See, the Conquering Hero?

09 Wednesday Oct 2019

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods

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Battle of Culloden, Beethoven, celebrations, Crowning of Aragorn, endings, George Lucas, Haendel, Joshua, Judas Maccabaeus, oratorio, Return of the Jedi, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, The Field of Cormallen, the Force, The Grey Havens, The Last Jedi, The Lord of the Rings, The Phantom Menace, The Red Book of Westmarch, The Return of the King, The Scouring of the Shire, Tolkien

Welcome, as ever, dear readers.

With Star Wars IX to appear in mid-December, completing the series, we’ve been going back through all of the previous episodes, from I (The Phantom Menace)

through VIII (The Last Jedi).

It’s a remarkable achievement and we’re very grateful to George Lucas,

for bringing it so far, even if his strong sense of the story seems to have been abandoned after VI (Return of the Jedi).

Because there are now so many films (including all of the offshoots, like the animated features, as well as Rogue One and Solo), it’s sometimes hard to remember that, once upon a time, there was only Star Wars (only later A New Hope), with its triumphant conclusion—mass formations of troops, Princess Leia in an actual princess outfit, and medals all around.

The next film—now V (The Empire Strikes Back) had a much less secure ending, with Darth Vader and the Emperor appearing to win and Han Solo a prisoner, on his way to Jaba the Hutt,

but VI (The Return of the Jedi) is once more triumphant, both in its original ending, on the forest moon of Endor,

and in the later revised version, where we see galaxy-wide celebrations.

Among the other films, we’ve seen another celebration, on Naboo, at the end of I (The Phantom Menace),

a secret marriage in II (Attack of the Clones),

and a complex web of plot, including the construction of the Death Star, the separation of the babies—Leia to Alderan, Luke to Tatooine—and the funeral of Padme in III (The Revenge of the Sith).

VII (The Force Awakens) had a mysterious ending: Rey having gone to what appears the far end of the galaxy to find—

while VIII (The Last Jedi) seemed vaguely hopeful, with an unnamed stable boy showing signs of having the Force within him, as Anakin did in I.

With such a build-up, we’ve been wondering how IX (The Rise of Skywalker) will end. As it’s supposedly the final episode, we assume that it will not conclude up in the air, like V, but will it have a mass celebration, like I, IV, and VI?

Or will it, like III, have multiple endings? As we’ve thought about it, you could really see that as the case with The Lord of the Rings.

First, like I, IV, and VI, there are celebrations: of Frodo and Sam at the field of Cormallen, in The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 4, “The Field of Cormallen”.

Then, in Chapter 5, “The Steward and the King”, we have the crowning of Aragorn

followed by the wedding of Arwen and Aragorn.

After that, we have the return of the hobbits to the Shire and the defeat and death of Saruman in Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”. The Shire has been badly damaged by Saruman and his henchmen, however, so that, although they are gone, the healing will take many years.

And the story doesn’t conclude there. Only a little time goes by and then there is another ending: the trip to the Grey Havens and beyond in Chapter 9, “The Grey Havens”.

And then the story finally ends—or does it? We’ve seen in Star Wars VIII, when the stable boy seems to use the Force, though only for a moment,

the implication that perhaps the title, The Last Jedi, is more of a puzzle than it would first appear. The very last line of The Lord of the Rings, spoken by Sam, is “Well, I’m back…” and it’s true, as far as Sam won’t go off on another adventure. Before this, however, Frodo has been busy writing:

“There was a big book with plain red leather covers; its tall pages were now almost filled. At the beginning there were many leaves covered with Bilbo’s thin wavering hand, but most of it was written in Frodo’s firm flowing script. It was divided into chapters but Chapter 80 was unfinished, and after that were some blank leaves…

‘Why, you have nearly finished it, Mr. Frodo!’ Sam exclaimed. ‘Well, you have kept at it, I must say.’

‘I have quite finished, Sam,’ said Frodo. ‘The last pages are for you.’”

But what does this imply? We have no idea what Sam may have added, but the volume Frodo gave him was the origin of The Red Book of Westmarch, the basis not only for The Lord of the Rings, but for The Hobbit, as well. Are we being told that writing about adventure is an adventure in itself, and almost as important?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC, of course!

When we think of music in triumphs, the first piece which pops into our minds (after the Gungan march, of course) was one written by Haendel (1685-1759), “See, the Conquering Hero Comes”.

It was originally intended for his oratorio, Joshua (1747), but it fit his earlier piece, Judas Maccabaeus (1746) so well that he transferred it to the score of that oratorio. Judas Maccabaeus was composed as a tribute to the second son of George II of England, William Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland,

after he had decisively beaten the attempt to overthrow his father and replace him with the son of the former monarch, James II, at the battle of Culloden.

Here’s a LINK to a stirring performance.

In 1796, the young Beethoven (1770-1827)

wrote a series of 12 variations on the theme for cello and fortepiano. It’s a lot of fun to hear what Beethoven can do with Haendel’s tune, so we give you a LINK here.

Heil, Sharkey!

20 Wednesday Mar 2019

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

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Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Black Shorts, Blackshirts, Blueshirts, Brownshirts, Charlie Chaplin, dictatorships, Eoin O'Duffy, facism, fascis, Francisco Franco, Industrial Revolution, Jeeves and Wooster, P.G. Wodehouse, Sir Oswald Mosley, Sir Roderick Spode, Sturm Abteilung, The Code of the Woosters, The Great Dictator, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, The Scouring of the Shire, Tolkien, Vidkun Quisling, Vittorio Immanuele III

As ever, welcome, dear readers.

Some time ago, we did a posting on The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”.

At that time, our emphasis was upon its reflection of JRRT’s dislike for the effects of the Industrial Revolution on rural England

and the importance of the chapter to closure in The Lord of the Rings.

In this posting, we want to look at it from another direction and to view Sharkey’s Shire as a kind of proto-fascist state.

Although the word “fascist” is now used pretty loosely as a verbal attack on politicians and political parties with a rightward-lean, it had a more specific meaning in the 1920s and 1930s. Then, fascists were believers in a kind of militarized state, in which the economy might be in the hands of the government, and the government in the hands of a few (a kind of oligarchy) or even of one, a dictator. (Here’s a LINK if you want to know more.)

Benito Mussolini

was the first of these who actually succeeded in coming to power. In Italy, in 1922, he organized a march on the capital, Rome, which would lead to his becoming the head of state (although Italy remained a monarchy, the monarch, Vittorio Immanuele III, was brought out for state occasions only).

Mussolini, to make his power look like a natural historical progression, began using ancient Roman symbols. One of these was the mark of the escorts to Roman magistrates, the fascis, a bundle of birch rods with an axe in the middle, the sign that a magistrate had the power to inflict not only corporal punishment—the rods—but even death—the axe—on citizens. This bundle was carried by a lictor, a minor officer of state. The number of these lictors who marched in front of the magistrate signaled just how important the magistrate was.

