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Originally Posted by Formendacil
First, it amuses me to note that, reading "The Old Forest" this time, I noticed the fact that Merry must have taken the key with him, when a few years back, I missed that entirely and had to be corrected.
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Well, who's to say that was the
only key? Seems rather slack of the Brandybucks to risk its loss. After all, all it would take is a drunken stroll into the Forest after dark, and you're sending to Hobbiton for a locksmith.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Formendacil
Second, I noticed that Sam was the one who most resisted Old Man Willow and I thought this was appropriate enough, given that he is a gardner, a tender of plants. This connection makes even more sense reading through the thread: there was a much earlier comparison of Tom to Adam in the Garden of Eden--i.e. an unfallen gardner of nature. Someone also pointed out Farmer Maggot as being somewhat Bombadil-like. So perhaps there's a definite appropriateness to Sam being the one to snap out of Old Man Willow's trance on his own.
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I never considered before why Sam was least affected by the Willow.
Besides being a gardener and "lover of trees", he was seemingly a bit less intelligent than the others, and also had at least
heard of Huorns or their like from Cousin Hal. Hmm.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Formendacil
In other words, I think the Bombadil chapters are important for allowing the Shire and the rest of the great tale to coexist, without the Shire seeming trivially pointless or the greater tale impossibly remote. They're the fuzzy state between sleeping and waking that create the massive chasm of distance between dream and reality.
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Very interesting! So the Forest is rather a buffer between the innocent,
Hobbit-like beginning, then going directly to the Downs, where things get really perilous.
Of course, the Hobbits had been shadowed by the Black Riders, but to a first-time reader, I think the Barrow-wight, seen (
and heard) at a much closer distance, would be creepier.