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Good thing Tolkien wrote a whole essay about the intricacies of elvish marriage and family life. They exchanged silver rings in token of betrothal. During the wedding ceremony they gave them back in exchange for golden rings in token of marriage. It was a custom specific to the Noldor for the bride’s mother to give a jeweled pendant or collar to the groom, and the groom’s father likewise to the bride. (This is the importance of Galadriel, as Arwen’s closest female relative, giving Aragorn the elfstone). The author of Laws & Customs specifies, however, that this exchange was not considered necessary for marriage, but only an act of familial recognition of the union; the only thing required to make a union legally binding was loving and invoking the name of God to bless it, and he assures us that the Noldor did this a lot. A sword would have been irregular at best if we take this author seriously, seems like a rather sinister choice tbh.
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Sep 24, 2018 21:15
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Could have been the swords that Celebrian's guards were carrying when they failed to defend her from all the orc molestation.
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Sep 24, 2018 21:19
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Yeah I figure Celebrian probably wasn’t traveling alone, and one might easily assume most of her retinue was killed. Wasn’t she on her way to visit her mom in Lothlorien? The swords might have just been cargo— on loan for Galadriel to study, or on their way back from a repair, or in the hand of an unnamed kinsman who was slain defending, whatever. Maybe they were lost in the following series of conflicts during and after Celebrian’s rescue. Maybe part of a ransom gone wrong, even. Gandalf didn’t necessarily have to recognize them for what they were to realize that they were Elrond’s turf, either. Like, hey, I think I’ve seen a sword like that hanging on Elrond’s wall, couldn’t be the same one surely, but he’ll probably know more about it than I will. I realize this narrative is the equivalent of all those vidja game quests where you recover the NPC’s dead father’s sword and then he gives it to you for no good loving reason. But I do love me a good alternative interpretation (except for Titty Shelob, I hate Titty Shelob)
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Sep 24, 2018 22:16
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Appendix A explicitly says that she was escorted and that her escort was scattered — probably they were not well prepared for a fight, since the context in which this comes up is the sudden resurgence of goblins into Misty Mountains after they had mostly been ethnically cleansed from Eriador centuries before by the destruction of Angmar.
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Sep 24, 2018 22:24
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Are elves afraid of death, since they reincarnate?
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Sep 24, 2018 22:51
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Are elves afraid of death, since they reincarnate? Fingolfin says, "Nope." 
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Sep 24, 2018 22:52
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At the very least, dying is very inconvient and to be avoided for that reason
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Sep 24, 2018 22:54
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Throwback to the discussion on Orc immortality. I thought it was fairly obvious by this line from The Silmarillion: 'For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Iluvatar'. Then again, Men are also Children so...
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Sep 24, 2018 23:13
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Octy posted:Throwback to the discussion on Orc immortality. I thought it was fairly obvious by this line from The Silmarillion: 'For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Iluvatar'. On the contrary, I read that to mean that the orcs have free will and their own agency, as opposed to like dwarves when Aule first makes them when they are like weird automatons.
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Sep 24, 2018 23:29
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Octy posted:Throwback to the discussion on Orc immortality. I thought it was fairly obvious by this line from The Silmarillion: 'For the Orcs had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of Iluvatar'. The only thing that line seems to support is that the Orcs were made from corrupted Elves or Men, since only Iluvatar can create "true" life (possessing of free will?) per the story of the creation of the Dwarves. pre-emptive response against sassassin's usual response about "evil corrupted orcs" being Elven propaganda against noble Melkor: maybe the elves were actually little talking mice, and Sauron was John F Kennedy with a time machine, and hobbits were just invented by a mischievous Gondorian scribe, but I prefer to speculate based on things that actually appear in the texts
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Sep 24, 2018 23:33
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Pham Nuwen posted:The only thing that line seems to support is that the Orcs were made from corrupted Elves or Men, since only Iluvatar can create "true" life (possessing of free will?) per the story of the creation of the Dwarves. I don't think that sounds like me. I don't know much at all about Kennedy, so I wouldn't feel comfortable drawing any parallels there. "Only Iluvatar can create true life" is clearly cultish mumbo-jumbo, though. The legends of notoriously proud and haughty Elves suggest their own racial superiority, you say? Why then it must be true! Orcs are clearly alive and sentient in the books, and distinct from Elves (bearing a much closer physical resemblance to Men, Dwarves and Hobbits).
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Sep 24, 2018 23:46
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"Only Iluvatar can create true life" isn't some random point in the text to quibble over, it's deeply rooted in Tolkien's Catholicism and forms the cornerstone of the Universe's metaphysics. If you take that away, sure you're free to say what ever you want about the rest of the work but you've thrown out the basis of the moral system the work rests on. I like the idea of "Orc" as the corruption rather than a particular species. Take whatever Children of Iluvatar you can get your dark lord hands on, work your mojo, and boom: Orcs. Along with maintaining the ability to breed by themselves, whatever rebellious spirit is currently causing trouble could constantly resupply their forces from whatever species is at hand.
