Book II, Chapter 3: The Ring Goes South
It’s time for another copy of The Lord of the Rings from James’s shelf: it bears a really wonderful John Howe illustration of Gandalf the Grey, which is why I decided to grab this book now, since it’s the last point at which an image of Gandalf the Grey striding across open country connects at all with the text. It’s a one-volume copy of the book -- I don’t generally prefer the one-volume editions, since they’re bulky and the bindings are often not as sturdy as I want them to be (the binding felt unhappy to me as I read this chapter, certainly). This, though, is a special copy -- the girl I was dating had made a trip to Hungary, and she thought the cover of this copy was stunning (it really is a great image of Gandalf), and she figured I would like it as a present from Europe. I did like it, and I decided to keep it -- and she decided to keep me, and here we are.
I said in my last post that I found it significant that Frodo and Sam are the only official members of “the Fellowship” (which of course doesn’t have that name yet) as of the end of the Council of Elrond. What is, I think, even more puzzling is the composition of the group we eventually get. Tolkien himself struggles with this for a while -- it’s been a while since I alluded to The Return of the Shadow, so I’ll note here that Tolkien is all over the map here. At one point he envisions a Fellowship composed exclusively of hobbits. At other times he toys with whether it should be seven or nine walkers. The very first Fellowship list in his draft manuscripts consists of Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Folco, Trotter, Merry, Odo, Glorfindel, and Burin. And if you’re saying “who in the hell are half of those people”, welcome to Tolkien’s process for writing The Lord of the Rings -- he had gotten as far as the Council of Elrond and half the people you and I think of as main characters haven’t even occurred to him yet. Seriously, read The Return of the Shadow: it’s fascinating.
Anyway, turning back to the text itself, nothing about this group really makes sense if we think of it as an alliance forged in Rivendell to see the Ring delivered safely to Mount Doom. Frodo, of course, does make sense, as does Gandalf, whose sole mission in Middle-earth is to see Sauron cast down. We can accept Elrond’s decision to allow Sam, of course, both out of necessity (since he’s going to trail Frodo like a faithful dog regardless) and expediency (if we grant the premise that maybe a hobbit is the only safe Ring-bearer, and that hobbits are breakable). But after that, all the choices are strange. Aragorn would make a lot more sense -- he knows Frodo, after all, and is both skilled and trusted -- if he didn’t make it explicit that he is in fact going to Gondor, apparently so that he can at last accept his responsibilities there as King (I presume?)? I make this presumption since there’s no other way to make sense of why he sees Gondor as his final destination rather than Mordor: he tells Frodo that “your road and our road lie together for many hundreds of miles”, which makes very plain that he and Boromir will not see this to the end. Why not have one of Aragorn’s trusted associates in the Rangers go, in his stead or in Boromir’s? The Rangers were communicated with after the Council, and the Fellowship has not been assembled until enough time has passed for all those messages to go back and forth. It’s strange. Strange, too, to trust Boromir, who seemed of all the people at the Council the one least committed to following Elrond’s advice (in part, of course, because he’s the only one there not at least indirectly, if not directly, summoned by Elrond).
