LotR3-RotK-Seq18

[alatar]

The King is dead. Long live the King!


Éowyn, wounded by the Witch-King and almost by Gothmog, crawls over to her Lord and Uncle who still lies where he and Snowmane landed. King Théoden wakes at her touch, and though his time in Middle Earth be short, he at least will have a chance to say goodbye, at least to Éowyn. The shieldmaiden, staring at Death yet again, still wants to deny it, but this time sword or tag-line cannot hold back the inevitable. The King asks to be let go, and gives the words straight from the text. No, Bernard Hill, even in this company of fine actors you should not feel ashamed, as your work in the movies was well done.

The King dies, and I’m creeped out by how long the actor holds open his eyes.

Éowyn weeps.

Gandalf and Pip walk the war-strewn Fields. They witness Aragorn giving up the ghosts’…help. Gimli speaks for me, as here there’s no reason not to use the ghostly green slime to invade Mordor, as no help arrived by ship nor is now marching north to Gondor. If, by chance, Aragorn rides out to challenge battle, he will be riding out with considerably less then when the whole mess started – plus leave the city underdefended. Regardless, Aragorn sends the Dead King and folk on their way, and it looks like there will be a long line behind Théoden if the King doesn’t hurry up.

Gandalf nods to the last King standing, who acknowledges the gesture with his eyes. Good job bringing those green guys.

The scavenging begins. Pippin and others look over the dead, obviously searching for loose change and anything of value. Pip finds an elvish cloak, and gasps as he knows the value of it on the black market. What a find! Oops…okay, so maybe he was concerned about Merry. The good thing is that there’s not a body inside the cloak, and in Middle Earth, until you’ve seen the body…

Éomer makes a find of his own. It’s the still and silent form of his sister, and he screams in pain and anguish. How she came to be there maybe was unknown to him, unlike to the rest of the Rohirrim. How she becomes ‘mostly dead’ is a mystery to me, as when last we saw her, she was shooting the breeze with Théoden, having crawled along the ground to get there. Maybe it was that last effort, and now she lies motionless more from despair – and the Black Breath – than any physical wound. Next we see her lying upon a bier inside the City, and Éomer sits nearby awaiting oil and wood.

Aragorn chooses a somewhat unconventional method of healing, and takes her arm and bathes it with a solution of athelas (that’s what I see). And it’s only now in the movie that I see something else in the text, that the waters of Ulmo wash things clean, bring life again. We see Aragorn is truly King, as he has the hands of a healer and not just that of a butcher.

Éowyn arises in white, and looks not to the light but to the new Steward – Faramir – and I have hope for the two, and only wish that we spent more with them than with lessons in dwarven humor.

Pippin, using much of the day, continues to search for the body of Merry. Finally, possibly knowing the look of a hobbit’s foot, he sees his friend underneath the body of a foe. Merry’s all right, and Pip vows to take care of him, which is, I guess, PJ’s way of showing that Pippin is now growing up and not relying on Merry.

It was in the Appendices or Commentary that it was noted that the ‘Pippin searches for Merry’ scene was originally in the daylight, but due to the extra ‘healing’ scene, was moved to the night simply by darkening the existing scene.

With all of the heroes/heroines accounted for and resting, we will pause until next time to see what the next throw in this end game will be.

[Essex]

I don't really mind Eowyn talking to her soon to be dead King, as I understand we would have needed more screen time and a slower pace earlier on to have the friendship between Thedoen and Merry tie in with Merry and the King at his death. It's a pity we don't have Merry here at the last though. We do not now have the bitterness of knowing that Eowyn is close by her King, almost dead herself, and that he never knew....

Gimli speaks for me, as here there’s no reason not to use the ghostly green slime to invade Mordor, as no help arrived by ship nor is now marching north to Gondor.

Who says it's not? We just don't see it in this film. The "green slime" have done their job, in Minas Tirith instead of Pellagir, and now they must be set free.

Pippin, using much of the day, continues to search for the body of Merry. Finally, possibly knowing the look of a hobbit’s foot, he sees his friend underneath the body of a foe. Merry’s all right, and Pip vows to take care of him, which is, I guess, PJ’s way of showing that Pippin is now growing up and not relying on Merry.

It's just a great pity that we didn't have Merry's immortal line 'Are you going to bury me?' and Gandalf's 'he should have been borne in honour into the city' that always makes me shed a tear for Merry. But (for the latter) we would have to acknowledge Gandalf's 'sight' in seing all that happened on the field, and this would not have worked Movie wise unfortunately.

[Elladan and Elrohir]

The Houses of Healing scene is gorgeous, and I absolutely love the song Liv Tyler sings during the scene. The downside is that it means Pippin's finding of Merry is postponed to evening, so that we're left with Peregrin Took, searching alone among all the bodies for one who did one of the greatest deeds of the battle. Not even Gandalf stays to help.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Elladan and Elrohir

The Houses of Healing scene is gorgeous, and I absolutely love the song Liv Tyler sings during the scene. The downside is that it means Pippin's finding of Merry is postponed to evening, so that we're left with Peregrin Took, searching alone among all the bodies for one who did one of the greatest deeds of the battle. Not even Gandalf stays to help.

This might have been due to originally having Pip out there with everyone else in the daylight, but due to recutting the film for the EE version, not wanting to go back to 'daylight' after the 'Eowyn healing' scene, as it might make viewers think that Merry wasn't found until the next day.

Amazingly the green slime didn't clean up before they left.

[Essex]

Also, Pippin searching alone for Merry is akin to the books. Merry was wondering around ignored, and this compares (as he points out himself) to how he was also ignored by the Witch King, and thus able to defeat the WK with Eoywn and therefore enable Frodo to save Middle-earth.

As I said above, I just wish movie Merry spoke the line 'are you here to bury me?'