View Single Post
Old 06-14-2020, 06:29 AM   #5
Nogrod
Flame of the Ainulindalė
 
Nogrod's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Wearing rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves in a field behaving as the wind behaves
Posts: 9,330
Nogrod is wading through the Dead Marshes.Nogrod is wading through the Dead Marshes.Nogrod is wading through the Dead Marshes.Nogrod is wading through the Dead Marshes.Nogrod is wading through the Dead Marshes.Nogrod is wading through the Dead Marshes.
Send a message via MSN to Nogrod
Of the chapters I have to say that the Council of Elrond is and has been my favorite more or less from the first reading. It kind of opens up a much wider world and explains many of the mysteries the reader has been struggling with that far - and it creates a great anticipation for the possible horizons the story might then lead the reader into.

It may also have something to do with there being different kinds of readers in the first place. For example with history, some people love to read personal biographies while others enjoy large-scale analysis. Or with crime, some love going through the protagonists' feelings and worries outside the case while the others just enjoy the plot. I'm definitively of the latter sort.

Yes, you can like both, but usually people tend to enjoy one more than the other.

~*~

As a child I found all the encounters with the Black Riders awesome, especially that famous first meeting and the scene at the Weathertop - and naturally the Mines of Moria were just cool. On the contrary, I just couldn't bear Tom Bombadil or Goldberry. They felt to me coming from a wrong story, they were kind of breaking the spell of the book, if one can use a very weird idiom here. Nowadays I do find Tom Bombadil a really intriguing character although I' still not a great fan of that "Ring a dong dillo!" -stuff.

Gandalf was naturally my childhood-hero, but I guess both Strider and Boromir were close to my heart already quite early. Merry and Pippin I felt being more like these comic relief characters and wouldn't have minded if they went back to Hobitton after Rivendell (I especially disliked "the fool of a Took" who just messed things up). I haven't turned into a Merry & Pip fan club member even today, but they sure become more alive and relatable during the rest of the story.

I guess Gandalf still is my number one favorite character. I mean many people think that the LotR is a story about Frodo and the Ring, but I'd say its as much, if not even more, a story about one of the Istari fighting Sauron on behalf of the Ainur.

~*~

What comes to just chapter-titles, when I was young A Knife in the Dark sounded ominous and hair-raising (which it surely, kind of, still does). But just as titles go, I'd say ones like Three is a Company and A Shortcut to Mushrooms have always pleased me.
__________________
Upon the hearth the fire is red
Beneath the roof there is a bed;
But not yet weary are our feet...
Nogrod is offline   Reply With Quote