u/OldManGamer78

I just finished up listening to the FOTR audiobook which was my first listen/read through in about a decade. Many years ago I recall talking with a friend who is a fellow Tolkien fan about “The Breaking of the Fellowship” chapter and him asserting that Aragorn had a plan to split the Fellowship up with himself, Frodo, Sam, and Gimli traveling to Mordor while Boromir, Legolas, Merry, and Pippin went to Minas Tirith before everything fell apart at Amon Hen. I had no memory of this being mentioned in the book at the time, but realize now after my recent listen that my friend was correct.

It’s pure speculation since I don’t think Aragorn’s thinking on this is documented anywhere, but what do you think his logic was when coming up with these groupings? Also if Boromir had not forced the sudden break up of the Fellowship and this planned split of the group had actually happened is there any chance that the mission to destroy the Ring would have ended with success?

One of my favorite sitcoms growing up was Mr. Belvedere. Even though I remember it being a fairly silly show, looking back through the episodes list I realize now almost every other episode covered a “very special” topic. Drug use, teenage pregnancy, molestation, AIDS, alcoholism, eating disorders, Wesley psychically murdering his accordion teacher, etc. Were there any other sitcoms that leaned this much into serious topics or was Mr. Belvedere more of an outlier? I feel like other sitcoms from this era did maybe one or two “very special” episodes per season.

I just recently finished listening to the end of the “A Knife in the Dark” and the beginning of the “Flight to the Ford” chapters in FOTR. After Frodo is stabbed with a Morgul-blade Strider goes off briefly to see where the enemy went and when he comes back he says:

‘Look!’ he cried; and stooping he lifted from the ground a black cloak that had lain there hidden by the darkness. A foot above the lower hem there was a slash. ‘This was the stroke of Frodo’s sword,’ he said. ‘The only hurt that it did to his enemy, I fear; for it is unharmed, but all blades perish that pierce that dreadful King. More deadly to him was the name of Elbereth.’

Was Strider making light of Frodo’s attempt at stabbing the Witch King with this remark or was he being literal in that just hearing Varda/Elbereth’s name is enough to cause the Nazgûl physical harm? Later at the ford of Bruinen Frodo seemingly tries this theory out by invoking the name of Elbereth again, but in this instance it just seems to make the Witch King angry:

Then the leader, who was now half across the Ford, stood up menacing in his stirrups, and raised up his hand. Frodo was stricken dumb. He felt his tongue cleave to his mouth, and his heart labouring. His sword broke and fell out of his shaking hand.

It may be documented in one of Tolkien’s other writings so I may be way off, but my view on this was that calling out to Elbereth made the Nazgûl uneasy (but not physically harmed) because they knew she might respond. Not with a bolt of lightning or any sort of direct intervention, but with something more passive such as a nullifying effect of the terrorizing aura of the Nazgûl.

I work for a different Department but have experienced many similar problems with the RA process discussed in the article over the past year+. Does this lawsuit have any merits or am I getting my hopes up that the courts will force the feds to do the right thing with regards to accommodating disabled employees versus using it as a backdoor method of shrinking the work force? 🤔

I just finished listening to the “Fog on the Barrow Downs” chapter and it brought so many questions and thoughts to mind. In an earlier post I saw it mentioned that this is one of the chapters that was written separately by Tolkien and then weaved in to the larger LOTR story at a later date which might explain why it’s seemingly so mysterious.

I think I have a decent understanding of what the barrow-wights are, but was left wondering what they were trying to do to Frodo and company with their ceremony. They clearly could have easily killed them outright, but instead opted to dress the hobbits up and arrange them in a tomb while chanting some sort of incantation. I was thinking the purpose of this ceremony was to turn the hobbits into barrow-wights themselves, but may be off base.

Also did the Ring “save” Frodo from falling under the barrow-wights spell? He was the only hobbit to not be completely controlled by the wights and he was fiddling with the Ring in the barrow while debating internally whether or not to put it on and try to sneak past the wight. It would have been a evil choice to abandon his friends like that, but I thought perhaps the Ring was putting these ideas in his head. The Ring probably did not want to end up buried in a barrow where it might not be found again for a long time and would therefore want to “help” Frodo to prioritize his own self preservation as he was the current bearer.

I’m still listening to the FOTR audiobook which is fantastic (although I had a bit of a laugh when Andy Serkis had to sing Goldberry’s song in her voice). Since I just heard it read aloud I was wondering what Frodo’s strange dream in Crickhollow was all about. I have seen two different theories discussed and TBH both seem somewhat plausible.

The first theory is that Frodo was seeing events taking place in the world through the eyes of others. The first part of the dream with the trees and creatures was him seeing what Gandalf experienced at Orthanc. The second part of the dream with the white tower by the sea was him seeing through the eyes of Gildor since this was his destination after their meeting at Woody End.

The second theory is that Frodo was seeing future events in his dream. The first part alluded to the first night he spent on a flet in Lothlorien. The second part was Frodo’s final journey to the sea west of the Shire and departure from Middle Earth. This theory seems a bit more of a stretch since there are some elements that do not line up such as being in a high tower vs a flet in the first part of the dream and the fact Frodo never climbed one of the white towers iirc.

Any other theories or thoughts on what the dream meant?

I have been listening to the FOTR audio book recently and just finished up the “A Conspiracy Unmasked” chapter. Something that I started thinking about was why the Nazgûl acted so oddly while pursuing Frodo & co. meaning why did they speak in an odd manner and crawl around sniffing/snuffling versus acting more human like. It reminded me of how Gollum acts which made me wonder if these descriptions of the Nazgûl were intentionally similar since they were creatures also dominated by Sauron and his rings of power. Granted, in life they were much more formidable than Sméagol which is why they are more deadly as wraiths.