The Importance of The Scouring

The Scouring of The Shire is one of the largest and most discussed omissions in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy alongside The House of Tom Bombadil. Knowledge of the event often serves as a litmus test for whether or not someone has read the book or just seen the films. While its absence from the movies can be justified by its effect on the film's pacing, its importance to the overall story in the literature should be undisputed. George R. R. Martin once said, “Every time I read it, I understand the brilliance of that segment more and more.” However, the transition from the ultimate engagements against the forces of evil at the Black Gate and the fires of Mount Doom to a skirmish that seems incredibly domestic or trivial often puzzles or even frustrates many during their initial or repeat read-throughs, feeling like a step down from the climactic ending of the Hobbits' adventures abroad. Why then do so many deem it important and necessary? What multifaceted, layered meaning is Martin referring to?

​Those who have spent any time studying Tolkien will understand the myriad ways myths inform his world-building and character crafting. The "monomythic" formula, as described by Joseph Campbell in his seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, is broadly composed of three parts: separation, initiation, and the return. The final step, as described by Campbell, occurs when the hero comes back home with “the power to bestow boons on his fellow men”, having gone through the trials of the long journey, wholly transformed and capable of returning “the flow of life into the body of the world.” It is here that we can best observe the effect of the adventure on the hero, or, in the case of The Lord of the Rings, heroes. Their nature and abilities during the homecoming stand in contrast to their original selves. In The Return of the King, we see this previously in another character, Aragorn. Upon the apparent King's return to his rightful seat, after his separation and initiation, represented by his quest with The Fellowship and descent into the paths of the dead, he enters Minas Tirith, now willing and able to assume the throne and begin curing the people of Gondor, his healing abilities confirming the completion of his transformation from Ranger to King.  

The Hobbits return completely transformed from how they left, now elevated above their peers, not just in appearance, clad in armor and well-armed, but also in technical ability and heroic quality. The four heroes, seasoned by their perilous journey, now laugh in the face of the guards sent to detain them. This distinguishes them wholly from their fellow hobbits, who have lived in abject fear and obedience to Saruman’s decrees. Merry and Pippin, armed with the experience they have acquired as knights, effectively marshal the long-dormant forces of The Shire to outmaneuver and decisively rout Saruman's sheriffs. Sam, using the enchanted soil granted to him by Galadriel, re-greens The Shire and grows a new party tree. Beyond these acts, the three of them repeatedly take decisive action to swiftly dismantle Saruman's machinations. Following their heroics, Merry, Pippin, and Sam will all become well-respected hobbits and leaders among their people. Their arcs, for the most part, conclude in this chapter.

In fact, it is arguably Frodo, the main character, who plays the least significant role in the restoration of The Shire. Although he has returned physically, his travels have left an indelible wound on his soul, making him incapable of feeling at home in The Shire. While we see a growth in prowess among the other Hobbits, in Frodo, we observe the true nature of the burden he bore and the sacrifice he made. His desire to show mercy to Saruman represents his moral transformation. However, the lack of a Campbell-style return in the mold of his friends and Aragorn highlights that Frodo has not fully returned victorious and is struggling spiritually, and it contextualizes his decision to travel to the Undying Lands to seek final healing.

Through the events of this chapter, we again observe the thematic undertone of Faramir's famous declaration that he does not find intrinsic value in armaments but “love[s] only that which they defend,” making clear the rightwise purpose of taking up arms. Having spent the entire book aiding the free peoples of Middle-earth in the defense of their lands, the occupation and industrialization of their own home is a dark twist of fate, threatening to invalidate all that our heroes have accomplished. Sam's dreaded vision in the mirror of Galadriel is said to have been underwhelming in contrast to what he experienced upon seeing Bagshot Row again, bursting into tears beside the felled party tree. The feelings evoked in this chapter capture an extremely painful sentiment often only felt by the losing side in a war, not the victors, the feeling that it was all for nothing. What was the point in defeating Sauron and even setting off beyond the borders of Hobbiton if it was always destined to end this way? This combination of loss and despair is among the most difficult emotions any character in the book experiences, representing the stinging feeling shared by many who have survived combat and returned home to find it different from what they remembered.

