Extollager
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2010
- Messages
- 9,066
We come to the end of The Return of the Shadow and, though Tolkien has wondered if Trotter should be a Man (see, e.g., p. 393), he remains a hobbit. This probably tends to pull against Frodo's being the protagonist. Frodo is the Ring-bearer, but most readers would be finding Trotter/Peregrin a much more interesting character. Tolkien needed to un-hobbit Trotter (Strider); but two years into the writing of LotR, he hadn't done that.
396, 402/ Sauron spoken of as being now "fully awake." I was reminded of Lovecraft's Cthulhu, which I hardly think Tolkien ever heard of.
397/ From the notes here one can see why Tolkien might have thought that he'd already written by far the greater portion of LotR. In fact, he hadn't yet reached the end of what became The Fellowship of the Ring -- he wasn't even close to that.
398/ The language of Sauron's shadow reaching as far as the Blessed Realm (if he succeeds) suggests a partial answer to the question "What did Sauron want?"
402/ At the Council, as in the final version it seems there's no thought of an appeal being made to the Valar -- which isn't something that would have occurred to the reader of "the new Hobbit" anyway.
396, 402/ Sauron spoken of as being now "fully awake." I was reminded of Lovecraft's Cthulhu, which I hardly think Tolkien ever heard of.
397/ From the notes here one can see why Tolkien might have thought that he'd already written by far the greater portion of LotR. In fact, he hadn't yet reached the end of what became The Fellowship of the Ring -- he wasn't even close to that.
398/ The language of Sauron's shadow reaching as far as the Blessed Realm (if he succeeds) suggests a partial answer to the question "What did Sauron want?"
402/ At the Council, as in the final version it seems there's no thought of an appeal being made to the Valar -- which isn't something that would have occurred to the reader of "the new Hobbit" anyway.