The History of LotR - Chapter-by-Chapter Companion

[davem]

Estelyn

What I find very interesting in Christopher Tolkien's introduction to the fourth version is this statement:
Quote:
Bilbo's marriage (as was inevitable, I think) has been rejected.
Why would he consider it "inevitable"?! Unfortunately, he doesn't explain that remark.

Why can't he have Bilbo getting married? Well, Tolkien has already told us at the end of The Hobbit that Bilbo lived happily ever after to the end of his days

As we're starting the Shadow of the Past discussion today, I've knocked together something.

Apologies first of all, because Child has made some of the folowing points, but I put this together last night, & can't face going over the whole thing to excise anything repititious.

The first version of the Shadow of the Past is interesting in the way it shows how Tolkien was developing the concept of the Rings.

Gandalf is telling Bingo about the fate of the hobbits if the Enemy should be victorius:

It would be a mortal blow if if the dark power should overcome the Shire, & if all these jolly, greedy, stupid Bolgers, Bagginses, Brandybucks, Hornblowers, Proudfoots & whatnot became wraiths’.

Bingo shuddered. ‘But why should we?’ he asked; ‘and why should the Lord want such servants, & what has all this to do with me & the Ring?’

It is the only Ring left,’ said Gandalf. ‘And hobbits are the only people of whom the Lord has not yet mastered any one.

‘In the ancient days the dark master made many Rings, & he dealt them out lavishly, so that they might be spread abroad to ensnare folk. the elves had many, & there are now many elf-wraiths in the world; the goblins had some & their wraiths are very evil & under the command of the Lord. The dwarves had seven, but nothing could make them invisible. In them it only kindled to flames the fire of their greed...In this way the master controlled them. Men had three rings, & others they found in secret places cast away by the elf-wraiths: the men-wraiths are servants of the Lord, & they brought all their rings back to him; till at last he had gathered all into his hands again that had not been destroyed by fire - all save one.

It fell fromthe hand of an elf as he swam across a river; & it betrayed him, for he was flying frompursuit in the old wars, & became visible to his enemies, & the goblins slew him. But a fish took up the ring & was filled with madness, & swam upstream, leaping over rocks & up waterfalls until it cast itself on a bank & spat out the ring & died.

So we have the rings made, not by Elves seduced by the dark Lord, but by the dark Lord himslef, & we have multiple wraiths - even elvish ones. Any one who possesses a ring becomes a wraith. But these wraiths are not automatically servants of the dark Lord - only the men-wraiths. We even have elf wraiths casting their rings away (to become what?) Also, there is a definite similarity between what the effect of the Ring on the fish, & the effect of the Silmaril on Carcharoth.

But then it gets even more interesting:

There was long ago living by the bank of a stream a wise, clever handed & quiet footed little family. I guess they were of hobbit-kind.....The most inquisitive & curious-minded of that family was called Digol...He found the ring in the mud of the river-bank under the roots of a thorn tree; & he oput it on, & when he returned home none of his family saw him while he wore it. He ws pleased with his discovery & concealed it, & he used it to discover secrets, & put his knowledge to malicious use, & became sharp-eyed & keen-eared for all that was unpleasant.

So, no Smeagol! No murder. This Gollum is an innocent corrupted by the Ring. But then why call it a ‘birthday present’ (apart from the fact that one could say that this was the day ‘Gollum’ was ‘born’). But he goes the same way as Smeagol & retreats to the caves under the mountains. Eventually he wants to be free of it:

He wanted to slip out & leave the mountains, & smell the open air even if it killed him...But that would have meant leaving the Ring. And that is not easy to do. The longer you have had one the harder it is.

So he decides to give it away. And then Bilbo happens along. (At this point Tolkien is still bound by the account in the original Hobbit) .

Later Gandalf gets around to telling Bingo how the Ring can be destroyed:

I fancy you would have to find one of the Cracks of Earth in the depths of the Fiery Mountain, & drop it down into the Secret Fire, if you really want to destroy it.

So, the Secret Fire (capitalised in the original) is within the earth! But Ainullindale was already written by this time, & the Secret Fire was established as the equivalent of the Holy Spirit, so what is Tolkien’s meaning here? The Secret Fire , in the depths of the earth is the only thing that can destroy the Ring.

In the second version: Ancient History, there is more detail about the dark Lord:

Both elves & dwarves were troubled, especially those that occasionally arrived or passed by coming from a distance, from east or south. ...they constantly mentioned the Necromancer, or the enemy; & sometimes referred to the Land of Mor-dor & the Black Tower.

In this version though, the hobbits will become ‘enslaved’, not turned into wraiths, if the Necromance wins. But its still the Necromancer who makes the Rings. Interestngly, when he loses the one ring he loses control of all the others & their possesors. The elves, though, are a different case:

But the Elves resist his power more than all other races; & the high-elves of the West, of whom some still remain in the middle-world, percieve & dwell at once both [in] this world & the other side without the aid of rings.

So the high Elves exist in two worlds simultaneously - reminding one of Frodo’s Ring-induced vision of Glorfindel at the Ford of Bruinen, where he saw the Elf as a being of ‘shining light’.

As to men:

But all the Nine Rings of men have gone back to Sauron, & borne with them their possesors, kings, warriors & wizards of old, who became Ring-wraiths & served the maker, & were his most terrible servants

Interesting to see that the whole idea of the Istari has not yet appeared - wizards were among the Ring-wraiths. So Gandalf himself is still human - in the story at this point he is said to have aged quite a bit since the events of the Hobbit. Perhaps this accounts for Gandalf’s fear of the ring - other wizards have succumed. Also at this time we have the story of Gilgalad (sic), Orendil, & his son Isildor, who cut the Ring from Sauron’s hand. But the Ring is still spat out by a fish & found by Digol.

In the ‘Fourth Phase’ version, Gandalf tells Frodo (yes, we’re finally at Frodo!) :

There are many sorts of ring, of course. Some are no more than toys (though dangerous ones to my mind) & not difficult to contrive if you go in for such things - they are not in my line

- as CRT notes, preparing the way for Saruman ring maker. Its in this version that the Smeagol/Deagol storyline appears, as do the ‘Cracks of Doom in the depths of Ororuin, the fire-mountain’. But Gandalf doesn’t mantion the making of the rings, so the whole history of the Elven smiths of Eregion hasn’t appered (or hasn’t been written down. Generally, though, this version follows the lines of the final published version.

What strikes me is that any of the versions would have worked as stories, but there is a sense that Tolkien ‘knew’ subconsciously the story he really wanted to tell & was struggling along till he became conscious of it.

(I know, I know! Like the tourist who was asked what she thought of her first production of Romeo & Juliet, & replied 'She didn't like it because the writer had used too many quotes')

As to quotes, its difficult to discuss HoME because you don't know how many people have read it, & if you don't give quotes then you exclude people. Besides, I don't expect many (any) people to have read all this post

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Moving on to the current parallel chapter, I find it very interesting to read that the horse and rider showed up in an early draft, but that they weren’t a Black Rider as yet. As a matter of fact, it was Gandalf who showed up! This seems typical for Tolkien’s style of writing – a character appears without being planned, and his identity is gradually developed. CT says that the idea of the rider being Gandalf was abandoned almost immediately, though the fact that he sniffed stayed! In his comments at the end of this chapter, he writes:

…it is deeply characteristic that these scenes emerged at once in the clear and memorable form that was never changed, but that their bearing and significance would afterwards be enormously enlarged. The ‘event’ (one might say) was fixed, but its meaning capable of indefinite extension; and this is seen, over and over again, as a prime mark of my father’s writing.

In the light of later developments, as we’re discussing on the Chapter 3 thread, I find this sentence strangely ominous: “There was no danger: for they were still in the Shire.” Not much later, a black rider appears.

It’s interesting that the poems are very close to their final versions in these early drafts. Apparently Tolkien was more certain of them than of the narrative.

The conversation with Gildor diverges from the final version in several passages. The one I found most fascinating was Bingo’s explanation of his reasons for leaving the Shire at this time.

I had come to the end of my treasure. It had always held me back from the Journey which half of my heart wished for… So I said to my stay-at-home half; “There is nothing to keep you here. The Journey might bring you some more treasure, as it did for old Bilbo; and anyway on the road you will be able to live more easily without any. Of course if you like to stay in Hobbiton and earn your living as a gardener or a carpenter, you can.” The stay-at-home half surrendered; it did not want to make other people’s chairs or grow other people’s potatoes. It was soft and fat. I think the Journey will do it good. But of course the other half is not really looking for treasure, but for Adventure – later rather than sooner. At the moment it also is soft and fat, and finding walking over the Shire quite enough.

Here we see the torn Frodo again – half adventurous and half homebody. We also see the well-to-do gentleman – or rather, gentlehobbit! – who is not used to working himself. And we see wealth as a stumbling block to adventure.

Gildor’s answer is this:

…If you go looking for Adventure, you usually find as much of it as you can manage. And it often happens that when you think it is ahead, it comes on you unexpectedly from behind.

He does give advice in the early version, though he says that Elves seldom do; he advises Bingo to go to Rivendell, as well as telling him not to identify himself to a Rider, and not to use the ring to escape, saying:

…I guess that the use of the ring helps them more than you.

In the final version, there is no direct mention of the ring in this conversation.

[davem]

Oh, I thought this thread was dead! That's why I threw in my thoughts about the most interesting (to me) episode in the early drafts in the main chapter by chapter discussion. I'll repeat what I posted, & maybe someone will feel like taking it up here:

We also discover more about Frodo & his role. One thing I wanted to pick up on from the early drafts is part of the conversation with Gildor which didn’t make it into the final version:

I find this fascinating. Bingo (=Frodo), like Sam, is ‘torn in two’. Half of him wants to remain an ordinary hobbit, the other half wishes to leave & enter a different world - yet, the half of him that wishes to leave is ‘fated’ to go. He is called, against his will (or the will of his hobbit half) to a higher destiny. The hobbit half will have to surrender to that desire. And that hobbit half will be changed so much that by the end it will have to ‘ rediscover the changing seasons & voices of friends when they have been lost.’ The hobbit half will have to be ‘submerged’, put on hold, till the destiny of his other half has been fulfilled, &yet that hobbit half will be changed by the experience - so changed that it will have to learn how to be a hobbit all over again.

