Minas Tirith and The Shire: Parallel Problems on a Different Scale

In reviewing my highlights from my reading of The Lord of the Rings, a couple years ago I struck by some parallels between Minas Tirith and the Shire. This isn't a full treatment of the matter, but some simple observations based on fuzzy memory and haphazard highlights.

The reader gets an impression of Gondor's great city of Minas Tirith as a mighty fortress which has long held against the dark lord and his minions. It sounds both beautiful and invincible. When Frodo sees the fortress from afar, atop Amon Hen, hope leaps in his heart. It is "white-walled, many towered, proud and fair in its mountain-seat," with battlements glittering with steel. He also sees another fortress, "greater and more strong," the Tower of Barad-dur, and all hope leaves him. (Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, p. 401).

Tolkien continues to dribble details and descriptive elements which reveal that Minas Tirith is even weaker than it appears. It is a city which has allowed many of its strengths to dwindle into weakness, retreating before the darkness, and hiding its own light.

-Yet even so it was Gondor that brought about its own decay, falling by degrees into dotage... (p. 678)

-domed tombs of bygone kings (p. 752)

-falling year by year into decay; (p. 752)

-dead tree, and the falling drops dripped sadly from its barren and broken branches back into the clear water. (p. 753)

-avenue of kings long dead. (p. 754)

-‘It is a black night, and all the blacker since orders came that lights are to be dimmed within the City, and none are to shine out from the walls.' (p. 772)

-'The Darkness has begun. There will be no dawn.’(p. 772)

-comes from Mordor, lord,’ he said. ‘It began last night at sunset. From the hills in the Eastfold of your realm I saw it rise and creep across the sky, and all night as I rode it came behind eating up the stars. Now the great cloud hangs over all the land between here and the Mountains of Shadow; and it is deepening. War has already begun.’ (p. 801)

-But soon there were few left in Minas Tirith who had the heart to stand up and defy the hosts of Mordor. For yet another weapon, swifter than hunger, the Lord of the Dark Tower had: dread and despair. (p. 823)

Sauron attacks a sick and moribund opponent. Nevertheless, good prevails. Brave men and manifestations of magical--even divine--power save Minas Tirith from the first onslaught of Sauron's armies, and the destruction of the ring unmakes the evil one himself. The great city is saved and restored to glory.

But what about the Shire? The oft-overlooked end of the tale with the hobbits returning to what was formerly a garden paradise delivers a poignant message. The small heroes left to fight evil in far away places to prevent it from consuming their homes. When they return, evil has arrived before them, and their homeland has, like decaying Minas Tirith, lost, or at least forgotten its strengths. While Gondor is restored, the Shire has become a police state instead of a paradise. The gardens are destroyed. The Party Tree has been cut down. A parade of restrictions, rules, and misfortune are presented to the arriving heroes:

-It’s like a bit of the bad old times tales tell of, I say. It isn’t safe on the road and nobody goes far, and folk lock up early. We have to keep watchers all round the fence and put a lot of men on the gates at nights.’ (p. 992)

-‘I am sorry, Mr. Merry,’ said Hob, ‘but it isn’t allowed.’ ‘What isn’t allowed?’ ‘Taking in folk off-hand like, and eating extra food, and all that,’ said Hob. (p. 999)

-‘We grows a lot of food, but we don’t rightly know what becomes of it. It’s all these “gatherers” and “sharers”, I reckon, going round counting and measuring and taking off to storage. They do more gathering than sharing, and we never see most of the stuff again.’(p. 999)

-and on every wall there was a notice and a list of Rules (p. 1000)

-‘But if there are many of these ruffians,’ said Merry, ‘it will certainly mean fighting. You won’t rescue Lotho, or the Shire, just by being shocked and sad, my dear Frodo. (p. 1006)

-‘This is worse than Mordor!’ said Sam. ‘Much worse in a way. It comes home to you, as they say; because it is home, and you remember it before it was all ruined. (p. 1018)

Fortunately, the heroes are up to the task.

-But if I may be so bold, you’ve come back changed from your travels, and you look now like folk as can deal with troubles out of hand. (p. 995)

-You must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for. Do you not yet understand? (p. 996)

They refuse to obey the oppressive rules, rally the good folks, and overthrow the tyrant and his minions. They throw off the yoke of tyranny largely on their own, without supernatural aid. Merry does blow the horn he had received from Eowyn, which struck fear into the hearts of enemies. It is in the restoration where the magical or divine power is manifest: Galadriel's gift to Sam, along with the hobbits' hard work, make the Shire blossom again.

