LotR -- Book 4 - Chapter 08 - The Stairs of Cirith Ungol

[littlemanpoet]

I found the descriptions very evocative – how did they affect you? What do you make of the statement that the road glowed faintly?

They made it feel real. The glow of the road, the flowers, the tower, put me in mind (this time) of the poisoned gas of WW1. Too much Tolkien research for my own good, because it kind of killed the enchantment this time. I think that what is being evoked is the negative wraith-world of the Witch King, which is very strong in the vale of Minas Morgul. Thus it pervades all things there.

Having read the Letters, we know that the Battle of the Pelennor fields is about to take place; so we know that this army is marching towards Osgiliath and Minas Tirith. Here we see Gandalf's "folly" come to fruition, for the Eye has been distracted, barely, from Frodo, looking to the marshalling forces of the Free Peoples; this is also because Aragorn has sacrificially looked into the palantir, which Saruman lost through the folly of Wormtongue, which occurred because the Hobbits had roused the Ents, which happened because Saruman's orcs hunted for the Fellowship. The seeds of the downfall of Sauron and Saruman was in themselves all along; the Fellowship only had to take courage and do what was theirs to do; no small task!

I don't think "sneak", as a word, is the real issue. It's what lies beneath the words: Sam's suspicion that Gollum has been up to no good; which at the moment Sam said it, was entirely wrong; yet it wrankles Gollum because, for days now, except for this one rare moment of almost redemption, Gollum has indeed been up to the most traitorious of no good.

If Gollum had left them at the point suggested, Frodo and Sam would not have made it into Mordor, I think. They did not know the way.

That's all I have time for tonight. Maybe I can take a stab at more of these queries later.

[Lathriel]

Of all the scary places in this book MInas Morgul is the scariest place in ME. At least I have found this place the most terrifying.

However, my favourite part of the chapter is the description of Gollum.

Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo's knee--but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.

This quote reminds the reader of Gollum's origin. That in the end he is just a hobbit who has lived far beyond his years.Actually this part in the book really made me pity Gollum. I'm sure that if Gollum had a choice he would never have taken the ring. He has gone through so much misery and any joy he had in life is long gone.

Frodo is now rapidly changing. His personality is becoming more scyzophrenic like that of Gollum.

He had not,even if he put it on,the power to face the witchking...not yet

I think this quote shows the side of Frodo that has been corrupted by the ring. The other part of his personality feels terror as he rightly should. However, this side has become overconfident,it is the side that is affected by the ring.
So half his personality is still sane whereas the other side is reaching the edge of sanity. I hope this makes sense

[littlemanpoet]

This quote reminds the reader of Gollum's origin. That in the end he is just a hobbit who has lived far beyond his years.Actually this part in the book really made me pity Gollum. I'm sure that if Gollum had a choice he would never have taken the ring. He has gone through so much misery and any joy he had in life is long gone.

From Letter # 181:

The domination of the Ring was much too strong for the mean soul of Sméagol. But he would have never had to endure it if he had not become a mean sort of thief before it crossed his path.

Maybe you did not mean to suggest that Gollum never had a choice. It seems to me that Tolkien is saying, here, that Sméagol had made a series of small choices, day in and day out, that led to his fall to the temptation of murdering to claim the Ring. He chose to commit the crime.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Lathriel

Of all the scary places in this book MInas Morgul is the scariest place in ME. At least I have found this place the most terrifying.

Interesting that you say that, because now I've started thinking...

Minas Morgul does not seem to be the most evil place in The Lord of the Rings, from my point of view. Mordor seems entirely more evil and dangerous, but in this chapter on Minas Morgul, the evil seems present in a way that is not, to me, as immediate as anywhere else in the book.

When Frodo and Sam are in Mordor, I felt their fear of capture, their loathing of the evil land, but although I saw its effects on them, I never really felt the evil of the place. It was more like a big desert than a place where evil was omnipresent.

But in this account of Minas Morgul, the evil felt very near to me. The possibility that the side of evil might capture, thwart, or end Frodo and Sam seemed a lot more real to me. The element of immediate danger presented by Shelob and the orks only a couple chapters later is not present, but the whole chapter leads me to feel that the entire evil of Minas Morgul was there to search them out, and could very well have done so, had things gone only a little different.

But I didn't feel this in Mordor. I knew Mordor was hostile. I knew Mordor was evil. But I didn't get the sense that Mordor was bearing down on Frodo and Sam, that it was actively seeking them out. Was this because Mordor was distracted by the Army of the West? Or is it that as the reader, once I saw Frodo and Sam safe of Cirith Ungol, I knew that they would make it to Mt. Doom?

