I am happy to post this interview what is binary option with author Benita J. Prins, fellow lover of all things Tolkien and a great writer in her own right too! I read her fantasy, Sea of Crystal, Sea of Glass recently and recommend … Continue reading
The Ents’ first response to the War of the Ring is neither cowardice nor indifference. When Merry and Pippin meet Treebeard in Fangorn Forest, they encounter a people who have lived for centuries with an entirely different sense of time. News of distant kingdoms, rising armies and urgent battles does not immediately produce a military response. The Ents must first decide what the danger means to them.
Their hesitation is central to J.R.R. Tolkien’s treatment of nature, memory and political responsibility. The Ents do not rush towards war because they are difficult to persuade, because they have forgotten how to act, and because the crisis initially appears to belong to another world. Isengard seems connected with the affairs of wizards and Men, while the Ents have their own ancient losses and concerns.
That position changes when the truth becomes impossible to ignore. Once Treebeard understands what Saruman has done to the forests around Isengard, the Ents’ refusal turns into one of the most dramatic acts of resistance in The Lord of the Rings. Their eventual march is powerful precisely because it follows careful judgement rather than impulse.
Treebeard’s famous warning that Ents are not “hasty” expresses more than a charming personality trait. It reveals an entire culture. Ents speak slowly, deliberate at length and treat names as serious matters. To identify a thing properly is to place it within a history, and that history cannot be hurried. An Entmoot may seem painfully slow to Hobbits or readers accustomed to urgent plot movements, yet the delay reflects the Ents’ way of understanding reality.
Their slowness also comes from age. Treebeard has witnessed the passing of many generations, the disappearance of the Entwives and the alteration of landscapes that once seemed permanent. Human kingdoms rise and fall within a small portion of an Ent’s life. The arrival of two frightened Hobbits, therefore, does not automatically justify taking up arms against a wizard.
Tolkien uses this contrast to question the assumption that speed is always a virtue. The story contains plenty of figures who act too quickly, from Saruman’s reckless industrial expansion to Denethor’s despairing decisions. The Ents’ caution can appear frustrating, but it also protects them from being manipulated by incomplete information. They want to know what has happened before they commit their entire people to violence.
At the Entmoot, the Ents initially decide that they will not march against Isengard. This decision should be read carefully. They are not unaware that the world is changing, nor are they incapable of recognising danger. Their problem is that Saruman’s crimes have not yet been placed within their own understanding. The Ents know that something is wrong, but they have not fully connected the destruction of trees with Saruman’s wider war.
Merry and Pippin help close that gap. The Hobbits explain that Saruman is building an army, cutting down trees and using the surrounding land to support his war machine. Their account gives the Ents a clearer picture of the threat. Saruman is no longer merely a distant wizard involved in the quarrels of Men; he is an enemy whose power depends directly on the devastation of living things.
This moment illustrates a recurring Tolkien theme: moral action depends on seeing relationships. Isengard is not an isolated fortress. Its furnaces, roads, pits and weapon-making are connected to the destruction of Fangorn and the wider conflict in Middle-earth. Once the Ents understand that connection, their hesitation loses its force.
Saruman represents a particularly modern form of evil in Tolkien’s fiction. He does not simply conquer through personal cruelty. He organises, extracts, standardises and converts the living world into material for production. His Orcs cut down trees to feed the fires of Isengard, while the valley becomes a landscape shaped around military efficiency. The Ents see this as an attack upon the order of the world itself.
For Treebeard, trees are not passive resources. They possess memory, personality and a kind of community. To destroy them for fuel is therefore closer to murder than to ordinary land use. Tolkien’s language makes the damage feel personal because, to the Ents, it is personal. Their forests are not scenery surrounding the human story. They are part of the story’s moral life.
Australian readers may recognise a related anxiety in debates about old-growth forests, land clearing and bushfire recovery. Fangorn is not the Australian bush, and Tolkien’s mythology should not be reduced to a direct environmental allegory. Still, the sight of a forest treated as an inexhaustible supply of timber can resonate in places such as Tasmania’s Tarkine or the forests of the Blue Mountains, where questions about extraction, conservation and fire management remain emotionally charged.