Mussolini had his bullyboys, the “Blackshirts”

To emphasize this connection with the imperial past, he went so far as to impress the old initials of ancient Rome, SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus—“the Roman Senate and People”) on everything public in sight—even manhole covers (they’re still there to this day).

And his use of the symbol of the fascis was the basis of the term fascism—they’re even all around his tomb.

Mussolini might have been the first of these leaders—or would-be leaders—during this pre-war era, but there were plenty more. There was Eoin O’Duffy in Ireland, leading his thugs, called “Blueshirts”,

to Vidkun Quisling, with his Nasjonal Samling (“National Party”), who, after the Nazis conquered Norway, actually became leader there,

to Francisco Franco, in Spain,

to Hitler, in Germany,

whose original goon/enforcers were the SA—Sturm Abteilung (“Storm Detachment”) or “Brownshirts”.

In England, Tolkien would have been well aware of Sir Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists.

Hitler had been mocked by the famous silent film comedian, Charlie Chaplin, in his 1940, The Great Dictator,

but, closer to home, Mosley had become a figure of fun in the comic novels of PG Wodehouse

as “Sir Roderick Spode”. Here he is, memorably portrayed in the 1990-1993 television adaptation, Jeeves and Wooster, by John Turner—much of whose posture was a direct imitation of Mussolini,

even down to his pathetic followers, the “Black Shorts”.

His first appearance was in Wodehouse’s 1938 novel, The Code of the Woosters,

where he is described as:

“About seven feet in height, and swathed in a plaid ulster which made him look about six feet across, he caught the eye and arrested it. It was as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment…

“I don’t know if you have ever seen those pictures in the papers of Dictators with tilted chins and blazing eyes, inflaming the populace with fiery words on the occasion of the opening of a new skittle alley, but that was what he reminded me of.” (The Code of the Woosters, Chapter One)

(Here’s a LINK to a free edition of the book, in case you’d like to read it—and why wouldn’t you? And this is a “plaid ulster” in case you’ve never seen one.)

Everything in the “Scouring” chapter, from the “great spiked gate” on the bridge over the Brandywine, to the “Chief’s Men”—who should be wearing brown tunics—to the very name “Chief”, instead of the old Shire title, “Mayor”, reeks of fascism, and, combined with:

“The pleasant row of old hobbit-holes in the bank on the north side of the Pool were deserted, and their little gardens that used to run down bright to the water’s edge were rank with weeds Worse, there was a whole line of the ugly new houses all along Pool Side, where the Hobbiton Road ran close to the bank. An avenue of trees had stood there. They were all gone. And looking with dismay up the road towards Bag End they saw a tall chimney of brick in the distance. It was pouring out black smoke into the evening air.”

links that political movement to the despoliation of the old natural world by the Industrial Revolution.

Behavior in this new Shire is based upon “orders” and here we really see the hand of Sharkey, who is, of course, Saruman. Here’s what he says to try to seduce Gandalf into joining him:

“A new Power is rising…As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow…We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order…” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

And the most important element in that purpose is “Order”. It’s no wonder that Saruman is murdered.

Thanks, as always, for reading and

MTCIDC

Healing (II)

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by Ollamh in Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

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Akira Kurosawa, Aragorn, athelas, bleeding, Boromir, cinquefoil, Eowyn, Faramir, four humors, Greco-Roman, healers, herbal medicine, Hildebrandts, Japanese block prints, John Bradmore, Kingsfoil, Macbeth, Medieval medicine, Medieval Monastery, Merry, Morgul Knife, Nazgul, Prince Hal, Prince Imrahil, Pyre of Denethor, Rammas Echor, The Battle of the Pelennor Fields, The Grey Havens, The Houses of Healing, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Throne of Blood, Tolkien, Washizu, Westernesse, Witch-King of Angmar, wounding, Yoshitoshi, Yoshitoshi's Courageous Warriors

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.
Two postings ago, we were talking about woundings in The Lord of the Rings and thinking about the medical care there as compared with that available in what we always think of as the actual parallel medieval world. We had gotten as far as Boromir, who, we imagined, would have been beyond help, pierced as he was by multiple arrows.

(We had also said that Boromir’s wounding reminded us of the death of the Macbeth figure in Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, 1957.

To which we would add—just because we love Japanese block prints (ukiyo-e)—this figure from Yoshitoshi’s series Yoshitoshi’s Courageous Warriors—1883-1886—)

[Here, by the way, are some great links—one to a massive collection of Yoshitoshi prints, the other is an excellent guide to the world of Japanese block prints in general—both highly recommended!]

http://yoshitoshi.net/

http://www.ukiyo-e.se/
The next wounding is that of Faramir.
After the fall of the Rammas Echor, the long wall which was meant to protect the far side of the Pelennor, Faramir was leading the rear guard, but:
“…there came flying a deadly dart, and Faramir, as he held at bay a mounted champion of Harad, had fallen to the earth.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor”)
At this time, we are not told of how the arrow was removed (we later are told that Prince Imrahil did it on the battlefield), but, that which concerned John Bradmore about the wounded Prince Hal in our 1403, after he had suffered an arrow wound,

now afflicted Faramir: infection.:
“During all this black day Faramir lay upon his bed in the chamber of the White Tower, wandering in a desperate fever…”
In our medieval world, medicine was based upon a combination of beliefs, some of which even dated back to the Greco-Roman world.
One major foundation block was the idea that the body was governed by four elements, called “humors”: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood.

They determined personality and behavior, but, although they were natural to the body, they could be thrown out of balance and part of a medieval doctor’s job was to rebalance them.

This rebalancing could include doses of all sorts of things—dangerous metals, like mercury, concoctions from various plants, some of which were helpful, some poisonous, and bleeding—based upon the idea that, by removing blood, you were helping rebalance the body’s natural humorous proportions.

In Faramir’s case, a doctor might try a number of drugs based upon plants which were believed to bring fever down:
angelica

chamomile

datura

or coriander

In the text, however, although Pippin suggests that Gandalf be consulted, Denethor dismisses the suggestion and Faramir is left to burn—before almost being literally consumed by fire along with his mad father.
[And here we would suggest that the over-the-top scene of Denethor’s death in the film missed an important point. In the book, it is clear that what drove Denethor to try to set up a kind of Viking funeral for himself and his son was the palantir by which his mind was poisoned by a Sauron whose influence over him he fatally underestimated. And what a wonderfully spooky moment JRRT describes when the orb survives the fire which destroys the Steward:
“And it was said that ever after, if any man looked in that Stone, unless he had a great strength of will to turn it to other purpose, he saw only two aged hands withering in flame.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 7, “The Pyre of Denethor”)]
We will return to Faramir, but, first, we want to look at two more woundings, both occurring almost in the same moment: when Eowyn and Merry face the chief of the Nazgul.

