Sol 330
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 335
ARES III SOL 330
“’They’ve cut it down!’ cried Sam. ‘They’ve cut down the Party Tree!’”
Spitfire squirmed on her sleeping roll. Normally she was glad for Dragonfly’s turns at reading. (Truth be told, she was glad for anyone else other than herself to take a turn.) But the longer Dragonfly went into this section about the aftermath of the Battle of Bywater, the more stilted the changeling’s reading became, as if, for some reason, she was suddenly having as many problems with Mark’s language as Spitfire did. And that couldn’t be right.
But there she was, squirming and squinting and stammering her way through the very last act of the War of the Ring. Was there something wrong? Was this some side effect of Dragonfly’s two months in that cocoon?
“There was a… surly… hobbit… lounging… over the low wall of the mill-yard. He was grimy-faced and… black-handed. 'Don't 'ee like it, Sam?' he sneered. 'But you always was soft…’” After a second of silence Dragonfly pushed the computer away, muttered, “Excuse me,” and trotted away, heading for the back of the cave with increasing speed.
“Dragonfly!” Mark was on his feet almost instantly.
“No, you keep reading,” Spitfire said. “I go talk.” After all, she was the fastest one there, and the only trained fighter, if this was Dragonfly about to go buggy again. She couldn’t fly much better than a chicken in the haze-thin magic of the farm, but with her suit off she could use that tiny bit of magic plus her wings to catch up to Dragonfly.
By the time Spitfire was past the farm and galloping along the water runoff trench, Dragonfly had ducked behind the curtain of insulation that covered the entrance into Tangled Hallway. Getting through the cluster of crystal shafts wasn’t as hard as it used to be, since two of the biggest had been sliced neatly out for the giant battery project, but it still forced her to slow down for a minute, until she could work her way into the more open Lunch Buffet.
When she got there Lunch Buffet was empty, but Spitfire could still hear a faint sound of hooves from deeper into the cave. She galloped on, the magic of the farm a bit fainter but still enough to give her wings a bit of boost. It took seconds to cover the length of the Buffet, and then it was through the Crack and into the Orb.
Starlight had made multiple solar relay crystals for the Hallway and Lunch Buffet because of their frequent trips to mine for battery crystals or Fireball’s meals. But the ponies very seldom had any reason to go through the Crack, and so the Orb, with its flattened almost-sphere shape and its irregular bands of every color imaginable- the single largest space without crystal pillars in the cave- had only one light. And this far away from the sources of heat and magic, Spitfire began to feel distinctly uncomfortable, pulling in her now-useless wings and slowing her running speed a bit.
Still no sign of Dragonfly.
Then it was into the chicane of Toothpaste Tube, the third narrow part of the cave. For a moment Spitfire was reminded of the hidden passage into the heart of the Lonely Mountain- five feet tall and three may walk abreast- but it wasn’t like that in the least. The passage was taller but also narrower, constricted by some truly ancient collapse and reopening of the lava tube when it was still forming, creating a double-S-curved hallway studded with little crystals, so that you couldn’t see more than five ponylengths ahead.
And then the final chamber, the Bed of Nails. A remnant of the deep Martian chill that had once ruled the cave lingered here, in the very back, dispelled only a bit by the single shining crystal immediately above the outlet from Toothpaste Tube.
Here Spitfire came to a stop. There was no point to continuing. Only a few steps from the entrance the tips of quartz crystals jabbed through the surface of the cave’s dirt floor. The dirt ceased completely, at least to pony eyes, about thirty meters into the long, somewhat narrow chamber. And then, about eighty meters beyond that, there was a place where no crystals reflected light back from the lone light source; the gray rock wall that marked the end of the cave after Starlight had permanently sealed off the granite rubble that lay at the heart of Site Epsilon.
No hoofsteps. No movement. No changeling.
At least, no visible changeling.
Shoot.
