"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. A man who never reads lives only once." Jojen - A Dance With Dragons
Friday, May 3, 2013
Finished: The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers (Tolkien). Finally, I read the second book in the trilogy and it was good! :-) The movies have been on at my house so many times over the years as Josh had friends over for LOTR marathons, that I clearly picture most of the characters! The books, so he's told me though, are different. For instance, Aragorn has an inkling of a twinkle in his eye for Eowyn in Two Towers, and she for him. Nowhere do Aragorn and his Elven main squeeze, Arwen, get together, even though they end up together at the end of the last movie. So, The Two Towers was split into two different parts. In the first part, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli mourn the death of Boromir (sigh, Sean Bean!) and send him down the river on an Elven boat. They then decide to go after their Hobbit friends, Merry and Pippin, who they fear have been kidnapped by the Orcs, who killed the valiant Boromir. While tracking Merry and Pippin, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli come across the riders of Rohan who loan them some horses for their quest, and ask that after they find their friends that they come back to Endoras, return the horses, and meet with their King, Theoden, to see how they can help with the impending war with the evil forces of Sauron. Aragorn and company come across all the dead Orcs that the riders of Rohan said they killed, but there is no sign of their Hobbit captives. They assume that somehow the Hobbits have escaped into the forest of Fangorn. And, indeed they have! Merry and Pippin escape into the forest and meet the ancient and very huge tree people, the Ents. They befriend the Ent leader, Treebeard, and are carried along by Treebeard and the other Ents as they march upon Saruman, a wizard gone to the dark side, and Gandalf's nemesis in the first book. The Ents destroy Isengard, Saruman's home, and decimate his Orc defenders, because Saruman has hit too close to home and destroyed so much of their forest. Just after the Ents have flooded Isengard and stranded Saruman in his tower, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli finally catch up with the Hobbits and meet Treebeard. And then...out of the mist a mysterious white figure rides up from the distance and as they all watch in wonder they see that it's Gandalf and he's ALIVE!! He is now Gandalf the White and he's riding the magnificent horse, Shadowfax. He survived the fall into the deep pit with the Balrog monster in book one, and is back from the supposed dead. Now that all the fellowship are back together (except for Frodo and Sam who left the gang at the end of book one, and Boromir who is dead), Gandalf says they must head with haste towards Endoras to help the people of Rohan fight the evil Orcs. They get there in time to fight the battle of Helm's Deep, and are about to be overrun by the numerous Orcs when Gandalf (who had left them to go gather more troops) shows up with the other warriors in the nick of time. For now, they have battled back the Orcs, but only this battle has been won for now. The war with evil is far from over. The second part of the book is all about Frodo's and Sam's journey towards Mordor, where Frodo still must go to throw the ring into the fiery pits to be destroyed. Of course, they have along with them as a "guide" and a scoundrel, Gollum. Gollum's only true interest is to get his hands on "Precious", the ring. The three of them come across Faramir, Boromir's younger brother, who is good and true. They spend a day together, and then Faramir lets them go on their way, knowing they have an important quest...and knowing that he has to go into battle with the dark forces as well. Gollum leads Frodo and Sam into some caves where they come across the super scary and gross giant spider, Shelob. Gollum has led them to Shelob in hopes that Shelob will eat the Hobbits and spit out their clothes and his precious ring. Sam, with his super human determination battles the Shelob and makes her retreat back into her cave...but not before Shelob has poisoned Frodo and he lies still on the ground. Sam stays by Frodo's body for hours before he realizes that Frodo is dead. :-( He decides he must carry out the mission on his own and takes the ring on the necklace from around Frodo's neck, sadly bids goodbye to Frodo's body, and heads out of the cave. Just then, an army of Orcs comes marching towards the cave! The only thing Sam knows to do is quickly put the ring on his finger and become invisible. He watches as the Orcs pick up Frodo's body to take it to their leader...and, more importantly, he listens as they talk of Shelob's poison and how Frodo's not really dead but in a deep, poisoned condition. Sam is elated and panicked at the same time as he realizes the Orcs are now carrying Frodo off to the depths of Mordor and he must follow to try and save him. That's the end of Two Towers! Now, I can't leave Frodo hanging in the wind, so I've got to begin book three tonight. :-)
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