In confronting the Witch King, Eowyn suffers what might seem a perfectly ordinary battle wound in a world of hand-to-hand combat such as this:
“Out of the wreck rose the Black Rider, tall and threatening, towering above her. With a cry of hatred that stung the very ears like venom he let fall his mace. Her shield was shivered in many pieces and her arm was broken; she stumbled to her knees.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 6, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”)

Eowyn is saved from the Nazgul by Merry, who “had stabbed him from behind, shearing through the black mantle, and passing up beneath the hauberk had pierced the sinew in his mighty knee.”
Combined with Eowyn’s final blow at the wraith’s face, this destroyed what we presume was an undead being, but, in return, both Merry and Eowyn take an invisible wound, something which the medical people of Minas Tirith can only observe:
“But now their art and knowledge were baffled; for there were many sick of a malady that would not be healed; and they called it the Black Shadow, for it came from the Nazgul. And those who were stricken with it fell slowly into an ever deeper dream, and then passed into silence and a deadly cold, and so died. And it seemed to the tenders of the sick that on the Halfling and on the Lady of Rohan this malady lay heavily.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 8, “The Houses of Healing”)
Eowyn and Merry (and Faramir) have been taken to “the Houses of Healing”, which, in our world, would be a hospital, something which, in our Middle Ages, would either have been part of a monastery/cloister, or were a private foundation, supported by charitable donations.

Medical people there could certainly have set Eowyn’s broken arm, even sealing it in plaster to keep it immobile, but the Black Shadow would have been as difficult for them as for the healers in Minas Tirith. Comas were recognized in the Middle Ages, but there was little to be done: apparently, comatose people lose the swallowing function, which means that someone in that condition would die of dehydration, probably within a few days (speed of dehydration depends upon many factors, as well as the individual, but the longest we’ve seen is about 10 to 12 days).
To their credit, those in the Houses of Healing tried to do something by observation:
“Still at whiles as the morning wore away they [Eowyn and Merry] would speak, murmuring in their dreams; and the watchers listened to all they said, hoping perhaps to learn something that would help them to understand their hurts.”
But the Shadow spreads quickly as day fades:
“But soon they began to fall down into the darkness, and as the sun turned west a grey shadow crept over their faces.”
And there is the added difficult of Faramir, who “burned with a fever that would not abate.”
At this point, both medieval healers and those in Minas Tirith were stumped—until another factor was added. In fact, two.
Plants have been used since ancient times for medicine world-wide, so it should be no surprise that Middle-earth should have a parallel. In this instance, the plant is called “kingsfoil” or athelas. (The “foil” in the first name is—in English—based upon the Old French foil/foille, “leaf”, which comes, in turn, from a Latin word for leaf, folium—perhaps JRRT was inspired by the plant called “cinquefoil” = “fiveleaf”. Athelas is also a compound, based upon Sindarin athaya, “helpful” and lass, “leaf”.) [There’s a really useful posting on possible our world parallels for this herb and we provide the LINK here.]
When Aragorn tended to Frodo’s Morgul-knife wound earlier in The Lord of the Rings, we would have seen its use then:
“He threw the leaves into boiling water and bathed Frodo’s shoulder. The fragrance of the steam was refreshing, and those that were unhurt felt their minds calmed and cleared. The herb had also some power over the wound, for Frodo felt the pain and also the sense of frozen cold lessen in his side…” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 12, “Flight to the Ford”)
This is not all to the treatment, however. Just before he uses the herb, Aragorn appears to employ some sort of counter-spell to that which was on the knife:
“He sat down on the ground, and taking the dagger-hilt laid it on his knees, and he sang over it a slow song in a strange tongue. Then setting it aside, he turned to Frodo and in a soft tone spoke words the others could not catch.”
This pattern of speech and herb is now employed in the healing not only of Eowyn and Merry, but of Faramir, as well, and forms both a part of the movement towards the eventual defeat of Sauron and the return of light to Middle-earth, and of the confirmation of Aragorn as the rightful heir to the throne. As the herb-master, when called upon by Aragorn to produce the herb, recites:
“When the black breath blows
And death’s shadow grows
And all lights pass,
Come athelas! Come athelas!
Life to the dying
In the king’s hand lying!”
Previously, the herb-master says “it has no virtue that we know of, save perhaps to sweeten a fouled air, or to drive away some passing heaviness…old folk still use an infusion of the herb for headaches.” Now, however, Aragorn proceeds to use it three times in quick succession, along with something else, to bring back the three so sunk towards death:
“Now Aragorn knelt beside Faramir, and held a hand upon his brow. And those that watched felt that some great struggle was going on. For Aragorn’s face grew grey with weariness; and ever and anon he called the name of Faramir, but each time more faintly to their hearing, as if Aragorn himself was removed from them, and walked afar in some dark vale, calling for one that was lost.”
Moving to Eowyn, Aragorn uses the athelas again, but summons her, as well:
“Then, whether Aragorn had indeed some forgotten power of Westernesse, or whether it was but his words of the Lady Eowyn that wrought on them, as the sweet influence of the herb stole about the chamber it seemed to those who stood by that a keen wind blew through the window…”

And a third time, with Merry: “I came in time, and I have called him back.”
We’ll end the second part of our discussion of woundings here—or almost. There is one more patient whom it appears even the king can’t heal:
“But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam.” Says Frodo. “I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger; some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.” (The Return of the King, Book 6, Chapter 9, “The Grey Havens”)

And yet, there is perhaps the promise of healing beyond Middle-earth, something which may even bear a faint suggestion of the scent of Athelas:
“And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water…the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.”
Thanks, as ever, for reading.
MTCIDC
CD

What If…

31 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by Ollamh in Artists and Illustrators, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Maps, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods, Tolkien

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Alamo, Andelkrag, Anduin, Caernarfon, Carcassonne, Duc de Berry, fortresses, Hal Foster, Harry Turtledove, Howard Pyle, Huns, Minas Tirith, moat, Mont Saint Michel, Mordor, Numenor, Peter Jackson, Portchester, Prince Valiant, Rohirrim, S.M. Stirling, Santa Anna, Segontium, Siege Warfare, Texas War for Independence, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Tiryns, Tolkien, Tower of Orthanc, Tres Riches Heures

Welcome, readers, as always.

If you are among our excellent regulars, you know that we’re fascinated by history (one of us has taught it for years). One subset of our interest is “what ifs”, two of our favorite scifi/fantasy authors being Harry Turtledove and S.M. Stirling, who have written numerous books exploring all sorts of alternative places and times.

In this posting, we’d like to try a “what if” ourselves: what would happen to Minas Tirith if the Rohirrim and Aragorn had failed to arrive?

Walls collapsing under a rain of boulders, soldiers fleeing from the defenses, the main gate broken in by a giant battering ram—

how was this the place of which its creator had written:

“A strong citadel it was indeed, and not to be taken by a host of enemies, if there were any within that could hold weapons…” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 1, “Minas Tirith”)

In an earlier posting, we talked about Sauron’s attack on Minas Tirith

and even suggested that one inspiration might have been an episode of the comic strip Prince Valiant and the siege of Andelkrag by the Huns (published in May, 1939). (Footnote: there is a rumor that the writer/illustrator, Hal Foster, intended the Huns to equal the Nazis and therefore annoyed Hitler—a would-be Sauron to Saruman’s Mussolini, as we once also suggested?)

