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noWizardme
Gondolin
Oct 28 2024, 12:01pm
Post #1 of 13
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*** Wormtongue character study - 1: Wormtongue in Edoras
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Wormtongue first appears in LOTR when Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli arrive at Edoras. It’s a chapter which has several parallels with Beowulf, and this provides one suggestion as to how Tolkien might have invented Wormtongue:
514 (II128) I have not passed through fire and death…
Several readers have commented on similarities between Grima Wormtongue and Unferth, the counsellor who sat at the king's feet in Beowulf.
Clive Tolley comments in Tolkien and the Unfinished, Scholarship and Fantasy: Proceedings of The Tolkien Phenomenon, May 1992 (1993):
One of the most puzzling characters of the Old English Beowulf is Unferth the spokesman of the Danish king Hrothgar. His name means ‘Strife', and he seems to have been specially invented by the poet for this purpose, for his main role in the poem is to accuse Beowulf of not being up to the job of dealing with the monster Grendel, on the basis of a bad performance in a previous swimming match. Beowulf rounds on him, defending himself and pointing out that not only has Unferth shown himself no hero, but has even been the slayer of his brothers.
It is never explained why the Danish king kept on such an evil-doer in a position of authority, nor why he was allowed to make such a savage attack on the honoured newcomer....
Tolkien was unable to resist the enticement of such an ambiguous character. The whole scene of the arrival of Aragorn and his companions at the court of Théoden is based on the arrival of the Geats at the Danish court in Beowulf, and follows it in detail. It is hence not surprising that Unferth has his counterpart in Edoras, in the shape of Wormtongue.
His object of attack is Gandalf, and like Beowulf, Gandalf gives a good deal better than he gets, utterly discrediting Wormtongue.
Hammond & Schull, Readers’ Companion
So maybe Wormtongue starts out as a counterpart to Unferth. But now he has come to Tolkien’s mind, what does this Wormtongue do? And how does that further Tolkien’s plot, themes and other ideas?
Let’s start with the same questions about Wormtongue that Clive Tolley is asking about Unferth: how has an evil-doer ended up in such a position of authority in Rohan that he is allowed to make such a savage attack on honoured newcomers?
We see Wormtongue in action in two short scenes – one where Gandalf ‘bandies crooked words with a serving man’ (more later on Tolkien’s word choices there), and one in which Wormtongue is fetched for judgement, and is allowed to leave Edoras unharmed.
I strongly recommend that everyone goes and re-reads those short but excellent passages. They are too long to quote here, but please allow me to set them as essential reading for anyone wanting to understand Wormtongue, or to reply to this post.
Something I suppose we’d dearly like to know, if Wormtongue were an historical character, is how someone so unscrupulous and self-serving (and a quisling of a hostile foreign power to boot) ever managed to rise to such a position of trust and power. Moreover, having achieved that, how did he get Theoden’s will ‘in his keeping’ (as Gandalf puts it)? Readers of LOTR do not discover this, but nor most likely do they feel the lack. If Tolkien gave it some thought in other writings beyond his suggestion of ‘subtle poisons’ in UT, please do contribute that.
But Tolkien’s story is moving very quickly in this part, both in terms of action and in terms of emotion. I applaud his decision not to break off into the Saga of Grima Wormtongue. What we clearly see of Wormtongue is his use of dodgy rhetoric. And so that must be part of if not all of the explanation ,and is the only one that we pretty much must see, unless we decide to read the text against itself.
Wormtongue is a propagandist.
If anyone would like to do a line-by-line analysis of the dialogue – rather as journalists nowadays feel the need to fact-check certain politicians – please do. As regards debating fouls, Wormtongue’s tactics are all familiar from arguments on social media (if not elsewhere too). I read unfounded assertions, distraction, name calling, bad-faith arguments and projection of one’s own faults on to one’s opponents.
But I note that Wormtongue gives us a fairly accurate factual assessment of Rohan’s recent woes. What he’s less accurate about of course is who is to blame (clue: it will never be him). I like the way Tolkien uses Wormtongue to fill readers in on recent events – the death of Theodred, for example. But because we see Wormtongue is doing it for the emotional manipulation, Tolkien can get away with an almost literal "As you know, your father, the king..." speech (“As you know, your son the prince”, in this case) without it feeling like clunky exposition
My guess is that Wormtongue is all to happy to discuss the death of Theodred, the military collapse along the Fords of Isen and the risk Eomer took to hunt down the orc raid (perhaps truly leaving Edoras under-defended had it been attacked). My guess is that Wormtongue needs a constant supply of crises, controversies and emergencies which he’ll manufacture if there aren’t any real ones. He needs to keep persuading Theoden that Theoden is beset by confusing and bewildering difficulties, and has nowhere else but Grima to turn.
