Return of the King, Part Two

It's over. Aragorn's King, the Ring's destroyed, and Middle Earth is saved. Then everyone says goodbye and never see each other again. It's actually rather depressing.

Sam and Frodo start off in Mordor, with Frodo trapped by the Orcs. Sam quickly frees him and they head off to Mount Doom. This part bugs me to no end. First off, Frodo only has a vague idea where Mount Doom is. He says he looked at a map months ago, but they still manage to find the volcano without getting lost. Secondly, they travel for at least a week (possibly several, I'm pretty clueless as to how much time passed while they were in Mordor) with almost no food or water. For the last several days of their journey they have none at all. Not to mention Frodo is practically on his deathbed the entire time. Yet not only do they manage to cover many miles a day, but Sam is able to carry Frodo piggy-back style up the mountain. I've come to the conclusion that hobbits, despite their massive appetites, really do not need any food at all to survive.

But once they finally get up to the crater the story gets better. Frodo won't throw the Ring in! He wants to keep it for himself. I'll be honest, I was happy about this. I would've been quite disappointed if Frodo had been able to throw it away without a second thought. Throughout the series it was getting more and more apparent that the Ring was getting the better of him. So instead of throwing it in, Frodo slips it on his fingers and disappears. Gollum pops out of nowhere, fights an invisible Frodo, and bites Frodo's finger off. Then he unceremoniously falls into the fiery pit with the Ring. I can't wait to watch that scene in the movie.

The problem: there is still roughly ninety pages left. What could possibly be left? Turns out, not much. Gandalf comes and rescues Frodon and Sam with a couple of eagles. Which was the most depressing thing in the whole series. WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST FLY THOSE EAGLES INTO MORDOR?! This thing could have been seven hundred pages shorter. I could just scream. By the way, why didn't Sauron ever make an appearance?

Eowyn hooks up with Faramir, who she barely knows. Aragorn becomes king and marries Arwen. Who's Arwen? I'm not even sure is she was mentioned before this. Whatever, I don't even care anymore. Legolas and Gimli go off... somewhere. Gandalf leaves finally and the hobbits return to the Shire.

I was partly right in my predictions, Saruman took over the Shire. But at this point it feels like a joke. Sauron's already been defeated, and these hobbits have proven they can deal with anything. They manage to restore peace in no time at all.

In the end, Sam has a wife and daughter. Like Aragorn's wife, Rosie's isn't mentioned until the end. Perhaps Tolkien just threw in a bunch of weddings to give the series a happy ending. Or perhaps he realized that there was too much chemistry between Sam and Frodo and tried to fix it. Frodo leaves forever to who-knows-where. Gandalf goes too (and good riddance). It's pretty obvious that the rest of the fellowship will never reunite. Like I said earlier, it's a pretty depressing end.

Despite my dislike for the series, I don't regret reading them. Now I understand so many references and jokes that made no sense to me before. Also I can finally watch the movies. I recently purchased The Hobbit since it was on sale at Borders. I'm not going to read it right away; I need to take a little break from Tolkien for now. I plan on reading and blogging that in the spring. Keep your eyes open!

Return of the King, Part One.

I'm on a quest now. I'm out to finish this series before I go back to school. I have nine days to read about two hundred fifty pages. This doesn't look promising. Anyway, I'm almost done! I'm halfway through Return of the King! The end is in sight! I figured it would be best to blog this in two halves, since the book is set up much like the last one with the first half focusing on Gandalf and co. and the next half focusing (presumably) on Frodo, Sam, and Gollum.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand it has a decent plot. It has a few good battles. It even has a deranged old man setting himself on fire! What else do you need? Sadly, I can't bring myself to like it. I'm trying to enjoy the series, I really am. I just can't. I'll go over the worst aspects and then the best. Bare with me, I know I complain a lot.

The Bad
I know I've said it before, the characters are the worst thing about this series. They just exist. There's too many of them and not enough personalities to go around. I don't care about any of the heroes. The protagonists, on the other hand, are a bit more entertaining (more on that later). Legolas and Gimli, who had a great friendly rivalry in The Two Towers, are all but forgotten here. Merry and Pippen are identical in every way. Too often I got confused over which one was in Minas Tirith and which one was with the Riders of Rohan. Aragorn is supposed to be brave and noble. The problem is almost every character is presented as brave and noble, so there's nothing to really set Aragorn apart. As for Gandalf... he just irritates me. I could write a whole blog about what's wrong with Gandalf as a character. I might just do that later.

