The Two Towers was…okay. I read it over the course of about one year. I got through about half of it and then put it down for about 8 months, before I picked it up again on my honeymoon after reading Dune and finished it shortly thereafter.
Since I’ve already started reading Return of the King I’m finding this post on Two Towers to be a bit challenging to write. My brain has already moved on! But I will try.
I really enjoyed the Ents, though they sang a bit too much for my liking. This is a common occurrence throughout the series: everyone seems to sing or recite poetry. LOTR could easily be a musical. For serious. OH WAIT – IT WAS A MUSICAL. It played at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto and in London in 2006. According to the interwebs it is coming back for a world tour in 2015. The cast was made of up 65 actors and the whole thing played out in three acts over three and a half hours. Bad ass.
The second half of The Two Towers described Frodo, Sam and Gollum/Smeagol’s journey to Mordor. In my opinion, Gollum/Smeagol is an adorable sad little creature that you can’t help but love despite his murderous tendencies. Really it’s only Gollum that has murderous tendencies. Smeagol is like an abandoned puppy you see on those animal rights PSA’s that Sarah McLachlan sings in. Sam is a jerkface. He is so mean to Gollum and then wonders why Gollum is mean to him – you get what you give, Samwise Gamgee. Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it. If I was Gollum I would hate you too – just give the man an uncooked rabbit, you ass hat! He’s the one that caught them for you, after all. The least you could do is let the poor guy eat one the way he wants it. Isn’t it less work for you to just leave it uncooked anyway? And isn’t it super dangerous to start a fire right now too? You suck, Sam.
So they get to Mordor and they just have this one little bit left to go. At this point there are about 30 pages left in the book so you’re feeling pretty good about where you are. Like you’re going to get some payoff and satisfaction for all this reading you’ve done to get here. You figure you’ll do some more reading about Frodo and Sam walking, Sam will say something about having bad feelings and being in love with Frodo, Frodo will remain the ever-stoic and quiet hero and have some kind of inner thought about how he needs to just make it a little bit further to save the world. He might pass out once or twice more along the way. Maybe they’ll find some berries and make a soup or something…
Nope! J.R.R. Tolkien was a trickster, and the joke is on you! Because as soon as Sam and Frodo get close to Mordor, BOOM! GIANT SPIDER ATTACK!
I cannot even begin to explain how annoyed I was by Shelob’s appearance. Of course, why wouldn’t there be a giant spider guarding the cave? That makes perfect sense. I don’t know why I ever expected anything else. Thankfully this little altercation with the giant spider didn’t last long, and Sam and Frodo managed to evade her with the help of a flashlight and a tiny sword. Too bad Frodo gets captured by Orcs immediately after. Sam decides to put on the ring and completely give away their location to Sauron because he’s a jerk.
Final thought: Even though Gollum completely betrayed Frodo and Sam, I’m still rooting for the little guy.
Who could say no to those baby blues?
catherine reads 