...and his tombstone says "Beren".

I do not kid when I say Lord of the Rings has religious meaning to me.

Well you're not alone in that reverence in this thread. Not me (though I enjoy it all), but several Buffistas have made similar comments, and have as deep a grounding in the lore.

SH, you're among fellow major geeks here. I was one of a handful of people on one of my mailing lists who were horrified by a newer list member who thought it was a lovely idea to have one ring replica wedding rings for couples. Some folks didn't get what we were all going on about.

I literally sat up straight and dropped my jaw when I first read Eowyn revealing herself on the Fields of Pelennor (I was a trusting child and didn't realize who Dernhelm was). It was literally the first time I'd seen a female character stand up on her own two feet, prepared and able to kick butt on her own terms without asking or expecting help from any other person.

When I think about it now, it's rather an amzing thing in a book as full of "I'll be here waiting for you, hands gainfully busy while I dream of you" females.

I literally sat up straight and dropped my jaw when I first read Eowyn revealing herself on the Fields of Pelennor

This was me the first time through, too. I didn't have the excuse of being too young to catch it, I think I skimmed a bit during the Muster of Rohan, etc, where the hints were.

Really, the whole book of RotK is filled with sequences the packed more emotional punch for me than just about anything I've ever seen or read.

JRRT was so good at giving us a picture of what was happening without going into hyper-detail.

For me, an image that has stayed with me from the book is from Sam and Frodo's trek across the Plains of Gorgoroth. They've stopped for a rest, and Frodo has fallen asleep sitting up, his hands resting on the ground, twitching while Frodo sleeps. The first time I read this, I thought it was from pure exhaustion. Only after I matured and Frodo's internal struggle began to fascinate me as much as the outer one did it occur to me that his hands might have been twitching from wanting to reach for the Ring, even in his sleep.

The confrontation between Saruman and Gandalf - "A white page can be overwritten, white cloth can be dyed, and a white light can be broken."

"He who breaks a thing to understand a thing has left the path of wisdom."

This will always be very, very significant to me - the conflict between "the world of men": scientific progress at the expense of the natural world - and the rest of the universe (implied), being either a pastoral existance (I think that's what Tolkien wanted, the tree-hugger) or simply the "living with the world" style of the Elves (not Dwarves, destructive little artificial beings).

The core of Tolkien's definition of evil is "destructive technophilia disguised as progress". The Ring is the ultimate expression of "the will to control" - that's why I love Galadriel's transformation in FotR. It's explicit in "Letters" that it was a test of her resolve - can she pass up the ultimate power to transform Middle-earth into her vision of Aman, via the Ring, and accept the alternative: to lose her "little Aman", Lothlorien, which she's artificially kept "timeless and golden" with her Ring, and diminish back to her basic self, accept her identity, and reman Galadriel? If she passes up the Ring, she absolves herself of the stain of the Doom of the Noldor, and can - finally - see the Undying Lands with her own living eyes again, for the first time in literally unnumbered years.

Watching Lorien makes my heart ache. It's the ultimate expression of yearning, of the ticking awareness of the Long Defeat, of time's passage resisted through main force of will. Glorious, alien...cold, unliving, always looking back, never looking forward. Galadriel was a being of ultimate regret, having finally arrived at maturity and wisdom after a youth of (relative) impulsiveness.

Here I go again...

I'm afraid I was always a bit meh about the Elves. "The Choices of Master Samwise", on the other hand, when he sees that vision of Mordor restored, transformed into the perfect garden with himself as healer of that benighted land--it's a good part.

SAMWISE, THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE GARDENER!

Sam's my hero. (And Sean's so CYUOOOOOOT.)

How does he avoid temptation by the Ring? By having good old-fashioned English humility (or self-deprecation, take your pick). Everyone else struggles, which suggests they, in their heart-of-hearts, DO believe they're worthy of having the damned thing.

(BTW: I love the fact that PJ gave the Ring a personality. It grumbles, and makes itself known, and has a presence in the scenes it's in. It's not just jewelry - it's a fiend in circular form.)