The corollary of that is that there must be something about being beleaguered and helpless that appeals to Theoden – at least enough for him to find Wormtongue emotionally convincing. Gandalf will have to offer Theoden a different and more attractive self-image to succeed.
Wormtongue is also very happy to debate. The more his ideas are repeated, the more they gnaw away at reason. And the more you argue with him, the easier it is to posit you as someone with a sinister ulterior motive. We see the same thing in online conspiracy theories. Anyone doubting the conspiracy is only doing so because they are part of the conspiracy, apparently.
A further reason Wormtongue is happy to debate and get down as many rabbit-holes as possible – e.g. exactly how many kinds of people can there be who come with bad news? What sinister ulterior motive might each of them have?- is that (at least according to Gandalf) he has an aim of wasting time.
Gandalf would appear to be right about this: more or less as they speak, Saruman has ordered an all-out assault on Rohan, for fear that his missing hobbit captives are there, or that Theoden has got the Ring. We later see that Theoden’s army is only just able to reach Helm’s Deep in time, before it is surrounded in the field (and easily prevented from re-inforcing Arkenbrand or just defeated, presumably).
But Gandalf – now Gandalf the White – is not limited to debating. He ends the debate with perhaps the most overt use of his supernatural powers that we’ll see in the entire book. And so this first Gandalf-Wormtongue encounter ends up seeming very like a sort of excorcism:
“‘The wise speak only of what they know, Gríma son of Gálmód. A witless worm have you become. Therefore be silent, and keep your forked tongue behind your teeth. I have not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a serving-man till the lightning falls.’
He raised his staff. There was a roll of thunder. The sunlight was blotted out from the eastern windows; the whole hall became suddenly dark as night. The fire faded to sullen embers. Only Gandalf could be seen, standing white and tall before the blackened hearth. In the gloom they heard the hiss of Wormtongue’s voice:
‘Did I not counsel you, lord, to forbid his staff? That fool, Háma, has betrayed us!’ There was a flash as if lightning had cloven the roof. Then all was silent. Wormtongue sprawled on his face.”
Speaking of exorcism, the Jackson movie made the idea of possession more obvious; I note – movie Theoden is explicitly possessed by Saruman in some magical way, ad Saruman is thrown out by Gandalf. This provides an visual and easy-to-understand explanation for movie-goers; but it is not necessarily how one must understand the book.
How did it come to this? LOTR gives us only Gandalf’s explanation to Theoden:
“But for long now he [Saruman] has plotted your ruin, wearing the mask of friendship, until he was ready. In those years Wormtongue’s task was easy, and all that you did was swiftly known in Isengard; for your land was open, and strangers came and went. And ever Wormtongue’s whispering was in your ears, poisoning your thought, chilling your heart, weakening your limbs, while others watched and could do nothing, for your will was in his keeping.
‘But when I escape
d and warned you, then the mask was torn, for those who would see. After that Wormtongue played dangerously, always seeking to delay you, to prevent your full strength being gathered. He was crafty: dulling men’s wariness, or working on their fears, as served the occasion.”
Again, if this were a history, we might wonder at the lack of resistance to Wormtongue. As Gandalf says to Theoden “others watched and could do nothing, for your will was in his keeping.” Eomer and Eowyn understand pretty well what is wrong, but Eomer does not rebel until he intercepts Ugluk’s orc raid against orders. Hama allowing the visitors into Edoras (and permitting Gandalf to retain his staff) may also be a subtle form of resistance. The Jackson movie adds some men in the shadows of the Hall who are ju-itsu-ed out of the way – Wormtongue’s faction, one presumes. In real life they would be a mixture of True Believers in the cause (whatever Wormtongue has persuaded them it is) and grifters (folks who listen only to WII-FM: What’s In It For Me?) That is doubtless what would be needed by a Wormtongue in real life. But book-Wormtongue manages without these brownshirts, as far as Tolkien choses to show or tell us. LOTR is a fairy-tale and does not have to be ‘realistic’.
