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rypakal
Oct 31, 2012

He also cooks the food of his people

nutranurse posted:

So what audiobook version of The Lord of the Rings do you guys prefer the most? I'm asking because I find myself doing work that... really doesn't need me to pay attention to it.

Since only one version exists, I prefer that one.

euphronius posted:

I finally found some textual support for my bald assertions. This passage is the Numenorians talking to the Valar through the Eldar as intermediaries:

Alternately, you could look halfway up the previous page.

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Blenheim
Sep 22, 2010

euphronius posted:

mellow-harshing

Dude, you're harshing the mellow. Don't harsh the mellow.

SilkyP
Jul 21, 2004

The Boo-Box

So I just finished the Hobbit and am on my way through the trilogy currently. I see some talk about the Simarillion and others and want to know what a recommended reading list might look like for someone who wants to continue to read about this stuff.

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



SilkyP posted:

So I just finished the Hobbit and am on my way through the trilogy currently. I see some talk about the Simarillion and others and want to know what a recommended reading list might look like for someone who wants to continue to read about this stuff.

The Simarillion is next if you want the guidebook/mythology, and The Children of Hurin if you want another novel. Both are worth your time. The Unfinished Tales is kinda cool, too, even though, as the title states, many of them aren't quite ready for prime time. I also dug The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, but if you're already past that part of Fellowship you already know if you're interested in that or not.

Fonstad's Atlas of Middle Earth is cool if you want to know more about the land itself. It's a gorgeous book.

If you're really hardcore you can then dive into the 12 volume History of Middle Earth, which is basically Christopher Tolkien publishing everything Middle Earth related he could get his hands on. Very cool and interesting, but definitely not for the uninitiated.

If you're pissed at Tolkien for being racist/classist or want to see the story from the perspective of the "Bad Guys," check out Eskov's The Last Ringbearer for oppressed Orc action under the tyrannical yoke of the Elves, or Carey's The Sundering duology for Sauron Satoris and The Witch King of Angmar Tanaros being misunderstood heroes trying their best to do what they think is right and who kinda just want to be left alone to do their thing. I liked both (and I'm not a Tolkien hater by any means), but a lot of people think they both missed the point of what Tolkien was trying to say and do. Worth your time for the discussion possibilities, if nothing else.

edit: and if you want "Similar, but different," you should check out ER Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros and Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books. The former was the previous king of English fantasy fiction, and there's no doubt Tolkien was a devotee of his work, and the latter is what you get when you take Tolkien's flair for description and fantasy world building and confine it to a small castle and a small family. Peake and Tolkien were contemporaries, and reading them side by side was a very pleasurable experience.

Toph Bei Fong fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Apr 2, 2013

Levitate
Sep 30, 2005

randy newman voice

YOU'VE GOT A LAFRENIÈRE IN ME
Expanding on that a bit, Children of Hurin is a story that's also told in the Silmarillion, but broken off into its own book and kind of pulled together from various sources to be the most complete version of the story. If you want to get a taste of some of the stuff in the Silmarillion, you could read it first and kind of get an idea of what you're getting into, though it's darker in a lot of ways than most of the Silmarillion.

The Silmarillion itself is like a collection of stories and histories that basically flesh out details from the beginning of the world up to the time of the LOTR. Lots of names thrown around, lots of naming of places and stuff, but lots of background on why things are they way they are later on and stories about some of the badasses of ancient Middle Earth.

Unfinished Tales is kind of like an expansion of the information in the Silmarillion in that it has a lot of other versions of things he wrote and then discarded or rewrote. So, you get some different ideas or more information on some things that he never got around to fleshing out later, but it doesn't have a ton of outright new material.

I haven't read the History of Middle Earth books but they seem to basically be the expanded version of Unfinished Tales. Basically all of the early versions, discarded versions, rewrites, things he jotted down but never incorporated, and stories he wrote as lays and then abandoned and rewrote in prose (he wrote several of the major stories as lays, including the story told in the Children of Hurin, before scrapping them).

Zopotantor
Feb 24, 2013

...und ist er drin dann lassen wir ihn niemals wieder raus...

Spoilers Below posted:

edit: and if you want "Similar, but different," you should check out ER Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros and Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books. The former was the previous king of English fantasy fiction, and there's no doubt Tolkien was a devotee of his work, and the latter is what you get when you take Tolkien's flair for description and fantasy world building and confine it to a small castle and a small family. Peake and Tolkien were contemporaries, and reading them side by side was a very pleasurable experience.

The Worm Ouroboros is fantastic, but oh boy does it drag. If you want to read it, be prepared for multi-page descriptions of the decorations of a throne room, etc. Also, the names (both of races and individuals) are just ridiculous (Eddison started writing TWO as a schoolboy, and obviously was fond of those names, as he never changed them).

