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Hieronymous Alloy posted:If Orcs don't leave Midgard when they die, but reconstitute somewhere "local", like Sauron has his own mini halls of mandos going in, then a lot of their violence is explained too. Life's a big video game to an orc, you just respawn. I wouldn't put it past him. Sauron and Morgoth are both known for stuffing spirits into places they don't belong, and do we ever see an Orc's ghost wandering Middle-Earth? Nope. Orc fëa are too busy mucking around in settings while the respawn timer ticks down.
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Sep 14, 2016 15:33
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Well orcs are a legit problem for the elves' cosmology and origin theories. I don't think it can be solved in the elves world view.
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Sep 14, 2016 15:34
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euphronius posted:Well orcs are a legit problem for the elves' cosmology and origin theories. I don't think it can be solved in the elves world view. It can't really, unless you view them as irredeemable, but I believe in Tolkien's Catholicism all are potentially redeemable (even demons, Satan, etc). I think Tolkien actually comments in this in his letters, it's a legit hole in the text.
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Sep 14, 2016 15:38
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SirPhoebos posted:I just bought Children of Hurin. nice! Could you give your take on the story while you're reading it? I'd really like to hear it.
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Sep 14, 2016 15:57
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Smoking Crow posted:If we're going that far, I'd say Mordor never existed in the first place, the Lord of the Rings is a story about how the imperial family of Gondor regained power from the military dictatorship of the Stewards a la the Meiji Restoration, with a bit of "this is why we're friends with Rohan" mixed in Aragon showing up to save Minas Tirith compared to Denethor's cowardice probably endeared him to the common folk, making it easier to What I'm saying is that even though Aragorn is portrayed in an appropriately--and justifiably, if the story is to be believed--heroic light, he's also shown as being a canny politician.
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Sep 14, 2016 16:45
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I've got a pet theory that Orcs, wargs and possibly spiders draw from the same pool of corrupted elf souls.
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Sep 14, 2016 20:43
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ZeusJupitar posted:I've got a pet theory that Orcs, wargs and possibly spiders draw from the same pool of corrupted elf souls. Aren't the great spiders explicitly the spawn of Ungoliath? Ungoliath entered the world from the outer void at some very early time.
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Sep 14, 2016 21:12
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The Belgian posted:Aren't the great spiders explicitly the spawn of Ungoliath?
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Sep 14, 2016 21:25
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The Belgian posted:Aren't the great spiders explicitly the spawn of Ungoliath? "Sheer were the precipices of Ered Gorgoroth, and beneath their feet were shadows that were laid before the rising of the Moon. Beyond lay the wilderness of Dungortheb, where the sorcery of Sauron and the power of Melian came together, and horror and madness walked. There spiders of the fell race of Ungoliant abode, spinning their unseen webs in which all living things were snared; and monsters wandered there that were born in the long dark before the Sun, hunting silently with many eyes." eta: "There agelong she had dwelt, an evil thing in spider-form, even such as once of old had lived in the Land of the Elves in the West that is now under the Sea, such as Beren fought in the Mountains of Terror in Doriath, and so came to Lúthien upon the green sward amid the hemlocks in the moonlight long ago. How Shelob came there, flying from ruin, no tale tells, for out of the Dark Years few tales have come. But still she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dûr; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness. Far and wide her lesser broods, bastards of the miserable mates, her own offspring, that she slew, spread from glen to glen, from the Ephel Dúath to the eastern hills, to Dol Guldur and the fastnesses of Mirkwood. But none could rival her, Shelob the Great, last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world." Red Dad Redemption fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Sep 14, 2016 |
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Sep 14, 2016 21:36
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This reminds me of my pet theory about Tom Bombadil: Couldn't he too have snuck in from the outer void? There is no reason that everything out there has to be evil. It would also explain his disinterest in the ring as similar to Ungoliath's disinterest in the silmarils beyond just another snack.
