All things Tolkien
 

LotR, the Hobbit, the Silm, the Histories of Middle-Earth, his letters, anything having to do with his legnedarium belongs here.

Ea! Let these things be!

So, now that I'm rested, I suppose it's time for an initial topic to discuss.

First up, Tom Bombadil. Who is he? Let's hear your theories.

I sort of assumed that he was one of those characters who's job is to impart knowledge to the characters, though he didn't seem to do much else after the one encounter after the barrow wight. Of course, I only read LOTR so far and I hear allusions to him being more important or at least having more relevance earlier on. If memory serves, he passed on the legend of Luthien and Beren to Frodo et al in Fellowship, did he not?

As far as I know, there's no consensus on just what he is. Tolkien said in a letter that he's a secret and going to stay that way. One of the things that makes the world seem bigger, you know TB is going to be there after the story ends, and he'll be just as mysterious then as he was early on. Life goes on.

I can't remember if he recounted Beren and Luthien or not. It was either him, or Strider at some point on their journey.

My personal pet theory is that Bombadil is a Maiar from the court of Yavanna who came into Arda as it was being sung into existence, before Morgoth touched down to earth and infected it with his evil. He seems to represent Arda unmarred, and if he was a Maiar on the same order of Sauron, it would explain his ambivalence toward the Ring.

Does Bombadill show up in Silm at all? I've only read LOTR plus Children of Hurin, which I'm not sure totally counts but he did intend it as one of the three stories he had intended to tell in greater detail, accoring to the forward, and a wee bit into the Hobbit. I was supposed to read that one for my kid lit course but I managed to get away with the knowledge I picked up from the old cartoon. ;).

Actually, when I was researching a paper for my seminar course I came across one of Tolkien's articles from when he was a univerity professor. I still have it somewhere. I ultimately didn't use it but it was interesting for some insight into his idea of fantasy and the nature of monsters and such. It dealt with Beowulf among other things. Something on "Myth and Monsters" or something. I'll have to go look it up.

I don't think Bombadil is in the Silm, unless he in there under a different name, but Tolkien took that knowledge to his grave, if so. He did publish "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil," which I've never read, but I've heard that they aren't very closely tied to Middle-Earth.

And, I very much want to read Tolkien's letters, I just haven't gotten my hands on the book of them yet. Someday, though.

And... time for a new topic. A question, this time. Do the events of the Silmarillion (particularly, the War of Wrath in which the Valar sweep out of the Undying Lands into Middle-Earth and cast Morgoth from the world) make the conflict of Lord of the Rings less meaningful? And, do you think if Sauron had prevailed in the end, would they have intervened once more, or let ME go to hell beneath his reign?

Hard to say. I mean, Sauron is reletively small fry when it comes to Morgoth, right? Battles with him aren't about to reshape the planet. At least that's not how it seemed. The Valar (was it the Valar?) seemed unhappy enough with the elves going back to ME to deal with Morgoth's nastiness. It might end up being another matter of come here and be safe or stay over there and deal with what comes.

Well, you raise the crux of issue, actually. And I'll explain in a bit more detail, since I'm probably the only person here who's ever read that book.

Basically, the War of Wrath at the end of the Silm wounds the continent of Beleriand so badly that it fractures apart and sinks into the sea. Belerian was basically the north-west of Middle-Earth, if can picture an entire continent springing from where the Gray Havens are, more or less.

The revealed power of the Valar and the Maiar, against Morgoth's Balrogs and Dragons was enough to shatter mountain ranges and break the land apart, so I can see why they'd refrain from going to war again.

But here's the thing: Sauron isn't Morgoth. Sauron is only a Maiar, barely more powerful than a Balrog, if at all. The Ring doesn't actually enhance his personal power to any meaningful degree; that isn't what it was designed to do. It's actually made him weaker in a few ways, as by binding his essence to it, each time he's subsequently destroyed, a bit of his personal power is permanently lost, which is why he can no longer shape-shift, which was his signature ability in the Silm.

