Yeah, you never know where these things might lead. I remember looking for some data about Faramir, and what should come up on Google but some post by someone I never heard of on some board I never visited, quoting my TORC post that I forgot about. Talk about a shock!

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“It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.”

- Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens

I raise my hand to being one that follows the thread more than comments on the threads. Sometimes, what others write eclipses what I had originally thought and sometimes there is just nothing to add to the great comments and sometimes I just don't have anything else to offer, but still enjoy reading the thread.

Unless something else is related on this chapter, I don't have anything to add, but also I don't think there is a problem with waiting longer before moving on to the next chapter.

In other words I am ready when everyone else is.

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It's good that there are people who are interested in following the discussion. But unless people are also interested in participating in the discussion, and moving it forward, there won't be a discussion to follow. rwhen stepped up and started this thread; let's see if someone else decides to come forward and start the new thread, the first in book 2. It's taken us almost a year and a half to cover just book 1. That pace simply is not sustainable; it would take us almost nine years to discuss the full LOTR (perhaps more when the appendices are taken into consideration). I enjoy participating in the discussion, but I don't want to be the person who is constantly pushing it along whenever there is a lull.

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'But very bright were the stars upon the margin of the world, when at times the clouds about the West were drawn aside.'

It's easy to forget how much of this chapter and the preceding consists of just travelling. And it really works well, both for verisimilitude and heightening the tension. Things like the attempt to negotiate the Trollshaws and the repeated worries about what will happen when they finally reach the Last Bridge do a lot heighten the tension of Frodo's wound and the danger of the Nazgûl. When Glorfindel finally shows up, it's a breath of fresh air, though of course things are far from over.

The description of Frodo slipping into the wraith world at Bruinen and trying to resist it is some excellent writing.