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Sep 14, 2016 22:10
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i like, but don't subscribe to, the idea that orcs are corrupted men rather than corrupted elves. it would create a nice symmetry: elves representing the full potential of (prelapsarian) man and orcs signifying the ultimate depths to which man can degenerate although i guess 'black people' already fill that textual role Hieronymous Alloy posted:If Orcs don't leave Midgard when they die, but reconstitute somewhere "local", like Sauron has his own mini halls of mandos going in, then a lot of their violence is explained too. Life's a big video game to an orc, you just respawn. this is very good
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Sep 15, 2016 01:42
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Yes but orcs we clearly and always around before men.
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Sep 15, 2016 03:29
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Textually, orcs are representative of the degeneration of humanity under the conditions of war and industrial society. So there's an obvious tension between the diegetic, mechanical needs of the story, which is that orcs must have a natural history and a biology, and the thematic needs of the story, where orcs aren't a species or a race, they're what people turn into under conditions of brutalization. At least, in Lord of the Rings. In The Hobbit, they're George MacDonald's goblins with a tinge of William Morris. In pre-Hobbit material, Morgoth can create living things and goblins are like dwarves, giants, and ogres: Uvanimor, the Hin Morgothim, creatures fermented within the earth. So these three sources all conflict. In The Hobbit, we have a little baby goblin and a child goblin that Gollum has killed and eaten, because goblins here are natural creatures that aren't inherently evil. This is entirely out of place in Lord of the Rings and Lost Tales/Lays of Beleriand material. It's not really a surprise that Tolkien never really reconciled these divergent notions (note that there's no discussion about trolls despite the given origin having some big holes in it) between orcs as elves fallen from grace, orcs as natural creatures, and orcs as biomechanical abominations. It is worth noting one of the major asterisks in the LOTR appendices- only Quendi are described as being undivided during the War of the Last Alliance. While we can discount Ents in all likelihood, this leaves the intriguing possibility that orcs fought alongside the Last Alliance.
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Sep 15, 2016 03:43
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Hogge Wild posted:nice! Sure thing! Annual Prophet posted:"There agelong she had dwelt, an evil thing in spider-form, even such as once of old had lived in the Land of the Elves in the West that is now under the Sea, such as Beren fought in the Mountains of Terror in Doriath, and so came to Lúthien upon the green sward amid the hemlocks in the moonlight long ago. How Shelob came there, flying from ruin, no tale tells, for out of the Dark Years few tales have come. But still she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dûr; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness. Far and wide her lesser broods, bastards of the miserable mates, her own offspring, that she slew, spread from glen to glen, from the Ephel Dúath to the eastern hills, to Dol Guldur and the fastnesses of Mirkwood. But none could rival her, Shelob the Great, last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world." Tolkien described the relationship of Shelob and Sauron as that of a cat "and the homeowner it lives with."
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Sep 15, 2016 15:16
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Brainiac Five posted:Textually, orcs are representative of the degeneration of humanity under the conditions of war and industrial society. So there's an obvious tension between the diegetic, mechanical needs of the story, which is that orcs must have a natural history and a biology, and the thematic needs of the story, where orcs aren't a species or a race, they're what people turn into under conditions of brutalization. At least, in Lord of the Rings. In The Hobbit, they're George MacDonald's goblins with a tinge of William Morris. In pre-Hobbit material, Morgoth can create living things and goblins are like dwarves, giants, and ogres: Uvanimor, the Hin Morgothim, creatures fermented within the earth. I seem to recall reading of letters from late in Tolkien's life where he expressed some discomfort with the notion of a whole race of beings who are entirely unredeemable.
