Book VI, Chapter 6: Many Partings & Chapter 7: Homeward Bound
One of the criticisms generally voiced about The Return of the King (both book and film) is that the ending is drawn out too long -- that there’s WAY too much material after Sauron’s defeated and the good guys can go home champions. The film argument is one I’ll get to in a couple of weeks (when, yes, I will be taking the films in and rambling about them here), but the book argument is one I want to address squarely. I think if you don’t enjoy the ending to the novel, that’s up to you, but I think criticisms that suggest that Tolkien just rambled on past the book’s natural ending are wrong-headed. The whole point of this thousand page novel is that defeating Sauron is NOT the end of the book -- that this book is about something more than “does Sauron die?” To put it another way, as this image depicts, this is about The End of the Third Age, which is the name the Tolkien Millennium Edition gives to its volume for Book VI. Sauron’s fall is a part of that, but not all of it: a lot of things are coming to an end and a lot of other things have only barely begun.
Chapter 6 kicks off by sending that message repeatedly: Bilbo’s life is winding down with the Ring’s destruction and all that lies ahead of him is the one last “long journey”. Arwen gives Frodo her passage to Valinor that she will lose, choosing a mortal life with Aragorn (side note: who got Luthien Tinuviel’s ticket, I wonder? And hey, how did Bilbo get a ticket? This is more than a little confusing). Eomer and Gimli’s long-standing mostly-playful argument concludes with an agreement that Arwen and Galadriel are equally lovely, but Gimli says “You have chosen the Evening, but my love is given to the Morning. And my heart forebodes that soon it will pass away forever.” We are being given an opportunity to understand that evil is not simply defeated. Sometimes in destroying evil’s power, we have to undo structures we have long loved -- there are good things lost in the winning, and not the wicked only. A lesson for 2020, I think, as we ask ourselves how to reckon with historical evil while preserving some things from those years past we do love -- it may not be possible, and maybe we need to come to terms with that.
The conversation with Treebeard, too, reinforces some of this -- when Aragorn promises him lasting friendship with Gondor, Treebeard smiles amusedly and notes that he outlasts human kingdoms. But then Gandalf touches his elbow and says that the Fourth Age has come, and that perhaps it will be the humans who outlast Treebeard, now. We are so accustomed to walking through this landscape of impossible age with these creatures who seem to have an endless supply of energy and memory -- Treebeard, of course, but also Galadriel and Elrond and Tom Bombadil, for goodness’ sake. Middle-earth has been a place where the past remains alive. But Gandalf is here to tell us that those ages are done with, and that the world is being left to us humans -- frail, mortal, given to swift tempers and rash pride more than cool, wise contemplation -- to tend and keep. There’s still a little sense of the magic to come, though, that I really love -- when Treebeard goes to take his leave of Celeborn and Galadriel, he says they may never meet again, and Celeborn admits he does not know. But Galadriel, whose insight into the future is so keen, tells him that in a far distant time, the lands under the sea (Beleriand, in other words) will be raised, and that they will see Treebeard “in the willow-meads of Tasarinan”. That exact phrase begins the song that Treebeard sang to Merry and Pippin back when they first met in Book III, as he reminisced about the First Age. There’s something restorative about the idea that, some lovely day far in the future, Treebeard and Galadriel will hail one another, walking in the forgotten meadows of Tasarinan.
The partings among the Fellowship are a little less sorrowful -- there’s a sense that they’re mostly young enough to cross paths again here in Middle-earth proper. Legolas and Gimli have their little honeymoon jaunt through Fangorn to take together, but those two sweet boys will surely find their way back down to Minas Tirith before too long, to pursue the City Flipping plans they’d made on their initial walks there. Aragorn reminds Pippin, not long after, that he’s still technically speaking sworn to the Citadel, and that he’ll let him go back to the Shire but not permanently -- and it’s hard for me, personally, to imagine him making the multi-month trip down to Minas Tirith without Merry coming along.
