The Fellowship of the Rings’ Introduction to the Shire Is Perfect

Today, September 22 (by Shire-reckoning or in any other case), marks the dual birthdays of two of the best halflings in all of fantasy fiction: Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, ringbearers, heroes of Middle-earth, and lovers of meals, ale, pipeweed, and books. But whereas their journeys there and again once more are a lot beloved, considered one of their best highs collectively is our first introduction to their world in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The Shire isn’t the precise opening to Fellowship of the Ring, in fact. Like all good issues Lord of the Rings, it takes a bit to get there, whatever the reduce of the movie you watch. First, we now have to listen to Galadriel inform the story of the Rings of Power and their Dark Master, the ultimate battle of the Last Alliance, and see Elrond implore Isildur to destroy a hoop we all know he’s already misplaced to. In the prolonged reduce, there’s even a bit extra as we see Isildur’s hubris paid in blood, and the way the One Ring floated on from the inheritor to the Kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor and into the pocket of a sure Shirefolk. It’s solely then—in any case these sweeping views of magical rings, historic evils, an epic battle between good and evil, excessive drama and better tragedy—that Fellowship truly begins. With a map, one which pulls away from all this motion and over to the tiny, pastoral lands of the Shire, and we’re pulled out even additional past it, to the homely, messy consolation of Bag End.

It’s a shocking distinction, to be instantly wrenched from the brown-greys and molten tones of the fields earlier than Mount Doom, and into the intimate lens of Bilbo’s house. That intimacy continues, at the same time as we transfer from Bilbo being our focal consideration to him being a narrator to our true introduction to the Shire and its individuals, the Hobbits. Gone are the flurries of arrows—bristling as they fly by ranks of Elves and Men—changed with the fluttering of fields of grass and wheat in a mild breeze. Gleaming armor changed by overhauls, flannel, and flower-printed clothes, shields and helmets changed by frills and bonnets. There aren’t any orcs, solely Hobbits, smoking, laughing, ingesting, enjoying, working. A peaceable individuals and a celebration of the calm earned within the fury of the battle we had been watching unfold simply minutes beforehand. The most monstrous sight in the entire shire isn’t any orc or Dark Lord, however maybe a cow.

So many cows.

Accompanied by Howard Shore’s beloved, instantaneously ear-worming “Concerning Hobbits”—mild and ethereal strings to distinction in opposition to the bombastic brass and choral chants of the Battle of the Last Alliance—it’s a masterclass in scene-setting. Instantly, you might be launched into the world of the Shire and its denizens, and equally rapidly instructed simply how alien the world of battle round them is. These aren’t warriors or nice keepers of the peace, Bilbo tells us as he writes his personal historical past into prose: they’re merely livers of life, symbolic of a peace that has endured for generations at this level. The Shire turns into Fellowship, and the trilogy at giant’s, joyful place.

When Frodo and his mates discover themselves wrested from the lives they knew by Gandalf and thrust right into a battle in opposition to probably the most almighty of evils, at any time when they arrive near faltering of their quest to destroy the ring, it’s “Concerning Hobbits” that flutters again into Shore’s rating. It’s there to remind us of those opening moments—the unlikely beginnings Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin all got here from, reminding them (and us) what waits for them when their quest is completed, spurring them on to the heroism all of them accomplish. Introducing us to the Shire on this method, an idyllic view right into a life that might be—extra housey, extra loving, extra heat than any of the sweeping and epic vistas to return alongside within the trilogy’s lengthy street again to the Shire by the top of Return of the King—we’re given a picture to be reminded of all through the saga’s highs and lows.

“For things are made to endure in the Shire,” Bilbo’s narration tells us, as strings swell, and Gandalf and Frodo proceed their trip up by Hobbiton within the Wizard’s rickety cart, “passing from one generation to the next.” He could also be speaking about his and Frodo’s house in Bag End, however actually, it’s about this romantic world our unlikely heroes are from, the peace that they combat for—and the great thing about the truth that Hobbits have been dwelling that perfect for generations earlier than them, and can achieve this for generations after.

Wondering the place our RSS feed went? You can decide the brand new up one right here.