The Fellowship of the First Time Readers: Ch 1-4

Chapter 1 - A Long Expected Party

Q1 - What do you think of a Hobbits coming of age at 33?

Q2 - What do you think of Frodo’s parents death of drowning?

Q3 - What do you think about Hobbits?

• Out flew a red-golden dragon – not life-size, but terribly life-like: fire came from his jaws, his eyes glared down; there was a roar, and he whizzed three times over the heads of the crowd. They all ducked, and many fell flat on their faces. The dragon passed like an express train, turned a somersault, and burst over Bywater with a deafening explosion.
• I regret to announce that – though, as I said, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to spend among you – this is the END. I am going. I am leaving NOW. GOOD-BYE! He stepped down and vanished. There was a blinding flash of light, and the guests all blinked. When they opened their eyes Bilbo was nowhere to be seen.

Q4 - What do you think of Bilbo?

Q5 - What do you think of the battle for the ring between Gandalf and Bilbo?

• He paused, silent for a moment. Then without another word he turned away from the lights and voices in the field and tents, and followed by his three companions went round into his garden, and trotted down the long sloping path. He jumped over a low place in the hedge at the bottom, and took to the meadows, passing into the night like a rustle of wind in the grass. Gandalf remained for a while staring after him into the darkness. ‘Good-bye, my dear Bilbo – until our next meeting!’ he said softly and went back indoors.

Q6 - Do you like Bilbo’s Irish exit from life?

Q7 - Thoughts on the Sackville Baggins and their gift of spoons?

Chapter 2 - The Shadow of the Past

Q1 - 17 years have passed…Frodo is now 50 and he hasn’t seen Gandalf…how crazy is that?

Q2 - What do you think of Sam?

• You say the ring is dangerous, far more dangerous than I guess. In what way?’ ‘In many ways,’ answered the wizard. ‘It is far more powerful than I ever dared to think at first, so powerful that in the end it would utterly overcome anyone of mortal race who possessed it. It would possess him.
• One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Q3 - What is this rings actual power?

• ‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

Q4 - Do you like Tolkiens writing so far?

Q5 - What do you think of the Deagol and Smeagol story?

• ‘You ought to begin to understand, Frodo, after all you have heard,’ said Gandalf. ‘He hated it and loved it, as he hated and loved himself. He could not get rid of it. He had no will left in the matter.
• ‘I endured him as long as I could, but the truth was desperately important, and in the end I had to be harsh. I put the fear of fire on him, and wrung the true story out of him, bit by bit, together with much snivelling and snarling.

Q6 - Did Gandalf torture him?

• Through Mirkwood and back again it led them, though they never caught him. The wood was full of the rumour of him, dreadful tales even among beasts and birds. The Woodmen said that there was some new terror abroad, a ghost that drank blood. It climbed trees to find nests; it crept into holes to find the young; it slipped through windows to find cradles.
• And my search would have been in vain, but for the help that I had from a friend: Aragorn, the greatest traveller and huntsman of this age of the world.

Q7 - I gotta say, this introduction of Aragorn is even better than the movies.

• ‘Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many – yours not least.

Q8 - What do you think about the idea of second chances so far in this story with Gollum?

• He went to the window and drew aside the curtains and the shutters. Sunlight streamed back again into the room. Sam passed along the path outside whistling. ‘And now,’ said the wizard, turning back to Frodo, ‘the decision lies with you. But I will always help you.’ He laid his hand on Frodo’s shoulder. ‘I will help you bear this burden, as long as it is yours to bear. But we must do something, soon. The Enemy is moving.’

Q9 - What do you think of Frodo?

Chapter 3 - Three’s Company

• ‘‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,’’ he used to say. ‘‘You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.

Q1 - Who is your favorite character so far?

• Round the corner came a black horse, no hobbit-pony but a full-sized horse; and on it sat a large man, who seemed to crouch in the saddle, wrapped in a great black cloak and hood, so that only his boots in the high stirrups showed below; his face was shadowed and invisible.

Q2 - Jenn who is this?

Q3 - What do you think about their meeting with the Elves?

Chapter 4 - A Shortcut to Mushrooms

• ‘Well, Sam!’ he said. ‘What about it? I am leaving the Shire as soon as ever I can – in fact I have made up my mind now not even to wait a day at Crickhollow, if it can be helped.’ ‘Very good, sir!’ ‘You still mean to come with me?’ ‘I do.’ ‘It is going to be very dangerous, Sam. It is already dangerous. Most likely neither of us will come back.’ ‘If you don’t come back, sir, then I shan’t, that’s certain,’ said Sam. ‘Don’t you leave him! they said to me. Leave him! I said. I never mean to. I am going with him, if he climbs to the Moon; and if any of those Black Riders try to stop him, they’ll have Sam Gamgee to reckon with, I said. They laughed.’

Q1 - What do you think of Sam?

Q2 - Do you think Frodo should have just gone with Sam, or was he smart to take Merry and Pippen?