"There's always smoke from Isengard"

[joxy]

....says Treebeard.
Where there's smoke, there's fire; where there's fire there must be wood; where there's wood, there must have been trees.
He also says that Saruman is more interested in wheels and metal.
How could he know that unless he had been close to Isengard?
When he takes P&M to the rocky peak they can see the Tower, and the Circle, which is completely barren.
As he knows that trees have long been used as firewood, as he has been close to Isengard, as he has seen the barren Circle,
why is he so astonished when he sees the missing trees, that he completely and abruptly changes the entmoot's decision?
Someone probably answered this long ago, so....?

 

[simbelmyne]

I think (?) Treebeard has seen the barren ex-forest around Orthanc, but he didn't know that orcs had gone to the edge of Fanghorn and began cutting the trees of the forest.

Although, as you point out, Treebeard is passing pretty close to Orthanc when Merry sees the orcs marching off to war. You would think he would have noticed the trees then, since he is "dropping them off" in what looks like almost the same spot.

 

[Gildor]

Seems like a case of where the original book dialogue is used despite the fact that it doesn't quite fit with the alteration made to the story.

 

[Greenwood]

Wood is not the only thing that burns and makes smoke -- coal and peat come to mind; animal dung is used in some primitive societies. (Note: I am restricting myself to a society with at most a "medieval" technology.)

I will grant, however, that the most likely source of fuel would be wood. However, forests, particularly old forests like Fangron, contain a lot of dead wood. This could well have been the traditional fuel source for Isengard. Treebeard had co-existed with Isengard for many a long year, probably going back to before Saruman took up residence -- fuel had to have been coming from somewhere. Treebeard didn't have to know that Saruman had taken to cutting down living trees in Fangorn Forest.

There is no reason to assume Treebeard has been near Isengard recently. Smoke can be seen from a great distance. There is no reason to assume Treebeard has seen the "clear-cutting" of Isengard. As for Treebeard saying that Saruman is "more interested in wheels and metal", they have been neighbors for a long time. Why shouldn't Treebeard know that Saruman prefers technology to natural history?

 

[aragil]

And I think simbelmyne has a pretty good point here.

I think (?) Treebeard has seen the barren ex-forest around Orthanc, but he didn't know that orcs had gone to the edge of Fanghorn and began cutting the trees of the forest.

In the EE of TT we see when the Orcs start chopping down Fangorn- this is after smoke has been rising from Isengard, and long after Saruman's mind has turned to machines and wheels.

 

[joxy]

This could well have been the traditional fuel source for Isengard. Treebeard had co-existed with Isengard for many a long year
There is no reason to assume Treebeard has been near Isengard recently.
As for Treebeard saying that Saruman is "more interested in wheels and metal", they have been neighbors for a long time.

Treebeard actually says "there is always smoke these days" - I should have included those two words. That implies a change,
from former days to these days, and he should have been interested enough to find the cause of the change, as trees had to be involved and it is his job to look after them.
Saruman's interest in wheels and metal is also a relatively new thing, and Treeebeard must have found out about it in some way: the most likely way seems to be by going to Isengard and seeing what was going on there.
However, he and P&M can see the Tower, and the Circle, from the peak, with the orcs pouring out over the barren plain, and the edge of the forest visible. He should have known if the felling had taken the edge inward.
It's not a big thing, but for someone who is supposed to give so much attention to minute detail, such as runes that no-one will ever read, it is big enough in proportion - somewhere along the level of the vanishing barrels.

 

[aragil]

joxy-
Smoke is rising from Isengard since the early parts of Fellowship of the Ring, when Saruman destroys the trees in Isengard. The felling of the trees in Fangorn proper does not occur until much later- when Treebeard is on the Eastern borders meeting Merry and Pippin. There is no opportunity for him to have seen the stumps before that scene.
In the scene in question, Treebeard can not see Isengard or the Orcs pouring out, and he certainly can not see the devastation of his forest- his view is obstructed by the trees. Only the Hobbits can see any of this- that is quite important. And, in a nice twist, while the Hobbits (esp. Pippin) are clearly interested in looking at something near at hand, we are never shown what it is. We (as a naive audience) aren't shown the trees until Treebeard sees them.
Yes, I agree, PJ did show a nice amount of care to detail, even though some of us seem never to notice it.

 

[Greenwood]

Treebeard actually says "there is always smoke these days" - I should have included those two words. That implies a change,
from former days to these days,

Yes, and it also implies that smoke over Isengard has occurred before. He doesn't say there are great clouds of smoke.

Who says Saruman's interest in wheels and metal is a new thing?

