Rereading The Lord of the Rings After Many Years

 It's funny, but I haven't actually read The Lord of the Rings for more than a decade now.  I've started to read it several times, and gotten through the prologue, which I quite enjoy.  But somehow, I'm either in the mood for some lore or for a story, and I never get any further.  Or maybe it's that I didn't like my copy.

But my brother-in-law is finally reading the books for the first time, and so I decided: all right, here it is.  And so I started . . . 

At Chapter 1.  Having skipped the Prologue.

Old Obsessions Are Still Possessions (to quote my sister):

Travesty, I know.  Or maybe I know and you don't, so let me give my credentials.  

I was in middle school when the first movie came out, and so I read the books first, which set me up to dislike the movies.  Ii started out my time on the internet on tolkienonline, where I was, for the first and last time in my life, a Big Deal on a forum and story-based website.  People recognized my username.  I wrote a popular (and very ridiculous) fan fiction and collaborated on a larger story with many others.  I read and commented on Every Single Story that was posted.  It was my place, my home . . . until it started changing (it has a new name now and is unrecognizable) and I fell off.  But still, it was my first online-based obsession.  

And on top of that, I have played The Lord of the Rings Online MMORPG since beta.  And that game is made by the most obsessive fans who have ever obsessed.  I'm not kidding when I say I know obscure lore and have the maps imprinted on my brain.  

And yet . . . and yet . . . I've only read the Silmarillion all the way through once, The Children of Hurin Twice, The Tolkien Reader four or five times . . . and I've never read the histories.  I memorized some words in the Black Speech but hardly any of the geneologies and only two of Tolkien's poems.  Which I know some would say makes me a fake fan.  :)

Starting Without the Prologue

So anyway, I did the unthinkable and skipped the Prologue.  I'm now about 100 pages in; we're just reaching Woodhall.  And I love it.  I love that cold start, right into some magnificent storytelling.  (And somehow, through all the slogging through histories, I forgot that Tolkien is just a really good, compelling writer with a lot of sly wit and frankly easy prose.)  Beyond that, reading is so refreshing.  It says to me: "This.  This is what truly good writing looks like.  This is what no-question-but-it's-five-stars writing looks like.  How have you forgotten?"  But it seems, reading it, that there were several details I forgot -- even as, on a deeper level, far more details spring to memory.

Thinking of Fellowship as having been published much later than The Hobbit

If I'd grown up having obsessed over the Hobbit, it would've been devastating to me to see Bilbo so old.  I did read The Hobbit first (or my fifth grade teacher read it aloud), but only two years before; and though I liked it, I wasn't madly in love with it.  But imagine if I had loved Bilbo so deeply, only to see him so old, so tired . . . 

But as is, for me, The Lord of the Rings stands out more; and so I see The Hobbit more as a prequel; and so I am not sad to see old Bilbo but happy to see young Bilbo when I read that book.

It's Just a Start

As I said, I'm only 20% of the way into the first book.  I've barely dipped my toe in.  And yet, how striking . . .

I'll post further if I have further reflections.

A Spoiler-Filled Rant on Undertale

. . . that probably won’t make sense unless you’ve played the game and might disagree with you if you have.  But here I am anyway.  If you haven’t played the game, I do recommend it.

So, for Christmas, a friend gave me Undertale, which I had heard of but not played.  I knew a few things but not that much—mainly that there were different paths based on whom you decided to kill or spare.  I should mention that I have played fairly few video games in my life, though I sometimes watch Let’s Plays, and therefore am fairly slow; it took me about 10 hours to finish the game.

Knowing what small spoilers I did, I thought about how I wanted to play the game, and decided to try not to let my knowledge influence me.  It came to me very quickly that I would play as follows: kill only those characters I found it absolutely necessary to kill and do my absolute best to spare everyone else.

 

TORIEL

The first monster I killed was this psycho kidnapper who imprisoned me in her home and decided to make me her child against my will; then, when I tried to escape, dragged me back again and again before finally violently attacking me.  Aside from the fact of kidnapping and wrongful imprisonment, it became clear to me that the only way I’d ever be safe from her was to defeat her.

After that, I didn’t kill any monsters.  I went way out of my way to be merciful and spare them.  The only time I slipped up was once monster that attacked me.  I tried to spare it, but it refused, so I hit back . . . and hit way harder than I expected, since I didn’t fully understand the fight mechanics.  It died by accident.  A pity, but since it had attacked me first and I’d done my best to spare it, I wasn’t too broken up.

