(no subject)
I want to talk about the Lord of the Rings. I'm not sure if everyone has gotten sick of it already, or maybe sick of me talking about it, but I'm not done talking about it.. I don't think that there is an ending point for discussion when it comes to the masterpiece.
Let me begin where I always begin, my relationship with this story. I read the books about 2 years before the first movie came out. I started out reading The Hobbit, which is about bilbo and the ring, and then I proceeded to read Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers and Return of the King. Out of all the books I have ever read, I found these to be the most exciting. Really, I couldn't stop reading them, I was excited to turn the page and find out what happened next. The reading was easy, the details were very presice, and yet the scale of imagination put into the book left a lot of room for you to create your own world in your head. It was truely an amazing experience for me.
After I finished reading it the first time, and I knew the story, I read it a second time. This time when I read it I read it too absorb all the little details. Now that I had a clear idea of all the characters and their personalitys, it was a little easier to match the little details to the more major points about the characters. My favorite was Aragorn aka Strider. He had a lot of internal conflict which I could really relate to. I think that everyone growing up can relate to Aragorn: He was a ranger, a simple self-sufficient nature loving guardian of the forest. Simple, like childhood. He knew what he was supposed to do and he was good at it. However, he knew all the while that he was actually the lost heir to the thrown of Gondor, a province full of the race of men in the southwest of Middle Earth. Like a child nearing adulthood, we know what it is that we are expected to become: a master of own true selves. Like the ranger-king, the child-adult is very unsure of themselves and doesn't know which path to take, whether they should blaze their own trails and possibly be forgotten and insignificant, or take the path they were born to take, the path into adulthood with new responsibilities and privlages. Aragorn didn't want to be the king of Gondor, and if it wasn't for the war in middle earth, he wouldn't have ever been.
The war of middle earth:The war of the ring. The ring: everything bad about a person. For some people, like hobbits, this is just little mischiefes like playing jokes, hiding from family members and for evesdropping. For a man, this badness could be greed for money, power. Greed for love, greed for just about anything which humans seek. For an evil spirit like Sauron, this badness would mean the desire to conquor and control all walks of life in all lands. Complete and total domination without question, without challange. Each person has his on banes. For some they aren't so bad, for some they are incredibally evil.
The war of middle earth:Good vs. Evil. While the forces of evil are growing through Middle Earth [or the world we precieve], there are also forces of good sensing the world's changes and rising up to defend what they hold important. When the free races of middle earth have to decide what to do with the ring, because if Sauron got it back he would have so much power that he would achieve his goal, they do go along the rightous path: they must destroy the ring. When a person faces these forces of good and evil, they too much decide whether to embrace the evil, or to destroy. Evil may be easier, more fun and appear to be more rewarding, but it also one of those things that takes control over your life. Once you go evil, it is next to impossible to ever truely turn around. That's why it was especially important not to give in, to always resist at any price. I think Tolkien was trying to say something about life. Do the right thing at any cost, because no matter what happens and what you lose, you will have been doing the right thing. This may be a fool's way of thinking, in some people's opinion, but I think that's an ideal we should all live up to in certain situations.
The muster of Rohan:The goodness of the common volenteer. When I was reading the part of the Two Towers, I was incredibally moved and touched on many different levels, and even thinking about it now gives me goosebumps. I don't know how to explain it. Rohan is a country of horsemen, like the Germanic tribes, like the Guals maybe, like the Goths. I think that Tolkien was trying to show us the Goths and the kinsmanship between them. Basically, the muster of Rohan is when the country is under attack, all men and boys able to fight step up, leave their quiet simple lives and put it all on the line to protect what's important: the survival of country. The entire country may be destroied easily when attacked, but as long as the roots survive there is hope. They are volenteer warriors, like a militia. They have an ancient code of war, they are a warlike nation. They are realistic, they don't hide behind their families, they live for their families. You have to be so brave to be able to do that. But not is all good in Rohan, they have become weak. Like society.
"Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West, behind the hills, into shadow."
Gondor, Minas Tirith - The City of Humans. The watch of Mordor. This is the city of humans. This city has 9 levels each with a thick wall built around it. It's basically a fortress to protect people from the nearby threat of mordor, where Sauron and his orcs are. These people have lost all their campions, and look to their Steward for strength, but he is a mad man. Alas in the book, Sauron attacks with an army of 200,000 orcs. This holds a little symbolic value to me.. Evil is trying to conquor good, but again good is resisting at any cost. It's pretty hopeless for this city, because the alliances once made to protect all the free people are long gone, and humans must make a stand on their own. However, finally in the end of battle, the Riders of Rohan come to the battlefield to aid their fellow men and perhaps save Gondor.
"Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising
I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking:
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!
Arise, arise, Riders of Rohan!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
A sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now!
Ride to ruin! To the world's ending!" [ride or die]
You can see in these emotional lines defeat is obvious against the forces of evil, and yet they rather ride out and meet them than sit and watch their lands be plundered and their people enslaved. You have to understand, this is an army of say 3000 horsemen riding out onto a field of 200,000 enemys. The king of Rohan dies in this battle, but Aragorn who finally assumes his role as the King of Gondor saves the day.
Frodo, the one with the ring, must destroy it. But evil has it's grip even on those who would seem the least effected by it, and at Mount Doom's gate, where Frodo finally has the ability and the power to destroy this ancient evil forever, he turns to his companion and says, "I have come. But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!" This is the nature of people. Given the ability to do way with the bad, they cannot, because they cannot destroy the badness inside of them. This same idea was conveied in Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. You can kill the evil reflex, but you cannot kill the evil.
This story taught me something about life that I think I would have missed if I hadn't read it. It taught me sometihng about myself, about people and about the way things are going to be with people, not matter how much they say it has not. Life has only gone on to prove this even more right that I ever hoped it would.
There are Orc's in my life. There are enemies, there are friends. I am a Rider of Rohan and I will fight for what is right no matter what the cost, given that cost involved doesn't make decision to fight wrong.
Let me begin where I always begin, my relationship with this story. I read the books about 2 years before the first movie came out. I started out reading The Hobbit, which is about bilbo and the ring, and then I proceeded to read Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers and Return of the King. Out of all the books I have ever read, I found these to be the most exciting. Really, I couldn't stop reading them, I was excited to turn the page and find out what happened next. The reading was easy, the details were very presice, and yet the scale of imagination put into the book left a lot of room for you to create your own world in your head. It was truely an amazing experience for me.
After I finished reading it the first time, and I knew the story, I read it a second time. This time when I read it I read it too absorb all the little details. Now that I had a clear idea of all the characters and their personalitys, it was a little easier to match the little details to the more major points about the characters. My favorite was Aragorn aka Strider. He had a lot of internal conflict which I could really relate to. I think that everyone growing up can relate to Aragorn: He was a ranger, a simple self-sufficient nature loving guardian of the forest. Simple, like childhood. He knew what he was supposed to do and he was good at it. However, he knew all the while that he was actually the lost heir to the thrown of Gondor, a province full of the race of men in the southwest of Middle Earth. Like a child nearing adulthood, we know what it is that we are expected to become: a master of own true selves. Like the ranger-king, the child-adult is very unsure of themselves and doesn't know which path to take, whether they should blaze their own trails and possibly be forgotten and insignificant, or take the path they were born to take, the path into adulthood with new responsibilities and privlages. Aragorn didn't want to be the king of Gondor, and if it wasn't for the war in middle earth, he wouldn't have ever been.
The war of middle earth:The war of the ring. The ring: everything bad about a person. For some people, like hobbits, this is just little mischiefes like playing jokes, hiding from family members and for evesdropping. For a man, this badness could be greed for money, power. Greed for love, greed for just about anything which humans seek. For an evil spirit like Sauron, this badness would mean the desire to conquor and control all walks of life in all lands. Complete and total domination without question, without challange. Each person has his on banes. For some they aren't so bad, for some they are incredibally evil.