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Sep 15, 2016 18:10
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I only browse this thread from time to time so forgive me if it's already been talked about at length, the connections to Wagner or 'inspirations' if you want to use the word are very known, but I had never gone in depth or done much more looking into Wagner beyond watching a play of The Ring of The Nibelung, or whatever the proper translation is called. To be honest I'm a great big turdy millennial and while I like Wagner's music and a lot of classical music, plays have never been my thing at all. But this is! From Die Walküre "Having fled Hunding's hall, Siegmund and Sieglinde enter the mountain pass, where Sieglinde faints in guilt and exhaustion. Brünnhilde approaches Siegmund and tells him of his impending death. Siegmund refuses to follow Brünnhilde to Valhalla when she tells him Sieglinde cannot accompany him there. Siegmund dismisses Brünnhilde's warning since he has Wälse's sword, which his father assured him would win victory for him, but Brünnhilde tells him it has lost its power. Siegmund draws his sword and threatens to kill both Sieglinde and himself. Impressed by his passion, Brünnhilde relents and agrees to grant victory to Siegmund instead of Hunding. Hunding arrives and attacks Siegmund. Blessed by Brünnhilde, Siegmund begins to overpower Hunding, but Wotan appears and shatters Nothung (Siegmund's sword) with his spear. While Siegmund is thus disarmed and helpless, Hunding stabs him to death. Wotan looks down on Siegmund's body, grieving, and Brünnhilde gathers up the fragments of Nothung and flees on horseback with Sieglinde." Wagner got a lot of his ideas from the same source Tolkien did, the poetic/prose edda. I haven't read enough of those to go any further back, but it's interesting to see the obvious source of true love in Tolkien's world. Love is only worth writing about if the character would refuse to live on in eternity without their partner, which is now probably credited to Shakespeare more often than either of them. The shards of narsil are probably from the same scene as well. (Nothung is the name of Wälse's sword which became Siegmund's sword, who's shards are collected and saved). Don't read the following spoiler unless you've read all of Tolkien's work that has not made it to the big screen. The more grim development of some of these concepts, weapons who's names are symbols of their strength and their sin, falling in love and loving your sister without knowing it's her, but then not changing your mind once you learn it are again retold in a more brutal and direct approach that more closely resembles both Wagner and Shakespeare in The Children of Hurin extra stout fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Sep 15, 2016 |
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Sep 15, 2016 19:45
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extra stout posted:
Have you read The Story of Kullervo? It's a pretty recent publication that covers the really early evolution of Turin's story, which was originally just an adaptation of the Finnish story about a dude named Kullervo whose family is forced into captivity when he's a child, then he's separated from them for years and when he comes back to take revenge of his family's oppressors he meets his sister whom he doesn't recognize and ends up boning. Everyone dies. . It sounds like it'd be right up your alley.
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Sep 16, 2016 00:37
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extra stout posted:I only browse this thread from time to time so forgive me if it's already been talked about at length, the connections to Wagner or 'inspirations' if you want to use the word are very known, but I had never gone in depth or done much more looking into Wagner beyond watching a play of The Ring of The Nibelung, or whatever the proper translation is called. To be honest I'm a great big turdy millennial and while I like Wagner's music and a lot of classical music, plays have never been my thing at all. But this is! One thing to be aware of is that in pretty much every element that Tolkien's stories have in common with Wagner, they also have in common with much older folklore -- Tolkien and Wagner were drawing on the same sources.
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Sep 16, 2016 01:36
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extra stout posted:I'm a great big turdy millennial and while I like Wagner's music and a lot of classical music, plays have never been my thing at all. i dont think disliking plays is a stereotype about milennials. please dont make up new stereotypes about millennials. extra stout posted:Wagner got a lot of his ideas from the same source Tolkien did, the poetic/prose edda. they're both drawing from a bigger pool than just the poetic and prose eddas (which are two different books). most of what you quoted eg comes from the (also icelandic) volsunga saga rather than the eddas. similarly, a lot of the ring cycle comes from the eddas, but most of it is the (german) nibelungenlied, &c but yeah, what hieronymous and radio said. tolkien was a scholar of medieval literature, and while i've no doubt wagner was an influence, his primary sources are going to be the same medieval texts on which wagner also drew. so if you like wagner you should check out the sagas, because they own chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Sep 16, 2016 |
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Sep 16, 2016 05:23
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Radio! posted:Have you read The Story of Kullervo? It's a pretty recent publication that covers the really early evolution of Turin's story, which was originally just an adaptation of the Finnish story about a dude named Kullervo whose family is forced into captivity when he's a child, then he's separated from them for years and when he comes back to take revenge of his family's oppressors he meets his sister whom he doesn't recognize and ends up boning. Everyone dies. . It sounds like it'd be right up your alley. Nope, if I knew it had a Middle-Earth connection even vaguely I would have, it's not that I'm not interested in more of Tolkien's work, but just that for now I try to reduce my obsession and try out more authors each year. Thanks! Hieronymous Alloy posted:One thing to be aware of is that in pretty much every element that Tolkien's stories have in common with Wagner, they also have in common with much older folklore -- Tolkien and Wagner were drawing on the same sources. While this is true, I mentioned it in my post so I feel like without quoting a very similar passage from one of those older sources I don't know what I gain from just being reminded that every idea can be traced further back, I find the actual direct comparison to be enjoyable, and hope others do too. I imagine if we go back far enough, the comparisons will be even further removed and enjoyable independently but less easy to relate to Tolkien. End Of Worlds posted:i dont think disliking plays is a stereotype about milennials. please dont make up new stereotypes about millennials. Another thing we do as millennials is invent stereotypes of millennials, so this only adds to the list. That saga is on the long list of things I need to read fully, but again unless you've got some Icelandic quotes regarding inspirations of narsil, Beren & Luthien, etc, this doesn't give me anything juicy to bite into. extra stout fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Sep 16, 2016 |
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Sep 16, 2016 06:44
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extra stout posted:
Tolkien did write a translation of The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, if you're still interested.
