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Old 06-10-2007, 11:34 AM   #2
Legate of Amon Lanc
A Voice That Gainsayeth
 
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Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.Legate of Amon Lanc is spying on the Black Gate.
White-Hand

It's a great chapter, in my opinion. You forgot one thing with the hobbits from the Fellowship, and that's the Sam-Ted Sandyman issue. "Samwise strikes back". The same goes with Bill Ferny. But for me, the most important effect on a hobbit's fate or even the biggest movement in the view of the reader on a certain hobbit is in the case of Lobelia. When she is brought from the Lockholes, she turns from a troubling neighbor into a figure with whom the reader feels compassion.

But, of course, the best of the entire chapter is Saruman himself. Of course when you read it even for the first place, you suppose it was him who did all this mess (or do you?) - but speaking for myself, his sudden appearance succeeds to "surprise" me every time. And he is just wonderful! I mean, he's totally cool! You know, if you imagine this guy standing in Bag End? You know, that Saruman from Orthanc, the one you know from before as an enemy, the master of the Uruk-hai? Now I am not speaking of realizing his fall or how poor he now is, no, quite the contrary: it is as if, for example, Elvis Presley came to your house while you've been away. Now what he does, what he says on the few lines... he is just great! (It's not that I admire anything he did or something like that, but I just love him as character.) And his death scene? This is probably the most thrilling moment, comparable for me maybe only with the entrance into the Morgul-valley, and also the moment where we are nearest to the "transcendental" in the whole book.

However, there is also that Frodo-Gríma thing, where you can see, as it was already mentioned, the ultimate pity. It is also the last moment where Saruman is shown mercy, and he rejects it, even attacks the one who offers it: but is given mercy once more. I think no person was offered mercy as many times as Saruman (counting the situations where his power was already broken, then these were by Gandalf in Orthanc, then once again after the end of the war, then in the Shire) and when we are speaking about mercy, we are very often forgetting him and instead think too much of Gollum (who was offered mercy only once, where he accepted it. I'm not of course deprecating the question of Gollum, but emphasising the case of Saruman).

So in general: yes, I give this chapter seven stars out of five, and PJ is a loser (although it's maybe better that he did not do the chapter, since he'd surely ruin it, which will in turn ruin my heart )
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories
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