It's interesting to note that we first heard the Horn-call of Buckland in the Shire to sound the alarm against the black riders in the early chapters of the story--and it had not been heard then for over a hundred years. Boromir had a horn. Aragorn was given a silver horn. A number of horns call to battle and assembly on both sides of the conflict. At one point, Merry wishes he had a horn to blow and could ride to the rescue like Eomer--and he does so in the Shire.

Both Minas Tirith and the Shire suffered from evil's attacks and their own failure to resist sufficiently when they were strongest. They allowed themselves to be weakened. They neglected their strengths, and fear and despair stole their hope. Gandalf and Aragon brought new hope and strength to Minas Tirith. Merry, Pippin, Sam, and Frodo raised the Shire to remember their strength and provided hope for success amid fear and despair.

 

The power of the One Ring was indeed formidable. From the moment the fiends of Moria splintered the massive doors to Balin's Tomb, RC began to consider the possibility of having Frodo put on the ring. RC controlled Gandalf, Aragon, and Frodo. K-man controlled the other members of the fellowship. Big-K ran the forces of Moria. The outlook wasn't brilliant for the fellowship nine that day. In the dark mines of Khazad-dum they're trapped and know the cave troll comes.

Big-K evaluated the fellowship and sensed the danger in Legolas' bow. The elf could shoot twice with one action, or shoot once for an increased level of damage. The K-man called this the "mega-arrow" option. The goblins managed to put two arrows into the blonde Barbie-man, but the wounds were not serious. Aragorn managed to heal the elf before the action got too intense. The halflings stayed to the rear, but eventually Big-K, realizing that he could win by killing any four of the fellowship sent scurvy minions who had entered on the flanks to attack the half-pint skulkers. Once again, RC wondered if the situation had become desperate enough to have Frodo slip the ring onto his finger. I told him the situation was not desperate. He thought that it might be, but refrained for the time being. 

As events continued, RC had Gandalf cast a light spell to annoy the attackers and put them at a disadvantage in combat. Shortly thereafter, Big-K rolled the trigger for the cave troll to enter. Amazingly, RC succeeded in getting Gandalf to cast a manipulate spell on the creature. He had the brute turn against the smaller fiends. Everyone anticipated great havoc among the attackers when the cave troll would seize, smash, and bash the imps of Moria. That anticipation withered like a tender sprout in an inferno when the fellowship fumbled that piece of fantastic fortune with a terrible toss to return control to the bad guys. 

New waves of attackers streamed across the broken fragments of the chamber doors, bringing darkness and nothing more. The cave troll, now free of the spell, strode forward with chain and spear, wearing terror and radiating fear. Gimli wrought stern work with double axes to slaughter goblins. Boromir slew a minion or two. Sam and Frodo with Merry's help surprised the pair of goblins who dared test their skill. Legolas put shafts through a couple as well. RC thought that perhaps now was the time for Frodo to slip into invisibility by using Sauron's trinket, but he held off when he understood that doing so carried the very slight risk that Frodo would fall under Sauron's control--and the game would be lost, along with all of Middle Earth.

The cave troll waded in--right into another of Gandalf's spells. The wizard put a hold spell on the monster. The fellowship kept the initiative. The full-sized warriors stabbed it with their steely knives, but they just couldn't kill the beast--you know, Hotel Moria, you can cry out any time you like, but you can never leave. They inflicted many wounds on the troll, but his Durable Plus attribute prevented him from succumbing to the attacks. Legolas countered the troll's special attribute with a "mega-arrow." K-man went through his ritual of choosing his two dice. He put them together with the sixes toward him before taking them in cupped hands. He licked his lips. He began shaking the dice, as he always did, right up to the point that the numbers were about to fall from the cubes. He cast the bones for a paltry sum. He spent one of his remaining special points to re-roll one die. The result proved but mediocre. Legolas' attempt proved bootless--not doubt he was distracted, thinking about that Lothlorien Leaves and Lembas Shampoo commercial he had scheduled for next week.

The fellowship had the upper hand. The cave troll had been sorely wounded. The Moria imps were dying by the score, but RC thought he needed something more. He deemed the situation to be desperate. The weight of the ring grew heavy upon him. He moved Frodo toward the cave troll. No cowering halfling here. He would bring the fight to the beast. He meant to strike a blow for the shire, to bring honor upon all the hobbits and their countrymen. However, he had been warned that Big-K would direct the cave troll to attack Frodo. He took precautions. It's tough to fight someone you can't see. Frodo could fight RC's will no longer. Frodo put on the ring. RC took up the dice and shook them round and round for the fate of nine travelers and the whole of Middle Earth. He shook and shook while Sauron's eye scanned the land from shore to shore. When the speckled bones came to rest upon the blood-stained floor, Sauron's eye pierced the chamber door. When would the fellowship escape the mines? Quoth the cave troll, "Nevermore." Somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout. But there was no joy for the fellowhip--mighty RC had struck-out. He snatched defeat from the jaws of victory giving control of the ring to Sauron.

