{"id":719,"date":"2012-01-06T07:00:51","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T15:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=719"},"modified":"2012-01-06T07:17:30","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T15:17:30","slug":"mark-reads-the-fellowship-of-the-ring-book-two-chapter-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2012\/01\/mark-reads-the-fellowship-of-the-ring-book-two-chapter-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads &#8216;The Fellowship of the Ring&#8217;: Book Two, Chapter 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the first chapter of the second book of <em>The Fellowship of the Ring<\/em>, Frodo&#8217;s rescue brings about a round of reunions that are both exciting and depressing. Intrigued? Then it&#8217;s time for Mark to read <em>The Lord of the Rings<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>BOOK TWO, CHAPTER ONE: MANY MEETINGS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Hello, info dump. How are you?<\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>THINGS THAT I LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>I reserve the right to be utterly wrong about all of this.<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>(That means this is rhetorical. For the love of Gandalf&#8217;s beard, do not answer any questions I pose.)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You know, I generally ignore any of the fringe and bizarre feedback I get for Mark Reads stuff; it&#8217;s not very often that I <em>do<\/em> get it, but sometimes, people feel compelled to spend ten minutes of their day sending me a condescending email or anonymously (of <em>course<\/em> it is always anonymous) sending me an Ask on <a href=\"http:\/\/panasonicyouth.tumblr.com\" target=\"_blank\">my Tumblr account<\/a>. (Which you are welcome to follow! Spoiler alert: I yell a lot and I act like a child. You&#8217;ve been warned.) About two weeks ago, someone thought it was totally necessary to send me an ask stating that I should go back and give people &#8220;real&#8221; reviews for every occurrence <em>ever<\/em> that I used a list format, because it wasn&#8217;t a real post and it&#8217;s not fair.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ll let that sink in for a while.<\/li>\n<li>Still weird, isn&#8217;t it?<\/li>\n<li>Let&#8217;s ignore the idea of someone telling another person how to write their own blog.<\/li>\n<li>Let&#8217;s also ignore the fact that it&#8217;s been established for <em>years<\/em> that I am obsessed with lists and \u00e2\u20ac\u201c<\/li>\n<li>No, wait, we can&#8217;t ignore that. IT&#8217;S WHAT I DO. I DO IT ALL THE TIME <em>BECAUSE I LOVE LISTS<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>On that note, these lists are meant to entertain y&#8217;all with my thoughts, but that is not their primary purpose: They help me organize thoughts. And look, the fact that hundreds of thousands and millions of people read my garbage and totally love it is such a flattering, amazing thing to me, and I&#8217;m way into that. But when I write these reviews, my primary focus is to sort out my own thoughts on what I&#8217;ve just read. In particularly dense chapters (like this one), my goal is not to tell you what happened in <em>The Fellowship of the Ring<\/em>. Y&#8217;all already know! Unless someone&#8217;s using these like Cliff Notes??? OH GOD <em>WHAT HAVE I DONE<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>The only reason I wanted to bring this up is just to publicly state that this is not an attempt by me to cut corners, to haphazardly and rapidly assemble a post just to be done with it, nor is it because I&#8217;m lazy. I don&#8217;t have a visually-strong brain, and writing things down like this helps me retain information. It&#8217;s how I studied in high school and college, too, and I am desperately trying to keep myself prepared for <em>The Lord of the Rings<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Actually, on that same note as well, I think this book will be the most difficult (aside from <em>A Song of Ice and Fire<\/em>) to be prepared for because it&#8217;s so unbelievably complex. I&#8217;m actually loving this fact, honestly, and the density of Tolkien&#8217;s novel is not off-putting to me at all.<\/li>\n<li>This might be the longest I&#8217;ve ever gone on a tangent in a list. Mark your calendars. This date&#8217;ll go down in history.<\/li>\n<li>OKAY FOR REAL NOW: We learn Gandalf is alive! And watching Frodo sleep like some <em>proto-Edward Cullen<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Frodo wakes up on the day after my birthday!<\/li>\n<li>Everyone else survived!<\/li>\n<li>This is off to a really good start!<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;And you are lucky to be here, too, after all the absurd things you have done since you left home.