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I always liked how the Door of Moria was invisible so the Elves were nice enough to graffiti on it one day so people would know where they were going.
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# ? Aug 12, 2019 22:33 |
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# ? Jun 12, 2024 05:13 |
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skasion posted:Gandalf the Grey and even Gandalf the White don’t have 100% of the powers, knowledge, feelings etc that their spirit possessed when it was among the Maiar of Valinor. “Olorin I was in my youth in the west that is forgotten.” Actually, Gandalf’s incarnation is old as hell and there’s a couple times he complains of memory problems. He used to know every spell to open doors but now he only knows a couple hundred. He cannot remember the route through Moria precisely and needs to trust his instincts. Most interesting to me, he wishes to look in the palantir — not to see anything that would be useful to him at the moment, but so that he can see Fëanor working in Tirion in the years of the Trees. While I agree that Gandalf seems to be definitely limited by his incarnation, I have always taken that quote to mean that the West is forgotten, not his youth, and that neither are forgotten by him. Of course the Elves haven't forgotten the West either since like 50% of their songs are about the Trees and Elbereth, so I guess he means Men (besides Numenoreans) and thus Hobbits have forgotten about Valinor.
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# ? Aug 12, 2019 22:35 |
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Pham Nuwen posted:While I agree that Gandalf seems to be definitely limited by his incarnation, I have always taken that quote to mean that the West is forgotten, not his youth, and that neither are forgotten by him. Of course the Elves haven't forgotten the West either since like 50% of their songs are about the Trees and Elbereth, so I guess he means Men (besides Numenoreans) and thus Hobbits have forgotten about Valinor. It can also mean that the West as an abstract concept is remembered, but what it was actually like is forgotten. The Elves sing lots of songs about the light of the Trees but only a few left in Middle Earth actually saw them.
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# ? Aug 12, 2019 22:50 |
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Arcsquad12 posted:I always liked how the Door of Moria was invisible so the Elves were nice enough to graffiti on it one day so people would know where they were going. Classic elves
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# ? Aug 12, 2019 23:50 |
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Gandalf is a hedge wizard who claims a divine mandate to get into all the cool clubs. Of course he's going to say that God was behind everything.
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# ? Aug 13, 2019 23:46 |
sassassin posted:Gandalf is a hedge wizard who claims a divine mandate to get into all the cool clubs. Of course he's going to say that God was behind everything. There's an interesting parallel between the little notes of fortune which seem to get read by people in the setting as the acts of God, if not in so many words, and the bullshit the Ring pulled throughout history with falling off fingers and so forth.
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# ? Aug 14, 2019 00:02 |
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Could Tom Bombadil have punched 1,000 adult male chimpazees to death if they all attacked him at once?
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# ? Aug 14, 2019 09:58 |
Zippy the Bummer posted:Could Tom Bombadil have punched 1,000 adult male chimpazees to death if they all attacked him at once? He could, but he would probably just sing to them instead.
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# ? Aug 14, 2019 11:24 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZouiWmzWoY
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# ? Aug 14, 2019 13:44 |
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Gandalf himself talks about chance in Unfinished Tales where’s he describing how he met Thorin in Bree. quote:“‘It might all have gone very differently indeed. The main attack was diverted southwards, it is true; and yet even so with his far-stretched right hand Sauron could have done terrible harm in the North, while we defended Gondor, if King Brand and King Dáin had not stood in his path. When you think of the great Battle of Pelennor, do not forget the Battle of Dale. Think of what might have been. Dragon-fire and savage swords in Eriador! There might be no Queen in Gondor. We might now only hope to return from the victory here to ruin and ash. But that has been averted–because I met Thorin Oakenshield one evening on the edge of spring not far from Bree. A chance-meeting, as we say in Middle-earth.’” There’s also a bit about their bodies - they were originally Maiar, like Sauron. quote:
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# ? Aug 15, 2019 02:19 |
normally i keep politics out of the tolkien thread but https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1068570213073903616
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# ? Aug 20, 2019 02:27 |
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Not really book related, but does anyone know if there's a way to buy the Costa Botes documentaries for the film trilogy without needing to track down the hard to find limited edition DVDs?