Favorite quote:

Lord Gro posted:

Have I done amiss? 'Tis easy remedied.

Millions
Sep 13, 2007

Do you believe in heroes?
I finally managed to track down a few of the maps I've been looking for (thank you, Half Price Books!), so I thought I'd share my whole collection. The first one is framed in my office, I'm trying to decide if some of the others should follow suit... The first three are collected from various editions of LOTR and The Silmarillion, and the latter four are from John Howe and Brian Sibley's The Maps of Tolkien's Middle Earth.

(click for huge)






Millions fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Apr 2, 2013

Hamiltonian Bicycle
Apr 26, 2008

!
After all these years I still haven't read Eddison, but I've read Peake and I wouldn't say he was at all a world builder - his approach is more expressionistic than meticulous. If you can tell Tolkien was a philologist, you can tell Peake was a painter. His writing is full of vivid images, strange digressions, and colourful dialogue. Extremely worth reading but very dissimilar from Tolkien's work, in my opinion, whatever that's worth. v:shobon:v

But, yeah, for Tolkien I'd recommend either going in order of publication and moving on to the Silmarillion, or reading Children of Húrin first. It really depends on what you're interested in. Much of the Silmarillion really severely follows the original idea of a collection of ancient histories and annals; I love that a lot, but it's a turnoff for many. Children of Húrin does its best to mold what exists of the fullest version of one of the Silmarillion's major stories (much fuller than the one included in the published Silmarillion) into a novel in its own right, and is very worth reading as such. I think if you're coming from the more popular novels just now, I might actually recommend giving it a shot before the Silmarillion unless you're really fired up for fictional mythology like I was.

Toph Bei Fong
Feb 29, 2008



Hamiltonian Bicycle posted:

After all these years I still haven't read Eddison, but I've read Peake and I wouldn't say he was at all a world builder - his approach is more expressionistic than meticulous. If you can tell Tolkien was a philologist, you can tell Peake was a painter. His writing is full of vivid images, strange digressions, and colourful dialogue. Extremely worth reading but very dissimilar from Tolkien's work, in my opinion, whatever that's worth. v:shobon:v

I guess what I mean is, I got a really good sense of this small cramped space and these small horrible people who were trapped in it. It felt like all the work that Tolkien did to make Middle Earth seem like a real place with a real history crammed into one myopic, labyrinthine castle. All the work Tolkien put into describing the Mines of Moria or the Murkwood forest are instead lavished on a dusty library or a tree which grows from the side of the castle.

Teriyaki Hairpiece
Dec 29, 2006

I'm nae the voice o' the darkened thistle, but th' darkened thistle cannae bear the sight o' our Bonnie Prince Bernie nae mair.
Would you agree that 111 in hobbit years is probably like 65 or 70 for humans? If it's 65, that means that the Old Took, the oldest hobbit ever to live other than Bilbo or Gollum, died at the human-adjusted age of 76.

Teriyaki Hairpiece
Dec 29, 2006

I'm nae the voice o' the darkened thistle, but th' darkened thistle cannae bear the sight o' our Bonnie Prince Bernie nae mair.
The diet of hobbits seems pretty close to that of people who live in the American deep South. I mean it's all fried foods, booze, saturated fats, and smoked leaves. Does going to the Undying Lands cure your hobbit diabetes? Does it at least slow it down?

Levitate
Sep 30, 2005

randy newman voice

YOU'VE GOT A LAFRENIÈRE IN ME
It's probably more like standard English food, considering the author

sassassin
Apr 3, 2010

by Azathoth
Finished reading The Fall of Gondolin (Book of Lost Tales II) last night and it's awesome, but the reuse of names is pretty distracting. Legolas, Ecthelion (supreme badass), Glorfindel... It's entirely forgiveable given when he was writing it, but it does make me wish he'd been able to return to it later and give it a full rewrite.

The swarthy fellow rumoured to have a bit of orc blood in him betrays everyone? Who'd have guessed?

Balrogs riding armoured Drakes into battle. A movie version would be absolutely insane.

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

That is the same Glorfindal as in LOTR.

concerned mom
Apr 22, 2003

by Lowtax
Grimey Drawer

euphronius posted:

That is the same Glorfindal as in LOTR.

I'm not so sure, I personally don't think it is and I don't know if we can ever be sure.

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/g/glorfindel.html

Octy
Apr 1, 2010

euphronius posted:

That is the same Glorfindal as in LOTR.

It was never confirmed. Even Tolkien was unsure about it when he realised the mistake.

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

It is confirmed in the book the Peoples of Middle Earth.

Octy
Apr 1, 2010

Tolkien messed up but I'm pretty sure he never edited Lord of the Rings to reflect the change of the two characters being the same person.

quote:

In The Return of the Shadow, Christopher Tolkien states that some time after the publication of The Lord of the Rings, his father "gave a great deal of thought to the matter of Glorfindel" in the book, and decided that it was a "somewhat random use" of a name from The Silmarillion that would probably have been changed, had it been noticed sooner.

sassassin
Apr 3, 2010

by Azathoth
It's a different character, in a different role. Their narratives are entirely disconnected.

