The last two Chapters in Book 5. The march to the Black Gate, and the Voice of Sauron. And it seems fitting that one of the first Chapters in Book 4 was “The Black Gate is Closed”, and the last Chapter of Book 5 is “The Black Gate Opens.”
And there’s a wonderful parallel with the Hobbit at the end. Bilbo at the Battle of Five Armies sees the Eagles coming – and then gets knocked unconscious, and we know no more, until well afterward – when all is resolved. Pippin hears that the Eagles are coming, then gives up consciousness – and we know no more about Aragorn, and Gandalf, and Gimli, and Legolas, until so many other things happen to Frodo and Sam, and the result of those things happening is a profound resolution of the stories of Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and Pippin, and of the Last Battle.
But for now, we end on a cliffhanger. Not just a physical one – a moral one. And the cliffhanger is: How do you cope with despair?
Remember, the Voice of Sauron presents them with a mithril coat, and the only way it could have come into his possession is if it was taken from Frodo, unwillingly. So how, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, and all ask themselves, could that happen and yet Frodo not have also given up the Ring?
Of course, we readers with the benefit of long experience know that Tolkien will find a way, and soon we will know the way he found. But the doubt that afflicts all in Middle-Earth, from the Gods to the most lowly, about the way the Music of the Ainur will play out, means that it is possible to them that a way will not be found, or that Frodo and Sam will not follow that way. And even if a way is found, that does not mean it involves Frodo – whom they all care deeply about. The despair that strikes is global – and it is also very, very personal.
And Gandalf, who clearly figures out that there is more here than the Voice is telling, and that Frodo may not be in Mordor’s possession now, gives no comforting or hopeful words to those assembled to hear the Voice. They are left to gnaw their doubts in the middle of an oncoming storm of Mordor. For what hope can he give that sounds more than implausible? That Sam takes the Ring, does not succumb to it, and walks into a guarded facility inside which hundreds of Orcs have very conveniently killed themselves in order to rescue Frodo, and then the two of them escape without detection? That hope is little better than the simple blind hope that “a way will be found”.
But before we pursue that thought further, I want to take a detour and talk about what the Voice of Sauron says. Or rather, the way in which he says it.
It seems to me –and I am sure that many will violently disagree with me – that there are really three “voices” or patterns of speech in Tolkien. First, there is the vernacular, the rustic, the idiomatic, especially in the speech of the hobbits. There, one might cite Sam; but the conversations between Frodo, Pippin and Merry have their own breeziness, while the speech of Barliman Butterbur and Ioreth has its own quirky charm.
Second, I would say, is “sober modern speech”. This I detect in places as seemingly disparate as Gandalf’s conversations with Frodo, the common-sense pronouncements of Gimli, and the thoughtful reflections of Merry on “highness” and the Shire at the end of the Chapter at the Houses of Healing. It is the speech most accessible to our readerly experience, the times when it feels as if Tolkien is talking to us as an equal, rather than making a joke or a rousing experience.
The third is what, I believe, the conversation between Gandalf and the Voice of Sauron is suffused with. It is the declamatory, the oratorical, the “speech” way of talking. I have talked of how old/new words are gradually introduced into the story, and here, again, we see this third way of speaking dominate the words of the actors, and we may perhaps realize how much we have come to accept this type of speech as almost normal, and how far we have come from the modern speech patterns of the first part of Book I.
I think of it as Shakespearean, in a particular sense. My own warped view of Shakespeare is that he appears to be taking the words of his language available to him and throwing them at a situation as a modern painter may fling bits of paint at a canvas, creating “romantically” (remember the bit about sculpting an elephant?) new meanings for the words in the process. But Tolkien is what comes after Shakespeare does this, when the new meaning of the new/old words has settled, and so they are both florid/fantastical and recognizable to our ears. “Thou”. “Nay”. “Have we not heard of thee, at whiles, and of thy wanderings, ever hatching plots at a safe distance?” “Forgive my answer answerless.” “Full fathom five my father lies/Of his bones are coral made …”
And Tolkien was very clear about this distinction from ordinary speech. He did not feel that LOTR was appropriate for movies, apparently, because he thought that we the viewers would not accept the oratorical rhodomontade. He did not realize the extent to which readers who had learned to accept this through the books would populate the viewing audience.
And so the Voice of Sauron talks in this third way to Gandalf. And, in my opinion, does so without mimicry or mockery. It is simply evil spewing forth in a noble tongue, distinguishable from good only by its content and attitude. And what it conveys, its essential message, is: Despair. A message, by its oratorical format, as applicable to the high among its listeners as to the middle and low. Despair, and oh, by the way, give me all your money.
