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

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While definitely vintage at this point, http://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/theories/theories.htm this page may have some interesting fruit for discussion. In particular, here's their old theory about Tom Bombadil:

He's the Witch-king of Angmar!!

A text from the First Age of Usenet posted:

1. We never hear of Tom at all during the whole of the First Age. The Nine Rings aren't forged until the Second Age. QED.

2. You never see the two of them together.

3. In the first part of Fellowship of the Ring, the Nazgul are sent to the Shire to look for the wandering Baggins. Interestingly, Tom says to Frodo at the dinner-table: "...I was waiting for you. We heard news of you, and learned that you were wandering... But Tom had an errand there, that he dared not hinder" (Fellowship p.137 hardback, emphasis mine: note the fear Tom has of his master, Sauron!).

4. In Tom's questioning of the Hobbits, JRRT notes that "there was a glint in his eyes when he heard of the Riders." (Fellowship p. 144) I think he was concerned that his double-life might have been noticed. Interestingly, Tom immediately changes the subject of conversation!
Furthermore, the One Ring had no effect on Tom - which seems consistent with Tolkien's observations about how the Nazgul would have handled the same priceless object (Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, #246): "They were... in no way deceived as to the real lordship of the Ring."

5. It's also interesting to note that Tom could see Frodo clearly while Frodo was wearing the Ring (Fellowship p. 144 hardback) - just as the Witch-king could see Frodo clearly while he was wearing the Ring at Weathertop! (Fellowship p. 208 hardback)

6. Perhaps most damning, however, is the incident with the Barrow-wights (Fellowship pp. 151-155), where Tom - with nothing more than a few simple words (p. 154) - commands the Barrow-wight to leave. And it does, without argument. Why would the Wight be so completely under Tom's control? Because in his alternate guise as the Witch-king of Angmar, Tom ordered the Wight to inhabit the barrow in the first place! Turning to Return of the King, Appendix A, p. 321, "evil spirits out of Angmar... entered into the deserted mounds and dwelt there." Obviously the Witch-king was reponsible for sending the wights there; just as obviously, the Witch-king (disguised as Tom) would be capable of ordering them to leave!
(This is related to another passage, which has since been brought to my attention. On Fellowship page 158 hardback, Tom is guiding the Hobbits back towards the Road when he gazes towards the borders of Cardolan. "Tom said that it had once been the boundary of a kingdom, but a very long time ago. He seemed to remember something sad about it, and would not say much." Since Tom, as the Witch-king, was the one who destroyed the kingdom of Cardolan, it's little wonder that he wouldn't say much about his involvement. Perhaps his remembering "something sad" reveals some remorse at being the instrument of Cardolan's destruction...?)

...Yep: I think we have an airtight case here.

...It's worth noting that, after the Witch-king was dead, Gandalf said he was "going to have a long talk with Bombadil" (Return of the King, p. 275). Curiously, he never tells anyone about the meeting later... and he's right there at the Grey Havens at the end of the book, undelayed it seems by long conversation. I think we can therefore theorize that Gandalf made it to the Old Forest, but that Tom (once the so-called "Witch-king" had died) was nowhere to be found!

...Of course, all this brings up the curiosity of motive. What would make the Witch-King of Angmar sport such a double identity? I suppose that the Witch-king, once of proud Numenorean ancestry, felt trapped by the guise of evil which Sauron had tricked him into, and in the fullness of time forged this alternate identity for himself so that he could occasionally feel happy, helpful, noble, and more at one with himself and his lineage. The situation is perhaps analagous to a crossdresser who, feeling trapped in a man's body, would occasionally assume the identity of a woman. It therefore makes sense that the Witch-king's other identity would be so peculiarly enigmatic, and perhaps sheds light on JRRT's observation in Letters #144: "And even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally)."

...Who else would be aware of Tom's double-life, I wonder? Since Tom repeatedly claims to have been around "before the river and the trees", and indeed even claims to be older than the Ents (Fellowship p. 142), surely the eldest of the Elves would know he was lying. Elrond plays along with Tom in public, being kind enough not to reveal his secret, but also seems to know that Tom and the Witch-king are one and the same; hence his refusal to give the Ring to Tom for safekeeping (Fellowship p. 278-9): "Power to defy the Enemy is not in him."

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 11:04

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 09:25

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cultureulterior posted:

I have. It is- wierd. The most compelling subplot I would say is that of Aragorn. It's a pity it changes so much of canon.

Reading this summary, what I want to know is how he justified or explains Sauron creating the Ring, then. Or for that matter how the wonderful and scientific and rationalistic and all those other good things empire deals with being led by an entity from outside of the world who was, specifically, present at the creation of the world by God, although I expect they just never come up. I also wonder if he noticed that the Elves ditched early in the Fourth Age (other than the ones who never got their asses over the mountains). To be fair most of that poo poo is in the Silmarillion - except the last part.

