During my last re-watch of The Return of the King it struck me how ugly and stupid evil is. Kudos to PJ and Co for not aestheticizing the baddies, even resisting the temptation to make Sauron sexy. The Witch King is scary but without substance, defeated by a depressed girl and her pint-sized bestie. The army of Mordor is huge in number but quakes at the sound of Rohan's arrival. They can't even keep a crown of flowers from forming around the fallen statue of a king, only replace his head with a dumb rock and scraps of rusty, twisted metal. The Dark Lord is powerful and dangerous, yes, but he's not all-powerful and he's not infallible. Even his great burning eye is focused in all the wrong places. He uses smoke and mirrors to impress and corrupt Saruman, and to drive Denethor to despair—Denethor, who could have welcomed home the King. (Instead, he wallows in grief, capitulates to fear, and grows bitter in grumbling over Rohan's presumed betrayal. Note how this parallels Gollum instilling suspicion and doubt in Frodo regarding brave and loyal Sam.) The enemy is a liar and a deceiver, and Aragorn knows this when he silences the Mouth of Sauron and says, “I do not believe it. I will not!”
And I want to emphasize this point, this rebuttal of Sauron's divide and conquer tactics: The Fellowship gets weakened. It suffers losses. It becomes scattered across the larger battlefield. But its members remain true to each other, and to their shared mission, even when they find themselves parting ways to accomplish it. At the end of the first film, Aragorn tells Frodo, “I would have gone with you to the end. To the very fires of Mordor.” And where is Aragorn, at the end of the last film?? The gates of Mordor, with the remaining members of the Fellowship (and some new friends, too), exactly where Frodo needs them to be at that moment. No one expects to survive, no one can guarantee victory, and no one but the audience sees the tiny bud on the Tree of Gondor, hope blooming in response to faithfulness even while the sky remains overcast and the city lies in ruins around it.
To repeat my previous tags: #I've said this before and I'll say it again #the devil WANTS you to feel overwhelmed and already defeated and like the small acts of everyday love and faithfulness aren't enough #but in fact each one is chipping another stone out of the foundation of his dark tower #and from your vantage point you may not see the people chipping stones on the other side (but they are there!) #you don't need an extensive understanding of architecture to bring it down #just the willing hands of a hobbit
I love these books and these films.