For a moment Spitfire considered conducting a systematic search by herself. Then she shook her head and turned back, a bit more slowly than she’d come, to go get the others for a proper search.
She spotted Mark as she re-entered Lunch Buffet, sitting on one of the fallen, broken shafts that tended to line the edges of the Buffet and the farm. She picked her pace up again, rushing over to him. “You Mark?” she asked, adding in quick Equestrian, “Or am I going to have to fetch a stick?”
“Me Tarzan. You… very much not Jane,” Mark replied, adding in a mutter, “Damn, but I’d like to meet a Jane around here.”
Spitfire’s confusion froze her in place for a second. She shook it off, grumbling, “You Mark, yep. Dumb no-sense… er, nonsense… joke. Okay.” She took a deep breath, then yelled, “Why you back here alone??”
Mark shrugged. “Got curious. Also, you are back here alone.”
“I am…” She’d never liked the Wonderful Lightning work-around, or any of its cousins, for Wonderbolts. She settled on, “I am military! This my job!”
“If one of your subordinates went running off by themselves to search for a lost comrade,” Mark said, “what would you do to them afterwards?”
Spitfire shuffled her hooves. “I… would… smile,” she said. “Hug. Say all right. Make them cake. A REAL cake,” she added in a louder voice, because a blatant lie can only be improved with volume.
“If you say so,” Mark said. “Why don’t you go back and see how big a cake Cherry Berry has for you?”
Spitfire couldn’t help flinching at that reminder. Darn it, she’d spent too long being at the top of the command chain. Even after a year on Mars, she kept forgetting to subordinate.
“Go on,” the human continued, giving the pony a gentle shove to the shoulder. “I’ll be right here.”
“No, you go back,” Spitfire said. “Get others.”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Mark said. “I’ll be fine right here. But you could ask Starlight to rig another battery for a few extra minutes of bzzt-bzzt.”
Spitfire didn’t argue, but she didn’t go farther than just behind the first couple of shafts in the Tangled Hallway, either. She stopped, carefully took a few steps in place to mimic the sound of a pony walking away. She hadn’t even finished when she heard Mark justify her paranoia.
“How long are you going to stay a crystal?” he asked, his voice carrying out of the Lunch Buffet chamber. “It wasn’t hard to spot, you know. I’ve come back here often enough to know how many of these fallen crystals there are. And there’s definitely one too many on this side of-“
“Mark,” Dragonfly’s voice interrupted, “I’m over here.” The last word was accompanied by a soft whooshing sound, like a rather large gas stove being ignited and then immediately shut back off.
“Oh! Um.” There were a few soft, crunching footsteps, and Spitfire used them to ease as close to the entrance to Lunch Buffet as she could get. “Doesn’t that burn a hell of a lot of magic?”
“Yeah.” Dragonfly sounded despondent, defeated, resigned to whatever came. “But I thought I only had to do it for a few seconds at a time. But you wouldn’t leave.” A deep, heartfelt-sounding sigh. “Can’t I be alone for a few minutes?”
“That depends on what you want to be alone for,” Mark said. “If you’re making Cocoon Number Two back here-“
“I’m not.” Another deep sigh. “Look, today’s chapter, and the one before. The good guys won, yippee. Everything wrong is being made right. But then the hobbits get home, and it’s all bad,” Dragonfly said. “It’s all terrible. All the happy, cheerful stuff that makes the hobbits sound exactly like ponies is being wrecked, just because it’s fun to wreck things. That’s not right.”
“Well, no, it’s not,” Mark said. “But that was Tolkien’s point. War changes the home front, even if home isn’t on the front lines. And Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin all changed, too.”
“I guess,” Dragonfly sighed. “But I listened to all the stuff about tearing down, burning, spoiling things, locking people up, all the nastiness… and I began thinking…” A long pause, and Spitfire had to focus her ears very carefully to catch the bug’s next words: “What would have happened if our invasion had succeeded all those years ago?”
