Wow, another book down! We’re officially halfway through LotR. Is anyone else feeling a little burnt out? I don’t normally read on a schedule, so this is a little less fun for me than I’d normally find it but I am FORGING ON. Because the only way to forget about stupid crap is to get wrapped up in other things, right? Right.
SOOOOOOOOOOO, Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn were all riding to ROHAAAAAAAAAN. There’s a lot of enmity towards Gandalf there for a few reasons.
- He’s usually seen as the bearer of bad news.
- Wormtongue.
Okay, seriously. Why does anyone give any credence to anything someone named WORMTONGUE says? Really? Why. I don’t get this.
Háma lets Gandalf take his staff into meet Théoden, even though HE’S BEEN TOLD NOT TO. This can probably be attributed to the silver tongued deviltry we see later at Isengard between Gandalf and Saruman, yes? Anyway. What follows puts nothing in my head so much as a good old fashioned tent revival. Théoden, King of the Mark, has obviously been twisted and aged prematurely, but Gandalf yells at him and suddenly he’s all better.
I know it’s horrible. I made it myself so of course it is. No, but seriously, it does make me laugh.
Then, um…I just realized that my reading for comprehension was crap this week, guys. That means that instead of a total summary, I’m going to talk about things I want to talk about.
- Battle of Hornburg. I know we haven’t watched the movie yet, but Legolas clearly WISHES FOR MIRKWOOD ARCHERS THAT HE DOES NOT GET. I don’t understand why it was necessary to have a billion elves show up at Helm’s Deep, and then have most of them die. That. Did. Not. Happen. So, my reading of this part was totally clouded over by my anger at the movie. Also, PJ killed Haldir. WTS DID HALDIR EVER DO TO YOU, PJ?! Grrr.
- Aragorn’s “parley” with the Uruk-hai. ”WE ARE THE FIGHTING URUK-HAI!” Um, yeah. We get it. You fight, that’s what you do. Good for you guys, but, um…yeah – you’re still about to get destroyed by the Huorns. Ha! Jerks. Also, the whole “We are the fighting Uruk-hai!” over and over made me think of this:
- HUORNS KILLING ORCS! Loved this. So much.
- Háma dies offscreen and we find out about it after the fact. This made me sadder this time because it reminded me of why I hated JKR for killing Lupin and Tonks and just showing us their bodies. I get that it’s showing us what war is like, but fuuuuuuuuuuuuuu. [sad face]
- Everyone else loved Pippin and Merry smoking their pipe-weed and Merry trying to give Théoden a history lesson when they meet him, right? Good.
- Legolas would totally be one of those passive aggressive anti-smokers who fake coughs at people that are smoking across the street, I just know it. ”I’m gonna go outside and watch the clouds while you smoke, even though I totally want to hear the story. HINTHINT.”
See? Meg’s much better at bringing the funny.
- Please keep in mind the Mystery of Halfling’s Leaf at Isengard. It becomes kind of important later on. Seriously.
- I know Kate talked about this a little today on her post, but I’m pretty sure that the Palantir is the first inanimate object we’ve seen that’s actually immediately malevolent and exerts outside force. I don’t buy this whole “BUT THE RING MADE HIM DO IT JUST BY BEING AROUND!” garbage for Boromir, and I don’t remember having this discussion with anyone ever before the movies came out. This leads me to believe that everyone’s mind has been corrupted by Peter Jackson’s writing team. I still heart you even if you disagree with me, but I’m not going to talk about that because I’ll get shouty. You can talk about it in the comments if you wish.
- Oh, and Saruman’s cloak that they couldn’t tell what colour it was? Totally put this song in my head:
Shut up. I love Dolly Parton.
Okay. I know this is much shorter than everything has been so far, but I’m just not into writing today. Feel free to talk about the many things I missed in the comments.