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Sep 25, 2018 01:22
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The thing is, the idea that only God can create life and that this must preclude a non-elvish/human/whatever origin for orcs is 1) an LOTR-era retcon contradicted by earlier writings 2) controverted within LOTR itself (Treebeard’s remarks on trolls) 3) remarkably poorly-sourced in-universe, from texts with enormous self-interest in saying so 4) susceptible to its own theological problems which Tolkien attempted to confront (would a good God really agree to provide human/elvish souls to be doomed to an existence as the slaves of the devil?) 5) obviously not completely settled in Tolkien’s mind as evinced by his writing down his many, sometimes very odd opinions on what orcs were (“malformed beasts taught to talk by rote”? Really?)
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Sep 25, 2018 01:59
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Reading the sil like a syncretic text or elvish propaganda document is fun but not particularly usefulOctaviusBeaver posted:Are elves afraid of death, since they reincarnate? Considering that love of the world is baked into their very being and once they leave middle earth they’re not allowed back 99.99% of the time (or 100% depending on what you think about Glorfindel) I’d imagine its less frightening and more intensely frustrating
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Sep 25, 2018 02:00
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The published Silmarillion literally is an incomplete document redacted from a series of interrelated, but mutually incompatible works. I don’t think it’s reaching or “useless” (wtf does this even mean) to consider from what point of view the text is, in its own fictional conceit, being written. Tolkien didn’t have to come up with elaborate rationale for why the text exists and who wrote it down and how he only translated it, he could have made like many good and many more bad fantasy authors and just ignored the entire question and said here’s a book, now read it. But he encourages us to think of stories as told by specific people in specific times and places from specific points of view. It’s all right there in the LOTR prologue. Frodo wrote this story, it was copied many times, and this is the version that the King’s Writer of Gondor made.
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Sep 25, 2018 02:12
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If the Elves don't understand Eru's purpose in creating Melkor, how can they understand His purpose in creating Orcs, whom I now assert are also Children of Ilúvatar?
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Sep 25, 2018 02:29
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Orcs as Gentiles... just bouncing some ideas around in my head...
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Sep 25, 2018 03:03
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Heithinn Grasida posted:I haven’t played the Shadow of Mordor games, only watched bits of the first one on Youtube. But my sense of them is that they may be fun games, with a lot of attention paid to details on the source material, but they don’t do anything with it. There’s no evolution on the concepts or issues that were important in the legendarium. Rather, sexy Shelob and the like is naked devolution. Characters are included to just be exciting or titillating in the moment you interact with them, rather than representing a larger narrative or theme. So there’s nothing wrong with criticizing them, and doing so isn’t the same as wanting Tolkien’s works to be eternally static. Honestly I thought the games did explore one theme of Tolkien at least somewhat decently, "using the tools of evil to defeat evil produces only more evil". All the abilities you're running around with make your character in a very real sense do to the orcs what Sauron tries to do to everybody else, dominate their wills/kill with overwhelming force/terrify them/etc. And the game(s) do not shy away from pointing out just how messed up that is or how it takes the reasonable purpose of opposing Sauron and twists it into something just as bad. If anything it kind of hammers it bluntly given you've got a "Bright Lord" vs. the Dark Lord. I also kind of like the idea they had in the second that many of the Nazgul are in fact "replacements" over the years created when one of the Nine is handed to some hapless idiot who inevitably gets turned into effectively a copy of the Nazgul that was "slain". Big lore break obviously, but the idea that the Nine Rings just bend any living person into a faceless relentlessly obedient useful slave who can easily be replaced when the one who rules their Ring wants to... feels very rightly Sauron to me, the ultimate expression of crushing wills to your own whim without a care for what that person was. So I can't really say the games didn't try to play with Tolkien's themes interestingly, though how WELL they did so is open to debate (yeah, sexy Shelob was... not needed, though it didn't break my enjoyment of the game as a whole).
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Sep 25, 2018 04:26
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skasion posted:As you might expect of a guy his age, Gandalf’s memory is kind of suspect on occasion. He basically completely forgot about Thrain’s map and key for what, like 100 years? And those were in his pockets! Granted he had other business to take care of and not much to go on. Except Gandalf is not a human being! He takes the form of an old human specifically to manipulate humans into doing what he wants. I wish the movies addressed this. He's not an old man who has the occupation of wizard, he's a weird almost immortal being who people call a wizard.
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Sep 25, 2018 04:59
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The Valar did give the Istari their bodies, which resembled those of men.