This really is reaching.

 

[Aldanil]

"Smoke gets in your eyes"

What's far more troubling to me (and may well have been quibbled and kvetched over elsewhere) than the sooty pall above Saruman's fortress "lately" is PJ's inferior and needless revision: first, that the collective wisdom of the Entmoot, after purportedly drawing together and debating all the observations of devastation and damage that the many Shepherds of the Trees would surely have made, should then decide not to bother; second, and even less intelligibly (just within the sense of the movie's own narrative, to say nothing of the distortion wrought upon the original), that Treebeard, having agreed to bring the hobbits himself and alone to the border of Fangorn and now roused to wrath at last by the foul prospect which they there point out to him, should be immediately joined in assault upon Orthanc by the entire host of the angry Onodrim, who have apparently assembled just inside the tree-line, waiting for their furious charge to begin.

Not to mention that to my filmgoer's eye, at least, the drowning of Isengard is perhaps the fakiest-looking sequence (given that real water just doesn't shrink so neatly to scale) in a cinema trilogy deservedly lauded for great special effects.

 

[joxy]

There is no opportunity for him to have seen the stumps before that scene.

Treebeard can not see Isengard or the Orcs pouring out, and he certainly can not see the devastation of his forest- his view is obstructed by the trees. Only the Hobbits can see any of this- that is quite important. And, in a nice twist, while the Hobbits (esp. Pippin) are clearly interested in looking at something near at hand, we are never shown what it is. We (as a naive audience) aren't shown the trees until Treebeard sees them.

Why not? It's supposed to be his job to look after the trees, so what does he do all day when he isn't carrying hobbits around?

Now we come to the question I was going to ask next: how did the HOBBITS know about all the felling if Treebeard didn't?

"Only the hobbits can see this - that is important" - Are you saying that they could see it from the rocky peak, but Treebeard couldn't?
<edited> I've checked the scene now and in fact I see that IS what you were getting at. I certainly hadn't noticed before that for a few seconds the hobbits climb above Treebeard's eyeline. I still didn't see that they were looking at something "near at hand" as well, though. So far, so good, but then nonsense creeps in again: there must have been gaps in the trees, or other vantage points, where Treebeard could have seen what the hobbits saw.
Now back to where I left off, as the rest still applies! <end of edit>

There's another question though: if they did know about the felling, why didn't they just tell him, and show him, from wherever they saw it? Why bother to think up a trick? He was happy enough to accept the silly explanation for going south; surely he'd have believed his ears, and eyes about a fact?!

To coin a new adage for Pippin: the more you think about it the sillier it gets.
Added to Aldanil's reflections below, these questions blow the whole ent story apart.

PJ's inferior and needless revision: first, that....the Entmoot, after....debating all the observations of devastation and damage that the many Shepherds of the Trees would surely have made, should then decide not to bother; second....that Treebeard....should be immediately joined....by the entire host of the angry Onodrim....

....the drowning of Isengard is perhaps the fakiest-looking sequence....in a cinema trilogy deservedly lauded for great special effects.

Yes, those two are major incongruities in the thing, to add to any number of others, major and minor, including the smoke!

Others have said how great the Drowning is, and I've always thought they must have been watching a different film. To me it's bundles of sticks paddling in a big puddle. Two extreme views; at what level do you stand, on the gradient of its fakery?!

Who says Saruman's interest in wheels and metal is a new thing?

You don't get wheels and metal without a lot of smoke - in Saruman's technology -, so all three go together. Whenever the extra smoke started, Treebeard should have checked on his trees and found the devastation right from its beginning.
I agree this is "reaching", but we're "reaching" at a guy who makes a huge deal about the care he devotes to minute detail. Maybe he can't see the trees for the wood - do you have the adage that comes from?

 

[Greenwood]

Why not? It's supposed to be his job to look after the trees, so what does he do all day when he isn't carrying hobbits around?

Well then, you must have a real problem with author JRR Tolkien.

Treebeard rumbled for a moment, as if he were pronouncing some deep, subterranean Entish malediction. 'Some time ago I began to wonder how Orcs dared to pass through my woods so freely,' he went on. 'Only lately did I guess that Saruman was to blame, and that long ago he had been spying out all the ways, and discovering my secrets. He and his foul folk are making havoc now. Down on the borders they are felling trees -- good trees. Some of the trees they just cut down and leave to rot -- orc-mischief that; but most are hewn down and carried off to feed the fires of Orthanc. There is always a smoke rising from Isengard these days.

