Tolkien's Middle-Earth: He was just Beorn this way

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Tolkien's Middle-Earth: He was just Beorn this way

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

xcheopis posted:

Can you get them through your local library system? It's what I've done and a good thing, too, as there are only a few that I would want to own.

Good plan. Unless you are loaded and want to chuck a bunch of cash at not very much for a nice wall decoration its not very interesting stuff.

Endless CT writing up unfinshed bits and 5 different versions of the pre releases of bits.

Maybe good for a student of writing, JRR was a prof of english after all but you aint getting much story in them.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2013 05:15

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 08:08

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

Radio! posted:

Would Glorfindel count? He did die, after all, fighting the Balrog in Gondolin. Wikipedia says he was sent back to Middle Earth by the Valar in the Second Age, so would you count his age from then or whenever he was actually born?

I always thought that was just another elf called Glorfindel, an ancestor, not the one who died.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 01:22

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

xcheopis posted:

Nope. Tolkien wrote several essays on how elves that die "unnaturally" (being slain counts as unnatural) can be "reborn" after a certain period in Mandos AND with the blessing of Manwe. It's complicated.

If you can remember and have time could you point me in the direction of that reference please? I have the entire collection but a crap memory

e: Something that is in the memory banks is 'Glorfindal son of Erestor' cant remember which text came from.

Seaside Loafer fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Feb 19, 2013

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 01:48

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

Thanks

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 01:58

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

Elrond did tell Aragorn you aint having my daughter until you are the high king.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 03:18

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

Effectronica posted:

Going further along this road, Aragorn mentions taking long journeys below the equator and far into the east in FOTR. It seems quite possible that these were essentially diplomatic missions to various neutral or anti-Sauron groups that would be in place to negotiate quick peace with Gondor once he took the throne.

I dont read it that way. I see it as him being a sort of roaming hero, getting into adventures and learning about the world.

His ancestry during this time was super top secret, no one except the other rangers, the top elves and gandalf knew who he was.

You can add that to the list of cool stuff JRR might have written, adventures of young strider

All we know is he was a big name captain of gondor 60 years ago, and the same in rohan.

Seaside Loafer fucked around with this message at 11:45 on Feb 19, 2013

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 11:42

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

Ape Gone Insane posted:

I think the Bombadil theories that have the most merit are him being an unnamed spirit that came down into Arda or him being a consequence of the discord in the Music between Eru and Melkor/Morgoth. The same going for Ungoliant.

Yes thats the way I take it. He is a spirit that popped down to earth while everyone else was arguing politics.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 15:07

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

euphronius posted:

Relatedly we don't have a good explanation or understanding of Orcs because the Elves didn't care about Orcs. And we don't know about the East and South because the Elves never lived in the South and lived in the East like 8 billion years ago and left.

Orcs are explained, they are elves and men captured by morgoth in the early days and corrupted and breeded.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 15:57

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

Its in black and white in early sil. I cant be arsed to punch up the text but its something like 'as the firstborn dwelt beside the lake sometimes some of them would wonder afield and not come back, they were taken by servants of morgoth', something like that.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 16:13

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

euphronius posted:

This is not even getting into the issues the JRRT was redoing the origins of the Orcs when he passed.

Do expand if you have time.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 16:27

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

Just a product of his time I guess.

There are masters and servants and the south men, often described as 'swarthy' are the bad men.

Doubt there was any intent there thats just the way the middle class worldview was in England in JRR's time.

Seaside Loafer fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Feb 21, 2013

# ¿ Feb 21, 2013 04:49

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

See I dont think the Maiar who teamed up with Melkor were 'corrupted', they joined his side of thier own free will during the creation songs.

Although one of the most scary bits in unfinished tales is where Sauron has the last king of Numenor under his control and tells him the true god (melkor) is locked in the night and all we have to do is let him out everything will be gravy!

# ¿ Feb 21, 2013 15:54

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

Nessus posted:

Here's a question: was Smaug a Maia? On the one hand it seems dimly implied that dragons did reproduce and were living things, if horrible ones; on the other hand, Melkor 'made' them and most of his 'made' supermonsters seemed to be Maia in death-metal forms, not actual 'created' animals, with the exception of the orcs.

Id go with Glaurung being a maia so subsequently all descendants, including smaug are semi-demi-gods, bred in Utumno.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2013 16:55

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

Levitate posted:

I think the one bit of info that kind of disputes that he is a Maiar is I believe he claims to have been the first being on Middle-Earth, before even Melkor, and in the Silmarillion it is claimed that Melkor is the first being from outside of the earth to enter it once it was created.

It's been a bit since I read those parts though so maybe I'm missremembering it. Even so, it really just throws a wrinkle into the idea instead of doing away with it altogether because you could always rationalize it away as someone is mistaken in one of the accounts

I always think of him as a Maiar. In Sil the main gods come to earth first and build it, the Maiar (lesser spirits) come after. So its not unreasonable for him to say he is the first if he just went to straight to proper middle earth as opposed to valinor like everyone else.

But yeah I do find it annoying that he isnt explained. Well what we gonna do, tolkien is very very dead!

# ¿ Mar 14, 2013 19:25

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:

Is there any specific order I should read these in? I assume Hobbit -> Fellow -> Two Towers -> Return of the King, wherein would be the best place to read The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin?

The order here is spot on. Be aware Silmarillion isnt a novel. Its the 'bible' of the tolkien universe basically. You may find it a bit dry but its worth it. There are epic tales in there and it puts everything into context so all the mentions of the old days in the novels suddenly make sense. Its worth re-reading the novels afterwards because then you know what loads of things mean.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2013 06:32

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

Gollum finds the ring in 2463 and its destroyed in 3019 so he was 556! Id call that long life, not much of a fun one but still.

Its strongly hinted that all the great rings of power provided long life (apart from the 3 never touched by Sauron, and elves never needed that anyway) at the cost of gradually fading into a ghost instead of just dieing.

This of course is a main theme and where the Nazgul came from, they just wanted to live forever, as they were of the most part of the Numenor people who resented not being immortal like the elves.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2013 19:23

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

SHISHKABOB posted:

Yeah but I recall descriptions of him saying that he was unnaturally youthful for a hobbit of his age (like 50).

Also, that was one of the strangest things that I ever learned about LotR, that Frodo was like 50 years old. That and Merry and Pippin were like 30 something. I think that the movies made a good decision making them much younger (or at least younger looking).

Im pretty sure he didnt even use the ring at all until Bree, just kept it locked up until Gandalf comes to visit.

Hobbitisess precious are longer lived than normal men, Pippin hadnt even come of age by the time he reached Gondor.

One thing ive always found annoying in the tolkien universe is there is zero description of where and what the hell hobbits are and where they came from. We know all about how elves men and dwarves were made but nothing on hobbits. All we have is some vauge references to where they used to live.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2013 20:15

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 08:08

Seaside Loafer: Feb 7, 2012; Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

xcheopis posted:

I don't recall anything in the History volumes about Valinor speeding up the dying process, however.

There is some stuff where the elves are trying to convince the Numenoreans to stop being idiots before they just stop visiting altogether where they explain that taking over and living in Valinor would just make them die all the quicker not make them immortal because everything there is immortal. Something like 'your spirits would wane all the quicker'.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2013 20:40

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