noWizardme
Half-elven
Mar 29, 11:11am
Views: 5449
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I suggest do *some* of it in book order
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I think that one reason it works for Tolkien to keep us in The Shire for several chapters is so that we can feel all the more keenly how wrong things are when our travellers return and see what Lotho, Saruman and the Ruffians have made of it. So to an extent we could follow along with that, and it would not for a moment preclude pieces such as Curious' idea about the trees. One possible scheme (top of my head) would be:- Shire society (since we get a lot of this at the start of the book, what this is like and how it chafes the eccentric, cosmopolitan Bagginses)
- The Shire, a gazetteer. Once Three is Company, we get a tour of the unexpectedly wild and secret corridoor of The Shire. Other observations about places rather than society could fit in here too (either as part of one discussion, or as a sequence, so as to allow more specific starter posts such as a discussion of the trees)
- How did folks want to handle the 'growth of courage' aspect? I could imagine that working perfectly well as a standalone sequence in parallel to or after the series about The Shire. That might be best if teh link with The Shire itself is a bit tenuous. Or was the idea to look at how The Shire affects our Fab Four while they are away: determination ot save it; memories of it; attitudes and mindsets fostered by being of it's culture (both positive attitudes, and negative ones such as naievity and xenophobia)?
- The Shire, marred. What it is like under the Lotho regeime, and later as a colony of Isenguard. What the significance of this is in terms of "Mordor" being able to appear anywhere...
Floating around somewhere without a place in the sequence as yet is Gandalf's comment (to Merry, in 'Many Meetings') that "Indeed there is a power in Rivendell to withstand the might of Mordor, for a while; and elsewhere other powers still dwell. There is power, too, of another kind in the Shire. But all such places will soon become islands under siege, if things go on as they are going." What do we think this 'power' is? Now: I have two caveats:
- Firstly, this makes things very book-sequence plot and character based once again, and possibly people are weary and it's time for a new approach? (I have no evidence that this is a problem, so I suppose I'm just prompting anyone who feels the need for new ideas to suggest them). So please feel free to adapt or discard the above plan. I have no objection at all to another scheme that forum members would prefer.
- That's all the more so because I'm not sure how much I'll be able to contribute to this run. That's both because I have a lot to do in real life at present (don't worry: nice stuff!), and also because I've begun to notice myself increasingly repeating ideas and themes I've already posted earlier. That's begun to bore me, even if it isn't boring everyone else. And in general I'm finding it harder and harder to keep engaged. I'm just stale, I think, and I need the stimulus of responding to someone else's ideas rather than writing starter posts. So I can't undertake to lead any discussion, but I hope to pop up, Gandalf like, unexpectedly but in useful ways.
~~~~~~ "I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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