“Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo’s hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play in it, for good or evil, before this is over…” (-J.R.R. Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring). This quote, given by Gandalf to Frodo, foreshadows the very fate of what’ll happen to Smeagol at the very end of the story. A creature that everyone believed to be nothing but a cruel and wretched thing, in the end becomes the very thing that saves Middle Earth, and yet not a single person besides Frodo would ever remember him after death.

Sam of course would still remember him but would never forgive him compared to Frodo who forgives Gollum after Gandalf mentions how if it wasn’t for Gollum, he would’ve suffered the same fate as Gollum. It’s rather tragic to think about though. No songs were made in memory of him, no grave, completely nothing was done in remembrance of Gollum even though it was he who suffered the longest from the One Ring. What I find very tragic about Gollum was how he was tortured his entire life and not a single moment was he ever treated kindly except by Frodo, who was also the person Gollum felt truly “betrayed” even though it was a misunderstanding.

Gollum has suffered so much pain. Murdered his friend, abandoned everyone he cared for, was tortured by everyone including Sauron himself, and was even beaten by the people whom he was guiding to Mordor all because of the One Ring. What makes it more tragic was how he began to change when he spent time with Frodo and Sam. He was truly changing into a better person and tried to do everything at all costs to guiding Frodo and Sam to Mordor, but after he was “betrayed”, Gollum would delve deeper into the hole of revenge and desire for the One Ring again that it eventually led to the final climax in Mount Doom where unexpectedly, Smeagol becomes the hero and destroys the One Ring at the price of his life. Even though it was for malicious intent to take the One Ring for himself, it was through the accident that saved Middle Earth; his failure to escape his abyss that saved everyone. His failure that no one will ever sing nor hear about the tale of Smeagol and how he saved Middle Earth.

Images:

Gollum: https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Gollum

Alright, enough wacky unnecessary lore around Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s prolonged stories based around the past. It’s time for the future of what’ll come in Lord of the Rings. As many people know now if they’ve been lurking around the Tolkien community, a series is being made by Amazon and their series is based on remaking the entire Lord of the Rings story. According from the community, there will *probably* be 5 seasons from what I’ve heard which is a pretty decent enough amount of seasons when making a series for a show. Just last month (February), Amazon has finally began production on the series but what really makes me nervous about is how the final product will look once Amazon starts showing these episodes.

A show like Game of Thrones obviously is known for being a beloved show that many people enjoy watching, but after what happened with the last couple seasons, it really makes me nervous on what’ll happen with Lord of the Rings and how they’ll do their version of the story. In my opinion, nothing could ever beat Peter Jackson’s version of Lord of the Rings, but the series could be very promising if they’re going in the right direction with the show. However, if they truly have the passion on making the series well made which looking from what they’ve been doing, it looks like they really have been working on the series with the intent on making it notable, then I believe the show could actually become beloved among the Tolkien community. Though it is a bit early before anything can be said about Amazon’s goals in making the Lord of the Rings, but they’ve already sent out the cast members of the show, they’ve shown some information on what stories will be added in the series, and if they were to continue with this passion, then I do believe that this show can become loved by many just as it was when the movies came out.

There are many well known places in the World of Middle Earth where many of the free-peoples of Middle Earth would gladly talk about and be enlightened to hear such tales about them. Most places in Middle Earth are famous like Rivendell or Minas Tirith, but others are very much infamous for the dark tales and history that they’re known for. One of these places happens to be Khazad-dûm, or as it is more commonly known as, the Mines of Moria. There are also other names like Dwarrowdelf, Hadhodrond, and the Halls of Durin, but the Mines of Moria is what it is fairly remembered as out of all the names next to its true name Khazad-dûm.

The Mines was once a kingdom that was founded by Durin the Deathless (hence the name “Halls of Durin”) who was the King of the Dwarves during the First Age. During the First Age, Dwarves weren’t doing anything heavily memorable (to me at least) during the time except for when the Dwarven race was almost destroyed by Aulë, The Smith and one of the Valars of Arda but more importantly, the one who began the race of dwarves who almost had to destroy them and the Murder of King Thingol of Doriath. However, the Mines of Moria was an infamous place mainly because of the history it held inside it.

One of the more memorable parts of the Mines of Moria was how the Dwarves delved too deep into the Mines and because of their greed for finding more treasures from the Mines, they’ve accidentally freed a creature of “shadow and flame”. This creature was a Balrog of Morgoth who was living in the Mines after the defeat of Morgoth and when Azog the Defiler and an Orc Chieftain who ruled Moria was killed after overrunning the place with orcs. This same Balrog was the same demon that slayed King Durin VI (not the same Durin as Durin the Deathless) which after King Durin VI’s death, the Balrog was forever known as “Durin’s Bane”.

