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The Barrow-Downs
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Author:  A-U Moderators [ September 11th, 2009, 11:55 pm ]
Post subject:  The Barrow-Downs

What importance do you attribute the sequence in the barrow-downs? How well-written or uninteresting do you find it? Etc.

Author:  the wrong girl [ October 6th, 2009, 10:34 pm ]
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I don't know if I can analyze that sequence in any contextual way or what have you, only in a more visual way as that scene has always been rather vivid to me. The dark, wet, hot-yet-cold fogginess; the sense of panic; even the downs themselves w/ the stones poking through the ground like rotten teeth all seem to stick in my brain--almost like I've been to or seen some place like the downs....it's all very eerie.

Author:  glorfindil3 [ October 20th, 2009, 8:23 pm ]
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I've always found it one of my favorite chapters in the fellowship of the ring. It was so... Creepy I guess is the best word for it and thats where the hobbits get there swords so it is sort of key. yes I think it was very well written

Author:  Freya Baggins [ October 20th, 2009, 9:42 pm ]
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Personally, I think the sequence gave a couple of different glimpses into Middle-Earth's past. The Barrows were old tombs from days long past, from the first time Sauron and the nazgul wreaked havoc on the land. So any weapons gotton from those tombs and used against Sauron's forces would be a blow to his pride. Actually, the blade that Merry uses to stab the Witch King in the Return of the King is the blade from the old tombs. It may have had a special signifigace... and I'm rambling now...

Also... the tombs were just plain creepy and I don't read that part late at night if I can help it...

Author:  glorfindil3 [ October 21st, 2009, 4:29 pm ]
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Holly Short wrote:
Personally, I think the sequence gave a couple of different glimpses into Middle-Earth's past. The Barrows were old tombs from days long past, from the first time Sauron and the nazgul wreaked havoc on the land. So any weapons gotton from those tombs and used against Sauron's forces would be a blow to his pride. Actually, the blade that Merry uses to stab the Witch King in the Return of the King is the blade from the old tombs. It may have had a special signifigace... and I'm rambling now...

Also... the tombs were just plain creepy and I don't read that part late at night if I can help it...
Exactly, it was very significant to the history of middle-earth. I agree with you completely.

Author:  Lady of Taniquetil [ August 1st, 2010, 12:36 am ]
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i agree as well. but i always have rouble imagining for myself what it looked like. i mean it was discribed pretty well, but it took me three times to picture what was going on, but ifelt bad for the hobbits because they have been chased by black riders, caught in the eerie old forrest, attacked by a tree, then after the relief of being saved, get lost and caught in a creepy tomb!

although i think visiting the Barrows would be very interesting, i'd just make sure Tom bombadil was close around....

Author:  Elessar [Sly] [ March 9th, 2011, 3:36 pm ]
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glorfindil3 wrote:
I've always found it one of my favorite chapters in the fellowship of the ring. It was so... Creepy I guess is the best word for it and thats where the hobbits get there swords so it is sort of key. yes I think it was very well written


Agreed. It's full of atmosphere!

Author:  ErulissëEnethNîn [ March 19th, 2011, 7:53 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Barrow-Downs

I agree as well, definitely one of my favorite chapters in the Fellowship of the Ring. It's creepy, it's atmospheric and it's down-right cool. The Barrow-wights reminds me a lot of Swedish Folklore where we have something called "De Underjordiska" (The Underworldly), creatures who dwell in the ground, ready to pull their prey down into their realm.

Author:  Cara [ July 7th, 2011, 3:58 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Barrow-Downs

Its very atmospheric, I always gets the creeps while reading it. Maybe not my favorite chapter of all (way too much liking Council of Elrond...) but one of my favorites. I like how Frodo acts in the whole dangerous scene.

Author:  Loki [ June 24th, 2012, 6:26 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Barrow-Downs

One of my fave chapters! I am not really scared by it but I love reading about hobbits having this adventure while drinking hot chocolate. :D

Author:  Cara [ June 24th, 2012, 6:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Barrow-Downs

I was re-reading this chapter that way! :p

Author:  Moist von Lipwig [ May 2nd, 2013, 2:49 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Barrow-Downs

One of my favorite and most creeping me out chapters! I loved the tension and was scared when I was reading it first time, which is a good thing :)

Author:  Lhunardaien [ October 18th, 2013, 8:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Barrow-Downs

Besides it being one of the more creepy of FotR, I also really liked how the Hobbits are suddenly reminded of the extended history of Middle Earth (and the readers along with it, of course). They have lived their entire life in the Shire, not thinking about what has happened in their own land before they arrived in it, and thinking even less about what happened or happens outside the borders of the Shire. Of course they know the stories and tales about Elves and kings of old, but this is the first time they actually encounter remnants of that ancient history.

Author:  Hanasian [ January 29th, 2018, 3:19 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Barrow-Downs

I saw the Barrow Downs as a beautiful glimpse into the vastness of Middle Earth history when I first read the books.
It was one of the driving frces that led me to delve deeper into the history of the tale through the years.

Author:  Gandolorin [ January 29th, 2018, 4:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: The Barrow-Downs

Yes, an early glimpse of there being some very much not-to-go-to places very close to the Shire (I mean, the Old Forest is also not really a place one would choose for a relaxing stroll). The Nazgûl in the Shire did get a sense of menace in fairly early, too – originally the (first Black) Rider was supposed to have been Gandalf! Shippey may have commented that had the Nazgûl pressed home their attacks a bit more (thinking also of Bree, and Weathertop later), they could have saved themselves (and Sauron) a lot of problems.
I like to think of the Shire a bit along the lines of what Sam said about the Elves of Lothlórien: “Whether they’ve made the land, or the land’s made them, it’s hard to say, if you take my meaning.” We’re talking 1418 years of settlement of the Hobbits in the Shire, and they are perhaps closer to the earth than any except a few Elves. Except for Lothlórien and Imladris, the Nazgûl could not have been in any land more natively hostile to them. No wonder they were having a bad time of it (and some Elves of Rivendell dropping by in the Shire certainly didn’t help things).
The Necromancer in the Hobbit was a far-away and indistinct concept, Smaug still quite conventional for conventional Fairy-Tales, Beorn injected a bit more of archaic savagery into the Hobbit, and the Elven-King (only much later identified as Thranduil) and his minions did a bit to get rid of the Tinkerbell impression of the Elves of Rivendeel earlier.
I remember too little of HoME volumes VI to IX covering the development of LoTR to guess at how much of this early darkness in the story of “Fellowship” was original, and how much may have been rewriting backwards after JRRT had finally originally gotten to the end of RoTK, to get rid of inconsistencies in the early writing with the later. He did manage to resist some instincts towards “soft-heartedness” which Shippey felt that critics had unrightly felt to have detected in LoTR. Had JRRT NOT resisted such instincts of his, then the book would have been much lessened, and some of the (moron) critics would accidentally have been right.

Author:  Hanasian [ February 1st, 2018, 6:00 am ]
Post subject:  Re: The Barrow-Downs

:yawn:
Back to the topic of The Barrow Downs...
The first barrow.... of men who were moving west in the first age who would eventually come to Beleriand.
Later ones go into the history of Cardolan.. An interesting place. And how the day seemed to be affected when the hobbits wandered there. A grand place in Middle Earth.

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