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Beren IV
Mithlond
Feb 25 2008, 3:20am
Post #1 of 17
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The Bridge of Khazad-dûm I: Introduction
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Before launching fully into this week's discussion, I want to go over what we have encountered so far in Moria.
Apart from the Watcher in the Water at the gate, we have encountered no other evils in Moria, although Frodo has the nasty suspicion that something is following the Fellowship, and he did see a pair of eyes. Then there are also the signals that seemed to follow Pippin's throwing the rock into the well. But now, at last, we find out what happened to Balin's expedition.
1. On your first read through, what did you expect this chapter to contain?
2. The name, Khazad-dûm, sounds ominous, although of course it's just Khuzdul, the language of one of the Free Peoples, and not of the evil races at all. Does the name increase the sense of impending evil?
3. Upon knowing that Balin was dead, what did you imagine at first had killed him? Were you curious, or were you more worried about what else the Fellowship might encounter?
4. Did Gimli's song at the end of last chapter provide any insight into the atmosphere of what happens in this chapter? What about the shafts of light coming in from windows into the tomb?
Once a paleontologist, now a botanist, will be a paleobotanist
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ArathornJax
Nargothrond
Feb 25 2008, 6:30am
Post #2 of 17
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Long ages ago when I first read the chapter, I did not expect what happen to occur. I expected a fight and a challenge to leave the mines, but not a death. Then again, I was relatively young back 30 years ago or so when I first read it, so I don't think I was looking for anything in particular to happen, I was reading just to read and loving and enjoying the story. Oh the wonderful days of youth sometimes (though I would not EVER want to be a teenager again. Raising two reminds me of that every day!).
Khazad-dum was not ominous to me, but it did bring up in my mind back then what Erebor meant/means and if the dwarves had a secret name for it.
When I learned he was dead I figured an Orc and got him. I did keep thinking as Gandalf kept reading from the book of Marzbul to pack it away and get out! I mean, come on, your in enemy territory and close to an exit so get out. You can read history later.
Later I did realize that Gimli's song contains a foreshadow of what would happen in this chapter, especially after reading the confrontation that occurs. The shafts of light gave me hope that the Fellowship would survive since the light coming in signified hope to me. Funny how quickly that hope is taken from the Fellowship, but in reality, what happens has to happen to separate Frodo from the Fellowship and speed him on his way to Mt. Doom.
Let us then be up and doing
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
H.W. Longfellow
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N.E. Brigand
Gondolin
Feb 25 2008, 7:18pm
Post #3 of 17
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Is this the "dûm" that we must deem? //
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We're discussing The Lord of the Rings in the Reading Room, Oct. 15, 2007 - Mar. 22, 2009!
Join us Feb. 18-24 for "A Journey in the Dark".
(This post was edited by N.E. Brigand on Feb 25 2008, 7:28pm)
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
Feb 25 2008, 11:09pm
Post #4 of 17
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1. On your first read through, what did you expect this chapter to contain?
I was thinking Alec Guiness as Gandalf, William Holden as Aragorn, and Jack Hawkins as Boromir. And the Fellowship whistling the Colonel Bogey March: "Sauron has only got one...." Oops! Family board!
2. The name, Khazad-dûm, sounds ominous, although of course it's just Khuzdul, the language of one of the Free Peoples, and not of the evil races at all. Does the name increase the sense of impending evil?
Kaza-Doom! Sounds like Billy Batson's arch nemisis!
3. Upon knowing that Balin was dead, what did you imagine at first had killed him?
The author.
Were you curious, or were you more worried about what else the Fellowship might encounter?
Drums! i remember Five Came Back (1939) where drums were all we heard of the cannibals for 70 minutes. (I note the movie "inspired" the TOS "The Galileo Seven".)
4. Did Gimli's song at the end of last chapter provide any insight into the atmosphere of what happens in this chapter?
It's a sad Dirge for the Dwarves.
What about the shafts of light coming in from windows into the tomb?
Does rain come down too? Maybe that's how the Dwarves get fresh water. How do they keep the shafts from being stopped up by snow and falling rock? You'd think birds would nest up in there and stop it all up.
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The audacious proposal stirred his heart. And the stirring became a song, and it mingled with the songs of Gil-galad and Celebrian, and with those of Feanor and Fingon. The song-weaving created a larger song, and then another, until suddenly it was as if a long forgotten memory woke and for one breathtaking moment the Music of the Ainur revealed itself in all glory. He opened his lips to sing and share this song. Then he realized that the others would not understand. Not even Mithrandir given his current state of mind. So he smiled and simply said "A diversion.”
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Feb 26 2008, 1:33am
Post #5 of 17
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Now that's a good question about the windows.
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Obviously these are open shafts. (Well, if they did have glass in them, who'd volunteer for window-washing duty? Pretty soon they'd be too dirty to be of any use!)
So, what does happen to the water, snow, and debris that accumulate in them? Are they placed above cisterns to collect moisture? Do the Dwarves have special long-handled tools for cleaning them? And how practical are they, anyway - or are they for purely "ceremonial" purposes, similar to keeping an "eternal flame" at a gravesite?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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Beren IV
Mithlond
Feb 26 2008, 6:12am
Post #6 of 17
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I would guess they have doors up above
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to clean out something clogging the windows, unless the windows are kept unclogged by ancient magic. I get the impression that this is at an elevation where most of the precipitation is snow, however.
