OK, Frodo’s left Hobbiton and we’re off to the races. The Nazgul are scary. Boo! Elves save the day. Yay!
Sorry, it’s really not that simple, folks. And that’s why it takes a whole long Chapter.
There are two things to talk about in this one. Let’s start with “bad.” This is the first Chapter in which you meet “bad” more or less face to face, through Frodo. So let’s use this to talk about “bad” in LOTR, because it will keep you from automatically typecasting LOTR as a horror story – as Peter Jackson was unconsciously prone to do.
The best of “bad” in LOTR is Sauron. He will remain, until he effectively “dies”, just as he is now: “a vast shadow, lightning-crowned” – a supreme being, very powerful (hence the lightning crown), causing fear (hence the shadow) and “bad” (hence the shadow). We will always interact with him indirectly, usually through those like him but “lesser,” whom he to some extent controls.
Now here’s the problem Tolkien (and every author) must face: what is “bad”, and how can I make myself and the readers understand and accept it as part of the story, relevant to us? Remember psychology? That suddenly made bad a lot more comprehensible and relevant. The woman in Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night was “bad”, because she fastened on the man like a vampire in order to cure herself of her psychological problems. And yet, he was willing to let her do it, because, at the end, cured of her problem, she was a “good” person.
How about the lieutenant in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls? We see the people of the other side, and feel the injustice to them, but the lieutenant is fundamentally a good man doing bad things, but without really turning bad himself. One can conceive that after the war, there is a possibility that such a man, given a chance, will serve in a good regime and do good, and that as much good as bad might even come out of the whole thing. These are not stick figures of evil.
Tolkien, imho, doesn’t succeed completely in handling this in a pre-psychology novel; but he comes much closer than you would think he would. So how does he do it?
Despite what Tolkien appears to have believed and what you probably think, in one respect I see this as fundamentally not primarily a religious novel. If you think very carefully about Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism, they share one trait: killing is a sin, but torture isn’t (I know, I’m exaggerating). The characteristics of torture are loss of the victim’s control, pain unnecessary to anyone’s purpose, and no clear end to the torture. The psychological novel focuses on this; so does the non-religious novel; but torture in religious literature somehow becomes controllable, somehow becomes limited, somehow fits the victim’s purpose. The victim can be redeemed, and the torturer is damned for his selfish thoughts, not for his actions (again, I’m exaggerating). Tolkien chooses both pre-psychology and non-religious: his “bad” people are bad primarily because they torture.
Now, here’s where I think Tolkien has difficulty. Almost invariably, the torturers “gloat.” They take pleasure in causing pain, endlessly, for no real purpose. Yes, I know that there are people like that; but it fundamentally does not connect with the reader the way the psychological novel does, because it’s harder for the reader to put themselves in the position of such a torturer, cold turkey. And when Tolkien’s Sauron surrogates start talking about unnecessary pain is when they start seeming petty, too petty for the weight of the story. Hence Edmund Wilson’s knee-jerk of a review, “Ooh, Those Awful Orcs!”
So let’s leave aside the gloating as we watch “bad” unfold. What makes the Nazgul credible on the printed page – although it’s hard to find the right sound effect on the screen – is that Tolkien is talking about a sound that makes one lose control – allied to a controlling intelligence.
When I first read this, well before I knew what horror movies or books were, the Nazgul never struck me as all that “magical” or implausible. And I think that’s because what he was really communicating was shock.
It starts with mild shock. The Nazgul’s hiss, like the hiss of a snake right next to you when you think you’re walking through open country. The Nazgul’s aura of fear, like the sudden appearance of a dark shape next to you on a country lane in the dark. The Nazgul’s breath, like opening the door of a warm house and being unexpectedly hit with a wind of absolutely freezing cold.
And then it escalates. The Nazgul’s cry in the Emyn Muil (and here I believe Tolkien is drawing on his own experience in WW I) is like the sound of an explosive right next to you that makes you absolutely freeze, unable to connect your mind to your body. It’s the sudden transition into shock when you are skiing and bash your face into a tree. It’s the howl of a creature right next to you at night that sends your hair on end, so you can’t think or move. And the Nazgul is trying to do that to you, so it can control you; and you know that, but you can’t do anything.
And then on top of that is layered the physical torture from the Nazgul and the other faces or allies of Sauron. The knife, at Weathertop, whose broken piece works its way inward. The sting, at Shelob’s Lair. The whip, at the Orcs’ fortress in Mordor and on the journey to Durthang. All leaving permanent physical effects, like the arthritis that always throbs but only really afflicts you in cold weather. And all of this is relatable to the experiences of many a reader with an open mind.
So that’s what’s going to play out for the rest of LOTR. Using this loss of control as a base, the Nazgul and others will slowly elaborate their torture as (as it turns out) Frodo’s addiction deepens, to make his goal harder and harder to achieve. And Tolkien is playing reasonably fair, here. No author’s games, no horror for horror’s sake. The Nazgul are indeed bound to do this. It is likely that he has to deal with this. Not a bad setup for “bad.”
And now for the other really important part of this Chapter, which all the action types want to skip over, and even the psychological types usually miss. The important part isn’t that the Elves rescue Frodo. The important part is that Frodo’s understanding of the world outside takes a large leap.
You see, up to now, both Frodo and we have merely “book” or “indirect report” learning of a large part of this outside world, mainly through Gandalf. And then, suddenly, Frodo comes face to face with someone who (as we find out in the Appendixes) has literally lived through and understood almost the entire history of the world, who knows what “good” (the Undying Lands of the “good” Gods, the Valar) is, and who appreciates or understands most of that outside world (parenthetical note: this also introduces the word “high” in the “old” language that Tolkien is using; more on that in later installments). And Frodo finds out that what he is doing (not him, what he is doing) matters to that representative of the entire history of the world.
And we find that Frodo, instead of behaving like those blundering action figures the dwarves in Mirkwood facing the Elves, shows he has turned that mostly book learning into empathy. He understands that the Elves may see him as they pass; he gives them the choice to speak to him or not, and they appreciate that. He tries to adopt their customs, and when they credit Bilbo for that, he is pleased; and they note that. And in return they try to warn him, trusting him to eventually figure out what they are saying, even though the warning itself draws them back into the affairs of a world that breaks their heart to the point where they are leaving it, because they can no longer bear to remember all the wonderful things that are now gone. Yes, folks, nothing going on here but a deus ex machina!
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