[littlemanpoet]

Your post, Formendacil, has helped shape a distinction for me between Minas Morgul and Mordor.

Minas Morgul's evil is eerie. It is hair-raised-on-the-nape-of-the-neck evil. All living things, or those things that normally are associated with life, such as (especially) flowers and water, as well as roads and towers, are here associated with corruption, decay, and undeadness.

Mordor is a destroyed land. Life is gone. It's a blasted, wasted desert. The feeling associated with this is not the thrill of the unnatural undead, but of drought and despair; the absence of life.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Your post, Formendacil, has helped shape a distinction for me between Minas Morgul and Mordor.

Minas Morgul's evil is eerie. It is hair-raised-on-the-nape-of-the-neck evil. All living things, or those things that normally are associated with life, such as (especially) flowers and water, as well as roads and towers, are here associated with corruption, decay, and undeadness.

Mordor is a destroyed land. Life is gone. It's a blasted, wasted desert. The feeling associated with this is not the thrill of the unnatural undead, but of drought and despair; the absence of life.

You've given me the germ of another idea...

If Mordor is a destroyed land, is Imlad Morgul a land in the process of being destroyed? In Mordor, evil is a given thing, it has totally taken over, to the point that is taken for granted.

Is the more active feeling of evil that I associate with Minas Morgul perhaps a sign that evil there has to be more active, because it has not yet totally subdued the land? Mordor seems to have been a less-than-attractive land even before Sauron set up shop, and he's had an age and a half to make it evil, whereas the Witchking has only been in Minas Morgul for a millennium or so. And perhaps there is more inherent resistance to evil in the "bones" of old Minas Ithil. We know that the land remembers the Elves long after they leave. Could a similar thing happen with the Numenorians?

[Lathriel]

I find Minas Morgul terrifying because it is Frodo and Sam's first real encounter with a land that is evil to its very core. The dead marshes have been corrupted and the land before the Black Gate has been laid to waste but now the hobbits are actually entering the worst place in ME.
Maybe Minas Morgul is scarier for me because it has a sense of being alive. Whereas Mordor is simply a dead land with evil creatures roaming through it the Morgul vale has a deadly river flowing through it and it is inhabited by the witch king who is the most powerful after Sauron himself. Besides the witchking is half alive compared to Sauron who doesn't even seem to have a physical form. Besides the morgul vale is another entrance to Mordor and it seems that of all the places in that black land the entrances are the places that are under the heaviest security.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

If Mordor is a destroyed land, is Imlad Morgul a land in the process of being destroyed? In Mordor, evil is a given thing, it has totally taken over, to the point that is taken for granted.

Is the more active feeling of evil that I associate with Minas Morgul perhaps a sign that evil there has to be more active, because it has not yet totally subdued the land? Mordor seems to have been a less-than-attractive land even before Sauron set up shop, and he's had an age and a half to make it evil, whereas the Witchking has only been in Minas Morgul for a millennium or so. And perhaps there is more inherent resistance to evil in the "bones" of old Minas Ithil. We know that the land remembers the Elves long after they leave. Could a similar thing happen with the Numenorians?

This occurred to me too. My own thought in answer was that Mordor was under the domination of the 'machine' of Mount Doom, which used killing fire to destroy the land. In contrast, the Witch King's 'machine' is the evil coming from the negative spirit-realm that Frodo enters whenever he wears the Ring, and is therefore both more subtle and pervasive. It's as if the Un-life of the Witch King is infecting the life of the vale with a cancerous (for lack of a better analogy) substitute to real life.

I also think that length of time, as you've suggested, has a part to play.

[Firefoot]

The thing that really caught my eye about this chapter was the flowers, which I have never really noticed before. In many ways they seem to be metaphorical for Minas Morgul itself. It seems that once they may have been fair and beautiful, though now they are horrible of shape, giving forth a sickening smell. This is like to Minas Morgul, once the fair Minas Ithil and now sunken into decay and evil. Both also give off a sort of luminous light - light that illuminates nothing. Light, another symbol of 'good,' has also been perverted in this sense. No longer is it good and beautiful, but eerie and threatening.

Interesting also how the flowers are white. In most other instances that I can think of, white is the color of good: Gandalf the White (the White Rider, etc), Minas Tirith the White City, the White Tree. The exception that I can think of is Saruman and his White Hand, though Saruman becomes no longer white, and even the symbolic hand is cast down by the Ents. So too, the white flowers are no longer pure, but horrible and demented.