We do learn something about Wormtongue’s motives, if not more about his methods. This happens in the second scene in which we see Wormtongue in action. He seems not to realise at first that his credibility has utterly evaporated, and he’s not going to be left as Steward of Edoras. But again, time is being wasted and smoke being blown as much as possible. And then Gandalf says:
“How long is it since Saruman bought you? What was the promised price? When all the men were dead, you were to pick your share of the treasure, and take the woman you desire? Too long have you watched her under your eyelids and haunted her steps.’
Éomer grasped his sword. ‘That I knew already,’ he muttered. ‘For that reason I would have slain him before, forgetting the law of the hall. But there are other reasons.’ He stepped forward, but Gandalf stayed him with his hand.”
So it’s Power then. Or Power with a dose of sex. Though unless we go so far as to imagine Wormtongue as a delusional who thinks Eowyn will finally love him back when he is the quisling king of Rohan, then it’s mostly Power.
We could imagine that for ourselves, and so this passage is probably as much a part of Eowyn’s tale as Wormtongue’s. His effect on Eowyn is discussed further by the concerned men around her sick bed in Gondor:
“‘My friend,’ said Gandalf [to Eomer], ‘you had horses, and deeds of arms, and the free fields; but she, born in the body of a maid, had a spirit and courage at least the match of yours. Yet she was doomed to wait upon an old man, whom she loved as a father, and watch him falling into a mean dishonoured dotage; and her part seemed to her more ignoble than that of the staff he leaned on.
‘Think you that Wormtongue had poison only for Théoden’s ears? Dotard! What is the house of Eorl but a thatched barn where brigands drink in the reek, and their brats roll on the floor among their dogs? Have you not heard those words before? Saruman spoke them, the teacher of Wormtongue. Though I do not doubt that Wormtongue at home wrapped their meaning in terms more cunning. My lord, if your sister’s love for you, and her will still bent to her duty, had not restrained her lips, you might have heard even such things as these escape them. But who knows what she spoke to the darkness, alone, in the bitter watches of the night, when all her life seemed shrinking, and the walls of her bower closing in about her, a hutch to trammel some wild thing in?’”
LOTR is a fairly-tale; a form in which a character can be both a literal person going about their business, and a representation of something. We might ask what it is that Wormtongue represents. In another kind of story the king could go into a melancholy dithering just from a psychological inability to do the thing he knows he must – think Hamlet, for example. Maybe one way to look at Wormtongue is as a character that personifies part of Theoden’s (and Eowyn’s) mental struggles. Ursula K Le Guin:
[Tolkien's] villains are orcs and Black Riders (goblins and zombies; mythic figures) and Sauron, the Dark Lord, who is never seen and has no suggestion of humanity about him. These are not evil men but embodiments of evil in men, universal symbols of the hateful. The men who do wrong are not complete figures but complements: Saruman is Gandalf's dark-self, Boromir Aragorn's; Wormtongue is, almost literally, the weakness of King Theoden… Though Tolkien seems to project evil into "the others", they are not truly others but ourselves; he is utterly clear about this. His ethic, like that of dream, is compensatory. The final "answer" remains unknown. But because responsibility has been accepted, charity survives.
Ursula K Le Guin in a review, entitled "The Dark Tower by C S Lewis" was originally published in The New Republic, 1977, anthologised in "Dancing at the Edge of the World" (Grove Press 1989)
[my bolds]
So possibly, whilst there is no need to look for over-literal explanations that Wormtongue is not a physical man pursuing his goals- we could see Wormtongue as not only an exploiter of psychological weakness or illness but as representing those things.
“Weakness of King Theoden” needs a bit of care here. Tolkien, coming from the British Imperial age of stiff-upper-lip or white feather might just possibly have thought that what looks very like Theoden’s anxiety and depression was ‘weakness’ in a derogatory sense (rather than a disease of brain chemistry as many of us see it nowadays). But maybe not. I very much doubt Le Guin means it that way. She’s clearly making Wormtongue a complement of Theoden (as he’ll be seen after his cure by Gandalf). Wormtongue is the voice saying at one time that there is no problem; at another that it is all too difficult and confusing; and that we are too weak. This voice complements (with an e) cured Theoden’s determination to see the obvious at last, and do his duty as best he can, whatever the odds.
