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which one is your favorite?

I like The Retun of the King

I'd have to say the second one. It had a lot of action in it in itself. I'm referring to the books, though, not the movies.

Naturally The Return of the King, as the very emotional climax to the amazing trilogy. Tolkien wrapped up a lot of loose ends in that eccentric way that he does, and brought out all of the best (and worst) in the characters we'd grown to love in the last gasp.

i'd have to say my fav is the Two Towers

I've got to go with RotK just because it was the only one that made me laugh out loud xd (my parents looked at me at this point) and cry crying . It was soooo good!

(We are talking about the books right? sweatdrop )

I like the return of the kings

i liked RotK, it was very emotional whee and teh wrp up of the trilogy

Can I classify books IV & VI as their own part? XD The tri-book division was really a very arbitrary severing based more on what the publisher felt would sell than the actually logical divisions of the book. I suppose RotK is my favorite of the three accepted parts, but I'm particularly fond of books IV &VI.



I don't think I'd call Frodo's ending happy at all. I think he was devastated by what happened to his home while he was trying to save it. After Frodo learned he would have to leave the Shire (Book I, Chapter 2: "The Shadow of the Past", Page 62 of the 50th Anniversary Edition) he told Gandalf "I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again."

Much later at the Grey Havens (Book 6, Chapter 9, Page 1029) he and Sam has this exchange:

'But,' said Sam, and tears started in his eyes, 'I thought you were going to enjoy the Shire, too, for years and years, after all you have done.'
'So I thought too, once. But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.'

Note that Frodo says 'I tried to save the Shire'. I don't believe he really felt he had. Frodo failed in as much as his "firm foothold" was challenged. It was not as firm as he had thought. I think that, in the end, Frodo couldn't face the pain of his wounds, his rejection from his fellow Hobbits, and his own personal reproach. I would go so far as to say that if he had not been allowed to sail to Elvenhome, he would have committed suicide. And considering how much of his own experience and pain that Tolkien poured into Frodo, I also wouldn't be surprised if Tolkien had considered the same way out. Much of his writing suggests so.

That was far longer than I ment it to be. sweatdrop I understand your perspective, LegolasLady, and I appoligize for voicing my own in a rather condecendingly long winded way. You had the misfortune of wandering into something I've been mulling over for a while now without a chance to discuss. The sad thing is that's actually the short version of my thoughts.