I wonder how Tolkien reads in Russian, really. I know he had trouble with being translated, due to his stuff being so English-y. e: I was just thinking 'maybe he was working from the movies' but he couldn't have, this came out in '99.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2013 15:55

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Hieronymous Alloy posted:

And, let's be fair, even in the most favorable possible reading, Tolkien is bourgeois as gently caress. You can mount a fairly valid reading of Bilbo Baggins as an idealized avatar of western class privilege. I can totally understand why a non-western, non-capitalist, non-english-speaking author might have a fairly radical reaction to the Lord of the Rings.

Don't get me wrong here -- I had several episodes over the holidays where people asked me innocent questions like "what did you think of the new Hobbit movie?" and half an hour later I realize I've just given a roomful of people an extended presentation on Rhadagast, the Two Blue Wizards, exactly how Aragorn and Elrond are related, and the surprisingly weak validity of Aragorn's claim on the throne of Gondor. But.

Sure, he certainly seemed to be fond of an idealized English society (if not completely blindly). But I think his work takes on a different tone, even without reading all his letters and poo poo, when you find out he was a WWI vet.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2013 17:53

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rypakal posted:

He also pokes no small amount of fun at Bilbo's idealized English upper-class self. And a bit at Frodo. Sam is, I think, where Tolkien's true heart lay.

Sam is certainly the real hero, but Sam also plods along looking stupid for large sections of the book (even if he also kills an orc without even a magic sword, yet), calls Frodo 'Master,' and the way in which he shrugs off the allure of the Ring has definite airs of 'Well shucky darn I know my place in the world and it sure ain't as a king.' I do think the archetype of Sam is strongly rooted in the turn of the century British/English society of Tolkien's day and was, in that context, understood and certainly lacked the coercive elements that - say - American slavery had.

But! Nonetheless, to a casual glance it's some durpy hobbit calling the upper class/upper middle class hobbit 'master' and spending most of the time doing all the poo poo-work. While I think even by the text alone it is clear that Sam is not Frodo's slave, he is certainly Frodo's servant, and is content with his role and loves his master. This is an idea that might well have very different freight in a social context where that reads 'lackey' or 'Stephen the house slave' more than 'oh he's Frodo's butler.'

# ¿ Feb 21, 2013 02:23

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Hieronymous Alloy posted:

I think this is a really good way of framing the discussion, yeah. At the same time and in the same nation where Tolkien was writing The Lord of the Rings, P.G. Wodehouse was achieving wild financial success with the Jeeves and Wooster stories, which basically portray the British upper class as total nincompoop incompetents utterly reliant on their "masterful" servants.

The discussion of social class and Tolkien can get really interesting in a lot of different ways. Like the race issue, there's a surface reading that's can be taken as deeply offensive if you look at it from the wrong angle, but there are opportunities for much more nuance. Unlike the race issue, though, you don't have to just go "welp, Tolkien knew Orcs=Evil was bad and he was working on fixing it, also, Sam has sympathy for a Southron once" -- Tolkien writes a lot about class, clearly has an idealized vision of class relationships of mutual support, clearly had his opinions of class interaction shaped deeply by his trench experiences; at the end, Sam inherit Bag End, after all. It's all right there in the text, without resorting to authorial-intent arguments or esoteric letters.

edit: I'm not endorsing the "tolkien was a racist" or whatever -- I just think that line of argument is boring. Yes, there are racist elements in the text, yes, Tolkien tried to fix and limit them, the argument is over whether he failed or succeeded. The class issues are more complex, subtler, more interleaved throughout the text (from "Proudfeet" on), and I think more a matter of Tolkien's subconscious than conscious mind. With race, Tolkien was consciously putting in passages like Sam's sympathy for the Southron because he knew someone would call him a racist if he didn't; with class, Bilbo just mouths off one-liners like "Of course he does, he's a Baggins!" and the text rolls right on without a thought. There's just so much there!

What is of some note is that Sam is the only 'common' hobbit. The Bagginses seem mostly remarkable because of Bilbo, and even then it's clear they're related to the Tooks, who are the badass boss hobbits, so it's just that Frodo comes to it by his mother, who seems to have been noteworthy enough for Gandalf to notice. Merry and Pippin by contrast were definitely in the hobbit aristocracy, even if that aristocracy mostly meant that their house was bigger and they probably stood more rounds of beer than had stood for them.

Notice also how whenever they're rolling around in Gondor the locals all assume that Merry and Pippin must be lords in their country - and while Tolkien credits this to their speech not having the polite forms, it is also literally the case. Pippin is a Took and seems to be on close terms with the head Took, and I think Merry was in a similar position with the Brandybuck people. Had they never left the Shire they would have been pretty high on the totem pole, and their actions stack up pretty well to everyone else's; the two of them arguably defeated Saruman, and Merry (along with Eowyn of course) killed the witch-king.

