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.