The end is always so sad. But! We're not there yet! There is much to do, before we can send Frodo off!
Firstly, I love the story of Eowyn and Faramir. It's just so beautifully done. And I really love it when Eowyn says
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I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.
I just really see this as such a fulfillment of her character, after having basically wanted to go to her death only a few weeks beforehand.
Yay Aragorn is king! "By the labour and valour of many I have come into my inheritance."
Let me repeat that.
"By the labour and valour of many I have come into my inheritance."I feel like this is Tolkien's thesis statement, in a way.
We argue a lot about who the real hero was, Frodo or Sam, etc, but they were
all heroes. They all played a part in the story and without each individual, it would have failed.
I like that when Arwen comes, Frodo says "Now not day only shall be beloved, but night too shall be beautiful and blessed and all its fear pass away!" If this isn't enough to refute people's bias about 'Tolkien made all the evil dark he was racist' stuff, I don't know what is. The idea that there is beauty in day and night. I like it.
Treebeard says the line "For the world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air." Who knew?
Celeborn.
Guys, Celeborn. So the guy doesn't get nearly enough credit because of the movies, but at the end here to Aragorn: "Kinsman, farewell! May your doom be other than mine, and your treasure remain with you to the end!" He loses Galadriel. She sails away without him. That guy. So incredible.
HOBBITS. MY HOBBITS MY HOBBITS MY DARLING HOBBITS.Quote:
As the wretched pair passed by the company they came to the hobbits, and Saruman stopped and stared at them; but they looked at him with pity. "So you have come to gloat too, have you, my urchins?" he said. "You don't care what a beggar lacks, do yo? For you have all you want, food and fine clothes, and the best weed for your pipes. Oh yes, I know! I know where it comes from. You would not give a pipeful to a beggar, would you?"
"I would, if I had any," said Frodo.
"You can have what I have got left," said Merry, "if you will wait a moment." He got down and searched in the bag at his saddle. Then he handed to Saruman a leather pouch.
AFTER ALL THEY WENT THROUGH. PITY. "I WOULD". "YOU CAN".
And the Scouring of the Shire. I want to write an essay about this, and how important it is, but I need bed soon. So I'll just say a few quotes.
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This was too much for Pippin. His thoughts went back to the Field of Cormallen, and here was a squint-eyed rascal calling the Ring-bearer 'little cock-a-whoop'. He cast back his cloak, flashed out his sword, and the silver and sable of Gondor gleamed on him as he rode forward.
...
"You won't rescue Lotho, or the Shire, just by being shocked an sad, my dear Frodo."
...
"But Shire-folk have been so comfortable so long they don't know what to do. They just want a match, though, and they'll go up in fire."
..
The leader looked round. He was trapped. But he was not scared, not now with a score of his fellows to back him. He knew too little of hobbits to understand his peril.
Just one moment here.
His peril. Please see all previous statements regard the "superiority" of Frodo! No. HOBBITS.
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"This is worse than Mordor!" said Sam. "Much worse in a way. It comes home to you, as they say; because it is home, and you remember it before it was all ruined."
...
Saruman rose to his feet, and stared at Frodo. There was a strange look in his eye of mingled wonder and respect and hatred. "You have grown, Halfling," he said.
...
Merry and Pippin: "and if they were now large and magnificent, they were unchanged otherwise, unless they were indeed more fairspoken and more jovial and full of merriment than ever before."
And while on that last thought of Merry and Pippin, why didn't Frodo tell them he was leaving? He takes Sam with him to the Grey Havens, but he had almost made it onto the boat before they show up (because Gandalf told them). It actually hurt me, when I read that. Because I spent so much of this reread really seeing the bravery of Merry and Pippin, and I hated that Frodo would just leave them without a word.
Also, people call Merry and Pippin "Meriadoc" and "Peregrin" more now, which entertains me for some reason.
Come on, it can't be the last.. Celeborn had a valid ticket to Valinor as well as the rest of his kin.. But now you put it this way, it is very sad.. or maybe this is how elves get out of an un-happy marriage since "to death do us part" doesn't mean much.. 