[Formendacil]

It's fascinating to reread this thread with its high praise for this chapter and mentions of it being personal favourites--because the thing that struck me most while I was rereading "The Field of Cormallen" was how... unreal it was.

Not in a bad sense! But the biggest moment that hit me in the chapter was the shift from Mordor to Ithilien, from the fumes of Orodruin to the herbs of Cormallen. And two weeks pass! Frodo waking in the House of Elrond was but the prefigurement of this moment.

Part of the reason for my sense of unreality is no doubt that we are here seeing the story at its most heightened: not just the words, but the events themselves, are like something out of a legend or medieval epic. Sam's bewilderment, wondering if somehow all bad things are veing undone, describes the whiplash of this chapter, coming on the heels of the starvation, exhaustion, desperation, and injury of the previous chapter.