Frodo by contrast doesn't seem to do much other than "keep going."

Even looking in other societies he presents, the text seems to imply that divisiveness is usually due to the Plot of the Bad Guys. This seems to be at least somewhat the case, although it does seem to be sort of back-handedly acknowledged that the Dunlendings had claim to the lands the Rohirrim were living on. However, the monarchical trappings seem to work largely because there actually is virtue involved; Aragorn may be the distant heir of Isildur but he didn't seem to lust after the kingship, and I remember dimly that in the Two Towers he says he had honestly been planning to guide Frodo into Mordor.

Nessus fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Feb 21, 2013

# ¿ Feb 21, 2013 04:59

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Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Yeah, that's a good catch; now that you mention it, but Merry and Pippin are "princelings" of the Hobbits. Bilbo's basically the top of the middle class; it's never really clear where his initial family money actually comes from, before the Smaug gold, but it's clear that Bag End is the nicest, best, most finely-appointed, best-located hobbit hole in all of Hobbiton, and Hobbiton is the most economically developed town in the Shire. He's the hobbit equivalent of a Vanderbilt descendant.

I suppose the message that comes out of all of this is that wanting or seeking out power over others, in general, is a Bad Thing; however, power over others is a thing that either is necessary or will just come about anyway. Perhaps a sort of theory that there is going to be a natural class structure but hopefully and ideally, what will happen is that the good drift into the Bag Ends and Mayorships, while the bad drift down to live in a cottage with their relatives elsewhere.

Similarly, Aragorn and Boromir are broadly similar, but Boromir has a lot of bluff, hearty and pragmatic traits which leads to him trying to mug a hobbit and paying for it by having to fight a few dozen orcs on his own. Aragorn could have done what Boromir did, and would probably have been more successful at it, too -- but he didn't, because he's not an rear end in a top hat.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2013 05:17

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Seaside Loafer posted:

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!

I've been reading the Silmarillion lately so what I recall in my half-dazed, elf-sodden mind is:

A bunch of Maiar went with Melkor at first because he was pretty cool and had sick bass in his car. After the Valar kicked Melkor's teeth in the first time, a lot of these guys rejoined the Valar, no harm no foul, and lived on as normal.

Many of them did not, and many of them took physical form. The way it seems to work is that a Maia (the Valar are really just the biggest of the Maia) can take physical form but if he gets too hosed up or killed or does certain tricks, he locks himself in - there's definitely a recurring theme that there are some things you can only do once, and which can't be undone or redone. Different Maia also vary in strength. So when Joe Maia becomes a Balrog he may eventually be unable to STOP being a Balrog, even if he's still a badass Balrog. It's not a decision he can take back.

This system continues throughout most of the Silmarillion stuff.

Sauron starts out as a Maia and a very powerful one, and rolls around turning into werewolves and poo poo. It is noted when he gets into a dog fight with Huan that he bails out rather than get killed hard enough to become a sort of unpleasant shadow, which appears to be what happens when a Maia is for-real killed. He wanders off to sulk after Melkor gets owned, but retains his ability to alter his form freely. Somewhere around here he makes the Ring. After the Numenorians run off his Orcs and sundry other dudes, he goes to Numenor and (to his great surprise) is nearly caught up in the downfall of the island. He manages to get away but is 'hurt' sufficiently that he can no longer assume pleasant forms.

The only thing that seems to really break this rule is Gandalf. However, Gandalf 'incarnated' for a specific assigned mission and this may not operate the same way as it would if he had, say, decided to become an old hobbit-fancier on his own account. He didn't come back, he was SENT back, and it also sounded more like he died of exhaustion rather than being ripped into wizard chunks; perhaps this is a factor, who can say. He also was perhaps thinking of others and doing something good for the world by dealing with the Balrog, while (say) Saruman seems to have largely hosed up in the course of becoming Sauron Junior, and after Gandalf tells him to go gently caress himself, he deliberately continues his campaign of being an rear end in a top hat to people.

The moral of this story is that if you're a Maia, don't be an rear end in a top hat, or you're going to end your exciting career of seeing the world made and coming into everything in it by getting stabbed by some dude in Hobbiton.

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.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2013 16:40

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sassassin posted:

That's the article I was talking about.

Personally I found Gandalf and co. more interesting when I didn't know they were supposed to be demi-gods sent to do specifically what Gandalf ended up doing.

'He was a Maia' is the answer to every mystery regarding Gandalf, and it's all rather disappointing.