And Gandalf answers seemingly in the same way. In the same Shakespearean language. “These we will take, in memory of our friend. But as for your terms, we reject them utterly. Get you gone, for your embassy is over and death is near you.”
And yet, there is a difference. The Voice’s words, in Shakespearean language, are plausible. Gandalf’s words are inspiring. Memory. Friend. Utterly. Death is near you.
So what does this have to do with coping with despair?
Stephen Donaldson (yes, him again) makes one pronouncement with which I agree wholeheartedly: It is not despair, but the habit of despair that damns. It is not the initial addiction, but the habit of despairing to conquer it, that damns. It is not the original sin, but the habit of despairing to do anything about it, that damns. It was not, I think, that Denethor despaired sometimes of surviving against Mordor; it was that despair became a habit, so that the first reaction to another bit of news from Sauron was more despair.
And what breaks, what prevents a habit? Another habit.
Here I will intrude yet another piece of my personal life. In my early teens, like, I suspect, more of us than we realize or like to admit, I considered suicide. Things were bad. It did not seem that they would get better, ever. So I faced the thought, and Ithought about it. Carefully, and slowly, because I recognized the danger of having psychological problems that would pressure me to think fast and carelessly. And it seemed to me that the balance of do or do not was fairly even, that there was no guarantee that any next life was better or worse than this, or that nothingness was better or worse than what I was experiencing.
And so, I recognized one thing that tipped the balance: the fact that whatever I felt about others now, it would have a profound hurtful effect on them, permanently, and that would make them and those that depended on them worse off. And that wasn’t the sort of person I wanted to be; I did not want that to be the meaning of my life. And so I closed that logic and that decision, and filed it as a completed manuscript in the story of my life, and whenever I revisited it, I thought again the same thoughts. In effect, it became a habit. And that is why I laugh when professionals ask me if I have suicidal thoughts about having Alzheimer’s. It’s not that it’s not a valid question; it’s just that it’s ridiculous to me to think that I would ever be so stupid as to commit suicide. To do that to others.
But what triggers such a habit, in the moment? What can remind us, when we despair, that despair is not our habit, but something else is? Some other habit like honor, or highness, or the obligations of the noble person, or simple bull-headed stubbornness, or even hope? What calls the great habits of great ethics from the vasty deep of the soul? Why, inspiring words. Shakespearean words. Words with no hope, where hope is not to be had, but with grandeur and evocations of the meaning of your life. Friends. Those Memories that are dear to us.
And thus, having heard Gandalf, our faces no longer show grey from horror. We look with fell eyes upon the plausible Voice of despair. We shoulder our armour, and grip our weapons, while the smoke and darkness of Mordor roll over us. We wish simply to kill a Troll or two, for Merry, before we die. We say to our companions and friends, we are one equal temper of heroic hearts, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. We stand and fall while over us the fear and the horror of the Nazgul on their winged steeds lowers. And we shout these words, these memories of inspiration, as all night descends:
Aure entuvule! Day shall come again!
Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Like You’ve Never Heard It:
- The First of a Series of Ramblings About JRR Tolkien
- Part II. Pre-Psychology Writing, Poetry, and a New Hero
- Part III. Torture, Enlightenment
- Part IV. Weather, Mushrooms, Leaders
- Part V. In the Moment, Sam the Obscure
- Part VI. Folk Songs, Master, First, Fair
- Part VII. Hiking, Curses, Noble Language
- Part VIII. The Hiker’s Extrasensory Writing
- Part IX. Torture, Elves, Endings
- Part X. Your Highness
- Part XI. Business Meetings, Dwarves
- Part XII. Horns of Wild Memory
- Part XIII. Ecstasies of the Dwarves
- Part XIV. Valaraukar, the Third Touch of God
- Part XV. Memory, Nature, Passion
- Part XVI. The Gift of Enchantment
- Part XVII. Frontier Maturity
- Part XVIII. Pity, Decisions, Endings
- Part XIX. Into the Shadow, Kings, Names, Winds
- Part XX. People of the Morning, Child Soldiers
- Part XXI. Herdsmen and High Trees
- Part XXII. The Faith of God
- Part XXIII. Theoden’s Law
- Part XXIV. Helm’s Deep, Zangra, and A Life Worthy of Song
- Part XXV. Book of Marvels, Book of Friendship
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