What I'm basically saying is that the Istari, if they hadn't been weighed down with a plot device to prevent them from doing so, should have been able to march into Bara-Dur, beat Sauron senseless, and drag him back to Valinor in chains to go wallow in Mandos for a few hundred millennia. Honestly, Curunir and Olorin alone (Saruman and Gandalf for those of you playing at home) should have been equal to the task. And conflicts between Maiar are using only on the level of city-smashing collateral damage at best, and really, who cares if Mordor gets laid to waste. It already is a waste.

Is it the destruction that is the issue? I wasn't sure if it's part of the Valar/Maiars interested to interfere in happenings on Middle Earth outside of the Havens/Undying Lands etc (not sure if we're talking the same thing with those or not). I guess part of it is my wondering how much the Valar et al. really care about the people. Some of the elves certainly weren't all that fond of the Valar and such. Would there be any obligation or inclination on the part of the Valar to go beyond making a safe place and ushering people there if they want to come?

Well... this is getting into rampant speculation territory on my part, but I'll take a stab at it.

Basically, it's their job.

The Valar serve at the direct and express volition of Eru Iluvatar as the custodians of Arda. The only part of the world in which they (the Valar) had no hand in creating were the races (except Aule with the dwarves). Those were purely the offspring of Iluvatar and have always been a treasured wonder to the Valar, even when the elves quit Valinor and killed their brothers.

Bascially, Eru favors the Eldar and the Atani above all else in creation and... I just can't imagine that he would countenance an upstart Maiar like Sauron running Middle-Earth into the ground.

Of course, the problem with that is that Eru, for the most part, is an absolutely omnipotent deistic God, meaning that nothing transpires that he did not will to happen. So... Morgoth and Sauron all have some part to play in his grand design, whatever that might be.

As for the Valar themselves, it's their fault, besides, that Sauron is causing trouble in Middle-Earth. They bought into the same "oh, I'm so sorry, I'll never do it again" con that Morgoth duped them with, and to similar results. You'd think they'd have the honor to own up and fix their mistake.

Ah. Yes, I think I recall something about that. Well that changes things doesn't it.

Well Gandalf andd Sarumon were taking a hand in things. If I recall -and am interpretting- the book correctly, then Sarumon was spying on Sauron through the Palantir but was eventually influenced by Sauron into working for him, possibly without being aware of it at first.

I guess, if the Valar are intended to defend the children of Iluvitar and such, then the question might be how much dirt must Sauron kick up before they feel obliged to intervene, especially since the denizens of Middle Earth are making their own attempts to deal with him.

Well, that's the thing, they sent the 5 Istari across to help out in the war against Sauron, only... they nerfed them, to use a decidedly un-Tolkienian phrase. And to me, that's always struck me as a plot contrivance so that the story could be told. I can't see any logical reason why Gandalf and co. needed to be all subtle and indirect. That hardly seems the most efficient way of dealing with the problem.

And Saruman is a bit of a can of worms. The Book of Lost Tales goes into a bit, but basically, he was a bad apple from the beginning, too proud and arrogant to ever achieve the purpose he was sent for.

Likewise too proud and arrogant to believe that the bad guy had gotten under his skin? That's something of the impression I got.

Well, yeah, he was just set up to fail. He believed he could learn all of Sauron's secrets and use them to overthrow him, and later, to establish himself as lord of the earth in Sauron's place.

I remember a scene in the Book of Lost Tales where the Witch-King comes calling at Isengard and they have a delightful exchange about who serve whom.

On the other hand, Olorin never wanted to go to Middle-Earth, and only sailed at the request of... I want to say Lorien (one of the Valar) but I can't recall, anyway, he was basically sent to be the voice of reason and temperance among the Istari.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, the other two wizards, Allatar and Pollando, both blue, went into the East and South, never to return. Tolkien mentions that they failed in their tasks, and it's likely that they gave rise to traditions of sorcery among the Easterlings and the Haradrim.

