Ima taj jedan pisac, Tolkin se zove, i on je napisao to neko delo...
...
...

Nema smisla puno pričati. Gospodar Prstenova je roman koji je zacementiran na svojoj poziciji klasika, i u žanru i van njega, i to sa valjanim razlogom. Iako jeste svakako malo lošije omatereo - nije više to ta griva kose, plus hoda malčice nakrivo pa mu džaba što je visok 2m - što se najviše ogleda u uštogljenom dijalogu, ovo je i dalje potpuno fascinantno štivo sa više tačaka gledišta, ali ona glavna, sa koje se vide sve ostale, svakako je svet. Jer Srednja Zemlja ima potporu bar koliko i ova naša (ako se pravimo da to nisu dve iste zemlje – kao što sam Tolkin reče, „Srednja Zemlja je ništa drugo do naša matična planeta – ali u drugoj eri mašte“), što je upravo ono što isparava sa stranice. I ono što toliko opija.

Prvi put sam pročitao Gospodara u petom osnovne, dakle sa circa 20% razumevanja, pa iako nikad ikad nisam čitao ponovo već pročitane knjige (greota, kad ih je toliko različitih) još od doba dnevne konzumacije Hari Potera, ovu sam morao. I svašta sam novo otkrio. Elem, u crticama:

- sećam se da mi se ranije nimalo nije dopadalo što su knjige podeljene po principu frodo+sem – ostali, ali sada mi je zapanjujuće lepo leglo; lepše je provoditi duže vreme sa jednim asortimanom likova, bez ’cik cak nabijam tenziju’ mahinacija, bar za ovu vrstu priče

- mislim da se Tolkinu premalo počasti odaje kada je reč o karakterizaciji: Frodo je potpuno tragičan junak; Gandalf je neverovatna skladna kombinacija nespojivog - autoriteta i harizme; Teoden je ono što čini ljude dobrim; Meri i Pipin su šegačije sa dušom ispod one-liner-a; a Gimli možda ima i najveće srce – a svakako najviše voli (Galadriel+Gimli je ono što su svi hteli da vide, a ne Aragorn+Aruen); jedino što mi je Aragorn tu malo mršav, tojest nije mršav jer onda ne bi bio savršen, ali svakako mi se više dopada karakterizacija nevoljnog kralja (koja je u knjigama očito izvorno Frodova – nevoljnog junaka, dok je u filmovima karton koji se prenemaže i ima lik Ilajdže Vuda) nego savršenog kralja, ali što je tu je

- takodje, Tolkin ume da izvuče emociju na skoro pa nimalo sentimentalan način, nešto što je izbledelo sa vremenom; danas je gotovo sve sentiš do bola

- prava kulminacija trilogije je, sasvim zaslužno, povratak hobita u Okrug

- razlika izmedju filmova i knjiga čini mi se da je u fokusu – gde se film fokusira na akciju, u knjizi je ona neretko nabijena u paragraf; Tolkin je više zainteresovan da oživi svet koji naseljavaju njegovi junaci na svaki mogući način i to nikad ne davi

- vrlo me je iznenadila količina referenci na Silmarilion kojih se, sasvim logično s obzirom da onomad još nisam znao ni za postojanje istog kao knjige, nimalo ne sećam

- ne znam šta više da kažem, ali evo još jedna crtica: knjiga se manjeviše završava tako što Gandalf ide da popuši koju lulu sa Bombadilom

I tako. Jedno poglavlje u mom životu, ponovljeno. Može se reći i – zasluženo.

5

Save time... watch the movies. This book can appeal only to a linguist. The underlying story is great, but it is buried under an avalance of horribly annoying songs and poems that do nothing to advance the story. They just take up space. I diligently read every last one, hoping that they held some deep meaning in relation to the story, but if there is one, it is so obscure that it serves no purpose. Also, the book is all about walking. Yes, I know they are on an epic quest, and there has to be soul-searching, etc., but the amount of detail regarding the walking is a snoozer! 45 pages of walking and 3 pages for a huge battle. AUGH! I know that this is a masterpiece, and I agree that the plot line is a beautiful tale of good and evil and power and corruption. However, reading this series was a drudgery. The only really good part that you miss in the movies is when the hobits return to the Shire in the last three chapters of The Return of the King. If you want a Tolkien fix, I'd reccommend The Hobbit.

This book changed my life. Before it I was a spotty 14 year old hooked on my science studies. Then I read LOTR, and, at the same time, discovered women existed and.....but thats enough of that. You want to hear about the book.

By now there are few people who haven't at least heard of LOTR, and most of them have an opinion. There are the fans, almost fanatics, and there are the people who have read fifty pages or so, sometimes five or six times, but just can't get it, and don't understand what the fuss is about. I might have been one of them, if it hadn't been for an accident.

I asked my local librarian to recommend a book for me as I had read all the Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov works they had. She pointed me at LOTR, and handed me what she said was book 1 of 3. It was only when I got home I found I had book 2: The Two Towers.

I arrived in the story just at the point where the first film ends - The Fellowship is broken and Frodo and Sam are heading for Mordor.

I think that is what made me keep reading -I had started at a point of crisis and I needed to know what happened next. Of course I had a lot of blanks to fill in, but I managed to pick up most of them as I went along , and I caught up with the first book as soon as I'd finished the third. (I bought the big all-in-one paperback, the one with the yellow cover. If you were a student in the seventies it was obligatory to have one lying about, all battered and torn to show that it had been read several times. You used to see backpackers in their hundreds on the trains going south through Europe, all with this version of LOTR falling apart in their hands.)

As for starting at the begining, I believe the reason a lot of people give up is that they are expecting heroes, wizards and high magic. What they get is, in great detail, the rural goings-on of a bunch of small hairy creatures who eat and drink a lot and seem to live in an idealised version of the Home Counties.

Anyone who has read "The Hobbit" will know that there is more to the Hobbits than that, but newcomers often feel cheated and give up.

They don't know what they're missing.

The story only picks up AFTER Bilbo's birthday party, and after the passing of his ring of invisibility to Frodo. Gandalf, a wizard, discovers the true nature of the ring. It is a magic item of great power, belonging to Sauron himself, a dark god intent on taking dominion over the world.

Gandalf tells Frodo that the ring must be taken to a place of safety, to Rivendell, where the high-elves hold out against Sauron.