The confirmation of our characters’ completion of their heroic journey and the nuanced portrayal of what it means to return home make The Scouring of The Shire not just a necessary formality but also an exploration of a deeply complicated subject. This makes it critical to the understanding of Tolkien's work as a whole and justifies its position as the penultimate chapter of The Lord of the Rings. In accordance with Martin's quote, I look forward to discovering further meaning in my next reading of this difficult yet brilliant chapter.

​-SDV

Why isn't Frodo a Hero?

Is Frodo the hero of The Lord of the Rings? In many ways, he is not – as discussed in class, Frodo does not get the happy, “heroic” ending that many other characters get. Sam settles down with the girl he had a hopeless crush on, has 14 kids, and lives out his days as mayor. Aragorn marries the princess, becomes king, and has the happily ever after of fairytale dreams. Frodo succumbs to the ring at the last moment – only saved by Gollum -- and returns home to find himself so utterly changed he no longer belongs.  

On the Fields of Cormallen, for a brief moment in the story, Frodo is a hero. Aragorn pulls him to the right of him and calls upon all the men and captains to “Praise them with great praise!”. And a minstrel of Gondor sings, “‘For I will sing to you of Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom’.” Frodo is the titular character of a great poem!

Yet Frodo is not a hero in the Shire. Sam says, in the end of The Return of the King that “Frodo dropped quietly out of all the doings of the Shire, and Sam was pained to notice how little honour he had in his own country. Few people knew or wanted to know about his deeds and adventures; their admiration and respect were given mostly to Mr. Meriadoc and Mr. Peregrin and (if Sam had known it) to himself.” Frodo loses this honour upon entering Shire: it is Merry, Pippin and Sam that gain the prestige of their mission. Frodo cannot translate his journey into the leadership and community that the rest of the friends do. Instead, it consumes and isolates him.

In their last conversation, Frodo consoles Sam on his departure, and says that “‘Your time may come. Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot be always torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do’”. Frodo is, in the completion of his quest, literally torn in two: Gollum permanently bites off his finger. He is, as he tells Sam “too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.” Frodo is, in a way that wanders from the path of the usual hero’s journey, changed in a way that does not allow him to go home.

Frodo’s journey also drifts from the original fairy tale setup established by Tolkien in Tree and Leaf: that the true form of the fairy-tale is the “eucatastrophic tale”, where “the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn””. Essential to the fairy tale is this turn, which allows this relief, “a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart” to any man listening to it “however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures”.

Frodo has no true turn, no eucatastrophic ending. At best he ends his journey accepting his permanent loss. In the Shire, he does not become a hero of the old ways, fighting and leading. He tries to prevent bloodlust. Tolkien says in his letter to Christopher Tolkien, of the dangers of war that “But so short is human memory and so evanescent are its generations that in only about thirty years there will be few or no people with that direct experience which alone goes really to the heart. The burnt hand teaches the most about fire”. The ills of war are not only often felt primarily by the soldiers, but even they forget and go on to glamorize them. Frodo has seen the dangers of war, and comes away as Tolkien does: dispirited and disturbed by it, even as memory fades.

Shippey writes that Bilbo is a modern character in a fantasy setting. Frodo is, much like Bilbo, a modern hero among fantastical ones. Tolkien says in letter five on Rob’s death that “I feel just the same to both of you – nearer if anything and very much in need of you – I am hungry and lonely of course – but I don’t feel a member of a little complete body now”. Just as Frodo is repeatedly described in the end of the book to be never again whole, Tolkien described the losses of the Great War.

Tolkien longs to write a mythology for England. But he could not make Frodo the mythological hero. He bemoans to Christopher in his letter “The utter stupid waste of war, not only material but moral and spiritual, is so staggering to those who have to endure it. And always was (despite the poets) and always will be (despite the propagandists) – not of course that it has not is and will be necessary to face it in an evil world.” Frodo is, on the Fields of Cormallen, a hero spoken of in a poem. But when Frodo falls ill during Spring in the Shire, and says to Farmer Cotton, while clutching his neck that “It is gone for ever, he said, ‘and now all is dark and empty’”, we see his journey end not in the “eucatastrophe” of a fairy tale, but in the moral and spiritual loss of war.