Saruman’s brief appearances here serve mostly to reinforce the sense that he’s lost his powers -- Treebeard felt he could be let loose, and even once he’s encountered by Gandalf and company, there’s no sense that he’s about to be taken captive by Elladan and Elrohir or anything. This will prove yet another weird slip, I’d argue, but I guess we can read it in another way -- as Saruman being left to wander in the world much as Gollum did, to play whatever his role is, in the end. Though even Gandalf had wanted Gollum held in captivity by the Elves of Mirkwood. Saruman’s voice has no bewitching power left: all he can do is whine and steal. That seems to be all he’s got, anyway. We’ll learn more in Chapter 8.
Reunion with Bilbo cements this sense that there are things being lost -- gone is the aging but chipper hobbit they saw only last fall, whose offer to the Council of Elrond to carry the Ring into Mordor was overly hasty and clearly not really plausible, but didn’t come across as feeble-minded or really deluded. Whereas now the old fellow can barely keep his head straight -- he doesn’t know why the Ring’s gone or how everything else got caught up with it. His mind isn’t completely lost to him -- he can still laugh at Pippin’s Bullroarer reference, and when Sam thinks him asleep, he’s savvy enough to join in the conversation without skipping a beat. But he’s too diminished now to finish the writing work he’d given himself, and so (significantly, for us) he entrusts his notes to Frodo and Sam, who will make out of it the very book we are reading (with the help, I’d wager, of Merry, Pippin, and at least one of the Three Hunters, given the events this book ends up relating).
It doesn’t seem like there should be a full chapter of material between their departure from Rivendell and their entry into the Old Forest, given how direct and safe that journey ought to be now that the war is over. But there is, and again, I think this is Tolkien’s argument -- that it’s not just the Shire’s need of scouring that’s proof of a more complicated world, but really everything about the world is a bit shaken up now and will need real work to fix. Bree is a town that feels besieged by an outside world that may well have lost its threats, but the people living inside the walls don’t feel it yet. They’re still nervous enough about events last fall that they don’t want any hobbit-singing. There have been deaths here -- including one of the Underhill hobbits from Staddle, who treated Frodo like a long-lost cousin back in Book I -- and if Barliman Butterbur isn’t entirely foolish (and Gandalf seems to think there’s some substance there) it’s not just the threat of some bad men, but there have been wolves prowling, and darker shadows than that in the woods. Aragorn may intend to revive Arnor and put the North to rights, but he’ll have his work cut out for him.
And it is the work of those left, as Gandalf insists -- the hobbits are surprised that Gandalf’s not coming with them to fix up the Shire, but as he says, “you must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for. Do you not yet understand? My time is over.” It is hard to hear Gandalf say these things, who has been such a trusted friend and ally and mentor throughout this book (and The Hobbit), but in our hearts, I think we know he’s right. These four hobbits are true heroes, every single one of them -- stronger and braver and wiser than they knew -- and even a Shire beset by dangers lies well within their capabilities to address. It’s still hard to bid him farewell, though. I feel better when he’s around.
The overall message of these two chapters, to me, is that we have to be good at the lifelong struggle and not just at the war. Yes, this last year has been one long crisis -- I am speaking about the novel but you can apply this to the real world as you like it -- and there’s been a sense that never before has so much hung in the balance. And that’s true. And under those circumstances it’s been important to band together, to rely on each other’s strengths -- each member of the Fellowship did what needed to be done, learned something along the way, and is now more ready for what’s in front of them. But they can’t kid themselves, or act as though everything will be easy now. Each of them will face troubles in their own lives, and the lives of their communities. The fact that they’ve lived through this difficult year makes that work easier, but it also means that they have to lead now and not follow. That’s why the old ones have done so little to guide them all this time -- why as far back as Gandalf and Gildor, I’d been talking about how frustrating but significant it is that the advice is always limited, since it’s the job of the heroes to learn to navigate these things for themselves. Some of it is about navigating the crisis. But the rest of it is about navigating the world after the crisis. There are no easy answers, and therefore there is no fast, clean ending to a book like The Return of the King.
But you’re a book reader and so you knew all that -- and that’s why you’re probably at least a little excited (as I am) for one of the most significant story elements left out of Jackson’s films. So, next post, we will go through The Scouring of the Shire together, in Book VI, Chapter 8.