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Sep 16, 2016 15:01
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drat. The minute I decide to re-read the books, the conversation here dries up. You even had me wanting to read the Silmarillion again after 15 years. 
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Sep 22, 2016 10:34
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Octy posted:drat. The minute I decide to re-read the books, the conversation here dries up. You even had me wanting to read the Silmarillion again after 15 years. The road goes ever on. Nothing wrong with pausing to enjoy the scenery. 
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Sep 22, 2016 11:08
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Indeed. I'm having just enough fun on my own thinking about Glorfindel! There's so much extra lore in these books which isn't in the movies that I feel like I 'learn' something new every time.
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Sep 23, 2016 06:22
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Octy posted:Indeed. I'm having just enough fun on my own thinking about Glorfindel! There's so much extra lore in these books which isn't in the movies that I feel like I 'learn' something new every time. Way back when OG X-Com first came out in the 90's I named one of my soldiers Glorfindel. He went on to be the most bad-rear end sniper ever, got to the highest rank and was the only survivor of the raid on Mars. Obviously one of his minor but more successful rebirths into middle-earth.
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Sep 26, 2016 19:25
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Funny, I've got Thorin Oakenshield as my master sniper in Xcom 2 right now. Haven't seen any orcs yet though.
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Sep 26, 2016 21:29
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I've recently started revisiting this stuff on audiobook after not touching it for almost two decades and I have a question that's been in the back of my mind for a while: What do the Bagginses', Tooks and Brandybucks actually do for a living? Are they essentially just feudal landowners growing fat off the toil of the other Hobbits while living comfortable lives in their mansion holes? I was obsessed with Tolkien as a teenager and had borderline encyclopedic knowledge of his work and I can't dredge up a single memory of him describing any of these families doing anything that would be considered a job.
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Sep 28, 2016 04:32
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Funky See Funky Do posted:I've recently started revisiting this stuff on audiobook after not touching it for almost two decades and I have a question that's been in the back of my mind for a while: What do the Bagginses', Tooks and Brandybucks actually do for a living? Are they essentially just feudal landowners growing fat off the toil of the other Hobbits while living comfortable lives in their mansion holes? I was obsessed with Tolkien as a teenager and had borderline encyclopedic knowledge of his work and I can't dredge up a single memory of him describing any of these families doing anything that would be considered a job. Yeah, I think they pretty much are just feudal landowners, although Bilbo at least worked to increase his wealth in a way. Frankly, I'm more interested in the social structure of the Elves. They can't all spend their time swanning around like Galadriel, surely.
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Sep 28, 2016 04:53
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Octy posted:Yeah, I think they pretty much are just feudal landowners, although Bilbo at least worked to increase his wealth in a way. Frankly, I'm more interested in the social structure of the Elves. They can't all spend their time swanning around like Galadriel, surely. I always assumed they functioned like Star Trek's Federation; they were advanced enough to be beyond petty concerns for material wealth and all, and they just all just did what was necessary to support the community.