That castle is splendid, but not quite what one would have seen in the 5^th century AD, when Attila led the Huns to invade central and western Europe. Andelkrag appears to be a very elaborate late-medieval castle, c.1400 or so, rather like the ones you might see in the Duc de Berry’s Tres Riches Heures (c.1412-16; 1440s; 1485-1489).

More likely, if Andelkrag had been a real fortress, it would have been a repurposed Roman army installation, like this at Caernarfon, called by the Romans, Segontium.

Such forts might then be converted into castles, as at Portchester

62790_8d3686244501897

but that would hardly have provided the gallant medieval look which Foster gave his comic strip and which, in turn, came from the illustrations of people like Howard Pyle (1853-1911), in the previous generation (and which, we have previously argued, had a strong influence on what JRRT imagined his Middle-earth to look like).

We are told in one of the extra features in the extended film version of The Lord of the Rings that an inspiration for P. Jackson’s Minas Tirith

was the ancient island fort/religious site of Mont Saint Michel, on the western coast of France.

As you can see from the photo and the map, this isn’t just a fort, however, but a little fortified town, reminding us that Minas Tirith isn’t a castle, but a walled city, like the restored medieval town of Carcassonne, in southern France.

Like Mont St. Michel, Minas Tirith is built up a slope.

(This, by the way, is Tolkien’s first sketch.)

But, unlike Mont St. Michel and Carcassonne, it has not one wall, but many:

“For the fashion of Minas Tirith was such that it was built on seven levels, each delved into the hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall was a gate.”

Because the city was built on a series of levels, this would mean that each wall would overlook the next lower one, so that the defenders on the upper wall could rain down missiles on attackers below.

poi_img_town_defences_1

This is an ancient practice. The Bronze Age Greek city of Tiryns (yes, there is a bit of a similarity in the name, isn’t there?) is so constructed, for example, that its entryway forces attackers to move to the left, thereby potentially exposing an unshielded side, as well as undergoing a barrage of arrows and rocks from those on the wall above.

Tiryns Reconstruction

tiryns-walls

In the case of Minas Tirith, there is an added obstacle:

“But the gates were not set in a line: the Great Gate in the City Wall was at the east point of the circuit, but the next faced half south, and the third half north, and so to and fro upwards; so that the paved way that climbed towards the Citadel turned this way and then that across the face of the hill.”

image13mtzigzag

Attackers, then, would not only be at the mercy of those above them, but would, should they break through one gate, be forced to zigzag back and forth as they fought their way upwards, taking more and more casualties as they advanced.

minas-tirith3

Added to this, at the lowest level, was the main wall:

“…of great height and marvellous thickness, built ere the power and craft of Numenor waned in exile; and its outward face was like to the Tower of Orthanc, hard and dark and smooth, unconquerable by steel or fire, unbreakable except by some convulsion that would rend the very earth on which it stood.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 4, “The Siege of Gondor”)

Unlike so many fortresses—going back at least to Neolithic times—Minas Tirith had no moat. Not only does such a watery ditch slow down attackers by giving them one more puzzle to solve, but it also makes a standard siege practice, undermining, much more difficult. Basically, what undermining does is to hollow out an area underneath a wall and replace the original foundation with a flammable wooden one. Then the miners fill the hollow with burnables, torch them, and wait to see if the new wooden foundation collapses, bringing down the wall on top of it. You can see miners at work in this medieval manuscript illustration.

A wet moat would have forced the miners to dig much deeper, to avoid being flooded out.

For Minas Tirith, the nearest water source for a wet moat would have been the Anduin, some miles away, but dry moats were useful as well. This diorama of the final attack by the British at the siege of Badajoz in 1812 shows how effective such a thing might be. Although the besiegers have managed, through prolonged bombardment, to create a breach in the main wall, they have to struggle through the deep dry moat to reach it—and took large numbers of casualties in doing so.

image18badajoz

Against all of these defenses, the head of the Nazgul, as Sauron’s general in the field, has the usual siege weapons: stone throwers, siege towers, even a massive battering ram. He also has a more subtle tool:

“But soon there were few left in Minas Tirith who had the heart to stand up and defy the hosts of Mordor. For yet another weapon, swifter than hunger, the Lord of the Dark Tower had: dread and despair.”

Even so, under the command of Gandalf, there was still resistance and we can imagine that that resistance would have persisted through all the circles, but the ultimate difficulty, which would have caused the fall of the city, had not the Rohirrim—and then Aragorn—come, was the lack of reserves.

Gondor was, at the time of the siege, in decline, as Pippin noticed when he and Gandalf arrived there:

“Yet it was in truth falling year by year into decay; and already it lacked half the men that could have dwelt at ease there.”

When reenforcements came from the south, they were “less than three thousands full told.”

When a city or castle is under siege, it needs not only a force to man its walls, but also a second force, to be sent quickly to any place where an enemy breakthrough is threatened. The force on the walls has two main jobs: 1. to keep the enemy at a distance with missile fire—or, failing that, to cut down the attacking force as it approaches the walls, trimming its numbers and thereby possibly demoralizing it; 2. to fend off the enemy if it actually manages to gain the walls. This illustration from the Prince Valiant Andelkrag siege provides a good image of this double job.

image19defenseofandelkrag

It might be possible, if the enemy made an assault upon a single point, to siphon off men from other parts of the defenses to act as a temporary second force, but, if the enemy attacks more than one place at the same time, this is not a safe thing to do. In the case of the assault on the first wall of Minas Tirith, the enemy commander seems to have had such numbers—and didn’t care in the least about his losses– that he could attack the entire wall:

“Ever since the middle night the great assault had gone on. The drums rolled. To the north and to the south company upon company of the enemy pressed to the walls. There came great beasts, like moving houses in the red and fitful light, the mumakil of the Harad dragging through the lanes amid the fires huge towers and engines. Yet their Captain cared not greatly what they did or how many might be slain: their purpose was only to test the strength of the defence and to keep the men of Gondor busy in many places.”

The weakest place in any strong wall is a gate and that knowledge has guided Sauron’s Captain:

“It was against the Gate that he would throw his heaviest weight. Very strong it might be, wrought of steel and iron, and guarded with towers and bastions of indomitable stone, yet it was the key, the weakest point in all that high and impenetrable wall.”

Thus, with everyone pinned in position by a general assault, and there being no other possible reserve, once the gate is down—but then a cock crows and there are horns and, well, you know what happens next.