Once a paleontologist, now a botanist, will be a paleobotanist
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Feb 26 2008, 1:10pm
Post #7 of 17
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"service doors" which open out onto the higher sections of the window shafts?
Hmm...now I'm starting to wonder if those shafts aren't really emergency exits, with several accessibility points, and whether they have steps carved into them, or rungs embedded along the sides!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
Feb 26 2008, 5:15pm
Post #8 of 17
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Dûm-da-dûm-dûm
******************************************
The audacious proposal stirred his heart. And the stirring became a song, and it mingled with the songs of Gil-galad and Celebrian, and with those of Feanor and Fingon. The song-weaving created a larger song, and then another, until suddenly it was as if a long forgotten memory woke and for one breathtaking moment the Music of the Ainur revealed itself in all glory. He opened his lips to sing and share this song. Then he realized that the others would not understand. Not even Mithrandir given his current state of mind. So he smiled and simply said "A diversion.”
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acheron
Mithlond
Feb 26 2008, 7:21pm
Post #9 of 17
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Sauron has only got one... ring finger? //
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For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much -- the wheel, New York, wars, and so on -- while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man, for precisely the same reasons. -- Douglas Adams
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FarFromHome
Doriath
Feb 27 2008, 9:48am
Post #10 of 17
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... one eye-ball.
Shelob has lots but they're quite small..."
...and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew,
and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth;
and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore
glimmered and was lost.
(This post was edited by FarFromHome on Feb 27 2008, 9:49am)
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FarFromHome
Doriath
Feb 27 2008, 10:14am
Post #11 of 17
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Hmm...now I'm starting to wonder if those shafts aren't really emergency exits, with several accessibility points, and whether they have steps carved into them, or rungs embedded along the sides!
What if the shafts are just natural fissures in the rock? I think that if you were in total blackness under many feet of rock, the slightest chink of light would seem like a focused beam. And having been inside a glacier (the Mer de Glace in the French Alps) what I remember most is the way the light comes through the many feet of ice so that the whole thing is light-filled. So ice above on the mountainside above Moria might actually be protecting the fissure from getting filled up by other debris, while transmitting the light itself. (It's only in this area that's quite high up and nearing the exit of the mine that there are shafts, which would be reasonable if the shafts are natural.)
Perhaps all the dwarves had to do was position the tomb where the light fell naturally - or perhaps do some work in terms of reflection or refraction at the inner end of the shaft. I get the impression that their approach is to work with the nature of the stone (as Gimli describes how they would work in the Glittering Caves), and taking advantage of natural fissures would seem to fit in with this approach.
...and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew,
and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth;
and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore
glimmered and was lost.
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Eowyn of Penns Woods
Doriath
Feb 27 2008, 7:02pm
Post #12 of 17
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if they're anything like the windows along the Jungfraubahn railway route, they are used for emergencies...but to rescue people on the outside of the mountain from the inside. They started out as rock chuck-holes.
All those dwarves digging/picking tunnels needed some way to get rid of the debris... =)
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Feb 27 2008, 11:17pm
Post #13 of 17
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Now you've got me wondering: where DID they put all the rock they carved out of Khazad-dûm?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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Menelwyn
Nargothrond
Feb 28 2008, 12:26am
Post #14 of 17
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4. Did Gimli's song at the end of last chapter provide any insight into the atmosphere of what happens in this chapter?
Well, not for the first many times that I read the book, since I could never make it through that poem. As is the case with many of the other poems though, I've learned to like that one as a song, and so now I can see what insight it offers.
As an aside, this poem must have been composed before Balin's mission, considering how much Moria seems to be lost to the Dwarves at the end of the song. If Gimli's hopefulness about Balin all along is representative of what his kin believe, then the last verse cannot represent what they would at least hope is now the case in Moria.
In the song, we see what Moria was in the past, in all its glory. But near the end comes a sharp contrast with the way things are now. Even before the last verse, we have "Unwearied then were Durin's folk," (my emphasis, obviously) thus suggesting that now, they are wearied. Now everything is in decline, even the mountains themselves. The great accomplishments of the past no longer happen. Durin himself is lost for now: "the shadow lies upon his tomb." All is not completely lost yet--there is some hope for restoration when Durin returns--but now, things are not looking good for Moria.
That line about Durin's tomb seems particularly ominous for this chapter, where we are dealing so much with Balin's tomb.
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Beren IV
Mithlond
Feb 28 2008, 3:21am
Post #15 of 17
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If there were service doors here, then I would think that the Fellowship would use them to escape out into the sun, where they know they will encounter no orcs!
Once a paleontologist, now a botanist, will be a paleobotanist
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N.E. Brigand
Gondolin
Mar 22 2009, 6:59am
Post #16 of 17
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The shafts probably aren’t vertical.
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I imagine each shaft as turned a few degrees from the vertical, and intersected partway down by vertical shafts that drain the water. And the shafts are smooth, high in the mountains, and wide, all of which makes it difficult for birds to nest.
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