[Formendacil]

Long, winding journey for me rereading what is a fairly short chapter. It's main claims to fame are the book's only real image of Minas Morgul, the conversation of Frodo and Sam about being in a Story, and the tragic moment of Sméagol's quavering almost-redemption.

Regarding that last point, I think the brevity of its window and the ease of its destruction are what make it so poignant. Gollum is not a generally sympathetic character. Granting that we see him largely through Sam's biased eyes, nothing about him that we hear from Gandalf, Aragorn, Faramir, or the Rangers of Ithilien suggest that he is at all pleasant to be around. He's profoundly broken, but mostly due to his own wicked doings, and anyone rereading the story knows exactly how treacherous any of his veiled, dubious mutterings to this point truly are.

And yet, for one fleeting moment, we believe he can be saved--and it is a tragedy of timing that Sam wakes as he does when he does. You can call this moment literary skill on Tolkien's part--I think it is--but you can also call it a window into thoughts on sin and redemption. Not that I see this a sort of allegory; it is more that I am trying to say that this sense that even the most wretched can be saved from their fallen state is a supremely Christian idea--though the fragility of that possibility here is perhaps wryly cynical.