Hello everyone!
You've probably figured out by now, if you're a casual reader of this blog, that I'm covering The Lord of the Rings in both movie and book form on here for the remainder of this autumn season.
Of course, if you've been paying attention and are a long-time follower, you know I love ANYTHING Tolkien that I can get my hands on.
Lord of the Rings? My favourite of all time.
So really, this sequence of events was a no-brainer.
In fairness, I might eventually look at other book-to-movie things and review them side-by-side if I can, or if I feel like it, but for now let's stop dallying, shall we?
It's time to make further steps towards Mordor, and we won't be able to do them unless we actually get to it.
Here's to The Two Towers.
Now book Towers and movie Towers differ in a few ways, but not in the essence of pressing the story forward as far as it can go within the chronological sequence of events.
And of course, it's in that chronology that we find the biggest differences.
See, the book just covers MORE, while in actuality, if you align the timelines, you see that stuff was happening which only makes sense in Return of the King, movie-wise, and that's the main reason why Peter Jackson and his crew moved it into the third movie.
But Tolkien kept it in the book, so let's head on to it.
Book three of the six that tell our story is about the gang of hunters, as well as Merry and Pippin. Our comrades bury Boromir, aka send him down the river in a boat and then hustle back to try and catch up to the Orcs. The Orcs, meanwhile, are hoofing it for all they've got so they can cross Rohan and get back to Isengard.
There's heavy emphasis on dissent among the ranks, because we have the Isengarders, and some Northern Orcs who're far, FAR from home, and haven't been bred to hunt like Saruman made his army do.
Which is where my absolute favourite conversation comes from.
"Now straight on! West and a little north. Follow Lugdush."
"But what are we going to do at sunrise?"
"Go on running, what do you think? Sit on the grass and what for the Whiteskins to join the picnic?"
"But what are we going to do at sunrise?"
"Go on running, what do you think? Sit on the grass and what for the Whiteskins to join the picnic?"
TTT, LOTR, p. 501
That said, Merry and Pippin DO escape while the Rohirrim circle the net around their prey, getting carried off into the night by an Orc after pretending they have the Ring. Then said Orc gets killed, they wind up in Fangorn, and Treebeard decides he needs to edit some age-old lists that he learned eons ago so that he can add the Hobbits in there.
Equally, they head on in to the gathering of Ents, who actively get together to decide what they're going to do about Saruman, who's their closest neighbour, and who's very obviously gone rogue. In clear departure from the movie, they choose to march fairly early on, and they take the two Hobbits with them.
Meanwhile, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli do their cross-country thing, get some horses from Éomer because he's a stand-up guy, and then lose the same horses because they're idiots.
Now, our favourite Marshal also makes Aragorn promise to come to Edoras afterwards, because the King's nephew happens to stake his own reputation and life on the line here, as he's ridden out without leave of the King.
Following tracks into Fangorn, the trio meet up with Gandalf again, who explains what happened to him (aka: never redecorate with a Balrog), and that things are now in motion that they can't back out of. He brings them some messages from Galadriel, because the Elves do play SOME part in this story even if they don't fight at Helm's Deep here in the book, and together they're off to cure Rohan of its illness.
Once Théoden is ready to think rationally once more, and Éomer's freed from the prison he landed in because he did what was right, the active advice is to remove to a more defensible position, which Edoras certainly isn't.
This, of course, means Helm's Deep, and the chapter of that battle is probably one of my favourites of the entire saga. I can't even put in words just how beautiful it is, so I'm going to try and summarise it as best as I can: Gandalf takes off to find reinforcements, but promises to return, the king and our trio defend the Deep as best as they can, but they're very clearly losing by the time those reinforcements actually arrive.
Seeing as Éomer is actually in this battle, the one reinforcing the king is Erkenbrand, an unsung hero of the saga who made sure to prepare for potential battle well in advance, and who happens to be the reason they can even make use of the Deep to begin with.
With victory now theirs, they all sort of stand there and gape at a forest that suddenly pops up overnight, something movie viewers only get to see in the Extended Edition: see, Treebeard sent some help as well in the form of Huorns, who take care of basically everything the people are trying to figure out how to handle in the aftermath.
Then Gandalf goes well, I'm off to tea and crumpets with Saruman, anyone else coming?
And off they go to do just that. Reunited, the bits of the Fellowship that still exist compare battle notes, and Merry and Pippin explain how the Ents basically destroyed Isengard, keeping Saruman locked up in his tower with a lake of water around it. When they go to speak to the wizard, he tries one last time to trick them all, but Gandalf breaks his staff, and his reward is nearly getting a Palantír atop his head.
Maybe it would have been better if that happened though, because then Pippin wouldn't have picked it up and later on wanted to look into it again, which starts ANOTHER chain of events prompting Gandalf to hightail it to Minas Tirith with him, wondering what he's ever done to deserve this menace in his life.
As you know, in the movie, this is basically a long prologue into the action sequences of the trilogy finale, but here it's where we leave them off, however, taking a quick look at Frodo and Sam, there's notable differences there as well.
Weary, our Hobbits trudge further and further, but with Frodo being less waspish and a whole lot gentler, kinder to Sam, by the time they catch themselves a Gollum. Equally, even as they see the Black Gate is closed and they need a different route, he and Sam are in perfect agreement for the most part, and never truly argue.
Once taken by Faramir and his rangers, there's a whole lot more discourse and Faramir shows himself as a true man of honour, and a man of his word: before knowing about the One Ring, he already says he wouldn't take it, not even to save Gondor, and this proves correct later once the secret's out. He sets our heroes on their path again, but warns Frodo against the danger of taking Gollum with him.
See, there's some people who can STILL try and make others see sense.
Undeterred, the book story now continues on as Gollum takes our Hobbits into the Morgul Vale and up the path towards Cirith Ungol, a long-ass trek of stairs upon stairs upon stairs.
Listen, if Tolkien didn't have a way with words, the stairs would have probably been the end for me.
Still, the two friends and companions remain true to each other, and of course land nowhere else but in Shelob's lair, which is exactly where Gollum wanted to land them. They prove stronger than the spider initially, however, with the help of Galadriel's phial, but Frodo gets a bit too drunk on hope and runs off before Sam can properly follow - landing himself with another stab wound as Shelob gets him.
She gets her own, though, once Sam gets right mad about what's happening, but then, thinking his dear master's dead, he takes the Ring and hides from a troop of Orcs that come to see what the racket's all about.
The Orcs reveal to an invisible Sam that Frodo isn't actually dead, just numb from the poison, and as they take him to Cirith Ungol for questioning, poor Sam is left behind, in despair, because he's separated from his master and knows his true place is by his side.
And THAT is the end of The Two Towers! As you can see, a whole lot more happens in the book than in the movie, which is why it's always good to read the literary piece any flick is based off of, however, Jackson remained true to the spirit of Tolkien and kept all the bigger, important beats in, removing only those that coincide with some other Return of the King activities.
That said, the prose remains magnificent, and despite the fact I always struggle with Frodo and Sam's section, I nevertheless love this whole thing to pieces.
So make sure to tune in next week, when we conclude everything in The Return of the King!
xx
*image not mine
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