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SHISHKABOB posted:Though he did say that they bored tunnels down there. Clearly, Gandalf saw the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert
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May 20, 2015 04:54
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Giant stone-eating earthworms was about what I got from that. They might not be menacing... merely horrible. Maybe dwarves would like that. Maybe they'd eat them? I'm sure they have to have something to go with the plump helmets.
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May 20, 2015 05:11
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Chapter and verse is always helpful.quote:We fought far under the living earth, where time is not counted. Ever he clutched me, and ever I hewed him, till at last he fled into dark tunnels. They were not made by Durin’s folk, Gimli son of Glóin. Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he. Now I have walked there, but I will bring no report to darken the light of day. In that despair my enemy was my only hope, and I pursued him, clutching at his heel. Thus he brought me back at last to the secret ways of Khazad-dûm: too well he knew them all. On the one hand, bringing back no report implies they're worse; on the other, the Balrog itself has been down there for rather a while with apparently no ill effects.
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May 20, 2015 11:35
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Trin Tragula posted:Chapter and verse is always helpful. I'm sure being a One-drat Balrog gives you some lee-way.
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May 20, 2015 17:05
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More like Gandalf doesn't want to make them feel bad by telling them all about the deep dark tunnels that he had to run through.
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May 20, 2015 18:33
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"In that despair my enemy was my only hope" doesn't really make it seem like its a nice place. And I didn't think the Balrog lived in those caves either, since the Balrog flees twice in that passage: once from Gandalf into the dark deep places, and once from there back to Khazad-dum.
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May 21, 2015 19:08
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I thought of it more that down there was an area beholden to neither light nor dark, and was foreign enough to both the Balrog and Gandalf that even though the things down there posed no threat to them, the place was still creepy and unfamiliar. Plus, Gandalf was always pursuing him, so he had to keep running regardless until Gandalf trapped him at the mountain peak.
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May 21, 2015 20:08
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Ravenfood posted:"In that despair my enemy was my only hope" doesn't really make it seem like its a nice place. And I didn't think the Balrog lived in those caves either, since the Balrog flees twice in that passage: once from Gandalf into the dark deep places, and once from there back to Khazad-dum. There's a million times in lotr where darkness loneliness etc are bad. There don't need to be wacky scary monsters for Gandalf to not want to talk about a place that was the utter opposite of his longtime home and everything he wants to save. And the balrog was running from Gandalf, duh
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May 21, 2015 20:40
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If the things in there predate Sauron, they must be pretty loving hefty medicine, considering that Sauron predates the existence of Arda. (Of course Gandalf may have meant 'Sauron as we know him.')
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May 21, 2015 20:51
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Nessus posted:If the things in there predate Sauron, they must be pretty loving hefty medicine, considering that Sauron predates the existence of Arda. (Of course Gandalf may have meant 'Sauron as we know him.') it's unclear to me if Gandalf means that they predate the existence of Sauron completely or if they predate the appearance of Sauron in middle earth. The latter makes much more sense.
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May 21, 2015 21:26
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I think we're meant to infer that the Watcher in the Water is one of them, but apart from that they seem to be deliberate mysteries/Dunsany references. Re: Tolkien reading Lovecraft- Lovecraft wasn't available in the UK until the Arkham House collections AFAIK, so Tolkien couldn't have read him until after LOTR was mostly finished. He did, however, definitely read and enjoy Asimov.
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May 22, 2015 00:00
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Sauron is a Maia, thus he is old as anything else. I always figure any mention of elder things to just be Dunseny or "I never actually finished the Silmarilion" so who knows how they might have been explained.
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May 22, 2015 01:23
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sunday at work posted:Sauron is a Maia, thus he is old as anything else. I always figure any mention of elder things to just be Dunseny or "I never actually finished the Silmarilion" so who knows how they might have been explained. There are at least arguably powers and spirits of Arda itself, that aren't part of the Maia cosmology. Bombadil, etc. They aren't well explained anywhere.
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May 22, 2015 01:27
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Bombadil is obviously a Maia.
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May 22, 2015 01:30
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euphronius posted:Bombadil is obviously a Maia. 
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May 22, 2015 01:45
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I've read that the LOTR universe is consistent with a catholic worldview; eg the real god is kicking around in the universe too. Is this true? Is there anything in LOTR that I can point to regarding this?
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May 22, 2015 02:34
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I thought Iluvatar WAS the real God-with-a-capital-G?
