Things you were totally confused about

[DolorousStroke]

upon first reading.

For me, at least, and your mileage may vary, there was a wide variety.

• I did not know that Strider and Aragorn were the same person. It's true. I was quite young and had poor reading comprehension and grooming. My graduate school had a course book store, the U-store, with a bewildering array of texts for majors and minors and semiquavers. There was also a book store that had an incredible philosophy section. Wow: two great stores. It was not until a year into graduate school that I realized they were the same store, and I had just been walking into different entrances. When I found a path from the course book store to the philosophy section and then on out through the other entrance, I felt like I had discovered the northwest passage when I was shopping for a cuisinart. Realizing that Strider and Aragorn were the same person on a second read was like that.
• I had no idea about Harry Goatleaf being a baddie. I thought of him as a stalwart bastion of order, standing lonely at his post. I named a dog Harry after him. The brave gatekeeper. In retrospect I am wondering if he was always thinking of killing me in my sleep. The dog, that is.
• No idea the elves were immortal. None whatsoever. Must have not understood any passages referring to them as being unwearied by age. ("What's the big deal, Arwen?")
• Thought Tom Bombadil was an eccentric hobbit. Thought Nob and Bob were both hobbits (which we now know to be dubious.)
• From looking at the map, I wondered why they didn't just walk around the Mountains of Ash or the Mountains of Shadow and come in through the conveniently unblocked east side. (In fact, I still wonder that.)
• For the longest time, really could not tell the difference between Sauron and Saruman. Sort of thought one was a nickname of the other--not sure which way. See Strider/Aragorn, above. Also: Denethor and Theoden: I mean, come on. Pick some new favorite consonants.
• The first time I read the book, I quit when Gandalf fell into the pits of Moria. I cried. I cried almost as hard as I cried at Bridge to Terabithia. I stopped there for a while, months, and when I came back I picked up where I left off, which could explain some of the other confusions. Did I mention I was young with poor reading comprehension?
• I still think Pippin and Merry might be the same person. Have you ever seen them in the same room?
• I was pretty sure...well, I should just say it: I was pretty sure Balrogs had wings.
• I thought Farmer Maggot farmed maggots; maybe maggots that grew on mushrooms. Did I mention the poor grooming?
• The subtlety of Aragorn attacking the Black Gates, in order to empty the Fields of Gorgoroth for Frodo's passage, was completely lost on me. I kept shouting at him "just stay behind your high walls!" like he was a character in a horror movie that decided to figure out what that sound in the basement could be.
• The Mouth of Sauron has an unpleasant misunderstanding I would prefer not to discuss.
• Galadriel is creepy.
• Eagles rescuing Frodo and Sam. Couldn't really picture that. I think I only read The Hobbit later. But the idea of Eagles carrying full-size hobbits seemed about as plausible as llamas with lava-resistant hooves prancing in. "The Llamas are coming!"
• And many other things.

 

[Gorhendad The Old]

I somehow missed Legolas being introduced as an elf and it took me a few chapters to catch up on that.

The whole topography of the Morgul Vale, the Nameless Pass, and Cirith Ungol was a complete blank to me for years.

 

[amysrevenge]

I still, in my mental map, have Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul on opposite sides of the Anduin from where they actually are.

 

[Flammifer]

It's not easy to recover what exactly I thought when reading TLOTR for the first time. It was long ago. Long before The Silmarillion was published. I had previously read The Hobbit. I was young, and definitely propelled along by the narrative, rather than close reading.

My most vivid memory is that I was reading TLOTR under my covers late at night with the aid of a flash light. I had just passed, "The end comes... drums, drums in the deep", read from the Book of Mazarbul, and reached the Company hearing, "Doom, doom," echoing through the chamber, when my Mom came in, confiscated the flash light, and told me to go to sleep. I did not sleep at all that night!

It is hard to recover my first thoughts from all the many (many) subsequent times I have read TLOTR.

I am sure that I, like almost all other readers at that time was sure that Frodo lives! (Still to this day, in Valinor.)