'Curse him, root and branch! Many of thse trees were my friends, creatures I had known from nut and acorn; many had voices of their own that are lost for ever now. And there are wastes of stump and bramble where once there were singing groves. I have been idle. I have let things slip. It must stop!'

(from the chapter Treebeard in ROTK)

So following your argument and indictment of Jackson for bad film-making/plotting Tolkien is an even worse writer! Treebeard, whose job it is to "look after the trees" has known they are being wantonly destroyed. Knows that Sauron is responsible and has done nothing! What an incompetent writer that Tolkien is! On a par with Peter Jackson!

[The ground shakes and the heavens start to fall at the sight of a "purist" implying criticism of Tolkien.] I must sign-off and make my peace with my maker. It is the end of the world. Adieu.

.......

.......


Before I meet my maker I must point out the sentence where Treebeard says:

Down on the borders they are felling trees -- good trees.

Apparently an indication that previously "bad" (dead) trees were felled and taken for fuel. This relates to my earlier post about sources of fuel for Isengard.

My apologies for interrupting the end of world.

 

[joxy]

Well then, you must have a real problem with author JRR Tolkien. So following your argument and indictment of Jackson for bad film-making/plotting Tolkien is an even worse writer! Treebeard, whose job it is to "look after the trees" has known they are being wantonly destroyed. Knows that Sauron is responsible and has done nothing! What an incompetent writer that Tolkien is!

You've lost me again!
It's an integral part of the "true" story of Treebeard that HE has let things go, that he hasn't done his job properly, that he has been incompetent. That sets up his determination to make up for lost time, to retrieve his reputation, and the dramatic buildup, from his admission of incompetence, through the slow Enmoot, to the irresistible strength of the attack on Isengard. It's a brilliant plot line, and all Tolkien's own work! Superbly competent Tolkien writes about (temporarily!) incompetent Treebeard.

Film Treebeard is a very different matter.
I actually came back to report that Aragil's comment led me to check the rocky peak scene, and now I think I understand what he was getting at. The hobbits climb above Treebeard's line of vision, and so see things that he can't. Fine at first sight, but really what a nonsense, yet again. First, why didn't they just tell him? - they're never "backward at coming forward"; and second, he could surely have seen for himself from a different viewpoint.

As for your comment about the end of the world: I really did make an effort above, to acknowledge that these details are not the most vital matters in that world, but that they are matters that it's quite reasonable to raise in the context of all PJ's claims to have paid huge and expensive attention to - guess what - little details, as well as big ones.

 

[aragil]

Why not? It's supposed to be his job to look after the trees, so what does he do all day when he isn't carrying hobbits around?

If we are to believe the movie timeline, there are no days for Treebeard to observe this. Saruman has the orcs begin cutting down trees when Treebeard is in the far East of Fangorn, meeting the Hobbits. From that moment until Treebeard finally sees the clearcut he is occuppied first with the Hobbits, then later with the Entmoot.

 

[joxy]

If we are to believe the movie timeline....

Sorry, I didn't realise there was a timeline!
Tolkien went in for the idea very strongly, but I thought that once PJ had strayed at the very beginning from the line he was given - and did so quite reasonably and rightly I hasten to add - the idea had gone out of existence. I have never thought of PJ's switches from thread to thread, especially in TTT, as taking place in some sort of defined chronological continuum!
Then, as you say, Treebeard was busy with the Entmoot, where none of the other ents knew anything about the felling....

 

[Greenwood]

You've lost me again!
It's an integral part of the "true" story of Treebeard that HE has let things go, that he hasn't done his job properly, that he has been incompetent. That sets up his determination to make up for lost time, to retrieve his reputation, and the dramatic buildup, from his admission of incompetence, through the slow Enmoot, to the irresistible strength of the attack on Isengard. It's a brilliant plot line, and all Tolkien's own work! Superbly competent Tolkien writes about (temporarily!) incompetent Treebeard.

But we are talking about the movie here. Throughout this thread you have been criticizing the movie plotline because in it Treebeard doesn't know that his forest his being chopped down by Saruman and his orcs. You have said that he had to know. When people have pointed out that, based on what is presented in the movie, Treebeard did not have to know, you responded with your sarcastic:

Why not? It's supposed to be his job to look after the trees, so what does he do all day when he isn't carrying hobbits around?

The implication is that if movie Treebeard didn't know, he is incompetent and the movie plotline is therefore bad. Now we have your presentation that an incompetent Treebeard in the book is superb plotting. If that is the case, why are you criticizing the movie for possibly having an incompetent Treebeard? The movie did not exactly follow the plot of the book. We all know that. The movie needs to be judged on its own merits. In your comments on this thread you criticize the movie plotline, implying in your sarcastic post that one of the problems with the movie is that the plotline, given in the movie, would make Treebeard incompetent. But we see from your analysis of the book plotline, you really don't have any problem with Treebeard appearing incompetent. So what is the point of your sarcasm?

