The Lord of the Rings Discussion: Chapters 9 and 10

[Elanor the Fair]

Here is a map of Bree itself.....

[Elanor the Fair]

And finally.....
A map of the Prancing Pony...

[Fat middle]

Thank you very much Elanor. Those maps are ideed very useful

I have edited them to center the pics in the posts. Hope you don't mind

[Elanor the Fair]

Well, thank goodness that's out of the way.... and I only had to edit my posts twice to get the link to work!!

Now for some discussion points. Firstly, thank you for the introduction, Fat Middle, and for your discussion questions.

Regarding first opinions of the Rangers....

Well, a long time has passed since my first reading of the Fellowship, but I never had the impression that Rangers were sinister. I don't think their name conjures up threatening figures. We get the impression that Rangers are sort of "woodsmen". Wild, perhaps, but not necessarily dangerous, at least to those who do not cross them!!

As to the urge that Frodo feels to put on the ring. I always thought it had something to do with the Nazgul being present somewhere in Bree.

And I've always liked this line...

And I made a nice imitation of your head with a brown woollen mat, Mr Bag - Underhill, sir.

[Elanor the Fair]

Originally Posted by Fat middle

Thank you very much Elanor. Those maps are ideed very useful

You are most welcome!!

Originally Posted by Fat Middle

I have edited them to center the pics in the posts. Hope you don't mind

I don't mind at all - I am very new to this and need all the help I can get. Khamul told me how to put in the pictures but I didn't know how to centre them. How do you do it???

[Fat middle]

Originally Posted by Elanor the Fair

I don't mind at all - I am very new to this and need all the help I can get. Khamul told me how to put in the pictures but I didn't know how to centre them. How do you do it???

You can edit one of the posts and see the codes. You can type them as I have witten them or select the text you want to center and click on the "center text button" in the tool bar (though that button seems a bit reluctant to act, at least for me )...

... or you can ask for help whenever you want, of course.

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

Originally Posted by Elanor the Fair

As to the urge that Frodo feels to put on the ring. I always thought it had something to do with the Nazgul being present somewhere in Bree.

I think Frodo handled that need by doing what Bilbo used to do, fiddle with the things in his back pocket and that the Ring slipped on to his finger when he tried to break his fall.

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

With fisticuffs, obviously! *the ol' one-two*

I've never really worried about Aragorn's method's of protection. Doubtless, he knew karate, or some-such elf-nuts-kicking method from his years spent at rivendell.

Ha ha. That reminds me of the scene from Bored of the Rings, where it's the Boggits that dish out the nut-kicking while Stomper flails about ineffectually.

[Radagast The Brown]

Originally Posted by Telcontar_Dunedain

I think Frodo handled that need by doing what Bilbo used to do, fiddle with the things in his back pocket and that the Ring slipped on to his finger when he tried to break his fall.

Frodo told Gandalf though that he always wears the Rign on a necklace... and it seems reasonable to also wear it around the neck, and not in the pocket.

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

Perhaps knowing their could be the threat of Nazgul he thought it best for it not to be displayed openly.

[Radagast The Brown]

Originally Posted by Telcontar_Dunedain

Perhaps knowing their could be the threat of Nazgul he thought it best for it not to be displayed openly.

I'm quite sure that he didn't display it in public anyway - probably under his cloths. It's not very logical to show it even in the Shire, and I guess there are many spies of Sauron in Eriador.

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

Yet knowing the threat of the Nazgûl was near it could only take a slip for the Ring to be openly displayed and I'm sure that that is what the Ring would have made happen. For the southerener was a spy of teh Black Riders that had been intercepted by the Nazgûl.

[Radagast The Brown]

Originally Posted by Telcontar_Dunedain

Yet knowing the threat of the Nazgûl was near it could only take a slip for the Ring to be openly displayed and I'm sure that that is what the Ring would have made happen. For the southerener was a spy of teh Black Riders that had been intercepted by the Nazgûl.

Well, first, I don't think he knew the Nazgul were close, not until Merry saw one of them in Bree. Second, even if he knew, he had reasons to not put the Ring in his pocket - like Bilbo. Gandalf and Bilbo warned him that the Ring, if you put it in the pocket, can 'somehow' get to your finger... in times of danger for example. I don't think he just ignored the warning when he even didn't know about the Nazgul.

[Elanor the Fair]

Originally Posted by Radagast The Brown

Frodo told Gandalf though that he always wears the Rign on a necklace... and it seems reasonable to also wear it around the neck, and not in the pocket.

Frodo wore the ring on a chain, not necessarily around his neck. In the house of Tom Bombadil...

Frodo ....drew out the chain from his pocket, and unfastening the Ring handed it at once to Tom.

Also in the barrow Frodo gropes in his pocket for the Ring and in the Prancing Pony the Ring is most definitely in his pocket..

He could only suppose that he had been handling it in his pocket when he fell....

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

I think he wears on a chain around his neck some of the time eg. in Lorien and sometimes in his pocke eg. Tom Bombadils house and Bree.

[Fat middle]

Originally Posted by Telcontar_Dunedain

I think he wears on a chain around his neck some of the time eg. in Lorien and sometimes in his pocke eg. Tom Bombadils house and Bree.

Wasn't the chain for the neck made for him while he was lying unconscious in Rivendell?

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

No I think they either mad or got him a new one in Rivendell but I think he'd had one before.

What I've never understood is how the elves got the Ring onto the new chain with out touching it which they wouldn't wanted to have to do because of it's powers. You didn't have posses it to want, I mean Smeagol only saw it once before killing Deagol for it's possesion.

[Sharkey]

Originally Posted by Fat middle

1. Little and Big Folk. Did Tolkien want a scenary to pass definetely from the hobbits world to the large darker outside world? These chapters end in a very dark tone that will only increase in the following. Problems in the South, odd Rangers, very close Black Riders... This is not the Shire and I cannot help wondering how could hobbits live in such a world, so...

Hope this post goes OK as it is my first, so please excuse any errant formatting.

Don't want to wander off on a completely different tangent, but I distinctly remember the tone of Bree from when I first read LotR when I was very young. The first few chapters in the shire were barely different from The Hobbit in terms of depth and darkness, but once in Bree the book shifted completely. At this point the tale shook off the robes of a children's book that it had been wearing and dropped out of the land of fairy tale into the land of nightmare. There had been clues that Tolkien was moving in this direction earlier, most notably in Fog on the Barrow-downs; but then there had been a brightly coloured hero to save the day. I believe Tolkien realised at this point that the story had changed irreconcilably. To shake himself out of the safety of the fantasy world of the Shire and the Hobbits which he had created he threw in the indifference and malice of the real world he saw around him. That meant the Big People had to appear. Bree was a mix of hobbits and men because the chapter was a mix in Tolkien's mind of the children's story and the adults' story. Hobbits were not meant to live in such a world, at least not when Tolkien first began to write LotR, but the change in direction of the book forced the change for them. In 'Concerning Hobbits' Tolkien tells us that '...they were, as a rule, shy of the Big Folk'. I do not believe that Tolkien had conceived of Bree when he first set pen to paper.

I would love to go on at length but I need to make another 499 posts to get to Elf-lord, so I will leave that particular rant there....

[azalea]

Nice first post! Welcome to Entmoot, Sharkey.

[Artanis]

Hi Sharkey, welcome! I agree on what you say, LotR was first meant to become a sequel to The Hobbit, but during the (looong) process of writing the more serious stuff from the old legendarium forced itself into the story.