Merry, at the spot where they “all started out together” says that “It seems almost like a dream that has slowly faded”. But Frodo has seen the evil of the world, the waste of war. To go back to where they are “To me it feels more like falling asleep again.”

- ZJ

Down the Hobbit Hole

    Why hobbits? Why do they exist in Middle-earth and why are our protagonists hobbits?

    In “Creative Anachronisms,” Shippey draws a parallel between hobbits and rabbits. Rabbits do not naturally live in the British Isles and were only introduced in the thirteenth century, so there does not exist an Old English word for them, yet Tolkien chose to include them in his world. In fact, rabbits are one of the relatively few animals explicitly mentioned in LotR. In letter 316 to R.W. Burchfield, Tolkien even defined hobbit as a “hole-dweller,” much like rabbits with their famous rabbit holes, and as Shippey points out, Bilbo is often described as a rabbit in The Hobbit. The reason for this is that, like rabbits, hobbits are distinctly English but also distinctly not Old English: they like “fried fish and chips” (book 4 chapter 4, p. 333), smoke pipe-weed (despite tobacco only arriving in Europe in the 16th century), and settle their disputes using contracts written in modern financial language rather than violence (Shippey, “The Ring as ‘Equalizer’”). Essentially, the hobbits exist somewhat as a stand-in for a modern English spirit that lets modern readers relate to them and discover Middle-earth through them, as opposed to the more historically correct Men.

    This approach can be further refined by considering the contradictory nature of what it means to be English: small-town unadventurous folk who love singing and eating vs. heroic global conquerors with their epic legends. The first, embodied by the hobbits, has its historical roots in the Anglo-Saxons whereas the second, similar to the Gondorians with their Númenórean ancestors, are more comparable to the Normans that conquered them. Not much is known about the origins of the hobbits before crossing the Brandywine, like the Anglo-Saxons and their migration over the English Channel, whereas the Men and Elves have very rich histories. Although Tolkien was more interested in telling stories of the latter, the story would be incomplete without the former.

    In class, we discussed how each of the four core hobbits of LotR (plus Bilbo) is characterized by a different aspect of service and consequently heroism, but I am intrigued by the less heroic, yet equally devoted, servants, Gollum and Wormtongue. Gollum devoted hundreds of years to the Ring, and when he lost it, he scoured the ends of Middle-earth (including Mordor) to find it and get it back. Depending on whether you view the Ring as its own autonomous entity imposing its evil will on others or just something that magnifies the evil that already exists in others, Gollum is either the single most disciplined or the single least disciplined character in the story (given Shippey's discussion of the word). It is this dedication to the Ring that makes him unintentionally destroy it. If you define heroism by the outcome rather than the intention, then this is one of the most heroic acts in LotR. Ironically, this is very similar to the dilemma that came up in our discussion on whether Frodo failed his mission or not, and if you instead define heroism by the intention, then Frodo is not particularly heroic either since he chose to keep the Ring. I only mention this because it happens a second time—with Wormtongue—and as we know, Tolkien loves his comparable pairs of characters. Wormtongue dutifully does Saruman’s bidding, sabotaging the Rohirrim and subjugating the Shire, until he reaches a breaking point and kills his master. Again, if he had been any less devoted in his service, such as by standing up for himself or defecting after the fall of Isengard, Saruman would have survived since Frodo was willing to spare his life. As far as I can tell, Tolkien does not give a conclusive answer to the question: is service only heroic when the one you are serving is good? 