And so the great journey starts, with Frodo and his friends, Sam, Merry and Pippin, taking the road to Rivendell. On the way they have many adventures, and the mood begins to darken with the appearance of the dark riders, servants of Sauron intent on finding the ring.

The travelling band is befriended by Strider, a ranger of the north, and he helps them get to Rivendell, but not before Frodo is wounded by the dark riders, and starts to understand the power of the ring.

At Rivendell, many things are revealed; the history of the ring is told, Strider is shown to be Aragon, the rightful heir to the kingdom of Middle-Earth, and a fellowship is forged, of wizards, elves, dwarves, men and hobbits. They form a band of nine who will try to take the ring to Mount Doom, a volcano where the ring was forged, and which is the only place where it can be destroyed.

And so the adventure truly begins. From here on we have battles in deep mountain mines, the loss of one of the Fellowship, encounters with elves in enchanted forests, treachery and betrayal leading to the breaking of the fellowship - and we're still in Book 1!

Books 2 and 3 deal with the fight for middle-Earth, with Aragon and his allies taking the battle to Sauron and his minions and Frodo and Sam trying to reach Mount Doom to destroy the ring. There are huge, stirring, battle scenes, moments of humour (especially when the younger hobbits meet the Ents), spectacular feats of high magic when the White Rider enters the battle scenes, and moments of great friendship and tenderness - I defy anyone to have a dry eye when Sam and Frodo are parted at Shelob's lair.

It all builds up to a terrific climax, and the story comes full circle back at Hobbitton where we see the effect the war has had on the rural life of the Hobbits.

And that is why the beginning is important - you might not see it till right at the end, but it is teaching us a lesson about the value of the simpler things in life - respect them or lose them.

Tolkein's genius lies in melding these simple aspects with world-shattering events, showing how even the "little people" have their part to play in the fight against the darkness.

And he also knows that the best villain is a mysterious one....Sauron hardly appears at all in the books, but his dark presence stretches over everything, and he's always there, his evil eye seeing everything.

I used to have nightmares about that large, red-rimmed eye, but that was before I discovered women, grew my hair, developed a liking for Hawkwind and Led Zeppelin, and started to write fantasy fiction. I've never been the same since...... but that's another long story.

Watch this review read by me on YouTube

I know I read this series at the tender age of eight, when I was very impressionable and very eager to get obsessed with anything. But I think these are better than we give them credit for.

Not to show up and act like J.R.R. Tolkein was some misunderstood genius. But it’s fascinating to me that this book was foundational to modern high fantasy, a genre which I think plays a lot with cruelty: the brutal world, the betrayal of friends. Tolkein’s novels do not revolve around complex moral codes; they do not question whether there is good and evil, or who is who. The fundamental hero of this story is love.

It's no accident that the hero of this series is the most underestimated of all people: a Hobbit. There are the godly elves, but this series focuses on men's capacity to fail and triumph. The outsiders save the world.

I think, all the time, about the fact that were it not for one moment of pity Frodo takes, on someone who he knows will try to hurt him, this entire story would have been different—would have ended on a far, far darker note.

(On weekends, I also take time to think very deeply about Sam’s role in the series, and the fact that his love and loyalty saves Frodo and, by extent, the world. Within this narrative love saves the world.)

The biggest flaw is that Tolkein could not edit to save his life. I will not elaborate on that beyond to say he would dedicate at least five pages to explaining the concept. I’m going to keep it very, very real: my love for this comes partially from just how much I adore the movie adaptations. This is genuinely the #1 series in the world where I think the movie adaptation is superior in quality to the books. I’ve watched them so many times. I think every time I watch them I end up adding a few sentences to this review because I’m full of Thoughts and Tenderness. The movies are my favorite and always worth a watch.

also, if you’ve gotten this far, feel free to go watch this video series on why the Hobbit movies didn't work. it sparks the reviewer inside me

My full review has been moved over to my website, and in its place I have left a defence of the novel itself. If you would like to read my review please click the following link: My review of J.R.R. Tolkien's, The Lord of the Rings.

The Lord of the Rings was the book that created my love of literature when I first read it at the age of twelve. Certainly I was a precocious reader beforehand and The Chronicles of Narnia and The Hobbit have much to be thanked for also. However it was The Lord of the Rings that pushed me onto a path of epic fantasy and grand classics. Without it I would no doubt have avoided Ulysses and Crime and Punishment - works of equal importance. For in my eyes The Lord of the Rings is a great and versatile work. It has a riveting story - a story so compelling and so punctuated with themes that it demands a re-reading from me, time and time again. It has poetry and imagined history of the type that many aspire to recreate, and yet no one can. For there is only one Lord of the Rings and it does not share power with other aspiring fantasy works.

To finish therefore, I will briefly attempt to answer the critics of this monumental work. Not in a manner that is in any way conclusive or exhaustive, but in a manner that satisfies my cravings. For I find there is much in The Lord of the Rings that is often overlooked nowadays - due in part to changing attitudes to fantasy, fiction, politics, history and the many Tolkien clones and fantasy movies available. 

The biggest criticisms of Tolkien can all be found in the one source, in Michael Moorcock's essay Epic Pooh. His essay begins with a fascinating quote by Clyde S. Kilby which begins: "Why is the Rings being widely read today? At a time when perhaps the world was never more in need of authentic experience, this story seems to provide a pattern of it."The final statement of this quoted paragraph is exceptionally revealing however: "For a century at least the world has been increasingly demythologized. But such a condition is apparently alien to the real nature of men. Now comes a writer such as John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and, as remythologizer, strangely warms our souls."

This quote also brings us to the first criticism made by Moorcock (keeping in mind that Moorcock to me exemplifies the overall criticisms made by many about fantasy and The Lord of the Rings as part of that). He writes that: "The sort of prose most often identified with "high" fantasy is the prose of the nursery-room. It is a lullaby; it is meant to soothe and console. It is mouth-music. It is frequently enjoyed not for its tensions but for its lack of tensions. It coddles; it makes friends with you; it tells you comforting lies."

To Moorcock, Tolkien's work is both overly romanticised and escapist all at once. He links success with the fact that the novels appeal to what people want to read, not with what they should read. Yet to state such is to me a form of cold cynicism. I do not believe that comfort is what appeals to the reader solely however. There will always be a degree of this, yet I perceive that readers look for works which contain at their heart a story and characters that appeal to them. It is in these areas that success is grown. 

