The Quill to Live team is currently doing a reread of Lord of the Rings because for many of us, it has been awhile since we read it (on average about a decade). I initially thought about doing a review piece, but no one needs to hear another review about LotR to know it is amazing. We all know it is amazing. Instead, I thought I would instead do a compilation of some of the more amusing observations people had about the book, usually having to do with things not being as we remember. This is the second entry on The Two Towers, our thoughts on The Fellowship of the Ring can be found here:
1) Aragorn has no chill – “When have I been hasty or unwary, who have waited and prepared for so many long years?’ said Aragorn.” Tolkien, J.R.R.. The Two Towers. That is a line that Aragorn says about halfway through The Two Towers, and it caused explosive laughter. Mostly because Gandalf’s reaction to this is “Aragorn you are right, you are so calm” – to which we ask, are you reading a different book Gandalf? Aragorn needs to calm down, a lot. He is constantly surprising hundreds of armed horsemen on edge by jumping out of bushes, telling the entire kingdom of Rohan to fight him 1v1, and generally making choices that would be likely to get a person stabbed repeatedly just because they scared someone holding a sword. He sounds like the most stressful party member ever, and if my co-adventurer told me his plan was to swagger into the king’s hall assuming he didn’t have to give up his sword since he was also a king…WITHOUT EVER HAVING A CORONATION OR, EVEN MORE, NOT EVEN GOING TO GONDOR BEFOREHAND, I would stab him myself.
2) Faramir is a baller – Boromir’s brother who helps guard Gondor is a lot cooler in the book than I remember. In the movies he is portrayed as just Boromir 2.0, trying to steal the ring from Frodo. But in the books, he is just a regular old human who isn’t even slightly tempted by the ring, making 90% of the cast look pretty dumb. He is a really interesting character who adds a lot of depth and realism to the story. He is the first character I saw to question Aragorn’s claim to being the king, and seems like the kinda guy you would want in charge of an army trying to beat back the forces of evil. He has this practicality to him that is extremely lacking across most of Tolkien’s other characters and makes a really good juxtaposition with pretty much anyone else in the books.
3) The book doesn’t drag where we expected, and does drag where we didn’t – Going into The Two Towers I was really excited for the ents and Helm’s Deep, and dreading Frodo and Sam’s frolic through the swamps. I thought it was going to be hard to get through pages of Sam and Frodo whining to Gollum after experiencing the might and majesty of Saruman vs. everyone. Turns out, the opposite is true. The first part of towers involves a lot of Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas camping – and talking about camping – and retelling the story of how they camped. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that The Fellowship takes place over multiples years, and Towers takes place over like a week. Because of this, Tolkien gets a lot more granular in his story telling. While this is arguably needed, it does make some scenes feel like they last forever, Meanwhile, in the second half of Towers Tolkien amps up the language and poetry so that Sam and Frodo’s journey becomes magical and filled with awe. I could not put down the second half of the book as Sam narrates the bleak landscape and dwindling hope of their cause.
4) Speaking of the first half dragging, the battles are… not great – First off I did not expect to go into this and have the greatest written action scenes of all time. Tolkien is known for his worldbuilding and prose much more than his fights. However, I was really disappointed with the fight at Helm’s Deep. It had so few descriptives and often broke down to “we fought some orcs and killed them”. Based on the movies you would think the battle lasted weeks, when in actuality it was closer to 24 hours. The scenes are confusing and not very satisfying, and I am hoping the battle of Pelennor Fields will step it up a notch in book three.
5) Treebeard is the best, and Sam is still amazing – I love Treebeard, and have since I first met the ents when I was young. I expected to reread Towers and find that my love for him was a bit overzealous, but I instead found it completely justified. Treebeard is just fun every second he is on a page and makes me genuinely happy as I read about him. His story is both interesting and moving, his personality is just smile inducing to be around, and he is just an all around well written character. He was definitely the highlight of book two for me, although Sam continues to be an all star as well. Most of the second book is narrated by Sam, with Frodo taking a back seat as he deals with the delirious effects of the ring. As mentioned in point three, these sections were a lot more exciting than I expected – and most of that is due to Sam’s great narration.
I liked The Two Towers less than The Fellowship this time around, but it was still a great (albeit sometimes slow) read. I am really excited for The Return of the King sometime this month, as I remember almost nothing about it other than they chuck a ring into a volcano at some point.
One thought on “Observations About LotR – The Two Towers”