Don Marshall
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
He's looking at the river for a while.
This is a heavy moment for him, right?
The water he sees, it's a threat to him.
It's moving quickly.
By this point, it's near midnight.
This has got to be a moment where, what's going on through his head right now?
He knows he has to do this.
I think the text says that he's in despair.
It's the first time despair is used in this chapter.
Tolkien doesn't use words like that, like this accidentally.
No, I don't think so at all.
And it's certainly an intentional decision on his part.
It's not just that he's lost hope, because there's one thing that we've noted over the years of the podcast is that
While I used to think of the absence of hope being despair, like, you know, if you have no hope, then you are in despair.
If you are not in despair, then you might have some hope.
It's really more of a plus 10 to minus 10.
There is a zero where you can be without hope, but also not in despair.