The Return of the King [October 1, 2020]

[Margret, Caladan Brood Face]

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[Graeme]

Cool. Count me in.

[Narilka]

Book 5, Ch 1 (view spoiler)[It's like reading this fresh. I remember so little! Nice tour of Minas Tirith for Pippin and us. Denethor comes across as quite shrewd in the books where he's mostly deranged in the movie. I'm liking book-Denethor better so far. (hide spoiler)]

[Graeme]

It doesn't surprise me that he's better drawn in the book.

[Narilka]

Book 5, Ch 2-3 (view spoiler)[It is nice seeing more Dunedan. Such a pity that was left out of the movies. The Paths of the Dead are appropriately creepy.

Good to meet back up with Eowin again, even briefly. Merry has a new friend even if he doesn't know it. It's funny how he doesn't recognize her.

Time to see about the siege of Gondor. (hide spoiler)]

[Narilka]

End of Book 5

(view spoiler)[Wow, the battle for Minas Tirith is EPIC!! Three whole chapters in the book. I love how Tolkien plays with the characters and our emotions during this. Hope to despair to hope. Here's the link to the historian's perspective of this battle: https://acoup.blog/2019/05/10/collect...

I'm not finished going through the blog yet though initial thoughts is Tolkien gets a lot right and Peter Jackson... less so. Not a surprise really. Hollywood tends to go for spectacle over accuracy in the desire to sell more tickets.

This section also confirms what I stated in message 3. Book-Denethor is much preferred. The explanation for his madness makes a lot of sense and is sad to see how an otherwise strong willed and intelligent individual can be poisoned by evil over time.

It's a shame some great scenes happen off screen. Gimli and Legolas's account of the Paths of the Dead would have been better shown instead of just told about after the fact. Same with Aragorn's struggle with Sauron when he reveals himself using the palintir. I wonder if this was for page count? I might see if Google knows.

What a clever gambit Sauron takes in using Frodo's items to demoralize his opponents in an attempt to win a quick victory.

Time to catch up with Frodo and Sam. (hide spoiler)]

[Narilka]

Book 6, Ch 1-4 (view spoiler)[I am sad. The time is drawing close when friends freshly reunited will be parting ways.

Sam has carried Frodo to the end of his quest, Gollum has played his final part, the eagles have rescued our nearly dead heroes.

Praise them with great praise. (hide spoiler)]

[Narilka]

I finished. It always makes me a little sad when I reach the end. I'll get some thoughts typed up a little later.

[Marit]

I'm a bit delayed due to some personal things happening last week, but I hope to be able to start in a week or so

[Paula]

Narilka
(view spoiler)[book 5 ch2-3. well, I also didn't realize he was eowin. yeah, it's a shame that happened to denethor.

agreed. really, that's my main criticism of Tolkien, so many great scenes were just told from someone and it lost the impact (hide spoiler)]

[Paula]

finished!!
spoilers all
(view spoiler)[I was glad that eowin didn't die because she was an interesting character.

gandalf told pippin not to tell anything important or doing something rushed.pippin pledges himself...facepalm

I loved the way Sam helped frodo all the way through. without him frodo wouldn't have made it.

even gollum helped in the end. nice

it's a shame that Legoland and gimli got so little page time. they seemed interesting.

I did like the little revolution of the shire but I would have liked less chapters until that. and finally they killed saruman. really, they should have killed him the last time they saw him. I appreciate what frodo tried to do but I agree with Sam and pippi and merry, he is corruption and can't be changed.

the end was a little confusing. the elves and the mages and frdo and Bilbo went to another continent across the sea or was it a metaphor of death? (hide spoiler)]

[Narilka]

Paula wrote: "finished!!
spoilers all..."

(view spoiler)[Telling Pippin not to do anything rash is an effort in futility :) Gandalf tried lol

Sam is a true hero.

I completely forgot Legolas and Gimli had so little time in the books. I'm glad they featured more in the movies.

They went to the Undying Lands. I think this is deliberately left vague and open to interpretation as to whether they went there to live or as a death metaphor even though Tolkien swore LOTR is not allegory. Both work. I will qualify this by saying I have not read the Silmarillion and it could have a better answer. It's a place only for immortals and ring bearers. If you check out the second half of Appendix B it has a timeline of what happens to the rest of the party over the years. Sam eventually also travels to the Undying Lands as he was also a ring bearer briefly. So do Legolas and Gimli, who normally wouldn't have been allowed in as a dwarf that is mortal ;) No idea how much fast talking Legolas had to do! (hide spoiler)]

[Paula]

Narilka
(view spoiler)[it's nice that then they would meet in that land. in my mind it's like that land at the end of Narnia.

oh, I forgot to say something about aragorn. so he is immortal? because he chose to die when he looked young enough and had passed quite a long time. it was because of a gift that his ancestor gave his line? and poor arwen she couldn't go to the undying lands and stayed in middle earth (hide spoiler)]