Interestingly Moorcock mentions Watership Down at the same time as discussing The Lord of the Rings and both books are strong because they have characters which touch the reader. They are not in any degree comforting, because they contain frightening ideas and realities within them. Yet what they do is to show the reader truths about inner strength and the ability to overcome darkness, tragedy and minor defeat. All of which can sound like idealism or naivety, yet fiction allows us to do such a thing - to perceive an idealistic view of what we can be.

Moorcock writes on, however, and mentions that Tolkien uses his words "seriously but without pleasure." Yet this misses much of what and how Tolkien uses words. Certainly one can see how on the outside it could be seen that Tolkien has a sort of unconscious humour and writes without pleasure, but a linguistical analysis of the words and names shows that deeper down, within the roots and origins of many words are humorous ideas. For instance hobbit comes from old english words meaning 'hole' and 'dweller'.

Another of the criticisms levelled against Tolkien is the existence of "ghastly verse". Indeed, many people I know complain about the poetry in The Lord of the Rings as a childish distraction. Yet I find it one of the more appealing things about it. It conveys a sense of the work existing as a form of traditional storytelling and grants the tale a greater sense of organic development. And indeed, Tolkien's verse is hardly ghastly but has a rather melodic rhythm all it's own.

Of course Moorcock's arguments against Tolkien's verse go further into other areas such as that the existence of what he calls 'allegory' ruin the artistry of the book. And yet, for all such claims, Tolkien's work is one of great artistry. An artistry of natural surroundings - hills, trees, rivers and all forms of beauty painted with words. That is not to say that Tolkien writes like some writers, but there is a simple elegance to his work, more often found in his descriptive power.

"Writers like Tolkien take you to the edge of the Abyss and point out the excellent tea-garden at the bottom, showing you the steps carved into the cliff and reminding you to be a bit careful because the hand-rails are a trifle shaky as you go down; they haven't got the approval yet to put a new one in."

Of course, in the end Moorcock's writing comes off as nothing but a pretentious work that has nothing better to argue than 'it's all silly and poorly written.' It's rather subjective, though he makes the powerful argument as to whether we should consider such 'pulp fiction' among literary greats. I believe that it deserves a spot among them for its influence and what it achieves on the whole. For Tolkien's work is not one which performs according to the above quote. It does not coddle the reader as Moorcock says, nor does it glorify war. Instead it reveals the reality of darkness, power, depravity and doom. It shows us that where there is darkness we need not accept that darkness then, that we can choose to believe in the good that flourishes in the most unlikely places. In the tea garden at the bottom of the abyss - to use Moorcock's metaphor then...

What I am essentially arguing is that superficially The Lord of the Rings is nothing more than a silly idea. A work of fairies and elves - a book for children, idealists and other times. Yet underneath such a story, as with all fairytales, is a sense of something greater. This something is to be found with a sense of wonder, exploration and a willingness to look beneath the surface. I believe this is why Tolkien loved his hobbit creations so much. Because in them is represented all that The Lord of the Rings is: an unassuming face, harbouring great inner quality.

Luin J.R.R. Tolkienin "Taru sormusten herrasta" (WSOY, 1999) ensimmäisen kerran parikymppisenä opiskelijana sairaalan vuoteessa maatessani (nykyään sekin aika olisi tietysti mennyt netissä notkuen). Lukukokemus oli vähän kaksijakoinen: toisaalta muistan nauttineeni eeppisestä fantasiaseikkailusta, toisaalta pitkästyneeni kun tarinassa siirryttiin seuraamaan muiden kuin Frodon ja Samin ponnistelua kohti Tuomiovuorta.

Vuonna 2020 oli aika palata Keskimaahan. Luettiin ensiksi iltasaduksi Hobitti ja päätettiin hypätä sen jälkeen suoraan Sormusten herran pariin. Seitsemän kuukautta siihen meni, mutta lopulta mahtisormus saatiin tuhottua.

Jonkin verran lukemastani muistin, mutta paljon oli joko unohtunut tai sitten jäänyt jollakin tavalla Peter Jacksonin erinomaisen elokuvatrilogian varjoon. Loppuhuipennuksen jälkeen tarina jatkuikin vielä aika pitkään. Lisäksi Merrin ja Pippinin rooli kirjassa oli odottamaani suurempi, eivätkä nämä olleetkaan ainoastaan koomisia sivuhahmoja. Leffat ovat kyllä onnistuneet tylsistyttämään omaa mielikuvitusta siinä määrin, että oli vähän vaikea ajatella vaikka Aragornia näkemättä edessään Viggo Mortensenin pärstävärkkiä.

Tolkienille täytyy nostaa hattua fantasiamaailman luojana, mitä en ensimmäisellä kerralla osannut ehkä arvostaa samassa mittakaavassa ("voi ei, nyt joku tonttu laulaa taas kolme sivua"). Valehtelisin silti jos väittäisin, etten olisi nytkin hetkittäin vähän pitkästynyt, kun jaarittelulle ei näkynyt loppua.

"Sormusten herra" tarjosi myös onnistuneen matkan tunnekasvatuksen maailmaan. Se tarjosi melkoisen ahdistavia ja pelottavia kohtauksia Mordorissa, mutta myös muutamia hersyvän humoristisia katkelmia, kuten suosikkihahmojeni Samin ja Klonkun välisen vuoropuhelun onnistuneeseen ruokailuun liittyvistä jutuista. Ja sitten toisaalla Samin ja Frodon ystävyyttä kuvattiin niin kauniisti, että jouduin vähän nieleskelemään kyyneliäni, eikä sellaista tapahdu kovin usein.

Mitähän tästä vielä sanoisi? No, kannattihan tämä lukea uudestaan ja tykkäsin tällä toisella kerralla kirjasta melkeinpä enemmän!

Writing a review of this masterpiece is impossible. I can’t do it.

There’s too much to talk about and I love it far too much to articulate my thoughts in a normal way. So instead I’ve picked one element of each book that I liked the most (taken from my list of ten on each review) and added them here. It’s the best I can do, though I know many goodreads users share my difficulty when reviewing this book.