The whole 'he came back from the dead and travelled to ME around the time Gandalf did' thing is an awkward retcon. Or not, depending on how 'canon/finished' you consider these stories. The Fall of Gondolin is cobbled together from two Tuor texts, with the story up to his arrival at Gondolin receiving a third expanded treatment I haven't read yet.

I prefer to think of it as a different dude anyway.

concerned mom
Apr 22, 2003

by Lowtax
Grimey Drawer
I think really when dealing with Middle Earth it's important to not deal in absolutes and just present all the facets because nothing's ever really concrete.

sassassin
Apr 3, 2010

by Azathoth

concerned mom posted:

I think really when dealing with Middle Earth it's important to not deal in absolutes and just present all the facets because nothing's ever really concrete.

Ecthelion killed Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, by ramming the spike of his helmet into his chest and dragging him into the fountain where they both drowned. That was the 4th balrog he killed that day*.

Seems pretty concrete to me :colbert:

* Which put him at best like 3rd in the balrog kill-count competition.

SHISHKABOB
Nov 30, 2012

Fun Shoe
I dunno, Gothmog was the captain of Morgoth's armies, or whatever? Lord of Balrogs? I feel like Ecthelion is the top dog in terms of killing Balrogs. I guess we sort of have to assume that the Balrogs that Gandalf and Glorfindel killed were just sort of "mook" Balrogs.

sassassin
Apr 3, 2010

by Azathoth

SHISHKABOB posted:

I dunno, Gothmog was the captain of Morgoth's armies, or whatever? Lord of Balrogs? I feel like Ecthelion is the top dog in terms of killing Balrogs. I guess we sort of have to assume that the Balrogs that Gandalf and Glorfindel killed were just sort of "mook" Balrogs.

If I were Glorfindel I'd be ashamed to show my face again having died killing one little balrog.

Tuor killed 5 in one fight, survived the battle and went off into the sunset with his wife and son. Men win.

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

Tuor even got turned into an elf, which is unique. He is the boring hero to Turin's tortured anti hero. Tuor did everything right, listened to Ulmo and was loyal.

V. Illych L.
Apr 11, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

Féanor took down a whole mess of balrogs during his last stand, no? Or am I misremembering?

concerned mom
Apr 22, 2003

by Lowtax
Grimey Drawer
Who is the oldest Elf still going? I guess presumably someone who crossed over the sea and stayed there in the first place?

SHISHKABOB
Nov 30, 2012

Fun Shoe
^^^ Cirdan, I think? Though also there's undoubtedly some Elves hanging around in Valinor who were never named but have been around since the Elves awoke.

V. Illych L. posted:

Féanor took down a whole mess of balrogs during his last stand, no? Or am I misremembering?

He certainly got surrounded by Balrogs, and Gothmog lopped his head off? Or that might be someone else. But yeah it's not unlikely that he killed some Balrogs, I guess.

SHISHKABOB fucked around with this message at 10:44 on Apr 11, 2013

Hogge Wild
Aug 21, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Pillbug
Just got Children of Húrin audiobook with Christopher Lee. Hail Satan it's good! There just couldn't be a better reader for it.

rypakal
Oct 31, 2012

He also cooks the food of his people

concerned mom posted:

Who is the oldest Elf still going? I guess presumably someone who crossed over the sea and stayed there in the first place?

You can make arguments for Cirdan, Thranduil, and Celeborn. Cirdan is the only one we're certain came from Cuivienen. I've sort of assumed that Celeborn is probably close in age to Galadrial, and we know she was born in Valinor, so she's nowhere near as old as Cirdan. Of course, there could be hundreds of elves like Thranduil who have have absolutely no idea how old they are.

sassassin
Apr 3, 2010

by Azathoth

rypakal posted:

You can make arguments for Cirdan, Thranduil, and Celeborn. Cirdan is the only one we're certain came from Cuivienen. I've sort of assumed that Celeborn is probably close in age to Galadrial, and we know she was born in Valinor, so she's nowhere near as old as Cirdan. Of course, there could be hundreds of elves like Thranduil who have have absolutely no idea how old they are.

If I understand elven power levels correctly, had Thranduil been that old Legolas would have been surfing around Helm's Deep or singlehandedly killing Oliphants or something.


Got to the part of the Fall of Gondolin notes where Christopher Tolkien says he found a scrap of paper from J.R.R.'s later writings that says there were never many balrogs around 'at most seven'.