I dunno, Maiar are still people and characters. I can agree it takes away the mystery, of course. Hell, looking at the books you can get an idea of how Gandalf would have failed; it would have been more like Radagast, and he would have made many wonderful fireworks shows, and doubtless been a great friend of the Shire, and... welp.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2013 06:04

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Hogge Wild posted:

For a long time I couldn't get why a tough guy like Sam fawned over Frodo and took orders from him even after they left the Shire and Sam wasn't Frodo's gardener anymore. Then I read that Tolkien made Samwise act like the batmen did in the Great War. He himself served as a communications officer and had a batman of his own like the rest of the British officers. German World War 1 veteran and author Ernst J�nger compared his batman to a medieval squire. It makes a lot more sense if you think their relationship as an officer and a soldier or as a knight and a squire.

Yeah, this is one of the oddities which I imagine will have to be explained in passing in future annotated editions. Don't the Gondorites (Gondorim? Gondorians?) start straight up calling Sam Frodo's squire in the denoument part of RotK?

# ¿ Feb 22, 2013 12:31

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SHISHKABOB posted:

I'm not so sure about pride being the thing that Tolkien is making out to be the "bad thing". I say this because I seem to remember a lot of situations where characters or groups of people are described to be "proud", but I never felt like it was necessarily in a bad way. Like I'm pretty sure that the Men of Gondor are in general described to be a proud people, and maybe also the Rohirrim.

I do think that when people become too sure of their ability to control the corruption of the ring then that would be an example of pride being a bad thing in the books.

That's all just from memory though and I could be misremembering the times when the words "pride" or "proud" were used, and what the contexts were.

I imagine it's the line between self-confidence and being an rear end in a top hat (or being reckless due to ignorance, say; Bilbo sure wouldn't have taken the Ring if he knew what it was, I expect). Riding bravely around isn't bad; assuming that your dumb rear end can handle the artifact wrought by something from before the world was made specifically to boss people around is. e: oh there was a fourth page :v:

As for my memory, I use it for many things, only some of them hobbit-related.

For a bit more content, I read in the reviews of that fellow who did the 'Tolkien was the greatest author of the 20th century' book that said he said, essentially, that Middle-Earth is a bit less monotheistic and catholic than JRRT may have wanted to think. Can anyone say what his argument's thrust is? I intend to order the book with my next paycheck, but that's a while away.

Nessus fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Feb 23, 2013

# ¿ Feb 23, 2013 08:57

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If someone was going to do some side story material, I'd say Galadriel would be a good figure for that. Seems like she had an interesting life.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2014 00:57

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Canemacar posted:

Earlier, it was mentioned in the thread how the Ainulindale chapter of the Silmarilion can be interpreted as an older religious pantheon absorbed into the belief system that was current at the time of it's writing.

Could that be interpreted as a deliberate attempt by Tolkien in how he wrote those chapters? Or was that simply a death of the author situation?

He already framed the book as being copied from older elven manuscripts(by Bilbo in Rivendel?), so its clear he was aware of how the audience was intended to percieve the book. Not to mention as a medievalist and fan of ancient mythology, he had to have been aware of such things in the old stories he spent his life studying.

Can his works be interpreted as the pseudo-Norse pantheon of the Valar having been co-opted by a monotheistic Illuvatar cult? And if so, could that cult have been founded by the men of Numenor? IIRC, that was the only place where overt worship of Eru was specifically mentioned.

I imagine a lot of it is that these tales were in fact synthesized by a later writer, namely Christopher Tolkien! As for the rest I got the impression that elves didn't really have religion as a devotional exercise, but that I suppose Men did, even if it seemed a great deal less formal than it was in the latter days. In the context of the texts you could probably justify it as fine details not really surviving.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2014 21:57

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Catsplosion posted:

I felt pity for melkor from the beginning of reading the creation of arda, I don't see him as evil in the beginning and you could say the way he became after was because of how he was treated and separated in a way from his fellow valar. If anything it was not that he was evil but that eru had made a mistake in creating a being so similar to himself.

Wasn't Melkor basically hated for singing his own tune during the song of creation (oversimplification, I know) Which wasn't exactly his fault as he was first to be created and was made to be most like Eru. He was the smartest of the valar and wanted to find the flame imperishable so that he too could create. (once again, not his fault if he was created to be most like eru. This is also obviously a reference to fire being the first technology and the curiosity that allowed man to find it)

What he created he saw as beautiful but Eru (and the rest of the valar by proxy) did not like what he had created and the arrogance, I guess, to create something of your own. He rebuked melkor for doing so and shamed him.

I see him as what religious people see an atheist. Defiant and dancing to the beat of their own drum instead of somebody else's.

I always liked the religious parallels in The Silmarillion.

I love Tolkiens books but it's been a year or two since I've read any. Time to re-read The Sil!