But, continuing our “what if”, we look to a different model, the Alamo, a ruined mission turned into a fortress in the so-called “Texas War for Independence” of 1835-36.

alamo-map-3

Within this mission, some 180plus defenders faced a Mexican army of several thousand, staving them off for a week-and-a-half before finally being overwhelmed by a series of nearly-simultaneous pre-dawn assaults from several directions at once. image21alamoassault

The survivors drew back, still fighting, and made a series of last stands in the rooms of the surviving mission buildings, dying almost to a man because the Mexican general, Santa Anna, had declared that there would be no mercy for any survivors. (There were a handful of prisoners, however, perhaps including the famous American frontiersman, Davy Crockett, but under Santa Anna’s direction, they were then murdered.)

In our grim “what if”, the survivors of the outer wall, led in retreat by Gandalf, are gradually driven back, like the Alamo defenders, until they reach the Citadel—and then—but, can we go on? Are the Rohirrim and Aragorn simply delayed and then appear? Are there eagle-rescues, as in The Hobbit?

What do you think, dear readers?

And thanks, as ever, for reading!

MTCIDC

We saw this Lego attack on Minas Tirith and it was just too wonderful not to include!

PPS

As we were finishing this, we happened upon a really great website–

https://middleeartharchitectures.wordpress.com/ –wonderful visuals!

Shire Portrait (5a): Hostile Takeover

08 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by Ollamh in Economics in Middle-earth, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

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A Long-Expected Party, auction, Bag End, Baggins, Barliman Butterbur, Galadriel, Government, Isengard, Longbottom Leaf, Luke Skywalker, Merry and Pippin, Mirror of Galadriel, Pipeweed, Sackville-Bagginses, Sam Gamgee, Saruman, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, The Scouring of the Shire, The Shire, Tolkien, Yoda

As always, dear readers, welcome!

This is, we think, the last in our Shire Portrait series (although a 2-parter)—at least for the moment. In it, we intend to consider just how the Shire fell into the hands of “Sharkey” and his “boys”.

The Ring destroyed and the King returned, Gandalf, the Hobbits, and a party of Elves are traveling back toward Rivendell and beyond when they come upon Saruman and Grima, now no more than Saruman’s slave.

It is not a happy meeting, as can be imagined. When offered help, Saruman replies:

“All my hopes are ruined, but I would not share yours. If you have any…You have doomed yourselves, and you know it. And it will afford me some comfort as I wander to think that you pulled down your own house when you destroyed mine.” The Return of the King, Book 6, Chapter 6, “Many Partings”

In such a mood, it can be imagined how he treats the Hobbits—even when Merry offers him pipe-weed, which he does while commenting, less than tactfully, on its origin:

“ ‘You are welcome to it; it came from the flotsam of Isengard.’

‘Mine, mine, yes and dearly bought!’ cried Saruman, clutching at the pouch. ‘This is only a repayment in token; for you took more, I’ll be bound. Still, a beggar must be grateful, if a thief returns him even a morsel of his own. Well, it will serve you right when you come home, if you find things less good in the Southfarthing than you would like. Long may your land be short of leaf!’”

Saruman’s remark—a curse, really—resonates especially with Sam.

“’Ah!’ said Sam. ‘And bought he said. How, I wonder? And I didn’t like the sound of what he said about the Southfarthing. It’s time we got back.’” The Return of the King, Book 6, Chapter 6, “Many Partings”

This is a natural reaction on Sam’s part because of what he had seen in Galadriel’s mirror, we presume.

“’Hi!’ cried Sam in an outraged voice. ‘There’s that Ted Sandyman a-cutting down trees as he shouldn’t. They didn’t ought to be felled: it’s that avenue beyond the Mill that shades the road to Bywater…

But now Sam noticed that the Old Mill had vanished, and a large red-brick building was being put up where it stood. Lots of folk were busily at work. There was a tall red chimney nearby. Black smoke seemed to cloud the surface of the Mirror…

‘I can’t stay here,’ he said wildly. ‘I must go home. They’ve dug up Bagshot Row, and there’s the poor old Gaffer going down the Hill with his bits of things on a barrow…” The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter VII, “The Mirror of Galadriel”

At the time, Galadriel had told him

“’You cannot go home alone,’ said the Lady. ‘You did not wish to go home without your master before you looked in the Mirror, and yet you knew that evil things might well be happening in the Shire. Remember that the Mirror shows many things, and not all have yet come to pass. Some never come to be, unless those that behold the visions turn aside from their path to prevent them. The Mirror is dangerous as a guide to deeds.” The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter VII, “The Mirror of Galadriel”

[A footnote: suddenly, we are reminded of that scene on Dagobah in Star Wars V, when Luke has had a vision and immediately wants to rush off to Bespin.

“Luke: I saw—I saw a city in the clouds.

Yoda: [nods] Friends you have there.

Luke: They were in pain…

Yoda: It is the future you see.

Luke: The future?

[pause]

Luke: Will they die?

Yoda: [closes his eyes for a moment] Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

Luke: I’ve got to go to them.

Yoda: Decide you must, how to serve them best. If you leave now, help them you could; but you would destroy all for which they have fought, and suffered.” The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

As—using various websites—we provide links here—we can see that an imitation of the opening of the Hobbit—Bilbo and Gandalf meeting—appears in an early script of Star Wars IV, I think that the scene at Galadriel’s Mirror was somewhere back in G. Lucas’ wonderfully fertile brain—and, yes, we are big fans.]

“Secrets of the ‘Star Wars’ Drafts”

Was George Lucas Inspired by Tolkien?

Star Wars Origins: The Lord of the Rings

At this point, we know from two sources that Saruman has had commercial dealings with the Southfarthing.

First, of course, we’ve just seen it confirmed by Saruman’s response to Merry. Second is that scene at Isengard, where Gandalf, Theoden, Eomer, and Aragorn, travel with an escort and find there Merry and Pippin, who tell them of their discovery of two small casks:

“ ‘My dear Gimli, it is Longbottom Leaf! There were the Hornblower brandmarks on the barrels, as plain as plain. How it came here, I can’t imagine.” The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 9, “Flotsam and Jetsam”

Knowing, however, of Saruman’s increasing interest in the Shire, we can imagine that one of his agents, active in the Southfarthing, had acquired it for him. As the Appendix B, “The Tale of Years” tells us, under TA2953:

[Saruman] notes his [Gandalf’s] interest in the Shire. He soon begins to keep agents in Bree and the Southfarthing.” (page 1089 in Appendix B)

Spying was clearly only the beginning for Saruman, however. The actual evidence for his eventual take-over is scattered throughout The Lord of the Rings, but we believe that it can be pieced together to provide a picture of how it must have been done. It was a two-step process.

First, he appears to have gained knowledge of internal dissatisfaction within the Shire. Because there is really nothing political in the Shire–as readers will know from the first posting in this series, there is virtually no government—this unrest was domestic—as is said in the Prologue, “Families for the most part managed their own affairs.”

