I, too, try to remain a "naive" reader as long as I can. I was surprised by many things.....the ultimate being the end of Gollum and the One Ring. That caught me totally by surprise....if I remember correctly (it was only last December!), I exclaimed out loud and ran to tell everyone who didn't care that it was a "spoiler."
And I think I was caught unawares by the Eowyn-Dernhelm thing because my first read-through was a very quick, almost skimming read to find out what happened to that darn Ring!!
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"There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world." - Gandalf the Grey
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