Mark waited for quite some time before asking, “What do you think would have happened?”
“Changelings would have been changelings,” Dragonfly said. “We would have terrorized ponies because it’s fun. We would have sucked them dry, because why not? We’d have locked up or enslaved the ones that put up any fight. And we would have stolen anything we liked and smashed the rest, because why not? We didn’t make it. It was all just pony junk.”
Another sigh. “And I would have joined in. I would have been proud to join in. Victorious changeling warrior. Beat the ponies. No more hiding. Food forever. Do what you like, because it’s all free.”
“You think you’d act like those orc-men,” Mark said.
“I know for a fact I would have,” Dragonfly said. “Fair dues, right? Rules of war. Too bad for ponies.” A sniffle. “That was before I knew ponies for anything other than food or targets. I hadn’t met Cherry then-“ A soft gasp. “Faust, I hope I didn’t meet Cherry then.” Prolonged silence, followed by, “I don’t really like myself right now.”
“Uh-huh. That settles it.” Quite a lot of dirt-crunching happened before Mark resumed. “I’m staying right here. The last time you were in this kind of mood alone, you canned yourself for two months. Or else we both go back together. We should probably do that anyway, since Spitfire and the others are taking a FUCKING LONG TIME TO COME LOOKING FOR US.”
“How did you know she was there? I mean, I knew, but how did you?”
Spitfire blushed, nose to hoof.
“Just as I said- they were taking too long. Either she never went and was listening, or else they were all listening. I’d guess the first, since I don’t seem to do a very good job of acting like me.”
Changeling snort. (She did that really well.) “Liar.”
“Maybe.” Soft soil-moving sounds. “Look. In a couple weeks you should be able to email Dr. Shields again, and she can talk you through this better than I can. But here’s the facts.” Pause. “Yeah, you’re pretty terrible.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, don’t blame me. You’ve spent a lot of time trying to make yourself look terrible to us. Well, guess what? We agree. You’re a vicious evil little cuddlebug, and we don’t care, because we can see you’re more than that. You’re trying to not be evil.” More dirt noises. “You would not believe how many people there are who act evil, revel in acting evil, and then demand that they be loved for it.”
“I’d believe it. Look who I have for a mother.”
“But you aren’t her.” Scuffle. “Though I can’t blame you for looking up to her. She’s always got a comeback, hasn’t she?” Shuffle. “But the thing is, you didn’t try to take us all over- well, except once. You tried to keep things the way they were. Hell, you even tried to make us all get along even better, even when you had to have known we knew what you were doing.”
“Changeling survival, first day of school.”
“Nope. No sell. See, you aren’t just trying to get yourself off this rock. You want everybody out of here safe. You actually care about us. Would your mom care?”
“Well… look, could you call her my queen instead? ‘Mom’ feels… weird.”
“Okay. So long as you don’t dodge the question.”
“Okay. My queen would want me off this planet. Probably Cherry too- they’re kinda friends, I think. A really weird kind of friendship, even by our standards. But Starlight? Fireball? Spitfire? You?” Pause. “Well, maybe you, because you honestly are delicious. The others could stay here forever as far as my queen cared. Not that Cherry would let her abandon them, but, well, you asked.”
“How would an ordinary, no-wings, no-horn pony make a changeling queen do anything?”
“I did just say it was a really weird friendship they have.”
“Well. Anyway, you’re not her. Maybe once you were. Maybe you were really just a bug who would help destroy pony civilization. But somewhere along the line, that changed. Now here you are questioning what you believe because a book gave you a little hint of what it might be like to be on the wrong end of a changeling swarm. A book made you see something new. That usually means it’s a good book.”
“Is it a good book? I mean, do humans generally think so?”
“It’s regarded as one of the great classics of English literature. Not because it’s the best written thing ever. Big chunks of it are dry as toast, you know that. And we’re not doing the Silmarillon, because the best part of that is still worse than all that crap about Aragorn’s coronation. And only Tolkien could take not one, not two, but three epic love stories, and deliver them as dry as a newspaper obituary.”