The vibe I got wasn't so much that his problem was that he created his own things; he got told in fact that everything he created would eventually only make the entire collection all that greater. His sin, so to speak, was arrogance that eventually corroded him, more than his independence. Aule was a lot like him but lacked that arrogance, and Iluvatar let him create an entire race of intelligent beings (and let his wife create another one in response). Melkor by contrast mostly made monsters, although I suppose Goblintown shows his creations/mods weren't wholly irredeemable psychotics in all things.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 21:47

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Catsplosion posted:

All true but he was created as most intelligent of all valar amongst over characteristics. Was it not a fault by eru to have created him that way and not his own?

I agree though. As time went on he became more arrogant and self-consumed which led to his downfall.

It all depends on the first of the things he made. If he created them to rule them and made them the way they were for that purpose then he was evil but they could have just been pale imitations of what eru had created, not unlike Aul�'s dwarves.

If he was so smart, why didn't he wise up when he got beat down for the first time? Even if he preferred to gently caress off into the far ends of Middle-earth instead of hanging with the valar, who said he had to sneak in and poison the trees? His problem wasn't being smart, it was being an rear end in a top hat.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 22:19

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SHISHKABOB posted:

Yes but why did he become an rear end in a top hat.

At a certain point we enter the context of where moral responsibility lies. At a certain point you go from "wanting to assert your own vision" to "I am being an obstinate prick and just loving things up for spite," which Melkor presumably crossed while pouring poison in Feanor's ear.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 00:24

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I don't wholly subscribe to the Silmarillion's take on morality either, though to be honest it seems to get across its actual moral lessons more clearly than the Bible.

NikkolasKing posted:

My personal thought about why Melkor turned to evil though is exactly what Tolkien said - he went mad with longing. Is it not the son's most natural inclination to emulate the father? Or even to surpass said father? Melkor is Eru's "son" as it were and he wanted desperately to be his own master just like his dad. But it was impossible. Eventually he just came to resent everything. When the Vala first come to Arda they try to build stuff and Melkor just wrecks all of it out of spite. His quest for creation had turned to a quest for annihilation.

I think to some extent this doesn't just cast Melkor as an abused child; he had nothing taken away from him, he chose not to cooperate either with Ea or with the other Valar. He even had a clear and explicit second chance, which he pissed away to grab some pretty rocks. Aule, who is portrayed as I recall as being most like Melkor in constitution, is an unalloyed good guy.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2014 00:58

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concerned mom posted:

I always just think that Eru is God and like any being he he aspects of pride, arrogance, intellect, beauty, etc within himself. We can see with the other lesser gods in the pantheon that they all have distinct personalities and typical behaviours. Sadly for Morgoth his was for the most part emotions and sentiments we deem as bad. Am I oversimplifying it?

I think Eru is meant to be sort of the cosmological great version of God with a capital G, and I don't think the Valar are meant really to be emanations of parts of his personality. After all, other entities like the Valar apparently didn't enter Middle-Earth - Tulkas came in late, possibly just to put Melkor in the figure four.

One of the aspects of Tolkien's stuff that I think breaks from the strict tradition of most theological stuff is that it focuses on the inherent worth and value of the little things. The Shire is the obvious example in LOTR, and while I think his rosy view of Merry England was a lot of that, the greater creative point is that this place with all its fussy little rituals and social dynamics, while perhaps in need of improvement, had value in its own right. Yavanna talks to Eru (or was it Manwe?) about her concern for the creatures and plants of Middle-Earth and gets told "these things have worth in themselves even if there were no intelligent beings to come."

From this perspective I guess Melkor's flaw was that he did not bother to even try to understand the greater part of the music, nor did he start going rogue after exhaustively examining every aspect of things; he wanted the power to create from nothing, but did not have much regard for what would be created (even if he could). Compare Aule to the Dwarfs with Melkor and the Orcs.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2014 19:45

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Ynglaur posted:

I can't speak to Buddhism, Hindu, or many pre-Christian Western religions, but the concept of the inherent worth of even small things is found in Roman Catholicism, which makes perfect sense given Tolkien's upbringing and morality. While the powerful and wise are great in worldly things, they are often the most tempted by worldly things, and thus must strive harder for holiness (i.e. being like God (or Eru)). Those who are humble and small are thus closer to holiness, and thus in their way are greater than those who are greater in stature. You see this in Catholicism in the parable of the widow who gave her last 2 coins to the Temple; or in Mother Teresa's opinion that the face of Jesus is in that of a leper.

I agree it's hard to have a meaningful conversation about Tolkien's mythology without having a conversation about religion. It's a testament to his writing--and perhaps the strength and resonance of his themes--that his stories are nonetheless approachable by those of many faiths.