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# ? Aug 20, 2019 05:19 |
So who-all's seen the Tolkien movie? I thought it was really excellent, way better than the trailer with its on-the-nose chopped-together dialogue made it seem. The focus on language (which doesn't hold the audience's hand at all) was a wonderful surprise, and so were the visual references strewn throughout it which served as the best kind of fanservice—the kind you wouldn't even recognize if you weren't a total nerd. The cellar door segment was kinda brilliant, and the fact that they actually used Eala Earendel engla beorhtast in dialogue put it way over the top for me. The ending was kinda weak and thematically dissonant, but everything up to that point was really great I thought. And though I suppose I might have liked a bit more of his self-deprecation and utter lack of ego that is at the center of why I like him so much, the characterization seemed spot-on from what I know.
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# ? Aug 24, 2019 02:46 |
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I haven't seen it- good to hear it's worth catching, though.
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# ? Sep 2, 2019 07:07 |
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And lo, from that time, Feanor was cursed to have a wife with a really stupid name
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# ? Oct 19, 2019 04:21 |
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skasion posted:
Funny how the Rankin/Bass cartoon I saw as a small child actually got that right (minus the white robes and ring of fire vision). I was pretty upset that this wasn't depicted in PJ's ROTK, along with the way the ring was destroyed. This was my introduction to fantasy and I was hooked; it aired on TV and my dad recorded it on VHS when it first aired on ABC. For some reason it impressed me more than EST (which came out the same year). It was so unlike any "fairy tale" I had ever come across. Read those books voraciously, then the D&D craze of the early 80s was in full blast...
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# ? Oct 21, 2019 21:57 |
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Very excited the Bibliothèque Nationale François Mittérand in Paris is getting a Tolkien exhibition Journey to Middle-earth. I wonder if it's like the one that was in NYC? It's running through to February so I'll definitely grab a chance to check it out.
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# ? Oct 28, 2019 19:33 |
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100YrsofAttitude posted:Very excited the Bibliothèque Nationale François Mittérand in Paris is getting a Tolkien exhibition Journey to Middle-earth. I wonder if it's like the one that was in NYC? It's running through to February so I'll definitely grab a chance to check it out. I saw it two days ago, it seemed pretty similar from what I can tell from the NYC pictures, maybe a bit smaller. Lots of people though, had to wait more than one hour and a half to enter the exhibit.
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# ? Oct 30, 2019 08:23 |
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YaketySass posted:I saw it two days ago, it seemed pretty similar from what I can tell from the NYC pictures, maybe a bit smaller. Lots of people though, had to wait more than one hour and a half to enter the exhibit. The trick will be to wait for not a school holiday and to go closer to the end of the exhibit but not so close that it's the last minute panic rush. So early December or mid-January.
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# ? Oct 30, 2019 08:26 |
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Just listened to approximately 8 hours of podcasting on the poem Earendil is a Mariner Conclusion: it is a very good poem but I’m not mad at myself for skipping the poems for years. poo poo it dense
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 19:46 |
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I read the poems but skip the podcast episodes about them, has he finally got done with it? The best “Eärendil was a mariner” fact is that the version in Fellowship as published is a draft version thrown in as the book was going to printing because Tolkien lost his manuscript of the finished poem and couldn’t find it again till the 60s
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 20:10 |
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Wasn't there an updated version of LotR published fairly recently that fixed a number of the publication errors that were discovered during the writing of the History of Middle-Earth?
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 20:12 |
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skasion posted:I read the poems but skip the podcast episodes about them, has he finally got done with it? Nothing different : scanning , identifying the rhymes, analyzing the syntax , then understanding the meaning w in context of Many Meetings. I like the last stanza a lot And over Middle-earth he passed and heard at last the weeping sore of women and of elven-maids in Elder Days, in years of yore. But on him mighty doom was laid, till Moon should fade, an orbéd star to pass, and tarry never more on Hither Shores where mortals are; for ever still a herald on an errand that should never rest to bear his shining lamp afar, the Flammifer of Westernesse. Bilbo is pretty good at poems !!
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 20:16 |
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cheetah7071 posted:Wasn't there an updated version of LotR published fairly recently that fixed a number of the publication errors that were discovered during the writing of the History of Middle-Earth? There‘s a 50th and a 60th anniversary edition both of which fix some problems, but to my knowledge no published version of LOTR contains the added stanza “In might the Feänorians...” from the version that Christopher identified in THoME as finished. skasion fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Nov 5, 2019 |
# ? Nov 5, 2019 20:18 |
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I really wish they'd hurry up and get those In ebook format. I didn't know there was a different / more complete version of that poem.
