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** The Scouring of the Shire ** 2) Battle of Bywater
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Ettelewen
Rohan

Oct 29 2016, 3:06am

Post #26 of 35 (1185 views)
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Yes, this is how I see ti [In reply to] Can't Post

Hobbits are quite conservative by nature. They do not condemn an entire race by the deeds of a few - they do know of the race of Men, after all, and do have some dealings with them on the fringes of The Shire. They recognize that these men are exceptions by their actions, and refer to them as "ruffians" for want of a better word.


enanito
Rohan

Oct 29 2016, 3:16am

Post #27 of 35 (1182 views)
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Interesting thoughts on 'ruffians' [In reply to] Can't Post

That's something to consider, that Tolkien uses this word to emphasize how the Hobbits wouldn't have much experience with these types of elements, so they'd just categorize them into something not really evil (since that would be quite foreign to them). More along the lines of uncontrolled mischief-makers, but they wouldn't really have lots of sub-categories for them since it was all new.

So the particular word Tolkien uses might not be the key, more the fact that whatever word he chose, is re-used ad nauseum :)


Elizabeth
Half-elven


Oct 29 2016, 7:59am

Post #28 of 35 (1180 views)
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"That is what you have been trained for." [In reply to] Can't Post

Gandalf, in last week's chapter:

Quote
‘I am with you at present,’ said Gandalf, ‘but soon I shall not be. I am not coming to the Shire. You must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for [emphasis mine]. Do you not yet understand? My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk to do so. And as for you, my dear friends, you will need no help. You are grown up now. Grown indeed very high; among the great you are, and I have no longer any fear at all for any of you.


What we see in this chapter is the result of this "training." Our Hobbits will not be intimidated by the ruffians, and will do what's necessary to arouse the more compliant Hobbits to defend themselves. This is why Gandalf has excused himself, and why we see no Rangers riding to the rescue. The Hobbits need to know their own strength.

What I find myself wondering, is when this "training" actually occurred. We certainly see our four Hobbits in peril, and working their way out of it with wit (M&P vs. the orcs, and with the Ents) and courage (F&S dealing with Gollum, orcs, exhaustion, starvation, etc.). What I don't see any of, either from the Hobbits or from the Hobbits accompanied with Men, is the kind of courageous confrontation and strategy they deploy in this chapter. They were not present at instances such as the "curing" of Théoden in Edoras, the confrontation with the Dead, and other relevant moments. So, my question to you is, where and when did this training occur?








squire
Half-elven


Oct 29 2016, 12:59pm

Post #29 of 35 (1173 views)
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Training Day [In reply to] Can't Post

I've thought the same as you, sometimes: the hobbits have never really had any proper military training in their part of the adventures of the Ring quest. So how do they know how to lead a resistance and to fight a battle?

We could argue that Merry and Pippin at least had plenty of time to observe the proper conduct of military forces prior to actual combat: Merry rode with the Rohirrim for a week, and Pippin served with the Guard of the Citadel. 'Offstage', that is at times that the book doesn't report, they would have had hours of exposure to military discipline, command and control, and the conduct of captains, marshals, riders, and men at arms. By the same thinking, even Frodo and Sam had several months in Gondor and in the riding back to the Shire, when they would have seen how armies and armed states conduct themselves.

But I don't think this is what Gandalf meant. The real training that the four travelers received was in their exposure to the moral and spiritual superiority of the Great and the Wise: simply traveling with Gandalf, Aragorn, Glorfindel, Boromir, Faramir, Theoden and Eomer, to name a few of their guides and companions, was a greater education for these hobbit than any others of the Shire folk could possibly have had. To command one must first believe that one can command, and that command is both necessary and useful. One must also understand the stakes of the fight, and the reasons why a risk of injury and death for ones followers is justified.

As Gandalf sees more clearly than even they do, our four heroes have been trained, simply by the existential nature of their adventures rather than by military exercises out of a handbook, to see the world and their roles in it in these elevated, and fatal, terms.



squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Archive: All the TORn Reading Room Book Discussions (including the 1st BotR Discussion!) and Footerama: "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
Dr. Squire introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary


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Modtheow
Lorien


Oct 31 2016, 1:59am

Post #30 of 35 (1128 views)
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Rosie [In reply to] Can't Post

I think it's surprising to read what Tolkien wrote about Rosie in his letters: "I think the simple 'rustic' love of Sam and his Rosie (nowhere elaborated) is absolutely essential to the study of his (the chief hero's) character, and to the theme of the relation of ordinary life (breathing, eating, working, begetting) and quests, sacrifice, causes, and the 'longing for Elves', and sheer beauty." (Letter 131).

