REVISIONS:THE CHRONICLES OF PRYDAIN VS. THE LORD OF THE RINGS

This is a revised post from my old blog.  The original of which can be found here for comparison.

Warning: Contains spoilers for The Chronicles of Prydain and The Lord of the Rings

Endings are a linchpin in stories.  They are a little thing, often just the last tenth or less of the narrative, but how a story ends impacts everything that came before and the overall impression with which a readers leaves the story.  I did not especially enjoy reading Where the Red Ferns Grow, but the last few pages hit me in such a way that I left the book satisfied.  On the other hand, as is evident in my posts on All the Light We Cannot See, I was enjoying Doerr’s book a good bit, but the ending left me wondering how I should feel about everything that had come before.  They are the final  narrative consequence of everything that came before, and that’s what makes them hard to write and so important to discuss.

I spent the last post describing my experience with Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain.  I love the characters.  I love the unfolding themes.  The plots kept me engaged even when the settings felt plain.  They are good books, and I definitely think they are good children’s literature.  However, even with everything I like about the series, I can’t ignore that final impression.  I can’t ignore the ending.  Mind you, it’s not necessarily a bad conclusion.  It doesn’t ruin the series for me, and it could have worked.  But there are issues with its execution.

From the title of this post, you might have already figured out the ending.  At the end of book five, all magic, including several main characters with the ability to use it, and this world’s version of the Dúnedain must leave Prydain after the Death-Lord, Arawn, is destroyed.  Much like the elves of Middle-Earth, they leave to go to a land without pain, suffering, or sorrow, never to return.  As with The Lord of the Rings, our main character is offered a place on the ships that shall sail across the sea.  But unlike Frodo, who left Middle-Earth after his duties were fulfilled, Taran refuses the offer, knowing he has duties that he must not abandon.

My main issue with this ending is not so much that it’s a near copy of Tolkien’s.  This fact does negatively impact my final impression, but the stories themselves are quite different, so the specific themes highlighted by each ending show how, even when extremely similar, two endings can have different meanings depending on the events leading up to them.  No, my main issue has to do with the idea of set up and payoff.  Over the course of Frodo’s trials, Tolkien properly foreshadows and builds up to the ending while Alexander does not.

In The High King, the last of The Chronicles of Prydain, the ending comes pretty much out of nowhere.  I read the series very quickly, and when I reached the end, I could not think of one bit of foreshadowing that, with Arawn dead, all magic and several characters would have to leave Prydain or that Taran would have to choose between going with his friends or staying behind.  That Taran would be faced with a difficult choice, yes, that was made clear.  But not this particular choice.  Now, perhaps I simply missed the hints, and when I reread the series in order to review individual volumes, I plan to watch for any foreshadowing.  However, looking back at the time, I couldn’t think of anything pointing towards that ending, leaving me sad at the parting of characters I had come to like but emotionally unsatisfied with the story.

Contrast that with The Lord of the Rings.  For starters, we know that the elves are leaving Middle-Earth.  As they set out from the Shire, Frodo, Sam, and Pippin run into a group of elves soon to go to the Grey Havens for their final voyage across the sea (Tolkien 80).  At a few points in the story, Frodo dreams of a song and of some “far green country” (135).  Near the end of the story, Aragorn, now King Elessar, marries Arwen, the elf, and she gives Frodo her place upon the west-bound ships, should he so choose (972-974).  Then, as the remaining Fellowship parts ways, never to fully gather again, the hobbits are accompanied for a time Lady Galadriel and her husband, Lord Celeborn, who themselves shall soon journey towards the harbor (981-985).  The elves are leaving Middle-Earth.  The Third Age is over.  It is time for the Age of Men.  We know this.  And Frodo’s final choice has been presented.

Even so, after returning to the Shire, freeing it from Saruman’s grip, and healing it of his poison with Galadriel’s gifts to Sam, happiness returns.  It seems we have reached the end.  But as the next few years are described, we realize not all is well.  Every year, on the same day, Frodo becomes sick.  The wound he received from the Nazgul on Weathertop causes him pain and illness, even with the Ring destroyed (1024-1025).  He  has suffered so much, all for the sake of going back to his simple, peaceful life, and yet he cannot.  He can never go back.

Therefore, when Frodo tells Sam that he shall sail across the sea to the Undying Lands, our hearts break with Sam’s.  We don’t want Mr. Frodo to leave, but we know he must.  If ever he is to be healed, he must go.  And so we let him.  With shattered hearts and tears of grief, we stand with Sam at the Havens and watch the white ship sail away into the West.  But then Tolkien writes, “Frodo… heard the sound of singing that came over the water.  And it seemed to him… the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise” (1030).  And our tears mix with ones of joy, for we know.  We know Frodo’s suffering is finally finished.

Frodo earned his ending.  As did Tolkien because he structured the world for that ending from the beginning and gave indications of where events would turn and why.  And it is satisfying.  In Prydain, however, there is no such satisfaction.  No sense of a fitting conclusion.  Instead, I felt cheated and confused.  Why must everyone leave?  Why could magic no longer exist there?  Why must Taran face this choice, face these partings?  The main consolation I could find was that it fit the tone and themes of The High King.  This last Prydain novel is about sacrifice, sorrow, duty, and the knowledge that even after you suffer you must still live.  Even with the sorrows and the scars, there are things to be done, promises to keep, and so we must live on.  However, I think those ideas would have come across even if the ending hadn’t been what was it is.  Or, if it had been better foreshadowed, I probably would have really liked the ending.  We didn’t need it to be a twist ending.  We didn’t need an ending that had not been earned.

An improper or poorly done ending can derail the emotional impact of an entire story, leaving the reader with bitterness, anger, hollowness, or even hatred.  Thankfully, the ending toThe Chronicles of Prydain is not so bad as to break the series for me, but it didn’t need to hurt the series at all.  With a bit more foreshadowing, and bit more buildup, heck even just a bit more world building, it could have been powerful, the emotional culmination of five novels’ worth of struggle, growth, suffering, and love.  But it wasn’t, not for me, and that’s a terrible shame.

References:

Alexander, Lloyd.  The High King.  Rev. ed., Henry Holt and Co, 1999.

Tolkien, J. R. R.  The Lord of the Rings: One Volume.  50th Anniversary ed.,

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012.