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May 22, 2015 02:37
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euphronius posted:Bombadil is obviously a Maia. He talks about having been in the before the Valar showed up though. quote:'Eldest, that's what I am... Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn... He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside.' He was there before the Valar and Maiar showed up, so he can't be a Maiar. It's debatable but imho he's probably an earth spirit. Baloogan posted:I've read that the LOTR universe is consistent with a catholic worldview; eg the real god is kicking around in the universe too. Is this true? Is there anything in LOTR that I can point to regarding this? It's like 10000000% true to the point that when I recently read Tolkien's letters I realized that when I thought I was an agnostic I was wrong, I'd actually been like 3/4ths catholic ever since I read The Hobbit at age eight. Frodo fails in the quest because he's a fallen being and thus is going to always fall short of perfection. Gollum has a chance at conversion to goodness but fails. Sam resists the Ring because he is Humble. Elves are literally intended to be figures of what humans would have been like without Adam's Fall and the apple. That said he really hides the ball as it were in LotR itself and just makes it all consistent with theology rather than making it explicit. It's the Silmarillion that really draws back the curtain and talks explicitly about Eru Illuvatar (i.e., God). Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 03:16 on May 22, 2015 |
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May 22, 2015 02:38
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How much of the world do Maia have a grasp on anyway? I mean, being angels serving under certain powers (Olorin learned from Nienna, and from that he gained an understanding of empathy/Sauron and Saruman both learned from Aule and gained the power to craft), they have some knowledge, but I'm talking about the vision of the world that Eru showed all of his angels in the Music. From what I remember, Manwe held the deepest comprehension, but I was always uncertain of how much anybody else knew.
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May 22, 2015 03:03
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SHISHKABOB posted:He doesn't say they're worse he just says that there are nameless things in the depths of the earth that not even Sauron knows of. That means some algae or fish for all we know. Though he did say that they bored tunnels down there. It was totally sandworms from Dune.
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May 22, 2015 03:44
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AnonSpore posted:I thought Iluvatar WAS the real God-with-a-capital-G? It always seemed fairly transparent to me that Tolkien wanted a Greek/Roman/Norse style pantheon for narrative purposes—because who doesn't love it when omnipotent gods fight like schoolchildren? —and at the same time to have the Judeo-Christian God in the mix as a figure who supersedes them all in importance and dignity but never actually gets involved in the story because he's boring. What's funny is that the result of that is an Ilúvatar who is closer in concept to the Calvinist/Protestant style of aloof, hands-off deity who only cares about faith and nothing else, rather than the "activist" God of Catholic tradition who rewards good works and is constantly showing up in tortillas and poo poo.
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May 22, 2015 12:00
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:It's like 10000000% true to the point that when I recently read Tolkien's letters I realized that when I thought I was an agnostic I was wrong, I'd actually been like 3/4ths catholic ever since I read The Hobbit at age eight. Frodo fails in the quest because he's a fallen being and thus is going to always fall short of perfection. Gollum has a chance at conversion to goodness but fails. Sam resists the Ring because he is Humble. Elves are literally intended to be figures of what humans would have been like without Adam's Fall and the apple. Something I thought of recently: If Middle Earth is to be understood as Catholic Adventure Times, couldn't Tolkein decision to cull the big End-Time battle (forget its name and too  to look it up right now) be interpreted as a criticism of the Book of Revelations? (in that if the necessity of Morgoth's destruction doesn't fit Tolkein mythology, then by extension a big Jesus-vs-Satan throwdown is inconsistent with the overall Catholic theology).Is there anything that backs up my theory? EDIT: Another thing-why aren't there any identifiable clergymen in Middle Earth? SirPhoebos fucked around with this message at 17:38 on May 22, 2015 |
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May 22, 2015 17:31
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Not sure on the first point. On the second, I think there is something in the letters about how there wasnt a need for clergymen to the same extent because of all the literal angels and demons running around, but I may be confusing that with stuff Jordan said about the Wheel of Time universe.
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May 22, 2015 17:42
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What I remember reading is that Tolkien wanted a setting which was consonant with theology while not being About Religion - this is why there aren't any churches or temples really talked about, except as things being raised to Melkor or Sauron. Similarly, the early history of men is just ignored in the Silmarillion other than vague implications that Melkor was casting shade on them, so to speak. What is kind of interesting is how careful he is to avoid making "Creation" a power that, like, people have or a factor in the story. I think that's one of the subtle reversals; pretty much every time people "make" a thing that's intended to be permanent (as opposed to 'making a fire' or writing a book), it goes poorly. This is pretty much an exact reversal of how we tend to look at things culturally, and probably a reversal of how things went in Tolkien's day. But it's a pretty recurring motif, though I think it's not a universal statement - old works and places are not really presented as "bad." Moria wasn't "bad" until the dwarves got greedy; Orthanc isn't "bad" (though Saruman was), etc. Similarly Gimli's idea for having the dwarves go chill in the Glittering Caves seemed completely devoid of ominous doom. Nessus fucked around with this message at 21:14 on May 22, 2015 |
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May 22, 2015 21:10
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Gologle posted:How much of the world do Maia have a grasp on anyway? I mean, being angels serving under certain powers (Olorin learned from Nienna, and from that he gained an understanding of empathy/Sauron and Saruman both learned from Aule and gained the power to craft), they have some knowledge, but I'm talking about the vision of the world that Eru showed all of his angels in the Music. From what I remember, Manwe held the deepest comprehension, but I was always uncertain of how much anybody else knew. Maiar, it seems, got fairly limited perception of the Music, because they are consistently described as learning from the Valar. What seems to be the case is that each particular Valar, in shaping the world, garnered a deep understanding of it. Manwe has the broadest comprehension, but all other Valar know more about something than he does (except the air and the winds). Melkor, meanwhile, understands the Children the greatest of all the Ainur, not only because they are Fallen (and while Eldar and Atani are Fallen, it's just possible Avari and Khazad and Onodrim are unFallen) but because Melkor has associated himself with changes and reshaping, and the Children, who change, are thus closest to him in nature. Melkor's Maiar, though, are not endowed with this understanding in particular. This has some particularly interesting resonances with Iluvatar's statements that there is nothing Melkor or anyone can do that will in the end prove evil, and with the malevolent nature of trying to hold things permanent.