On the other hand, there's a theory that the Mouth of Sauron is one of them, corrupted by Sauron into his service and so twisted by evil that he forgot his own identity.

The mouth of Sauron would be the creepy guy at the gate in the movie? Can't recall him from the book.

The only Istari -if I'm using the term right- that I recall really are Gandalf, Sarumon, and Radagast, who apparently could talk to birds and such. It annoyed me a little that he was axed from the film but I suppose he really wasn't all that important in the scheme of things, though he did help G escape from Orthanc. I remember him being seen as a bit too devoted to whatever it was he was supposed to be doing to be messed with by the dark powers.

Yeah, Radagast was a bad choice from the beginning, and they knew about his fixation on birds and animals. I honestly think that whoever was in charge of picking the Istari (can't remember) was completely incompetent. For super-secret demigod special forces, they couldn't be less suited for the task.

And, yeah, in LotR only those three are mentioned, but there are references to there being five. Tolkien only mentions the other two in his more apocryphal writings. He never really decided what he wanted to do with them.

And, yes, the Mouth of Sauron is the envoy who meets with Aragorn's army at the Black Gate and tries to get them to surrender. He does not get his head cut off in the book, as book-Aragorn isn't a witless thug who has no respect for diplomatic immunity.

Heh. Book-Aragorn to me seemed a lot bolder and less broody than movie Aragorn, though I did like the character either way.

I kinda with there was more around about Faramir. I liked him in the film and in the book I thought it was interesting how he was compared to Boromir. They brough up the notion of Westernesse and how once and a while someone will be born who is a throwback to the fancy humans and Faramir was one such individual while Boromir pretty much lacked any of the old blood.

Well, for one thing, there's Prince Imrahil and his household who are vassals of Gondor, the Knights of the Silver Swan. They all have elvish blood in their ancestry and it really shows in the book at the siege of Minas Tirith. They outdo themselves again and again.

About Faramir, though, keep in mind, the men of Numenor, from whom their civilization is descended, all had very thick elven blood. This is a bit confusing for someone who hasn't read the Silm. so I'll spell it out.

Okay, Earendil the Mariner is a half-elf and the one who redeems the elvish race in the sight of the Valar. He's a bit of a messiah.

Now, Earendil marries Elwing, daughter of Dior, who is daughter of Beren and Luthien, who has not only human and elven blood, but also a faint trace of Maiar blood in her as well.

Now, they have two children, Elrond and Elros. These children, like all half-elves, are given a choice: to embrace their elvish blood, or their human blood. Elrond chose to live as an elf, and his brother, Elros, chose mankind.

So, Elros became the father of the men of Numenor, meaning that, through this lineage, Faramir and Aragorn both have the blood of Earendial, Elwing, Dior, Luthien, Beren, Tuor, Melian, Thingol, and all the rest still flowing to some degree through their veins.

Unfortunately, the men of Middle-Earth were not so blessed, and when the Numenorians were exiled from their island, they began to interbreed with the locals, diluting this godly bloodline. So, when they say that guys like Aragorn and Faramir are throwbacks to Westernesse, it's actually sort of a recessive gene, if you want to think about it that way.

Sorry that was so long-winded.

Yeah, I got that much. It was brought up in the book though as a point of curiosity because Denethor, who wasn't much for fancy blood either, held obvious favour for Boromir.

And yes, I'm aware of the half-elf thing, and how Elrond is Aragorn's many times great Uncle.

I think the Denethor/Boromir thing had something to do with Denethor's late wife, but I'm not positive. It's been while since I looked into that story.

Denethor was mentioned to be pretty lordly in his day, as well.

Okay, new topic. A broader one that maybe more people can contribute to:

Favorite battle sequence in Tolkien's work. And why.

That's a bit of a toughy for me because I'm not all that fond of Tolkein's writing. Off the top of my head though, the battle of Pelanor fields stands out to me (that's the one in front of Minas Tirith, right?). Hoever, it might also be that one because it's the most recent one I've read. It's been a while since I've read the other books. I remember liking the sequence after the battle of Helm's Deep when Fangorn forest is parked outside the door and waiting to beat up on the orcs. It makes me think if there's any other author out there that could pull off a mobile attacking forest.