In the case of Bilbo and Frodo, the dissatisfied were the Sackville-Bagginses. We first met them in the last chapter of The Hobbit, where they were described as “Bilbo’s cousins” and were shown as being actively involved in the auction of the “effects of the late Bilbo Baggins Esquire”—as well as in the disappearance of some merchandise not auctioned off:

“Many of his silver spoons mysteriously disappeared and were never accounted for. Personally he suspected the Sackville-Bagginses. On their side they never admitted that the returned Baggins was genuine and they were not on friendly terms with Bilbo ever after.” The Hobbit, Chapter 19, “The Last Stage”

It was one more blow to the Sackville-Bagginses when Bilbo rescued the now-orphaned Frodo from “those queer Bucklanders” and brought him to live at Bag End, as Gaffer Gamgee related in The Ivy Bush:

“ ‘But I reckon it was a nasty knock for those Sackville-Bagginses. They thought they were going to get Bag End, that time he went off and was thought to be dead. And then he comes back and orders them off; and he goes on living and living, and never looking a day older, bless him! And suddenly he produces an heir, and has all the papers made out proper. The Sackville-Bagginses won’t never see the inside of Bag End now, or it is to be hoped not.’ “ The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 1, “A Long-Expected Party”

Bad blood, then, on several counts—and, for Saruman, looking for a way in, a great opportunity.

Bilbo might have suspected them of spoon-pilfering, but his was a more generous nature, however, and he even invited them to his and Frodo’s joint birthday party.

“The Sackville-Bagginses were not forgotten. Otho and his wife Lobelia were present. They disliked Bilbo and detested Frodo, but so magnificent was the invitation card, written in golden ink, that they had felt it impossible to refuse…” The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 1, “A Long-Expected Party”

On the other hand, Bilbo does not please them when he announces that Frodo is coming into “his inheritance”—

“The Sackville-Bagginses scowled, and wondered what was meant by ‘coming into his inheritance’ “ and, when Bilbo makes his startling disappearance, they “departed in wrath”. (quotations from Chapter One).

And yet they didn’t quite depart. It seems they have only stepped away from the party, only to return to cause trouble, demanding to see Bilbo’s will.

“Otho would have been Bilbo’s heir, but for the adoption of Frodo. He read the will carefully and snorted. It was, unfortunately, very clear and correct…” The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 1, “A Long-Expected Party”

Otho “snapped his fingers under Frodo’s nose and stumped off”, but Lobelia, his wife, remained, and Frodo later found her “still about the place, investigating nooks and corners, and tapping the floors. He escorted her firmly off the premises, after he had relieved her of several small (but rather valuable) articles that had somehow fallen inside her umbrella.” And she leaves with a kind of threat and what she believes is an insult:

“ ‘You’ll live to regret it, young fellow! Why didn’t you go too? You don’t belong here; you’re no Baggins—you—you’re a Brandybuck!’ ”

It’s never said why there is such an animus held by the Sackville-Bagginses against the Bagginses, but there is clearly something wrong with the S-Bs, from their covetousness to Lobelia’s open theft, and whatever is wrong is just what Saruman will find and exploit. Our next mention of them is oblique and it has to do with that pipe-weed. Merry and Pippin have been explaining how they had come to discover it at Isengard and all seems clear—

“ ‘All except one thing,’ said Aragorn: ‘leaf from the Southfarthing in Isengard. The more I consider it, the more curious I find it. I have never been in Isengard, but I have journeyed in this land, and I know well the empty countries that lie between Rohan and the Shire. Neither goods nor folk have passed that way for many a long year, not openly. Saruman had secret dealings with someone in the Shire, I guess. Wormtongues may be found in other houses than King Theoden’s…” The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 9, “Flotsam and Jetsam

With that faint foreboding, we hear no more until Gandalf and the Hobbits are once more leaving Bree and Butterbur says, almost in passing:

“ ‘I should have warned you before that all’s not well in the Shire neither, if what we hear is true. Funny goings on, they say.’ “ The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter 7, “Homeward Bound”

With Butterbur’s words in their ears, the Hobbits ride out and conversation begins:

“ ‘I wonder what old Barliman was hinting at,’ said Frodo.

‘I can guess some of it,’ said Sam gloomily. ‘What I saw in the Mirror: trees cut down and all, and my old gaffer turned out of the Row. I ought to have hurried back quicker.’

‘And something’s wrong with the Southfarthing evidently,’ said Merry. ‘There’s a general shortage of pipe-weed.’

‘Whatever it is,’ said Pippin, ‘Lotho will be at the bottom of it: you can be sure of that.’”

Here again, after Aragorn’s remark long before, we see that pipe-weed turn up—and associated somehow with a Sackville-Baggins. Butterbur has already replied to Gandalf’s request for it that “That’s the one thing that we’re short of, seeing how we’ve only got what we grow ourselves, and that’s not enough. There’s none to be had from the Shire these days.”

It’s never explained why Pippin makes the connection with Lotho at this point—was the bad blood between the Bagginses and the Sackville-Bagginses part of a darker picture of the S-Bs? This seems more than possible when Gandalf adds to Pippin’s remark:

“ ‘Deep in, but not at the bottom,’ said Gandalf. ‘You have forgotten Saruman. He began to take an interest in the Shire before Mordor did.’”

And now we begin to see a potential bigger pattern: Saruman-an S-B-Shire and, with it, the second step in the take-over of the Shire, that from outside. But that’s for Shire Portrait 5b: “Hostile Take-Over.2”, next time.

Until then, thanks, as ever, for reading!

MTCIDC

Rear Guard

18 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Maps, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods

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66th Regiment, British Infantry, Denethor, Faramir, Gary Zaboly, Le Cateau, Maiwand, Nazgul, Osgiliath, Pelennor, Peter Jackson, Rammas Echor, Richard Caton Woodville, the Alamo, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, The Siege of Gondor, Tolkien

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

In a previous posting, we rolled our eyes verbally at a moment in P. Jackson’s The Return of the King in which Faramir, according to the script, was required to mount a double-rank cavalry charge against the west bank of Osgiliath.

To us, this was a clumsy attempt to convey the clash between Faramir and his father Denethor, derived from material in The Lord of the Rings, Book 5, Chapter IV, “The Siege of Gondor”, principally from this:

“ ‘Much must be risked in war,’ said Denethor. ‘Cair Andros is manned, and no more can be sent so far. But I will not yield the River and the Pelennor unfought—not if there is a captain here who has still the courage to do his lord’s will.’

Then all were silent. But at length Faramir said: ‘I do not oppose your will, sire. Since you are robbed of Boromir, I will go and do what I can in his stead—if you command it.’

‘I do so,’ said Denethor.

‘Then farewell!’ said Faramir. ‘But if I should return, think better of me!’

‘That depends on the manner of your return,’ said Denethor.

Gandalf it was that last spoke to Faramir ere he rode east. ‘Do you throw your life away rashly or in bitterness,’ he said. ‘You will be needed here, for other things than war. Your father loves you, Faramir, and will remember it ere the end. Farewell!’ “

In the text, Faramir then goes to Osgiliath, having “taken with him such strength of men as were willing to go or could be spared.” The tone here is hardly encouraging and, the following day, “The passage of Anduin was won by the Enemy. Faramir was retreating to the wall of the Pelennor, rallying his men to the Causeway Forts; but he was ten times outnumbered.”