Rosie doesn't just pop up in this chapter, though; she's mentioned a few times before this. Sam thinks of her (along with her brothers) a couple of times when he's remembering the Shire in the climb up Mount Doom. And there are some hints that other people recognize that Sam is in love with someone even if it's not explicitly stated: I wonder if that's who Sam is thinking about when Galadriel reads his mind and asks him if he wouldn't rather go home to the Shire, and he blushes. Or when Bilbo gives him a bag of gold in case he wants to get married. And I'm pretty sure Farmer Cotton recognizes why Sam wants to go check on Mrs. Cotton and Rosie when Cotton answers "with a grin" that Sam can go ahead even though Nibs is already guarding them. These instances all seem to me to indicate that people already know that Sam likes Rosie. And maybe Sam has been too shy to start a formal relationship with Rosie, but the way she greets him (one of my favorite parts of this chapter!) suggests that the two of them have had some kind of previous understanding about their relationship, even if it wasn't formalized as a betrothal yet.


Ethel Duath
Half-elven


Oct 31 2016, 2:59am

Post #31 of 35 (1115 views)
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Phrase of the week (thank you!) [In reply to] Can't Post

"That’s enough to put a smial on anyone’s face."



Elizabeth
Half-elven


Oct 31 2016, 6:18am

Post #32 of 35 (1109 views)
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Of course there was a relationship. [In reply to] Can't Post

It was close enough that Rosie knew, on The Day, that Sam would come home. That kind of psychic connection doesn't just happen. She would have been thinking of Sam, and he of her. In fact, I like to think the thoughts in his mind ran along the lines of the lovely bit of dialog in the movie. Whether they had any formal "understanding" or not, they definitely shared a love.








Otaku-sempai
Immortal


Oct 31 2016, 12:47pm

Post #33 of 35 (1096 views)
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Don't misunderstand... [In reply to] Can't Post

...I never meant to imply that they didn't already have feelings toward one another. All I meant was that Sam was too shy prior to the War of the Ring to do anything to formalize that bond. Rosie (with the old dramatic saw of a woman's intuition) was fully aware of how Sam felt, though he seemed to be a bit more clueless regarding the mind of his future life-mate.

"He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows." -- Favorite proverb of the wizard Ningauble of the Seven Eyes


No One in Particular
Lorien


Nov 12 2016, 3:23am

Post #34 of 35 (996 views)
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"It seems she didn't like me going abroad at all, poor lass" [In reply to] Can't Post

But Sam hadn't spoken because he felt he had a job to do. I never took that as being shy; he just knew he had a task to perform in that semi-supernatural way the the characters seem to possess from time to time, and he knew that it might be a job that required sacrifices that he couldn't in good conscience make if Rosie had an 'official' claim on him.

Life got in the way, you might say.

While you live, shine
Have no grief at all
Life exists only for a short while
And time demands an end.
Seikilos Epitaph


FarFromHome
Valinor


Nov 15 2016, 10:12pm

Post #35 of 35 (955 views)
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Agree that it wasn't shyness [In reply to] Can't Post

that kept Sam from "speaking". The implication to me is that Sam and Rose have been unofficial sweethearts forever - when Sam thinks of her on Mount Doom, he remembers things he did with her and her brothers "years ago", most likely when they were children. It's one of those old-fashioned relationships, I think, in which childhood sweethearts grow up together and marry when the time is right. For Sam, the time wasn't right until the uncertainty of what Frodo was planning was resolved, because until then Sam didn't feel he could tie himself down. I like to think that there are hints of his dilemma right from very early in the story, when Sam is walking home from the Green Dragon (and Gandalf is knocking on Frodo's study window, about to start the whole quest in motion). "Sam had more on his mind than gardening," we are told, and he walked home "whistling softly and thoughtfully". I reckon he's almost ready to propose to Rosie but still doesn't quite feel able to settle down, especially as he (and Merry and Pippin) have noticed how unsettled Frodo is. At this point, as you say, he thinks the "job" he has to do needs to take precedence over his personal life. But I do wonder whether he doesn't also secretly hope for a bit of freedom - and a chance to see elves, at least once - before he commits himself to marriage and all those mouths to feed!

They went in, and Sam shut the door.
But even as he did so, he heard suddenly,
deep and unstilled,
the sigh and murmur of the Sea upon the shores of Middle-earth.
From the unpublished Epilogue to the Lord of the Rings


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