Well, when Tolkien wrote that, he was channeling Shakespeare, in Macbeth, where Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane, only he wanted a real forest to be attacking. :p

Anyway, for me, the War of Wrath in the Silm. is pretty incomparable. The whole image of the entire host of the Ainur coming sweeping out of the West to depose Morgoth once and for all, only to be halted by Ancalagon the Black and his horde of dragons is kind of stunning. Admittedly, Earendil somehow killing this city-sized dragon with a sword is a bit unbelievable, but the image of his fall smashing Thangorodrim to rubble is one of my favorite scenes out of Tolkien. And then Morgoth gets his feet cut off. What's not to love? :p

heh. Well, we are talking the same author that killed a dragon with an arrow, so a sword isn't too much different.

I'm sure I would have something more to say if I had read more Tolkein styff besides LOTR and Children of Hurin, which I'd say counts as half-a-book as far as authorship goes. Dunno. Not a lot of spectacular fights in there that I recall, just the odd skirmish. Killing Glaurang wasn't all that fancy either. (Not sure if I have his name right). Although, that little bit did explan Bilbo's question when he was talkig to Smaug, in the movie at least if not the book; the bit about dragon's having that soft underbelly, or was Glaurang cursed with that?

Well, Smaug was like... god, I don't even know, 1/1000th of Ancalagon, size-wise? Think about this: Thangorodrim, Morgoth's fortress, is 35,000 ft. high, carved from a mountain. That's 4.5 times the height of Mt. Everest. Ancalagon LEVELS the place when he's killed. His wingspan is so vast, that when he's flying, he blots out the sun over all of Beleriand. The beast is just ludicrously big.

I can't remember if Glaurung was cursed that way, but I don't think so. He's a different kind of dragon, anyway, the wingless, worm kind. Although he's called the Father of Dragons, Ancalagon is an order of magnitude more powerful than him. Actually, at that point in time, Ancalagon is probably the mightiest being in Arda short of the Valar, and even some of them might not have been able to match him in terms of combat prowess. The only guy in the War of Wrath who might have been able to take him on legitimately (Earendil is a walking Deus ex Machina, carrying several more DeMs), is Eonwe, the Herald of Manwe who led the Host of the Ainur, who, from what I gather, became some sort of tornado of living blades of light when he went into battle and Tolkien outright says that he's the best fighter to ever live.

...wow, am I a Tolkien nerd, or what?

Okay, another new topic, since I just a savant at killing these with my nerdy lore.

I was thinking earlier... say Peter Jackson had come up with the idea of LotR on his own and made the exact same movies, and then, afterward, to milk the cash cow, came the inevitable novelization.

What kind of books would those movies make? The foundation of an entire tradition? I'm inclined to think not.

Though, maybe they would resonate more with modern audiences since there are scenes of comic relief involving short men with beards acting like bumbling fools...

Dunno. It's hard to judge for me because of the tiny details that had significance in the larger backstory that is Middle Earth and I'm not sure how those little details would be interpreted otherwise, unless hypothetical Jackson had larger stories in mind from the get go. I know when he was editting the films it was a given that there would be an extended edition on DVD so he cut certain scenes, knowing they would come up later.

We'd have to think back to the start of fantasy literature though, since, assuming that Tolkein wasn't around in the first place, it's likely that contemporary fanasy novels would be different. It would certianly have an effect on today's fantasy literature that might make imaginary new LOTR more significant.

I suppose one would have to decide how much influence writers like Ursual Le Guin, Susan Cooper, Steven Donaldson, Joseph Campbell (not fantasy but I would say important), etc. would have independant of Tolkein to decide where the current state of fantasy writing would then be.

That's kind of funny, if you think about it. Almost like LotR is some kind of time-anchor for the innovation of the fantasy genre. If you picked it out of the 1930s/40s and dropped it here, it could still redefine the genre, depending on how fantasy would evolve without Tolkien.

