[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Eönwë

This is absolutely brilliant. I've just read a ridiculous number of them (i.e. the whole hobbit and about half LOTR). It's interesting to see how someone sees it the first time, especially when their ideas are fully-formed in general (as an adult, I mean). I also approve of his attitude towards Tom Bombadil, which was mine when I first read it, and still is. I am also pretty impressed at the whole uncloaking thing too. He definitely has the makings of a Barrow-Downer!

Now that you brought it up, I also had to read what he thinks about Bombadil and haha, he is just brilliant! Totally freaked out, puzzled and all

I really loved this line:

Originally Posted by mark (obviously, soon to be Downer-name ;))

I’m sorry, I know that it’s nice and kind and I won’t ignore that, but if I showed up at a stranger’s house, and he had four bathtubs perfectly set up for me and my three friends, I would leave immediately.

Great. But very true!

And it's fun as the description and conclusion gradually develops to "no! And he did this! And he did that!" - I started to anticipate that at certain point, the next line would be: "THERE IS NO OTHER WAY! TOM IS A WOLF!!! ++BOMBADIL!!!"

And I also like observations like this:

Originally Posted by mark again

Frodo vision of the dark tower with a man on top of it reminds me of the one he had earlier, so I’m going to assume it’s important to the story.

Makes you want to wink knowingly at your friends while Mark just stands there, confused...

What I really loved, though - and that is in line with what I have said in one of the posts above about "reviving the reading for us" - was the description of how Mark felt about the end of the sixth chapter. Somehow I really started thinking about it again as if I had just read it for the first time. Sort of reminded me of the beauty of the story and, heck, now I want to reread LotR... as if I didn't have many different things I want to read on schedule already...