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Sep 25, 2018 05:38
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While taking human form, Olorin as Gandalf the Grey is subject to human frailty. He gets frightened, angry, hungry, forgetful, etc like any old dude, only a bit more so. I’m kind of joking about his bad memory but there is significant evidence that Gandalf’s faculties are limited by the shape he has taken, more so than the faculties of other Ainur like Melian and Sauron who took humanoid form of their own will. He struggles to recall his opening-spells at the west gate of Moria, and once they are inside he very nearly gets them lost and has to guide them through one junction by instinct. Remember, he is of the same order as Radagast, who almost literally forgot his divine mission and chose to just chill out and protect the birds and beasts.
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Sep 25, 2018 05:45
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MadDogMike posted:Honestly I thought the games did explore one theme of Tolkien at least somewhat decently, "using the tools of evil to defeat evil produces only more evil". All the abilities you're running around with make your character in a very real sense do to the orcs what Sauron tries to do to everybody else, dominate their wills/kill with overwhelming force/terrify them/etc. And the game(s) do not shy away from pointing out just how messed up that is or how it takes the reasonable purpose of opposing Sauron and twists it into something just as bad. If anything it kind of hammers it bluntly given you've got a "Bright Lord" vs. the Dark Lord. I also kind of like the idea they had in the second that many of the Nazgul are in fact "replacements" over the years created when one of the Nine is handed to some hapless idiot who inevitably gets turned into effectively a copy of the Nazgul that was "slain". Big lore break obviously, but the idea that the Nine Rings just bend any living person into a faceless relentlessly obedient useful slave who can easily be replaced when the one who rules their Ring wants to... feels very rightly Sauron to me, the ultimate expression of crushing wills to your own whim without a care for what that person was. So I can't really say the games didn't try to play with Tolkien's themes interestingly, though how WELL they did so is open to debate (yeah, sexy Shelob was... not needed, though it didn't break my enjoyment of the game as a whole). I would interpret Orcs as being deeply informed and influenced by the cultural imprint of Morgoth (if often at some removes) but retaining free will (or at least, as much free will as a hobbit or Boromir) and the potential for moral action. The orcs who took Merry and Pippin demonstrate this, as do the guards at Cirith Ungol. You could probably make a reasonable guess that the reason why the goblins in the Hobbit are somewhat less overtly cruel and brutal is because they've reverted to self-management and while they retain the cultural influence of their past, are not being constantly whipped into murderous behavior by evil angels with agendas. It's interesting to consider that the different types of 'Orc' might have come from men vs. elves though. That'd actually explain some inconsistencies pretty neatly.
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Sep 25, 2018 06:58
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I only slay free range orc.
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Sep 25, 2018 08:50
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Nessus posted:It's interesting to consider that the different types of 'Orc' might have come from men vs. elves though. That'd actually explain some inconsistencies pretty neatly. If you can have tall, proud, pale Northerners and sallow, swarthy, scheming southerners in the race of Men then you can have Orcs appear somewhat distinct due to their specific upbringings/geography etc. There's no reason to conclude they sprang from distinct species (but are somehow both still closer to each other than those original species) simply because orcs of Moria are stunted and malnourished while orcs from Mordor are bigger and stronger, being fed by the labour of Men of the south. Early LotR spends a good deal of time explaining the various quirks of different regional offshoots of genus "hobbit". Tolkien's love of bloodlines and breeding precludes any reading that requires rigid, D&D-style racial classifications. We don't have Elves and Men and Hobbits, we have Noldor and Sindar and Numenorean and Fallowhides and Harfoots and some of the latter have a bit of Elf in them, they say. Hillmen of Dunland are different from the straw haired horse-lovers that stole their lands. That orcs/goblins/uruks aren't identical isn't an inconsistency that needs solving. It's consistent with how Tolkien constructs and views his world.
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Sep 25, 2018 12:44
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skasion posted:While taking human form, Olorin as Gandalf the Grey is subject to human frailty. He gets frightened, angry, hungry, forgetful, etc like any old dude, only a bit more so. I’m kind of joking about his bad memory but there is significant evidence that Gandalf’s faculties are limited by the shape he has taken, more so than the faculties of other Ainur like Melian and Sauron who took humanoid form of their own will. He struggles to recall his opening-spells at the west gate of Moria, and once they are inside he very nearly gets them lost and has to guide them through one junction by instinct. Remember, he is of the same order as Radagast, who almost literally forgot his divine mission and chose to just chill out and protect the birds and beasts. Makes sense that the Valar would want to limit the power of the Istari; they were still wary about that whole sinking a continent through decades of all out angelic warfare thing. Even the one Istari who tried to take over was just making a play for the One Ring not exercising the full force of a Maia.
