Lord of the Rings August Check-In

Wow! Hard to believe I've read another 145ish pages in this challenge. This month took me through all but two chapters in The Two Towers and one chapter in Return of the King. There was a short stint in the Unfinished Tales as well, but nothing that added much to the story.

In the Two Towers we learned of the aftermath of Helm's Deep. Merry and Pippin reunite with Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn as well as Gandalf at Isengard. Sadly, Pippin's curiosity gets the better of him. He looks into the seeing stone thrown down from the Tower by Wormtongue. Gandalf takes him and rushes to Minis Tirith.

Here the point of view switches to Sam and Frodo. We learn they are not very good at navigating mountains, and so are forced to capture and use Gollum as their guide. The journey is long and Frodo seems to be suffering much. Luckily, the fall in with Faramir, brother to Boromir, in Ithelien. After some rest, and some food and drink, they're off to the route that Gollum wishes to take them. Faramir is unhappy about it, but Frodo says he has no choice. While there's more to the story, according to the chronology I'm following, I then switched to Return of the King.

Upon switching, we bring up Pippin and Gandalf. I'm going to be straight here. I was super disappointed that the beacons of Gondor were mentioned in about two lines. Out of all the scenes in The Lord of the Rings movies, the lighting of the beacons is my absolute favorite.

I'm starting to see the end to this giant undertaking, and it's quite exciting. I find myself enjoying the character interactions far more than the battle scenes. I know last month, I mentioned Helm's Deep just about made me quit. I'm concerned there will be a ton of battle scenes in Return of the King as well which might slow the whole process down. But all the character bits are quite fun.