Re: TTT EE is a fantastic improvement

In rec.arts.books.tolkien Aris Katsaris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
:> In rec.arts.books.tolkien cassandras morgan mair fheal greykitten tomys des
: anges <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:> :> They knew far more about it than Merry and Pippin did.  Why
:> :> did Treebeard not act before the hobbits arrived?   Why did
:> :> he act after the hobbits arrived?  It all seems somewhat random.
:>
:> : didnt gandlaf point out that it only take one small stone to start an
: avalance
:>
:> : the stone isnt the avalanche
:> : just the trigger
:>
:> Why were they a stone?  That is my question.  They did not tell
:> the Ents anything they did not know before.  Why would the
:> appearance of two Hobbits suddenly motivate them to go to war?

: Mainly they act as nothing but the catalyst to start Treebeard discussing
: and therefore thinking about Saruman. The more he talked about him,
: the more he realized something had to be done, and therefore wakes
: from his complacency.

: The rise of the Ents is often paralleled with an awakening in the book --
: Gandalf explicitely says "The Ents are going to wake up and find that
: they are strong."

: So... no new knowledge, just an opportunity for Treebeard to wake up
: and have him rally up the rest of them...

Why did Gandalf not just talk to Treebeard himself then?  Of course
he may have known that this was going to happen, but he never
says that, and forsight and "trusting in fate" cannot be used to 
justify every storytelling mistake.  Rousing the Ents should have
been one of his primary goals, especially if it could be done
so easily.


: I can understand that the movies could wish some more relevancy
: given to the Hobbits at this point -- my own suggestion would have
: been for the Hobbits to offer the knowledge of Saruman's alliance
: with all those orcs that hacked and burned through Fangorn forest...

: It's more plausible for Treebeard not to know that Saruman himself
: is leading this devastation, than have him not know anything about the
: devastation at all.

It depends how recent the devestation is.  Fangorn is a large
place.  In the book it is somewhat implausible that everyone
else did not know that Saruman had gone bad long before.   How
many years had he been breeding Orcs and ravaging Fangorn?  It
is not clear in the books, but it apparently has been going on
for several years, and Treebeard has been aware of it.  So nobody
talks to the Ents.  According to Gandalf, one of Saruman's great
mistakes is forgetting about Treebeard.  Apparently Gandalf and the
others had also forgotten about Treebeard.

Stephen