Spoilsport.

rypakal
Oct 31, 2012

He also cooks the food of his people
I've always figured that Legolas is really young, much younger than Arwen and certainly a third-age baby. (e: yes, I got the joke)

concerned mom
Apr 22, 2003

by Lowtax
Grimey Drawer

rypakal posted:

You can make arguments for Cirdan, Thranduil, and Celeborn. Cirdan is the only one we're certain came from Cuivienen. I've sort of assumed that Celeborn is probably close in age to Galadrial, and we know she was born in Valinor, so she's nowhere near as old as Cirdan. Of course, there could be hundreds of elves like Thranduil who have have absolutely no idea how old they are.

Ah awesome, I didn't know Cirdan was at Cuivienen. Is he older even than Elves that stayed in Aman? Like er Ingwe or someone?

rypakal
Oct 31, 2012

He also cooks the food of his people

concerned mom posted:

Ah awesome, I didn't know Cirdan was at Cuivienen. Is he older even than Elves that stayed in Aman? Like er Ingwe or someone?

Cirdan was on the march West, and stayed behind to search for Elwe (Thingol) while Olwe took the rest of the Teleri across the sea. We have no way of measuring relative ages before this time, but he's certainly in that batch. Thranduil also possibly could have been on that march. We know that elves dropped off constantly in the trip West, and surely the Greenwood would have drawn some of them. No reason Thranduil can't have been the leader then, but no proof of it also. Celeborn we know was in Thingol's court when Galadriel arrived there, but we don't know anything beyond that. Again, he could have been part of the group that stayed behind with Cirdan, or born later.

Ingwe, Finwe, and Elwe are indisputably the three oldest elves, and Finwe and Elwe are dead.

One nice thing about the Noldor in MIddle-earth is that since the vast majority of them come from Finwe's second marriage, it's easier to date them and know they are younger than people like Cirdan.

euphronius
Feb 18, 2009

Thranduil never went to Valinor in the time of the two trees so he is a relatively nonpowerful elf. The most powerful elves in middle earth would be he ones who were in Valinor during the days of the two trees. Galadriel then is the most powerful elf in middle earth at the time of The Lord of he Rings.

Hogge Wild
Aug 21, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Pillbug

rypakal posted:

Cirdan was on the march West, and stayed behind to search for Elwe (Thingol) while Olwe took the rest of the Teleri across the sea. We have no way of measuring relative ages before this time, but he's certainly in that batch. Thranduil also possibly could have been on that march. We know that elves dropped off constantly in the trip West, and surely the Greenwood would have drawn some of them. No reason Thranduil can't have been the leader then, but no proof of it also. Celeborn we know was in Thingol's court when Galadriel arrived there, but we don't know anything beyond that. Again, he could have been part of the group that stayed behind with Cirdan, or born later.

Ingwe, Finwe, and Elwe are indisputably the three oldest elves, and Finwe and Elwe are dead.

One nice thing about the Noldor in MIddle-earth is that since the vast majority of them come from Finwe's second marriage, it's easier to date them and know they are younger than people like Cirdan.

Some elves did drop off at the Greenwood and afterwards they were called the Sylvan elves.

Thranduil was the son of Oropher and they were both Sindar. Oropher lived in Doriath in the First Age. He became the king of the Sylvan elves of Greenwood the Great (later known as Mirkwood because of Sauron) in the Second age when some of the Sindar crossed the Misty Mountains. Oropher died in the Battle of Dagorlad in the Dead Marches in the end of the Second Age, and Thranduil became the new king.

NovemberMike
Dec 28, 2008

SHISHKABOB posted:

He certainly got surrounded by Balrogs, and Gothmog lopped his head off? Or that might be someone else. But yeah it's not unlikely that he killed some Balrogs, I guess.

IIRC Feanor was talking to his sons at his death, he didn't have his head chopped off. IIRC he basically charged ahead alone, got ambushed by a ton of Balrogs, took a bunch of them down but he got burned to death because he was surrounded by things that are on fire.

kenlyric
Nov 16, 2012

NovemberMike posted:

IIRC Feanor was talking to his sons at his death, he didn't have his head chopped off. IIRC he basically charged ahead alone, got ambushed by a ton of Balrogs, took a bunch of them down but he got burned to death because he was surrounded by things that are on fire.

He was the worst person, and the worst father, even as he lay dying. Forcing his sons to make their oath even worse, as he lay dying from the curse destroying him. Man I hate that guy so much.

Levitate
Sep 30, 2005

randy newman voice

YOU'VE GOT A LAFRENIÈRE IN ME
Yup Feanor was a prick

Lemniscate Blue
Apr 21, 2006

Here we go again.

Levitate posted:

Yup Feanor was a prick

silmarillion.txt

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SHISHKABOB
Nov 30, 2012

Fun Shoe

BatteredFeltFedora posted:

silmarillion.txt

That would be "Morgoth is a prick." Don't forget that pretty much all the evil in the world is because of him.

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