Anyway, here’s my top three:

1.Finding your courage- The Fellowship of the Ring

Not all the party have been fully tested. With them travel four young hobbits, the most unlikely of companions for such a journey. They are the overlooked, the forgotten about, the race that is casually discarded and considered insignificant in the wider world. And perhaps this has been the downfall of society in middle earth previously. The forces of darkness exploit everything they can get their hands on, from giant spiders to rampaging trolls, from dragons to orcs, from men of the east to the undead, Sauron tries to wield it all. This is something the forces of good have not fully considered until recently. Within the bosom of the hobbit beats a strong heart of fortitude and resilience.

“My dear Frodo!’ exclaimed Gandalf. ‘Hobbits really are amazing creatures, as I have said before. You can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you at a pinch.”

They carry with them the key to destroying the dark. Bilbo showed them how he could resist the ring. The hobbits are an almost incorruptible race, and because of this they are Sauron’s doom. It is something he has overlooked.

“It would be the death of you to come with me, Sam," said Frodo, "and I could not have borne that."

"Not as certain as being left behind," said Sam.

"But I am going to Mordor."

"I know that well enough, Mr. Frodo. Of course you are. And I'm coming with you.”



2. Gandalf the White - The Two Towers

“Do I not say truly, Gandalf,' said Aragorn at last, 'that you could go whithersoever you wished quicker than I? And this I also say: you are our captain and our banner. The Dark Lord has Nine. But we have One, mightier than they: the White Rider. He has passed through the fire and the abyss, and they shall fear him. We will go where he leads.

Gandalf the Grey was charming and quirky; he was everybody’s friend and advisor. But he was also a great wonderer and a great quester. He was an unearther of dark secrets and mysteries. And Middle-Earth no longer needs such a figure, darkness is now on her doorstep; it is no longer hidden. So Middle-Earth needs a man (or Istari) with far sight that can unite the scattered forces of Rohan and manipulate events in order to ensure that the King does, indeed, return. It needs a methodical man of great wisdom and intelligence; it needs a stagiest: it needs a new white wizard now that Saruman has changed his colours. And he has come.



3.Girl Power!-The Return of the King

“What do you fear, lady?" [Aragorn] asked.
"A cage," [Éowyn] said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”

There have not been many moments for women to show their strength in this story. Arwen’s moment in the films was non-existent in the book. Frodo was saved on the river by an Elf-lord called Glorfindel. So when Eowen battled the Witch King, it is the first major moment Tolkien gave to a female hero. In a vastly male dominated genre, it was great to read this scene. If I have one criticism of Tolkien, it’s that we didn’t see more of such things.



And here's a gif I like:

Out of the wreck rose the Black Rider, tall and threatening, towering above her. With a cry of hatred that stung the very ears like venom he let fall his mace. Her shield was shivered in many pieces, and her arm was broken; she stumbled to her knees. He bent over her like a cloud, and his eyes glittered; he raised his mace to kill.

One of the best books ever. Stirred the embers of more imaginations than can be measured. Found a way to reach something vital but ineffable inside millions of different souls. Presented the world with Sauron, his Nazgûl, and the Balrog to tip the scales of evil; Gandalf, Galadriel, and the stalwart gentlehobbit Frodo to lend ballast to those of good; whereas, with Tom Bombadil, who really knows what trippy trail that earth-bound spirit is blazing: and who the can top all of that? It first spoke to me when my fantastic fifth grade teacher chose The Fellowship of the Ring for our classroom reading period, and I've never looked back.

There are curiosities that abound within the trilogy, not least in that the opening chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring would not be out of place as a direct sequel to The Hobbit, whereas by the time we have reached Rivendell, the entire tone of the book has been altered: become more adult, more serious and darker, possessed of a sense of finality and portents of an end to wondrous things that comes to permeate the remainder of this questing original. By the time we get to the Scouring of the Shire at the close of the third book, it is understood that even the bucolic goodwill and perduring staidness of the Hobbit realm has been stirred, shaken, even broken in parts, and cannot go back to what it was. What's more, with every subsequent reading I found it more difficult to accept that the Nazgûl failed so miserably in their great and urgent task of taking back the Ring from Frodo, even with Strider/Aragorn in the picture; that these ferocious sorcerer-spectres were driven away—all nine at once, mind, which few men had ever proven able to withstand—with the Ring well within their grasp, well, it truly tests my suspension of disbelief. With that said, though, how many other parts of the story fail? Precious few, I think, particularly within the context of a transitional world linked to the ancient and primordial past only by the maintenance of Elvish magic, and that contingent upon the very survival of the One Ring that they would most wish to see utterly unmade. The trilogy represents a final outreach of the elder races ere the full and overwhelming dominion of Man; and the evil incarnate within such demi-gods as Morgoth and Sauron, its essence imbued within the very earth itself and permeating the susceptible souls of the new ruling race of free-choosing (and hence, free-damning) mortal (wo)men will in the future prove just as effective a corruptive and destructive force without the dominating presence of an avataric darkling lord to wield it from a centre of power.

But what interests me these days, more than the well-known story itself, is trying to suss what constitutes the enduring spell that TLOTR casts upon its legion of readers, whether experienced hands or rookies new to its peculiar fantastic delights. Is it a yearning to escape a world of routine and rational technodemocracy where everything seems sullied by the pursuit of the dollar and tomorrow will be but a twin of today, which was sibling to its brethren of the day before? A world absent of miracles and beauty that stirs the very body to fealty? Where lawyers abound to clarify the legal implications of every action that falls outside of the commonplace or expected? Where the rich are not bound by a noblesse oblige to fight to protect those who labour on their behalf, but hire those selfsame workers to do the fighting for them? Where the powerful rules that uphold modern science can be replaced by naught but the mystical exertion of a rich spirit's will - a Nietzschean surmounting of the barriers to controlling the energies of a nature that, to us, seems distant and out of sync? Where things like honor and blood ties bound people together with a lasting surety and strength that would be incomprehensible in our modern fragmented neighborhoods, where you can wander through blocks of crammed apartments and dirty houses without meeting with a single smile or nodding acknowledgement? Where evil, though ever lurking to tempt men away from the path of truth, could be traced to its roots in the rebellious uprising of cosmogonic spirits, blackened godlings whose lusts for chaos and dominance seeped into the human psyche through a process of corrupting what, in its original nature, was pure and fulgent? Beats me - but it's got to be something, because Tolkien's trilogy is one of those rare books that, it seems, will never be in danger of being removed from the presses.

