Blog Post 4

"There lies the woods of Lothlorien! That is the fairest of all the dwellings of my people. There are no trees like the trees of that land. For in the autumn their leaves fall not, but turn to gold. Not till spring comes and the new green opens do they fall, and the boughs are laden with yellow flowers; and the floor of the wood is golden, and golden is the roof, and its pillars are of silver, for the bark of the trees is smooth and grey"
                                                                         pg 349 The Fellowship of the Ring.

    Tolkien does a great job of describing the surrondings of his characters. This greatly enhances the ability of the reader to picture what he is trying to portray in his book. Here Legolas is describing the woods of Lothlorien where Galadrial one of the wisests eleves and oldest in all of Middle Earth. She is one of the 3 holders of the rings of power that were given to the elves. It is one of the few areas of the world where there is no darkness as Sauron is unable to enter it.

 
  If Frodo lived in the real world he would consider it a relief. In the real world he wouldnt have to face demons and gollums and armies of orc and a giant red eye. He already held the pressure of the whole world as the fate of relied on his ability to drop a ring into a volcano. I really don't see how any kind of preassure in this world can exceed that. If there is anything that needs to be done to save the world you could count on Frodo to accomplish it.

        If ever in our world we needed someone to do a task no one else could do we would be able to count on Frodo. I think he would do anything he could to preserve freedom. He is someone that can relied upon even in the most desperate situations. No matter how dangerous the quest would be Frodo would be able to complete it and solve the problems.








LAST BUT NOT LEAST

 

Blog 3

        In a way there is some level of intertexuality between The Lord of the Rings and The Pirates of the Caribbean. The main place this can be seen is if you look at Frodo and Jack Sparrow. Both are not the traditional hero. Frodo is a hobbit and they never leave their homes in the Shire. They hate adventures and Biblo, Frodo's uncle was one of the few who dare to go on various adventures. When the ring came to him he could have tried to pass it on but he didn't. Even in the book it shocked many people that the ring bearer who holds the future of the world in his hands is a hobbit.

   Like Frodo, Jack Sparrow is a very unlikely hero. He is an alcoholic and selfish pirate who is often willing to use others in order to achieve his own means. Like in The Curse of the Black Pearl when he was willing to trade Will Turner to Barbossa for the Black Pearl. Throughout the third movie he sought immortality by stabbing the heart of Davy Jones and became the immortal captain of The Flying Dutchman. Near the end of the movie however, Will is mortally wounded and Jack has an opportunity to stab the heart, kill Jones, and live forever. He does the opposite and actually gives the heart and dagger to Will who stabs the heart and as a result does not die. Just like it is not characteristic of a hobbit like Frodo to go on adventures to save the world, it is very uncharacteristic for a selfish pirate like Jack to give up immortality and fame to save the life of another. Just like Frodo, Jack proved to be an unlikely hero. Also like Frodo who has the 9 undead wraiths out to kill him and get the ring, Jack owes his soul to the undead Davy Jones who is intent on collecting the payment.

 
And Another Piece of Intertextuality....

Blog Post #2

       Half way through The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring I have been introduced to many characters that the Hobbits: Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry have met along their journey from the Shire to Rivendel. They have already met elves, orcs, moving trees, but my favorite character has to be Aragon or as he is known to the Hobbits, Strider. He is a ranger who roams the wild surviving and just being an overall bad ass. No one knows the world better than him except maybe Gandalf but he is too busy not being there. So it became Aragon's job to somehow get four hobbits to safety. He has to protect them from 9 ring wraiths.

       He gets them out of all sorts of trouble like when the hobbits decide to start cooking food in the middle of the night because they are always hungry. This gets the wraiths to attack them. Aragon leaves for just a second and they almost get killed. Then Frodo who's only job is to make sure the ring is safe and not put it on so Frodo puts it on as soon as the wraiths are around him and gets stabbed. This makes Aragon have to literally drag Frodo to Rivendel but this is even more hard because hobbits need to have a good 5 meals a day and get tired and must rest all the time. Through out this Aragon manages to pretty much save the whole world by being a complete bad ass.
       If Aragon found $100 on the street he would put it to good use. As a ranger he has to survive off the land and use whatever he manages to find to his advantage and uses it for survival. He would use the $100 to purchase supplies and weapons to continue his journey. He is very resourceful and would see the money as something he needs in order to survive so he would put it to good use. He is honorable however so if he actually saw the person who dropped it I believe he would return it to them because he is not a thief. But if he found it in the Wild he would put it to good use.

 Throughout the book Frodo is faced with temptation of putting the ring on. If he puts it on it lets Sauron and the wraiths know where he is and Gandalf said not to wear it as it also begins to posses the wearer little by little. The ring actually speaks to Frodo as it is trying to get to its master so it wants Frodo to wear it. Sometimes Frodo gives into temptation and puts the ring on. Whenever that happens bad things follow. Frodo got stabbed and poisoned. The Black Riders invaded Bree when he put it on there. Frodo tries to battle with this temptation and is not always successful




One Last Thing.....

 

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Blog Post #1

           For my independent reading book I chose The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien. It is the first volume of the Lord of the Rings series. I chose the book because I have always like The Lord of the Rings movies. Just last week I started watching the trilogy again and that made me choose this book. I never actually read the books so I look forward to seeing how well Peter Jackson portrayed the books in his movies. I have always been impressed with how far in depth Tolkien went in describing his Middle Earth and the books should go even more in depth. By readings the books I also want to learn more about the trilogy because Jackson could not include everything from the books into the movies.I have always planned on reading the trilogy but kept putting it off and now seemed like a good time to accomplish it.