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!