The Return of the King: Tolkien saved the best for last

The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien

There are many opinions and discussions that one could have on Tolkien’s great epic, but one thing is for certain: he saved the best for last. Even Peter Jackson, the director of the film trilogy was heard to say: “I made the first two movies so that I could make the third.” Everything that has been building in the first two installments now explodes across the pages: battles, intrigues, madness, escapes, disguises, rescues, chases — it’s all here as the allied forces of Middle-Earth (Hobbits, Men, Elves, Dwarves and Ents) make their last desperate stand against the converging forces of evil.

Like the previous volumes, The Return of the King is divided into two books: Book Five and Book Six. Book Five concerns the reunion of most of the Fellowship and the lengths they take in order to draw the Dark Lord Sauron’s eye away from Frodo and Sam. But this togetherness is not to last — soon Gandalf whisks Pippin away to the white city of Gondor in order to stir the city up for battle, whilst Merry swears fealty to King Theoden of Rohan and attempts to find a way to follow him into battle. In even more peril is Aragorn, who decides to take the dread Paths of Dead in order to muster the ghoulish allies that may be found there — with Legolas and Gimli at his side.

They will all converge once more in Gondor, (along with Faramir, Eomer, Eowyn and Denethor, the grim Stewart of the King) where the battle of their time will take place outside the walls…

In Book Six, Sam finds himself alone in the terrible realm of Mordor after realising that Frodo is not dead, but now captured by the Enemy. After Gollum’s betrayal, Sam has nothing left to do but sneak his way into the very fortress of the Dark Lord in the attempt to find Frodo and continue their journey to Mount Doom. But with the Ring now in his keeping, he becomes aware for the first time of its terrible lure…

Everything that Tolkien has set up in the previous books come to fruition and is dealt with in its proper time and place — not always to happy endings, but to satisfactory and bittersweet ones: the fading of the elves, the cost of battle, the return of the king, and even Tolkien’s subtle but vitally important Christian resonances in the course of the story. To point them out directly would be to take away your opportunity to discover them yourself, but keep in mind the triad role of Frodo, Gollum and the Ring: Frodo’s continual mercy toward him, Gandalf’s past words that “he has yet a part to play, for good or for evil,” and the divine grace that seems to intercede at a crucial moment, where the fate of the entire world seems to hang in the balance.

At the end of the day, credit must be given where credit is due, and in many ways the hero of the piece is Samwise Gamgee. By the time we reach Book Six most of the journey is seen through Sam’s point of view in order to better witness Frodo’s decline and the intense devotion that Sam bestows on him. Perhaps my favourite part of the book is Sam’s epiphany, when he gazes up at a lonely star in the sky — but again, I’ll let you discover that for yourself.

Reading The Lord of the Rings is an amazing experience. By this stage, you’ll probably be intensely invested in these characters and their situations, as well as enveloped in the detailed and three dimensional realm of Middle-Earth, the most vivid and realistic sub-creation that the literary world has ever seen, bar none. From the movement of armies to the pitiful sight of two tiny hobbits crawling up the side of a mountain; Tolkien can effortlessly describe both epic and intimate moments. In fact, in this contrast lies one of his most tear-stirring ideas — the careful and deliberate decision on the part of Aragorn, Gandalf and their allies use themselves as bait in the hope of the barest possible chance that Frodo will be able to complete his mission. The display of such enormous self-sacrifice is just…well, I’m lost for words to describe it.

Just as Peter Jackson made the first two movies in order to make the last one, reading the first two books definitely has its payoff in this magnificent conclusion.