Lord of the Rings Discussion Group (The Green Dragon Inn) II

[Countyline]

<<[As an aside, Frodo is eager to meet Gandalf before they get to Rivendell: "But surely we were hoping to find Gandalf there?" Does anyone else think that Frodo says this because he'd rather rely on his old friend rather than trust someone he's known for only a short while?] >>
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Don't know about you all; but as for myself ... I would want all the help I could get. The smarter we are and the more power we have is all to the good. Very reassuring. Surely our hobbit friends would feel much this way too.

[Overtaxed]

I would want all the help I could get.

I think I would too...I must have been in foolish Tookish mode when I made that post. :) I guess I couldn't decide what exactly was worrying Frodo most and the answer is "what does it matter?"

[HairOfTheDog]

Green Dragon PING

Hullo Friends – We are overdue for our next Chapter, so I hope you are ready! I have gotten super busy at work, so this will be another post and run for me, but this week we are covering my very favorite chapters (top of my list being the Council of Elrond) so I hope we have a lot of good talk about that!

Fellowship of the Ring

Topic: Rivendell

Pertinent Chapters - Book II (all or part)
Chapter I – Many Meetings
Chapter II – The Council of Elrond
Chapter III – The Ring Goes South (beginning)

In this section Frodo wakes to find himself, and the rest of the company, in Rivendell. There are many happy surprises here, and many things learned here.

Many Meetings

Frodo woke and found himself lying in bed. At first he thought that he had slept late, after a long unpleasant dream that still hovered on the edge of memory. Or perhaps he had been ill? But the ceiling looked strange; it was flat, and it had dark beams richly carved. He lay a little while longer looking at patches of sunlight on the wall, and listening to the sound of a waterfall.

`Where am I, and what is the time?' he said aloud to the ceiling. 'In the House of Elrond, and it is ten o'clock in the morning.' said a voice. `It is the morning of October the twenty-fourth, if you want to know.'

`Gandalf!' cried Frodo, sitting up. There was the old wizard, sitting in a chair by the open window.

`Yes,' he said, `I am here. And you are lucky to be here, too, after all the absurd things you have done since you left home'…

Movie Pictures – Many Meetings through The Council of Elrond

And here is ecurbh’s Timeline if you would like to keep track of what day it is as we go!

And here is a Map of Middle-Earth So we don't get lost!

Index to thread… click link to find the start of each prior chapter discussion:
(First Five chapters are re-posts of highlights from the old forum)

Prologue and Chapter One – A Long-Expected Party
Chapter Two - The Shadow of the Past
Chapter Three – Three is Company … And also here – double post! ugh!
Chapter Four – A Shortcut to Mushrooms
Chapter Five – A Conspiracy Unmasked
End of re-posts

Chapter Six – The Old Forest
Chapter Seven – In The House of Tom Bombadil
Chapter Eight – Fog on the Barrow-Downs
Chapter Nine – At the Sign of the Prancing Pony

New "section" format:

Bree (chapters 9-11)
Journey from Bree to the Ford(chapters 11-12)
Rivendell – Current Section (Book 2 - chapters 1-3)

Sections still to come:
The Ring goes South (chapters 3-4)
Moria (chapters 4-5)
Lothlorien (chapters 6-8)
The Breaking of the Fellowship (chapters 9-10)

So Hullo! – Good Morning! – talk amongst yourselves!

[JenB]

Hullo yourself! I do love Rivendell; it'll be nice to have a little rest here. Anyone have any historical background questions they'd like to have answered?

Some fairly random thoughts, just the way they fly out of my head:

Rivendell in the movie looks very like how I pictured it. I think my mental picture was a little more Greco-Roman-esque (is that a word?) but I love how they did it. Very Elvish. Speaking of which I wish they'd shown a few more Elves in the movie, instead of just Elrond, Legolas, and the Snoots of Lorien.

As we discussed briefly in the Hole last week, no one should ever ask the Mirkwood elves to guard anyone. Back in The Hobbit they let Bilbo and the Dwarves escape. Now Legolas is bringing word that they let Gollum escape. I wonder if these are the same guys who run the Texas prisons that had all those escapes recently? Then again nobody in these books is good at keeping others locked up.

I really need a quote to make this next point, but someone packed up and took all my books home last weekend (couldn't have been me! I couldn't have been so stupid as to strand myself without books for a whole ten days!) and I can't access the hobbit files copy, but... there's a quote from Boromir about using the Ring that really forshadows stuff later. I have to ask the Boromir defenders whether they think he was plotting to take the Ring already. There are quotes in later books from his father (and stuff from Faramir that could be construed similarly) that indicates that Denethor had an idea that whatever Isildur's Bane was, it was powerful, and that Boromir was supposed to bring it back to Minas Tirith for his father. Can we talk about this, Hair? Or should I go to the Hobbit Hole?