The other interesting thing Gildor says is: ‘For that must be the purpose of your fate, or the purpose of that part of your fate which concerns you yourself.’ Which means? Only part of Bingo’s fate concerns himself. So he has a ‘fate’ which only partly concerns himself. Yet how can Bingo’s fate not concern himself (not concern himself at all if we take Gildor’s words literally).

Perhaps Gildor is stating that there is a kind of ‘universal fate’, which involves each of us, of which our individual fate is a small part? Or perhaps he is implying that the fate of ‘Bingo son of Drogo’ is only a small part of the fate of a ‘greater’ being, whose life in Middle Earth is not the be all & end all.

I suspect that Tolkien felt he had strayed too far into metaphysics in this conversation & decided to cut the whole thing. But its fascinating to speculate where he was going. My own feeling is that, like the religious element, this idea was taken up into the story itself. I think its present in Frodo’s story, but Tolkien has decided he doesn’t want to have any character spell it out so blatantly.

Hopefully what we've both posted on this chapter will spark some response. I'm going to have to go over it all again, as I've forgotten a lot of the points I wanted to explore!

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Oh, I thought this thread was dead!

Not if I can help it! I'm continuing with my reading of The Return of the Shadow and intend to keep on with the discussion, though not every chapter has a lot of discussable content. Keeping up with the current CbC thread, I've read Ch. VI, 'Tom Bombadil'. Unfortunately, it doesn't say much about Goldberry; I wonder if what Tolkien wrote about her was more subconscious than conscious. He did however deliberately and early on choose the water-lily motive for her.

Here are a few scattered thoughts about the early drafts:

TB is called an 'aborigine' - interesting word!

Then the question:

Barrow-wights related to Black-riders. Are Black-riders actually horsed Barrow-wights?

Apparently the nature of the Black Riders was not yet defined; they became Nazgul later on.

Farmer Maggot was originally not a hobbit, but

a being of a wholly different kind, and akin to Bombadil.

[mark12_30]

I doubt (even setting aside, for the moment, Esty's fiery promise) that this thread will die! It's bound to be slower than the main discussion, but it will trickle along at least. I think the early chapters are so frantically busy with major and minor edits and re-writes it's hard to post on them sometimes. For me, anyway.

I have posted little because I find Bingo quite hard to relate to. He is quite far from the Frodo Baggins I so cherish. I find myself more interested in Frodo Took, the precursor of Pippin. He seems, to me, to have more of the Frodo-ish qualities that I so cherish in the finalized Frodo; he is more sensitive, more mystically oriented, yet level-headed and not a Pippinish ditz. I'm quite fond of Frodo Took, even though he is quite clearly Not Frodo Baggins, and Not Pippin Took. I haven't posted much because I'm still sorting out who the characters are in and of themseves, which is hard because they keep changing! I think that, like Trotter and Strider, they are and will remain separate characters for me; still, they are also clearly connected. A bit of a puzzle.

Marmaduke! *shakes head* Clearly Merry; much more Merry than Odo is Sam, or FrodoT is Pippin, or Bingo is FrodoB. And yet that name makes me chuckle every time. ... I was quite relieved when he finally morphed into Merry.

The development of the main characters is just awesome to watch.

[Aiwendil]

I haven't posted much because I'm still sorting out who the characters are in and of themseves, which is hard because they keep changing!

I feel exactly the same way. When I read HoMe VI I thought I was paying very close attention to every intricacy, but the Hobbit names are now a complete jumble in my mind.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I'm now reading Chapter IX in RotS; the first half corresponds with the 'Strider' chapter of FotR. In the light of the CbC discussion of Strider as Aragorn, noble, kingly and inspiring love in story characters as well as in us readers, it's interesting to compare Trotter, the Ranger hobbit with him. I must say, I find the latter very much lacking!

There is little implied mystery and depth to Trotter; he is described in Gandalf's letter as a "wild hobbit: dark, long-haired, has wooden shoes!" It seems to me that the word "ranger" is used in the generic sense of "wanderer", not having a specific purpose nor a set definition. As a matter of fact, he tells the hobbits that "not all rangers are to be trusted"! So who are the rangers? Are they various races? Is there a coordinated purpose to their wandering? And how on earth do wooden shoes contribute positively to walking in the wild?! (Can you imagine traversing the bogs of the Midgewater Marshes with wooden shoes?!)

The most important Bree characters - Butterbur, Bill Ferny - are hobbits as well! That makes Bree seem less foreign, less interesting too.

Gandalf was there a few days earlier, which is less disturbing than the final version of the story.

I guess the word "less" sums up my impression of the early drafts of this chapter. It gains so much by the time it becomes what we are now familiar with: The book's most fascinating character (in my opinion), the "All that is gold" poem, and Gandalf's amusing characterization of Butterbur...