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 22:17 |
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Tolkien Professor is going to go through 4 earendil poem early versions soon if you want to follow along
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 22:19 |
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Ynglaur posted:I really wish they'd hurry up and get those In ebook format. I didn't know there was a different / more complete version of that poem. Since that probably won’t be happening any time soon, here it is: quote:Eärendil was a mariner I like the bit about the Feänorians and the escape of Elwing but “Elder King/forever king” and the slightly different ending weirds me out.
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 22:24 |
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I can understand not adding in Feanorians at that part of LOTR. Also if Bilbo would have the chutzpah to bring up the feanorians in the Hall of Fire in Elronds house.
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 22:34 |
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The entire Earendil poem and the scene surrounding it is fairly incomprehensible with just the context LotR gives you, especially on a first read, and I can't imagine talking about Feanorians would make it any harder to follow than it already is
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 22:35 |
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euphronius posted:I can understand not adding in Feanorians at that part of LOTR. Tbf Aragorn does tell him he’s being a cheeky fucker by singing the song at all. Might as well be hanged for a sheep.
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 22:36 |
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The only new thing is Earendil iirc. Elbereth has already been mentioned. I guess someone in the 1950s would have no idea what a silmaril was.
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 22:38 |
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skasion posted:Tbf Aragorn does tell him he’s being a cheeky fucker by singing the song at all. Might as well be hanged for a sheep. I think it works as mortal’s reflection on the nature of fate (doom) and how it doesn’t always work out perfectly in the end right before the next chapter (council of Elrond) especially since Aragorn stands in as the Flammifer maybe in Bilbos mind
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 22:41 |
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euphronius posted:The only new thing is Earendil iirc. Elbereth has already been mentioned. Eärendil and the voyage with the Silmaril were already mentioned in Aragorn’s short short version of the Elder Days at Weathertop camp. The poem is the first occurrence of “Valinor” or “Eldamar” though a close reader might associate the latter with “Elvenhome” previously mentioned in the Lay of Leithian excerpt. “Arvernien”, “Nimbrethil”, “Ilmarin”, “Tirion”, “Tarmenel”, “Calacirian” are all new and quite mysterious. The “Elder King” is new and not explained till the appendix. Only “Westernesse” has already been thoroughly explained.
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 22:45 |
Weren't Arvernien and Nimbrethil in the published poem?
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 22:56 |
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Data Graham posted:Weren't Arvernien and Nimbrethil in the published poem? Oh yeah, all the ones I mention there are. My point is more that it’s just a poem full of weird new things regardless. One more weird new thing would hardly have tipped the balance.
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# ? Nov 5, 2019 23:03 |
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cheetah7071 posted:The entire Earendil poem and the scene surrounding it is fairly incomprehensible with just the context LotR gives you, especially on a first read, and I can't imagine talking about Feanorians would make it any harder to follow than it already is I can understand why some people would be frustrated by that but I like that Tolkien just throws lore bombs at you and doesn't always give you the background to fully appreciate or understand them. For me that adds to the wonder of the world. There's so many people and places and things I want to know more about with that universe but I'm left to wonder.
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# ? Nov 7, 2019 19:24 |
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I don’t think simple place names are a real stumbling block. Names of people or angels or whatever are much more important and we know who everyone is in that poem Maybe not Elwing In fact the poem used tons of passive voice to elude naming angels and elfs and stuff However this is all me being dumb because I didn’t even read the poems for 25 years
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# ? Nov 7, 2019 19:27 |
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The main part I remember thinking "this makes no sense without the Silmarillion" is the exchange where Aragorn calls Bilbo cheeky for writing a poem about Earendil in Elrond's house. Though maybe Elrond's parentage is mentioned in a throwaway line I forgot
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# ? Nov 7, 2019 19:39 |
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‘So it was indeed,’ answered Elrond gravely. ‘But my memory reaches back even to the Elder Days. Eärendil was my sire, who was born in Gondolin before its fall; and my mother was Elwing, daughter of Dior, son of Lúthien of Doriath. I have seen three ages in the West of the world, and many defeats, and many fruitless victories. —— There like 10 pages after the poem
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# ? Nov 7, 2019 19:48 |
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# ? Jun 12, 2024 05:13 |
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https://twitter.com/41strange/status/1192954581732323329?s=21
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# ? Nov 9, 2019 00:59 |