&#8217; LOL GANDALF, YOU ARE ONE SASSY LITTLE BISCUIT. I love it.<\/li>\n<li>Oh, right, Gandalf was missing for so long because <em>he was held captive<\/em>. Well, shit, that&#8217;s unexpected.<\/li>\n<li>So I was right (FOR ONCE): the Black Riders are the Nine. But I learn their official title and what they <em>actually<\/em> are: they&#8217;re RINGWRAITHS. So they possess those rings and it turned them into wraiths? SWEET SUMMER CHILD HELP ME<\/li>\n<li>Aragorn is actually descended from the Men of the West! Wait\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.I don&#8217;t really know what that means. I forgot the significance of this WOOPS.<\/li>\n<li>The reason Frodo&#8217;s arm was so bad was because there was a splinter of the blade in his shoulder. NOPE NOT A FAN OF THIS IDEA IN MY HEAD. Splinters alone are already one of life&#8217;s great tragedies and evidence that there is no god watching over us, but <em>SPLINTERS OF METAL STUCK INSIDE SOMEONE&#8217;S SHOULDER? <\/em>No. Just NO.<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s a thing called a Morgul-knife and it&#8217;s a big pile of NO. Because not only is it a knife, IT MAKES YOU SUSCEPTIBLE TO THE RINGWRAITHS&#8217; POWER.<\/li>\n<li>Oh, and then you&#8217;d <em>become<\/em> a ringwraith. what is this book.<\/li>\n<li>They ride real horses! The ringwraiths, I mean.<\/li>\n<li>The figure lit in white light at the end of Book One was actually Glorfindel. DUDE HAS POWERS!<\/li>\n<li>Elrond commanded the flood that swept the Black Riders away. NO BIG DEAL OR ANYTHING.<\/li>\n<li>Gandalf made the waves look like white figures on white horses. NO BIG DEAL OR ANYTHING.<\/li>\n<li>OMG, for real, it&#8217;s so cool to be back at the Last Homely House.<\/li>\n<li>Pippin is still my favorite hobbit. THIS IS WHAT I LEARNED TODAY.<\/li>\n<li>We meet someone named Arwen, who is Elrond&#8217;s daughter, and she&#8217;s pretty and it&#8217;s one of only a few women around. Hopefully, she&#8217;ll play a bigger part? I don&#8217;t even know at this point.<\/li>\n<li>Gl\u00c3\u00b3in is still alive AND HE IS AT THE FEAST. Whoa, that is definitely something I didn&#8217;t expect at all.<\/li>\n<li>D\u00c3\u00a1in is still King under the Mountain!<\/li>\n<li>Dwalin, Dori, Nori, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur are all still alive as well!!! OMG MAYBE THEY&#8217;LL COME ON THE ADVENTURE.<\/li>\n<li>Balin, Ori, and \u00c3\u201cin are all missing. Sadfaces abound!<\/li>\n<li>I would be such a <em>douche<\/em> in the Hall of Fire because I would probably fall asleep. LOOK I CAN&#8217;T HELP IT.<\/li>\n<li><strong>BILBO BAGGINS WAS HIDING OUT IN THE HALL OF FIRE OH MY GOD I CAN&#8217;T EVEN BELIEVE THIS TURN OF EVENTS Y&#8217;ALL<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>NO YOU DON&#8217;T UNDERSTAND! I thought we would <em>never<\/em> see Bilbo again. THIS IS SO WONDERFUL.<\/li>\n<li>Aragorn is also known as D\u00c3\u00banadan. He has too many names.<\/li>\n<li>Bilbo went on a journey to Dale with the dwarves!<\/li>\n<li>BILBO IS BACK.<\/li>\n<li>Oh god, the Ring is still creepy as fuck. WHAT WAS THAT SHADOW THAT APPEARED?<\/li>\n<li>Oh my god this song is so long.<\/li>\n<li>Oh my god, I just turned the page and it&#8217;s still going.<\/li>\n<li>WHAT IS THE NARROW ICE AND WHEN CAN I GO THERE.<\/li>\n<li>Okay, what the <em>hell<\/em> is up with Elbereth? Who is that? How come Frodo is so\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6well, I don&#8217;t want to say &#8220;obsessed&#8221; because that&#8217;s not the right word. But he used that name before in the Dell, and it seems to hold some strange power.<\/li>\n<li>Um, what is that weird moment between Frodo and Lady Arwen???<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>OH GOD THERE ARE MEETINGS NEXT. I expect tons of info-dumping. Bring it, Tolkien.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the first chapter of the second book of The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo&#8217;s rescue brings about a round of reunions that are both exciting and depressing. Intrigued? Then it&#8217;s time for Mark to read The Lord of the &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2012\/01\/mark-reads-the-fellowship-of-the-ring-book-two-chapter-1\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,136],"tags":[156,157,158,143,142,118,159,23,138],"class_list":["post-719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-fellowship-of-the-ring","category-the-lord-of-the-rings","tag-aragorn","tag-bilbo-baggins","tag-elrond","tag-frodo-baggins","tag-gandalf","tag-jrr-tolkien","tag-lady-arwen","tag-mark-reads","tag-mark-reads-the-lord-of-the-rings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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