The Return of the King

[The Return of the King] is my least favorite of the books; it is easily the least focused. Be careful, that is a matter of the books as compared to each other. Tolkien exists outside literatures typical realms. But the last book in the series actually highlights some weaknesses that could be overlooked in the earlier books because the surrounding material was so superior. Here, at the end of the matter, Tolkien exposes himself a bit.

First –
[The Return of the King] – who needs a king? I mean, come on, these are the same countries of men who have repeatedly exposed their weakness to evil and greed. Now, a man appears with an historically important sword and some claims about his lineage, and everyone melts. And I’m not sure that show more Middle Earth is going to be safe and free of trouble under the reign of men – at least, not these men. Don’t get your mithril shirt in a bunch, Strider is an impressive man, one who I’d follow. Only Faramir rivals him in terms of judgment, leadership, and skill. But Strider is the more impressive iteration of Aragorn’s personalities. The élan and mystery is lost when he begins to prance about. And Faramir, while the more sensitive and understanding, lets that quality devolve into weakness too often. I’d just as soon see Gandalf or Galadriel unite the world and lead. For that matter, Samwise, who becomes the Shire potentate, would be a fine unified leader. I just don’t trust that the time of men has come in Middle Earth – and Tolkien has exposed himself here with his over emphasis on the men and the king story. Remember, it was the Fellowship that saved the world, and the man in the group was the one who first put the Fellowship in danger. I would have been okay with less men and more elves or wizards or dwarves.

Second –
Where are the ladies? When Eowyn finally quits listening to all of the men in her life, all trying to protect her from being who she is, well, she kicks some Ring Wraith patootie. And Eowyn is really the only strong female character who has any real place in the story, save Galadriel. You have to look into the appendices before you find much about Arwen, save a couple of conversations and some vague references in [The Fellowship]. Why wasn’t there a female in the Fellowship? Tolkien overlooked the ladies in all of the books, but exposes himself by writing such a wonderful passage with Eowyn in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, making it clear that there should have been more strong women along the way.

Finally –
For all of Tolkien’s gearing his characters up for battle, there is a pretty significant lack of battles in the books. The Battle of the Pelennor Fields and the Battle of Helms Deep are really the only ones. There are others that he skims through, and a bunch that he recounts through a character’s eyes after the fact. Couple that with the number of times that someone blows their horn or mounts a horse or grabs a shield and sword, and you start to feel a little cheated. Tolkien spends far too much time preparing for battle and not enough time in it – a little balance is needed. The same phenomenon appears when Tolkien begins peeling everyone off and having the characters saying goodbye. They say goodbye over dinner, then over breakfast, then on their horses, and then someone comes back and does it again.

[The Lord of the Rings] consumes you, sucks you in and won’t let you go, and that’s a good thing. The few criticisms I’ve offered are in the way of wanting more, wanting the experience to be perfect. But there are a rare few set of tales that can so capture your imagination; Tolkien was a master, if a little obsessive.

Bottom Line: Perhaps it is a melancholy for the way things began in Middle Earth, but, even with a new king, that world is a lesser place without Gandalf and the Elves and Frodo – maybe that’s why it’s hard to like this final chapter as much as the beginning.

4 bones!!!!! show less

This was easier to read than the first two books in the series as it has less description of meandering scenery. I was surprised though when the battle against Sauron ended with a few chapters of the book left. While many authors would end with a grand finale, Tolkien instead chose to focus on the hobbits’ return to the Shire and its rescue, a choice that highlights how profoundly they have grown through their journey.

Review of The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien. I’ve finished my reread of The Lord of the Rings! Yes, we has! (in Gollum-speak) The highlight has to be Frodo and Sam climbing Mt. Doom, and then the apocalyptic explosion when the deed is done. (If you haven’t read it or seen the movie, I won’t tell you what that deed is.) Their trek through the sere wilderness around the mountain fills one with thirst and dread. While this third part of the trilogy is deadly serious--as it needs to be--Tolkien still manages to provide comic relief in the form of Orcs. As it turns out, Orcs sound like country yokels when one gets to hear them speak. Their minds are not turned toward the higher things (just saying). In fact, they have a show more propensity to self-destruct, rather like Looney Tunes characters.

The third part also gives a portrait of one of the few female characters, Eowyn, the shield-maiden who goes to war in the garb of a man, like Brunhilde or the Old Norse valkyries of legend. But Tolkien makes clear that she is out of her element in this male world. In the words of Aragorn, the hero-king, when she is injured in battle, “Alas! For she was pitted against a foe beyond the strength of her mind or body” (848). She is also shown to be out of her depth in her feelings of unrequited love--an emotion that Tolkien portrays almost as a disease, or mental illness. Whatever her flaws, she is the most fully characterized woman in the novel. Aragorn’s true love mainly shows up for the wedding; even the Ent-wives are nowhere to be seen!

