As we continue our meandering way through Tolkien’s masterwork, we at last come to the aftermath of the Battle of the Hornburg, in which Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas are reunited with Pippin and Merry. Afterward, Gandalf at last has the long-awaited confrontation with Saruman, in which the latter is cast from the Council. At the end of the chapter, Pippin glances into the palantir, inadvertently setting in motion the events that will culminate in the climactic Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

The reunion among the hobbits and Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli is one of those truly joyous moments at which Tolkien excels. Yet even amidst all of this celebration, however, there is a faint note of unease as we note that somehow the leaf of the Southfarthing has made its way into Saruman’s stores, a note of foreboding that will reach its fruition when the hobbits finally make their way back to their homelands.

The most compelling part of the chapter, however, is the appearance or Saruman. Unlike Sauron, who remains largely invisible and outside the frame of the story,  Saruman is very much visible. Though his power here is largely already broken by the power of the Ents (which is itself one of the more fascinating parts of the novel), there is still his voice that can undo even the most stalwart of hearts. And do you know the scary part? Even I, the reader who knows what has transpired as a result of Saruman’s actions, find his words oddly compelling. Not only is this a mark of Tolkien’s genius as a writer; it also reveals the extent to which the writer must himself become the cypher for the characters that he writes. One must, in other words, inhabit the mental space of even the most vile of characters in order to make them compelling and believable.

Further, this sequence highlights one of the key elements of Tolkien’s moral philosophy:  that evil bears within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Thus Saruman, in attempting to wrest power from Sauron and thus abrogate his responsibility as one of the Maiar sent to Middle-earth, sets the stage for his own eventual downfall. Had he not become the rampant industrialist, had he not attempted to violate the injunctions placed upon him, he would not have fallen so far. It is Saruman’s great tragedy that even now, in the ruin of his might, he cannot/will not take the hand of mercy extended to him by Gandalf. Evil, in Tolkien’s world, often cannot understand good.

Lastly, I wanted to talk about the palantir and Pippin’s ill-fated glimpse into it. This is, if I am not mistaken, the closest that we get to an actual physical glimpse of Sauron (though Tolkien describes him in several of his letters). What’s more, it is Pippin’s actions that help to set in motion the events that subsequently transpire. One could argue that had Pippin not looked into it, Aragorn would not have done so, and without that impetus Sauron might not have moved before his plans had reached their full fruition. As always, Tolkien makes clear that even the most seemingly insignificant individuals can set the great forces of history in motion.

Though some have complained that this novel suffers from being the middle volume of the story, I actually think it does a magnificent job holding in tension the various strands that have been put into play from the first volume and the broader political and military battle that will erupt into full form in The Return of the King. As such, I think the volume deserves a lot more credit than it typically receives from even the most committed of Lord of the Rings fans.

Next up, we finally return to Sam and Frodo as they make their slow, tortuous way to the land of Mordor, meeting and “taming” Smeagol/Gollum along the way.