Mysterious stuff

[hectorberlioz]

so what was Tolkien thinking when he wrote that fox in the fellowship of the ring?
its a part that always was mysterious for me.
do you know a part that confuses you?
please post it and why it is confusing to you.:)

[Bacchus]

The fox seems to me to be part of the transition from the lighthearted, almost chatty style of The Hobbit to the generally more serious style of LOTR in general. The Party and Bombadil also fit into this style.

[mithrand1r]

I think the fox was written because at the time that part of LOTR was written, Tolkien intended to make LOTR similar to the Hobbit in general tone and style. At some point after this, he decided to take a more serious tack in his tone of writing.

I have no proof about this, but this is my opinion.

I wonder why he bothered to mention about the Entwives without giving more detail. (In some repects this is part of the charm in his writing. By not spelling everything out, there are things left to the reader to wonder about and speculate. Fot me it gives the impression that there is more to learn than what is written.

[Tuor of Gondolin]

Bacchus is, of course, correct about the fox. But I've always liked it, It works on several levels. It's part of Tolkien's ability to give depth to the story (perhaps analogous to Tom Bombadil), but also it relates to peoples experience in life. Who hasn't seen an airplane, car, etc. go by and wonder who is in it, what will happen, while knowing they'll never know? Or speculating on what has happened to a former girl/boy friend.
"Hobbits!" he thought. "Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree. Three of them! There's something mighty queer about this." He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it.
Apparently inconsistent with the concept of kelvar, although Robert Foster speculates that the Eagles of Manwe were the highest of the kelvar (while others suggest they were Maia).

[Dúnedain]

Can someone refresh my memory about this "fox"? Been about a year since I read Fellowship and I don't remember what you are talking about :(

[hectorberlioz]

check out the post above you;)
ah, you guys have an excellant theory for the fox, i would have never seen that.

[Dúnedain]

Originally posted by hectorberlioz
check out the post above you;)
ah, you guys have an excellant theory for the fox, i would have never seen that.

He didn't make it clear who said that, I thought that was from Bree...

[hectorberlioz]

fotr,ch.3, page 100(according to my edition, pulished by del rey, before the movies were released. they have paintings on them)

a few creatures came and looked at them when the fire had died away. a fox passing through the wood on bussiness of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed...
this is where Tuors post comes in.:)

[Dúnedain]

Originally posted by hectorberlioz
fotr,ch.3, page 100(according to my edition, pulished by del rey, before the movies were released. they have paintings on them)

a few creatures came and looked at them when the fire had died away. a fox passing through the wood on bussiness of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed...

this is where Tuors post comes in.:)

Ahhhhhhhhhhh I remember that now :D Thank you thank you :p

[hectorberlioz]

no problem at all m'dear fellow:)

[Tuor of Gondolin]

Oh, one other point about the fox. In a way it's an echo of the incident in "Unfinished Tales" where Tuor and Voronwe, on their way to Gondolin, see a mysterious figure cross their path but don't know who he is or his task.

Then he went swiftly away towards the North, as one in pursuit, or on an errand of great haste, and they heard him cry Faelivrin, Finduilas! until his voice died away in the woods. But they knew not that Nargothrond had fallen, and this was Turin son of Hurin, the Blacksword. Thus only for a moment, and never again, did the paths of those kinsmen, Turin and Tuor, draw together.

And so the fox, after seeing the hobbits, went on its way, its story continuing on one path while the hobbits followed theirs. Perhaps somewhat less heroic, but not from the perspective of the fox.:)

[Melko Belcha]

The thing about the fox that I don't understand is that LotR is supposed to be the story written by Frodo. How did Frodo know that happened, he was asleep, and how did he know what the fox was thinking. I agree with the reasons above about of why Tolkien put it into the story, but looking at it as Frodo's story, why did Frodo put it in there? What was Frodo trying to show with that scene? Was Frodo trying to record the events of his journey, or was he trying to tell a story? I believe it was a combination of both.

[hectorberlioz]

well, lotr is not from frodo's perspective in the books, but he wrote his perspective in the red book.
:D does that make sense?

[Bacchus]

Originally posted by Melko Belcha
The thing about the fox that I don't understand is that LotR is supposed to be the story written by Frodo. How did Frodo know that happened, he was asleep, and how did he know what the fox was thinking. I agree with the reasons above about of why Tolkien put it into the story, but looking at it as Frodo's story, why did Frodo put it in there? What was Frodo trying to show with that scene? Was Frodo trying to record the events of his journey, or was he trying to tell a story? I believe it was a combination of both.
The fox is not the only example of an omniscient narrator-the scene on the Stairs where Gollum looks at a sleeping Frodo and Sam, then towards Torech Ungol, then reaches gently towards Frodo, is another such example.

[LeniFreak]

I always kind of liked the fox. It seemed sort of out of place with--yeah, pretty much every single other thing in the entire book otherwise, but I liked it. The addition of the fox--treated to thoughts as if a secondary character--gave an interesting idea of the Shire as a place where even this random fox is a legitimate part of life, in stark contrast to the rest of the book's concerns, where, even though in the end it comes down to individual minds and a piece of metal, the concepts are the sweeping moves of armies and humanity (intelligent-organismanity?) and whole worlds and ages and ways of life.

Also, it produced a little bit of suspense--if even a fox notices something out of the ordinary as our favorite hobbits travel, how are we to expect that people, or worse yet, those black riders, aren't going to?

[hectorberlioz]

Originally posted by Lenifreak
Also, it produced a little bit of suspense--if even a fox notices something out of the ordinary as our favorite hobbits travel, how are we to expect that people, or worse yet, those black riders, aren't going to?
thats what I was thinking when I read it...