Another thing that bothers me is that I still don't understand what's so special about this ring. I thought it might become clearer as the series went on, but it hasn't. What does it do besides turn the wearer invisible? Why does Sauron need to become invisible? One would think that Sauron doesn't need the ring at all. He's clearly doing a good job without it. He's able to destroy kingdoms, corrupt old men, strike fear in the hearts of everyone, and win the loyalty of Orcs. How can the ring possibly help him? Unless it turns everyone into his mindless, zombie-like servants. Zombie Frodo would be pretty cool.

The Good
There are two characters who really stood out to me. One is Denethor. As I mentioned earlier while I was complaining, the protagonists are the only ones with believable personalities. Denethor is Boromir's father, so I had high expectations for him. He didn't disappoint me. Right from the beginning he hates Gandalf. He belittles Pippen. He's upset that Boromir is dead, and that the relic Boromir was protecting didn't come to Minas Tirith. Denethor is a deluded, evil, crazy old man. Denethor is awesome. Not to mention that he sets himself on fire in the best written scene in the entire series. Sniff. I'll miss you, old man.

The other person who really surprised me was Eowyn. She had a small part back in The Two Towers, where she flirted with Aragorn. I quickly forgot about her. When she came back this time I thought she was only going to hit on him again. But no! She's actually does something! She's a woman who does something! The only other female character who came close to being helpful was Galadriel. Remember what she did? She sat around and looked stunning. She had a little chat with Frodo and looked stunning. She gave Gimli some of her hair which looked stunning. After the heroes left she presumably went back to sitting around and brushing her stunning hair. I hate Galadriel. Eowyn is the real deal. She's upset that she can't do anything to help out, so she dresses like a man and goes to war where she defeats the biggest baddie on the field, with only a little help from Merry. Basically, she's Tolkien's version of Mulan.

Now I get to read the final section. I'm going to predict how it ends (remember, I've never seen the movies).

• Frodo lives. Actually, I'm going to say that everyone lives except Sauron and Gollum.
• Eowyn marries Aragorn.
• Merry and Pippen don't go back to the Shire. They stay at Rohan and Minas Tirith.
• The Shire gets destroyed. This may have already happened since Saruman had that pipeweed from the Shire.
• Everyone sings more songs.

The Two Towers: Man, I Can't Believe I Read That Thing So Fast

So I was completely prepared to hate The Two Towers as much as I hated Fellowship of the Ring and therefore spend another three months reading it. But instead it has only taken me about three and a half weeks. I'm proud of myself. I think I deserve an ice cream slushie.

Alright, I cheated a little. Whenever someone started making a really long speech, or when J.R.R. Tolkien was describing the scenery, I just skipped over it. Saved me a lot of time. And I still perfectly understood everything that was going on, so stop looking at me like that.

The Two Towers was much better than Fellowship. Much, much better. I think a big part of this is from there being two halves of the book. The first half focuses on Strider, Legolas, Gimli, and Gandalf. Sadly, Boromir is killed in the first chapter. In my opinion he was the strongest character in the first book, so I was quite angry when he was killed by Orcs. It also seemed odd that he was killed at the beginning of this one when it would have made a lot more sense for it to have happened at the end of Fellowship, right after his confrontation with Frodo.

Anyway, there was actually a battle! A big one! And they kill people Orcs! And Legolas and Gimli have this awesome contest where they see who kills more people Orcs. Alright, I have to ask. Is there a reason Tolkien made the enemies inhuman? I've noticed that no countries support the Dark Lord. All he has are Orcs and Ring Wraiths. Is Sauron really unable to get any regular humans/elves/dwarfs/corrupt nations on his side? Just curious.

Another good part: there was a confrontation with Saruman. I like Saruman. He's like a less-boring Gandalf. He also has a tower. A really tall one. Really, who needs an entire castle when you can just have an extremely tall tower? Not to mention that during this confrontation Gandalf and company were on the ground while Saruman was on a balcony. Yep. A balcony. That tells me that this tower is so tall that if Saruman was standing on the roof, no one would have been able to hear him. Also, that man can sing!

I found that on accident right before I got to the part with Saruman. So I was quite surprised when Legolas didn't shoot Saruman in the book. I was also quite disappointed when Saruman didn't break into song.

