Book II, Chapter 10: The Breaking of the Fellowship
Well, my journey is hitting its ⅓ of the way marker here, concluding The Fellowship of the Ring with a surprisingly brief chapter.
To me, this chapter is what in television sitcoms they call a “bottle episode” -- Wikipedia would be glad to tell you more, but in brief, that’s where the series showrunners and/or producers are hoping to save a little cash, and so they insist on an episode taking place on sets that have already been constructed and without guest stars, to save on expense. Bottle episodes are often hailed as some of the best episodes for their series, since out of necessity the writers can’t explore new locations or new characters, and are forced instead to dig into who these people really are. Think of a Thanksgiving episode, or an episode where the main characters are trapped somewhere, even quarantined. You can probably remember a few examples, and they’re probably pretty good television. Well, that’s what we’ve got here -- no external threats are introduced, no new characters are encountered, and we don’t even really get a new location, since basically the entire chapter unfolds within brief walking distance of where the Fellowship put into shore at the end of Chapter 9. I guess we get a tiny description of the Seat of Amon Hen itself, but even though it’s a pretty cinematic place, Tolkien doesn’t invest a lot of time in it -- there are consequently few artistic depictions, though I do like this little sketch John Howe made of it. http://tolkiengateway.net/w/images/0/0c/John_Howe_-_Amon_Hen_%28sketch%29.jpg Anyway, this chapter isn’t about new places, new people, or new threats...well, not really. :-) So what does it tell us about who these people are?
Boromir, of course, reveals a lot about himself. It’s easy to make him the villain of the piece, and certainly he’s an antagonist in this chapter, but he’s too complex for us to brush him aside so easily. Boromir is a man weighed down by obligation almost as much as Aragorn is. Is he proud? Yes, he certainly is. But he’s accustomed both to leveraging that pride as a leader of soldiers, and to having that pride rewarded by his equally proud father (though we don’t know that yet, as readers), so it’s hardly a shocking character trait. He’s heard all the things that have been said about the Ring but he just can’t accept them -- not when it’s so obvious to him that he could use it in the right way. We’ve been prepared well for this moment -- Gandalf’s horror at how the Ring would tempt him was a good setup, and Galadriel the Dark Queen gave us a full image of how terribly the Ring pulls on our best impulses to betray them with the deepest of consequences. Galadriel is just able to turn the tide for herself -- to hold back from what her desire would have her do. Boromir is not made of stuff quite stern enough for that -- he’s got no failures in his past, as Galadriel does, to make him self-reflective, or none at least that he would acknowledge. Gondor’s attempts to thwart the Enemy have been as hard-fought and fruitless as those of the Elves, but Boromir would never call his work “the long defeat” as Galadriel and Celeborn do. He’s just not equipped to resist, and so his will breaks under the Ring’s weight. Luckily Frodo Baggins of the Shire is too savvy a customer to be persuaded or intimidated by a blunt instrument like Boromir of Gondor, and I do love the slightly icy quality to Frodo’s thanking him for his counsel and noting that Boromir has made this decision easy for him (though not in the way he’d hoped) -- there’s a nice hint of Galadriel’s rebuke to Celeborn there, if you ask me.
We get insight into Frodo, too -- and not just from his ability to withstand Boromir’s entreaties (and threats). When he clambers into the Seat of Seeing atop Amon Hen, he is suddenly empowered -- if you don’t know Middle-earth geography, it may not be completely clear, but most of the things he’s seeing are not physically possible for him to see with physical eyes. This is Frodo wielding the power of the One Ring, even if only accidentally. If the taste of such power could corrupt him, you’d think it would happen here. Instead he finds himself in a tug of war -- Sauron reaching out to demand the Ring, and some other Voice (the identity of which will be cleared up later) calling out in opposition. What I like about this moment, though, is that it’s not as simple as the Voice contending with the Eye and winning. Both of those wills are present here, but so is a third: Frodo’s. He becomes “aware of himself . . . Frodo, neither the Voice nor the Eye: free to choose, and with one remaining instant in which to do so.” Tolkien comes down firmly here on the side of free will -- some power in the universe may have meant for Frodo Baggins to have the Ring, which Gandalf once called an encouraging thought, but from there it’s genuinely in Frodo’s hands. He makes the choice -- as he will again and again on this journey -- to do what is right, and resist the powerful dominion of Sauron as it reaches out to attempt forcing him into submission. And then he realizes that he must go, and at once, and that to take any of his friends with him would be to endanger them -- in effect, he makes the choice of Gandalf at Khazad-dum, to throw himself into harm’s way and save the rest of them. Only he’s not a powerful immortal spirit, he is a hobbit who a year ago had never been more than three days’ walk from his home. It’s inspiring to see him take this kind of sacrificial leadership role in this chapter -- the role for which virtually every major character he’s met has tried to help prepare him. He’s ready now to set his own course, and as far as he’s concerned, the only way to do that ethically is to leave the rest of them behind. He hopes they’ll understand, and says to himself, “Sam will.”