“So what makes it great?”
“It’s great for what it is, and what it was at the time. It was the first major fantasy story in centuries to not be a little kiddy story. It was the first fantasy story, well, ever, to portray war as inglorious or tragic in any way. And it was the first fantasy story to put a major effort into building a world that wasn’t Earth, with geography and languages and cultures and traditions and everything.
“But mostly because it was very nearly the first story, of any kind, that said you could be brave without being a fearless killer. For the first time English speakers could read a story about the heroism of mercy, generosity, gentleness, and simple endurance. The hobbits didn’t earn that through wading a river of blood. In the end they won- and they were heroes- because they were simple, humble, nice people. Which is pretty much bass-ackwards from every fictional hero humanity had up to then- and most of the real ones too.”
“Now who’s bragging about being evil?”
“Quit distracting me. Back to my point. You don’t need to be the badass bug. You don’t need to scare us. You don’t need to show your loyalty to Chrysalis every five minutes. Just be you. And if you don’t like who you are, tomorrow you can choose to be a little better you- not all at once, but a little at a time.
“But from where I sit, for something that might have been designed on purpose as a cuddle-toy for Sigourney Weaver’s grandkids, you’re all right.”
Changeling snort. “You were going good until the obscure cultural reference.”
“Trust me, if you ever visit Earth, you’ll find out real quick it’s not obscure.”
Spitfire tried to crunch as little of the dirt under her hooves as possible as she made her way back through Tangled Hallway towards the farm. She didn’t need to worry anymore, and to be honest she shouldn’t have listened to as much as she did. She’d been afraid and suspicious, and if she brought it up now Dragonfly would probably say something about how she ought to be and undo whatever good Mark’s babbling had done.
It might not be a bad idea, she thought, if I spent a little time thinking about who I’m going to be tomorrow, too.
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9023060 So it is! I did not know that. Makes it all the more appropriate a choice here, with cross-generational appeal. That Youtube link of yours doesn’t seem to work outside the US
I’d say it’s definitely the 2nd of the rhythms you wrote out, doubling the backing vocals in the Cartoons version, or the horns in the original.
I actually have read the original Lord of the Rings and Hobbit my parents have second editions of both sitting on a shelf
Damn Twilight would be proud of Mark's speech...
Now that's good writing.
I feel like it's coming back to the question of sacrifice for forgiveness.
Good job letting the readers actually see that DF doesn't just take that her former enemies forgave her and her people for granted, and that she works on her issues now instead of running away and hiding in a bucket full of changelling spunk.
Great speech! Twilight would be proud!
And we really need more of stories like that... (so far, I can only think of Louise Banks, from Arrival, and Gary Hobson, from Early Edition...)
Would Wall-E count? I know it's not literature, and an extremely modern reference, but I've been wracking my brain for non-violent heroes, and he's the first one that popped in my head (mainly because I just re-watched the movie), and self-sacrifice is one of the classic tropes of heroism.
Nice Dragonfly Feels chapter. I certainly wouldn't call it "sweet" (and she'd probably balk at being called such), but it definitely left me feeling good. #HugABug
9023689
How long to you think it would take a friendship report to be sent through the water telegraph?
ALL the applause for Mark. Good talk. Hope this gets through to Dragonfly and sticks.
9023060 And for what it's worth, I was definitely thinking of the first version on this list.
9023704 No, no, the sticks are in case it doesn't get through.
9023701 I was specifically thinking of stories prior to Tolkien's work. Post-Tolkien there have been an awful lot of heroes of kindness.
