Tony Meade
Active Member
SESSION 296
The doors stood fast:
The doors stood fast:
- There is a contrast emphasized between the changing scene, due to the passage of time, and the unchanging doors, and is done so in the active voice, even though nothing is happening.
- Gandalf is feeling the rising danger as time passes and shows this in his rising frustration.
- At this point, Gandalf has given up on trying to guess a correct spell or password, and simply tries to put forth his power and command the will of the door directly, which also doesn’t work.
- His use of all the command words from different languages is simply an expression of futility.
- There is an assumption on Gandalf’s part that the communication must be with the gate itself, and also that he is asserting his authority over the gate, after trying to play by the gates’ rules.
- The lines fading seems to be a response from the gate, showing that Gandalf’s attempt failed.
- What Gandalf seems to miss in overthinking the mechanism is the playful riddle at its heart.
- The doors’ will is to be invited to open, and also to resist those that try to force them to open.
- Opening the doors is easier than Gandalf thinks it is, as the answer to the riddle is upon the door; in another sense, opening them is more difficult because it requires a different mindset.
- It’s unknown if the doors would have opened if Gandalf had read out the inscription in Sindarin.
- The nature of the will being exerted seems to matter more than the power of the will exerted.
- Whatever Boromir is sensing with regards to the pool is outside his knowledge and experience, and this seems to show itself by throwing the rock, which is a somewhat childish act of defiance.
- While Boromir does not technically have the authority to give commands to the Company, he seems to take Gandalf’s giving up and sitting down as a confession that he can’t open the door.
- There is no clear evidence that the Ring is exerting influence on Boromir, as this is in character.
- When the Ring exerts influence on a person, the focus is on the Ring itself and that person’s claim to it, as well as a desire to isolate oneself, and none of those are present in Boromir here.
- This leadership tension with Gandalf is born out of Boromir’s station and life experience itself.
- Boromir still exercises a certain amount of restraint, and then he simply acts pragmatically.
- The only feeling that he expresses is his hatred for the pool, and this may be a reaction to Gandalf’s powerlessness over the door, which may trigger a feeling of powerlessness in himself.
- The pool is a safe target for Boromir to release his anger upon, and shows he is still in control.
- While the pool is foul, it seems to be the least threatening of all the present dangers on the surface, both Boromir and Frodo have a fear of the pool itself, even if they don’t know why.
- While Gandalf and the others certainly felt the same way about the pool, Gandalf and Aragorn’s focus was to try to get them through the doors and away from it as soon as possible instead.
- Note: The coming attack by the Watcher in the Water was not completely instigated by the stone thrown in the water, as they had already disturbed the water when the crossed it earlier, and it seemed to be aware of them from that point, and they perceived its movements before.
- Frodo has a sense of something to fear in the pool, but that is separate for his hate of the place.
- Merry’s response is to express a desire to get away from the pool, and not the howling wolves.
- There is an irony that escaping the stationary pool feels like the impossible thing to do.
- Bill’s fear seems to be for the wolves themselves, as he responds directly to their howling.
- Note: While there are many legends about strange and dangerous monsters lurking in the open seas, there are much fewer that are around monsters lurking in freshwater inland lakes. Ironically, the closest present in the book up to this point is in the story of Goldberry and Tom in the original Tom Bombadil poem, which is a memory of things like the Jenny Greenteeth tradition in English folklore. Gollum also filled this role while still living under the mountain.
- Pippin’s suggestion seems to imply that Gandalf must divert his attention towards the pool.