The Scourge of the Shire

Comments · 4.4K

• DU

  @dumbinternetmoron · 3 years ago · pinned

  How did Sam get to Valinor? It's obvious - he Swamgee.

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• BE

  @bernies1513 · 3 years ago

  “J.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes it’s big and up close. Sometimes it’s a shape on the horizon. Sometimes it’s not there at all, which means that the artist either has made a deliberate decision against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is in fact standing on Mt. Fuji.”<br>― Terry Pratchett

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• TH

  @TheReferenceFrame · 3 years ago

  My dad would read &quot;Lord of the Rings&quot; for me before I went to bed when I was child. He would also do different voices and sing the songs like children&apos;s song, making me sing along. Maybe it is a Red Flag, but Tom Bombadil will always be in my heart because of the pure joy and freedom my father would channel when doing is voice. I read the books almost every year and I still hear the characters with my father&apos;s voices in my head. He passed last year. This year&apos;s reading was difficult and more sad then bittersweet. I think listening to an audiobook version would ruin it for me.

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• PA

  @paulhammer2279 · 3 years ago

  I am glad that I read Camus rather then Sartre. In the Legend of Sisyphus, Camus certainly does not candy coat existentialism but he says that you have to find a flower in the desert and make it your center, all the while knowing that it is you who is giving it meaning and significance. After 30 years together, my flower passed away 2 years ago and I am now busying myself with the maintenance of the little flowers she left behind and the garden we created together.

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• JA

  @JamesMeyerArt · 1 year ago

  Thank you for the library plug - my field professor visits a library in every new town she visits

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• XU

  @xujhan · 3 years ago

  Regarding Tolkien&apos;s feelings toward allegory, he says &quot;I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.&quot; I read this quote as meaning, loosely, &quot;I invite readers to draw parallels between my story and events from their own lives or from history, I simply don&apos;t want others to claim that I meant any particular one of those parallels to be the &apos;correct&apos; one.&quot; As such I think he would not at all object to the discussion in this (very excellent!) video.

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• LE

  @lexer_ · 3 years ago (edited)

  I honestly think the main reason why Tolkin wrote he didn&apos;t like allegory is because people abused the cloak of metaphorical interpretation to put words in his mouth that he never intended to say. Calling your own interpretation of a story an allegory by the author basically allows you to assign opinions to an author even if that wasn&apos;t at all the intent. So by distancing himself from this he takes the wind out of the sails of these people.

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• NE

  @NemoLafond · 3 years ago

  In a sense, I think reading Frodo’s journey to Valinor merely as death has a kind of…viciousness I don’t think the book really feels. His journey to the Undying Lands is an admission - he will never be the same man. He has the scars of the trenches, he’s seen the horrors of war worse than anybody, the sheer depths of depravity and evil. He can’t be the old Frodo, and while in the Shire, he has to be the old Frodo. You’re right in saying it isn’t his home, because it demands he be Frodo, and he’s not. Valinor is not heaven - it’s not him being freed from the chains of life. But it’s a place where he can just *be*. Where he’s free of expectations, where he need only be what brings him peace. To me, it feels like Tolkien looking at the boys he sees coming home with the same shadow in their eyes as he had at their age, and saying, “It won’t be the same. The old you is dead, and I would be lying if I said otherwise. But there is hope. There is a possibility of finding a salve for the wounds of war, even if those wounds will never mend.” It, to me, is a monumental piece of empathy. <br>Excellent video.

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• BA

  @bartz0rt928 · 1 year ago

  Peter Jackson clearly agrees with you. In the movie, Gandalf talks to Pippin about dying: <br>&quot;End? No, the journey doesn&apos;t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.<br><br>PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what?<br><br>GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.&quot;<br><br>In the book, these lines are the narrator describing what Frodo dreams after he&apos;s mortally wounded from being stabbed at Weathertop (he dreams it at Bombadil&apos;s house). Then at the end of RotK, as Frodo sails to Valinor: &quot;And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.&quot;<br><br>Also, the elves don&apos;t <i>die,</i> they get all morose, dress in grey, and board ships to sail west. You know, towards the setting sun. <br><br>Anyway, looks like this was an old video. I hope you&apos;re feeling better, despite [gestures broadly].

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• JE

  @jeffhaskins5592 · 3 years ago

  I have always felt that the hero of Lord of the Rings was Sam. He wears the ring in both the books and the movie, but the movie shows him struggle to give the ring back to Frodo, where as there is NO struggle in the books. Sam returns the ring to Frodo with an almost &quot;This belongs to you&quot; attitude. Essentially, Sam carried both the ring and the ring bearer.<br><br>As for Tom Bombadil, I always read his character as an example of there being persons unaffected by the allure of the ring. People in touch with the earth and nature had no need for supernatural power. <br><br>So to me, Tom Bombadil was the literary answer to the question &quot;Why isn&apos;t Sam drawn to the ring?&quot; the answer being &quot;He a simple gardner and has no use for such things&quot;.

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• PF

  @Pfhreak · 3 years ago

  Frodo didn&apos;t die, he was sent to a farm upstate where a nice couple takes care of retired hobbits.

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• HE

  @HerrJahnke · 3 years ago

  At least in legendarium terms, Valinor is not the land of the dead as in there not being any dead people there. Dead elves have a place they go to (the &quot;Halls of Mandos&quot;) and dead mortals just go, somewhere, no one knows. <br>So because of this, I take it literally that Frodo goes to Valinor, where he will live for a while among undying beauty and have some reprieve from his hurt. And then, because he is mortal and because, tainted and subject to change as he is, he really does not belong in Valinor, he dies. Valinor, for Frodo is a hospice where he recieves palliative care.<br>And I tend to think the same about Sam, though his hurt was the lesser for the life he was able to make, he must have felt also the whispered touch of evil and when that life finally was not enough to tide over his hurt, he too was allowed, for a little while, to dwell in the hospice of the Valar before succumbing to the doom of mortals.<br>Why is this granted to the ring bearers? Because the ring is of the same spring of power that gave birth to Valinor, it was made by an Ainur and hence its evil is of the Ainur. That is why there is no cure, no balm or healing for it in middle-earth and all that Valinor can do is arrest it, give it a counterweight in immortal beauty to lighten the mortal span of years that remained to the ring bearers.<br>Why then was Gimli allowed into Valinor? Must be the magic of friendship.

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