LotR -- Book 2 - Chapter 01 - Many Meetings

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Hmmm…I appear to have a slightly different view of this chapter than some. Yes, I see that this chapter is one of the refuges in the refuge-danger cycle of the narrative, but I don’t see it as a pause in the action, nor as a moment in which Frodo makes any grand kind of transition between starkly opposed realms (life/death, mundane/faerie). What I thin is happening here is that Frodo is continuing his journey toward a fuller awareness of the world around him – of both the light and dark.

The chapter is full of moments in which the nature of things is revealed. The brilliance of the chapter is that nothing ‘new’ is really learned (that is for the masterpiece ‘Council of Elrond’ coming next week *pant pant*); instead, we & Frodo learn more about things we are already familiar with.

It is, fittingly, Gandalf who kicks off the chapter’s ambivalent exploration of reality with his mysterious return, and equally mysterious refusal to explain why. We learn from him that:

‘There are many powers in the world, for good or evil. Some are greater than I am.’ … The Morgul-lord and his Black Riders have come forth. War is preparing! … for the Black Riders are the Ringwraiths, the Nine Servants of the Lord of the Rings.’

A lot is happening in this brief passage. First, we learn that the world is full of good and evil that is stronger than Gandalf, so we are treated to equal parts hope and despair, and given a look into the future and the moment at which those forces will meet when Frodo is a the Crack of Doom. We learn that all out war is preparing – something we’ve not heard of until this point – and the identity of the Black Riders. It’s interesting that the Riders do not become any more frightening by the knowledge, but it’s significant that the first thing Frodo learns in the House of Elrond, loremaster, counsel giver, is the identity of the creatures that have been attempting to destroy him, and that their appearance heralds an all-out war! Finally, it’s here in the ‘refuge’ of Rivendel that Frodo first hears the appelation “Lord of the Rings”.

But the light is revealed, as is the dark. Gandalf goes on to explain who Glorfindel is and that because of Elves like him

‘there is a power in Rivendell to withstand the might of Mordor, for a while: and elsewhere other powers still dwell. There is power too, of another kind, in the Shire.’

So it’s not just that Frodo is moving from one world into another, but into a perspective from which he can see the world more clearly, in all of its power for good and evil: Mordor, Imladris, ‘other powers’ (Lorien? The Ents? Eru?) and – most significantly – the Shire is included in this list. Frodo is not moving beyond his realm into others, but learning that his world is as much a hidden power as any in Middle-Earth, so he is growing in apprehension, I think, rather than from one ‘self’ to another.

The rest of the chapter works through a number of such apprehensions as Frodo begins to see the world and the people in it in a whole new way. Aragorn looks like a person transformed at the banquet, thanks to his presence near Arwen, who is herself a revelation of the full reality of M-E, in all it’s glory and sadness: “the likeness of Luthien had come on earth again: and she was called Undómiel, for she was the Evenstar of her people.”

We are then treated to the poem in the Hall of Fire (which I love, and thanks Aiwendil for your perceptive comments), in which the full beauty of the world is revealed fully to Frodo, immediately followed by Bilbo’s ‘transformation’ in which the full ugliness of the world is rather forcefully brought home to him. It’s almost as though poor old Frodo is stuck between two ways of looking at the world, here in Rivendell. On the one hand, is the way he looks at Arwen at the banquet, in which Frodo is almost able to have Elvish eyes onto the beauty, power and majesty of existence – tinged with sadness though it may be, it is wonderful; on the other hand, he is able to ‘see’ the Nine for what they really are, and Bilbo looks like Gollum to him. This is the conflict that will begin to consume him as he travels (hope and despair?).

The chapter ends with a great little bit of foreshadowing though, in which we look ahead to get a hint of how this tension might be resolved for Frodo, finally:

then suddenly it seemed to Frodo that Arwen turned towards him, and the light of her eyes fell on him from afar and pierced his heart.

Even though he will never be able to heal from the Morgul blade that tried to “pierce his heart”, this piercing by Arwen will grant him healing and comfort from that wound – and the others that his journey will give him – in the West.