LotR -- Book 6 - Chapter 2 - The Land of Shadow

"For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."

This is the line I always bring up when someone claims that Tolkien was a complete pessimist. Maybe many of us are drawn to this work because we do see the battle always being fought, and sometimes it can get very dark and ominous, but that does not mean that we—or Tolkien—are ultimately pessimistic about the outcome.

Whenever I read this line, it jars me out of that slow-moving, dreadful heaviness of Mordor and the last leg of the quest. Just in time, too!

“Note that his 'fate' ceases to trouble him, which seems to be some kind of balm to soothe his troubled soul, but this also makes him lose his sense of caution, and he goes to sleep alongside Frodo rather than keeping watch.”

Yes, that release from vigilance that occurs sometimes in the most desperate circumstances. It is almost a separation from the personal condition, a dissociation from the peril the person finds himself in. At a certain point, the individual can do no more, and just lets go for a moment, or an hour, etc. Life carries him for that time, and then he can start to try to steer again, if that’s his personality.

The quote about the star cuts into the chapter like a star itself, doesn’t it?

Cloudberry