Tolkien said he was not writing allegory, and I don’t wish to argue. But I would be astonished if a lot of Tolkien’s contemporary readers didn’t immediately think of Wormtongue as a voice of appeasement: voices in the 1930s who first claimed that Hitler and Mussolini (or Stalin) were no threat; that the issues with those regimes could be excused; and then finally argued that the fascist powers had become too strong to oppose. “Dulling men’s wariness, or working on their fears,” as Gandalf puts it. Whether that idea was put to Tolkien and if so, how he reacted, I don’t know. I’m not suggesting it as the One Reading To Rule Them All, anyway.
Also I note that in LOTR it’s the characters’ weaknesses and cognitive bases that get exploited:
Saruman’s downfall is caused by his pride and his envy – of Gandalf in particular, but also Sauron or Galadriel. I think he can’t cope with the dissonance of feeling he is not as good as them when he simultaneously feels he ought to be; must be. This is what Sauron exploits. Similarly, Denethor becomes mad because he can’t accept a Return of the King – a Steward’s most essential duty, which he knows he should accept loyally. Boromir falls to the Ring because he is consumed by fears of the destruction of Gondor, is desperate to find a shortcut and vain and arrogant enough to think he could survive it.
Theoden fares better – with Gandalf’s help neither he nor Eomer kills Wormtongue, who instead is offered a choice – ride to battle, or go away wherever he wishes. After a display of malice so nasty that men step back, off he goes and thus he refuses opportunity number 1 for redemption.
In the next post, we’ll see how he gets on with Saruman.
I promised to say more about Tolkien’s word choices “I have not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a serving man.”
I think some of this is Tolkien having a bit of linguistic fun, just as Tolkien makes up an insult “Lathspell” to throw at Gandalf. Tolkien defines it for us (e says hit means bad news) but leaves it as an Easter Egg that it’s the made-up antonym of Gospel.
Similarly “bandy crooked words with a serving man” can be just literal. Wormtongue’s words are crooked (as in deceitful and dishonest) and he is in the role of a royal servant. But both Gandalf and Wormtongue know full well who Wormtongue really serves.
How about ‘Crooked’? I note that Merry describes Wormtongue arriving at Isengard on a tired horse “and he looked a queer twisted sort of creature himself”. Twisted in character, or twisted in body?
Clearly one way to take this is to imagine Wormtongue having some form of physical deficiency or deformity. Much could be made of how difficult circumstances might have affected his character in a society that worships the athleticism of horse-riding and martial prowess.
It would also be possible to take this as another example of a fantasy cliché that some find objectionable – the good guys are always pretty, the ugly not to be trusted.
But those could be an over-literal approaches. Middle-earth is a fairy-tale world and what happens there need not be limited by what can happen in the Primary world. I note that Gollum becomes more physically odd-looking as he is corrupted by the Ring. Sauron and Morgoth lose their ability to appear ‘fair’ (as in the opposite of ‘foul’ – not necessarily pale-skinned or fair-haired). So, it is possible that, in Middle-earth, physical appearance is altered by moral nature. Or it is not someone’s literal appearance that is affected, but the impression they give when encountered. Somting that might be felt rather than seen. (We also hear of alleged magical abilities to cover up physical appearance, but that these don’t affect other impressions. Frodo thinks that if the rascally-looking Strider were really an Enemy agent; “I think one of his spies would – well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand.” Faramir comments on why he thinks his vision of Boromir’s body was not an Enemy deceit: “For his works fill the heart with loathing …”
So I wonder (and yes of course this is speculative) whether we have something in Tolkien that is shown much more overtly in The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. The first time we hear of Mr Hyde it is described by one of the book’s narrators thus:
“All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground. It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see. It wasn’t like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut. I gave a view halloa, took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought him back to where there was already quite a group about the screaming child. He was perfectly cool and made no resistance, but gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me like running. The people who had turned out were the girl’s own family; and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent put in his appearance. Well, the child was not much the worse, more frightened, according to the sawbones; and there you might have supposed would be an end to it. But there was one curious circumstance. I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first sight. So had the child’s family, which was only natural. But the doctor’s case was what struck me. He was the usual cut and dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour, with a strong Edinburgh accent and about as emotional as a bagpipe. Well, sir, he was like the rest of us; every time he looked at my prisoner, I saw that sawbones turn sick and white with the desire to kill him. I knew what was in his mind, just as he knew what was in mine; and killing being out of the question, we did the next best. We told the man we could and would make such a scandal out of this as should make his name stink from one end of London to the other. If he had any friends or any credit, we undertook that he should lose them. And all the time, as we were pitching it in red hot, we were keeping the women off him as best we could for they were as wild as harpies. I never saw a circle of such hateful faces; and there was the man in the middle, with a kind of black sneering coolness—frightened too, I could see that—but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan.”
