Episode 67 Summary

[Tony Meade]

SESSION 67

Comment on insect life in the Midgewater Marshes:

• It seems as if the insects they might have encountered would not be biting if the inspiration were taken directly from the British countryside.
• However, other countries do boast of insects that are biting and aggressive.
• The hobbits may be employing hyperbole to lend color to their hobbit walking party.
• Strider comments on the fact that the hobbits look soft, and indeed, they are soft when they start out on this journey. They are three aristocrats and their servant.
• We may be biased towards the hobbits, but we must admit their incompetence so far.
• As the song that they sing in Crickhollow suggests, they are naïve enough to believe that they will quickly deliver the Ring to Rivendell and return home, with the exception of Frodo.
• This is similar in some ways to the night that Bilbo and the dwarves encounter the trolls, in the way he describes his misery at the rain and other non-extreme travel conditions.
• Like Bilbo, these hobbits will be exposed to real hardships later on which will change them.
• Note: We can’t make direct parallels between Tolkien’s imagined world and the places he knew in Britain and other places that he traveled, though he does say that the climate and landscape in and around the Shire was very like that of southern England.
• The hobbits may have been more used to the insects around the Marish but found these unfamiliar insects more bothersome. It’s not said that there were many insects in the Marish.

The choices of Master Strider:

• What has changed in Strider’s thinking since first setting off confidently towards Weathertop?
• The reasons that Strider give for not heading directly to Weathertop would have also when they were in Bree, so these cannot be the deciding factors.
• How have the flashes seen in the night sky influenced Strider’s decisions since? Is he merely second-guessing himself after several days on the Road?
• Strider may have (correctly) assumed that Gandalf was directly behind them and would make for Weathertop as rendezvous point. He thinks Gandalf would be able to wait for them.
• Since seeing the flashes, he probably thinks that Gandalf could not wait at Weathertop, as he knows that they were not normal lights and Gandalf was in combat with the Black Riders there.
• At a minimum, he must be sure that whoever made the lights were in combat with the Nazgûl, as there would be few others that would cause such a fight in the night.
• Why does Strider then choose to take them to Weathertop after seeing the lights? He is sure that the Black Riders would make for it, and it is a very dangerous place and easily spied out.
• Sam’s reaction is one of paranoia towards birds and feels beset by all the world around them.
• Note: Gandalf did not report meeting Radagast near Bree to anyone, so Radagast would not be in Strider’s mind as a possibility. In LOTRO, Radagast is featured in the Lone-lands near Weathertop, but this is an adaptation and not directly supported by the text. The fact that Radagast sends messages leading to Gwaihir to check on Gandalf at Isengard shows that Radagast did not linger in this area for that long after reporting Saruman’s offer.
• When Frodo asks him for advice as to go to Weathertop, Strider chooses to reveal his plan for approaching Weathertop by an indirect route. This isn’t exactly an answer to that question.
• There is a chance that Strider might choose not to climb Weathertop based on what they see then they approach from the foothills, though it’s unclear what he might see to change his mind.
• The ability to see what you can see is the exact role of Weathertop, which is also why everyone, from Gandalf to the Black Riders and their spies would seek it out.
• Strider’s skill as a tracker might allow him to determine if it’s safe to climb up, but he seems sure that he wants to go to the top no matter what.
• If they do not climb up once they go there, they are vulnerable without being able to see far.
• Strider may be interested in the Ranger camp, but he has already taken thought for provisions.
• Note: Aragorn will show an affinity for looking around from high places on multiple occasions, as this is a good tactic when traveling through hostile county in the wilds.

In the lonely lands:

• Sam may look askance at the melancholy birds they encounter when they start making noise.
• The hobbits’ minds follow the sun into the west, showing a link between their experience now and with their nostalgic thoughts of Bag End. They long for it in spite of the new owners.
• Note: There is a parallel with Bilbo’s thoughts of Bag End in The Hobbit, but there are differences. The narrator is not as present here, and also doesn’t emphasize an internal divide like Bilbo’s. Frodo had already seen the comparisons with Bilbo’s journey, but he also emphasizes the differences, as he left involuntarily and possibly permanently. This is self-sacrifice on Frodo’s part, unlike the treasure hunt Bilbo went on. There is homesickness involved, but Frodo is missing Bag End as one who has lost it, not one who is returning. However, at this point, Frodo’s journey is still on the path of Bilbo’s geographically.
• The hobbits might only be focusing on the comforts of Bag End as opposed to their current circumstances, but the reader is invited to consider the larger implications.
• Note: The use of the plural “hobbits” when thinking about Bag End shows that this may be a reflection looking back on this event, after having spoken to the other hobbits about it.

The hills loom ahead:

• The stream is anthropomorphized, and the hobbits imagine that its fate in the marshland is tragic one. The hills are also given human features like backs when describing their bareness.
• The narrator seems to leave in question if Strider slept or not. So far, we have not seen Strider sleep any time that the hobbits have been awake in the night.
• Is Strider actually not sleeping, or is this the hobbits’ inexperience? They may not perceive his sleeping in the same way that they do. Perhaps he wakes when the hobbits make noise.
• Note: Some people may make a connection between Strider’s sleeplessness and his elvish heritage, but this is tenuous and separated by many generations. It seems more likely that his decades of experience and acquired endurance living in the wilds allow him to do things that the hobbits don’t understand.

Speaking not of wraiths:

• The fact that they are able to wake rested and to go on less food shows their progression away from their softness of the Shire.
• The joke Frodo makes is typical hobbitry, but his bringing up of wraiths stands out as prescient and ominous. They are also only days away from the Barrow at this point.
• The surprising earnestness sounds as though speaking of the Ringwraiths will call them. There may be something of actual danger in speaking the name of evil things.
• Note: In the Old Forest, Frodo sings a song in response to the trees’ oppression, though Merry says that this will provoke the trees, as does happen. So, the impulse to defy dark things, and even to ridicule them, shows something of Frodo’s personality and courage. Frodo knows from Gandalf that keeping the Ring will eventually turn him into a wraith, but he jokes about it now.
• Strider may be responding to a personal memory but may also be voicing older lore.
• Note: This is also a remnant from the early drafts when Trotter has a triggered response to the idea of becoming a wraith, referencing his earlier encounter with the Ringwraiths.
• Note: The people of Gondor also do not name Sauron in a spirit of not calling down his power.
• Strider may also simply want the hobbits to take the threat of becoming a wraith seriously, but that would miss the point of the hobbitry, in which joking about serious things is deliberate.
• Note: Strider will have a similar reaction will happen when they speak of Mordor.
• Strider may think that this is a brave joke, but also a foolish joke, as even jokingly reconciling himself to the corruption of the Ring might make his will to resist it weaker.
• Note: It’s possible that becoming this as a wraith is a Shire proverb, but Frodo used the simile of a willow-wand instead when leaving Bag End. This seems more hobbitish.
• Neither Frodo or Strider speak directly about the Ring, he still wants Frodo to set his will against the effects of the Ring, even when it is not directly at work.

END OF SESSION