During dinner, everyone was talking about the film while they were eating. The three archmages and the two tutors were particularly vocal about the movie and were talking about the issues one could find inside the film. This included the lifestyle of the Hobbits, the humans, and the elves. They were particularly impressed at how noble and elegant the long-lived elves were and were very surprised when they learned Elrond’s age.

They also praised the simple but happy life of the hobbits and Mr. Tenor said that he could live with the Hobbits contently spending the rest of his life happily among the simple halflings.

They also discussed the politics that they had seen in the movie although it was not shown deeply yet and Anton was truly impressed at how many topics the archmages and the two tutors could find in the first movie alone.

After dinner, everyone excitedly returned to the ballroom turned theater and before the movie started, Anders reminded everyone that they would pause the movie halfway.

When Anton started the movie, he could feel everyone’s excitement and anticipation. He saw the worry on everyone’s faces when they were watching Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee traveling alone in Emyn Muil near Mordor followed by Gollum, the former bearer of the One Ring. The worry increased when the two friends captured Gollum and allowed the creature to lead them to Mordor.

Anton saw the hope on the audience’s faces when they saw Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli pursue the band of Uruk-hai to save Merry and Pippin. They cheered when they saw Merry and Pippin escape to Fangorn Forest following the death of the Uruk-hai at the hands of the Rohirrim.

Anton could see that the audience felt the despair of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli when they were told that Merry and Pippin had died and this solidified the fact that the actors playing the roles were truly magnificent since they were able to convey the emotion even to the people in another world.

When Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli encountered Gandalf who was now a white wizard following his battle with the Balrog, almost everyone cried and Anton saw his sister sobbing as if somebody had died. He was a bit startled when he saw her two maids, Ramona and Belinda were crying just as hard.

Everyone cheered when they saw Gandalf free the king of Rohan, Theoden, from Saruman’s grasp and Anton could feel everyone’s satisfaction when Wormtongue was thrown outside the castle and some of them even grumbled when they saw Aragorn stopped Theoden from killing the vile man.

Anton enjoyed watching the reaction of the audience more than the movie since he had seen the film several times.

The women in the audience were particularly worried when they saw how Elrond was doing his best to stop Arwen’s love for Aragorn but they could understand since Arwen would live for thousands of years and Aragorn would die earlier since he was human and they thought that it would be truly lonely for Arwen to be alone while the other elves were gone.

The audience was truly excited watching the exodus to Helms Deep. It’s as if they were part of the people who were marching. They saw how Eowyn fell in love with Aragorn and that when Aragorn arrived in Helm’s Deep and saw that Eowyn couldn’t express her love for the man, some of them cried in pity for Eowyn.

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During the preparation of the people of Helm’s Deep to fight the army of Saruman and saw that even the children were being recruited, almost all of them cried and Anton was startled to see the two tutors and the archmages cried as well. He was surprised to see that the Archmage Voduria had to slap the Archmage Tristan in his arm since the archmage was beginning to gather magical energy. The mana dispersed and Archmage Tristan showed an apologetic and embarrassed look on his face.

The battle between the Orcs and Helms Deep excited the audience so much that almost all of them stood up and then sat down again once they were reminded by the people in the back that they were blocking their view.

During the scene when the elves were shown dying, the archmages were shaking their head saying that the lives of humans were not equal to the lives of the elves since the elves were an immortal magical race. By the look on Mr. Tenor and Ms. Damby’s faces, they disagreed and more than likely a discussion would occur after the film regarding that.

The battle between the Orcs and the Humans and the Ents and Saruman was truly exciting and during those scenes, everyone was already standing up and cheering, their faces red from excitement. Even the archmages and the tutors threw their dignity out of the window and Anton enjoyed watching the exaggerated reaction of the audience.

Anton knew that everyone’s reaction was due to the fact that the movie was truly epic and that the audience had only seen the movies that he had shown.

Everyone cheered when the armies of Saruman were defeated when the Rohirrim arrived with Gandalf and Saruman were trapped in his tower when the Ent, Merry, and Pippin prevailed in their conflict against Saruman’s tower.

On Frodo and Sam’s side of the story, everyone was worried when they were captured by the rangers of Ithilien led by Faramir, the younger brother of the late Boromir. Passing through the besieged city of Osgiliath, Frodo tried to explain to Faramir the nature of the One Ring and Sam explained to Faramir that Boromir was driven mad by the power of the One Ring. A Nazgul nearly captured Frodo but was saved by Sam and he reminded Frodo that they were fighting for the good of Middle-earth. Faramir was impressed by Frodo’s resolve and released them. Gollum, who felt betrayed, planned to lead Frodo to “her” during their journey.

The plan of Gollum worried the audience so much that when the movie ended, everyone clamored to learn when Anders would allow Anton to show the last movie in the trilogy.

“Since we are still in the middle of stabilizing our foundation here in Zalnothel, we will not be able to have a movie showing in the middle of the week so we’ll watch it next Sunday. My son told me that the last movie is called The Return of the King and like you all, I’m also excited to see it so let’s do our best work during the week so we can celebrate by watching the movie on Sunday.”

At first, everyone was disappointed that they would have to wait a week before they could watch the last film but since that was decided by Anders, there was nothing everyone could do.

Everyone then dispersed excluding the archmages, the two tutors, Anders, Nemina, Lucas, Frederick, Anton, and the merchants and nobles. Anna and her maids were told to rest by Anders even though she also wanted to join the discussion but since it was very late, she could only pout and went outside the ballroom converted to a theater. Lunelle and Devon decided to stay and listen to the adult’s discussion.

“You will need to reserve a few seats for us next week since I’m planning to invite a few of my friends. Can I reserve six seats for me and my friends?” Archmage Tristan said.

“Four seats for me will do,” Archmage Voduria added.

The other merchants and nobles also clamored for extra seats so Anton’s father decided to give three seats for each of the merchants and nobles who watched the films.