And then the Elves will be represented, not by Elrond (despite his continued health and vigor -- the text always makes plain that he is neither frail nor diminished by age) or Glorfindel (whose skill is evident….and, again, who has a connection with Frodo), nor even by Erestor or Galdor who played major roles at the Council, or one of Elrond’s sons who are clearly tight with Aragorn, but by Legolas, Thranduil’s son, who played a noticeably junior role in the Council’s deliberations. I mean, if you’re not up on the divisions between Elves, Legolas is a Silvan Elf, one of the groups descending from the Teleri -- Elrond and the other Elves of his house are Noldor. The Teleri and Noldor went through a rough break-up thousands of years ago in The Sundering of the Elves -- Elrond’s folks went to Valinor, saw the light of the Two Trees, etc., while Legolas’s folks stayed behind in the twilight of Middle-earth. It’s a very big deal to Elves, and sure, it was many millennia ago, but Elves hold grudges that last millennia on a regular basis. Legolas and Elrond don’t even speak the same language -- both, apparently, speak Westron as a second language, which was handy for the Council, but these Elves are miles apart as kindreds go. Why on earth, then, does Elrond entrust the errand of the Ring to Legolas and not one of his own folk? It’s baffling, honestly, though I'm sure there are theories that explain it to someone's satisfaction (if not mine). Gimli is maybe less surprising -- as far as I can tell there are two dwarves in Rivendell right now and one of them has gotten quite old -- but it’s a little funny that Tolkien did nothing to give him the spotlight at the Council (Jackson at least remedies this). Merry and Pippin, I guess, seize the final two slots in the party that Elrond was pondering filling with Elves from Rivendell, but it’s just strange that this is the order he worked in. (Gandalf, by the way, in standing up for Merry and Pippin, comments that Glorfindel “could not storm the Dark Tower, nor open the road to the Fire by the power that is in him” to which I would like to reply “Gandalf, get out of the damn way, my elf Glorfindel would like to give it a good try first” but that’s just me fan-boying over Glorfindel. I am glad Merry and Pippin get to go.)
There’s so much focus on weaponry here -- everything from the famous and powerful weapons like Glamdring (that Gandalf used to cut down the Great Goblin) and the newly-renamed Anduril, the Flame of the West (which is the reforged Narsil, Elendil’s sword, with which he opposed and undid Sauron, at least for a time) to Frodo getting Sting (and some Dwarf-Kevlar) from Bilbo, which as far as I can tell is a Numenorean pocket-knife. We really have seen no actual battles so far -- fire has been used to drive off some Nazgul, and Sam has threatened a malevolent willow tree with a hatchet, but war is still ahead of us -- and all this sword-talk is effective foreshadowing, I think, that it really won’t be long now.
Another thing that strikes me in these chapters is how foreboding everything feels -- all nine of the travelers seem to be downright gloomy on setting forth from Rivendell. Aragorn literally “sat with his head bowed to his knees; only Elrond knew fully what this hour meant to him” -- he’s bearing the heavy weight of what it means to follow his destiny back to Gondor. Later, in Hollin, Legolas talks about how the stones gently lament the long-since-departed Elves of that land, and Gandalf and Aragorn seem to be in constant strain with each other regarding what path to take. It’s funny that Jackson inverts them so much for this stretch of the story, representing Moria as a pathway desired by others in the company but feared by Gandalf, when here it’s Aragorn who fears that path and Gandalf who’s anxious to try it. We know Gandalf has passed that way before, and maybe he trusts his ability to move through Moria more in the book than he did in the film?
It is impressive, though, how effectively the Fellowship works together almost from the beginning -- there are often slightly pointed words traded between members of the Fellowship, but in general it feels as though everyone finds their role in the group rather quickly, and works together to see the journey advance successfully. Gimli and Legolas are the least familiar of these characters to us, at the outset, but both have some good moments here -- I remember as a kid being really amazed and impressed in particular by Legolas being able to run on top of the freshly fallen snow. I guess this is an argument for Elrond having chosen well: maybe the time taken in Rivendell before their departure was his chance to observe these people interacting with each other, and to find the most harmonious and effective group he could. I still say that his approach to this group is not particularly smart, given all that was said at the Council -- their list of allies grows thin, the Nine are abroad (or will be again soon), Mordor is stretching forth its power, and yet Elrond seems to think it’s wisest not to bind literally anyone to the task of helping Frodo get the Ring to the Sammath Naur. In the end, of course, this is a kindness, since the rest of the Fellowship would have felt pretty badly about breaking that vow. But within the world of the story and assuming Elrond cannot literally see the future, I’m not sure I see the rationale for him choosing not to place ANY weight on the company to ensure that Frodo’s mission will succeed.
Anyway, the Ring has gone South -- and has encountered its first major obstacle in a cantankerous old mountain that is inhospitable to travelers. Greater obstacles yet await us, of course -- next time, I will tackle both Moria chapters in one fell swoop, taking A Journey in the Dark to The Bridge of Khazad-dum in Book II, Chapters 4 and 5.