I actually disagree with you about the books versus the movies. I mean, everything you said about the importance of the books was true. It doesn't automatically follow that they're good. The Wright brothers' plane was important, but it wasn't, in comparison with planes in general, very good. I read the books in high school, and by god did I have to force myself through them. If I'd had access to a summary, I'd have been glad to read that instead. I mean, I'm no stranger to dense literature. (I loved Moby Dick, and am apparently somewhat alone in that.) But my take-away from Lord of the Rings was that he was paid by the word. No-one should need a page to describe the random view of a valley they see as they crest a hill, a valley with no significance, a valley that they've passed through within two pages.
I apologize for venting.
If we're talking about non-violent heroes, Izuku Midoria is one of my favorites. So far, all of his achievements have been saving people, not seeking out the enemy, engaging them in combat and then punching the bad guy really hard.
Let me think... a classical fantasy hero who wasn't a bloodthirsty killer...
Puss in Boots.
Y'know I actually enjoyed the movies on the grounds as they took all the dry boring travel parts and presented them as beautiful travel montages of New Zealand. That and the action scenes were pretty good even if they did dip a bit far into heroic fantasy.
That said when I watched Return of the King and they did NOT have the return to the Shire arc was when I accepted the adaptation as inferior. It was my favorite arc of the LotR trilogy and they just ignored it! (What can I say? I like bittersweet endings.)
i think they she need is the fallout books about war and the heros that are sample but yet do more great then anyone around
9023701
I don't think Wall-E counts as heroism as our protagonist isn't aiming to do anything particularly heroic through out the film. At its core Wall-E is a love story about a trash compactor trying to win the affections of a space probe. In fact all the whole reawakening humanity's spark and returning them to the Earth aspects were only tangentially related to our heroes throughout the film.
When saving humanity is a completely unintended consequence of your actions can you really be called a hero?
9023747 You have read a different version than I have. The version I know ends with Puss killing a magical giant and giving all his stuff to his boy master.
9023783 Yeah, but he did it with cunning and wits, tricking the giant into turning into a mouse. That was a very different sort of hero too.
There were others who were kind and used their wits as well, but they're not as well known.
There was a story of a twin brothers who became hunters and then caretakers to a number of animal babies who grew to become their faithful companions and aided them many times.
The only thing they killed was a seven-headed dragon that was eating maidens, as wicked dragons in fantasy were wont to do, and a witch who was deceiving people and turning them to stone. So they deserved it. But that was actually only a small part of the story.
It was a rather oddly structured story, I recall.
9023801
So breaking into the house and killing the owner to take his stuff is bad, but being invited and tricking the owner so you can kill him to take his stuff is good? I can respect guile heroes who use brain over brain as much as the next guy but let's be honest "Kill someone rich and take their stuff" does not seem like a particularly good moral to teach.
TBH when it comes to PussNBoots I always preferred to take away the moral of 'Fake it till you make it' instead.
If Dragonfly felt such just on reading the book, what would it be like at any major cinematic viewing?
Is Sleipnir still on track to land in the next hundred or so Sols? I thought at least one was en route?
9023815 The ogre was a bastard. He kept farting and saying stupid things like "Better out than in." He deserved it.
Tricking people is ALWAYS ok. That's why we have lawyers, politicians, and actors; after all.
Also, check the backhistory of "Puss in Boots", its core tale may go back all the way to India in the 5th century.
9023849 Hermes flyby: Sol 551. Sleipnir 2 arrival: Sol 590ish.
oh no i'm out of chapters to read
guess this means I caught up
And if the print version is too dry to stomach, I strongly, strongly recommend experiencing the book in audio book form. The person reading the story, a good reader that is, adds inflection and energy to the relevant parts. Recorded Books has an unabridged version that is fantastic. It was something I obtained only recently, and the story just carries you away before you even realize it.
All the great classics are given incredible life when in audio book form. Recorded Books has several superb titles. It was because of them that I have gone through Moby Dick in full. Frank Muller's reading made even the driest parts tolerable, and his voicing of characters was so distinct, I knew who was speaking almost as soon as their lines came up.
The movies of Lord of the Rings are not even half the story. They cut that much out.