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Note that Mr Hyde is loathsome not necessarily because of anything particular about his literal appearance – which is not really described - but because of some effect he has on those who see him (even the phlegmatic Edinburgh doctor). We later discover Mr Hyde is a sort of freed or concentrated evil side of the nice and respectable Dr. Jekyll. Of course, films of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde have tended to get the make-up department to work on Mr Hyde to give us something easy and visual. But this might not be what you must think reading the book.
Questions:
Do you think Tolkien did well to keep Wormtongue’s part of the story short and practical? Or would you have liked more explanation of how he became so influential (or to know other things about him)?
Any thoughts about why Wormtongue seems to enjoy free rein until Gandalf turns up (or nearly so; as noted Eomer has already preferred common sense to Wormtongue’s orders)?
And of course, please share any thoughts on what I’ve put here; or add things I have missed out!
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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oliphaunt
Menegroth
Oct 29 2024, 12:49am
Post #2 of 13
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A wizened figure of a man, with a pale wise face and heavy-lidded eyes.
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Eomer's meeting with Aragorn on the plains of Rohan already set up the expectation that things were not well with Theoden.
The first description of Theoden, Eowyn and Wormtongue:
Upon it sat a man so bent with age that he seemed almost a dwarf...but his eyes still burned with a bright light, glinting as he gazed at the strangers. Behind his chair stood a woman clad in white. At his feet upon the steps sat a wizened figure of a man, with a pale wise face and heavy-lidded eyes.
Theoden is "bent with age" but he has great hair and no cataracts. Wormtongue is called "wizened" which denotes age, and "wise face" also suggests age as well as intelligence. He's pale with drooping eyes, which could be from lack of daylight and proper sleep. (Note that Theoden's eyes are bright.) Regardless of his age, Wormtongue wouldn't be so pale and droopy if he were outside performing manly deeds on the plains of Rohan.
Theoden does rise to greet/confront Gandalf, but Wormtongue remains seated to emphasize his lack of respect. By the time Wormtongue has dialog, we're already tired of him. Now, Gandalf does say "a witless worm you have become" which suggests that at one time Wormtongue was not a witless worm, which together with "wise face" suggests a corrupted intelligence. Since Wormtongue is older, he must have a long history with Theoden, and presumably made himself useful at one time. His preference for skulking indoors suggests that he values his own skin very highly and could be called cowardly. At one time he must have been trained as a soldier, since he has a (rusty) sword.
Propagandist is an apt description; he requires an endless news-cycle of threat and fear to continue manipulating Theoden while blinding him to the actual peril about to overwhelm Rohan and the rest of Middle Earth.
Once exposed both to daylight and truth, Wormtongue's eyes are blinking and his arguments become increasingly ridiculous. He's unable to distract Theoden with lunch, which is a pretty weak play. Once Gandalf reveals his creepy plans for Eowyn and his partnership with Saruman, Wormtongue is forced to give up his pretense and he puts on a very low-grade tasteless display. Though we aren't told he's going to head towards Isengard, it's a pretty obvious choice.
Possibly Wormtongue had some disability, or just low iron. But I always thought that he had aged and grown pale from scuttling about in the darkness like a cockroach. He was able to run down the steps of Edoras, and also to ride a horse to get away from Theoden's requests and Eomer's pointy sword. Wormtounge's lifestyle choices have made him look older, pale and nasty, but he's no victim of Rohirrim society.
*** Middle Earth Inexpert ***
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Silvered-glass
Nargothrond
Oct 29 2024, 2:36pm
Post #3 of 13
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I think Tolkien doesn't need to give a lot of detailed information here because a lot can be inferred from the context. Here is my interpretation:
Rohan is a nomadic tribe that has settled on a land and is gradually becoming a more complex and less warlike society. The process is still in its initial stages though. Literacy is very low to none, even in the court, and written laws don't exist. The land is ruled by custom and the will of the king.
Wormtongue is a politician. He isn't good at fighting in wars but he is good at talking. Learning to read and write what others see as mere outlines of wriggling worms on parchment may have originally given him his nickname. In the Rohan of past he would have been at the bottom of the social hierarchy, but in the current Rohan he has been able to become something similar to an unofficial prime minister.