Trees and forests, much more than women, play an important role in The Lord of the Rings--and this is no less true in The Return of the King. The area around Mt. Doom is shown to be absent of trees or other growing things, except thorny brambles. The most stunning evidence of destructive industrialization when the Hobbits return home is the loss of the trees; in their place is a great chimney and “a great brick building straddling the stream, which it fouled with a streaming and stinking outflow” (993). Even the “party tree” which launched the novel and the quest is gone. In this, Tolkien’s thinking was prescient, as our precious world drifts ever closer to human-wrought destruction. At the end of the novel, he holds out hope, due to the wonderful elven dust that fertilizes and re-greens the Shire. And, to replace the “party tree,” a miraculous mallorn tree with silver bark and golden flowers from the forests of Lothlorien. Throughout this marvelous work, Tolkien balances destruction with rebirth, despair with hope, and high seriousness with humor. A marvelous work, which is also a work of marvels. show less

If _The Two Towers_ started the tradition of the dark middle story, _The Return of the King_ started that of the idiotic third part -- although mercifully without muppet crimelords, savage insurgent teddy-bears, highly unexpected sisters, or protocol droids.

The first half of the book is just insultingly obvious melodrama heaped on insultingly obvious melodrama (does anyone seriously expect Sauron to _win_? I certainly didn't, though I almost reached the point of rooting for him), and as a bonus throws into sharp relief the moral problems with having an entire species of sapient beings who it's just fine to slaughter. The first five books of the second half are an impressive stylistic accomplishment: Tolkien sets out to write a narrative show more that it's almost impossible to slog through, matching Frodo and Sam's experience, and succeeds. A little too well, I suspect...

The denoument in the south is pretty unsatisfactory, but we probably all know by now that Tolkien originally had rather different matrimonial plans for the new king of Gondor. (Hint: Who does Eowyn fall in love with at first sight?) The Scouring of the Shire, however, _works_ -- almost well enough to redeem the rest of the book. _Here_ is a conflict that he really knows how to do, and it feels exceptionally solid, credible, all-around good -- and the reader realizes that maybe he didn't want the smug little hobbits to get what they had coming to them after all. Between the miserable, and self-sustained though arguably not self-inflicted, condition of Saruman, and the all-around awkward position of the hobbits, this is a chapter that gives the lie to claims that _The Lord of the Rings_ is entirely black and white.

Of course, the rest of this book really *is* entirely black and white, but even so...

(On revisiting this, I got carried away: I'm not reviewing the book, I'm reviewing its fans. The "so-so" rating stands -- this really is the weakest part of LotR, it goes too far into melodrama too often -- but it's not quite worthy of this kind of savaging. It is strange that Tolkien went ahead with the orcs; they bothered him, too, but he never went for the right way out, of admitting that his characters were wrong...) show less

Then Elrond and Galadriel rode on; for the Third Age was over and the Days of the Rings were passed and an end was come of the story and song of those times.

Finishing this series always makes me sad. I'm never quite ready for the journey to end. Even writing this review has made me a bit melancholy as it reinforces the story is done for now. Even so, Tolkien's tale of hope is just what I needed to read, to be my light during our own dark times, a reminder that darkness is but passing and it cannot endure.

This book has so many great moments. The battle for Gondor is epic. Eowyn and Merry facing down the Wraith King. Sam carrying Frodo when Frodo couldn't go on. Ghan-buri-ghan! The Paths of the Dead. Frodo and Gollum and the Ring. show more Theoden's tragic death. Denethor's madness. If I was to list them all out, I'd be here all day.

One thing I appreciated this time around is how the story comes full circle, showing the growth of the four hobbits who left the Shire and have come back changed. It's a shame the impact of this is left out of the movies.

It should be noted that the final third of this book is devoted to appendices. While I skimmed through them a little as I read the story, I did not read them word for word on this read through. The end of Appendix B contains the highlights of "what happened after" for those of the Fellowship who remained behind. It was nice to see what everyone was up to after the main story.

I really need to do a full movie re-watch soon. And not wait so long for my next series reread. show less

This third volume, in which monumental battles are fought and two hobbits pick and crawl their way toward Mount Doom in what may be a suicidal task, concludes the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien is a master storyteller and has quite a way with language. Even when the action slowed I was continuously impressed with his handle of vocabulary, turns of phrase and skill in worldbuilding. My complaints about this book echo those of the previous two: There are times when the pace is eye-stabbingly slow — this was a series I had to push myself to get through. The battle scenes, which should have felt dramatic and consequential, read rather anticlimactically. As the story progressed I also grew more irritated with dearth of female show more characters in general. The few that are mentioned at all stand around looking beautiful and they say wise and mysterious things, but they are not active participants. When Éowyn begs to ride along with Aragorn to battle he rebuffs her and states she may not go without her brother's permission. Dismissing 50% of the population as barely worthy of mention, when Tolkien had created this entire world and could do any bold or crazy thing he wanted with it, was disappointing. Though the series was groundbreaking for its time, and was undoubtedly a catalyst for the explosion of fantasy literature and games in the decades to follow, this reader finds it overrated. show less

Book V was a slog at times because there were so many parts to the war, but Book VI made me very happy. Getting back to Frodo and Sam and the reason for the journey. I just have one thing to say. Sam is the true hero of the whole damn thing! He was the glue that held things together and, even though he's a fictional character, I love him very much.