I found I had rather little patience for this chapter. It’s well named: we get out last sight of Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Éowyn, Éomer, Treebeard - pretty much everyone except the four Hobbits and Gandalf. We do get to see Elrond, Galadriel, and Bilbo again a few chapters from now, but only briefly. We get more I’s dotted and T’s crossed, such as the formal betrothal of Éowyn and Faramir. Éomer and Gimli amicably agree to disagree about Who’s the Fairest Of Them All. Aragorn gives Ghân-buri-Ghân Drúadan Forest in thanks. Gimli and Legolas visit the Glittering Caves and then are off to Fangorn. We get a number of hints of what’s been going on in the Shire, and Frodo gets explicitly offered the chance to go to the West. But for the most part I just wanted to get on with things.
Several things I want to draw your attention to. First is the ridiculously sad description of the final goodbye between Elrond and Arwen:
Arwen Evenstar remained also, and she said farewell to her brethren. None saw her last meeting with Elrond her father, for they went up into the hills and there spoke long together, and bitter was their parting that should endure beyond the ends of the world.
The encounter with Saruman is interesting to me mostly because of just how malicious he is now. He's so self-righteous it's sickening.
Lastly, Bilbo as ever makes me laugh:
‘I have nothing much to give to you young fellows,’ he said to Merry and Pippin, ‘except good advice.’ And when he had given them a fair sample of this, he added a last item in Shire-fashion: ‘Don’t let your heads get too big for your hats! But if you don’t finish growing up soon, you are going to find hats and clothes expensive.’
(It bothers me that Bilbo ends up beating out the Old Took, and that Merry & Pippin get to be larger than the Bullroarer. Those records need as much of an asterisk as anything Barry Bonds did.)
Next time, Shadow, Chance, and Sassy overcome incredible odds and journey hundreds of miles in the hope of being reunited with their beloved family. Or something.