[The Iguana]

P.S. I had not realized (this surprises me) that the Shelob chapter was tacked on to TTT by the publishers, not Tolkien.

[HairOfTheDog]

Dude.... you pinged yourself in that Ring ping!

Heh....

[HairOfTheDog]

The whole idea of breaking the story into 3 parts irked Tolkien... he was against it. He thought it should be published as one novel, and the publishers sortof forced the split.

The three titles were also the invention of the publisher. He didn't like the names of each book... especially The Two Towers. He thought (correctly) that people would be confused about what towers were being referred to, due to the numerous towers in the story. He was right. The film called out the Two Towers to be Orthanc (Saruman) and Barad-dur (Sauron). The title actually refers to Orthanc and Cirith Ungel, the watchtower where Frodo and Sam end up at the end of TTT.

[HairOfTheDog]

And for what it is worth, I am glad Shelob was put off till RoTK... I could not have beared a whole year of Frodo thought to be dead and/or, found not to be dead, but captured. I hurry through Choice of Master Samwise... What a cliffhanger that would have been! It would break my heart to be left there for a year!