This. Is. The. End. (of Chemistry)

Today was the last day of Timothy Ministry. Today was the last day of Lit. TODAY WAS THE LAST DAY OF CHEMISTRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *Jumps up and down squealing hysterically* I took the chemistry final today, and now I'm done. Finished. It's over. Finn es. I never have to think about it again. It's OVER people! Like, FOREVER! Ah-ha-HA-ha-ha!! (That was my Marry Poppins imitation in case you were wondering) Also at the behest of some of my followers, I am posting that LOTR essay I wrote. It's kinda long, so be warned, but here it is:

The Fellowship of the Ring as an Epic Fairytale

The Fellowship of the Ring is at once an epic tale along the lines of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and a fairy tale about a simple hero thrust into the turbulent currents of the world. The hero, Frodo Baggins of Bag End, a hobbit of The Shire, is anything but the hero of an epic quest. Beowulf was said to possess legendary strength, and Gawain, despite being the youngest in the court, has a reputation as an accomplished knight. Frodo, on the other hand, possess none of these qualities, at least it seems so. He considers himself a simple hobbit of The Shire, he enjoys the company of friends, food and drink, sleeping late, tramping through all the familiar paths of Hobbiton. As his Uncle Bilbo puts it, “He [Frodo] would come with me, of course, if I asked him. In fact he offered to once, just before the party. But he does not really want to, yet. I want to see the wild country again before I die, and the Mountains; but he is still in love with the Shire, with woods and fields and little rivers.” (Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 32)

            Not even Frodo can avoid hearing the call to adventure forever, however. It comes to him, just as it came to Bilbo, through the old wizard Gandalf. This estimable character arrives at Bag End one day with disturbing news about Frodo’s gold ring. After a long conversation, Gandalf gets to his most shocking bit of information: “This is the Master-ring, the One Ring to rule them all. This is the One Ring that he lost many ages ago, to the great lessening of his power. He greatly desires it – but he must not get it” (The Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 49). This is Frodo’s call to adventure. He accepted it, reluctantly, and in doing so began in a small way to show real heroic qualities sleeping under the surface. As Nathalie Giraurd says, “It is also important to note that the hero always accepts what Joseph Cambell calls ‘The Call to Adventure’”(Nathalie Giraurd, J.R.R Tolkein’s The Hobbit: An Unlikely Hero Driven to Heroism).  Later, Frodo hears the Call to Adventure repeated by more voices at the Council of Elrond. He demonstrates even more clearly heroic qualities lying beneath the surface by voluntarily accepting the Quest of the Ring.

            An epic hero as from the old tales undertakes his quest alone. Bilbo, near the end of his own story accomplishes this. He and the dwarves have arrived at the Mountain, but they do not know what to do, and it is Bilbo who provides a solution. “Now I will make you an offer,” he says, “I have got my ring and will creep down this very noon…and see what he [Smaug] is up to,” (the Hobbit, pg.221).  Frodo, from beginning to end has at least one companion; though the breaking of the Fellowship is similar to continuing on alone. For the majority of the journey, however, he has eight companions, one of whom is rather important, and demonstrates another aspect of the mix between epic and fairy tale in this book: Aragorn son of Arathorn. His life has been spent in solitary wanderings, as he tells Boromir at the Council. “I have had a hard life and a long; and the leagues that lie between here and Gondor are a small part in the count of my journeys. I have crossed many mountains and many rivers and trodden many plains, even into the far countries Rhun and Harad where the stars are strange…Lonely men are we, Rangers of the wild, hunters-but hunters ever of the servants of the Enemy,” (Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 242).

He is also the possessor of a legendary sword: Narsil, blade of Elendil that broke beneath him when he died in the Battle of the Last Alliance. Aragorn renamed it Anduril. Frodo also carries a sword of legend inherited from Bilbo. The blade Sting that Bilbo acquired on his journey made long ago by Elven smiths. A few of the other characters are bearers of legendary weapons as well. Gandalf, who bears along with his staff, the Elven sword Glamdring, once born by the king of the great city Gondolin in the Elder Days. Even Pippin and Merry, the youngest of the Company have swords that while unnamed, have legendary beginnings, made by the men of Westernesse; Numenorians.

According to Giraurd another “characteristic of the epic hero is his noble origin,” (Nathalie Giraurd, J.R.R Tolkein’s The Hobbit: An Unlikely Hero Driven to Heroism). Frodo, however more resembles the hero of a fairytale: An average man who becomes great. Aragorn however is of noble lineage, as he proclaims to Eomer, on the fields of Rohan, “ ‘Elendil’ he cried, ‘I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, Dunadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil’s son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly!’” (The Two Towers, pg. 423). Legolas and Bormir are of noble birth as well, though neither of them are the hero of the story. Boromir is the son and heir of the steward of Gondor, and Legolas is the son of Thranduil, Elven king of Mirkwood.

