In Part I, we looked at the lost message at the Houses of Healing. Again -I repeat - I loved the movies and thought Jackson did a credible job in an impossible task. But he missed the heart of the message. In this part let’s look at the missing conclusion.

The Scouring of the Shire (spoiler alert)

In the movie, after the crowning of Aragorn the hobbits return to Shire and some of the characters leave for the Grey Havens. The chapter about the Scouring of the Shire near the end of the book is omitted by both the theater and extended versions. There is a major message - a conclusion - if you will in that chapter that needed to be told. Jackson saw the story as anti-climatic. It isn’t. It is the heart of the message.

In the movie, Aragorn is crowned and the hobbits head homeward. Frodo, however, has really failed at his task. Frodo didn’t throw the ring in the volcano. Frodo is not the stallion, he’s a gelding. He has yet to become a man. And there he goes, off into the sunset (Grey Havens), still holding his wound. He never became a man. To quote, C.S. Lewis, Frodo stands where most men are today. God calls us to be stallions, instead we run as geldings. And geldings can’t bear fruit. Jackson missed this.

Look at the way Tolkien told the story. Frodo is an Everyman. He has failed his adventure, failed his calling. He didn’t put that ring in the volcano. He did not have the strength to complete his task. We (both men and women) all carry the wound. We inherited it from Adam and Eve. Men seldom get the message from their own father that they have the strength for their calling, adventure, and battle. As Paul says in Romans:

… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…

NKJV Rom. 3:23-24

Frodo is in a major depression as he heads back to the Shire. He is a gelding, not a stallion. Book version: As Frodo heads back to the Shire, he begins to get the message that things are not right in the Shire. Reaching home, he finds many of the hobbits in jail, buildings destroyed, and the famous birthday tree has been chopped down. Some bad dudes have been destroying the place and the town is in bad shape.

It is Frodo that marshalls the hobbits together into a fighting force, Frodo that takes the leadership, and it is from him that the hobbits rally and defeat their enemies, who are none other than Saruman and Wormwood. As Wormwood and Saruman both lay dead, it is then that Frodo, now a man and healed in the deepest sense of the word, moves to leave the Shire to the Grey Havens.

We encourage people to read the third part, the Return of the King, as Tolkien wrote it.

Did you get withdrawal symptoms last Christmas without one of those “Lord of the Rings” movies to challenge and push you again from Tolkien’s Middle Earth? I did. Tolkien’s books, however, still hold major truths never captured in Jackson’s movies. The movies were great - I admit - but Jackson missed some of the deepests truths of Tolkien’s stories. In this two-parter, let’s look at two of these.

The Houses of Healing

When watching the movie as you get to the end, Aragorn is crowned king. Why? Is this something he inherited? Was he that good at slaying all the bad guys? Was he some kind of leader - if so why did they think he was? The answer lies in the Houses of Healing with the words spoken by Ioreth. The Houses of Healing were omitted from the movie, and the meaning of Ioreth’s words was missed when Jackson barely mentions the Houses of Healing in the extended version of the movie - without her words.

In the book version, after the battle three of our heros lay dying in the Houses of Healing after the battle. The city has been destroyed by the enemy and even the gates are torn down. Aragorn, who they expected to be the coming King, has left for the Paths of the Dead with his few followers, a place from which no human has ever returned alive. No one has heard from Frodo and his friennd Sam (little haflings less than four feet tall) since they left for the dark territory to throw the ring in the volcano from which it was forged, saving Middle Earth. Denathor, the Steward of the City (there had been no King for a long time) had given up hope and committed suicide. Denethor had also tried to kill his son, Faramir, who now lies near death in another of the Houses of Healing. Lady Eowyn, another of our heros, also lies dying.

It is at this point Ioreth, eldest of the women who served the houses, looks on the sad situation and weeps as she says :

Would that there were kings in Gordor, as there were once upon a time, they say! For it is said in old lore that the hands of the king are the hands of a healer.

Unknown to them, however, Aragorn has returned and is now camped at with his men just outside the city. Soon he has entered the Houses of Healing and heals all three of our heros.

Tolkien repeats Ioreth’s line again in the book, almost as if it is the drumbeat of the heart of his message. Finally comes the big moment that Aragorn is crowned as King. Now Ioreth is shouting the line, only to be drowned out by the trumpets before she can complete the line. This forces the reader to complete the line in his or her head, and in so doing take ownership on it. (Tolkien is tricky here!) Jackson, in none of the film versions, ever uses this key line.

Jesus is King. He is King not only because he has authority, but He is also the healer. Ioreth, the wise old wife in the Houses of Healing, carries the message of the book. Jackson never gives that line to you.

(for more infomation, see Carl’s book In Pursuit of Healing at http://creatingnewworlds.org/catalog.htm)

To get Tolkien’s true story, look to the book for the third film: The Return of the King. In part II, we will look at the second major slip.