Nazgûl and orcs and hill trolls oh my! The finale of Book Five of LOTR sees our heroes ride into a trap and parlay with the flaming skull known as the Mouth of Sauron. It's some fantastic heavy metal stuff, and a piping good chapter of Tolkien. We break down the importance of time jumps in this chapter, and their effect on the reader. Tolkien rallies the reader into a confident sprint before dropping a shocking revelation that fills us with doubt and dread because the chronology has become so scattered. Maggie further develops her theory about the light/fire/ash cycle in the conflicts of Middle-earth, and Cam suggests that the Mouth of Sauron is a mirror for Gandalf's current position, which has some fun implications for where Aragorn now stands. Hint: it's somewhere up in the clouds. We end with another scandalous 'what if?' about the eagles and the Nazgûl fighting to the death in the sky over the final battle – and Cam fantasizes about the eagles dying pretty horribly. Why can't fantasy ever end in a graveyard blowout?

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