    However, these two instances speak to an important aspect of Frodo’s story: his lack of agency in practice. The narrative seems to undermine or completely disregard the choices he makes, such as keeping the Ring a secret from the rest of the hobbits, embarking on his quest alone (leaving the Shire, Rivendell, and Emyn Muil), keeping the Ring at Mount Doom, sparing Saruman’s life, etc.. I find this aspect particularly interesting because it distinguishes him from his three companions—each of which gets to decide their own fate—yet makes him much more realistic. When reading letter 5 to G.B. Smith, I couldn’t help but correlate Frodo’s fate with that of many modern soldiers, drafted into a foreign war and stripped of his agency, only to return home to a barely recognizable country, injured and sick. Again, Tolkien is able to incorporate both the modern and the ancient with Frodo’s tragic ending and the fairytale endings of the other hobbits. This is similar to how the realistic evil of the scouring of the Shire serves to balance out the fairytale evil of Sauron’s Mordor. I also want to mention that the core hobbits mature during their quest, but all of them, except Sam, seem to eventually “outgrow” hobbit society and evolve into something that isn’t quite hobbit but isn’t quite Man, either—three-quarter-lings, if I may. Sam, formerly just a gardener, heals the Shire and becomes its mayor—because remember, the hands of a king mayor are the hands of a healer—whereas Merry and Pippin eventually move to Gondor, and Bilbo and Frodo seemingly transcend the mortal world altogether by sailing west for Valinor.

The town of Richecourt in 1918 (Library of Congress) for reference, since the scouring of the Shire is missing from the movies.

    I think that part of the reason why the Ring-bearer had to be a hobbit is encapsulated by their distaste for seafaring (except for those weirdo Brandybucks). The uncontrollable and unpredictable nature of the sea represents both possibility and peril: it is the route to discovery, but also to overreach. For example, the Númenóreans attempt to transcend death by sailing to Valinor, but the sea ends up destroying them. This hubris is distinctly missing in the hobbits who do not seem to have many aspirations through which they can be corrupted. Hobbits, who barely wish to leave home, definitely do not dream of conquering distant lands. Boromir was so easily corrupted by the Ring because of his desire to save Gondor and become king, whereas the Ring had no effect on Tom Bombadil who is already perfectly content with his life as it is, and Sam was even able to give it up after carrying it for two days because he only wants to serve Frodo. I think this tells us something about how Tolkien views morality: the defeat of great evil does not come from greater power, but from the refusal of it; and such refusal is most likely to be found among those who never sought greatness to begin with.

-ME

The Allure of Elves, Or, How Love of Love

            Upon my first watch of The Fellowship of the Ring, I found myself drawn by Arwen, Galadriel, Legolas, and even low-opacity Elrond, as funny as that might sound. Elves with their ethereal glow drew me in, and in other fantasy media, elves are my go-to favorite characters when they are present (i.e. Astarion from Baldur’s Gate 3). Samwise Gamgee and I share the same enthusiasm for the Elves of lore, with us both being enchanted by the tales that we both have heard, heard by the former and seen by the latter. It truly is something that is quite odd, for in older tales, Elves are presented as some sort of mischievous creatures and not the image of serenity we think of usually in more modern media (except for Christmas media, of course, but we shan’t brush upon that in this post). So I began to wonder what really drew people like me to really like the Elves of Middle-Earth. So, using Tolkien’s own letters and the day’s lecture (plus some of my own tidbits of knowledge), I set out to find out. 

One of the key points that I came across over and over again is the nature of love and its connection to the Elves. That did not surprise me. I have seen many fans in online spaces fawn over the romance of Arwen and Aragorn, with the most notable aspect of their romance in these spaces being that Arwen gave up her immortality to be with Aragorn, her love. Arwen, upon becoming Queen of the Reunited Kingdom, gives Frodo her place on the ship to Valinor. Though this sacrifice seems like a fairytale at first, there is the “bitter and the sweet”, as Arwen described her (and Lúthien’s) sacrifice of leaving her Elven family and forging a new one with the addition of human death. Arwen and Aragorn have a happy marriage, with many children, a peaceful kingdom, and each other. When Aragron passes, she travels to Lórien and passes of a broken heart in the place where they first fell in love. Imagine the pain of heartbreak extended over millenia, where Arwen would have to endure such tragic loss and be unable to join Aragorn

Tolkien himself writes about his Lúthien and his Arwen, his wife Edith. As we have discussed, the love between them withstood much turbulence to persevere. The tale, though written as a somewhat cautionary tale, cannot help but ooze with the love he holds for his wife. He describes his tough decision: choosing between “...disobeying and grieving (or deceiving) a guardian who had been a father to me, more than most real fathers, but without any obligation, and ‘dropping’ the love-affair until I was 21” (Letters no. 43), with the addition of not regretting waiting until he was 21, but stating that it did personally affect him very much being away from Edith. Despite him being away from his future wife, the love he had for her withstood separation and the many trials he undertook on the path of their relationship. She, as Tolkien described, could have gone off many married someone else, but they found and chose each other even after years of separation, her sacrificing her prospects for his self-described “moderate degree” and "dwindling pounds” and even the chance of her becoming a widow for love and family. Such a choice seems romantic yet tragic, much like Arwen’s and Lúthien’s; it is one that could have gone another way had certain events happened, yet both Tolkien’s choice of love and Edith’s choice of love withstood trials, and it came out victorious. 