Loyalty is a virtue esteemed by people of all kinds.  There should be no surprise then, in the fact that loyalty is one of the qualities in an epic hero. Sir Gawain even lays his own life in danger in order to save King Arthur. While this trait can be seen in the Fellowship of the Ring, it is not in the hero that it is most profoundly demonstrated. Instead, Sam Gamgee, Frodo’s servant shows true loyalty with poignant clarity. He recounts to Frodo a conversation and says, “ ‘Leave him!’ I said, ‘I never mean to. I am going with him, if he climbs to the Moon, and if any of those Black Riders try to stop him, they’ll have Sam Gamgee to reckon with,” (The Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 85). Pippin and Merry appear at first to simply be young, fun loving hobbits, but they prove themselves to be much, much more. They voluntarily choose to leave the Shire with Frodo, even though it would appear to be safer to stay home. Later on, after seeing the dangers of the harsh world outside the Shire, they still affirm the fact that they are willing to journey with Frodo all the way to Mount Doom. Aragorn too, is loyal to Frodo. He demonstrates his loyalty before he really even knows them, indeed it is in defending himself against Sam’s doubts that he does so: “But I am the real a Strider fortunately… I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, and if by life or death I can save you, I will,” (Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 168).  Like every other virtue, loyalty has an opposite: Disloyalty. If Aragorn and the hobbits display loyalty, Boromir shows disloyalty. This may seem an odd choice on Tolkien’s part, but the vice puts the virtue in clear relief. By demonstrating disloyalty and the ensuing chaos, the value of loyalty and the peace it provides becomes all the more clear.

Previously mentioned, an epic hero takes on his quest alone, while a fairy tale hero does not necessarily go alone. In this area, Tolkien blends the two. While characters often take on their quests together, each character must undertake his or her own journey. Eowyn, niece of Théoden king of the Riddermark, is just one example of this. Eowyn sees what her uncle cannot: war is encroaching all around their land. She sees that her father’s counselor, Grima, is a traitor, trying to destroy Rohan through its own king. She feels impotent; longing to do something but unable. She is not afraid of danger, and when Aragorn asks her what she does fear, she answers, “A cage… To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire,” (Return of the King, pg. 767).  Afterwards, when her uncle’s host has come, and prepares to depart, she disguises herself, and rides with the company. In one sense, she is part of a company, in another she rides alone.  At the end of her journey, she acts in true heroic fashion, and slays a great monster, the Witch King, chief of the Nazgul. She has (unbeknownst to her) the assistance of Merry in this feat, but she is the one who executes the killing blow; receiving a mortal wound in the process. When she recovers, returning from the doors of death, she finds she has learned wisdom.

            Great physical strength, coupled with courage and bravery are much admired traits of epic heroes. Frodo is no possessor of great strength, though many of his companions are. Legolas, an elf, Gimli, a stout dwarf, wields his axe with great strokes, Aragorn and Boromir, both men of courage and valor, and Gandalf, who possesses strength that belies the appearance of age. Frodo has not the strength of these, but as Elrond said, “This quest may attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong,” (The Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 262).  As for courage, it is not lacking in Frodo, only it sleeps; waiting for the right moment to show itself. And when it is revealed it is as great as that in the hearts of the strong. When he and the other hobbits, led by Aragorn camp on Weathertop, Frodo’s courage wakes for the first time. The Witch King attacked Frodo, and even though Frodo succumbed and put the Ring on, he still acted bravely; shouting and slashing at the Nazgul. Later, in Moria, Frodo’s courage is demonstrated again: “Suddenly, and to his own surprise, Frodo felt a hot wrath blaze up in his heart. ‘The Shire’ he cried, and springing beside Boromir, he stooped and stabbed with Sting at the hideous foot,” (The Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 316).  There is also courage to be found in endurance. A lesser heart would not endure forever, and Frodo endured and fought to the end. Even as they neared Mordor, and the Ring grew stronger, taking over more of Frodo’s mind, he, with a great effort of will, forced himself to keep going.

Frodo also learned wisdom, even before his quest was finished. Before he left, he possessed some small wisdom after a Shire-like fashion. He knew that there was a world outside the Shire, and that no matter how isolated it seemed, the Shire would be affected by the events that took place there. But as his journey progressed, he learned more wisdom. Perhaps this is shown most poignantly in his views about Gollum. At the beginning he tells Gandalf, “But I am frightened, and I do not feel any pity for Gollum…Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? Now, at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death,” (Fellowship of the Ring, pg. 58). Later on, he actually meets Gollum.  In a new answer to that previous conversation he says, “Very well…But I am still afraid. And yet, as you see, I will not touch the creature. For now that I see him, I do pity him,” (Two Towers, pg. 601).

In every part of the book, aspects of both an epic and a fairy tale can be seen. There are many more numerous demonstrations of this throughout the book. This mixture creates something unique; a something that appeals to both the part of us that wants an epic, something superhuman and awe-inspiring, and also to the part that wants a fairy tale, something that we can relate to, a hero we can feel for, empathize with. The Fellowship of the Ring pulls off this feat magnificently. 

An there you have it, folks. The. End. Of. Timothy. Perhaps a social life will come to me now?