Frodo, Sam, and Gollum take the stage in the second half. I can't decide if I hate Gollum or feel sorry for him. I also can't decide if I want Sam to kill Gollum, or Gollum to kill Sam. Sure, Sam is my favorite character now that Boromir's dead, but he was a complete jerk to Gollum.

Anyways, Frodo and Sam make a cute couple. They hold hands, Frodo sleeps with his head on Sam's lap, and after Frodo dies Sam decides that life is not worth living and he would rather be dead with Frodo.

Yep. Frodo dies. Only he's not really dead. Just like Gandalf. So I will keep hoping that Boromir returns in the next book.

The Fellowship of the Ring: It Sucked, Then It Got Decent

Alright, so it took me much longer than I expected to finish The Fellowship of the Ring. That's not a good sign. If I am enjoying a book I can usually finish it in under a week, even if it's pretty long. So the fact that I spent several months getting through the Fellowship says a lot.

So what is it that I dislike about this book? For the most part, it's the characters. There's too many of them. Usually I like books that have a lot of characters, but none of these have much of a personality. Even Frodo, the hero of the story, is rather blah. Merry and Pippen (and later on Legolas) have almost no lines, and it is too easy to forget about them. When Strider was first introduced, I thought he was awesome. That was when it was just him and the hobbits. But when Gandalf, Gimli, Boromir and Legolas came along, Strider was pushed to the side and lost alot of his charm.

As for the ones I liked: Sam and Boromir. Sam is just a sweetheart. He's a country hick. I love him. Although I am convinced that he's in love with Frodo. There is a ridiculous amount of bromance between them, too much for them to just be friends. And Boromir, I can't say enough about Boromir. In my opinion he had the most well defined personality in the whole book (which isn't saying much, to be honest). He's the only one who has an opinion of his own and doesn't just blindly agree with everything Gandalf or Strider says. He's loyal, as shown when he wants to go back and defend Minas Tirith even when no one else in the Fellowship thinks it's important. Not to mention, he's right about the Ring: if the right person got ahold of it they could easily drive out the evil forces. Too bad these traits make him seem like a jerk to everyone else.

But the character I hated most was Gandalf. I have nothing positive to say about him at all. It seems like he was only created for exposition, and when the exposition was all finished there was no longer a need for him. While each of the other characters have very few lines, Gandalf never shuts up. Just look at chapter two. It's a long chapter, and most of it is Gandalf explaining what happened in the past to Frodo. Pure exposition. It's like J.R.R. Tolkien didn't even try to disguise it. And we're supposed to believe that Frodo didn't know any of this before the book starts? Honestly, it was only after Gandalf dies that I started liking the book. (And then he comes back in chapter five of The Two Towers, sadly.)


Just a few things that confused me:

• Tom Bombadil (He was fun, just... odd)
• Everyone randomly breaks out into songs all the time. I was not expecting that at all.
• If Frodo's quest is supposed to be a complete secret, why is it that most of the people he meets seem to know that he's the Ring Bearer?
• The Black Riders are unable to enter towns, or at least buildings.
• I'm really surprised that the wizards are unable to teleport. It would make this series a lot shorter.

Sorry I complained so much. I'm really tough on books, especially ones that are supposed to be really good.

What I learned Freshman Year

1. Not much.
2. How to make an omelette.
3. How to make an event on Facebook.
4. I'm pretty sure Evans 4 is haunted.
5. Evolution is the change in allele frequencies over time.
6. Everyone has an identical twin on campus. Mine plays the banjo.
7. I also have a black twin.
8. Polyester does not shrink in the dryer.
9. My cute blue sweater did shrink in the dryer.
10. Beauty and the Beast is a great movie.
11. Knitting is cool.
12. Gatorade is good, but Kool Aid is better. And cheaper.
13. I can go an entire school year (possibly several years) without watching any tv shows. However, I cannot go a month without Nintendo.
14. Chicago should be its own state.
15. Chemistry sucks.
16. Everyone knows Spanish except me.
17. Cheesy Valentine cards are awesome.
18. Artificial sweeteners “were all discovered accidentally by sloppy chemists who didn't wash the chemicals off their hands before leaving the laboratory.” ← quote from my chem professor's website.
19. Flash drives are supposed to help you keep track of your files, but they usually get lost on the abyss of your desk, ensuring that you never find your essay again.
20. Milk parties are the best parties.
21. Carbon is a magical element. In fact, a diamond is just a giant carbon molecule. Someday I hope to get a giant carbon molecule.
22. It's tacky when you end a list with a number that is a multiple of five.