The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

*This review contains spoilers for previous books in the series.*

The Return of the King  picks up immediately where The Two Towers left off, with Aragorn and company preparing to defend their lands against Sauron's growing army and Frodo and Sam trying to destroy the ring in the fires of Mount Doom. Much like in the previous novel, the first half of the story focuses on  various characters in Aragorn's group and the second half focuses on Frodo and Sam until the whole group comes back together for the end.

Aragorn's group splits up at the start of the novel. Gandalf and Pippin head off to Minas Tirith to warn them about an imminent attack from Sauron's army. They will be badly outnumbered at this fight and need as much advanced warning as possible in order to have a chance at holding the city. Once they arrive, Pippin decides to pledge his loyalty to Denethor, the ruling steward, and becomes a part of his forces. Meanwhile, Merry decides to stay with Theoden, King of Rohan, and serve with his men. They also ride to Minas Tirith to aid in the upcoming battle, but as they are a whole army, they move at a slower pace. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli head off with a small group of people to seek additional aid for Minas Tirith by summoning an ancient ghost army. Their way is treacherous, but it is their best chance to hold off Sauron and keep him busy while Frodo and Sam work on destroying the ring. Throughout the first half of the book, the narration alternates between these three groups as they work towards their separate goals and slowly come back together for the battle.

Frodo and Sam start off their half of the story in dire straits. Frodo, after being betrayed by Gollum, has been captured by orcs and is being held prisoner in one of Sauron's outposts. Sam is forced to make a brave rescue attempt, which ends up succeeding after most of the orcs in the outpost kill each other through petty in-fighting. From there, they must continue their dangerous trek to Mount Doom, which is still several leagues away. Their journey grows more and more difficult as orcs are swarming around everywhere, their food and water supply is running low, and the ring is draining increasing amounts of Frodo's strength. They struggle along anyway, in a race against time to destroy the ring before Sauron discovers their intentions and puts a stop to it.

I admit that after reading the first two novels in this series over the past few weeks, I was getting fatigued with Middle-earth. As I made my way through the first half of the story, I really struggled to get into a good flow with it. There are a lot of battle scenes, and a lot of talking about upcoming battles, and I was feeling bored. However, once the story shifted over to Frodo and Sam, my attitude changed. The final piece of their journey and the ending of the overall story were absolutely fantastic and a worthy ending to the trilogy. The characters all showed growth (there was even a prominent girl in this one!), there were genuinely suspenseful moments, and the conclusion was deeply satisfying. I even felt a little bit like crying at some sad moments towards the end, which surprised me because up until that point I hadn't really felt an emotional connection to the story. It was pretty perfect. 

When I think back to my overall experience with this series, I feel mixed. I definitely liked it overall, but there were sections in each of the novels that I was not engaged with. I tended to dislike the more military and political aspects and enjoyed the adventure and survival aspects. Due to the way the narration is organized, this generally meant that I struggled in the first half of the books where Aragorn's story was the main focus and enjoyed the second half with Frodo and Sam. I did like more than I disliked though, so it ended up being a mostly enjoyable reading experience. 

What is most memorable about the entire trilogy is its sheer scope. After reading just over 1,000 pages of this story, I feel like I was really on this journey with these characters. They felt like my friends, and with Tolkien's obsessive attention to detail throughout the text, I felt like I was in their world. Lord of the Rings is an epic story that truly feels epic, probably more so than anything else I have read. I get why people are so in love with this series now. I think that if I had read this younger, or if there were a few more female characters for me to relate to, I would count it among my favorites. As things are though, this was a challenging and well-written series, and I'm happy to have read it.  

Challenge Tally
Classics Club (#43 on my list): 4/4 books in series completed - 74/100 books completed

Total Books Read in 2020: 49