Pippin Took

He brings along his gardener, Sam, who's great.

He brings along Pippin, who's a rascal.

And he brings along Merry, who's competent.

They travel to the Shire.

And we're going to sort of drop stuff off, pick up some supplies, and we're actually going to leave the Shire.

And they get there.

And Merry and Pippin have helped them move.

But it turns out Merry, Pippin, and Sam actually had a secret other plan, which was we're not going to let Frodo leave on his own.

There's two of them, right? Aren't there two hot hobbits? There are.

Pippin and Scranton? No.

From the Hobbit movies.

Oh, they're

dwarves.

Sorry, I'm thinking of the sexy dwarves.

Yeah, I mean, Pippin's kind of sexy.

Yeah, Pippin's sexy.

You know, it's like, that's Tolkien's picture.

Even in its retreat in the books, you have Merry and Pippin and Sam and Frodo, you have Bilbo before, and they are the linchpin of the great victory.

And so they send their... they're young, they're strong, to go grow and change.

And then when they go out there and they are changed by the great adventure, they have to come back and purge the Shire.

He totally did.

He insisted that the hobbit gentry, meaning Merry and Pippin, must not be made to sound rustical.

Rustical?

Yes, rustical.

After this incident, Frodo sets off on what he thinks is going to be an easy and pleasant walk from one part of the Shire, Hobbiton, to another part of the Shire, Buckland.

He is accompanied on this journey by Sam, of course, and by one of his cousins and close friends, Peregrin, AKA Pippin, Took.

Although Frodo is Probably best characterized as an introvert, he does have some close friends among his younger cousins who are helping him move houses.

Pippin is accompanying Frodo on his long walk from Hobbiton to Buckland while Frodo's other cousin and close friend, Meriadoc, AKA Merry Brandybuck, has the arguably harder job of moving all of Frodo's stuff from his old house to his new house.

Merry has already done that, so he is now in Buckland waiting for Frodo, Pippin, and Sam to arrive.

Frodo's journey to Buckland begins relatively uneventfully.

Frodo, Pippin, and Sam begin their long walk after nightfall, and they keep marching well into the night until they finally stop and camp for what is left of the night.

In these early chapters we're discussing today, Merry and Pippin are not yet major characters, but we do get small glimpses into their personalities and their dynamics with Frodo.

But clearly, this tree is a big deal, and we'll actually come back to the seven stars in another question.

And yet, the actual tree of Gondor is described this way when Pippin sees it upon his arrival in Minas Tirith.

Quickly Gandalf strode across the white-paved court.

A sweet fountain played there in the morning sun, and a sward of bright green lay about it.

But in the midst, drooping over the pool, stood a dead tree, and the falling drops dripped sadly from its barren and broken branches back into the clear water.

Pippin glanced at it as he hurried after Gandalf.

It looked mournful, he thought, and he wondered why the dead tree was left in this place, where everything else was well-tended.

You see, the tree had been a symbol of the line of Elendil, and it had died 147 years before Lord of the Rings, in the year 2782, upon the death of the steward Belicthor II.

Yeah.

Book three, a lot of it is Gimli Gorn trying to track down Merry and Pippin with the band of the orcs in Uruk-hai that are transporting them.

In the movie, that is maybe a minute and a half.

It's Legolas using his magic elf eyes to spot them, and they go running off, and then they run into Eomer and Rohirrim.

It's really difficult terrain and the orcs are moving like men possessed and these guys are having trouble keeping up.

Um, and so part of that discussion eventually ends in like, okay, let's agree that Aragorn is in charge and he's going to make these decisions.

Um, and it's sort of because like Gimli and Legolas, can't get along really well and they're at opposite ends on what they want to do so it's kind of left up to Aragorn to decide and then I think most or all of the stuff with Pippin and Merry in Finghorn Forest, and then the battle at Isengard with the Ents and Huorns.

That's also that book.