Even though good lost in the worst possible way, we still had a good time. Evil was not dismayed at all. RC seemed unconcerned that he had contributed to the mass enslavement of all of Middle Earth to the dark lord. He was imagining what the next adventure would bring.

Plantagenets as Kings of Numenor?

Fun Facts: Henry V, King of England (and claimant to the throne of France via Edward III) and Charles VI (actual King of France) agreed by the Treaty of Troyes (May 1420) that upon the death of Charles VI, Henry V and his heirs would receive the French crown. Unfortunately, both of these kings died in 1422, and Charles VI (who was given to bouts of madness) survived Henry V by two months. Henry's infant son, Henry VI (son of Henry V and Catherine of Valois--Charles VI's daughter) then became King of England and King of France, and everyone lived happily ever after--not quite. Charles VII was still in France and he had supporters who did not recognize the Treaty of Troyes. Of course, the English were still in France, as were the Burgundians who were allied with the English. These enemy forces occupied much of northern France - including Paris, and Rhiems which was the traditional place for the crowing of the French kings. Enter Joan of Arc. Under her spiritual leadership, the French lifted the siege of Orleans, and took back several other places, crushing the English in the Battle of Patay--the French equivalent to the Battle of Agincourt. The French marched to Rheims and crowned Charles VII king. The Burgundians later captured Joan of Arc at Compiegne (one of my favorite places), and turned her over to the English who invited her to the to be the barbecue in May 1431. The Burgundians eventually left the alliance with the British and no French princes recognized Henry VI's claim as King of France. Over another decade or two, the French drove the English completely from France, with the lone exception of Calais.

Why the overlong and tedious history lesson? The actual reason is because over the last few weeks I re-watched The Hollow Crown series which comprises Shakespeare's Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2; and Henry V. Naturally, that got me to thinking about the actual history, and one fact leads to another, and for every sentence I included in that little synopsis, there were hundreds that I did not. I was tempted to go all Dan Carlin's Hardcore History on it and go back to Edward III and creep forward from there. I'm disappointed that I don't have the time for that, and you probably don't have the attention span to read it anyway, but there are a lot of really cool and interesting things I left out. Maybe I'll come back to some of them sometime. Anyway, I hit upon a what if. What if Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings loosely modeled his Kings of Numenor upon the Plantagenets, and the Tudor Kings and their successors were the mere Stewards of Gondor until the real kings returned? Suppose Calais is represented Minis Ithil, making the Anduin a stand-in for the channel.

I just did a search and couldn't find anyone else making that connection. I'm sure there's a reason for that. The reason being that there's no merit to the idea. It is, however, interesting to consider. Learning about Tolkien's service in WWI and the conditions in the trenches and shell holes etc., certainly makes me think he incorporated some of that in his description of Frodo and Sam's journey through Mordor. So is it unreasonable to speculate upon him borrowing a bit of the history of English succession for his mythology?

***

As for my own battle against the blank page and the growing mythology of my alternative history flintlock fantasy, I've broken 83,500 words--make that broken, bent, mangled, wrecked, strangled, beaten, brutalized, and misused that number of words. Of course, the word count is slightly less than that number because I keep my notes reminding me of things to include in upcoming parts of the story and notes on things to go back and edit all at the end of my current place in the book, so those notes are always easy to find. I was aiming for 90K words. I think I will exceed that, but I'm still hoping to remain under 100K words for completion of the book.

Here's a partial cover reveal for Clamorous Harbingers:

It's a departure from the flame motif that I used on the first two books in the series, and a little darker than the tone of the book actually merits, but I made a command decision and now I'll ride that decision into the ground.

I have to finish the book soon, because I've got another novel working in my head that I need to move on before the ideas grow weary of waiting and catch the bus to that land populated entirely by the great ideas that I never acted upon. I did write a couple thousand words on it during the week, but that was just to get it started. When I woke up one morning the ideas were banging on my brainpan for attention, demanding the respect of being converted into writing, so I wrote the opening scene which included four important characters. It's a cross country swashbuckling adventure.

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Speaking of riding things into the ground (I know that was an entire paragraph ago, but I added the intervening paragraph after I wrote this), the Corsican Brothers graced us with their presence and forced us to ride the 4 wheeler all over the west 40 again this week. They even wore jeans instead of shorts, so I could tell they were serious about wanting to ride. It was the first thing they requested when they came through the door. Unlike last week, the machine fired up right away. I still had to jump-start it, but the process went quickly and smoothly this time. I was also helped by the fact that I put gas in it before I tried to start it this time.

