![]() ![]() This is the first, and only, time we’ll see one up close, and the thing is just a monstrosity, whose description calls back to some of the language previously used for Shelob: If anything, this simply makes him more of a hero of course, unjustly cut down by some little twerp in the moment of his greatest triumph.Īnd then comes the fell beast, some kind of giant featherless crow, a truly horrific creature from nightmare. Théoden is the hero, and an anonymous archer is the villain. Archers were never the most popular figures in the olden times, and this pervades into epic literature. Théoden kills his enemies with sword and shield, but dies from an arrow fired from afar. I have always thought this death was designed to emphasize the cowardly nature of the enemy. He falls from a “dart”, an oddly random way for such a pivotal character to fall in such an event as this battle, crushed beneath his own horse. ![]() Now the time comes for Théoden’s real desire to be met. Darkness falls again, the Witch-King resuming his previous victorious air. The Nazgul effect seems to ruin the previous heroic charge, sending the Rohirrim horses reeling off in terror, “ mastered by the madness of their steeds”. ![]() Here at least there is a continuing sense of victory, but even then the forces of darkness are regrouping.īecause the Nazgul come. ![]() Théoden hues down their leader and standard bearer. Théoden gets his big moment of glory, striking down a Haradrim Captain and “ great was the clash of their meeting”. The Rohirrim have delivered a brutal shock to the enemy, but that couldn’t last forever. The Rohirrim don’t just trample the Orcs they make them flee like “ herds before hunters”.īut that victory is not won in those first mad moments of charge and slaughter. This is a chapter meant to invoke feelings of majesty, glory and victory. It isn’t a battle where you talk about troops movements or unit distribution in any kind of serious way, instead it’s all stirring heroes, glittering swords, mighty deeds and epic duels. “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”, more than any other chapter, has the language of an epic poem, of Beowulf, The Iliad and the like, the kind of stories that were Tolkien’s bread and butter. I talk like this is a narrative of a serious military nature, but it isn’t. Infantry, undisciplined, unled infantry, stand little chance against a charge of this kind. It’s been mentioned before that Mordor has little cavalry of its own, and it seems clear that its forces have little idea of how to deal with opposing cavalry either. Théoden’s men are able to cut through them like a knife through butter. The charge of the Rohirrim, as cavalry charges in such circumstances tend to do, wipes out a huge portion of the unprepared Mordor infantry, who appear to have been caught somewhat flat-footed. He was still in command, wielding great powers.” I think, considering the triumphant note that Tolkien left the last chapter on, this piece of mood changing narrative is quite important, to impress upon the reader that nothing has been decided just yet. He is not defeated, and neither is Mordor. But, in a brilliant opening paragraph, it is made clear that this fight is just beginning as the Witch-King, accompanied by an array of titles that Tolkien chooses to give him – “King, Ringwraith, Lord of the Nazgûl, he had many weapons”- stalks off from the encounter at the gate, of his own volition, not Gandalf’s. The good guys have arrived, and the darkness is receding in the face of the light. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |