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I also think Tolkien's take on PTSD (for lack of a better term) wrt Frodo was also incredibly nuanced and unprecedented both for its time and today and is also rather overlooked in any analysis of his writings. I believe Tolkien himself suffered from 'shell shock' and kind of made himself sick to avoid going back to the front. Frodo's story really is probably the most tragic of anyone's in the books.
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Jan 16, 2015 19:52
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Spoilers Below posted:Absolutely. Of course, seeking rulership or domination of the wills of others is the greatest evil possible within Tolkien's moral universe, beyond the external elements. This is why Aragorn has to be badgered into reviving the Dunedain kingdoms by Gandalf and Elrond, and why Sam then becomes ruler of the Shire. (And also why Galadriel and Celeborn aren't queen and king of Lorien.) The strongly Christian messages in LOTR tend to form along the lines of Tolkien's personal politics, which are a fascinating, genuinely right-wing anarchism.
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Jan 16, 2015 20:10
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Oracle posted:I also think Tolkien's take on PTSD (for lack of a better term) wrt Frodo was also incredibly nuanced and unprecedented both for its time and today and is also rather overlooked in any analysis of his writings. I believe Tolkien himself suffered from 'shell shock' and kind of made himself sick to avoid going back to the front. Frodo's story really is probably the most tragic of anyone's in the books. Tolkien didn't "kind of made himself sick to avoid going back to the front", and he didn't get 'shell shock', he had trench foot. There are  images of that online if you want to see what it looks like. He served on the front for only a few months before being invalided, but that was quite common.
Hogge Wild fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 20:51
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edit: this post was dumb
Jazerus fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 21:55
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Tolkien had a serious case of trench fever, a charming disease carried by the lice that lived in everyone's clothes; it recurred several times while he was doing garrison duty in England, and each time it sent him to hospital he lost his fighting fitness. They nearly sent him back to France twice, but the first time he had a recurrence and the second time he developed gastritis. (It was during one of those recurrences in 1917 that he wrote The Fall of Gondolin.)
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Jan 16, 2015 22:04
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Greatest tragedy of the films was that they cut the Scouring. Nah, the Scouring was cool in the books and all but I can see how it would be jarring and detract from the climax in the films. The greatest tragedy was ghosts at Minas Tirith. All they do in the books is scare the poo poo out of some pirates at Pelargir, living men do all the real work. It's the unity of Gondor and Rohan(and freeing up the men of southern Gondor to fight at MT is a part of that) that gives the world a fighting chance. Changing that to ghosts/supernatural allies undercuts the whole message of the Valar saying "f it, you guys are p much on your own" that is alluded to at the Council of Elrond - those in the Undying Lands wouldn't accept the Ring - for good or ill that problem belongs in Middle Earth.
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Jan 16, 2015 22:07
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Hogge Wild posted:Tolkien didn't "kind of made himself sick to avoid going back to the front", and he didn't get 'shell shock', he had trench foot. There are Forces War Records, National Archives posted:Tolkien was suffering from trench fever, which is transmitted by lice, and causes fever. His records detail he had “pyrexia of unknown origin” – headaches, rashes, eye inflammation and leg pains.
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Jan 16, 2015 22:19
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Pong Daddy posted:Nah, the Scouring was cool in the books and all but I can see how it would be jarring and detract from the climax in the films. The greatest tragedy was ghosts at Minas Tirith. All they do in the books is scare the poo poo out of some pirates at Pelargir, living men do all the real work.
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Jan 16, 2015 22:23
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Oracle posted:It wasn't trench foot, it was trench fever. I stand corrected.
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Jan 17, 2015 00:43
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I always got the impression that half elves were for all intents and purposes elves if they chose to be without any real practical distinction.
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Jan 17, 2015 00:44
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Levitate posted:I always got the impression that half elves were for all intents and purposes elves if they chose to be without any real practical distinction. They are. Though Elladan and Elrohir have also some Maiar in them too. Their father Elrond is "one sixteenth Maiar, nine sixteenths elven (five thirty-seconds Vanyarin, three thirty-seconds Noldorin, five sixteenths Sindarin) and three eighths human (one quarter of the House of Bëor, one sixteenth of the House of Haleth, and one sixteenth of the House of Hador)" (from Wikipedia).
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Jan 17, 2015 00:49
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So why did the Valar finally decide to take down Morgoth at the end of the First Age? I kinda get they were sick of his b/s, but what prompted them to launch their attack then and not like a century earlier?
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Jan 17, 2015 01:22
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Levitate posted:I always got the impression that half elves were for all intents and purposes elves if they chose to be without any real practical distinction. There's a distinction. Elladan and Elrohir are unlike Legolas in certain interesting ways- they fear the Dead unlike Legolas, nor can they spot the winged Nazgul like he can. But it's a fine line. SirPhoebos posted:So why did the Valar finally decide to take down Morgoth at the end of the First Age? I kinda get they were sick of his b/s, but what prompted them to launch their attack then and not like a century earlier? Morgoth had poured his spirit into Arda like Sauron with the Ring. It was only after the long series of events that began with Dagor Bragollach that one of the Silmarils was taken from him, and he was both weak enough and the situation of Atani, Quendi, and Khazad desperate enough for the Valar to intervene and kill him without destroying Arda. Also, the Doom of Mandos had been fulfilled. The Noldor had destroyed themselves and their valiance came to naught, especially compared to Men and unenlightened Elves. Effectronica fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Jan 17, 2015 |
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Jan 17, 2015 01:29
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SirPhoebos posted:So why did the Valar finally decide to take down Morgoth at the end of the First Age? I kinda get they were sick of his b/s, but what prompted them to launch their attack then and not like a century earlier? Elrond's dad gave them a silmaril, essentially.
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Jan 17, 2015 01:35
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Elrond's dad gave them a silmaril, essentially. I think this pretty much nails it. In addition to what else has been said, the Noldorin exile happened because Feanor was unwilling to give up the Silmarils(even though they were already gone by that point). The willing return of a Silmaril, even though it was too late to restore the trees and purely symbolic in nature, was enough of a show of humility that the Valar were willing to bend and take pity.
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Jan 17, 2015 01:51
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Oracle posted:Yeah, Jackson et al really dropped the ball on this theme in the translation from books to movies. Another jarring change was having the elves of Lorien show up at Helm's Deep. The elves were also part of that 'this is a world of Men now, the Elves' time is over, its up to you guys to fix this poo poo' theme that Tolkien had constantly going through the work. That's why Legolas presence is meaningful; he's supposed to be a token, not the cavalry. 'The Elves support you and all, here have an ambassador from us but that's all you'll get.' Even Elladan and Elrohir who actually DO show up and bring some Dunedain (again, Men) are only half-elven. It's weird how he credits his presence to Elrond also.
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Jan 17, 2015 03:42
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Does Tolkien ever explain why he left the East of Middle-Earth so undetailed? Because he puts four whole clans of dwarves, two blue wizards, most of the Avari elves, the lake Cuivienen, possibly some ents, and a bunch of cultures of Men there. Sure most of the story involves Sauron/Morgoth and the people of the West, but it seems unlike him to leave so many places under a big question mark. And, uh, license-wise is anyone allowed to fill in those gaps if they wanted to?
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Jan 19, 2015 05:13
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Bendigeidfran posted:Does Tolkien ever explain why he left the East of Middle-Earth so undetailed? Because he puts four whole clans of dwarves, two blue wizards, most of the Avari elves, the lake Cuivienen, possibly some ents, and a bunch of cultures of Men there. Sure most of the story involves Sauron/Morgoth and the people of the West, but it seems unlike him to leave so many places under a big question mark. I'm not sure, but I like the mystery even if it is maddening. The only person I would trust to fill in the gaps is Christopher.
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Jan 19, 2015 05:41
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Filling In All The Gaps is a bad compulsion, and nobody is ever satisfied with the result. See: Star Wars EU, Dune prequels/inquels/sidequels/sequels etc Realistically, he probably realized that since he didn't draw another ocean on the other side of Mordor, there had to be something there, but was content to leave it barely sketched in. I'm glad he did, the mystery is fun. In-universe, you could say that even thought the books are far reaching in time, they revolve around the same small cast of characters - the gods, their specific angels, a few bloodlines of elves and men. Incidentally a few families of hobbits and dwarves. And that's it, even though it's still a lot.
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Jan 19, 2015 05:50
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Octy posted:I'm not sure, but I like the mystery even if it is maddening. The only person I would trust to fill in the gaps is Christopher.
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Jan 19, 2015 06:17
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Bendigeidfran posted:Does Tolkien ever explain why he left the East of Middle-Earth so undetailed? Because he puts four whole clans of dwarves, two blue wizards, most of the Avari elves, the lake Cuivienen, possibly some ents, and a bunch of cultures of Men there. Sure most of the story involves Sauron/Morgoth and the people of the West, but it seems unlike him to leave so many places under a big question mark. I have a feeling that he talks about this a bit in the Letters and the answer ranges from (paraphrase) "those parts of the world were not revealed to me" to "the story I had to tell drew from & reimagined northern european mythology and folklore."
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Jan 19, 2015 06:51
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Prolonged Priapism posted:Filling In All The Gaps is a bad compulsion, and nobody is ever satisfied with the result. See: Star Wars EU, Dune prequels/inquels/sidequels/sequels etc Thematically there is also the idea that journeying closer to Valinor made you stronger and more relevant. So the Numenorians and the Eldar were the most influential members of their respective people because they were willing to make the journey, or were allowed by the Valar to stay nearby. Peoples who lived further from the Western Sea "failed" on this great journey or resisted the call, and mostly became evil or unworthy of attention. Which sort of leads to the "swarthy men" problem; when the mythology equates living closer to the West with goodness and also decides that people from further East should be darker-skinned for some reason, issues develop. Though I think Tolkien was aware of this problem even in the Silmarillion. Didn't he change the betrayal at the Battle of Unnumbered tears so that half of the Easterling clans stayed loyal?
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Jan 19, 2015 06:57
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Nessus posted:It all goes public domain at some point, doesn't it? I always assumed the rights would remain in the hands of the Tolkien Estate, but I'm not up on copyright law.
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Jan 19, 2015 07:11
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Octy posted:I always assumed the rights would remain in the hands of the Tolkien Estate, but I'm not up on copyright law.
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Jan 19, 2015 07:13
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It is 70 years in the UK. The US (sorry: Disney lobbyists) strongarmed the EU into changing copyright expiry. With JRRT it isn't straightforward. I think it would be 70 years after death for everything published in his lifetime (i.e. 2043). However, what has been published since his death by the estate is either copyrighted as publication date + 70 years or (more likely) copyright C Tolkien: so his lifetime + 70 years. ME is JRRT Estate intellectual copyright so you cannot use characters, places, languages without permission of the estate. I mean - you can't publish it for profit and the estate has the right to take down any publicly distributed material using ME whether it is for profit or not - but essentially print publication and/or profit making are the red flags that will bring in the lawyers. I'm not an expert but that's what I think. NB: The British crown has copyright in perpetuity to the King James Bible, so be careful with your biblical fanfic. Muslims are pretty cool with you adapting the Koran though. Josef K. Sourdust fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Jan 19, 2015 |
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Jan 19, 2015 11:03
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Pong Daddy posted:I think this pretty much nails it. In addition to what else has been said, the Noldorin exile happened because Feanor was unwilling to give up the Silmarils(even though they were already gone by that point). The willing return of a Silmaril, even though it was too late to restore the trees and purely symbolic in nature, was enough of a show of humility that the Valar were willing to bend and take pity. Ulmo never left. 
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Jan 19, 2015 13:10
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Josef K. Sourdust posted:NB: The British crown has copyright in perpetuity to the King James Bible, so be careful with your biblical fanfic. Muslims are pretty cool with you adapting the Koran though. M-maybe Muhammed-Senpai will notice me today! :nignog:
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Jan 19, 2015 16:00
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HIJK posted:The Shire chapters are my favorite because they combine info dumping with setting characters. You get to know Frodo, you see Bilbo again, there are shenanigans with the Sackville-Bagginses, Gandalf shows up and threatens to blow up Frodo's front door. It's so comfy, I love it. This is a bit of quote-necromancy sorry, but I think the initial Shire chapters in LOTR are helped immensely by reading (and I guess enjoying) The Hobbit first. I loved finding out what Bilbo was up to now after his adventure, Gandalf is still around and seems to give an extra-large poo poo about this ring of his, learning more about the Shire, all the whispers of what's going down in the rest of the world, etc., and was even a bit disappointed to find out the narrative was moving away from Bilbo as the central character. Took me a while to warm up to Frodo. Actually I've never found him (Frodo) to be a particularly compelling/interesting character. The Shire-->Bree chapters are probably the weakest part of the book for me.
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Jan 19, 2015 22:47
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Ross posted:This is a bit of quote-necromancy sorry, but I think the initial Shire chapters in LOTR are helped immensely by reading (and I guess enjoying) The Hobbit first. I loved finding out what Bilbo was up to now after his adventure, Gandalf is still around and seems to give an extra-large poo poo about this ring of his, learning more about the Shire, all the whispers of what's going down in the rest of the world, etc., and was even a bit disappointed to find out the narrative was moving away from Bilbo as the central character. Took me a while to warm up to Frodo. Shire--> Bree definitely goes a lot slower than everything that happens after Weathertop. On a re-read of Fellowship I feel like the Black Riders don't have that much presence as a threat. They're so ineffectual at finding the hobbits, and they get massively overshadowed by Tom Bombadil and Old Forest shenanigans. The Barrow-wight and the meeting with Gildor's party were pretty neat though. And I agree that Bilbo was a lot more interesting than Frodo was. Frodo honestly felt more like an object than a character for most of Fellowship; he shows barely any independent initiative. He leaves the Shire without many questions or protests, he's basically escorted by Bombadil, Strider, and Glorfindel until they get to Rivendell, and in Redhorn pass he just lies down in the snow while Gandalf and Aragorn make actual decisions. Whenever Frodo witnesses the beautiful, terrible things of Middle-Earth he just gawps in wonder. Bilbo engaged with them and reacts in interesting ways: he cleverly tricks the trolls to save his friends, he's simultaneously annoyed and fascinated by the Rivendell Elves, he riddles against Gollum because it's all he can do to save himself. Bilbo did things. Sure, his actions at Amon Hen show that Frodo's aware of all this and he develops more afterwards, but it doesn't excuse how uninteresting he is for a book that's twice as long as The Hobbit.
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Jan 20, 2015 22:13
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Yeah but is Frodo really the main character the way Bilbo is or is it actually Sam? I think probably most of the people in this thread would say it's Sam because he's the better audience analog. Sam tags along on this epic, incredible adventure the same way the reader tags along with the story. He doesn't become a king, or even a knight, and he's not magic, he's just a regular dude like the people reading the books (and like Bilbo was). Sam's reactions to the world and events are way easier to relate to as a reader- he's just wants to see some Elves, he's not already familiar with the world the way even Frodo is. The parts of the books where the reader would be really rooting for Frodo to get up and continue on his journey, Sam's doing the exact same thing and making it happen. Radio! fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Jan 21, 2015 |
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Jan 21, 2015 01:54
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Is middle earth really sparsely populated for its time (compared to our history)? Or is that just the impression I get from the movies? I last read the books through when I was a kid, so most of my awareness comes from the movies and browsing the lotr wikis occasionally. Like, as far as I'm aware these are the people of middle earth (just concerning myself with the west). The Shire Bree Rivendell Rangers like Aragorn (Do they have cities and stuff? How do they live?) Elves of Mirkwood Elves of Lorien Elves of that shipyard place to the west. Dale Dwarves of Erebor Dwarves who came to help retake Erebor Rohan (Which is just Edora + country side? Are there other major towns and cities?) The wild people of Rohan who serve controls. Minas Tirith That shipyard south of Minas Tirith Looking at some other maps of middle earth I see some other cities... but after looking them they appear to be ruins. So yeah, was there more to Rohan than just edoras? Were there other cities like Dale? Other towns like Bree? Was the area west of the misty mountains pretty much not populated aside from the stuff around the shire? Were there just some towns and villages of people farming the countryside? Or was it just wilderness? Any other cities the size of Minas Tirith? Any other cities in Gondor?
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Jan 21, 2015 06:59
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Legacyspy posted:Is middle earth really sparsely populated for its time (compared to our history)? Or is that just the impression I get from the movies? I count about half a dozen settlements in Gondor, but I don't think anything reaching the size of Minas Tirith. Rohan seems to be more sparsely inhabited. Arnor-Eriador is absolutely full of towns.
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Jan 21, 2015 07:26
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Radio! posted:Yeah but is Frodo really the main character the way Bilbo is or is it actually Sam? Even Tolkien said in his letters at one point that Sam was the true main character of the story, not Frodo. Frodo does accomplish at least one thing though: he defeats the Barrow-Wights by remembering Tom's song, when all the other hobbits have passed out. He's more natively strong-willed than the other hobbits. He also makes the decision to go off on his own with the Ring, which ultimately frees the rest of the Fellowship to do all the other important things they do. That said, I think Frodo (and the hobbits generally) are very very much Tolkien drawing on the experience of being an innocent young british upper-class student and then getting sent off to WW1. The passage where Pippin finds Merry wounded on the battlefield, or for that matter Merry's dazed wandering after his wound, or Pippin and Merry's loneliness and isolation when their friends have "gone" and left them to soldier on in their respective armies, or hell, the general Black Breath and Ring-Fatigue and generalized PTSD that they all come down with . . . the more I re-read LotR the more layers of autobiography I see in it.
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Jan 21, 2015 07:48
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Octy posted:I count about half a dozen settlements in Gondor, but I don't think anything reaching the size of Minas Tirith. Rohan seems to be more sparsely inhabited. Arnor-Eriador is absolutely full of towns. This seemed like an interesting question but one that's solvable from the military statistics we see in the book, and so I did a quick google and found this interesting blog post where someone had done the work for me: http://armchairthinker.com/blog/2013/03/25/demography-of-middle-earth-gondor/ http://armchairthinker.com/blog/2013/07/04/demography-of-middle-earth-rohan/ EDIT: Same guy has two other interesting posts: http://armchairthinker.com/blog/2014/01/09/demography-of-middle-earth-the-shire/ http://armchairthinker.com/blog/2014/01/06/the-macroeconomic-impact-of-smaug/ Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jan 21, 2015 |
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Jan 21, 2015 07:51
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:This seemed like an interesting question but one that's solvable from the military statistics we see in the book, and so I did a quick google and found this interesting blog post where someone had done the work for me: I wish I was younger and had more time to write up stuff about fictional universes because this is exactly the sort of thing 12 year old me would have done. A total population of 3 or 4 million for Gondor sounds absurd, though, and I'm glad it isn't ignored in the addendum. Octy fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Jan 21, 2015 |
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Jan 21, 2015 08:47
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Octy posted:I wish I was younger and had more time to write up stuff about fictional universes because this is exactly the sort of thing 12 year old me would have done. A total population of 3 or 4 million for Gondor sounds absurd, though, and I'm glad it isn't ignored in the addendum. That's assuming a 1% conscription rating and a generously literal definition of tithe. He also conflates the population of England in 1066 with the total population available for conscription to Harold II. These are not the same. Harold was drawing on a much smaller pool than that total. Personally, I doubt if JRRT spent much time trying to tie the size of the armies of Gondor and Rohan to historical precedent and wouldn't expect it to be rational. If you wanted to make a realism argument with the size (750,000 sq miles) and (mild Mediterranean) climate and level of technological sophistication of Gondor and centuries of relative peace they should have been able to field armies equivalent to Ancient Rome in it's heyday with a dense and thriving population supporting it.
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Jan 21, 2015 17:50
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I'm pretty sure that Dol Amroth is a city on par with Minas Tirith, if only because MT has seriously declined since its better days.
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Jan 21, 2015 18:47
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Legacyspy posted:
We are told there lots of villages between Bree and The Shire which don't appear on any maps. My impression is of vast but spread out human settlements throughout the west and completely uninteresting to hobbits.
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Jan 21, 2015 19:44
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Not that it's canon or anything but I found the virtual representation of Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings Online to be pretty interesting. They obviously had to populate a lot of stuff so you're not just riding through an empty landscape the whole time but it feels like a pretty well thought out scale.
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Jan 21, 2015 19:47
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Murgos posted:That's assuming a 1% conscription rating and a generously literal definition of tithe. He also conflates the population of England in 1066 with the total population available for conscription to Harold II. These are not the same. Harold was drawing on a much smaller pool than that total. Yeah, certainly in its heyday Gondor could have fielded huge armies, as they did in the War of the Last Alliance. I see Gondor in the late Third Age as being more like a very early feudal army. You're not going to get anything much bigger than 50 000 total and in all likelihood they're not going to have received the same kind of professional training as their predecessors. Octy fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Jan 21, 2015 |
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Jan 21, 2015 22:25
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