Posted on 07/26/2002 11:29:06 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Welcome to The Green Dragon Inn
This is a chapter discussion of The Two Towers, volume two of the Lord of the Rings. It is a continuation of our discussion of Lord of the Rings that started with Fellowship of the Ring and finished a few weeks back. FoTR discussion thread.
We will cover one section of the book per week. Sometimes short, related chapters may be combined, and the process may evolve as we go to keep everybody happy! If you are joining late, jump right in, but please stick to the chapter currently being discussed. We should be a bit careful with topic and spoilers (especially if we are joined by some reading for the first time) but feel free to draw lines related to other events in the story. If you do misbehave too much you will be sent to Took's Corner. As always, if you want to chit-chat or share other news… I would probably be best to post that in The Hobbit Hole thread.
It is OK this time to share images from the Two Towers (that illustrate the current chapter of course!) They are fun snapshots that show our story coming to life. Use your head, we don't want to slow down the thread too much, but most of us love a few pics in the thread.
Every week I will ping you to the new chapter or section …. Let me know if you would like to be on - or off - this list. I will serve as the Thain of the list.
So lets read, listen and become inspired by the many aspects of The Lord of the Rings that touch us deeply and reconnect us to the values we aspire to. Many great discussions have already been had, and I hope that this thread will produce even more. Many FReepers have wonderful things to say about LoTR, whether the fantasy reconnects them with their faith, with their relationships with friends and family, or simply illustrates the splendor of great acts of heroism and sacrifice in the constant battle of virtue versus corruption.
Besides, we Tolkien fans need something to keep us busy while we wait for the film to come out December 19. This thread will adjust the schedule as necessary to be finished before the film comes out!
ever notice how much Yassir Arafat resembles an Orc
Now that you mention it....frankly I think perhaps these Orcs are muslim. Don't know, can't find anything about that.
Off-Topic Request
When FotR came out, there was a site that listed "Things to Watch For", and went character by character mentioning things to look for. I can't remember where I found that list, but would like to see if they are going to do this for TTT. Does anyone have a link for that website?
I'm pretty sure they do....(shudder!)
As is elsewhere mentioned, Melkor is the orignial name for Morgoth, the Dark Enemy of the World to whom Sauron was a servant.
The Uruk-hai were *not* created by Saruman, but were orignialy more or less normal Orcs whom Saruman lured to his service through promises of Man-flesh to eat and, presumably, other similar enticements. He seems to have spent a lot of time training these Orcs and making them somewhat tougher (if they hadn't already been) than your average Orc, as we see in the current chapter.
Saruman *also* was working on a project involving breeding Orcs and Humans to create 'half-orcs'. The slanty-eyed Southerner in Bree is an example of one of these. I cannot say how successful Saruman was in this endevour, as that the Southerner is the only example I can think of off the top of my head: there doesn't appear to be more than a handful of them. I imagine that most of the...er subected human women died in the project.
As for the Rings: Morgoth was vanquished at the end of the First Age by the Valar and their allies. The Rings were created well into the Second Age. Morgoth is only involved as a sower of bad seeds -- he had no direct hand in any of the events after the First Age.
It is important that you realize that the movie is not the books. It may be similar in most respects, but is certainly not similar in all respects. There is *nothing* in any of the books to suggest that Orcs were hatched, though they do at times show a hive mentality.
Finally, the question of the origin of Orcs is a hotly contested one in some circles. The generally accepted answer is that Orcs are Elves that Morgoth corrupted soon after they first awoke. Others will tell you that Orcs are corrupted *Men*, as evidently Tolkien was at least seriously considering shortly before he died. I believe the former, as the later would require an extensive rewriting of many of the stories of Middle-earth.
Tuor
Yes, but so does a certain Marine we know...
I strongly recommend that you do so. In fact, I'll even give some unsolicited advice on how to go about it...
The Silmarillion is not like LotR or the Hobbit. It has little dialog and is a dense work that reads in many respects very much like the Bible. Because of this, first time readers often struggle through the work and end up not liking it very much. Here is my solution to this problem:
Go into this knowing you'll need to read it more than once, probably more than twice, before you can fully enjoy it. The first time through, each time you come to a person or place name that you don't recall, stop and look it up. Use the map often. Eventually, you will find yourself needing to review names of people and places less and less. However, all this reviewing will lead to a fairly broken reading experience. Hopefully, once you have read it through once, you'll be familiar enough with place and person names that the *next* time you read it, you can read it more or less as it was intended: without interruptions and with an engrained knowledge of people and places.
