[00:00:00] So I am reading Fellowship of the Ring for the first time. And just a plug to subscribe if you like this kind of content. I have to say if I read so far, I actually find myself giddy to get back into this book every day. This doesn't happen with me for a lot of books. But this one has been so fun. I find myself excited to read and just opening the book makes me happy.
[00:00:21] But anyway, I just came to the creepiest chapter maybe in the whole book so far. Fog on the Barrow Downs. And I have to say, I've never had so many questions about a chapter. I've been talking to some people on our Discord and it's still a bit confusing to me. But I want to read a bit of the extra stuff on the Barrow Downs because they're apparently the remnants of a Dunedain city? The barrows are the graveyards of kings?
[00:00:48] Like the witch king seemed to send some wights to inhabit the bones of said king so that the kingdom wouldn't get restored? And was the witch king afraid of the Dunedain? I don't know, but I have so many questions. So if you are watching and you can help answer those, let me know in the comments below. And if you're in the Discord and I already typed those questions out and a few people are responding to that, know that I'm writing this before I even posed those questions.
[00:01:16] So don't get annoyed with me. But I have so many questions about this chapter, but I mainly want to talk about how creepy this chapter was. And it's creepy for a number of reasons. Well, two reasons for me. The first is that it's shocking to me how quickly the hobbits seem to have run into danger.
[00:01:34] Yes, in the film, the black riders were going through hobbits and looking for Frodo. And in the book, that danger was just significantly more present. But still, even in the movies, it felt like they didn't really encounter danger until they were out of the Shire. And even a few days out with Aragorn.
[00:01:50] Again, I know the black riders were on their tail the whole time, but it just felt different to me. But in this chapter, there are these terrifying creatures called Barrow Whites. I would have loved if the movie had these in them. It just seems like they'd be a perfect fit for a film. And I may be wrong, but they just seem like a mix of the Green Army of the Dead and Return of the King, but also kind of like groundhogs mixed with Nifflers from Harry Potter, but also Dementors.
[00:02:18] They're greedy, creepy, and ghostly and foggy. And their appearance seems to be shrouded in just this weird fog, kind of like the Mistwraiths in Mistborn. And this is the biggest contribution to the first point of creepiness in this chapter for me. The Barrows live in a fog. So Frodo, in stupidity in this chapter, goes running out into the fog and immediately loses the other three hobbits.
[00:02:44] He hears them yelling for him, but like it was from a great distance. And then he hears their screams of help, too. He goes running and then gets to this barrow, and this is what the book says. He imagines suddenly that he caught a muffled cry, and he made toward it. And even as he went forward, the mist was rolled up and thrust aside, and the starry sky was unveiled.
[00:03:07] A glance showed him that he was now facing southward, and was on a round hilltop, which he must have climbed from the north. Out of the east, the biting wind was blowing. To his right there loomed against the westward star a black, dark shape. A great barrow stood there. Where are you? He cried, both angry and afraid.
[00:03:32] Here, said a voice, deep and cold, that seemed to come out of the ground. I am waiting for you. No, said Frodo. But he did not run away. His knees gave and he fell to the ground. Nothing happened, and there was no sound. Trembling, he looked up. In time to see a tall, dark figure like a shadow against the stars. It leaned over him.
[00:03:59] He thought there were two eyes, very cold, though lit with a pale light that seemed to come from some remote distance. Then it gripped stronger and colder than iron seized him. The icy touch froze his bones, and he remembered no more. Step aside, Alfred Hitchcock. Sheesh, does Tolkien know how to write a horrifying scene? This one sent shivers down my spine. And especially the idea of incorporating the mist, this unknown element where things mysterious happen.
[00:04:30] And then all of a sudden, Frodo is running around looking for his friends. It reminded me of the scene in Batman Begins when the guy is running around, and he yells at the sky, Where are you? And Batman is behind him just hanging upside down and goes, Here! It's terrifying stuff! And these barrowights are probably the scariest thing this world has that I've seen so far. I'd rather deal with the spiders of Mirkwood than these horrifying things. And it just seems so close to the Shire.
[00:04:57] In my understanding, everything within like a hundred miles of the Shire was safe. Now we have the old forest, which seems like an angrier version of Fangorn. And then the barrowights. On top of that, the other creepy part of this chapter was a question I had. For if Frodo thought something because it was survival instincts or because the ring is perverting his mind. I think that's the big question I have through all this. Is this just human nature? Or is the ring poisoning him?
[00:05:27] Because when Frodo gets captured by that wight, and then he wakes up and sees Sam, Mary, and Pippin all lying there with a sword across them, he thinks this. At first, Frodo felt as if he had indeed been turned into a stone by the incantation. Then a wild thought of escaping came to him. He wondered if he put on the ring, whether the barrowight would miss him. And he might find some way out. He thought of himself running free over the grass, grieving for Mary, Sam, and Pippin, but free.
[00:05:56] And alive, himself. Gandalf would admit there had been nothing else he could do. He then quickly dispels that from his mind because he has some deeper form of courage now, but just the thought that he would run away from these hobbits who showed him immense loyalty is so sad. I wonder if this was the ring, or if I were in a similar situation, would do the same thing. But through all this creepiness and darkness, and this entire chapter, there is a beautiful paragraph
[00:06:24] that I want to read and finish this essay on. But though his fear was so great that it seemed to be part of the very darkness that was around him, he found himself as he lay thinking about Bilbo Baggins and his stories, of their jogging along together in the lanes of the Shire, and talking about roads and adventures. There is a seed of courage hidden, often deeply it is true, in the heart of the fattest and the most timid hobbits,
[00:06:53] waiting for some final and desperate danger to make it grow. Frodo was neither very fat nor very timid. Indeed, though he did not know it, Bilbo and Gandalf had thought him the best hobbit in the Shire. He thought he had come to the end of his adventure, and a terrible end. But the thought hardened him. He found himself stiffening as if for a final spring. He no longer felt limp like a helpless prey.
[00:07:22] Frodo was showing a lot of fight and a lot of courage, and I absolutely loved this section of the chapter. It's just a brilliant chapter to contrast the light and the darkness. Oh, and one last question. Did Tom have a first love? Because there's some sentence where Tom Bombadil picks up a piece of treasure and just seems to stop and look at it as if stirred by some memory, and then he says, Fair was she who wore this on her shoulder. Who is that? Someone talk to me about this,
[00:07:51] because I am so curious if Tom had a previous lover before the river gave birth and had, you know, a gold berry. Anyway, make sure you like and subscribe, and I'll see you in the next one.