Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring

The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring begins some fifty years later, with an elderly Bilbo contemplating one last adventure, and planning to give up his home and fortune - enhanced by dragon-gold - to his nephew and heir Frodo.

Tolkien cleverly uses the construct of Bilbo's 'eleventy-first' birthday party bash to transition the tone, from the avucular jokey one he used in The Hobbit, to one more appropriate for the telling of an Epic High Fantasy Quest. After Bilbo's party, with a few departures into some gentle comic relief, usually provided by the Gamgees, the epic's general flavor becomes high-flown and suitably solemn. "Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again."

Good versus Evil. Heavy stuff.

A Company is Formed

In Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring, we learn, as hero Frodo learns, that the ring that Bilbo brought back from his adventures isn't a simple party trick or handy gadget, but is a powerful and dangerous talisman. The Ring, in fact, the One Ring to Rule Them All that the evil Dark Lord made years ago and into which he has poured much of his power.

Now, the Dark Lord is looking for his Ring again, to reclaim his strength and cement his rule. Total subjugation of all the free races that inhabit MiddleEarth is his goal, and only destruction of the Ring will stop him.

Coming together at Rivendell, our hobbit hero and his friends meet with representatives from many of the world's free races, to discuss and decide on the fate of the Ring.

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship

With Frodo are his three friends, Merry and Pippin, cousins of a sort, and Sam, son of his gardener and essentially Frodo's servant and valet. Sam's role harks back to a time in which master and servant had well-defined spheres and in which servants absorbed the status and values of their masters, rejoicing in their successes and commiserating at their failures. Sam's relationship with Frodo is one of the mainsprings of the story.

Also joining the company are two men, Boromir, from the human kingdom of Gondor, son and heir of the Steward of the Kingdom and Aragorn, met first as an anonymous 'ranger', who claims to be the heir to the throne of Gondor.

Representing the dwarves, Gimli comes from the mountain kingdom, and for the elves, Legolas joins the company; with Gandalf the wizard, the nine represent the free races in opposition to the Dark Lord Sauron of Mordor.

Targetting the Lion's Lair

The Fellowship is resolved, to take the Ring into Mordor itself, the home of the Dark Lord, and to destroy the Ring in the firy mountain where it was first forged, the only fire hot enough to destroy it.

Against them are arrayed all the spies, sneaks, ghouls, orcs and other bad things that call the Dark Lord their ruler. Gandalf is lost to an enemy in the Misty Mountains, and treachery reaches into the hearts of the company itself, as Boromir tries to steal the Ring from Frodo, forcing Frodo and Sam to flee alone, and the rest of the Company to follow. Readers of Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring must continue to next book in the trilogy: The Two Towers.