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CuriousG
Gondolin
Mar 14, 12:55am
Post #26 of 32
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Did Merry really want to fight, or just not be left alone?
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That to me is the contrast with Eowyn, who wanted both. But I can't escape the feeling that Merry had no idea what a real battle was like, and if he had been allowed more of an observer status, he would have reacted emotionally similar to Sam and the Southron in Ithilien:
It was Sam’s first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace But I think since Merry was thrust into battle, and worse, a duel between Eowyn, his protector, and a supernatural being on a supernatural beast, he just rose the occasion as best he could. Overall I think he didn't want to be left behind in a land of strangers, even though it promised relative safety.
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Mar 14, 1:05am
Post #27 of 32
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Reading your reflection on M&P made me think of their overall timeline in Rohan: captives of the Orcs where they effected their own escape (with some luck), then under the protection of superior beings again as they had been all along: Gandalf-Theoden, then Theoden-Eowyn for Merry and Gandalf for Pippin. Each rises to the occasion to be a hero in the fight for Minas Tirith, acting with bravery and good instincts, then Merry falls under the purview of Faramir/the Warden of Healing, and Pippin is a grunt in the army, with Aragorn and Gandalf at the apex. Then they literally under the shadow of Gandalf all the way to the borders of the Shire, and after that on their own.
As we're wondering how much of what Tolkien was deliberate and how much just made a good story, I wonder how deliberate this construct was in his mind, and if he ever considered altering it? Clearly Sam and Frodo are on their own after crossing the Anduin/Rubicon, and maybe that was the contrast he sought? Or maybe it was just organic to the story, but it sure does stand out.
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Kimi
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Mar 22, 12:21am
Post #28 of 32
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about dear Merry. I agree, we do see a rare amount of introspection from him. He's quite self-aware, and also quite insightful about those he cares for.
Some belated thoughts on a couple of questions:
We read that Pippin also swore allegiance to Denethor- why do you think Tolkien would see the importance that the hobbits align their interest in this way? How do Pippin and Merry know the importance of aligning their interests with these two great countries?
I do think it's relevant that Merry and Pippin are "hobbit nobility", with hereditary estates and titles. This swearing service in a formal way has a ceremonial element that's just a little closer to their experience than to that of most hobbits.
What particularly strikes me is that Pippin's oath comes in part out of a feeling of a debt owed to Boromir, whom he respected even before he owed him his life, and perhaps a spark of pride at his treatment by Denethor, while Merry's urge comes from a surge of affection for Theoden. "Filled with love for this old man", as you quote.
Discuss a little about Eowyn and Merry’s similarities of being left behind and the ways that we underestimate them. IN what ways have they been “left behind” and how does that affect their motivations to join the war in Gondor?
Eowyn has felt left behind/left out for a very long time. Gandalf to Eomer:
"My friend, you had horses, and deed of arms, and the free fields; but she, being 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."
Merry's experience is more recent, but there's a similar "not good enough", whether because of size or gender. Perhaps a difference is that Eowyn believes (for good reason) she is "good enough" as a warrior to be included in this war. Merry knows he's no warrior, but wants to do his part anyway, for the sake of those he loves (which now includes Theoden). And, as Theoden says, "Great heart will not be denied."
The Passing of Mistress Rose
My historical novels
Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?
- A Room With a View
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Mar 22, 9:03pm
Post #29 of 32
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Hobbit nobles, and Princess Diana
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One thing I learned watching The Crown was that Maggie Thatcher was a fish out of water when invited to Windsor Castle, feeling awkward in nearly every setting, and of course no one bothered to give her a crash course in etiquette so she'd fit in. They made the contrast with Diana, daughter of an earl and, while not super-rich, still a traveler in aristocratic circles, so she knew the society rules when she met Charles.
That's my context for Sam (Maggie Thatcher) and M&P (Diana), with the latter perhaps unlikely to have knights sworn to their fathers, but still familiar somehow with the concept, and love Sam though we do, we can't really expect him to know the rules to navigate the situation as well.
I do think it's relevant that Merry and Pippin are "hobbit nobility", with hereditary estates and titles. This swearing service in a formal way has a ceremonial element that's just a little closer to their experience than to that of most hobbits.
