myth and adventure. You’ve got a wide assortment of protagonists, beginning with some of those beings you created in an earlier story, Hobbits.

What about villains, antagonists? As we’ve discussed in a previous posting, they are necessary to provide friction, that resistance which pushes against the heroes and creates the motion which is a plot.

Commonly, such a figure is visible, like Lucifer, in Paradise Lost.

Or he’s very visible, like Ravana in the Ramayana, with his ten heads.

For us, however, this is to risk circumscribing the villain, his visible body suggesting his visible limits. After all, it was a Sauron with hands who lost the Ring to a sword blade. To have a body, then, is to be vulnerable (literally, in the case above) and, more perhaps more important, in terms of story, more predictable, more bound by conventions.

You (as JRRT) create Sauron, then, who once had a body, but now you make him nearly disembodied, being represented physically as a single, fiery eye.

This gives the effect of a brooding, ever-watchful presence, a bit like all of those posters in 1984’s London of Big Brother.

This presence can be captured in the text in all sorts of ways, both direct and indirect. You have only to look up “Sauron” in the index to The Lord of the Rings to understand this: “Dark Lord, Enemy, Black One, Black Hand, Black Master, Base Master of Treachery, Dark Power, dark hands of the East, Nameless One, etc.”

A brooding presence, however, is a real challenge for anyone trying to transfer The Lord of the Rings to the screen, which is why, after the previous defeat of Sauron, in which he appears as a huge being in black armor, he is reduced to that eye, sometimes captured in a palantir

Or Galadriel’s mirror, though, more often, as Sam and Frodo come closer to their goal, as the equivalent of a tower-mounted searchlight.

Film and fiction are different media, with different needs and tools to satisfy those needs, as the script writers never tire of explaining to us. In our opinion, however, this extremely literal depiction so strongly smacks of old black-and-white prison escape films,

that we wish that those script writers could have left the Dark Lord offstage entirely, if this is the best they could do.

With our feeling that an bodyless villain might be more powerful here than an incarnated one—remember feeling spooked at night by a subtle change in the ambience?—we would wish that the writers had been a bit more imaginative—and had read their author a little more closely. After all, he had plenty of good ideas about how to depict villains. And it is perhaps a sad commentary on their work that, increasingly, in their years of using JRRT, they abandoned him, choosing, instead, to bloat his story and turn it in directions he clearly never intended. Why not, for example, do as Tolkien did and mirror the villain not only in that long list of titles, but also in the actions and words both of his subordinates and his opponents? Would this have worked? Perhaps a reference to the amount of time “You Know Who” appears on-screen in the first Harry Potter movie in contrast to how often he is mentioned would suggest how this might have worked.

As for villainous subordinates and their actions, we’ll have more to say about them in our next.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Remember: we want to encourage discussion and debate. If you agree with us, say so. If you don’t, say so and we can have fun working through our views.

MTCIDC

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Monthly Archives: May 2015

The Sadness of a Second Reading

Food for Thought

Personae

Now You Don’t See Me, Now You Don’t