In an earlier posting, we have discussed the Rammas Echor, the wall which enclosed the farmland outside the walls of Minas Tirith.

We have also discussed the use by both Saruman and Sauron of what appears to be an early form of explosive—seen here in the following description of the fall of the Rammas:

“The bells of day had scarcely rung out again, a mockery in the unlightened dark, when far away he [Pippin] saw fires spring up, across in the dim spaces where the walls of the Pelennor stood. ..Now ever and anon there was a red flash, and slowly through the heavy air dull rumbles could be heard.

‘They have taken the wall!’ men cried. ‘They are blasting breeches in it. They are coming!’ “

Outnumbered and, with the fall of the wall in different locations, outflanked, the best that Faramir can do is to fall back towards Minas Tirith, as Gandalf says, “Yet he is resolved to stay with the rearguard, lest the retreat over the Pelennor become a rout. He may, perhaps, hold his men together long enough, but I doubt it.”

Unlike the silly—there’s really no other word for it—charge of P. Jackson—Faramir is a professional soldier, after all, much loved by his soldiers—we see what JRRT, having been a soldier himself, would have known was the military solution: a fighting retreat, led by a brave and capable leader.

His task had been an impossible one to begin with and, properly understood and depicted on the screen, would not only have been powerful dramatically, but much more believable. It was an impossible task, however, against the odds of ten to one. (For a comparison, we offer the siege and fall of the Alamo, late February-early March, 1836. The garrison numbered about 180, the besiegers eventually approximately 3000. In the final assault, before dawn on 6 March, 1836, the four assaulting columns had about 1200 men, offering odds of roughly 6 to 1 and the entire garrison died, along with somewhere between 400 and 600 of the attackers.)

(This is the work of the amazing Gary Zaboly– as an historical illustrator, he can’t be recommended highly enough. Much of his work concerns the 18th century, especially the 1740s and 50s, but he also has done some wonderful depictions of warfare in the American southwest in the 1830s and 40s.)

There are lots of examples of fighting retreats and we’ve picked two: a failure (Maiwand, Second Afghan War, 1880) and Le Cateau (The Great War, 1914).

At Maiwand, 27 July, 1880, a British-Indian brigade of 3 infantry units plus two cavalry units and a battery (6 guns) of horse artillery, anywhere from 1500 to 2000 soldiers, faced perhaps 12,000 Afghans with 6 batteries of guns.

Basically, the British were outflanked and their left-hand units began to buckle under the pressure of the attacks and the number of attackers which they had to face. As they gave way, the right hand end of the line began to move backwards, feeling increasingly in danger of being surrounded, just as Faramir’s men must have.

As the infantry retreated, the artillerymen used their guns to buy time for a general withdrawal, ending by losing a section (2 guns) to the enemy. There’s a famous painting of the withdrawal of the remaining guns by the late-Victorian artist, Richard Caton Woodville.

At the end of the withdrawal from the battle, a small group of British soldiers of the 66^th Regiment took shelter inside an enclosure in a nearby village and fought it out to the end.

Gandalf’s worry had been that Faramir couldn’t hold his men together and you can see here what happens when organized units come apart—they are defeated piecemeal, “in detail” is the military expression.

In contrast to this, we offer an action from Tolkien’s own time, the battle at Le Cateau, fought on 26 August, 1914. The British Expeditionary Force, facing superior numbers and in danger of being outflanked, particularly to the west, was engaged in a long retreat. Miraculously, unit cohesion was mostly maintained, although communications were often poor, causing confusion and, in one case, even in losing a unit, never notified of withdrawal.

The British Army was divided into two larger groupings, First and Second Corps, and it was Second Corps which turned to face its pursuers. During a long morning, the British, in hastily-dug trenches, fended off superior numbers of German infantry.

Having lost heavily, but having given the enemy similar punishment, the British slowed German pursuit and were able to withdraw without being as closely pursued as they had been.

The difference here is in exactly what Gandalf was worried about. At Maiwand, the brigade fell apart and could easily be swept away by the enemy. At Le Cateau, although it was hardly a perfect affair, the British kept enough cohesion not only to withstand and defeat heavy attacks, but then to retreat in units, without ever collapsing into a fleeing mob.

What happens in that struggle in the fields behind the Rammas Echor is, in fact, a mixture of the two retreats described above. We see “Small bands of weary and often wounded men…some were running wildly as if pursued.” Then, “…less than a mile from the City, a more ordered mass of men came into view, marching not running, still holding together.” And then “Out of the gloom behind a small company of horsemen galloped, all that was left of the rearguard.”

So, it looks like Faramir had succeeded in maintaining that sense of order and purpose which is vital for a fighting retreat. It was not to last, however, as a mass of enemy horsemen on the causeway behind, as well as several Nazgul from above, threw all into confusion—which was stemmed, in turn, by the arrival of a rescue party, led by the Prince of Dol Amroth and accompanied by Gandalf arrived to drive back the attackers.

gandalf_to_the_rescue___speed_paint4_by_myworld1-d7wjv97.png

In that flurry, Faramir is struck by an arrow and has to be rescued and brought into the City, badly wounded.

Looking back, it is a very different scene from that preposterous cavalry charge, isn’t it? As our readers are probably also experienced watchers of the films, we wonder: which do you prefer, Jackson/writers or the author?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

Plot or Blot?

23 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, Films and Music, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods, Uncategorized

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Adventure, An Unexpected Journey, Eagles, Gandalf, Gwaihir, His Dark Materials, Iofur Rakinson, Isengard, Manwe, Middle-earth, Mirkwood, Moth, Ornthanc, Peter Jackson, Philip Pullman, Radagast, Rohirrim, Saruman, Svalbard, The Battle of the Five Armies, The Council of Elrond, The eagles are coming, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Golden Compass, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Tolkien, Wizard

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

This posting is about a puzzle. Recently, while visiting Orthanc to write about Saruman, we bumped into the problem of how Gandalf escaped from there. Our memory was a little unclear about this—we knew that Gwaihir swooped down to rescue him, but why was Gwaihir there in the first place?

Eagles had appeared twice before in our experience of Gandalf, first when they rescued him and his companions from the goblins and Wargs in Chapter 6 of The Hobbit, “Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire”. Here, the Lord of the Eagles hears the commotion as the Wargs struggle to overcome Gandalf’s fire magic and, gathering up some of his people, flies down to investigate.

Something similar happens at the Battle of the Five Armies, explained in Chapter 18, “The Return Journey”:

“The Eagles had long had suspicion of the goblins’ mustering; from their watchfulness the movements in the mountains could not be altogether hid.” Thus, they appear self-bid, but, as they are ancient creatures, first made by Manwe and given the role of watchers from the time of the First Age, it’s not surprising that they would act as they did.