The war of middle earth:Good vs. Evil. While the forces of evil are growing through Middle Earth [or the world we precieve], there are also forces of good sensing the world's changes and rising up to defend what they hold important. When the free races of middle earth have to decide what to do with the ring, because if Sauron got it back he would have so much power that he would achieve his goal, they do go along the rightous path: they must destroy the ring. When a person faces these forces of good and evil, they too much decide whether to embrace the evil, or to destroy. Evil may be easier, more fun and appear to be more rewarding, but it also one of those things that takes control over your life. Once you go evil, it is next to impossible to ever truely turn around. That's why it was especially important not to give in, to always resist at any price. I think Tolkien was trying to say something about life. Do the right thing at any cost, because no matter what happens and what you lose, you will have been doing the right thing. This may be a fool's way of thinking, in some people's opinion, but I think that's an ideal we should all live up to in certain situations.
The muster of Rohan:The goodness of the common volenteer. When I was reading the part of the Two Towers, I was incredibally moved and touched on many different levels, and even thinking about it now gives me goosebumps. I don't know how to explain it. Rohan is a country of horsemen, like the Germanic tribes, like the Guals maybe, like the Goths. I think that Tolkien was trying to show us the Goths and the kinsmanship between them. Basically, the muster of Rohan is when the country is under attack, all men and boys able to fight step up, leave their quiet simple lives and put it all on the line to protect what's important: the survival of country. The entire country may be destroied easily when attacked, but as long as the roots survive there is hope. They are volenteer warriors, like a militia. They have an ancient code of war, they are a warlike nation. They are realistic, they don't hide behind their families, they live for their families. You have to be so brave to be able to do that. But not is all good in Rohan, they have become weak. Like society.
"Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West, behind the hills, into shadow."
Gondor, Minas Tirith - The City of Humans. The watch of Mordor. This is the city of humans. This city has 9 levels each with a thick wall built around it. It's basically a fortress to protect people from the nearby threat of mordor, where Sauron and his orcs are. These people have lost all their campions, and look to their Steward for strength, but he is a mad man. Alas in the book, Sauron attacks with an army of 200,000 orcs. This holds a little symbolic value to me.. Evil is trying to conquor good, but again good is resisting at any cost. It's pretty hopeless for this city, because the alliances once made to protect all the free people are long gone, and humans must make a stand on their own. However, finally in the end of battle, the Riders of Rohan come to the battlefield to aid their fellow men and perhaps save Gondor.
"Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising
I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking:
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!
Arise, arise, Riders of Rohan!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
A sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now!
Ride to ruin! To the world's ending!" [ride or die]
You can see in these emotional lines defeat is obvious against the forces of evil, and yet they rather ride out and meet them than sit and watch their lands be plundered and their people enslaved. You have to understand, this is an army of say 3000 horsemen riding out onto a field of 200,000 enemys. The king of Rohan dies in this battle, but Aragorn who finally assumes his role as the King of Gondor saves the day.
Frodo, the one with the ring, must destroy it. But evil has it's grip even on those who would seem the least effected by it, and at Mount Doom's gate, where Frodo finally has the ability and the power to destroy this ancient evil forever, he turns to his companion and says, "I have come. But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!" This is the nature of people. Given the ability to do way with the bad, they cannot, because they cannot destroy the badness inside of them. This same idea was conveied in Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. You can kill the evil reflex, but you cannot kill the evil.
This story taught me something about life that I think I would have missed if I hadn't read it. It taught me sometihng about myself, about people and about the way things are going to be with people, not matter how much they say it has not. Life has only gone on to prove this even more right that I ever hoped it would.
There are Orc's in my life. There are enemies, there are friends. I am a Rider of Rohan and I will fight for what is right no matter what the cost, given that cost involved doesn't make decision to fight wrong.