Oh, is it? Well then that makes perfect sense then. Here I thought he was being novel. Though I suppose since I took a Catholic theology course and that topic never really came up, maybe he's at least focusing on a relatively overlooked aspect.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2014 01:03

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rypakal posted:

The person I was replying to said Melkor did bad things because Varda rejected him. I was applauding her ability to read Melkor's jerkface intentions and disgusted by even the notion that his actions would be laid at her feet.

Well, he didn't just hate her - he also feared her. That's an interesting fact, isn't it?

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 20:27

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JohnnyDangerously posted:

Is this off-topic? I hope not.

Anyone pick up the recently released Tolkien translation of Beowulf? I'm reading it along with the extensive commentary and it's absolutely fantastic. I feel like I paid 20 bucks for a seminar with led by Tolkien himself. The commentary is a combo of close reading, historical context, and philological arguments that are written in his easy style.

I'm shocked it took this long to release it, wasn't it his life work, academically?

# ¿ Aug 6, 2014 01:34

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BatteredFeltFedora posted:

When is this?

I think when Frodo puts on the Ring at Mt. Doom or thereabouts. I know he at least gets to be the focus character briefly here and there in the Silmarillion, though that's more of a mythic mode really.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2014 04:45

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Data Graham posted:

Greetings Tolkienailures, does anyone have the requisite experience to advise me on how to deflect a friend's well-meaning and persistent recommendation to read The Wheel of Time? He's one of those "Tolkien's fine and all, but Robert Jordan was a real soldier and really understood how battles worked " types. I've tried to give it a halfhearted go once or twice, but it's always struck me as some kind of Dune/Narn i H�n Hurin mishmash with lots of gratuitous sex, but then again I haven't exactly been fair or gone about it in good faith.

Should I try harder at it, or anyone have any witty rejoinders I can use in defending my willful ignorance?

Tolkien fought at the battle of the Somme and lost many of his friends in WWI so if they're comparing military service dicks I'd say they're at least equal.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2014 03:50

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Data Graham posted:

Frankly from a narrative standpoint having the ring just be lying on the ground feels like a bit of a contrivance, and the fact that it's a retcon makes a lot of sense.

After Tolkien established that the Ring isn't something that someone in its power would ever choose to offer up, even in bad faith, that became an unfeasible story point�but then Gollum just losing track of it (he kept it in a pouch around his waist until it "galled" him?) and leaving it lying on the floor of a rocky cave where he can't be sure of where it is or that it's safe at all times doesn't ring very true either.

Doesn't RING true, eh?

I think it's actually a subtle and chilling detail to consider, especially when it comes up in relation to Isildur too.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2014 18:41

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Roark posted:

I just reread one of my favorite parts of the Unfinished Tales, Aldarion and Erendis - less dumb elves, more Men. Possibly a dumb question, but did Tolkien ever establish how long the regular N�men�reans live? The kings seem to live 400 to 500 years before they abandoned the Valar, but the lifespan of non-royals like Erendis seems to be all over the place (from 200 to "five times the length of normal men").

"A bunch longer but not demi-immortally so." If we take the average human lifespan, barring injury or plague, to be 70-80 (as written down by Our Lord in the Bible), three times that is about 210-240, which seems to map with Aragorn pretty well.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2014 22:17

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andrew smash posted:

Were there any elves specifically stated to have been born after the first age? I never really thought about it before but i've been listening on and off to the LOTR audiobooks and one of the segments discussing elrond's sons went by when i realized they're probably the youngest elves i can think of and they were probably born in beleriand. I can't remember if thranduil was born in the first age in Doriath or if he awoke with the rest of the first elves, by cuivienen. I'm pretty sure legolas was born in Doriath.

I think Thranduil was one of the first elves, he just never actually got off his tree-loving rear end past the Misty Mountains.

Arwen was born in the early Third Age, apparently.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2014 22:00

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andrew smash posted:

No, thranduil was totally a sindar of Thingol's people, he just went back east and ruled over the greenwood elves once he got there. Neither he or legolas were originally from greenwood.

Oh I see how it is, bringing Sindar culture to the poor benighted Avari. Stealing ideas from the Edain now, are we, Thranduil? #notmyelvenking

# ¿ Oct 30, 2014 22:03

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bartlebyshop posted:

Well, the Rings of Power wouldn't have been forged. That would have been a pretty good benefit.

Without the Noldor showing up, wouldn't Morgoth have likely been able to dominate Middle-earth entirely?

# ¿ Oct 31, 2014 06:17

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100YrsofAttitude posted:

I was thinking more in terms of language and tones. I'm by no means an expert, but I can't help but feel a level of grandeur when I read Tolkien compared to other fantasy.