Théoden is a weak hereditary monarch who is letting his advisor run the country. Théoden is at heart a warrior who has no strong opinions on complicated and uninteresting topics such as tax codes and foreign trade but these are not the simple tribal times of the past. So Théoden listens to Wormtongue for ideas on what to do about pretty much everything that isn't about commanding armies. Théoden is feeling old and useless as he feels his capability as a warrior slipping away with age and he has no confidence in himself as a law-giver or administrator. Théoden would like to ride to war one last time to feel young again even if for a while, but Wormtongue says that that doing so would be highly unwise. Most of time there isn't even a war going on.
Wormtongue likes power and would like to be the king of Rohan, but he has not the lineage nor the popularity among the people. Moreover, his current position is entirely dependent on Théoden's favor, and Théoden is getting old. Rohan has no pension system and Wormtongue has no children to support him in his old age and defend him from the people he had wronged in his position. Wormtongue knows that he would severely fall from favor with King Théodred or King Éomer, so Wormtongue wants to keep Théoden alive as long as possible, even if that means keeping him away from the battlefield that he views as his purpose in life.
Wormtongue thinks marrying the beautiful and popular Éowyn would solve all his problems, but unfortunately Éowyn wants nothing to do with him. The women of Rohan prefer strong and handsome warriors, and Wormtongue is none of that. Wormtongue is secretly stacking up treasures so that he can have a comfortable life in exile after his career in Rohan is over. Wormtongue has absolutely no loyalty to Rohan and no longer cares if it survives. He had a difficult childhood and is bitter about the people who don't appreciate him or hard work.
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Oct 29 2024, 2:54pm
Post #4 of 13
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What a great reply to start us off! I must remember to say that I agree on all points, before diving into what I also liked: some themes that I neglected (and didn’t even think about).
A thing I’m seeing now in the Gandalf—Wormtongue showdown is light and dark. Both literally of course; and on many symbolic or metaphorical levels.
The architecture of Theoden’s Hall may be a 'realistic' and loving recreation of Hrothgar’s place form Beowulf - (somebody will know, & please chip in) But it contributes to this literary effect. It’s dark, stuffy, smoky: with the historical glories of the Rohirrim increasingly fading into the shadows (can still see Eorl though, and the reminder of the alliance with Gondor).
One of the first things Gandalf does having silenced Wormtongue is to get the king outside into the light and fresh air.
And I wonder whether there’s an indoors/outdoors contrast as well as a dark/light one. Or active/passive; or engaged/pensive. Or something like that. Going to see for yourself, maintaining relationships with people who you can trust, not worrying about what others are up to because you trust them to do the right thing, doing practical things however small: all that versus indoors brooding and speculating.
There’s another royal hall where a wise but increasingly wisened, deluded and dangerous old man sits at the foot of the throne. Denethor is in something more like a cathedral than a mead hall. And, unlike Wormtongue he's a servant to a king long ge away (and which it turns out he doesn't really want back). But there he sits, relying on reports and his own brooding, and the disinformation of his palantir as a way of extending those reports (and anxieties) beyond the natural.
When we discussed Denethor we disagreed about how much he needed to be a modern-style Generalissimo in a bunker. (I disagreed and felt he'd be better taking teh field - or at least doing a un of the battlements). But the effect on Denethor of being the General in his Labyrinth is clear enough, I think.
Denethor is often compared with Theoden, but I’m thinking Denethor and his Palantir have parallels with Wormtongue too.
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Oct 29 2024, 3:09pm
Post #5 of 13
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Thanks for these ideas!
I liked the idea of Wormtongue as a reference to him dealing in the probably dodgy arts of literacy (unlike yer proper warrior man).
The picture you paint of Rohan reminded me of Tudor England - rule of the state has become complicated even for a Rennaisance Prince like Henry VIII. And so the appointment of a series of powerful Chancellors often from humble origins making their way among the nobility. These were people meeting a need for higher levels of plotting and intrigue, as a less risky and more profitable alternative to the open warfare which was the historical concern of the nobility . (Thomas Cromwell, one of these Chancellors, was the subject of Hilary Mantell's Wolf Hall.)
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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Ethel Duath
Gondolin
Oct 29 2024, 3:49pm
Post #7 of 13
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"The more his ideas are repeated, the more they gnaw away at reason."
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I've never, I think, seen this idea put better.