In an irony-drenched and übersceptical postmodern civilization it must strike many as absurd that there exists an insatiable demand for this tripartite tale penned in the manner of an irascible, waddling county squire whose tropes and forms—slavishly reworked and rehashed in the reams of fantasy fiction that has been churned out since its initial publication—hearken back to the foundational mythologies of patriarchal oppression, class division, and romantic irrationality that it was both hoped and expected the postwar years would have superseded. I've read critiques from the likes of Moorcock - n  Epic Poohn - and, while able to understand why he dismisses it, simply cannot manage to summon any commiseration for the repugnance he feels. First and foremost, the tale grew out of the imaginative legends Tolkien had concocted as backdrop for his linguistic creations—and coming as he did from a proud and tradition-bound Roman-Catholic background; and pursuing as he did his studies in the philological field of Anglo-Saxon language and literature; and enjoying as he did various ancient and medieval mythologies and the fantastic weavings of influential forbears such as Dunsany, MacDonald, and Eddison; well, can there be any surprise that his brilliant questing trilogy evoked calls to Welsh faeries, Norse dragons, Scots trolls, Finnish hunters, comfortable and sturdy Midland farms, Gaelic heroes, and a loving but distant God beyond a host of angels whose essence devolves downward? It is hard to fault the man for pursuing his own personal passions and visions and putting them into a textual form for which he expected, at best, a modest return—why not swing, rather, at a public that—from the very first printing—lapped it up with all the eagerness of a thirsty tribe wandered in from an exodus amidst a particularly sere desert?

And therein lies the rub: it galls such as Moorcock that one generation after another yields en masse an avid affection and enthusiasm to what he considers a frivolous and archaic bit of stuffiness and prudery and dusty parochialism set to the service of an aulde England of division and oppression that it would be far better to have left behind. He wonders, as do others, at what can be hale about a tale that deftly avoids anything beyond the faintest intimations of sexuality and, for the most part, relegates women to a gender-specified subservience and passivity as Middle-Earth window-dressing; that appears to embrace the pernicious prejudice of the inherent superiority of white North European culture; that avoids any avowal of the economic, religious, or political structures and systems that must inevitably have been at play and working their damaging and divisive effects upon such a vast civilization; that fluffs and puffs with trite, sentimental songs and portentous magic and heavy-lidded memories the better to disguise the utter irrelevance and unseriousness of what is unfolding, the priggish and confining morality that puts everyone in their place—bowing to the gods and to one's social superiors—whilst upholding the aristocratic warrior as the virtuous ideal; that separates good and evil in a manner that provides a comforting and ready accounting for the myriad ills of the world, but which actually trivializes these ethical issues, especially in an age that witnessed the horrors of the holocaust and communist purges.

How can this be? How can an enlightened and post-capitalist postwar society continue to be enthralled by an updated version of timeworn mythologies—the latest of which ripened during the Dark Ages—shaped with the hammer of mothballed and morbid uppercrust morality of the sort that harumphs conspicuously and comes bearing bow-ties? Perhaps for some of the reasons I listed at the start of this review. Escapist fare has always been popular, but there seems to be as much, if not more of a hunger for the fantastic the more the trappings of the latter fade from our view. Modern society is one bound to the clock, ofttimes divided and parceled out down to the very minute; one in which we spend hours every day idling in a car, riding an elevator, waiting in queues, sitting at a desk, pushing a cart, with productivity and efficiency forever on the increase and a sense of who we are, where we are going, why we are on that journey, what we are meant to accomplish along the way and how we are to achieve these goals—with the very knowledge of our mortality, the ephemeral nature of all our achievements, staring us full-on in the face even when we deign to look away—eludes our grasp like the mists wafted forth on a humid spring morning.

To be taken away to an invented world wherein everything serves some manner of purpose and greater goods actually carry an immediate import and eternal consequence, where the enemy is implacable and can be neither appeased nor reasoned with but only defeated—Nazis in cloaks and armed with swords—and magic is suzerain over realms where twentieth-century science holds sway, where love is inflamed within the arterial passions of the romantic, perduring and encompassing though it progresses within tropes of courtship and calling interwoven with the streams of fate, where petty beings from the outliers of a world contested by mighty powers prove the enduring significance of the strength and fidelity of the individual will over seemingly stronger currents sourced within the misty recesses of time and bearing loftier lineages, where the freedoms cherished are not those currently stressed and promised by our political professionals and the bonds of honor hold straighter than those we perceive in our own lives, where those in power, though bowed beneath the weight of shadow-laden years, might yet endeavor to do what serves the world and not just their immediate self-interest; all of this must carry some powerful, primeval attraction that—combined with the aesthetic and geographical wonders of a travelogue, the eldritch presence of creatures and beings sown from human myth and fertilized by the author's potent demiurgical imagination, and the thrilling suspense of a chase/race to potentially the most apocalyptic of ends—finds a way to reach that part of the mind where such fantastic delights serve as satiating fare, and in which this popular escapism can be engirt with a morality now out of fashion but held necessary to burnish the imaginary with the gloss of both the good and the real—not to mention the fun.

Authors who inspire a movement are usually misunderstood, especially by those they have inspired, and Tolkien is no exception, but one of the biggest misconceptions about Tolkien is the idea that he is somehow an 'innovator of fantasy'. He did add a number of techniques to the repertoire of epic fantasy writers, and these have been dutifully followed by his many imitators, but for the most part, these techniques are little more than bad habits.

Many have called Tolkien by such epithets as 'The Father of Fantasy', but anyone who makes this claim simply does not know of the depth and history of the fantasy genre. For those who are familiar with the great and influential fantastical authors, from Ovid and Ariosto to Eddison and Dunsany to R.E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, it is clear that, long before Tolkien, fantasy was already a complex, well-established, and even a respected literary genre.

Eddison's work contains an invented world, a carefully-constructed (and well-researched) archaic language, a powerful and unearthly queen, and a central character who is conflicted and lost between the forces of nobility and darkness. Poul Anderson's n  The Broken Swordn, which came out the same year as The Fellowship of the Ring, has distant, haughty elves, deep-delving dwarves, a broken sword which must be reforged, an epic war between the armies of light and darkness, another central character trapped between those extremes, and an interweaving of Christian and Pagan worldviews.