The Lay of Earendil is beautiful, isn't it?...the Flammifer of Westernesse! Everyone knows Earendil and Elwing were Elrond's parents, right? That's what Aragorn meant about Bilbo having the 'cheek to make verses about Earendil in the house of Elrond'.

[Overtaxed]

... there's a quote from Boromir about using the Ring that really forshadows stuff later.

Is this the quote?

Boromir stirred, and Frodo looked at him. He was fingering his great horn and frowning. At leangth he spoke.

'I do not understand all this,' he said. 'Saruman is a traitor, but did he not have a glimpse of wisdom? Why do you speak ever of hiding and destroying? Why should we not think that the Great Ring has come into our hands to serve us in the very hour of need? Wielding it the Free Lords of the Free may surely defeat the Enemy. That is what he most fears, I deem.

'The Men of Gondor are valiant, and they will never submit; but they may be beaten down. Valour needs first strength, and then a weapon. Let the Ring be your weapon, if it has such power as you say. Take it and go forth to victory!'

I don't think he was thinking of stealing the Ring at this point. I think he bring this up because he truly doesn't understand why the good guys can't use the ring.

The Lay of Earendil....don't those Elves have any stories that end "and they lived happily ever after"?

[doubled]

don't those Elves have any stories that end "and they lived happily ever after"?

I think when you live so long, as in possibly forever, that after a while all life will be at best bittersweet. The best part being is that all will come to the halls of the "dead" (I know that isn't it, and someone will correct me). After so long and losing all that you built and was important to you, you just give it up, so to speak. Think about it when you wish that you could live forever. Hence, the "gift" to men of death.

[doubled]

When I went in to the movie I was surprised by how soon the confrontation between Sauruman and Gandalf occurred. I remembered from the book that Sauruman's treachery didn't come out until the council an was revealed in dialogue. The palintar(sp) was not known to exist then either. Nor was the "birth" of the Urak Hai covered until much later. I guess this added more excitement early, but the book kept building the tension as it progressed following only the hobbits until all the threads are pulled together at Rivendell.

[ksen]

I don't think he was thinking of stealing the Ring at this point. I think he bring this up because he truly doesn't understand why the good guys can't use the ring.

Good quote. I think that this is probably the "hook" that the Ring used to reel Boromir in. Remember, the Ring has a will of its own.

-Kevin

[JenB]

That's the quote I was looking for! It sounds innocent, yes, but take it in conjuction with this:
‘For Boromir was loyal to me and no wizard’s pupil. He would have remembered his father’s need, and would not have squandered what fortune gave. He would have brought me a mighty gift.’

And Faramir says in TT, to Frodo, "And what is Isildur's Bane" - then later, `But, Frodo, I pressed you hard at first about Isildur's Bane. Forgive me! It was unwise in such an hour and place. I had not had time for thought. ....'But this much I learned or guessed, and I have kept it ever secret in my heart since: that Isildur took somewhat from the hand of the Unnamed, ere he went away from Gondor, never to be seen among mortal men again. Here I thought was the answer to Mithrandir's questioning. But it seemed then a matter that concerned only the seekers after ancient learning. Nor when the riddling words of our dream were debated among us, did I think of Isildur's Bane as being this same thing....I can well believe that Boromir, the proud and fearless, often rash, ever anxious for the victory of Minas Tirith (and his own glory therein), might desire such a thing and be allured by it. Alas that ever he went on that errand! I should have been chosen by my father and the elders but he put himself forward, as being the older and the hardier (both true), and he would not be stayed.

I'll let Gandalf have the last word on this subject: ‘Comfort yourself!’ said Gandalf. ‘In no case would Boromir have brought it to you. He is dead, and died well; may he sleep in peace! Yet you deceive yourself. He would have stretched out his hand to this thing, and taking it he would have fallen. He would have kept it for his own, and when he returned you would not have known your son.’

As for the Earendil question, actually that is a happy ending - for an Elf story! The Silmaril is safe, Earendil and Elwing are alive and together, and Middle-Earth is saved from Morgoth. What more do you want?

[Overtaxed]

I think when you live so long, as in possibly forever, that after a while all life will be at best bittersweet.

One reason I'd rather not be an Elf. As an aside, if all or most of the Elf stories end tragically or bittersweet, why are some of the Rivendell Elves "merry as children"?

. I think that this is probably the "hook" that the Ring used to reel Boromir in.

LOL. I get this mental picture of Boromir with a fishing line coming out of his mouth! But indeed the Ring has him hooked now and I think Boromir is fighting the Ring as much as Frodo is from now on.

