What did Tolkien mean by this?

"oh shit I forgot to have something bad happening to the Shire, now it looks like some paradise that's never affected by anything and our heroes will just be ignored when they return"

"maybe if I sneak in this completely out of place subplot about them being enslaved for like a week the reader will get a feel for the stakes"

>>9535279
It kinda makes sense that the shire was attacked, though. It wasn't at all defended, and it was Saurons way of fucking with Frodo.

>>9535305
First of all, yes it was defended by the Rangers and justing by what Aragorn said, there was some serious shit around there. Second, there was absolutely no point in taking over the shire. There are no resources there and the hobbits are total crap for labor because they're small and weak. And besides, how long could this whole operation realistically last with the war won and the new king AND Gandalf being massive hobbitboos?

It was just a clumsy way to demonstrate everybody could get hurt by evil even if they hide in their home and to kill off Saruman

>>9535321
Are you trying to tell me that Sauron needed a good reason to fuck with his enemies? He symbolized pure evil: he doesn't need a reason to do anything. What's the point of having this big bad guy who's threatening the entire world when most of the world is relatively safe. The hobbits were probably just going about business as usual while Frodo and Co. were busting their ass to destroy the ring and save middle earth.

>>9535343
It just makes no sense whatsoever. I mean I guess you could say it's the equivalent of the villain kicking his cat, just a lashing out but it was too methodical and organised, they had set up prisons and everything. It just never made sense to me and I can only assume he glued it on after the rest was done

>>9535354
You're probably not wrong. I wouldn't really be surprised if it was kinda an afterthought, as it doesn't really impact the plot in any significant way. Everything Sauron did was really organized, though. It's not too unbelievable that he would spend a day or so plotting a revenge scheme against the hobbits. Even if it was an afterthought, I don't really feel like it was out of place. Imagine fighting your way through a giant army that's trying to destroy the world, trekking all over middle earth, nearly dying a dozen times and then when you get home everything is chill and all your family and friends barely know that anything happened at all. That was kinda the ending we got in the movie and it didn't feel very great.

>>9535378
The hero being covered in plaudits after saving the world and then returning to his home village and being a regular nobody again is a tried and true trope. The Shire's charm is its refusal to change in any way. To me there would be nothing more fitting than for Frodo to return home and to have Lobelia give him shit for hiding Bilbo's golden door hinges from her or something. The hero ignores her and smugly lays back with some pipeweed, the end.

>>9535321
>Second, there was absolutely no point in taking over the shire. There are no resources there and the hobbits are total crap for labor because they're small and weak
Wow you are fucking stupid

>>9535558
Not an argument, retard

>>9535558
As a person who has not read the books, why?

You all do remember that it's Saruman, not Sauron, who ruins the Shire, right? And that Saruman does it precisely because by the end of the book he's a petty little fucker?

>>9535974
That makes zero sense
>I spent centuries establishing myself and then decades building a genetically enhanced army but I got beat so I guess I'll whip some hobbits now and wait for the gondorian troops to come and kill me unless someone else does it first

>>9535999
It's a Christian thing.

File: 1366227945724.jpg (169KB, 670x510px) Image search: [Google]

169KB, 670x510px

Normally I don't reply to these threads, precisely because most people are so irredeemably stupid they think they like TLotR and do so based on such fundamentally incompatible reasons that there's no real way to convince them of how stupid they are, to what extent they've missed the point. But I'm drunk with nothing else to do, so I will make an exception.

>>9535321
>First of all, yes it was defended by the Rangers
All of the Dunedein went south with Aragorn. They were the grey company. The shire was left undefended.

>>9535321
>Second, there was absolutely no point in taking over the shire.
Saruman explicitly states he did it out of spite. The Hobbits were responsible for the destruction of his home and he wanted to make them feel some measure of that.

>>9535321
>And besides, how long could this whole operation realistically last with the war won and the new king AND Gandalf being massive hobbitboos?
He never expected it to last, he said as much. He just wanted to be a dick, to cause what harm he could.

>>9535321
>It was just a clumsy way to demonstrate everybody could get hurt by evil even if they hide in their home and to kill off Saruman
Not at all, the purpose of the Scouring of the Shire had two purposes. One was to demonstrate the pernicious nature of evil, to display the extent to which Saruman had been corrupted. Both he and Sauron initially sought power as a means of establishing order, now he seeks it and harm for its own sake.

The second purpose was to prove how the Hobbits had grown into their own, to save their home without the help of their friends in order to stress the need for personal agency and responsibility. This was very clear cut and not at all foreign, if one actually appreciated the tone of the story rather than how "epic" the movies and video games are.

In short, consider killing yourself. I'm deeply reminded of all of those hippies in the 60s and 70s who would make long distance phone calls and wake Tolkien up in the middle of the night to express how "far out" his story was. Teaching everyone to read was a god damn mistake.

>>9536098
>the purpose of the scouring of the Shire had two purposes
This really sums up your entire post. But it's hard to pick a favorite, each sentence is more moronic than the next.

>>9536098
>drunk on a Sunday evening
This is actually really sad.

File: tfw no balrog qt.jpg (279KB, 826x630px) Image search: [Google]

279KB, 826x630px

>>9536110
>ignores every point made
>knitpicks on a syntactical curiosity despite everything still being fully comprehensible as a pretext to dismiss everything
The purpose of the Scouring of the Shire is twofold*
happy?


>>9536123
I don't pretend otherwise.

>>9536130
I was happy anyway, I just wanted to make fun of you. As to your "points" i.e. "he just did it out of spite, it doesn't have to make sense", I think I'll do you a favor and ignore those

>>9536141
>if I erroneously insert it doesn't have to make sense I can fallacy my way out of this
righto anon

>>9536141
I don't believe details from the story you mistakenly excluded count as a point. It's an outright correction. In the sense that you're wrong.

That part is one of the things I was actually kind of glad wasn't in the movie.

>>9536144
>>9536149
Guys I love the books as well, just let's not suck the author's cock without a hint of critical thinking. The Scouring was a very poor tacked on storyline that added nothing to any of the characters, made no logical sense, portrayed Saruman as some irrational mustache twirling villain with no forethought, which is the last thing he was up to that point, and it's painfully obvious it was "added in post".

>>9536172
Nah, it was great.

>>9536281
Well, you're free to believe that. I'm just glad Jackson made the sensible decision to cut it

>>9536110
There's little validity in your silly criticism. His post is fine.

>>9536098
>I'm deeply reminded of all of those hippies in the 60s and 70s who would make long distance phone calls and wake Tolkien up in the middle of the night to express how "far out" his story was. Teaching everyone to read was a god damn mistake.

Bashing the hippies and peasants, good shit my man.

>>9536172
>made no logical sense, portrayed Saruman as some irrational mustache twirling villain with no forethought
While less essential to the plot, like the other anon said, it demonstrated how fallen Saruman had come.

Scouring of the Shire chapter > all of IJ