The Council of Elrond was also totally different from how most people read it today, as the effect of throwing the Ring in the Fire was to deny it to Sauron, and remove its corrupting influence from the world forever, but not to cause Sauron's downfall, nor to achieve victory. (I wrote a post on this subject (still true today up until past the Council of Elrond) this week on the Questions for Narnion forum. At some point, later in the story, I think, it became clear that destroying the Ring would destroy or defeat Sauron, so it was not a total surprise when this happened.

I was very baffled as to why Frodo claims the Ring at the Cracks of Doom and does not throw it in. I guess I could figure out some reasons why, but I totally didn't expect that, and wasn't really sure exactly why he couldn't.

I was rooting for Gimli throughout the Orc slaying contest in the Hornburg. I have no idea why.

I knew that the Earendil poem was a key and very important part of the story, but I could not have explained why.

I was definitely on Sam's side all along, as far as Gollum was concerned.

I made up a game, pretending that I was Bergil, showing Pippin around Minas Tirith (with our neighborhood standing in for the city).

With friends and siblings we played Lord of the Rings. Upon reaching Lothlorien it was decided that Galadriel should enter carried on a palanquin. My little sister, aged about 4 was drafted to play Galadriel. The palanquin was a dinghy mast. Upon being hoisted up, Galadriel fell off, broke her wrist, and had to be taken to hospital.

I didn't much like The Paths of the Dead. I just thought that the Dead were weird, and didn't really fit with the rest of the world.

I wore a cheap ring on a string round my neck for months afterwards.

 

[Ardent Crayon]

My paperback copy of The Fellowship (50th anniversary edition) came with detailed maps of the Shire, Middle Earth, Gondor, Mordor... and for some reason, Númenor. So during my first reading I was constantly trying to figure out what Númenor had to do with the story, where was it in relation to Middle Earth, when were the main characters going to get there, etc. It was a nice map, and I was rather disappointed when I eventually discovered that the whole thing sank and disappeared long before the events of the Fellowship!

 

[Anthony Lawther]

When looking at the map, with many names overlaid upon the various areas, I saw the name Eregion. Having not yet read the Appendices I saw it as E-region (with a soft g sound) and wondered whether in the development of the map and story there were originally other regions with alphabetical markers that got renamed and this one got missed.

 

[Jim Deutch]

I still, in my mental map, have Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul on opposite sides of the Anduin from where they actually are.

I long ago got used to it, but at least half the time I when read something like ". . . the mountains rearing up on the left" I have a moment of disorientation because they would be on the right in my mental map.

I also turn a screwdriver the wrong way more than half the time if I am holding it in my left hand, no matter how careful I am to think it through first. They call this "directional dyslexia" (only chemists would use the term "chiral dyslexia", though that's actually more accurate/descriptive).

 

[Eliza]

I remember doing a visual book report on "The Fellowship of the Ring" before I'd read "Two Towers" or "Return of the King." I had included something about Gandalf the Grey, and another kid in my class kept sort of trying to correct me to "Gandalf the White." I had no idea what he was on about.

To this day, I struggle with figuring out/picturing Middle-earth geography, despite frequent map perusal. I lose the thread almost completely between Rivendell and Minas Tirith. This is painfully consistent with my struggles in the primary world: I'm the kind of person who frequently hops on a bus headed the wrong direction because I have essentially no ability to tell whether I'm facing north, south, east, or west at any given time.

When I read "Lord of the Rings" to my little brother, he was absolutely distraught at the end of Book 5, because he was thought Pippin was dead. I think I remember trying to soothe him by saying, "I don't want to give anything away...but I don't think you need to worry too much..."

 

[Marielle]

The Nine Rings. For *years*, I was irritated with PJ's depiction of the death of the Witch King because I was convinced that Eowyn killed him by cutting the ring off his finger. I couldn't figure out how else they could be made mortal -- I somehow missed the notion of Merry's sword being magical for at least three read-throughs.