[ksen]

I have to ask the Boromir defenders....

Thanks for the ping! ;^)

-Kevin

[JenB]

If you're immortal, you've probably learned how not to feel depressed all the time! And the Elves in LotR are probably more depressed because they finally realize it is time to go...

[Overtaxed]

I expect so (what's the point of being immortal if you're going to be depressed all the time?) Okay here's an Elf/Middle Earth question for you: are there any happy Elf songs that have survived? If Elves are happy sometimes, they must have a happy song somewhere.

[Penny1]

I would guess that what both Denethor and Faramir were talking about with Boromir is that when it came down to the rubber hitting the road, he would try to take the ring if there was no other way. But that doesn't mean he planned to do so as early as the Council. The Council reveals why he is so blind in his understanding of the ring and why he would think later on that taking it was the only way to save Gondor, and Denethor and Faramir explain more of his character as to why he would be seduced by the ring in such a way, but as to Boromir planning to take the ring by force ahead of time I think there is no real evidence of that. At least, not from these quotes related here.

I think Faramir in particular was seeing that his brother, in the end, would not have been able to resist the lure of the ring because of the way he thought about things and the way he viewed "Isildur's Bane" plus his relationship with "Daddy Dearest."

On the other hand, it is great foreshadowing of what is to come, and I liked how in the movie, Elrond and Gandalf picked up right away on the fact that Boromir's reaction to the ring was indeed a great danger to the success of the quest.

[ksen]

...great danger to the success of the quest.

".......mission, quest, thing."

-Kevin

[Overtaxed]

The Council reveals why he is so blind in his understanding of the ring and why he would think later on that taking it was the only way to save Gondor, and Denethor and Faramir explain more of his character as to why he would be seduced by the ring in such a way,

Poor Boromir! He has no clue what he's up against! Now the Ring is working on Boromir as well as Frodo. At this time Frodo has been fighting the Ring ever since Gandalf threw it in the fire. The Ring has tried time and again to betray Frodo to the Ringwraiths and nearly succeeded.

Boromir doesn't even know the Ring has already affected him.

[HairOfTheDog]

My take on Boromir is that his very first instinct was to take and use the ring. He could clearly see that the entire council disagreed with him, and said no more about it, agreeing, in a sense, to follow their direction. But the "rightness" of destroying the ring never sat well with him. He was never convinced in his heart that destroying it was the right and best thing to do, but since he was "outvoted" on it, he went along with the council decision. I don't think he ever abandoned his misgivings about their mission, he merely stopped talking about it. I don't even really see it as an evil lust for personal power of the Ring. I think he just really believed first, that it could be useful as a weapon FOR Gondor, and second, that any attempt to enter Mordor with it would fail and they would be caught.

This is something we have all done. Usually saying "whatever you think is best" when we really mean, "OK, I think this is a dumb idea, but I will go along with the group rather than argue about it. When this fails, we will do it my way."

That's my take anyhow. I don't think he had a pre-meditated plan at that point, just a bad feeling about the mission.

[JenB]

Hmm, I agree - and further, I think he saw himself as one of the few who were fit to wield the Ring. Clearly, to him, Hobbits were not going to be much use, or Dwarves - the Ring was for either Men or Elves to use. Since Elrond, the most influential Elf around, had said that no-one was to use it, the Elves wouldn't go for it. Boromir didn't much care for Gandalf it seems, I think he'd have fought Gandalf taking the Ring (not that he could have stopped him if Gandalf had wanted the thing...)

So, to his mind, it was up to Men. Actually I think this was his whole philosophy, that in this fight only Men were really suited to be players. Of Men, only he and Aragorn were there, and it seems to me that he was not yet willing to acknowledge Aragorn's rights as Heir of Isildur. So to Boromir, the only logical candidate to use the Ring, at the Council, was himself.

Fortunately wiser heads prevailed!

[HairOfTheDog]

Interesting, or not, in comparing the movie council with the book council.

The purpose of everyone being there. In the film, it is implied that they were arriving on some sort of schedule, or had been summoned to a meeting for the purpose of discussing the ring. In the book, they have all happened there for their own reasons, many having to do with the growing darkness in the east, but were troubled by their own affairs and had all come there at the same time by chance. Though most of their troubles are related to Frodo's mission, they don't know it yet when the council begins.

Why do you suppose Bilbo was not seated at the council? - even if Jackson didn't want to give him as much of a part there, for brevity, I wonder why he didn't sit him in Figwits chair. (would have saved us from the figwit business we are left with)

[HairOfTheDog]

Fortunately wiser heads prevailed!

For the moment. Boromir doesn't have a plan, but I don't think he sees it as a closed book.