A thread we get here on /r/Fantasy with relative frequency is “If you could forget a book and read it again for the first time, what book would it be?” My answer has always been LotR, because while it is a book that has meant a great deal to me, I have zero memory of what it was like to experience it for the first time. Those memories of my first trip through LotR have been subsumed into the numerous re-reads I’ve done over the years.
I’m finding that this re-read, though, with its slow pacing and intense consideration of each chapter, is bringing back memories I didn’t know I still had. In this case, I found myself remembering just how sinister I found this chapter title (which I am sure is exactly what Tolkien intended). I expected something dark and dangerous to be revealed.
Instead, we get the most heartwarming conspiracy to be found outside of a surprise party.
I love how Merry and Pippin (not so much faithful Sam) keep rolling their eyes at each other as Frodo is winding himself up to tell them he’s leaving. I love that Merry has it all planned out, better than Frodo himself did. I love that Frodo’s been sighing to himself about having to leave the Shire for months, and his friends have noticed. I love it all.
And now I want to get to my promised discussion of Merry and Pippin. In the movies, Merry and Pippin are swept up in events they do not understand. They find their courage, and rise magnificently to meet the challenges demanded of them. And all of this is, I feel, a significant disservice to their characters. Merry in particular is every bit as mature and level-headed a Hobbit as Frodo. He and Pippin knew exactly what they were getting in to. They joined the quest with their eyes wide open. That’s a Big Deal.
I understand wanting to inject comic relief, and Pippin in particular is well suited to that role. (He, Merry, and Sam had prepared a song to celebrate their departure, a cover of “Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold” from Bilbo’s departure, one line of which references leaving before the break of day. When Frodo mentions getting out before dawn, Pippin’s all, “wait, what? That wasn’t serious!”) But there’s a difference between a comic relief and a buffoon. Merry and Pippin were as courageous as anyone, and didn’t need to grow into that role.
Next week: we leave the Shire and enter “The Old Forest”
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