(ROTK) A darkly humorous possibility ... (Spoiler Caution)

[Edena_of_Neith]

Spoiler Caution - if you have not read ROTK, please do not read this.

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Spoiler Caution

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Spoiler Caution

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Those of us who have read Return of the King know that in the book, an event occurs known as the Scouring of the Shire.
We know that, at the very end of this event, Saruman laughs in the face of the hobbits, and he says, to paraphrase him:

You ruined my home, so I ruined yours. Now you know what it feels like, you silly, arrogant hobbits.

But what if ... now, I do not think Peter Jackson will do this, but what if ...

Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin come back to the Shire, and indeed it is a mess, and there, standing at the front of a messed up Bag End, is not Saruman, but ...

Sauron (complete with armor and mace)

Sauron says: You ruined my home. You ruined my life. Now it's payback time. (hefts mace.)

The Scouring of the Shire would take on quite a different tone then ...

 

[Dark Jezter]

Peter Jackson has already stated that The Scouring of the Shire will not be included in RotK.

 

[KenM]

PJ has already said they are not doing scourging of the shire. He said the Galandrial(sp?) scene in FoTR movie with Frodo looking in the pool and seeing the shire being destroyed was they're "tribute" to the scourging of the shire.

 

[Prince Atom]

Sauron says: You ruined my home. You ruined my life. Now it's payback time. (hefts mace.)

Heh, not so froggy now we destroyed that ring of yours that gave you so many feats, are you?

Let's see you try to use Great Cleave with a 10-ft reach and knock us all backwards now, ya great pansy....



TWK

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

About Rings

To which Sauron would then say:

I have lost the Ring.
However, I do not need the Ring to ring your little hobbit necks with my huge hands.
I do not need the Ring to ring your bells with my mace.
I do not need the Ring to ring cries of agony from your throats as I burn you to cinders with my fiery touch.
Nor do I need the Ring to ring you with my orc archers in a circle of death.
I don't need a Ring to ring you around with my monstrous flying steeds.
I don't need a Ring to ring your country with assorted misfortunes and miseries.
I would say the ruin of your home, Bag End, is a ringing endorsement of my power over all hobbits.
Oh yes, I broke the ringer on the doorway of Bag End, so that you cannot ring it. Which about rings that situation up.
And, how did you enjoy that vision in the Mirror of Galadriel? Was that a wake-up ring to your minute intelligence?
The hobbits shall all have ringside seats as I fry and squash you four.
Then, the King of Gondor shall watch at ringside as I slaughter your people.
And then ...

(At this point, Sam, realizing that this must be a Sauron imposter from Bored of the Rings, rings the imposter's noggin, knocking him out, and mercifully shutting up his ringing spiel. Frodo, however, is merciful and does not slay him with a ring and stab of Sting. Frodo simply has him clapped in irons and thrown into Michel Delving, and there the prison door slams on the Sauron imposter with one final ring.)

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

On a more serious note ...

If that was a tribute to the Scouring of the Shire, then it was a tribute the likes of which would have made Saruman proud.

After all, Saruman trashed a lot of trees, knocked down some houses in Hobbiton and Bywater, caused some minor burning here and there, and made a lot of hobbits generally miserable.
He caused some water pollution, definitely ruined the aethetics of The Water, closed all the Inns (a real outrage, that one), and stole all the Pipe-Weed (an even greater outrage, especially from a hobbit point of view.)
Not bad. Not bad.

However, what the Mirror of Galadriel showed was just a wee bit worse than that.
Heh. Just a wee minor bit worse.
I saw a desert, stripped of all trees, brush, grass, and weeds ... with it implied nothing would ever grow there again (akin to the desert before the Morannon, for those who have read TTT.)
I saw Hobbiton and Bywater burned, completely destroyed, with the implication that all the Shire suffered the same fate.
I saw hobbits massacred, and those who survived taken as slaves to be worked until they died .. with the implication that this was the fate of all in the Shire who yet lived.
Even the sky was clouded with a perpetual gloom of smoke, a tribute to the colossal destruction below.
As for The Water, it had sort of vanished ... or perhaps that deadly, poisoned slick around the slave Mill was the former Water? Not that it could be distinguished from the burned, poisoned, and ruined ground that surrounded it.

A land diseased, defiled beyond all healing, unless the Great Sea should come in and wash it away into oblivion, to paraphrase Tolkien.

I would like to have seen Frodo, Gandalf, or anyone else try to resurrect the Shire from THAT fate.

Aye, it would have made Saruman proud.
Given ten thousand new Uruk-Hai and about a hundred years of effort, he might - might, I stress - have accomplished destruction of such a magnitude.

Or, as Galadriel put it: It is what will happen, if you should fail.
I suppose that is Galadriel: blunt and to the point. Poor Frodo ...

 

[William Ronald]

Hi, Edena.

I thought the scene with Galadriel was a good tribute to the Scouring of the Shire. I think what it showed was what the Shire would have become if Sauron and Saruman had won the War of the Ring. The entire world would have been remade in the image of Mordor. (By the way, I do love the glimpses of Mordor we have seen in the Two Towers. The area by the Black Gates does look like, to paraphrase Tolkien, "a region so utterly corrupted, that it could only be cleansed if the Great Sea broke its bounds.")

 

[krunchyfrogg]

I seem to recall a pic of Wormtongue holding a dagger in the tower, presumably getting ready to off Saruman there instead of in the Shire.

 

[William Ronald]

I recall seeing the picture as well, but there may be a few "red herrings" out there. Time will tell.