Then I thought about vampires. I think about vampires a lot, actually. Vampires, much like Elves, are so otherworldly that I cannot be helped but to be drawn to them. Louis du Point du Lac says it best in Anne Rice’s novel Interview with the Vampire:

“Do you think us beautiful, magical, our white skin, our fierce eyes? Oh, I remember perfectly what mortal vision was, the dimness of it, and how the vampire’s beauty burned through that veil, so powerfully alluring, so utterly deceiving!” (Rice 261).

This quote, which comes towards the end of the novel, is meant to dissuade a character from becoming a vampire, to which Louis attempts to contrast the nature of the vampire by saying that all that glitters is not gold. The immortal and beautiful vampires shoulder the burden of not being human, and living such long lives oftentimes alone, plagued with many tragedies. Louis speaks from a place of humanity, where he wants to preserve the little he has and the life of another, for his choice plagued him even after the events of the story.

Now, I know you’re wondering, thinking “God, Nicole, how does Interview with the Vampire fit into a discussion on the Elves of Middle-Earth?” 

Well, to that I say that immortality in both the worlds of Middle-Earth and in multiple vampire media (Anne Rice’s in particular) are essentially two sides of the same coin. Part of the reason I like vampire media so much is the issue of mortality, and the curse of eternal living. I find the mortality aspect of the immortal fascinating; those who still bear mortal issues oftentime feel miserably trapped by immortality. Louis du Point du Lac retains his “mortal nature” through the unwillingness to let his human side go; he loves, which is enough for him to stay grounded in life despite being dead. When he loses the people he loves most, all of that humanness that he kept was lost, and he was left to shoulder the burden of eternal life with no one to share it with. Louis cannot “un-become” a vampire. His curse is immortal life, and the only way to lift is to die, which is what he sought in the first place. The opposite side of the coin is the Elves, where they are able to relinquish their burden of prolonged life for… death! It is a strange paradox for Elves as compared to vampires and creatures. The more I thought about it, though, the more it made sense to me as to why I liked both creatures. 

The issue of humanity is essentially the same. Elves are aspects of the humane, where they express a “devoted love for the physical world” as Tolkien says in Letter 181. Even so, their immortality allows them to watch, caring from afar while shouldering the care. In another letter, Tolkien describes it so:

“The Elves were sufficiently longeval to be called by Man 'immortal'. But they were not unageing or unwearying. Their own tradition was that they were confined to the limits of this world (in space and time), even if they died, and would continue in some form to exist in it until 'the end of the world'. But what 'the end of the world' portended for it or for themselves they did not know(though they no doubt had theories). Neither had they of course any special information concerning what 'death' portended for Men. They believed that it meant 'liberation from the circles of the world', and was in that respect to them enviable. And they would point out to Men who envied them that a dread of ultimate loss, though it may be indefinitely remote, is not necessarily the easier to bear if it is in the end ineluctably certain : a burden may become heavier the longer it is borne.” (Letters no. 245)” 

    The burden can only be lifted through such a human thing like death. 

I am drawn to vampires mainly due to their connection to humanity. Oftentimes, the expression of love, whether it be the last remnants of humanity or showcases of lust through the mechanizations of vampirism. It is why I really like Interview with the Vampire, for the struggle for humanity and the lament of losing it was paramount, and that drew me in. Conversely, it is also why I was drawn to the Arwen and the Elves. The sacrifices they are willing to make for their loved ones shows more humanity than anything. Sacrificing one’s eternal life for love made for such a compelling yet heartbreaking tale that I would not have helped to be drawn. Love is one of the things that makes humans truly human; Christian doctrine (at least, the part that I went over in another class) even dictates that love comes from God, and the love that God gives proves His Creation. Love is a human response, and to love is to be human.

