Second Round of Notes on FoTR: A Short Cut to Mushrooms
Frodo considers Gildor's hard-won advice to 'Take such friends as are trusty and willing' but immediately reacts 'No! I could not!...I don't think I ought even to take Sam.' He offers Sam several graceful exits and finds out that Sam had his own converse with the Elves (quite likely after Frodo was led to a bed beside Pippin) and, added to his personal devotion to Frodo, a new sense of mission: 'something to do before the end'.
Frodo is 'startled' at the 'odd change that seemed to have come over him': 'It did not sound like the voice of the old Sam Gamgee that he thought he knew. But it looked like the old Sam Gamgee...except... unusually thoughtful.' Nothing states whether Sam feels any different to himself. Chances are that neither Sam nor Frodo was self-conscious enough to monitor himself for changes, rather that each observed changes in the other.
'But I understand that Gandalf chose me a good companion' is the first statement of what will become 'we were meant to go together' and 'we're in the same tale still! It's still going on. Don't the great tales never end?'- the realization of a shared fate with connections far beyond, but centered on, themselves.
Farmer Maggot 'caught [Frodo] several times trespassing after mushrooms...On the last occasion he beat' Frodo and ordered the dogs to 'eat him' should he set food on Maggot's land. This shows, like Sam's speaking up, that lower-ranking hobbits do not fear their social superiors, and have authority to protect themselves. However the order to the dogs was, while dramatic, a joke, and the beating probably consisted of a few painful but non-injurious whacks with a fresh switch, so that the only lasting effect on Frodo was 'the fright' from having been chased by the dogs.
Farmer Maggot, like the Gaffer, calls the Nazgul a 'funny customer'. 'Customer' in the sense of someone coming to buy doesn't make sense as neither is a tradesman; it may mean rather someone whose customs were 'funny' in the sense of not-right.
When a stramger rides up, Maggot gets out of the wagon to confront him, and so does Sam, probably remembering that when the Nazgul 'spurred his great horse right at [Maggot, he] jumped out of the way only just in time.' But now 'Black Riders would have to ride over [Sam].'
Frodo is 'startled' at the 'odd change that seemed to have come over him': 'It did not sound like the voice of the old Sam Gamgee that he thought he knew. But it looked like the old Sam Gamgee...except... unusually thoughtful.' Nothing states whether Sam feels any different to himself. Chances are that neither Sam nor Frodo was self-conscious enough to monitor himself for changes, rather that each observed changes in the other.
'But I understand that Gandalf chose me a good companion' is the first statement of what will become 'we were meant to go together' and 'we're in the same tale still! It's still going on. Don't the great tales never end?'- the realization of a shared fate with connections far beyond, but centered on, themselves.
Farmer Maggot 'caught [Frodo] several times trespassing after mushrooms...On the last occasion he beat' Frodo and ordered the dogs to 'eat him' should he set food on Maggot's land. This shows, like Sam's speaking up, that lower-ranking hobbits do not fear their social superiors, and have authority to protect themselves. However the order to the dogs was, while dramatic, a joke, and the beating probably consisted of a few painful but non-injurious whacks with a fresh switch, so that the only lasting effect on Frodo was 'the fright' from having been chased by the dogs.
Farmer Maggot, like the Gaffer, calls the Nazgul a 'funny customer'. 'Customer' in the sense of someone coming to buy doesn't make sense as neither is a tradesman; it may mean rather someone whose customs were 'funny' in the sense of not-right.
When a stramger rides up, Maggot gets out of the wagon to confront him, and so does Sam, probably remembering that when the Nazgul 'spurred his great horse right at [Maggot, he] jumped out of the way only just in time.' But now 'Black Riders would have to ride over [Sam].'