The Mines of Moria has existed ever since the First Age and throughout the years, this infamous place has grown to become ever unluckier for any dwarves or persons who would enter inside. Even in the Lord of the rings, it talks about Balin and the other dwarves who tried to reclaim Moria after many years of it’s abandonment where it was intially sucessful but again, they eventually became overrun by orcs and goblins to where they were killed in the end. However, as shown from the events of Lord of the Rings, the fellowship had to cross the “Bridge of Khazad-dûm” where Gandalf collapsed the bridge in order to prevent the Balrog and at that same moment, Durin’s Bane grabs hold of Gandalf where both fell after the fellowship finally escapes. At that moment, this was when Gandalf “died” after finally fighting the Balrog on top of the highest peak of the mountain where Moria was located which leads to the death of Durin’s Bane but also Gandalf. He dies shortly until he comes back to life where Gwaihir, the Eagle Lord saves Gandalf where he rested in Rivendell until he finally departed and becomes the White Wizard.

The past of Moria has been shown to be the deadliest but in the end, Moria was eventually recaptured in the end of the War of the Ring, but even after the Dwarves became lucky again for reclaiming a lost kingdom, they’ve always had to face many problems and the last problem they had to face was what truly lead to the end of the race of Dwarves. It was due to the gender imbalance of the Dwarves that due to there being more male Dwarves than females, their race eventually ceased to exist and the Dwarves eventually passed on and their halls and treasures and kingdoms will forever remain empty even after the many troubles they’ve faced.

Images:

All pictures from: https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Khazad-d%C3%BBm

Weird topic to talk about, but since this is my first blog post I might as well just get in the feel of things before I actually start popping off with this little project of mine. Anyways, gonna start this off by saying how much challenge of it is to read books.
Medieval and fantasy stuff has always been my weird hobby to learn about and it mainly started off because of Warcraft III. That was technically my first introduction to fantasy and ever since then, my liking for the many stories and tales of some characters like Jaina Proudmoore or Varian Wrynn have always been a fond to me including tragedies like Arthas or Neltharion (Deathwing). As time went on, I did eventually got bored of the game but what I got from those stories from Blizzard is the fuel for my desires of learning epic stories.
During 8th grade, instead of reading The Outsiders like a normal English class we read The Hobbit. We didn’t completely finish the story and only got up to half the book until we had to stop due to the school year ending. I was happy that we read The Hobbit but it was a disappointment that for the very last day of English class we watched The Hobbit movie and didn’t even have time to finish the entire movie (which obviously we wouldn’t have time to finish either way for a 3 hour movie against a 1 hour class period). Though, the class was very fun and it was because of my teacher who made us read The Hobbit that it sparked my interest into reading deeper into Tolkien’s world.
As time went on I eventually bought, instead of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings. I’ve read to the point in The Hobbit where Bilbo found the one ring so it didn’t seem necessary at the time to reread most parts of the book again even though I didn’t finish it. I also was following the order on how Peter Jackson released the Hobbit/Lord of the Rings movies and since he made the Lord of the Rings first, I decided to get that book first.
When I began reading the book, I was having the mindset of actually never finishing the story, but after finishing the first chapter that took an hour, I was surprisingly intrigued by the story and was captivated by Tolkien’s description with the interactions between Frodo and Gandalf, learning who Gandalf was, including how dangerous the one ring really was just by that one chapter. I eventually continued reading through many chapters of the Fellowship of the Ring to the point where I finished the first story in under a week.
Then, I immediately began reading The Two Towers, the sequel to the Fellowship. That’s when I began having troubles reading through it as my procrastination is prone to activate after reading for weeks especially when it came to the very long descriptions about the landscapes or how a character looks. Due to this procrastination is took me almost unnecessarily two years to finish, but I managed to read through the entire Lord of the Rings story and immediately jumped right into The Hobbit.
When I finished reading the Lord of the Rings it was a very new experience especially since all the books I’ve ever read I seem to never complete but it was very lovely reading through the entire story and seeing the many challenges Frodo and Sam face along the way including the challenges Aragorn and the rest of the fellowship had to face. Then I watched the movies and my nerdiness truly peaked and that’s when my love for Tolkien’s work launched off. Back to the Hobbit though, I also loved it especially learning about the dwarves who rarely get any attention in the Lord of the Rings due to events that was happening in their kingdom (excluding Gimli since he represented the race of dwarves) and was a bit disappointed not seeing an army of dwarves fighting against the armies of Sauron but it was a pleasure seeing the dwarves quite often in The Hobbit. Would’ve loved to see more dwarvish power but The Hobbit’s story with Thorin Oakenshield and the rest of the dwarves including their people near the end of the book from beginning to end is the closest we’ll ever get to it (at least story-wise and not extra material that the audience has to read about from the appendixes).
After reading those two stories, I wanted to truly test myself with Tolkien’s world and see if it truly was my place of belonging which lead to me reading The Silmarillion. Of course, not to my surprise, I loved The Silmarillion and even though I am still reading the extra’s about what happened after the First Age and what happened in the Second Age, I am still very much in love with the many tales and histories about the Valar and characters who’ve made impacts on the world in the past including how it influenced the free-people in the Third Age (which is when The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings takes place).
I still need to read the books like Beren and Luthien and The Fall of Gondolin and others but I am still very much ready to read those stories right after The Silmarillion especially since they’ve been sitting in my shelf for a few months now. If it wasn’t for Tolkien’s world and delving into this fantasy world I may not have found something to stop me from completely becoming a true procrastinator but most importantly, I wouldn’t have been able to find my passion without John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (J.R.R. Tolkien).