(Super)natural Intervention in Three is Company

Lossadan

New Member
After narrowly escaping a black rider, Frodo, Sam and Pippin continue walking to Buckland. A part of that journey is described in this way:

Twilight was about them as they crept back to the lane. The West wind was sighing in the branches. Leaves were whispering. Soon the road began to fall gently but steadily into the dusk. A star came out above the trees in the darkening East before them. They went abreast and in step, to keep up their spirits. After a time, as the stars grew thicker and brighter, the feeling of disquiet left them, and they no longer listened for the sound of hoofs.​
In my previous readings of this passage and others like it, I tended towards a more down-to-earth explanation of what was going on. Stars were stars. The wind was the wind. Leaves were leaves. Nothing more and nothing less. These descriptions evoked certain feelings in me as a reader, but they never pointed to anything beyond themselves. Recently, however, my reading of the text has become much more animistic and I see a story filled with spirits and otherworldly entities. The sighing wind and the whispering leaves have become the voice of Manwë and Yavanna. The brightening stars, the work of Varda. The feeling of disquiet leaving the three hobbits, the angelic influence of these three Valar.

None of this is to say the hobbits played no role in improving their own morale. In prior readings I would have assumed that it was all down to them (with a little help from the pleasantness of the natural surroundings). I now believe that Gildor's inclusion in the story near to this point is to help us see that other powers are at work. The praise to Elbereth, the blessing of Frodo, the reverencing of the stars, all seem to signal to me that we can no longer read these kinds of passage as I had always done before.

Do you think that this kind of reading is appropriate for this text? Am I seeing what I want to see rather than seeing what is there?
 
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What I found very helpful to get a realistic impression of how much metaphysics really is in LotR was to read the three volumes of History of ME that cover the writng of LotR. There you can see where different elements of the story came from. It is difficult to make clear judgements, therefore I recommend to make your own version and sharing the most inspiring ones with the public
 
TLOTR is certainly a many-layered and complex text. I think that all sorts of readings are appropriate. Yours certainly is an interesting and quite possible interpretation. Was it an interpretation that JRRT had in mind when he wrote it? Maybe, or maybe not. SwallowedUpInVictory's suggestion of looking to History of ME for clues about that is a good one.

However, readings and interpretations can certainly be valid, whether or not the author had them in mind when writing.
 
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