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May 23, 2015 02:25
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I recently reread Derek Robinson's book War Story, which I've read about three times in the last eight years. It's about a squadron of fighter pilots in WWI, specifically before and during The Somme. It was only this reading when I really realized that the characters euphemistically refer to their fellow pilots getting killed as "going West".
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May 26, 2015 02:29
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I've moved onto the Simarillion. Like LotR its a lot more enjoyable than my first read. Where did Tolkein get the idea for the Two Trees? I don't think I've heard of any comparable idea from other fantasy stories.
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May 26, 2015 17:25
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Sun and the moon I guess. Speaking of the moon, it's one of my favorite stories in the Silmarillion. "Daddy why is the sun a perfect circle but the moon is so blemished?" "Because ten thousand years ago an evil powerful dark lord tried to gently caress with it and got trounced, so it's covered in scars."
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May 26, 2015 18:23
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SirPhoebos posted:I've moved onto the Simarillion. Like LotR its a lot more enjoyable than my first read. I think he just really liked trees. There is a bit in Norse myth where the original Adam and eve analogues are crafted from trees.
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May 26, 2015 18:24
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There's also Yggdrasil; the concepts are different, but perhaps it was partial inspiration.
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May 26, 2015 18:46
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SHISHKABOB posted:Speaking of the moon, it's one of my favorite stories in the Silmarillion. I also like the explanations for why the moon has phases. "Daddy why does the moon change shape?" "Because the angel piloting the moon drives like a Parkinson's patient drunk on cheap vodka."
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May 26, 2015 18:50
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and has the hots (as it were) for the angel who drives the sun
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May 26, 2015 18:59
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SirPhoebos posted:I also like the explanations for why the moon has phases. Where does he mention this? I don't remember his moon origin myth.
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May 26, 2015 19:44
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100YrsofAttitude posted:Where does he mention this? I don't remember his moon origin myth. He's probably talking about this passage: The Silmarillion posted:Isil was first wrought and made ready, and first rose into the realm of the stars, and was the elder of the new lights, as was Telperion of the Trees. Then for a while the world had moonlight, and many things stirred and woke that had waited long in the sleep of Yavanna. The servants of Morgoth were filled with amazement, but the Elves of the Outer Lands looked up in delight; and even as the Moon rose above the darkness in the west, Fingolfin let blow his silver trumpets and began his march into Middle-earth, and the shadows of his host went long and black before them.
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May 26, 2015 19:55
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SirPhoebos posted:I've moved onto the Simarillion. Like LotR its a lot more enjoyable than my first read. Hieronymous Alloy posted:I think he just really liked trees. There is a bit in Norse myth where the original Adam and eve analogues are crafted from trees. Sheikh Djibouti posted:There's also Yggdrasil; the concepts are different, but perhaps it was partial inspiration. There are also the two special trees in the Garden of Eden: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Pioneer42 fucked around with this message at 21:58 on May 26, 2015 |
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May 26, 2015 21:56
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^^e: I always assumed it was just one Tree in Eden that was called different things. Oh god, I just realized something: Hobbits have big appetites right? But they're also basically fantasy British but more colloquial. In other words, Hobbits love English Cuisine!!  
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May 28, 2015 20:18
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SirPhoebos posted:^^e: I always assumed it was just one Tree in Eden that was called different things. Look, that country that had the audacity to give the world the chip butty, they can't be all bad.
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May 28, 2015 21:54
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Lembas Bread was basically a Parmo
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May 28, 2015 22:11
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I thought the whole image of British cuisine being lovely was because of the nine years of rationing during the war, more than it being inherently poo poo. So obviously Big T was thinking of that.
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May 28, 2015 22:16
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SirPhoebos posted:^^e: I always assumed it was just one Tree in Eden that was called different things. In the Genesis narrative there are two separate trees: the Tree of Life of which they could eat and have immortality, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil of which they should not. Separation from the Tree of Life and therefore losing immortality is the primary consequence of The Fall--which was caused by a desire for the power of the Tree of Knowledge. You could probably interpret some Eden themes in the Sil. The "Fall" of the Noldor from Valinor (Eden) can be traced to a covetousness of the Trees beauty or power. Not a perfect analogy; but the themes are there.
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May 28, 2015 22:30
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