So, if these aspects are not unique to Tolkien, then what does set him apart? Though Dunsany, Eddison, and Anderson all present worlds where light and dark come into conflict, they present these conflicts with a subtle and often ironic touch, recognizing that morality is a dangerous thing to present in absolutes. Tolkien (or C.S. Lewis), on the other hand, has no problem in depicting evil as evil, good as good, and the only place they meet is in the temptation of an honest heart, as in Gollum's case--and even then, he is not like Eddison's Lord Gro or Anderson's Scafloc, characters who live under an alternative view of the world, but instead fluctuates between the highs and lows of Tolkien's dualistic morality.

It is a dangerous message to make evil an external, irrational thing, to define it as 'the unknown that opposes us', because it invites the reader to overlay their own morality upon the world, which is precisely what most modern fantasy authors tend to do, following Tolkien's example. Whether it's Goodkind's Libertarianism or John Norman's sex slave fetish, its very easy to simply create a magical allegory to make one side 'right' and the other side 'wrong', and you never have to develop a dramatic narrative that actually explores the soundness of those ideas. Make the good guys dress in bright robes or silvery maile and the bad guys in black, spiky armor, and a lot of people will never notice that all the 'good guys' are White, upper class men, while all the 'bad guys' are 'brutish foreigners', and that both sides are killing each other and trying to rule their little corner of the world.

In Tolkien's case, his moral view was a very specific evocation of the ideal of 'Merrie England', which is an attempt by certain stodgy old Tories (like Tolkien) to rewrite history so that the nobility were all good and righteous leaders, the farmers were all happy in their 'proper place' (working a simple patch of dirt), while both industrialized cultures and the 'primitives' who resided to the South and East were 'the enemy' bent on despoiling the 'natural beauty of England' (despite the fact that the isles had been flattened, deforested, and partitioned a thousand years before).

Though Tom Bombadil remains as a strangely incoherent reminder of the moral and social complexity of the fantasy tradition upon which Tolkien draws, he did his best to scrub the rest clean, spending years of his life trying to fit Catholic philosophy more wholly into his Pagan adventure realm. But then, that's often how we think of Tolkien: bent over his desk, spending long hours researching, note-taking, compiling, and playing with language. Even those who admit that Tolkien demonstrates certain racist, sexist, and classicist leanings (as, indeed, do many great authors) still praise the complexity of his 'world building'.

And any student of the great Epics, like the Norse Eddas, the Bible, or the Shahnameh can see what Tolkien is trying to achieve with his worldbuilding: those books presented grand stories, but were also about depicting a vast world of philosophy, history, myth, geography, morality and culture. They were encyclopedic texts, intended to instruct their people on everything important in life, and they are extraordinarily valuable to students of anthropology and history, because even the smallest detail can reveal something about the world which the book describes.

So, Tolkien fills his books with troop movements, dull songs, lines of lineage, and references to his own made-up history, mythology, and language. He has numerous briefly-mentioned side characters and events because organic texts like the epics, which were formed slowly, over time and compiled from many sources often contained such digressions. He creates characters who have similar names--which is normally a stupid thing to do, as an author, because it is so confusing--but he’s trying to represent a hereditary tradition of prefixes and suffixes and shared names, which many great families of history had. So Tolkien certainly had a purpose in what he did, but was it a purpose that served the story he was trying to tell?

Simply copying the form of reality is not what makes good art. Art is meaningful--it is directed. It is not just a list of details--everything within is carefully chosen by the author to make up a good story. The addition of detail is not the same as adding depth, especially since Tolkien’s world is not based on some outside system--it is whatever he says it is. It’s all arbitrary, which is why the only thing that grants a character, scene, or detail purpose is the meaning behind it. Without that meaning, then what Tolkien is doing is just a very elaborate thought exercise. Now, it’s certainly true that many people have been fascinated with studying it, but that’s equally true of many thought exercises, such as the rules and background of the Pokemon card game, or crossword puzzles.

Ostensibly, Scrabble supposedly is a game for people who love words--and yet, top Scrabble players sit an memorize lists of words whose meaning they will never learn. Likewise, many literary fandom games become little more than word searches: find this reference, connect that name to this character--but which have no meaning or purpose outside of that. The point of literary criticism is always to lead us back to human thought and ideas, to looking at how we think and express ourselves. If a detail in a work cannot lead us back to ourselves, then it is no more than an arbitrary piece of chaff.

The popularity of Tolkien’s work made it acceptable for other authors to do the same thing, to the point that whenever I hear a book lauded for the ‘depth of its world building’, I expect to find a mess of obsessive detailing, of piling on so many inconsequential facts and figures that the characters and stories get buried under the scree, as if the author secretly hopes that by spending most of the chapter describing the hero’s cuirass, we'll forget that he’s a bland archetype who only succeeds through happy coincidence and deus ex machina against an enemy with no internal structure or motivation.

When Quiller-Couch said authors should ‘murder their darlings’, this is what he meant: just because you have hobbies and opinions does not mean you should fill your novel with them. Anything which does not materially contribute to the story, characters, and artistry of a work can safely be left out. Tolkien's embarrassment of detail also produced a huge inflation in the acceptable length of fantasy books, leading to the meandering, unending series that fill bookstore shelves today.

Now, there are several notable critics who have lamented the unfortunate effect that Tolkien’s work has had on the genre, such as in Moorcock’s n  Epic Poohn and Mieville’s diatribe about every modern fantasy author being forced to come to terms with the old don's influence. I agree with their deconstructions, but for me, Tolkien isn’t some special author, some ‘fantasy granddad’ looming over all. He’s just a bump in the road, one author amongst many in a genre that stretches back thousands of years into our very ideas of myth and identity, and not one of the more interesting ones

His ideas weren’t unique, and while his approach may have been unusual, it was only because he spent a lifetime obsessively trying to make something artificial seem more natural, despite the fact that the point of fantasy (and fiction in general) is to explore the artificial, the human side of the equation, to look at the world through the biased lens of our eye and to represent some odd facet of the human condition. Unfortunately, Tolkien’s characters, structure, and morality are all too flat to suggest much, no matter how many faux-organic details he surrounds them with.

My Fantasy Book Suggestions

No novel in my experience has been so satisfying in itself, and yet suggested so convincingly that its story began long before its first page and carries on after its last. No otherworldly setting has been so coherent or so successful in commanding Secondary Belief. No author of fiction has come as close to making me believe that he was truly a chronicler and not a creator. No other fantasy has so congruously offered me truths as profound and as timely.

