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Old 10-06-2016, 01:54 PM   #87
Legate of Amon Lanc
A Voice That Gainsayeth
 
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
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Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.
White Tree

This was a nice calm chapter (as far as it can be under the circumstances). This chapter also introduces (properly, after vague hints in the previous one) the first important major character who is going to be with us until the end, and have a quite significant role.

Strider, to me, seems on first sight maybe not "foul" in the way Mr. Baggins probably perceived it, but rather being unnecessarily dramatic and "epic" in the wrong sense: dark. I understand he had spent most of his life traveling alone in the wilderness, but he also had basically a hundred years to meet humans (and others) and therefore one would expect a bit of empathy. "They came from Mordor, MORDOR! And they are more terrible than you can imagine!" is not what you go around telling people who are already scared enough as it is. Especially towards Butterbur, who, as Strider should understand, it a common fellow doing his own, and is not very well educated (even though certainly not stupid) and "big, epic, mystical" stuff is somehow outside his league, well, towards him Strider is just terrible. If this had been a Harry Potter book, Strider would walk around Hogwarts randomly interjecting Voldemort's real name into every sentence. I cannot completely shake off the feeling that he is doing it partly intentionally, just to be mean.

Otherwise, he is of course very helpful. And so is Butterbur, once again surprisingly so maybe for some readers who might have underestimated him on first sight. Aside from having forgotten to send the letter, he is very sharp in figuring out what's going on and what needs to be done.

And the same thing applies even in larger scale to Nob (once again, a character overlooked, I believe, unjustly). Nob seems to know a lot, and seems to act a lot of his own initiative (simulating Mr. "Underhill"'s head, for instance) - something you would not necessarily expect from an "employee" of his kind. He reminds me actually a lot of the classic figure of renaissance (and even later, especially Italian) novels, the "clever servant" who is more clever or wiser than he seems on first sight. If Butterbur is the somehow erratic "master", Nob is the servant who might be in the background, but actually does the important and practical things. Or if I move away from Italian and think Spanish, Nob could have been Sancho Panza.

We also learn a bit more about how the Riders "operate" in this chapter (aside from more scary hints from Strider that he knows their number and such), and also hints on how the Rangers (here represented only by Strider) operate, that they protect the Shire, and about Strider's cooperation with Gandalf. What I personally liked always about this chapter is the description of Merry's little adventure and the mention of the "Black Breath". Whatever it is, it sounds wonderful. By which I mean, of course, scary. But it must be something pretty cool.
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories
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