 

[simbelmyne]

IMHO, I don't have the slightest problem with Treebeard appearing to have let things slide (as we all do from time to time)...but blind to his forest is another matter. Are we REALLY supposed to believe that M & P can climb 2 or 3 feet "up" Treebeard and see things he can't, even when they're standing on an open hillside? That M & P have to SHOW the Ents the right thing to?

 

[aragil]

IMHO, I don't have the slightest problem with Treebeard appearing to have let things slide (as we all do from time to time)...but blind to his forest is another matter. Are we REALLY supposed to believe that M & P can climb 2 or 3 feet "up" Treebeard and see things he can't, even when they're standing on an open hillside? That M & P have to SHOW the Ents the right thing to?

That Merry and Pippin can see things that Treebeard can't is simply part of the laws of physics and therefore difficult to argue against, even if you choose not to believe it. It is not an open hillside, it is in a forest (i.e. with trees). Watch the scene again (as joxy did)- Treebeard's eyes are below the treetops, whereas M & P, though only a few feet higher, are above the treetops. Nothing too unbelievable.

In what way is Treebeard "blind to his forest" in the movie? He was in a different part of the forest when Saruman's orcs started chopping down trees, and is occuppied with Merry and Pippin up until the time he sees the devastation. At what point, in your opinion, should he have become aware of the destruction?

And finally, Merry and Pippin SHOWING the Ents the right thing to do is exactly what happened in the books- they were the little stones falling that began an avalanche, if memory serves correctly.

 

[joxy]

That Merry and Pippin can see things that Treebeard can't is simply part of the laws of physics....It is not an open hillside, it is in a forest (with trees)....Treebeard's eyes are below the treetops, whereas M & P, though only a few feet higher, are above the treetops.

The whole thing is so confusing that I only recently found out that P&M's trick was supposed to originate in them seeing something that Treebeard couldn't see. It's a very short scene, the idea is weird anyway, and it simply hadn't occurred to me. It may not be exactly an open hillside where it happens, but it IS on an isolated peak with a clear view for M&P of Isengard, the Tower, and everything between them and the forest. Like symbelmyne I find it very hard to believe that a slight change of position that would allow Treebeard to see for himself would require suspension of the laws of physics. Even that is not the main point though: they were all chatting away about the view; this was, so I am now told, when M&P became aware of the devastation; why didn't they mention it in their general chatter to each other in which case Treebeard would have heard them, why didn't they report it "down" to Treebeard right then? Indeed, why didn't he take the opportunity to ask them more about their exclusive view?
I'm not talking about incompetence by Treebeard, but about an invented plot-line that has never made much sense, and now makes even less.
"It is in a forest (with trees)" Where does that rate on the sarcasm scale?

 

[Greenwood]

The whole thing is so confusing that I only recently found out that P&M's trick was supposed to originate in them seeing something that Treebeard couldn't see.

Just because you missed something does not make the scene "confusing" or "weird".

Even that is not the main point though: they were all chatting away about the view; this was, so I am now told, when M&P became aware of the devastation; why didn't mention it in their general chatter to each other in which case Treebeard would have heard them, why didn't they report it "down" to Treebeard right then? Indeed, why didn't he take the opportunity to ask them more about their exclusive view?

As I remember the scene, they are not "chatting" about the view. And the two hobbits are not on the same level either. Pippin (I think it was Pippin), is riding on top of Treebeard's shoulder, well above Treebeard's eye level. Merry is below, I think even lower eye level than Treebeard's. Even Merry doesn't understand why Pippin suggests Treebeard take them near Isengard. I don't currently have my DVD's of TTT, but that is my memory of the scene. Maybe somebody with the DVD's can check.

 

[joxy]

Just because you missed something does not make the scene "confusing" or "weird".
Even Merry doesn't understand why Pippin suggests Treebeard take them near Isengard.

It's the whole "Treebeard changes his mind" plot-line, that I've always found confusing, and that I now describe as weird,
not just the rocky peak scene.
Certainly I had missed the idea that P found out about the felling at that very brief moment, and I still "hae ma doots", as Gimli would say, that it is what "actually" happened.
That M doesn't understand the trick is just another part of the confusion. The two do plenty of chat to each other; it was unlikely enough that P wouldn't have mentioned the felling at the time, when he was talking about all he could see, but the idea that he kept quiet about it afterwards is out of character, to say the least.