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Sep 25, 2018 13:13
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Looking at it that way really does color the war in an interesting way. Like there's always the undercurrent of mutually assured destruction. ...Middle Earth is Vietnam.
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Sep 25, 2018 15:52
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skasion posted:While taking human form, Olorin as Gandalf the Grey is subject to human frailty. He gets frightened, angry, hungry, forgetful, etc like any old dude, only a bit more so..... This is one of the main reasons behind Saruman’s fall and corruption as well. He always has a high opinion of himself, but he doesn’t start thinking about gaining power and ruling over poo poo until he’s been in Middle Earth for a while. While he was always chief among the Istari, Gandalf notes that he was once serious in his role and didn’t become arrogant and detached until much later. And after Isengard is sacked, Merry/Pippin/Gimli/etc have that whole conversation just marveling at how he’s been living high on the hog like royalty, stocking his pantry with the finest goodies and creature comforts that the entire freaking continent has to offer. He’s got fancy cured meat, bottles of top-shelf booze, the most premium pipeweed from the Shire (which is extra ironic after he chides Gandalf for smoking too much of “the hobbits’ leaf” as though he’s above that).... And there’s a major parallel between him and Denethor and how their Palantiri warp their minds and fool them into doing Sauron’s bidding, arguably over lust for power and a reinforced belief that Gandalf’s cause is lost and worthless. Denethor is twisted between the hopelessness of opposing Mordor and the fear and anger over some dirty rando from the North showing up to end his family’s reign. Saruman grows to see the races of Middle Earth as beneath him and worth subjugating while harboring a desire to rival Sauron in strength and influence in order to one day supplant him.
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Sep 25, 2018 16:02
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Saruman doesn’t make a joke about hobbits leaf to Gandalf.
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Sep 25, 2018 16:49
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euphronius posted:Saruman doesn’t make a joke about hobbits leaf to Gandalf. I think in the movie he does but yeah that line isn't in the books.
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Sep 25, 2018 17:14
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It's in Unfinished Tales.The Hunt for the Ring posted:Now truth to tell, observing Gandalf's love of the herb that he called 'pipe-weed' (for which, he said, if for nothing else, the Little People should be honoured), Saruman had affected to scoff at it, but in private he made trial of it, and soon began to use it; and for this reason the Shire remained important to him. Yet he dreaded lest this should be discovered, and his own mockery turned against him, so that he would be laughed at for imitating Gandalf, and scorned for doing so by stealth.
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Sep 25, 2018 19:34
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Lol at Gandalf showing up to the serious business council and contributing nothing while smoking like a fuckin tire fire
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Sep 25, 2018 20:09
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Saruman: "We get it, you vape"
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Sep 25, 2018 20:28
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Owned by the Lost Tales. I should have known:
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Sep 25, 2018 20:29
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Lol Gandolf was just the really quiet dude wearing all gray clothes just filling the whole room with ragweed smell and dropping a sick burn that isn’t even the good but just so out of nowhere everyone is just dead silent and he leaves to go to Taco Bell
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Sep 25, 2018 20:33
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Trin Trangula do not read this post Episode 73 of exploring lord of the rings is a somewhat standalone analysis of the below posted poem in book 1 of LOTR. I didn’t like or understand poetry much before listening to dr Olson so .. idk I think it’s good https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tolkien-professor/id320513707?mt=2#episodeGuid=TolkienProf_442 The leaves were long, the grass was green, The hemlock-umbels tall and fair, And in the glade a light was seen Of stars in shadow shimmering. Tinúviel was dancing there To music of a pipe unseen, And light of stars was in her hair, And in her raiment glimmering.
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Sep 25, 2018 21:22
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euphronius posted:Trin Trangula do not read this post As long as you know you're playing in the kiddie pool, have fun 
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Sep 25, 2018 21:32
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Step 2 on the poetry analysis ladder: recognizing that iambic and trochaic are meaningless interchangeable bunk
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Sep 25, 2018 21:47
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Lord Hydronium posted:It's in Unfinished Tales. euphronius posted:Owned by the Lost Tales. I should have known:  I was quoting the movie, but I’ve read Unfinished Tales. It’s good.
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Sep 26, 2018 04:56
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skasion posted:Lol at Gandalf showing up to the serious business council and contributing nothing while smoking like a fuckin tire fire poisonpill posted:Lol Gandolf was just the really quiet dude wearing all gray clothes just filling the whole room with ragweed smell and dropping a sick burn that isn’t even the good but just so out of nowhere everyone is just dead silent and he leaves to go to Taco Bell https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0118836/
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Sep 26, 2018 05:00
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euphronius posted:The leaves were long, the grass was green, I don’t know why but I’ve always read this and many other LOTR poems to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel
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Sep 26, 2018 15:50
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