He was definitely deeply steeped in actual Norse epics and literature and I think a fair bit of it echoes out. Meanwhile a lot of fantasy writers nowadays were steeped in... Tolkien! Maybe not even all the books either.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2014 23:58

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UoI posted:

I've decided to give The Fellowship a read seeing as a I enjoy reading about Tolkien's lore of Middle-Earth. I chose this because I found it laying around one day and figured I'd go for it; but I'm wondering if maybe I should be reading The Hobbit or one of the books before set before that. I've never read any of Tolkien's books. What are you goonses thoughts?

They're very different books, really. I'd read the Hobbit first if you have it laying round but you don't have to; the events in it are however 'spoiled' by the narrative of LOTR, if you can say they're spoiled at all, at this point.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2014 10:00

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UoI posted:

If people don't mind reading about my horrible opinions on fantasy, sure!

While I admit that I hope you don't just end up quoting out of that Cracked article on the films, I'm definitely interested to hear your thoughts. I've had these books in my mental wheelhouse since I was nine, so seeing people come to them fresh sounds awesome.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2014 04:49

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Data Graham posted:

Still doesn't make a huge amount of sense. I don't get why a naturally-occurring swallowing noise would involve bilabials. If that's how he wants to describe it, fine, but it still sounds to me like he just liked the name and came up with the noise thing as a post-hoc justification.

It's pretty easy for me to make a nasty gulpy noise which could be rendered "gollum" in text, though it would require a little cleverness in orthography. Perhaps it was clearer in the original Quenya.

Didn't Tolkien once give a super stirring reading of Beowulf out of nowhere in one of his classes.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2014 05:36

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SirPhoebos posted:

I saw the third Hobbit movie last night, and I just remembered something that's bugged me since I read the novels:

So by the end of the Hobbit, Galdalf knows that Bilbo has a magic ring that makes him invisible, right? But he doesn't suspect that it's The Ring until Bilbo has his freakout at the beginning of Fellowship. But there are only 20 great rings identified in the book iirc, and The One Ring is pretty distinct looking from the rest. So were there other, less powerful rings in Middle Earth? Who made them, and when? How many were made? And what issues did these relatively minor magic items have that prompted Galdalf's initial word of caution?

In addition to the prototype thing, I think all of the Rings Sauron made were probably just golden bands - it's actually been theorized that the Dwarf-rings and the rings the Nazgul had were one and the same, they just had different long term effects on men vs. dwarves.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2014 19:14

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100YrsofAttitude posted:

The 3rd movie if anything reminded me : of how badass and extremely powerful ie. old Galadriel really is. Out of all of them she is the only one with a clear memory of the Undying lands, assuming that Gandalf's and Saruman's incarnations on Middle earth made their memories fuzzy.

Well to address this in a spoilerladen way,

Gandalf, Saruman and Radagast also have orders to not be too overt in their intervention, which even Saruman has to take a long time to get round to breaking. Galadriel has none of that. She wasn't sent back to Middle-earth, she walked over icebergs. It totally makes sense that Frodo would offer her the Ring; it isn't her witchcraft or anything, she is just logically the person most likely to know what to do with it.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2014 22:54

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100YrsofAttitude posted:

You're right it's just I often forget that.

Right, it's very understated (which is why I think it gets missed a lot). A shame we never got a Galadriellion.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2014 23:22

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Lord Hydronium posted:

I mean, it's not exactly wrong. It's somewhat reductive to take the rather complicated mix of racial attitudes in Tolkien's writings and sum it up as just "dude was racist", but he definitely had racist attitudes that are expressed in his works. Just look at how often "swarthy" is used as an indicator of a character being evil or untrustworthy, for example. The fact that he also wrote that passage about Sam sympathizing with the dead Southron, or the famous letter where he told the Nazis to gently caress off, while commendable, don't mean the racist stuff doesn't exist too. It all just makes Tolkien, well...human. He had bad attitudes and good ones.

I think the problem is that a lot of people (those making that line of argument and those defending against it) make the leap from "Tolkien had racist attitudes" to "Tolkien was a bad person" to "people who like Tolkien are bad people". All of which is absurd. You can like a work while acknowledging its bad parts. My favorite book is Dune, and Frank Herbert had some downright hosed up attitudes on sexuality, and homosexuality in particular. Tolkien had prejudices, and while they don't define him or his work, they're still a part of it worth considering.

What I find sort of annoying is when people take that sort of Cracked-article reductionist theory and are like "so how come you like these books about ignorant racists undermining the efforts of the dark-skinned people to build a new society without a king, hmmm?" I had people practically walking up to me and saying "So hey... new Hobbit movie's got... a girl character in it, eh? Eh?" and look at me as if expecting a nerd tirade.