The above may seem a bit onerous, but it works, and once the impediment of names is removed, the work shines through very enjoyably.
Tuor
Hey! I categorically deny ever eating any Iraqis, Somalis, or NPA...their personal hygiene was simply atrocious...oh, I get it Corin...
As someone said, Sauron does not have the strength yet to take the world on so relies on allies to do some of his dirty work plus with Sauruman situated to the west the hope is that the good guys forces will be divided
That makes sense. It explains why we didn't hear any "what are you doing here?" arguments from any of the orc groups.
Hullo friends! … Welcome to Monday in the Green Dragon!
This is just a Monday bumper to encourage everyone see the good discussion about orcs that was had over the weekend and maybe add some more to it!
There are a couple of excerpts I want to include that I don't think have been talked about yet:
First is the section about orcs in Appendix F, Languages and Peoples of the Third Age:
Orcs and the Black Speech. Orc is the form of the name that other races had for this foul people as it was in the language of Rohan. In Sindarin it was orch. Related, no doubt, was the word uruk of the Black Speech, though this was applied as a rule only to the great soldier-orcs that at this time issued from Mordor and Isengard. The lesser kinds were called, especially by the Uruk-hai, snaga 'slave'.The Orcs were first bred by the Dark Power of the North in the Elder Days. It is said that they bad no language of their own, but took what they could of other tongues and perverted it to their own liking; yet they made only brutal jargons, scarcely sufficient even for their own needs, unless it were for curses and abuse. And these creatures, being filled with malice, hating even their own kind, quickly developed as many barbarous dialects as there were groups or settlements of their race, so that their Orkish speech was of little use to them in intercourse between different tribes.
So it was that in the Third Age Orcs used for communication between breed and breed the Westron tongue; and many indeed of the older tribes, such as those that still lingered in the North and in the Misty Mountains, had long used the Westron as their native language, though in such a fashion as to make it hardly less unlovely than Orkish. In this jargon tark, 'man of Gondor', was a debased form of tarkil, a Quenya word used in Westron for one of Númenorean descent; see III, 54.
It is said that the Black Speech was devised by Sauron in the Dark Years, and that he bad desired to make it the language of all those that served him, but he failed in that purpose. From the Black Speech, however, were derived many of the words that were in the Third Age wide-spread among the Orcs, such as ghâsh 'fire', but after the first overthrow of Sauron this language in its ancient form was forgotten by all but the Nazgûl. When Sauron arose again, it became once more the language of Barad-dûr and of the captains of Mordor. The inscription on the Ring was in the ancient Black Speech, while the curse of the Mordor-orc in II, 53. was in the more debased form used by the soldiers of the Dark Tower, of whom Grishnákh was the captain. Sharku in that tongue means old man.'
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And finally, I am ready for the good news… Merry and Pippin's escape! We have come to the part of the story where the Riders of Rohan have overtaken the company of orcs, and surrounded them at the edge of the Fangorn forest: They do not immediately attack, and the orcs debate the causes and effects of their apparent hesitation. The luck that saves them is the curiosity and greed of the captain from Mordor…
Pippin and Merry sat up. Their guards, Isengarders, had gone with Uglúk. But if the hobbits had any thought of escape, it was soon dashed. A long hairy arm took each of them by the neck and drew them close together. Dimly they were aware of Grishnákh's great head and hideous face between them; his foul breath was on their cheeks. He began to paw them and feel them. Pippin shuddered as hard cold fingers groped down his back.'Well, my little ones!' said Grishnákh in a soft whisper. 'Enjoying your nice rest? Or not? A little awkwardly placed, perhaps: swords and whips on one side, and nasty spears on the other! Little people should not meddle in affairs that are too big for them.' His fingers continued to grope. There was a light like a pale but hot fire behind his eyes.