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Sep 28, 2016 05:03
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I mean you might as well ask what Lord Willoughby Clothingbottom, Third Marquess of Sainsbury, circa 1870 does for a living, right?
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Sep 28, 2016 05:06
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Funky See Funky Do posted:I've recently started revisiting this stuff on audiobook after not touching it for almost two decades and I have a question that's been in the back of my mind for a while: What do the Bagginses', Tooks and Brandybucks actually do for a living? Are they essentially just feudal landowners growing fat off the toil of the other Hobbits while living comfortable lives in their mansion holes? I was obsessed with Tolkien as a teenager and had borderline encyclopedic knowledge of his work and I can't dredge up a single memory of him describing any of these families doing anything that would be considered a job. Rent is a great and noble form of passive income.
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Sep 28, 2016 05:07
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Octy posted:Yeah, I think they pretty much are just feudal landowners, although Bilbo at least worked to increase his wealth in a way. Frankly, I'm more interested in the social structure of the Elves. They can't all spend their time swanning around like Galadriel, surely. They spend the rest of it reciting poetry.
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Sep 28, 2016 05:08
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They're landowners, yeah. Bagginses, Tooks, and Brandybucks are upper-class. The ones who work, manage; others just inherit. Families like the Gamgees are their tenants, working and living on their lands and giving some portion of the food grown there in exchange. The Took clan is the closest thing the Shire has to royalty; Frodo and Merry are Pippin's cousins.
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Sep 28, 2016 05:12
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I figured as much. While I'm here has anyone ever seen a good depiction of a balrog that didn't look like hulking horned demon? I'd always pictured them as a large man shaped blackness that was on fire. I'm not sure what Tolkien had in mind when he described them. I seem to remember he was unhappy with them being depicted as winged and bestial but at the same time I remember him describing subjecting elves to the "torture of balrogs" with "tooth and claw".
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Sep 28, 2016 05:25
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Funky See Funky Do posted:I figured as much. While I'm here has anyone ever seen a good depiction of a balrog that didn't look like hulking horned demon? I'd always pictured them as a large man shaped blackness that was on fire. I'm not sure what Tolkien had in mind when he described them. I seem to remember he was unhappy with them being depicted as winged and bestial but at the same time I remember him describing subjecting elves to the "torture of balrogs" with "tooth and claw". Well the Ralph Bakshi LOTR movie was a bit closer to what you're wanting
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Sep 28, 2016 05:28
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Octy posted:Yeah, I think they pretty much are just feudal landowners, although Bilbo at least worked to increase his wealth in a way. Frankly, I'm more interested in the social structure of the Elves. They can't all spend their time swanning around like Galadriel, surely. The implication seems to be that the elf economy revolves around 1) limited agriculture and hunting, and 2) extremely high-skill handicrafts. I imagine elven agriculture as being a lot like some of the theories about pre-columbian South American agriculture. Looks like a forest but oh look there's a *reason* the rain forest has so many edible-fruit-bearing trees etc. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Sep 28, 2016 |
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Sep 28, 2016 05:31
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That thing looked like a lion had sex with a goat that was pregnant by a bat.
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Sep 28, 2016 05:31
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Bongo Bill posted:They're landowners, yeah. Bagginses, Tooks, and Brandybucks are upper-class. The ones who work, manage; others just inherit. Families like the Gamgees are their tenants, working and living on their lands and giving some portion of the food grown there in exchange. The Took clan is the closest thing the Shire has to royalty; Frodo and Merry are Pippin's cousins.
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Sep 28, 2016 06:41
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The hobbits and the shire were a feudal fief under the king of Arnor before that kingdom fell apart and they just kept the whole thing going with secret protection from the Rangers. As for elves I don't think they farm. They are much to blue blood for that. So they probably just don't eat much. But they make bread and wine so who knows. You can make bread and wine from gathering stuff that grows in the wild. euphronius fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Sep 28, 2016 |
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Sep 28, 2016 12:35
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There are pretty clearly working class elves in The Hobbit. Remember the guys in the wine cellar. 
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Sep 28, 2016 12:40
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