And here's hoping Chrysalis finds out about the Alien franchise and starts cackling, commenting about getting too many ideas for humans.
9023918 Tolkien himself read at least some of his work before he died. He was a pretty good storyteller (based on my 20-year-old memory), though how good an audiobook presenter he'd be I don't know.
9023719
Well, the thing with Tolkien's books was that he, like many authors on this site, was writing primarily for his own entertainment. As he said in his forward,
Tolkien was as surprised as anyone else that his work became so popular, he certainly wasn't writing for an audience. Thus I suppose the draw of the story rests in the level of detail Tolkien put into his world, giving it a particular sense of reality that other stories fail to achieve. And sometimes reality is stone boring. The council of Elrond certainly feels like a huge pack of dignitaries arguing over minutiae.
9023918
Bob Ingliss. He did “The Hobbit” also; I’ve got both audiobooks in my library.
Ah... Science Fiction.
To quote my own work:
9023754
I thought of it as inferior when then didn't have Tom.
"It was the first fantasy story, well, ever, to portray war as inglorious or tragic in any way."
Well, Mark may believe that, but I'm pretty sure it's not true; "The Sword of Welleran" (published 1908) seems to me a counterexample. Some relevant quotes:
"But in the dawn Merimna's men came back, and the sun arising to give new life to the world, shone instead upon the hideous things that the sword of Welleran had done. And Rold said: 'O sword, sword! How horrible thou art! Thou art a terrible thing to have come among men. How many eyes shall look upon gardens no more because of thee? How many fields must go empty that might have been fair with cottages, white cottages with children all about them? How many valleys must go desolate that might have nursed warm hamlets, because thou has slain long since the men that might have built them? I hear the wind crying against thee, thou sword! It comes from the empty valleys. It comes over the bare fields. There are children's voices in it. They were never born. Death brings an end to crying for those that had life once, but these must cry for ever. O sword! sword! why did the gods send thee among men?' And the tears of Rold fell down upon the proud sword but could not wash it clean."
"Thus wept the people of Merimna in the hour of their great victory, for men have strange moods, while beside them their old inviolate city slumbered safe."
Lord Dunsany is kind of obscure nowadays, though; I can readily believe Mark hasn't heard of him.
"back through Twisted Hallway towards the farm"
"back through Tangled Hallway towards the farm"?
A nice chapter. :)
9023918
I enjoyed going through Lord of the Rings audiobooks as a kid, multiple times as I recall. :)
9024016
Meh, I thought Tom Bambadil was a completely pointless side-track in the books myself. A fun sidetrack with some manner of moral about how we couldn't rely on higher powers to save or something like that, but it just struck me as overly fantastical to the point of being borderline absurd.
And if the moral is about how we can't rely on higher powers to save us then why do the damned eagles have to keep swooping in to save the day?
Man, Kris, I really, really loved this chapter. It honestly moved me. After all this time of Dragonfly consciously or subconsciously defending the Bad Old Days, her having this breakthrough, this "I don't really like me much right now" moment, and Mark's reply are all so good and satisfying. Your points about Lord of the Rings are excellent (and I rather liked the movies! Except the Hobbit ones, the only good thing about those were Martin Freeman as Bilbo (flawless) and Smaug (freaking epic). And one or two of the dwarves, maybe. I liked the one with the silly hat.
Wow I got off track there. XD Great moral in this chapter, one that hopefully more of us will take to heart - especially this bit:
9024026 Double-check chapter stamps on posts before replying. Maybe time stamps, too.
9024047 Because Gandalf got a bulk-rate discount on last-minute rescues?
... no, seriously, the Great Eagles are (more or less) the servants of Manwe, chief of the Valar- or the descendants of same, in the same way that the Ents are the children of Yavanna and the Dwarves of Aule. At least, that's Tolkien's excuse.
oooooh. I liked this chapter a lot. Character development for our favorite bug! And some for Slobberflame too!