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uncle Iorlas
Nargothrond
Mar 26, 9:32pm
Post #30 of 32
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the great of the small and the small of the great
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Each rises to the occasion to be a hero in the fight for Minas Tirith, acting with bravery and good instincts, then Merry falls under the purview of Faramir/the Warden of Healing, and Pippin is a grunt in the army, with Aragorn and Gandalf at the apex.
I think it should be noted here that Pippin, whether or not he does some grunting (I’m sure Aragorn and Gandalf do some grunting as well), is present at the Morannon as a dignitary. As with Gimli and Legolas, he is here to bear witness for, do honor to, and represent his people. And (as I am sure Gandalf has never forgotten for half a second) he is exactly the right person for this job, the heir apparent of the right and proper Thain of the Shire. He has been treated this way consistently by everyone in Gondor (save perhaps Bergil) since the moment he showed up on Shadowfax’ back. It’s a standout example of Tolkien’s ability to refrain from stating central facts that he even tells us that everyone in Minas Tirith is calling Pip ernil i pheriannath strictly in terms of the youth's flatfooted discomfort with the fact, never mentioning that they are exactly literally correct.
I would not have said Pippin has a soft personality. Even his feckless youthful tendency to blunder into trouble is an old folkloric heroic trope; he does after all usually acquit himself admirably when the trouble comes. He has that key trait of a born royal in Tolkien’s world, that he inspires the people around him; when everyone else is sleepwalking along under Denethor’s orders, for example, Pippin is the one who breaks out of that blind obedience and even manages to talk some of the servants into a degree of rebellion, to say nothing of Beregond.
It makes the two younger hobbits an interesting pair that they are inexactly matched; they are more or less the heirs to the two most important families in the Shire, but one is to be the Thain and the Brandybucks aren’t exactly of the Shire at all, but a neighboring enclave of less lineage. Pippin is young and subject to lapses of judgment, whereas Merry is of all the hobbits the most likely to have made a plan B and plan C; he is the elder and far the more sensible, but it seems written in the wind nevertheless that Pippin has the more lordly destiny, marked by that charismatic spark. Come the scouring, Pippin talks back to the big men with a speech or two, but it’s Merry who lays the plans.
We must remember that in Tolkien’s world, and nowhere more conspicuously than in the acts of the hobbits, humility is a paramount virtue, indeed a weapon in its own right. This somewhat cuts against the author’s delight in the iconography of noble descent and kingly glory, and that friction reaches its most energetically focused creative effect in the hobbits. Which is the greater of these two young hobbit heroes? I could debate it with myself all day. Pippin is unmistakably born for glory, in the measure of his people—and Merry embodies the signal virtue of that people, their humility, right down to the marrow of his bones, and so he ends up performing a deed of martial glory unequaled by anybody in the pages of this book except Eowyn, right beside him. Just as no one wise or powerful could ever have borne the Ring, which seduces power with power, so no man of might could hinder the lord of the Nazgûl; his end could only have been brought about by someone not a man at all. And in the event he faced two such: a pair of heroes with the courage and resolve to pit themselves against a demon way out of their weight class, both of whom were explicitly instructed by the mighty military men to stay home and leave heroic deeds to the less humble. When in fact, in a sort of miniature of the destruction of Sauron himself, the mighty men are automatically disqualified from ever being able to vanquish the mighty villain.
It’s become more and more apparent to me in recent years, as I read this book to younger and younger children, how delicately and deliberately constructed the drumroll of Merry’s fretting about being useless, insignificant, and left behind really is. By the time Book V has begun, the author has unmistakably determined what deed Merry is on his way to do.
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Ethel Duath
Gondolin
Mar 27, 1:08am
Post #31 of 32
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"breaks out of that blind obedience"
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Yes, oh yes.
You've put Pippin in an entirely new light for me. Although I noticed this, I never gave it the weight it (he) deserved.
" . . . Tolkien’s ability to refrain from stating central facts." I had noticed this. It's one of the key reasons why his writing is so effective. Oddly, this kind of thing makes the reader work harder, to try to figure out what is meant by what is not quite said. But instead of repelling or exhausting, it pulls us in.
(This post was edited by Ethel Duath on Mar 27, 1:08am)
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Ethel Duath
Gondolin
Mar 27, 1:13am
Post #32 of 32
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And, "Mods way, way up" (for those who remember that).//
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