Station Zero

I'm rereading The Lord of the Rings for the eleventy-first time, and blogging my thoughts about it. You lucky people... So Gollum has led Sam and Frodo to the Black Gate of Mordor, and they've found it shut. They turn south, and their weary journey continues - they have no food except the Elvish Lembas they brought from Lorien, which is getting a bit samey. The landscape is still dreary and ruinous, and now that they are so close to Sauron's stronghold the Ring on its chain round Frodo's neck is getting heavier and heavier - his growing weariness and Sam's concern for him are constant themes in these chapters. First sight of Ithilien, by Ted Nasmith But as always in The Lord of the Rings , after an ordeal there comes respite, a rest, and usually a meal. It seems unlikely that the hobbits will find anywhere to rest so close to Mordor's borders, yet they do: the wooded countryside of Ithilien, which has only recently fallen under the Enemy's control, ...

I'm re-reading The Lord of the Rings . Tremble before the hotness of my takes... The Uffington White Horse, c/o Wikipedia Q: How cool are the Riders of Rohan? A: Extremely cool. They combine the outfits and culture of the Anglo Saxons with the expert horsemanship and healthy outdoor lifestyles of the Sioux or the Apache. They were always my favourites when I was young, and now that I'm very much no longer young the only problem I can see with them is that they make the Gondor crowd in The Return of the the King look a bit dull by comparison. But we haven't reached The Return of the King yet: we're still on Book One of The Two Towers , and if you're still reading this, thank you so much! We left Merry and Pippin marching off to war with the Ents, so now it's time for the narrative to loop back to Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, who have just met a strange old man in another part of the forest. The strange old man turns out to be Gandalf, who has much impor...