From Peter S. Beagle's introduction: "...I envy my children, who have not yet read them, and I envy you if you have not, and wish you joy."

Read this, and you will understand why an entire genre has since been considered derivative.

(Book 494 From 1001 Books) - The Lord of The Rings (The Lord of the Rings #1-3), J.R.R. (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien

The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien.

The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work.

Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling novels ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.

The title of the novel refers to the story's main antagonist, the Dark Lord Sauron, who had in an earlier age created the One Ring to rule the other Rings of Power as the ultimate weapon in his campaign to conquer and rule all of Middle-earth. (Nineteen of these rings were made. These were grouped into three rings for the Elves, seven rings for the Dwarves, and nine rings for men. One additional ring, the One Ring, was forged by Sauron himself at Mount Doom.).

From quiet beginnings in the Shire, a hobbit land not unlike the English countryside, the story ranges across Middle-earth, following the course of the War of the Ring through the eyes of its characters, not only the hobbits Frodo Baggins, Samwise "Sam" Gamgee, Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck and Peregrin "Pippin" Took, but also the hobbits' chief allies and travelling companions: the Men, Aragorn son of Arathorn, a Ranger of the North, and Boromir, a Captain of Gondor; Gimli son of Glóin, a Dwarf warrior; Legolas Greenleaf, an Elven prince; and Gandalf, a wizard. ....

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «ارباب حلقه‌ ها»؛ «فرمانروای حلقه ها»؛ «سرور حلقه ها»؛ «خداوندگار حلقه ها»؛ «سالار انگشتریها»؛ نویسنده: جی.آر.آر تالکین؛ انتشاراتیها (روزنه، نگاه، حوض نقره، فروغ آزادی) ادبیات انگلستان؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: یکی از روزهای ماه دسامبر سال 2002میلادی

عنوان: فرماندوای حلقه ها؛ نویسنده: جی.آر.آر (جان رونالد روئر) تالکین؛ مترجم: رضا علیزاده؛ تهران، روزنه، 1381؛ سه کتاب در سه جلد؛ جلد نخست: یاران حلقه؛ جلد دوم: دو برج ؛ جلد سوم: بازگشت شاه؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان انگلیسی - سده 20م

عنوان: خداوندگار حلقه ها؛ نویسنده: جی.آر.آر (جان رونالد روئر) تالکین؛ مترجم: تبسم آتشین جان؛ تهران، حوض نقره، 1381؛ سه کتاب در شش جلد؛ جلد نخست: رهروان حلقه؛

عنوان: سالار انگشتریها؛ نویسنده: جی.آر.آر (جان رونالد روئر) تالکین؛ مترجم: ماه منیر فتحی؛ تبریز، فروغ آزادی، 1381؛ سه کتاب؛ کتاب نخست دوستی انگشتری (یاران حلقه)؛ کتاب دوم دوتا برج (دو برج)؛ کتاب سوم بازگشت پادشاه؛

رمانی به سبک خیال‌پردازی حماسی؛ به قلم «جی.آر.آر تالکین»؛ نویسنده و زبان‌شناس «بریتانیا» است؛ این داستان سه گانه؛ پیگیری اثر پیشین «تالکین»، با عنوان «هابیت» هستند؛ که در همین ژانر نگاشته شده بود؛ «تالکین» کتاب را در دوازده سال؛ از سال 1937میلادی تا سال1949میلادی، که بیشتر آن در زمان جنگ جهانی دوم بوده، نگاشته اند؛ اگرچه کتاب در بین خوانشگران، به شکل یک سه‌ گانه جا افتاده است، اما در ابتدا بنا بود، این اثر جلد نخستش کتاب «سیلماریلیون» باشد، که نویسنده به دلایل اقتصادی، تصمیم به حذف آن گرفت، و کتاب «ارباب حلقه‌ ها» را در سال 1954میلادی تا سال 1955میلادی در سه جلد منتشر کرد

داستان در سرزمینی خیالی، به نام «سرزمین میانی»، که در زبان «الفی» به نام «آردا» شناخته می‌شود؛ در جریان است؛ از شخصیت‌های نام آشنای داستان، می‌توان به «آراگورن»، و «سائورون»، اشاره کرد؛ «آراگورن» پسر «آراتورن»، که از نژاد «نومه نور» است، وارث پادشاهی فراموش شده ی «الندیل»، و «ایزیلدور»، در «سرزمین میانه» است؛ «آراگورن» پس از نابود شدن «سائورون»، به عنوان پادشاه «اله سار» تاجگذاری کرد، و صلح را به ارمغان آورد؛ ارباب تاریکی یا «سائورون»، شخصیت منفی و اصلی اثر، کسی است که حلقه ی یکتای قدرت را، برای کنترل نوزده حلقه ی دیگر؛ ساخته‌ است؛ و برای همین است که «ارباب حلقه‌ ها» خوانده می‌شود؛ «سائورون» خود یکی از خدمت‌گزاران ارباب تاریکی پیشین «مورگوت (ملکور)» بوده، که از شخصیت‌های مهم کتاب دیگر «تالکین»، با عنوان «سیلماریلیون» است؛ کتاب «سیلماریون» سرآغازی بر تاریخ، و چگونگی ساخت «سرزمین میانی» است؛ سه گانه ی «ارباب حلقه‌ ها» در «ایران»؛ نخستین بار توسط جناب «رضا علیزاده» ترجمه شد، و در سال 1382هجری خورشیدی توسط انتشارات «روزنه» به چاپ رسید؛ هر سه کتاب دارای نقشه‌ هایی از «سرزمین میانه» هستند؛ همچنین در ابتدای کتاب نخست، و در پایان کتاب سوم، مترجم داده هایی در مورد داستان، و «سرزمین میانه»، و نژادهای ساکن آن، زبانشان، کتابتشان و...؛ آورده‌ اند

تاریخ نخستین خوانش 11/09/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 31/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

I became horrifically lazy towards the end of the LOTR re-read which was undertaken as part of my "month of the kitten squisher" and neglected to review the final two books which together make up The Return of the King. Not so much resting on my laurels as stretching out full length and having a big old snooze right on top of them. But you've all seen the film by now right? So no need to continue...

Kidding, kidding.
(and I've now put this review in the correct order so the newest bits are at the bottom)

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING: BOOK ONE

Four hobbits, two men, one elf, one dwarf and a wizard. This would be the best line up ever for a reality television show.

