I keep finding Merry out of focus. The purpose of this file is to collect all my notes on him.

Also to link to Solarfall's portrait of him: A Conspiracy Unmasked and The Old Forest ( Read more... )

Very interesting discussion of drawing hobbits, courage, war, civilians, horses, Discworld, etc:

Gimli's sense of humor - 'It is good to learn that are still alive. . .for they cost us great pains in our march over Rohan, and I would not have such pains all wasted.' This prefigures what he will say to Pippin in The Field of Cormallen: 'I love you, if only because of the pains you have cost me.' I think may be a dwarfish way of measuring ( Read more... )

This chapter provides the only inside description, from Merry's point of view, of what Faramir and Eowyn must also be feeling: 'A mist was in Merry's eyes of tears and weariness. . . the ascent seemed agelong, a meaningless journey in a hateful dream' - this negatively transforms the various dream references at the beginning of the hobbits' ( Read more... )

This chapter does a lot to define 'madness ( Read more... )

The Witch King can no longer daunt Theoden: 'Horses reared and screamed. Men cast from the saddle lay grovelling on the ground. "To me! To me!" cried Theoden. "Up Eorlingas! Fear no darkness ( Read more... )

'All about [Merry] hidden trees were sighing softly.' From the Old Forest to Fangorn to the Forest of the Druadan, he has listened to a lot of trees. I don't think he has felt the delight of the living tree itself, like Frodo did in Lorien, but he has every hobbits' visceral connection with them ( Read more... )

'"What is the time?" said Pippin, yawning' very like Frodo waking at Rivendell. Orientation in time is important to hobbits; Calanthe11 thinks that this is because if they know what time it is, they know what people in the Shire would be doing at that time of day, which connects them with home ( c.f. tea time, in decent places where they had tea- ( Read more... )

Merry's most articulate spiritual experience: 'He sat for a moment half dreaming,' - an unusual state for any hobbit and most of all for Merry, who completely ignores of immediately forgets dreams and the supernatural - 'listening to the noise of water, the whisper of dark trees,' - which is reminiscent of the Old Forest - 'the crack of stone ( Read more... )

'Gandalf was gone' but Aragorn is starting to sound like him: 'it is dark before me. I must go down also to Minas Tirith, but I do not yet see the road ( Read more... )