(And "gnaw" is always a fabulous word. )
(This post was edited by Ethel Duath on Oct 29 2024, 3:50pm)
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Oct 29 2024, 4:51pm
Post #8 of 13
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Thank you! But I'm paraphrasing the master
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For example - Already the Ring rempted him [Sam] gnawing at his will and reason.
Which come to think of it suggests we could look at similarities between the Ring's methods and Wormtongue's. Pitch in, anyone who fancies a go!
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"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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oliphaunt
Menegroth
Oct 29 2024, 7:22pm
Post #9 of 13
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And I wonder whether there is an indoors/outdoors contrast as well as a dark/light one. Or active/passive; or engaged/pensive.
I'm going to keep this in mind as I read forward through the rest of your posts. Indoors=dark=isolated vs outdoors=light=connected. Are evil plans hatched indoors, in the dark, isolated from others?
Or, maybe instead of isolated we can say without fellowship/in fellowship?
Treebeard was withdrawn from the world outside Fangorn until Merry & Pippin's arrival & fellowship.
*** Middle Earth Inexpert ***
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Ethel Duath
Gondolin
Oct 30 2024, 2:30am
Post #10 of 13
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I'd forgotten all about Unferth.
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I think Tolkien certainly improved on what might be called the original!
Some scattered thoughts:
That quote of Gandalf's is one of my favorites: perfectly dismissive, and Gandalf-ly succinct.
I always thought this observation was interesting and surprising: Gandalf lets us know, in part of his conversation with Theoden, that " Once it was a man, and it did you service in its fashion." It's certainly faint praise, but lets us know that it wasn't necessarily at all an unreasonable situation at the beginning of Wormtongue's employment--although it might have been worth some psych testing or character evaluation, seeing what came later! (What color was his parachute?  ).
About how he got Theoden’s will "in his keeping," I think the above was a necessary ingredient. If Wormtongue had started out as a nefarious traitor, even in disguise, it would have been easier to spot early on before too much damage was done. Since at first W. himself had legitimate aims, he wouldn't have raised red flags, necessarily, until things had already progressed into the danger zone. And what I think we're seeing is a master gas-lighter, who drops hints and suspicions in a specifically targeted way to undermine Theoden's relationships with family and honest advisors, so that distrust divides Theoden from all those who have his and Rohan's best interests at heart, very much in the classic way abusers sometimes isolate and separate victims from their family. "Only I am your real ally."
Suspicion is such an easily induced poison, even against the will of the people being thus poisoned, it's hard to resist. (I'm thinking of a Dick Van Dyke episode where Rob and Laura suspect all their friends of stealing a watch.) It became the type of situation where any objection made by Eowyn, Eomer, etc. backfired, because it was seen by Theoden as an attack on the only person he has been led to believe he can fully trust.
And then once the spell of division and attachment to the gaslighter is complete, Theoden simply sees everything through the screen that's been slowly and skillfully created for him. And the trauma of his loss and fears of Rohan's fate makes him all the more vulnerable.
* A footnote: I have always thought this entire scene had such fabulous dialogue. I was always baffled as to why ( I read a quote to that effect, I think by the actor but it may have been Jackson) that "of course" it was great writing but not good movie dialogue. I actually think entirely the opposite.
(This post was edited by Ethel Duath on Oct 30 2024, 2:32am)
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Oct 30 2024, 9:51am
Post #11 of 13
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"rempted"??? Sorry about the accidental Scooby-doo crossover :) //
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~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Oct 30 2024, 9:59am
Post #12 of 13
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I would have replied earlier but I thought I'd better go do something outdoorsy with friends instead .
OK, so having got that reducto ad absurdum reading out of the way as a joke -- I know that is not what I or you meant -- yes I agree with you. I'd say that most people need Fellowship a bit like they need nutrition. But the amount and kind of Fellowship each one of us needs varies (just like nutrition).
Probably Theoden feels a lot of Fellowship from Wormtongue, who is, for example, quick to rehearse the king's woes for us with apparent sympathy.
But that is to real fellowship as junk food is to something more wholesome: it only satisfies superficially, but is addictive and is full of stuff that has been put there to meet the needs of someone other than the consumer.
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"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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Ethel Duath
Gondolin
Oct 31 2024, 1:14am
Post #13 of 13
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Great post by the way! As usual. :) (And I still do mean to weigh in on your Orc postings. That's a difficult subject, and takes more bandwidth than I've had lately. But soon!)