Battle of the Five Armies_Final Complete.jpg

In Jackson’s An Unexpected Journey and, again, in his The Fellowship of the Ring, an eagle appears after Gandalf has had a heart-to-heart with a moth.

Gandalf+moth.png

With a moth? We asked ourselves. We scratched our heads and wondered: does JRRT use a moth? And, if so, where did the moth come from?

In fact, what really happens is a very neatly constructed piece of plotting on the part of the author, all of which is very nicely laid out in a couple of pages of “The Council of Elrond” during Gandalf’s long narrative.

Gandalf meets Radagast—who is identified, among other talents, as one for whom “birds are especially his friends”—and who says that, if Gandalf needs help with the Black Riders, he needs to apply to Saruman immediately.
In return, Gandalf says to Radagast, “We shall need your help, and the help of all things that will give it. Send out messages to all the beasts and birds that are your friends. Tell them to bring news of anything that bears on this matter to Saruman and Gandalf. Let messages be sent to Orthanc.”
Gandalf goes to Orthanc and, rejecting Saruman’s offer, is imprisoned at its top.
Then, that which was set up in 1 and 2 comes to fruition:

“That was the undoing of Saruman’s plot. For Radagast knew no reason why he should not do as I asked; and he rode away towards Mirkwood where he had many friends of old. And the Eagles of the Mountains went far and wide, and they saw many things…And they sent a messenger to bring these tidings to me.

So it was that when summer waned, there came a night of moon, and Gwaihir the Windlord, swiftest of the Great Eagles, came unlooked-for to Orthanc; and he found me standing on the pinnacle. Then I spoke to him and he bore me away, before Saruman was aware.”

Although we have solved the puzzle of Gandalf’s escape, we have no answer to why this natural and even elegant piece of plotting wasn’t used in the film any more than we understand why Radagast is turned into the horrible, clownish figure he is in the Hobbit films, having been described in “The Council of Elrond” simply as “a worthy Wizard, a master of shapes and changes of hue; and he has much lore of herbs and beasts, and birds are especially his friends.” And someone who could never be corrupted by Saruman, which is really, we think, why Saruman calls him a fool.

In an earlier posting, we suggested that Saruman, in his desire to ape Sauron, had created, in Isenguard, a mini-Mordor, just as Iofur Raknison, in Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, has turned Svalbard into a shabby ursine mockery of a human palace.

We also suggested that the creators of the Tolkien-derived films, when they began to veer as far from the text as they appeared increasingly to do in the Hobbit films, had become a bit like Saruman themselves, and, like his master, “cannot make real new things of [their] own…” We hesitate to add this, but, could it be that, as in the case of the orcs, they “only ruined them and twisted them…”? (The Return of the King, “The Stairs of Cirith Ungol”). After all, instead of easy plot lines, we have moths, and, in place of worthy, incorruptible wizards, we have gross clowns.

We are reluctant to end on a negative note, however. After all, just as there are the Rohirrim in The Lord of the Rings films, there are those wonderful eagles at the end of An Unexpected Journey, so why not end with them?

taking-fan-theories-to-a-next-level-the-eagles-are-coming-434375.jpg

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

If you don’t know Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, we very much recommend them—but with this proviso: in the first and second volumes (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife), Pullman’s antagonism towards organized religion is channeled into the “Magisterium”, a believable villainous organization in the world which he has so meticulously and powerfully created. In the third volume (The Amber Spyglass), we feel that that antagonism becomes all-too-apparent and it causes that volume—in our opinion—to lack the more human element and focus of the first two volumes. The first volume can certainly be read on its own and perhaps it says something about the trilogy as a whole that a planned project for filming all three books was eventually cut to a single film of the first book. We recommend this film, as well, but suggest that you read The Golden Compass before you see it.

The Return of Who.1?

21 Wednesday Oct 2015

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

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Alfred the Great, British history, Cold War, Edwatd VIII, Elizabeth II, Fairy Tale, George I, George III, George V, George VI, Great Britain, Ireland, James I, Kings, Monarchies, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Tolkien, Transvaal War

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always!

In this posting, we want to talk about a larger issue than usual.

JRRT had always thought of The Lord of the Rings as a single work and had been forced to break it up into three parts by his publisher, Allen/Unwin, for financial reasons. The third part of this became “The Return of the King”. If you’ve read us for a while, you have probably decided that, although we are passionate Anglophiles (and Francophiles and Germanophiles and—well, we are World Civ folks—we love every country, young and old, and one of us has spent years very happily teaching World Civilizations, in fact), we are North Americans and, to narrow that, citizens of the USA. This means that we grew up in a democratic republic, the descendants of people who separated themselves from control by the 18^th-century monarchical government of George III of Great Britain by violent means.

Thus, the idea of “king” is rather an abstract one for us, rather fairy-talish, in fact, as distant as the traditional opening of Irish fairy tales which began “A king there was, over all of Ireland”.

So, what might the idea of that title, “The Return of the King” have meant to JRRT, when he chose it?

When JRRT was born, in 1892, Victoria had been the ruler of the UK since 1837.

She was a grandma in 1892.

The Queen could easily trace her descent back to George I (1660-1727), and, through him, back all the way to the eldest daughter of James I, Elizabeth (1596-1662).

Because JRRT lived until 1973, in his lifetime, the English monarchs were:

(whose death brought together all of Victoria’s grandsons, monarchs of various sorts—see the FILM CLIP)

George V

Edward VIII

George VI

Elizabeth II

During his lifetime, there had been a great colonial war (the Transvaal War, 1899-1902), two world wars, and the Cold War, and yet Britain survived them all under this succession of monarchs. “The King” in “The Return of…”, then, might be thought to have a very special meaning, one of unwavering stability. In the Shire in Middle Earth in the 3^rd Age, for example:

“There remained, of course, the ancient tradition concerning the high king at Fornost, or Norbury as they called it, away north of the Shire. But there had been no king for nearly a thousand years, and even the ruins of Kings’ Norbury were covered with grass. Yet the Hobbits still said of wild folk and wicked things (such as trolls) that they had not heard of the king. For they attributed to the king of old all their essential laws; and usually they kept the laws of free will, because they were The Rules (as they said), both ancient and just.” (The Lord of the Rings, 9)

And that “nearly a thousand years”, in terms of British history could easily be taken in reverse, with the foundations of the modern British monarchy—the one Tolkien spent his life being ruled by—appearing with Alfred the Great (849-899AD—and interesting to think that Alfred’s name may be spelled, in Old English, “Aelf-raed”, which means something like “elf counsel” or “wise elf”)—that is, about a thousand years before Tolkien’s birth in 1892.

This is, of course, a secular monarch. Tolkien being a devout Catholic (as well as one who wanted great depth in his Middle Earth), could there be another dimension? We’ll talk about that in our next posting…

Thanks, again, for reading.

MTCIDC

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Tag Archives: The Return of the King

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Heil, Sharkey!

Healing (II)

What If…

Shire Portrait (5a): Hostile Takeover

Rear Guard

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