Pain in the rear end. I'm not saying it isn't there, but so are other things.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2014 02:29

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End Of Worlds posted:

Seriously, I've never understood this need to argue that works which are problematic (like LotR or Lovecraft) are not actually problematic. Yes, they are. It doesn't make you bad for liking them. The drive to defend them and insist that the half-orc swarthy men from the east with their lolling red tongues and grotesque dark skin - that, however, is pretty questionable.

Did Tolkien personally hate black people (as Lovecraft did)? Probably not, no. Does that matter? Not a lot. Does his quote about how racism is bad or whatever prove that the swarthy men aren't racist? Not even a little bit.

I don't deny these things one jot or tittle. It is sometimes tiresome when it is the only conversation folks have, which has kind of typically been my experience, and it's like: There's a lot more in these books than that. You dig?

To give an example, and with another aspect of the orcs, I gather Tolkien based a lot of his details on the behavior of the orcs (as opposed to the goblins in Goblintown and so forth) on his experience in the trenches in WWI. Are there any other places people can spot the influence of his trench experience? Saruman appeared to have some kind of gunpowder bomb (in practice if not actuality), although it didn't seem to be as decisive as one might have expected.

What is a little interesting is that despite this experience, there doesn't seem to be any situation that is directly analogous to that mode of fighting - and of course he was avoiding allegory, but you would think he would have worked that in. This might be more of a factor of the setting, because all the middle-earth fighters and armies are basically medieval, with infantry and cavalry and perhaps a Nazgul or a king to terrify/hearten the former.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2014 05:04

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End Of Worlds posted:

Yeah that's totally valid; there' worlds more to talk about Tolkien than the social issues. My experience has actually been far more of the opposite in that I've seen a lot more of this:

The people yelling about the issues in LotR, as far as I've seen, have been largely doing so in reaction to exactly this kind of weird revisionist poo poo.
As an aside, it's interesting to me that the racism gets discussed a lot more than the classism, which is way more pervasive and even foundational to the characters and narrative.

I imagine the classism is way more obvious to Britons. We had this conversation in one of my literature classes; while America is hardly classless, we have far less class CONSCIOUSNESS. We have some semblance of rural/urban divide and we recognize there are the super-rich of whatever sort, but most people are just sort of in a broad smear in the middle, where there isn't seen to be a drastic difference between the low and high ends.

When I first read the books (age 10) I could pick up that Sam was not of the same background as Pippin, Merry and Frodo but he seemed more like Frodo's house manager who got recruited by Gandalf (and good thing, too) rather than being fraught with the concepts of servitude.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2014 05:21

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I agree that the Dwarves are totally drawn heavily from the Jews, but they're very philo-semitic for the period, where I think even the more progressive sorts tended to sneer at Jews a little. I know there's that letter where Tolkien politely tells the Nazi German book people who are asking how aryan he was to go gently caress themselves.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2014 05:29

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End Of Worlds posted:

I totally agree with this. I love the Lord of the Rings, and additionally I'm really not sure that there's any way to synthesize Norse mythology and Anglo-Saxon culture in an early-20th century environment without ending up with some major areas of questionable content. I just get super irritated when I see people defensively insist that there's no racism in LotR, none at all! Past a certain point it's silly to hold these books up to a 21st century morality, not to mention anachronistic, but it's still a thing to talk about.

I think, as is often the case, the issue is the multiple meanings that "racism" has. Tolkien clearly was not setting out to write The Lord of the Racial Purities and probably had better reason than most Englishmen to loathe Hitler and co. However, there are definitely the questionable materials you discuss and the fact that Tolkien was struggling with them rather than simply shrugging his shoulders indicates he was aware there were in fact issues involved.

e: to be clear I'm contrasting "racism the cultural construction" vs. "racism the overt or not-very-covert expression of racial prejudice."

Nessus fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Dec 19, 2014

# ¿ Dec 19, 2014 05:48

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 09:25

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End Of Worlds posted:

I always just assumed that a) Eagles are really conspicuous and flying the Ring into Mordor would sabotage the whole stealth angle, b) the Eagles play a thematic role as divine grace: the unhoped-for intervention of God at the moment of greatest need, when one has expanded the fullness of one's strength in the cause of righteousness and can no longer go on, and c) that would kill the plot.

Even internally to the story and ignoring any supernatural stuff, I'm sure the Eagles knew about the Ringwraiths' pterodactyl pals, plus all the orcs with arrows. Packing the ring-bearer onto an eagle makes the fate of all of Middle-earth depend on the fine details of an aerial engagement. I would not be shocked, of course, if there were eagles WATCHING Sam and Frodo and that perhaps if they'd been cornered somewhere out in the open, there might have been a mysterious night-time eagle-sized orc-murder. Indeed that would help justify how come they hauled rear end so hard pretty much the moment they saw Frodo in the End Zone.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2014 18:44

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

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