***

As for the skirmish game, I think I've hit upon the proper modification to the grappling rules, but I didn't get to play test them. I also came up with an idea for handling a minefield, and another for calling in artillery and air strikes.

I've seen a number of authors on fb reading their books. I've found them really awful for the most part. My advice is as follows: Raise your laptop or webcam up so that it's level with your face. I don't want to look up your nose or have you looking down at me the whole time. Second, practice reading before you go live--better yet, don't go live. Record it and post it after you've watched it, and maybe deleted that first effort and made a second or third recording.  I mention this because I thought about reading some samples from my books and posting them online. I watched myself on the webcam and determined that as bad as those other authors look--I look worse, even withe the webcam raised to be level with my face. I decided to use a cover of the book I'm reading instead of my own made-for-radio face. The learning didn't stop there. I learned that I need practice reading the female parts. The female voice I did during the practice recording sounded like a chain-smoking old lady with a bad cold. My wife will verify that I'm being too generous to myself with that description--but she's not here to stop me, so I'll describe it as I will. Anyway, I'm hoping to read and post a chapter or two this week. We'll see. Maybe one of my friends will send me a sample of them reading from one of my books.

Fun Fact: Celebrimbor forged the three Elven rings, Narya, Nenya, and Vilya; He also designed the Doors of Durin--the doors to Khazadum--that would be the Mines of Moria for those of you who have lives beyond Middle Earth and The Lord of the Rings (Khazad-dum for the raging purists who do not have a life outside of Tolkien's creation) which bear the stars of the seven sons of Feanor. That's fitting, as Celebrimbor was the last in the line of the House of Feanor.

I may wax dull and tiresome (including some witticisms no doubt less amusing than I think they are) about the three Elven rings at a later day. For now, I'm interested in the similarities between Celembrimbor and Mintawkana, a legendary character from my Tomahawks and Dragon Fire fantasy series. Both individuals were skilled, talented, and selfless, and their actions are relevant to the epic adventures which follow. I had not considered the similarity between the two until today. Mintawkana's story is still growing, so there may be many similarities before the end.

Speaking of the fantasy series--mine rather than Tolkien's--book three, Clamorous Harbingers, is moving right along toward the finish. It's closer than I originally thought as the resolution to an important side adventure will not be resolved until the following book, so that I can dedicate the remainder of book 3 to wrapping up the matter which has been the primary matter of interest since the opening of the story. There were days this week when the story rolled along so well that the words poured forth in a steady stream from the fountain of creation to flow across the page, letting the ink color the pages like gold settling upon the stream bed. I may write the ending now, and then return to the present spot in the adventure to write forward to that climactic finish already chiseled splashed upon the final canvas in brilliant technicolor. There are only a few chapters to go, either way.

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In other news, none of us have succumbed to the crisis du jour, although the world has nearly shut down around us. I did put the torch to some zombies--weed zombies. The weeds grew up last year (or the year before) when the weather and my time were such that I got behind on spraying. The were huge and dead. It was a pleasure to dispatch them in an infernal blaze.

The Corsican Brothers made a visit. They brought along their parents. The highlights were the barbecued pork ribs and the four-wheeler safari through the jungle that is the west 40. They never grew weary of riding the bumpy trail with its straightaways, sharp turns, and the tall grass and towering plant carcasses within which savage predators could have been lurking, poised to pounce on the unsuspecting adventurer.

"Lurk" is one of those words that sounds a bit primitive, as if it still drips rivulets of primordial soup, and sports saber-like teeth. Merriam-Webster online indicates the first known use of the word was in the 14th century. So it may be somewhat younger than that particular soup.

Speaking of soup, I attempted to read a flintlock fantasy novel this week. I picked it up for free. The GIF above illustrates my experience with the book. The book is written in the present tense, which makes every sentence slap me like that fish in the GIF. Nevertheless, I soldiered on, determined not to be repulsed by the author's poor decision on that matter. Unfortunately, he had erected a glyph of warding to obstruct my path in the form of prolific descriptions of things in which I had no interest and which did not add to the story; a story buried in ambiance is a story to well concealed to interest me. I really wanted to like this book. I was hoping to find an unappreciated, or unknown author whose work I could celebrate, recommend and discuss. I only got five or six short chapters in before the fish to the face became unbearable. I won't give the book title or author name; he has enough problems without my adding to them. Besides, he'll probably sell more books than I will. Honestly, it's much easier to criticize than to praise, but I had hoped to spend my time engaged in the latter rather than the former.