《The Return of the King》- My Belated Big Read (3/3)

I just finished reading The Return of the King, the third volume of the epic trilogy novel The Lord of the Rings authored by J. R. R. Tolkien.  As such, my imaginative journey starting two months ago by reading the first volume The Fellowship of the Ring, has now come to a tentative end.

As its predecessors, this third volume consists of two books, each containing 10 and 9 chapters. On the other hand, while the first and second volumes end with suspense, volume three covers the major and final battles between good and evil, and ends with new beginnings that readers have long expected.

While the trilogy itself spans for 1285 pages, the appendices take another 162 pages, covering many aspects of the Middle-Earth, including annals, chronicles, languages, calendar, and writing systems, apart from Tolkien's famous maps that are appended in the first two volumes, too.

Having quickly scanned through the appendices, I got a clearer picture about not just this epic novel, but the Middle-Earth at large that covers the F.A. (First Age), the S.E.(Second Age) and the T A. (Third Age). Note that the S.R. (Shire Reckoning, calendar of the hobbits) starts in T.A. 1601, while the T.A.  ends, following the successful destruction of the One Ring by the Fellowship at Mount Doom, ushering in the Fo.A. (Fourth Age) , the new age dominated by the race of Men.

Other than the appendices, though, I have to confess that I barely scanned and turned the page over, without actually reading the book through. Instead, I read thoroughly the online study guide Sparknotes to get a whole picture and all the points that are noteworthy with the book, as I did for the previous two volumes.

What I did differently this time is that I found a new online source, Tolkien Gateway, the J.R.R. Tolkien encyclopedia built by fans, with unbelievably rich contents of Tolkien's works, including The Lord of the Rings. 

In particular, there are vivid images that allow readers to picture the event and scene. Here is the scene within the seven-story white citadel of Minas Tirith, the capital city of Gondor, where the story of The Return of the King begins.

Now, the Fellowship is split into three groups. The first group consists of Frodo and Sam who are already in Mordor, the place of evil, on a quest to reach Mount Doom to have the One Ring destroyed. The second group is Gandalf and Pippin, arriving at Minas Tirith just in time to ward off the invading enemy.

Aragorn leads the third group, consisting of Gimli, Legolas, Merry and an ally army, taking an unusual path to approach Minas Tirith. The path is known as the Path of the Dead that traverses underground and is prohibitively dangerous and difficult. Aragorn and the army finally join Gandalf at Minas Tirith to defeat the enemy. Aragorn's unusual journey through the Path of the Dead draws religious parallels, though Christianity (specifically for the descent of Christ into Hell) had not emerged in the real world of the narrative setting.

With their quest successfully completed, Frodo, Sam and Pippin return to the Shire, but are only to find their hometown now controlled by Wizard Saruman and his men. After some battles, Saruman is killed, and the hobbits are able to rebuild their prosperous community in the Shire. Finally, Frodo decides to join Gandalf and a few others to board the White Ship, sailing across the Great Sea to the Grey Havens.

Elsewhere, there are two events that have made my reading this historic work of The of the Rings more interesting.

The first one is about Ko Wen-jie, the star politician and former Mayor of Taipei City, Taiwan, who was detained at the end of last month, pending prosecution against his possible involvement in corruption charges. When accusing his political opponents years ago, Ko famously said that position power was like the One Ring, making its bearer corrupted. Having served as the Mayor of Taipei City for 8 years, ironically, he himself now appears falling as the bearer of the One Ring, with all the legal proceedings unfolding in the months, if not years to come. The term "One Ring" thus went viral in the local news reporting here. 

The other event is about the falling accident that Sir Ian McKellen suffered during a stage performance. Luckily the accident was not fatal, and Sir Ian McKellen, now 85, will take the rest of the year off. 

Meanwhile, he said he had no plan to retire from acting, and "does not want any other actor to play Gandalf in the forthcoming The Lord of the Rings film." Note that Sir Ian McKellen played Gandalf in the trilogy films of The Lord of the Rings directed by Peter Jackson, and a new film produced by the same team, focusing on the Gollum, is scheduled for release by Warner Brothers in 2026.

It has been an educational and entertaining journey with Tolkien through The Lord of the Rings. I look forward to my next encounter with Tolkien.