LOTR - A Long-Postponed Re-Read
Mods, is it OK for me to start this thread? I haven't actually read LOTR from cover to cover since my second complete perusal of it almost thirty years ago, although I have dipped into it on many occasions.
I've finally found the time to completely reread it again, (that is to say, I finished "The Council of Elrond" this morning, and do not intend to start anything else until I have finished the whole book, including the Appendices), and thought it might be interesting to share new insights/similarities and differences in my reaction to it now as compared with my reactions as a much younger person. I would be fascinated to hear other posters' changing reactions to the book too (or even non-changing, as the case may be!) I don't read LOTR every year, but I have a strong memory for texts that I really connect with, and I am now discovering the bits I had forgotten, through not periodically re-reading the entire work. I know there are threads discussing each chapter, but I was thinking more of general impressions, and how they change. Again, if there is already a thread covering this, I apologise and will await deletion. ;) |
Well, i had read to entire book twice before i watched the movie and each time i imagined certain things differently. For example; the first time i read about Lorien and Galadriel i didn't think Galadriel was very powerful (don't ask me why because i don't know) but the second time i was almost scared of her power and i was like-Wow! This is NOT an elf to mess with. I don't know if it was the difference in ages-even though i was 11 both times-i think i had a new found respect for the book and its characters, more so than the first time. Maybe i was not paying attention to what i was reading or...
I don't know, but great idea for a thread Pervinca and i hope more people post stuff. And about there already being a thread-i have no idea. |
Have finished, barring the Appendices - and am up to the family trees.
Am wondering - why didn't Ar-Pharazon try to take the Ring from Sauron when he took him prisoner? I take it Sauron had him in a kind of spell, since he managed the Downfall of Numenor through his "imprisonment." If Ar-P desired immortality, the Ring would have given him that - after a fashion. Maybe Sauron deflected this with a very lyrical hard sell about invading Valinor. ;) Or maybe this is told in more depth somewhere else (Unfinished Tales, perhaps), and I've forgotten it. |
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Even if legends of the Rings of Power remained in Númenor, I can see Pharazón convincing himself the tales, with an "Elvish" origin, weren't worth worrying over. |
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I was quite astonished at how long Sauron held the Ring before he was overthrown. Plenty of time to wreak all kinds of destruction. I know there were far more of the Eldar in Middle-earth then to withstand him, not to mention the Last Alliance, but it makes me wonder exactly how powerful the Ring was. |
I'm sure Sauron did not take his Ring to Numenor or it would have been lost when Numenor was destroyed. He left it in Mordor and took it up again after the cataclysm.
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Aside from the question whether Sauron would have felt secure enough to have the One Ring not only out of his sight, but across an ocean, Tolkien himself said: Quote:
I wish I'd known of that letter when I made my earlier remark. As for how Sauron's disembodied spirit could have transported the Ring back to Mordor, Tolkien said in the same letter: Quote:
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Sauron did not have the one ring in Numenor, as it was clearly stated in the end of Akkalabeth:
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I think I would take that to mean "started openly wielding it again" and/or "resumed using it from Barad-dur." I just couldn't see him leaving it on the mantlepiece while he went off to Numenor. There was simply too much of himself in it. Maybe he could trust the Nazgul to guard it, since they were already completely enslaved (and he did send them out to the Shire, several thousands of years later, to fetch it), but it still seems too much of a risk.
I think I'd maybe compare it to Gandalf finally wearing Narya openly, just before embarking on the ship back to Valinor. Very interesting source, though, d4rk3lf. Quote:
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I believe that the comment about Sauron taking up his "great Ring in Barad-dûr" referred not to the One at all. Rather, "ring" in that context meant the fortress of Barad-dûr. Similar uses of "ring" are found with the "Ring of Doom" of the Valar, and the "Ring of Isengard".
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The question is why would Sauron needed the ring in Numenor?
He was a prisoner, and then later, an advisor. He doesn't need the ring to be king's advisor. Also, it seems perfectly logical to me, that Sauron left the ring to Nazguls during negotiations, so if he got killed during negotiations, he could resurrect again (after all, he did that after the destruction of Numenor. His body was killed, and he resurrect again in Barad Dur, with the help of the ring, I think). |
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I don't see that the second necessarily contradicts the first
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But that Sauron did not take the Ring to Númenor is never said by Tolkien. It is only said by d4rk3lf who cites some some supposed logic which only shows what d4rk3lf imagines and need not be what Tolkien or any others of his readers imagine.
Tolkien wrote: There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-dûr, and dwelt there, dark and silent, until he wrought himself a new guise, an image of malice and hatred made visible; …Tolkien does not write anything here about the whereabouts of the Great Ring during the period when Sauron was in Númenor, only that Sauron, hidden in Barad-dûr, there took up his Ring again and over some period of time devised for himself a new form. It is only imagining by a reader that fills in the gap, that perhaps Sauron takes up the Ring which he has carried to Barad-dûr in the form of a spirit or that perhaps Sauron takes up the Ring which has lain hidden in Barad-dûr. In Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, letter 211, 14 Oct. 1958, Rhona Beare asked, “How could Ar-Pharazôn defeat Sauron when Sauron had the One Ring?” Tolkien writes a response indicating: He (Sauron) naturally had the One Ring, and so very soon dominated the minds and wills of most of the Númenóreans. (I do not think Ar-Pharazôn knew anything about the One Ring. The Elves kept the matter of the Rings very secret as long as they could. In any case, Ar-Pharazôn was not in communication with them. … )Tolkien continues: Though reduced to a ‘spirit of hatred borne on a dark wind’, I do not think one need boggle at this spirit carrying off the One Ring, upon which his power of dominating minds now largely depended.Tolkien might have more easily pointed out to Rhona Beare that Sauron is not said to have had the One Ring in his possession in Númenor and saved himself some writing. But, at least on 14 Oct. 1958, Tolkien thought not. Had Tolkien ever thought so? Well, Tolkien’s original Númenor writing was done long before Tolkien had invented any such idea as the “One Ring”. It was only in writing The Lord of the Rings that there emerged the idea of the One Ring upon which Sauron’s power later depended. But after than point we first have Rhona Beare and himself in this letter, neither of which interprets the text as d4rk3lf does. |
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