Title: The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3) Author: J. R. R. Tolkien Published by: George Allen & Unwin Published on: October 1955 Pages: 490
'Come, Mr Frodo!' he cried. 'I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you and it as well.'
Book Six, Chapter III: Mount Doom
This is me everytime I finished The Lord of the Rings trilogy, specifically after the Appendix:
The Return of the King continues where The Two Towers left off. Well, sort of -- as the format is still 2 separate books into one, but at some point the plot is merged.
It began w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶g̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶G̶r̶e̶a̶t̶ ̶R̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ the attack on Minas Tirith. Gandalf arrived in Gondor with Pippin to warn the Steward of Gondor, Denethor II. Contrary to the movie, Denethor did not seem all that crazy in the book. Yes, something was off with this guy, but his fears even his decisions were actually understandable and, in some parts, justified. Aanyway, so Denethor didn't take well to Gandalf's warning and instead of preparing his soldiers, he basically doomed them to die. Thankfully, Gandalf was there to rouse their spirits and lead Gondor to defence.
But Gondor was not alone and never had been. King Theoden and his army of Rohan set out to march to Minas Tirith, along with our favourite threesome *coughs* of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli -- and of course the Rangers of the North. Midway, though, Aragorn decided to part ways to take the Paths of the Dead. It had been said that the oathbreakers were cursed to never rest until they'd fulfilled their oath to the King of Gondor.
In Mordor, Sam rescued Frodo and they began their tread to the Crack of Doom. But how were they able to do so unnoticed, to slip undetected by hundreds if not thousands of Orcs and servants to the Dark Lord? Not to mention the Eye of Sauron at the top of Barad-dûr that saw everything, everywhere. And could the Last Alliance of Men be able to hold off the evil at bay, even just for a slight moment?
EGGLYSIS
I remember watching The Return of the King for the first time. My introduction to the fandom was backwards, as I watched the final movie first, got hooked even without really understanding the whys and hows and whos, then proceeded to watch and memorise the whole trilogy by heart. I only begun reading the books afterwards, and it took me a few years to be able to digest through Tolkien's archaic prose, even a few more years to appreciate it.
This was my third reread, and I think only now I could fully appreciate why this is the story that created its own genre and has always been the number 1 book(s) any fantasy nerd should read. It is most definitely timeless, and I still get goosebumps reading the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, Battle of the Black Gate, even Frodo at the Crack of Doom.
But what makes The Return of the King special is actually what didn't translate to screen. Because no, the story didn't finish right after the Ring was destroyed -- there is a long epilogue to highlight how Middle-earth recovered from Sauron's dominance. My particular favourite is a chapter called The Scouring of the Shire. Our Hobbits didn't return to a peaceful Shire, because that lovely piece of remote land was also affected by the ugly power of the Ring. The message is plain and simple: war has its effect, and things will never go back exactly the same way as before. And that's okay.
That is not the only amazing thing about the book, though. As if the brilliant storytelling wasn't enough, Tolkien still had to wow us readers with the Appendix. It is basically separated into the historical lore and annals of the Kings of Men (Gondor and Rohan mostly), the timeline of the events, even the calendar system, astronomy, ecology, and languages of Middle-earth. By the time I got halfway into it, my jaw just dropped. GRRM is brilliant with his world-building of the Fire and Ice world, yet Tolkien is something else. Middle-earth is just enormous and I can't seem to stress enough how magnificent the mind behind it. He was not just a writer; he was an architect, a historian, a biologist, a linguist... what else?
Overall, The Return of the King...
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