Lord of the Rings, again

[bookzombie]

 While travelling backwards and forwards to a training course a couple of weeks ago I was listening to the BBC Radio Lord of the Rings adaptation again. I still love it to little bits, but each time I listen to it I notice new things. A few things:

1. I wonder if the three CD-set version is edited beyond tidying up episode ends and adding the (superfluous) beginning and end of book narratives? There are a couple of lines of dialogue that I'm sure are in the original version that are missing. Must compare with the tape versions...

2. For the first time I found myself thinking 'What the hell has Gandalf been doing for 17 years?' I know we have slow travel times but given he already new that the ring had to be one of the rings of power then did it really take 17 years research to reach the obvious conclusions? Maybe he's a slow reader or something...

3. Denethor makes a speech I hadn't really registered before about the fact that just because Aragorn is the descendant of the earlier kings of Gondor, why should that mean he automatically take over from the stewards who have actually been doing the job for the last however many hundreds of years. And you know what? He's right.

4. This ties in with another thought, about automatic belief in authority figures. I know there's more to it in the book, but everyone is very quick to take Gandalf's word for it at the Council of Elrond that the ring Frodo carries is the One Ring. Even Boromir disputes the use, not the identification.

Comments

[wrdnrd]

RE: #2. Oh, now, you know what it's like in a library. He started chasing down every single rabbit hole that presented itself. We're lucky he didn't stumble into the fanfic section -- he'd never have come back out.

[taldragon.livejournal.com]

"We're lucky he didn't stumble into the fanfic section "

or wiki or tvtropes...

[wrdnrd]

Get thee behind me, Satan! I've been studiously avoiding all links and references to tvtropes. I will not go there.. I will not go there....

[taldragon.livejournal.com]

sorry!

(same here. LJ is enough of a black hole...)

[del-c.livejournal.com]

I see it the other way round: I think the SecondThird Age had next to no books, so until he found out there was something written in the Minas Tirith library, he was running on rumour (or "lore" as it's called in Epic Prose).

Now, Saruman told him it was definitely gone to the sea, and he later said he regretted letting Saruman lull him like that, so that is Tolkien explaining some of why Gandalf did little for seventeen years. But he didn't do nothing: he looked everywhere for Gollum to get from him where he had found it. If he'd learned it was fished from the river between where Isildur dies and the sea he would have had a clue, but he didn't.

He also knew the One Ring had no jewels, and hidden marks, but he didn't know it made anyone invisible.
It was only when he read that the words showed up when the Ring was hot and faded when they cooled down, that he knew how to test the ring itself.

Finally, why leave it quietly with Bilbo and talk to no one? Should he have talked about it to lots of people, or taken it off Bilbo? He'd have then had to keep it himself, or give it to someone else, which were both either worse than or only as good as leaving it in Bag End.

[dotar-sojat.livejournal.com]

I think he was afraid to try to take it by force. That's how it all starts... the only thing he worried about more was that it would be offered to him (as it was).

The shire and Bilbo were good enough choices, their security and safety was a decent insurance that the ring wouldn't be put on in a fit of anger or something. And he did watch to see if Bilbo's personality changed any, which it really hadn't.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

As far as I recall (and it's been a while), Aragorn doesn't automatically assume he can take over. He served in the army of Gondor in the past without revealing who he was, and after the War of the Ring, he refused to enter the city unless invited to do so.

Had Boromir lived, it is quite possible that Aragorn might not have become king.

your points 2 and 4 are linked. They belive him because he has 17 years of research to show them...

[del-c.livejournal.com]

Also, Boromir was told in a dream that if he went to Imladris he would learn that Isildur's Bane had returned. So to disbelieve that the ring was the Ring, especially after those long presentations by Bilbo, Gandalf, and others making the case, he would have had to dismiss the ring, and then wonder when the subject of Isildur's Bane would come up. Instead, he put two (his dream) and two (the briefings he'd just listened to) together, and made four.

And of course his dream is itself part of the evidence, that would convince others at the Council that this was the real deal.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

Denethor is quite right, but the first thing I'd think is, why then should Boromir be the next ruler of Gondor? If we're going to diss the inheritance of power by male primogeniture.

Denethor's argument of course has played out in real European history, in those parts of Europe where rulers passed power to the eldest sons of eldest sons of eldest sons. Though pretenders rarely claimed thousands of years in the wilderness: that plea quickly becomes almost impossibly weak. It's only in the Third Age that Aragorn gets away with it, because a) he actually is the Heir and b) that actually does count, in that universe.

[dotar-sojat.livejournal.com]

Well, Aragorn also has certain relics and eye-witness to the past (Elrond and his sons) who can plead his case-- so that helps in the authentification process.

[dotar-sojat.livejournal.com]

Heh, good points. I just finished the trilogy and there was a mention that the master ring was made to appear as "practice" magic ring-- a minor practice session. So that may have lulled him for a few years.

And, yeah, there is like only one place where any of this is written down, and it took him a while to find it.

Denethor also comes across as a lot more sympathetic as I get older. He tells Gandalf that, unlike a wizard, he can't sacrifice the city in a move to stop Sauron. This sentiment is repeated by Prince Imrahil when he becomes the steward of the city. He has to plan for the city's future, not for Gandalf's plans for war.

And in light of this, some of Gandalf's actions in The Hobbit take on a bit less of a pleasant light. To combat Smaug (who he fears will eventually become a tool of Sauron) he's willing to sacrifice Thorin and company, and Laketown.

Denathor's plan to keep the ring in M.T. is a good one, but he blows it by mentioning that, well, he COULD use it, if the situation were bad enough.