Book III, Chapter 5: The White Rider
I know I spend a lot of time making comparisons to the Jackson films in these posts -- so much so that I might seem like the kind of Tolkien purist who dislikes those films -- and I really have to emphasize that the reason I return to those comparisons over and over is in fact the opposite. Jackson’s films are wonderfully done, they are magnificently successful as adaptations, and that is WHY it’s interesting to compare the two. Even for long-time novel fans like myself, the Jackson films have successfully out-competed a lot of my memories of the books like some kind of aggressive (but lovely!) non-native plant, and so part of this reading experience for me is to help delineate for myself how different the two versions are, so that I can appreciate both. A secondary (but still helpful) effect is for me to think about the difference between how films and novels work as storytelling devices. The events of this chapter are really a great example of both of these things, hence this framing conversation by me, since I am of course going to focus on Gandalf the White revealing himself to the Three Hunters on that hill (“hill”, you say? What a hasty word, James) where Treebeard met Merry and Pippin last chapter -- an event depicted here by Ted Nasmith, who is making it into the art rotation here often enough that I probably have to stop saying I don’t usually care for his work: http://fantasy.mrugala.net/Ted%20Nasmith%20-%20Tolkien%20Calendar%202003/Ted%20Nasmith%20-%20Tolkien%20Calendar%202003%20-%2011%20-%20Gandalf%20le%20blanc.jpg I’m still more of an Alan Lee fan, I think. Anyway, Gandalf the White.
One of the things that’s really well-constructed about the chapter is the way it sets us up for that revelation -- there’s a lot of talk in the opening portions of the chapter between the three of them, and part of that talk revolves around the ways in which they see things differently. Gimli comments on how, though he and Legolas might be unable to read footprints in the grass correctly, Aragorn surely can -- and Aragorn, in turn, yields to Legolas on the question of what can be made of the horses’ noises the previous night. Aragorn and Gimli then each find a sign in the forest that had eluded the vision of the others, and Legolas immediately offers an interpretation, which Aragorn then outdoes (we know, of course, because we saw these events ourselves two chapters ago) by noticing certain tiny details in the traces left behind. We even get some musing by Legolas about how young he feels due to the air in Fangorn -- we do not, by the way, know canonically how old Legolas is, although guesses have placed his age close to three thousand years -- that lead him to call Gimli and Aragorn (both in the neighborhood of 100, broadly speaking) “children”. The effect here is to focus our attention on how impossible it is for any one person to see the whole of an image, to understand all that can be perceived in the world around them. This, I think, is another ongoing thematic current in The Lord of the Rings, although it will be particularly relevant as an explanation for why on earth it takes the three of them so long to discover that the weird old man who’s snuck up on them is in fact their old friend Gandalf.
Gandalf’s entrance, of course, is very carefully hidden -- we’ve been conditioned as readers to expect Saruman, and certainly that’s who Gimli in particular is expecting. Gandalf definitely drags the whole thing out as much as he can -- whether out of sly mischief or just the genuine weirdness of not exactly remembering himself, who can say? The text doesn’t demand anything of us, but I think Gandalf’s sense of humor is likeliest as an explanation -- he chuckles, after all, when they ask his name, which seems to raise the hair on the back of Aragorn’s neck. I’ll admit, though, that Gandalf does seem to offer an explanation immediately after he is revealed -- he tells them he has passed “through fire and deep water”, he indicates that he has forgotten much of what he once knew and has remembered much of what he had forgotten, etc. I do like little puzzles like this one. But what’s most exciting and interesting to me about this chapter is how differently the revelation plays out, once Gandalf is clearly identified as himself -- in the film, it’s pretty clearly a uniformly happy reunion, but there’s a strange energy here, almost a friction, in the novel, that it has the time and space to explore, and I really like that feeling.
At first, the exchange seems very friendly -- Gandalf pats Gimli’s bare head, and there’s some conversation about the hobbits. I particularly like the moment in which Legolas reveals that Sam went with Frodo, and that seems to particularly gladden Gandalf -- I think he’s thinking of the study in Bag End and the sound of garden shears NOT pruning a hedge, myself. I figure it’s always nice to have a judgment call affirmed, even if you are already a resurrected angel who is now the chief representative of the divine powers on (Middle) Earth. Anyway, things start to get, if not chilly, at least a little tense when Gandalf turns his attentions closer to their present circumstances -- he makes some cryptic comments about the hobbits, and Aragorn replies a little frostily that this is classic Gandalf, speaking in riddles. We could argue, of course, that Aragorn is happy enough to see his old friend that a “classic Gandalf moment” is maybe welcome to him, but there’s a back and forth immediately thereafter, in which Gandalf says he’s old and likes talking to the wisest person present (himself) -- another classically testy Gandalf quip -- and Aragorn basically tells him “I’m not sitting at the damn kids’ table at Thanksgiving anymore, old man, tell me what you know.” I think this is not only understandable but truthfully a lot more human than the pure joy that the films explore -- again, they’re limited by time, I’m not bashing them -- since, let’s think about this. Aragorn told Gandalf not to go into Moria, and Gandalf said “pshaw” -- but then he died, leaving Aragorn holding the bag in a really dire moment. Aragorn has since seen the utter collapse of the Fellowship, and literally buried Boromir at sea before running farther and faster than he probably ever has in his life trying to catch up to two little fellows who had been in his care, hoping against all hope that he might rescue them from torture and death. When he gets to the forest to find Gandalf all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, saying things like “ooh, wouldn’t YOU like to know?” when he wonders where the hell Merry and Pippin are, uh, who among us wouldn’t say something just a little brisk, even to our resurrected buddy?