Frodo, Merry, Pip and Sam along with Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas, Gimli and Gandalf are the interspecies representatives that form the Fellowship of the Ring. A sort of United Nations of Middle Earth if you will, where the collective are supposed to protect and defend the freedom of all who dwell in Middle Earth and who are at threat from the growing darkness which is gradually creeping out of Mordor.

There is no denying that this collection of six books (now widely published and referred to as a Trilogy) is an epic work. Tolkien sets out his stall early on in Book One with detailed descriptions, dense prose, background histories,poetry and a whole new language. There is a lot of word furniture but given the scope of the story and size of the metaphorical room, it needs to be heavily furnished in order to make it seem real or else hobbits, elves, dwarves and men would be tramping around in a cavernously empty room. Tolkien will not be rushed. He has an end game but with five more books to get through there is no point in putting all your Hobbits in one hole. The first book is slow paced and littered with mythology, poetry and song so if you were bracing yourself for a breathless dash from Hobbiton to Rivendell then you will be disappointed.

And now, a word about the incessant singing. Hobbits like to eat and Hobbits like to sing. The descriptions of eating are fine, although they just made me hungry in turn. The singing is another matter. Much like an episode of Glee, there was far too much impromptu bursting into song and Hobbity jazz hands. You are on a serious mission Hobbits - act accordingly! With that in mind I didn't bother to read about 90% of the singing and so that made the reading of Book One a much speedier endeavour.

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING: BOOK TWO

Inspired by the hobbity singing - jazz hands optional (and to be sung to Stand by Your Man by Tammy Wynette)

Sometimes its hard to be a hobbit
Giving all your love to just one ring
You'll have bad times
And Saruman will have good times
Doing evil things that you don't understand

But with the Fellowship you'll defeat him
Even though he's hard to understand
And though you fear him
And are wary of him
You can beat him
Cause after all he's just a (Saru)man
Stand by your Sam (Wise Gamgee of the Shire)
Give him two arms to cling to
And a ring to bring too

When nights are cold and lonely
And you sleep by rick or stone or tree
Stand by your Sam
And tell Middle Earth you love him
Keep giving all the love you can
Stand by your Sam
Stand by your Sam
And show Middle Earth you love him
Keep giving all the love you can
Stand by your Sam!

THE TWO TOWERS: BOOK THREE

Book three is the book where the hobbity singing, skipping and general happy-go-luckiness stops and war starts. War comes to Middle Earth preceded by the felling of great trees, the scorching of the earth, the poisoning of the waters and the birthing of a new race of fighting Uruk-hai. The eye of Sauron has turned its baleful crimson gaze from the orc-ugly workings of Mordor to the realms of men. If this was not bad enough, Saruman, powerful white wizard and most senior of Gandalf's order has decided that black is the new white and effectively changed teams. Apparently black is so much more timeless and the ultimate LBR (little black robe) is something that even wizards desire.

But this book is not just the vehicle in which the hobbits travel to war... this is the book in which we are introduced to a whole host of new characters and LOTR species. Further detailed descriptions of the history and linguistic roots of both Ents and Elves are forthcoming. An even more refined version of the previous word furniture (think Louis XIVth not Ikea)is placed at strategic points around the room adding a further comfortable dimension to Middle Earth. It is this constant growth and development which, although fantastical has its routes in etymology which makes the fantasy world of Lord of the Rings much more acceptable, perhaps even believable than previous fantasy epics.

THE TWO TOWERS: BOOK FOUR

Despite not believing that Hobbits would be very useful in a battle field scenario, Merry and Pippin prove their metal and generally kick Isengard butt in the final instalment of The Two Towers. Admittedly having some giant walking trees to ride around in makes them seem a good deal more invincible but generally you have to give them kudos for having disproportionately large balls, and not the scrying kind either.

Isengard stands barren and torn asunder and Saruman is a prisoner in his own tower while the people of Rohan have made their stand against the fighting Uruk-hai at Helms Deep proving what most great generals already knew. It's not the number of men (or elves or dwarves) you have at your disposal, but how you deploy them that counts. Frodo and Sam are still toiling onwards with the fretful gollum at their heels. It was here that I began to get a little confused as the time scale is disproportionately short in relation to the number of pages employed in order to make the journey thus far. In fact it has taken me longer to read the book than it did for the whole journey to take place and I am no slouch on the page turning front.

THE RETURN OF THE KING: BOOK FIVE

So now the Fellowship is well and truly torn asunder and even all the squeaking hobbits have been effectively separated, albeit it for a short while. The funny thing about hobbits is that the less of them there are in close proximity to each other, the less annoying I find them. Book Five sees Middle Earth fighting wars on many fronts. Denethor is fighting his own inner battles as well as looking towards Mordor and wondering what the hell is about to be spewed forth into his realm, The Battle for the Hornburg is over but Rohan still have to make a stand against the Witch King of Agmar. He is taken care of utilising at bit of Tolkien-style "girl power" in the form of Eowyn who rides into battle and takes one of the hobbits along for ballast. Faramir meanwhile discovers there are many downsides to being an only son. Gandalf and Aragorn decide to play knock knock ginger at the Black Gate in the hopes that this will allow Sam and Frodo to nip in the back door.

THE RETURN OF THE KING: BOOKS SIX

On the way to the top of Mount Doom, Shelob spins Frodo a yarn and leaves Sam carrying the one ring. Cheerfully the orcs are easily distracted by a nice bit of shiny, much like my good self and Sam rescues Frodo and returns the burdensome trinket to him. After this the journey continues with a very long trek to the Crack of Doom (imagine the worst Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award Challenge ever).

Despite having a clear idea of the kind of trouble the ring is capable of getting everyone into (1000 pages has got to be long enough to get a clue), Frodo still battles with the idea of chucking it into the firy pit. Cheerfully Gollum steps up and takes care of this for him but not before taking a finger-snack for good measure. Beyond Mordor, Aragorn is crowned king and everyone is soppy as the inevitable man/elf love story reaches its final climax with graceful smiles and sheepish looks (in the film anyway).

Back home in Hobbiton, not all has gone to plan and the shire is a shadow of its former self. Evil has also pervaded the shire but now that Bag Ends best known hobbit-warriors have returned it won't be there for long, oh no. Evil is expelled, Saruman is slain and Sam gets the girl.
Then there is a lot of happily ever afters, just like it should be.