I love the double meaning to that thought of Frodo’s, because one of the other major character beats revealed in this chapter is how good Sam is at understanding the Ringbearer’s quest. As Frodo goes off initially to think about his decision, we get our first inkling of Sam’s insight -- he mumbles something about how the decision is as plain as a pikestaff but Sam Gamgee will stay out of it for now. That might have seemed like bluster from simple Sam, but later, in conversation with the others, he comes out with it -- after everyone else has had their say, he comes in to tell them that he doesn’t think they understand Frodo at all. That the decision here isn’t difficult because both courses of action -- the road across Emyn Muil and the road through Minas Tirith -- are live options. It’s difficult because to go into the Emyn Muil is to face the fear of such a path. And Sam says not to worry, that Frodo Baggins will do the right thing -- the only thing to worry about is him ditching all of them, since he’s the type who will not want any of them to be at risk. They’re all fretting about whether he’ll feel betrayed if some of them part ways with him, or whether he’s too nervous to ask them to come with him, and Sam tells them this is hogwash, the only thing they need to work out is how to insist on going with him and seeing the one true duty of the Ringbearer carried out. Aragorn praises Sam’s insight, and suddenly, of course, Boromir stumbles back to camp and they all scatter seeking Frodo. They scatter, but Sam almost immediately analyzes the situation, realizes what Frodo almost certainly must be up to, and scampers back to camp just in time to insist on going. It’s easy to play this scene out in our heads as though Sam’s just a dachshund with separation anxiety, and there’s an element of it here, anyway, with his profound emotional attachment to Frodo evident in their conversation. But we need to context of these moments with Sam earlier in the chapter to make sense of what’s actually happening here -- Elrond was right to think that Frodo’s first and most indispensable companion was Sam Gamgee. He’s the only member of the company other than Frodo who manages to actually treat the grim duty of being the Ringbearer with the respect it requires. He’s also the only member of the company who seems to be able to empathize enough with Frodo to understand what he would do, the risks he would run and sacrifices he would make, to see that duty carried out. This is foreshadowing, of course -- Sam Gamgee will in fact know exactly what it’s like to bear that burden. But it’s here in the shadow of Tol Brandir that Sam earns that moment, and shows the character Frodo will need from him on the road ahead. Sam’s a sweet and simple fellow in some respects, but when it comes to his duty, he has a backbone of iron -- in a crisis, Sam knows the same thing that Anna of Arendelle does. You do the next right thing. Even if your heart is breaking.
Folks who come to the books from the movies may well find the finish to Fellowship puzzling -- there are no orcs or Uruk-hai, and Boromir is still very much alive at the end of the book. Our cliffhanger ending involves Frodo and Sam paddling to Amon Lhaw while the six remaining members of the Fellowship run all over the wooded riverbanks. I definitely get the appeal of the movie’s flourish and finish, which I’ll reflect on soon, when I get to that chapter in the actual text. But I like that Tolkien intentionally ends on this note. The Breaking of the Fellowship is not some external catastrophe, as the movie effectively makes it -- Saruman’s shock troops disrupting the group at a crucial moment, and spoiling the possibility that, say, Aragorn or some other members of the group might have gone with Frodo. The break happens before those guys even arrive -- because this is a bottle episode. What happens here arises out of who these characters are -- Boromir, whose warped sense of pride makes him susceptible to corruption, Frodo and Sam, whose good-hearted conviction is all that will make them able to accomplish the impossible, and the rest, who (though we can and should praise their bravery) did not in fact have what it takes to walk into Mordor. This isn’t a mark on their characters -- they have other crucially important purposes to play, and arguably all of them, even Boromir, will help create the kinds of victories and diversions that distract Sauron and aid the Ringbearer’s quest. It’s just that at this moment, on the shores of Nen Hithoel, they make it clear from what they’re saying that they’ve failed Galadriel’s test -- that caught between duty and some easier path, they’re just a little too tempted by that easier path. We can’t all be Sam Gamgee So, thank goodness for Sam Gamgee. Not to mention Frodo Baggins, of course. We won’t see them for a while, but I’ll be very glad to get back to them.
Well, we did it. Ahead of us is The Two Towers, which I’ll begin tomorrow with Tolkien’s carefully spoiler-free-in-name The Departure of Boromir, the first chapter of Book III.