—NPM

Love and Loss, or the Life of a Wraith

The idea that death was a wound has always seemed obvious to me. I have been fortunate enough not to have lost many people who are close to me, but the ones I have lost so far have hurt deeply. While the “Gift of Eru Illuvatar” sounds like a gift on paper, experiencing it does not make it feel much like a gift. When reading the Athrabeth, Finrod’s arguments sounded noble and high minded, but Andreth’s arguments made a lot of sense to me as a human. As a human, loss is certain, and that feels far more like a curse than a gift. With my disposition towards death being bad, I am captivated by the stories of Beren and Luthien and Aragorn and Arwen. From my negative view on death I can’t imagine what kind of strength of love would have Arwen and Luthien trade endless life for the certainty of loss and a grave. Finrod explains it from the Elves’ view, that immortality may not in fact be all positives, an immortal being with just a fëa (spirit) and no hröa (body) is a fate worse than death, as one remains bound to Arda. However, I still struggle to understand how the type of endless life that the Elves possess and knowing you will see your family and loved ones again, even with its drawbacks, can be a worse bond than the certainty of grief that Andreth faces.

It really stuck with me in class when it was said that, “She traded endless twilight for the brightness of one mortal lifetime filled with love, laughter, scraped knees, bedtime stories, and the wild, irreplaceable joy of watching her child grow.” Neither the marriages of Beren and Luthien or Aragorn and Arwen are “happy ever afters,” they both involved bitterness and loss. The story of Aragorn and Arwen is especially sad as Arwen dies alone in the now abandoned forests of Lorien. As she says during the tale “As wicked fools I scorned them, but I pity them at last. For if this is indeed, as the Eldar say, the gift of the One to Men, it is bitter to receive." (Appendix A, Part I) Finrod can speak of it as a gift, for he will never have to face the loss, which Arwen understands now is why Humans speak of it as a curse, yet she knew it was a certainty when she made her choice and chose it all the same. 

This is where Letter 43 enters the picture. On the surface it may come off as a grumpy letter about the failings of love and the inherent limitations of the genders, but going under that I think it is cutting to the core of what marriage is. As humans we are going to die, getting married is guaranteeing yourself or your partner an immense amount of pain in death, and yet choosing to get married anyway. Choosing not to get married would save you some pain, but it would be like choosing not to interact with the world. With that logic we could try and forgo all bonds of relationships with others to escape pain, but then we would be like wraiths. Not interacting would be the worst of both worlds, one would be like a wraith described by Finrod as a fate worse than death, but then still dying anyway. It would be like receiving that one day of a human life time and choosing to waste it. In today’s world that could look like refusing to make friends because friends can leave or refusing to fall in love because it will inevitably cause pain. The point is not that these refusals fail to save us from pain, to some extent they might, but they will also prevent us from experiencing the things that would make the pain worth bearing. As Haldir states in the Fellowship of the Ring “and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” (Book 2, Chapter 6) I am beginning to wrap my head around the fact that maybe loss is what makes love so special. When Edith died, Tolkien wrote Luthien on her grave and when he died, Beren was inscribed under his name on the tombstone. The entire story of The Lord of the Rings is only possible because of the very marriage between Beren and Luthien. The descendants that result from Luthien trading that eternal twilight for one human day and a child, with all of the joy and sadness attached, play key roles in Sauron’s defeat. 

Towards the end of the Athrabeth, after Andreth argues that maybe Eru is a far off king letting princes do as they will, Finrod speaks of something stranger: the Creator entering into Arda and healing it from within. Over the course of the discussion they have logically arrived at the idea of the Incarnation. In Christianity, God does take a body, a hröa, as Jesus Christ and allows it to be destroyed on the cross. If death is a wound, it is something that God entered his own creation to share with us. If Jesus dies with us, then death must somehow be a gift. That's a part of the class that I am still processing, and the idea of death still scares me and I suspect it will for a long time, but maybe Finrod is right, and death is what makes life meaningful. Wouldn't a single day that changes be more meaningful than an eternal, never changing twilight?

—EN