Much love chapters like these!
9024060
So the eagles are his way of having an in-story Deus-Ex-Machina?
I suppose it's a better reading then the allegory of them being America coming again to save the day whether you need it or not but it still feels like they come out of nowhere.
Which means I guess the moral the eagles convey is: You never know when an unexpected rescuer may come save you?
Awash in blood and delusions, he bears the burden of a thousand lifetimes :3
9024055
I now severely feel ashamed....
9023754
Seconded, and well put.
I made the Witch Doctor Dungeon Master song from yesterday! Very satisfied with my work here. Please listen to it! https://musescore.com/user/27997005/scores/5153455
9023668
I need to make a quick update, but the "second version" changes should be live on Musescore.com soon.
I tried, but I could never get past the part in the second book where they spend like 200 pages walking.
9024047
Seemed like an author insert to me. He'd created this world and these characters he loved...he wanted to be there with them. So he was.
I seem to vaguely recall that the tales of Robin Hood had him coming back from war as a changed and hardened man, and that he was no longer content to hide in the forest and subvert the corrupt authorities, but rather challenged them openly (and lost). I couldn't help thinking that the story of the Scouring of the Shire was related to that tale in some way.
Anyhow... Next up, how about Bored of the Rings? "Behold grim Mount Badass!"
9023815
Depends on who you ask. Eating the rich is gaining popularity.
Sir Percival probably fits as another exception. In the character archetypes of heroes Sir Percival is often summed up as "Sir Dumb" or "Sir Innocent" and is the base of most popular modern fantasy heroes. After all, when you hero has no idea what is going on....you can explain it to the audience. Meanwhile we have grown bored of Sir Lancelot (the heavyweight champion of the world) and sir Galahad (The Honourable) type heroes for the most part.
HOWEVER in a way, Sir Percival proves your point. In the original "Chrétien de Troyes" story, Percival's arch just stops dead. Its started, shows an innocent boy who had been raised in the woods by his mother decide to become a knight after assuming knights were angels, (Did I mention he was raised not just innocent, but completely ignorant) and through mostly dumb luck succeeds in doing a noble deed , and his purity gets him declared a knight of the round table. Then he goes and finds the Grail Castle and through trying to be polite, fails to do the last thing required to earn the Holy Grail. He declares he will fix his error and starts his Grail Quest.
And then the story stops. Instead latter he becomes reduced to a background character in Galahad's quest for the holy grail (despite having already seen it once and swearing to find it himself), once again, mostly to explain what the hell is going on to the audience. And latter works portray him as quickly becoming strong or wise or holy, missing the point that Chrétien de Troyes had made him the Pure knight, the innocent one, that he was important for that reason.
Sir Percival proves that not only did we not have simple heroes back then, but we had no idea how to write them as main characters AND the audience didn't really understand them. Chrétien de Troyes effectively reconned Sir Percival and latter 'fanfiction' writers went out of their way to make him a god.
Often through magical items (like a ring that said he couldn't be killed) and commonly in silly stories...but thus completely missing the point of Sir Innocent/Dumb.
Yeah. I remember starting to bog down during the late chapters of Fellowship and really bogging down through much/most of Two Towers. Some of Tolkien's work rivals the average car repair manual for dry. The difference is that Chilton publishes universally and evenly dry, technical stuff. Tolkien's work also features the occasional chase scene.
Honestly, I'd have preferred no chapter to the recent trend of Mark the adult explaining life to the kids via literature.
That is certainly what this has become.
9024136
And it sounds like a good idea until you've stolen enough to be the richest person in the room and now everyone's aiming at you for your success at it.
9024047
Tom was a cameo of Tolkien's oldest character. Remember all his stories started as children bed tales.
You know, as much as I like Tolkien's work, I was always more into Robert Jordans. Can't wait till they start that TV series based on it.
I grew up reading the adventures of Rand al'Thor.