Merry and Pippin’s role is easy to underestimate because they do not command armies or defeat a major enemy in single combat. Their contribution is communicative. They carry knowledge across a boundary between peoples who rarely understand one another. The Hobbits’ account helps Treebeard and the Ents see that Saruman’s actions are part of a deliberate programme of destruction.
Their presence also gives the Ents a living reminder that the conflict affects small, vulnerable communities. The Ents could perhaps remain separate from the politics of Rohan, Gondor and Mordor if the war stayed confined to those realms. The Hobbits demonstrate that the boundaries are already broken. The machinery of Saruman’s power has reached the Shire’s people and the ancient forest alike.
This is one reason the Ents’ decision feels earned. They are not suddenly transformed into conventional soldiers. They reach a conclusion through conversation, testimony and collective deliberation. The Hobbits do not order them into action. They help them recognise what they already value and what Saruman has endangered.
The Entmoot is more than a council deciding whether to join a battle. It is a gathering of memory. The Ents recall the Entwives, the ancient separation between different kinds of tree-people and the long decline of their own race. Their sorrow has made them cautious. They have already experienced loss on a scale that cannot be repaired by a quick victory.
Yet memory eventually strengthens their resistance. Treebeard’s recognition of Saruman’s actions brings old grief into the present. The Ents remember what it means for a living landscape to be altered or destroyed. Their response is therefore grounded in identity. They march because they are Ents, not because they have adopted the military ambitions of Men or wizards.
The Ents’ attack on Isengard becomes a reversal of Saruman’s methods. His power depends on speed, engines and disciplined production. The Ents answer with roots, water, stone and the accumulated strength of the forest. They tear down the walls and flood the stronghold, undoing the artificial order that Saruman believed made him secure.
The Ents’ march can speak strongly to Australian readers because the country often thinks about forests through both affection and conflict. People may talk about “the bush” as a place of refuge, danger, memory and national identity all at once. A walk in the Dandenong Ranges, the Blue Mountains or a patch of remnant woodland can make the scale of a tree’s life feel different from the scale of everyday human routines.
There is also a local language of practical concern around land and weather. Australians discuss fire seasons, water restrictions, drought, regeneration and the condition of country in direct terms. A phrase such as “the bush is doing it tough” may sound informal, yet it can express an understanding that environmental damage affects communities, animals and future generations together. Treebeard’s alarm at Isengard carries a similarly grounded quality.
The book market adds another point of connection. Tolkien remains readily available through Australian chains, online retailers such as Booktopia and independent bookshops in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and regional centres. Readers may encounter The Two Towers through a library display, a fantasy recommendation or a conversation in a local bookshop rather than through an academic course. The Ents’ story travels well because its questions about land, power and responsibility do not belong to one national tradition.
The Ents do not provide a simple argument for waiting. Tolkien does not present delay as automatically wise or action as automatically foolish. Their initial refusal is appropriate while their knowledge is incomplete, but it would become morally inadequate if they continued to ignore the evidence once Saruman’s destruction was clear.
That distinction gives the episode its lasting force. Caution should create space for understanding, not serve as a permanent excuse for avoiding responsibility. The Ents take time because they need to think, yet they do not use thought to protect themselves from every obligation. When the facts become clear, they act with extraordinary decisiveness.
Their example also complicates the usual fantasy image of heroic resistance. The Ents are not eager warriors waiting for a battle. They are a wounded, diminishing people who have every reason to distrust sudden political causes. Their strength emerges when their patience, memory and moral judgement converge. Tolkien allows heroism to grow from deliberation rather than appetite for combat.
The Ents finally march because Saruman has made neutrality impossible. His war reaches into Fangorn, consumes trees and threatens the balance that has allowed the Ents to endure. In answering him, they defend more than their own territory. They defend the idea that the living world cannot be treated as raw material without consequence. Their delayed decision is therefore not a failure to care; it is the careful beginning of responsible resistance.
An essay I wrote about the desire of Tolkien and the TCBS to be a light to their darkening world. A century later, he still provides light. Thank you, Professor and God trade binary option bless! Art by Justin Gerard … Continue reading