 

UNDYNE

The next monster I killed was this psycho stalker who followed me halfway across the world, repeatedly attempting to murder me.  I offered to spare her, to talk with her, anything—and she refused.  She screamed at me again and again that she was going to murder me and use my soul to open a portal to the human world, where she would murder all humans.  (And she dared call me a murderer!)  Se refused to back down, but I wasn't about to let her murder not only me but all humans.  I therefore fought back and I killed her.*

(*The game went all sad-music and then silence, as if I should be sorry for what I’d done; as if I’d been ruthless.  You know, because it was so wrong of me to prevent the monster who’d hunted me across the world from murdering all of humanity. . .)

There were three more encounters, over the course of the game, in which monsters attacked me and I couldn’t figure out how to save them, and who died while I was trying to get them to accept mercy or at least let me run away.  One of these encounters was the royal guards, so there were two of them.  My overall kill count was now up to six: four by accident, in defending myself, and two on purpose, out of reasonable necessity.

 

ASGORE

I then encountered the king, the one who had ordered everyone in his land to murder me in order to further his plans of genocide—for which plan he had already murdered six children.  To quote the king’s exact dialogue: “I said that I would destroy any human that came here.  I would use their souls to become godlike… Then, I would destroy humanity...”

(**The wiki says he plans “to kill seven humans and use their SOULs to break the barrier that traps everyone Underground. However, he is not evil or malicious” . . . Did whoever write the second sentence bother to read the first?)

I wished to accuse him of his crimes, of the deaths of the children and of the deaths of his own citizens (who had only died because he'd ordered them to murder me.  And . . . the game wouldn’t let me accuse him.  Instead, it made me listen to this child-murdering genocide-plotter give a long whiny speech about how it wasn’t his fault he murdered children.  He didn't want to do it; he didn't like it.  He just had to, y'see?

You are king.  You are king.  How dare you not want to dirty your own hands.  I guess it’s easy to order murder when you don’t have to do it yourself!  But it is your responsibility.  You evil murderer, how dare you!

Then the king attacked me, and I defeated him but didn't yet kill him.  As he lay wounded, he gave another whiney speech about how, really, he wasn’t a bad guy; he just murdered all those people because he wanted to give his people hope, but now doing that was too much bother (how tiresome child-murder and genocide had become!) and all he wanted was to go have a nicer life, so how about I just do what I like and leave him alone?  

How unbelievably selfish, capricious, and evil can you get?  But beyond that: what would happen if I did leave, and left you in charge, you murderer?  Of all the monsters I have met, it is you above all who deserve the name “monster”!  

And so, rather than let the king continue to do what he pleased, I killed him, determined to take his place as king: to rule the monsters as they should be ruled, to protect them without resorting to the evil methods of my predecessor.***  And without taking the monsters to the land of the humans, where their peaceful society would have been shattered into bloodshed.  Maybe someday, in small pieces, when the time was right.  But for now, when the monster society was peaceful and the king's prejudice strong and it had been established the monsters would easily be wiped out?  No.  I would bring about a fruitful society where we were.

(***But did the game allow this?  No, it crashed, made me fight a flower, and then had my character leave for the world of the humans, saying a robot was now king.  But that was not my choice.  My choice was not to leave.  My choice was to take responsibility and act as a king should act.)

 

I AM FRUSTRATED.

The story of the game accuses me of being a murderer and has all sorts of sad music for the actual murderers when they die.  It says—you must be a pacifist (but everyone else can be a murderer) or you’re just the worst!

Ultimately . . . this game, which is full of seeming choice, did not give me the choices I wanted: to accuse the king and to rule in his place.  (And yes, I’d have been allowed to rule in that society.  Apparently, any old person can rule it, based on how some endings allow a dog to rule, a celebrity robot to rule, the unknown Papyrus to rule, etc.)  

To survive with mercy, with sense, and with strength, to take what was broken and work with it, to take responsibility . . . these things, the game would not allow.

What a pity.  What a waste. And yet I stand by my character's decisions, every one of them, as reasonable and just and necessary.  

I would have been the king they needed.  And whatever the game says, I declare this my ending.

 

 

The Midnight Files has ended its serial novel run.

 After 2-1/2 years, I have taken The Midnight Files down from Amazon.  It had a good run, and I'm proud to say that it ended at #33 top faved across all genres and #6 in fantasy.  Thank you for everyone who read and enjoyed it!  It will be back some day, newly edited and in hardcover format.

Happy 2025, everyone!