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.