[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I have managed to save some of my time to make a post here, and so if anyone is following the current CbC project still, here you have my post concerning the sixth chapter of Book Two.

For start, I would dare to disagree with Esty on what she said in the opening post of this thread: that the second part of the chapter, as the Company enters Lothlórien, becomes more poetic. I must strongly disagree. The whole chapter is unbelievably poetic and wonderful. All right, maybe Lothlórien seems more so because it is Lothlórien - but - maybe also after the long underground darkness - the images of lakes, mountains, rivers and trees under the sun and dark nightly skies described in this chapter are so vivid that I can almost feel being in there when reading this chapter. Is this what Sam says close to the end of this chapter - his wonder over the "reality" and the "elfiness" of the forgotten yet present land of Lothlórien? Possibly. How do you feel? Does this chapter have as strong impact on you, literally "drawing you inside the world"?

I cannot possibly stop at all things, I would have to quote the whole chapter to capture its beauty, and even that probably won't be possible. I can only suggest to everyone to try to focus on the beauty of the Mirrormere, mountains, first trees of Lothlórien, the falls of Nimrodel and the early morning on talan and the moment when the visitors' eyes can see Naith for the first time, and Cerin Amroth as described here. I would have to stop at the image of Nimrodel, as it seems to contain very strongly the trait many of Middle-Earth's rivers, or waters overall have - the ability to convey a message, and the magnetism of the water itself (Frodo does not want to leave), not to speak of its beauty. And here comes also the etiologic tale about Amroth and Nimrodel, which is a beautiful and sad tale, even though just outlined here, but by a song which is so beautiful so that it rests in my head and sometimes gets awakened when I see a larger area covered by water, and I have to start to think about it (however with melody composed by a Czech singer - Jim Čert - who is, let's face it, not making very inventive melodies; however here it does not matter to me).

I can't say many other things I would recall from this particular reading, I was so overwhelmed by the images, as I said above. I could add a personal remark, only on one of the later readings I actually discovered that close to the end of the chapter, Frodo together with Haldir look at Dol Guldur. My joy, and the feelings I got from the Elf's speech to Frodo, are understandable given that I am Legate of Amon Lanc. Theres is an interesting remark (which I think again, many people don't stop at when reading) that the Enemy had been driven away from Dol Guldur, but he reoccupied it, "now with power sevenfold". Did you ever think what this could mean? For me, it never meant simply "there used to be 100 Orcs and now there are 700". Not sure why, but the quote looks more... metaphysical to me than anything else. I am leaving this open.

And the last thing. Did you realise we probably learn about Uglúk's company already in this chapter? No, I don't mean the Orcs who pursue Fellowship into Lórien - if we are to trust Haldir's words, "neither of them will leave Lórien alive". But he mentions a squad of Orcs going to Moria several days ago. Now these clearly cannot be the Moria Orcs - they could also be the Uruks from Mordor mentioned in the previous chapter; however Uglúk's company also had some Orcs from Moria with them. The argument for these Orcs not being Mordor Orcs would be the direction from which they reputedly came - I would assume Mordor Orcs would come from the east; while these headed northwards across the rivers (?). So, who knows...