Anyway:
1. " . . . unfounded assertions, distraction, name calling, bad-faith arguments and projection of one’s own faults on to one’s opponents," to which I would add "reinforcing by 'agreeing' with his own words in another's mouth" (words he'd been feeding Theoden for quite a long time), plus the maddening absurdity of blaming messengers for the existence of the evils they report:
Theoden to Gandalf: "You have ever been a herald of woe. Troubles follow you like crows . . . I rejoiced at the return of the horse, but still more at the lack of the rider . . . And with you come evils worse than before, as might be expected. Why should I welcome you, Gandalf Stormcrow? Tell me that."
Grima to Theoden and Gandalf: "You speak justly, lord,’ said the pale man sitting upon the steps of the dais . . . And even now we learn from Gondor that the Dark Lord is stirring in the East. Such is the hour in which this wanderer chooses to return. Why indeed should we welcome you, Master Stormcrow? Lathspell I name you, Ill-news; and ill news is an ill guest they say.’
2. But Gandalf – now Gandalf the White – is not limited to debating. He ends the debate with perhaps the most overt use of his supernatural powers that we’ll see in the entire book. And so this first Gandalf-Wormtongue encounter ends up seeming very like a sort of excorcism:
About your point here, I actually don't think it's an exorcism at all in the direct and spiritual sense. Gandalf doesn't physically and directly aim these manifestations at Theoden himself by zapping him off his throne or performing on Theoden what happens in the movie--although what he did do was certainly for Theoden's benefit to help shake his mind loose from the smog and fetters--but was rather aimed at the surroundings and at Wormtongue when he interferes. It's sort of a divine interruption--almost like a Greek God god coming down and arresting the atmosphere. It's a shock, and a dramatic way of refocusing attention on Gandalf and away from Grima.
Having said that, I do believe it likely that Gandalf was in some manner "spiritually" influencing and cleansing both the atmosphere and Theoden's own heart and mind. And again we have a beautiful little bit of the Tolkien ambiguity--how much of Theoden's illness is spiritual/magical from Saruman, and how much the skillful manipulation by a brilliant and immoral master of those persuasive arts you list? Are Gandalf's actions here a banishing of Sauman's magical influence, or more in the line of what I said above? I don't think we're supposed to know, exactly, but to keep guessing and balancing those ideas as we read--creating again that taste of mystery and never-quite-knowing that makes Tolkien's storytelling so unusually effective.
And I always thought it was also a way of demonstrating to Theoden that instead of simply bearing bad news and bringing no help, a great power has arrived to provide exactly the help Theoden may well have felt should be expected from a wizard, disarming at one stroke one of the main objections to Gandalf Grima had been feeding to the king.
Here are the quotes that illustrate what I've been thinking about this episode:
"'Now Theoden son of Thengel, will you hearken to me?’ said Gandalf. ‘Do you ask for help?’ He lifted his staff and pointed to a high window. There the darkness seemed to clear, and through the opening could be seen, high and far, a patch of shining sky. ‘Not all is dark. Take courage, Lord of the Mark; for better help you will not find. No counsel have I to give to those that despair. Yet counsel I could give, and words I could speak to you. Will you hear them? They are not for all ears. I bid you come out before your doors and look abroad. Too long have you sat in shadows and trusted to twisted tales and crooked promptings.'"
And here Gandalf gives no indication that magic or Saruman's direct spiritual influence was at work--but then again, it's still possible, and perhaps Gandalf just isn't mentioning it, in order to keep the focus off of Saruman and onto the actual realities of the situation in M.E. (It's also interesting that Theoden wasn't the only target. Gandalf mentions "dulling men’s wariness, or working on their fears,.")
"“But for long now he [Saruman] has plotted your ruin, wearing the mask of friendship, until he was ready. In those years Wormtongue’s task was easy, and all that you did was swiftly known in Isengard; for your land was open, and strangers came and went. And ever Wormtongue’s whispering was in your ears, poisoning your thought, chilling your heart, weakening your limbs, while others watched and could do nothing, for your will was in his keeping.
‘But when I escaped and warned you, then the mask was torn, for those who would see. After that Wormtongue played dangerously, always seeking to delay you, to prevent your full strength being gathered. He was crafty: dulling men’s wariness, or working on their fears, as served the occasion.”
(This post was edited by Ethel Duath on Oct 31 2024, 1:14am)
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