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katajainen · 6 years

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Home: not how you left it

The first thing that struck me as strange at first when reading ‘The Scouring of the Shire’, was how people would look to Frodo for leadership. I thought, how does the heir of Mad Baggins, previously labeled as ‘queer’ (in ‘The Shadow of the Past’) get to command such respect?

But to put it another way: how would he not? Take a look at our four returning travelers: they ignore the new rules and restrictions with gleeful contempt, seem to hold no fear for those who have held the Shire in terror for the better part of last year, and most importantly, have the confidence and drive to start a change for the better. And having to pick one leader among those four, Frodo would be the obvious choice: Merry and Pippin are both too young to be considered seriously, and Sam is, for all the fame he might have won in the far-away lands, still only Frodo’s gardener.

However, while Frodo might be the figurehead of the Shire uprising, his hands are not those that make it happen, not when it comes down to the ugly truth of battle, and there is a reason for it.

For Frodo has changed from the hobbit who struck fiercely at the cave troll in the Chamber of Mazarbul, and threatened both Gollum and Shelob herself at swordpoint. ‘I do not think it will be my part to strike any blow again,’ he says in ‘The Land of Shadow’ when he asks Sam to keep Sting, and later, when dressing for the feast on the field of Cormallen, he only consents to carry a blade for appearances’ sake.

Even on finding his home, his ‘own country’, overrun and laid waste, Frodo wishes there would be a way to settle matters without fighting -- and if that cannot be, he begs his fellows to avoid killing any of the Big Folk, save to spare hobbit lives -- and to keep from killing any hobbits, period. That no hobbit has ever slain another on purpose in the Shire is clearly a breaking point for him, that he means for the uprising to stop at driving out the ruffians and go no further. Because it would be easy, far too easy, to start settling scores against those who had sided with Sharkey and the Boss, and that would be a very dangerous path to start upon.

But if Frodo is the voice of reason and moderation holding the anger of others in check, someone else is the true commander in chief: namely Merry. He’s the realist who admits the potential for violence from the beginning, the one who says they ‘must be prepared for the worst’ and crafts the plan that gives them victory. Pippin, while capable, but plays a lieutenant to Merry’s general, and Sam’s talents lay elsewhere, namely in the care of his loved ones.

All through the battle, Frodo’s own blade stays sheathed, and even afterwards, he stays those who would kill Saruman for making a final clumsy attempt at his life. Indeed, his words, ‘his cure is beyond us; but I would still spare him, in the hope that he may find it,’ echo what Gandalf once said of Gollum (in ‘The Shadow of the Past’): ‘I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it.’

Because Saruman is right when he claims that Frodo has grown; indeed, at the end of his journey, he has much more common with the hobbit who saved Gollum’s life in ‘The Window of the West’ than with the one who once wished the creature had died by Bilbo’s hand. Granted, Gollum had sworn Frodo his service, and Saruman has no such defense, yet both receive the same mercy -- and, for their own distinct reasons, mistake it for cruelty.

At first I thought it odd that Saruman should complain that Frodo’s mercy has ‘robbed my revenge of sweetness,’ for he also brags that the consequences of his foul meddling will plague the Shire well into the next generation. Then I realized what he was on about: when he attacked Frodo, Saruman expected to die for it. And perhaps there was a grain of truth in his high and mighty words: his blood, shed by hobbit hands in anger, might perhaps not caused the Shire to ‘wither and never again be healed’, but it might, in some small, insidious way, have befouled the innocence, so to speak, of its inhabitants. That knowing themselves capable of vengeance-killing or execution, the hobbits might never again be quite the same, thus becoming lesser than they once were.

And finally, one more thing that also caught my attention was how different emotions the four hobbits display when confronted with the situation in the Shire. While Sam is clearly upset when he sees the damage and hears of the injustice done, his despair is swiftly channeled into action and willingness to set things to rights. Pippin, of course, is one spark away from completely exploding, and his righteous anger and ‘Down on your knees in the road and ask pardon, or I will set this troll’s bane in you!’ speech are a delight to read. And although Merry appears to be keeping a level head, there’s something about the unquestioning way he takes command, about his repeated insistence of ‘we have got to do something at once’ that smells of cold fury. Remember, this one will be the Master of Buckland in due time, and when he says ‘I am going to blow the horn of Rohan, and give them all some music they have never heard before,’ it’s no empty threat.

But the chief impression I get from Frodo, is of profound sadness. Not resignation, but a deep regret that it should come to this, that it should come to fighting and killing, even if to simply defend their home and their loved ones. That Saruman, who ‘was great once,’ should meet an ignoble end at the very door of Bag End, after doing uncounted damage that will take more than one lifetime to mend. You get the sense that for all Frodo has suffered through so far, it’s this last blow that strikes closest to home, both figuratively and literally.

You can’t, as Sam puts it, ‘call it the end, till we’ve cleared up the mess.’

#silmread #lotr: the scouring of the shire #lotr meta #frodo baggins #meriadoc brandybuck #pippin took #samwise gamgee #hobbits #saruman #this got late and this got long *phew*#one more chapter to go #I can do this #...even if the havens are going to kill me

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