At this point, Gandalf yields a bit and starts to unfold a long story, but watch the dialogue here -- Gandalf speaks for long stretches, and the only replies he gets are from Gimli and Legolas, who pose questions or comments that help Gandalf move things forward. Aragorn himself is silent all the way until Gandalf starts getting a little vague, and he says “now you speak to yourself again.” Tolkien does, I fully grant you, note that he says it with a smile, but I think that’s because Tolkien can hear the little flecks of ice in his words too, and he wants us to know that, even if Aragorn is a little frustrated, he’s the kind of frustrated we all get when a friend is displaying one of their characteristic little foibles that gets under our skin just a bit.
The Gandalf in front of us is changed, of course -- Gandalf the Grey had his moments, but he never said anything about himself quite as bold as Gandalf the White’s comment to Gimli that he is “very dangerous: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet, unless you are brought alive before the seat of the Dark Lord.” Shortly thereafter a beam of sunlight falls down into his open hands in his lap, and he seems to be filled with light -- he even looks up at Anor, the Sun, and seems almost to listen for a moment before rising to get moving. You don’t come back from death without having some kind of shift in your personality, and Gandalf certainly does seem affected by it. Not to say that it has always made him a purer and more righteous being -- to the contrary, he makes reference at one point to the War being basically impossible to win unless someone were to wield the Ring, and he turns and looks off in the distance in Frodo’s direction before noting that the Ring is too far from them to be a real temptation any longer. You get the sense that Gandalf is almost shaking with the amount of power contained in his new form, and that the temptations (and perils) the Ring posed him once in Bag End might have been much, much harder to resist in this new body.
Aragorn and Gandalf aren’t quite done with their standoff -- Gandalf asks if Aragorn will come with him to Edoras, and Aragorn agrees to “set out together” but eyes Gandalf closely, saying “I do not doubt that you will come there before me, if you wish.” This is a lot of things rolled up into one -- frustration that his long run to Fangorn has been useless since Gandalf somehow magically got there and sorted everything out without him (or so it seems), irritation that he always seems to be left a little out of Gandalf’s counsels despite his own considerable merits, even awe at this new Gandalf who seems so brimful with powers that perhaps he can simply spring through the air to Edoras and come to Theoden’s halls long before Aragorn, a simple human, can arrive on foot. They have this moment together, since Aragorn rises as he makes this remark, and the two of them look into each other’s eyes -- Aragorn looks like “some king out of the mists of the sea” and Gandalf shines “as if with some light kindled within . . . holding a power beyond the strength of kings.” Whatever passes between them silently in that moment, you can see it finally affect Aragorn, who realizes, I think, that Gandalf’s power is here to give aid and strength to Aragorn’s great work -- that Gandalf’s evasions are not meant to undermine Aragorn’s destiny but rather to bring it about. Since he finally speaks again, and he tells the wizard “you are our captain and our banner. The Dark Lord has Nine. But we have One mightier than they: the White Rider. He has passed through the fire and the abyss, and they shall fear him. We will go where he leads.” This is a really important moment for Aragorn, I think -- the man who has recently had both the elation of accepting his royal calling (as he rowed through the Argonath) and the agony of seeing his friends torn apart (and in one case killed) under his leadership has been struggling with what it means to lead, as I’ve remarked before. He’s used all his skill to get to Fangorn only to learn that he’s needed elsewhere, and that the task he set out to finish has been completed by others. His pride was wounded a little here, I think, but his willingness to accept the new task and to defer to another’s leadership is, a little ironically, about the most kingly thing he’s done recently. It’s certainly in line with how Tolkien imagines a true leader behaving.
Gandalf then finally tells the story of his death -- not from the fall, but from the ensuing battle with the Balrog in both the deep water on the uttermost foundations of stone and up the Endless Stair to Zirakzigil, the pinnacle of the Silvertine -- and resurrection. Basically every word of it is poetry and better than the Treebeard verses, so I really encourage you to read it, even if you haven’t been reading along. His description of what it felt like to die and to be reborn is unlike anything else in the trilogy, and it moves me every time.
I do love his messages from Galadriel -- for Aragorn she sends a long verse that suggests a pathway we will watch him follow, which he receives and ponders in total silence. Legolas’s verse is less specific, and less crucial to the events of the story -- he is willing to talk a little thereafter with Gimli, but it’s clear he feels the words are at least a little unsettling. That’s why it’s such a delight when Gandalf finally remembers to relay the message to Gimli -- his message is least ominous to start with, and Gimli receives it in exactly the way an 8th grader would receive the news that his crush had said something nice about him. He darts around singing in his native language and immediately offers to go chop Saruman’s head off. (Okay, maybe not every middle schooler would take this particular approach.) They then summon their horses -- well, Gandalf summons his and luckily the others are keeping good company -- and ride at great speed towards Edoras, even as they can see the smoke rising from Isengard at dusk, which Gandalf says presages “battle and war!” We are starting to near the battles of the war that are most famous (and visually stunning) from the films, which is pretty exciting, I have to be honest. First, though, we’ll have to deal with The King of the Golden Hall, and that’s exactly who we will meet in Book III, Chapter 6.