The thought came suddenly into Pippin's mind, as if caught direct from the urgent thought of his enemy: 'Grishnákh knows about the Ring! He's looking for it, while Uglúk is busy: he probably wants it for himself.' Cold fear was in Pippin's heart, yet at the same time he was wondering what use he could make of Grishnákh's desire. 'I don't think you will find it that way,' he whispered. 'It isn't easy to find.'…
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Suddenly he seized them. The strength in his long arms and shoulders was terrifying. He tucked them one under each armpit, and crushed them fiercely to his sides; a great stifling hand was clapped over each of their mouths. Then he sprang forward, stooping low. Quickly and silently he went, until he came to the edge of the knoll. There, choosing a gap between the watchers, he passed like an evil shadow out into the night, down the slope and away westward towards the river that flowed out of the forest. In that direction there was a wide open space with only one fire.
After going a dozen yards he halted, peering and listening. Nothing could be seen or heard. He crept slowly on, bent almost double. Then he squatted and listened again. Then he stood up, as if to risk a sudden dash. At that very moment the dark form of a rider loomed up right in front of him. A horse snorted and reared. A man called out.
Grishnákh flung himself on the ground flat, dragging the hobbits under him; then he drew his sword. No doubt he meant to kill his captives, rather than allow them to escape or to be rescued; but it was his undoing. The sword rang faintly, and glinted a little in the light of the fire away to his left. An arrow came whistling out of the gloom: it was aimed with skill, or guided by fate, and it pierced his right hand. He dropped the sword and shrieked. There was a quick beat of hoofs, and even as Grishnákh leaped up and ran, he was ridden down and a spear passed through him. He gave a hideous shivering cry and lay still.
(screen capture from Japanese promotional telecast) The hobbits remained flat on the ground, as Grishnákh had left them. Another horseman came riding swiftly to his comrade's aid. Whether because of some special keenness of sight, or because of some other sense, the horse lifted and sprang lightly over them; but its rider did not see them, lying covered in their elven-cloaks, too crushed for the moment, and too afraid to move.
At last Merry stirred and whispered softly: 'So far so good: but how are we to avoid being spitted?'
Well, as we know, they don't get spitted, and they find that their sneaky captor had managed to get them outside the circle of riders. They are able to crawl off into the woods during the battle that followed… They are still far from home, but alive. And as it turns out, friends are not far off.
Below we see the scene after the battle, soldiers of Rohan walking among the fallen orcs, and a few of their own… Fallen men orcs and horses lay mingled in the morning.
See the links below to backtrack to any of the prior chapter posts: We can keep talking about orcs and resilient hobbits as we wish to the rest of this week… and look forward to the DVD release of the FoTR tomorrow. The image above is from the TTT Special preview that will be included in the package… So with that said, Hullo – Good Morning!
Index to thread:
Chapter 1 and 2: The Departure of Boromir and The Riders of Rohan (Post #2)
Chapter 2 mid week bumper: The Riders of Rohan (Post #122)
Chapter 3: The Uruk-Hai (Post #195)
Does that mean that Sauron had his own Uruk-hai? Interesting....
I just love my little guy!! LOL An inspired moment that must have been a truely terrifying one: it could have gone horribly wrong, and Grishnakh deciding to knife them right then and there. That he chose to try and run off with them secret like before trying to knife them was as much a roll of the dice as anything else that happened in LOTR. I think the thing that really intrigues me the most about Tolkien's writing is how he flips the expectations of a plot line. When I first read this, I was sure Merry and Pippin were goners.
And they easily could have been... Tolkien definately didn't have to write them into the rest of the story, and they take a turn here that seems it could have been an extra gift from an author who perhaps found he could not part with them either!
Hair you stopped just short of what illustrates what makes the Hobbits SO different from the other races and what makes them so darn charming. At this point in the story we get...
" The hobbits each ate two or three pieces. (of lembas)...the taste brought back to them the memory of fair faces, and laughter, and wholesome food in quiet days now far away. For a while, they ate thoghtfully, sitting in the dark heedless of the cries and sounds of battle nearby.
And then we get this as they managed to crawl away from the fighting...
As they walked they compared notes, talking lightly in hobbit-fashion of the things that had happened since their capture. No listener would have guessed from their words that they had suffered cruelly, and been in dire peril, going without hope towards torment and death; or that
This is just rich! and so Hobbitty.
LOL, yes, but in see my Post above...and in their on unflappable, unassuming way...they "crawled" away, no big knife fight or wizardry or macho fighting, they just simply and humbly crawled away.
Neat little guys aren't they?
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