As for the movies as books, I was thinking more just a flat translation from film to paper a la the books for the Star Wars movies. And I just think it would be kind of... surreal to read. Hell, if I could mimic Tolkien's style to any degree, I would consider attempting that, just for how hysterically bad it would probably end up being. :p

As to your last point, I don't think Donaldson would have ended up writing fantasy at all without Tolkien, considering the way he stole from Tolkien and then twisted what he stole into a statement against the state of the genre.

The others, I'm not sure. I think a lot of it would still have been written, but you'd miss out on the whole Tolkien copycat movement in the 80s and 90s. DnD would never have come about, likely, so cut all those books out, you can throw Terry Brooks right out the window, probably Tad Williams, too. Robert Jordan and Terry Brooks likely would still put out fantasy, but it would probably be something different, not the sort of epic-scale, multi-volume world-building they ended up doing.

Then, of course, you probably wouldn't have ended up with the current dark-n-gritty movement, either, without those cliche-fests to rebel against (though... maybe. Hard to plot how much influence Tolkien really had). I think GRRM would still have put out ASoIaF, but it might not have even had the fantasy elements. Without DnD, I don't see Erikson, or Bakker, or Abercrombie even developing their worlds.

So, yeah, if it had worked out that way, I can see Jackson's LotR coming into that market sort of the way Jordan's Wheel of Time ended up hitting the real fantasy genre: working with what was there, but doing it on such a huge, intricate scale that it towered over everything else for quite a while.

We'd still have fantasy in the children's books area though. Lewis was a contemporary of Tolkein's after all and I think it's reasonable to assume that Narnia would still be present without LOTR involved. With things like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the OZ books, there would still be a fair amount of magic realism going around in the younger books, and it would likely be a matter of time before someone started writing such things for adults.

That sort of skirts the idea of outright fantasy those, since each of those books is effectively world hopping through some mystical or imaginary means from the normal world we live in (hence Magic Realism). The myth structures would still be there though, like the Arthurian Legends and the building blocks for what Tolkein did.

Not sure what would happen with TSR and DnD if LOTR had never been written. I think the concept would still be around, but the details might be different. One might look to the third party stuff that deals with other cultures or specific points in time, mythical stories, etc.

We could hit a domino thing here. If no Tolkein means no DnD as we know it, then that means no Dragonlance since the books were first based of a DnD game, or so I've read, and no shared world stuff. That covers about half the fantasy sections that I've looked through. What would the absense of Tolkein/TSR/DnD also mean for things like Blizzard and Bioware games? I think I should pause here before I get too far ahead of myself. The gamer world as we know it will shift inevitably for want of Lord of the Rings!

Well, I think it just goes to show how much of an impact Tolkien had. Things would be really different if he'd never written LotR.

Maybe people would be more original, then? :p

Dunno. Are we talking Tolkein never writing LOTR or are we talking no Tolkein at all? He was still a univeristy prof that had some things to say, and may have still kept company with Lewis and what not.

*furrows brow* You're making this complicated. :p

Okay, fine, Tolkien's still around, but he never gets that initial impulse to write "In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit..."

So, his essays on mythology would probably still have something of an impact, I imagine.

I'm not the Tolkein nerd around here so I need to get my stuff from somewhere else. :p

Okay, well, enough about what-if land, if no one minds.

We shall now talk about... elves. Do they seem consistent throughout his various stories? I have a bit of a hard time reconciling the kin-slaughtering, vengeance-oath-swearing, Balrog-owning tragic badasses of the Silm. with the singing, care-free sprites of Elrond's house in the Hobbit. And yet, some of them are probably the same elves...

War time does mean things to people. That's the main thing I can think of. Compare the time when Morgoth was running amok to the Hobbit era and things must have seemed more cheery to them. Being interested in celebrating or in creating works of art and poetry or whatnot doesn't mean someone can't kid ass when they want/need to. That's just a general statement though. I've only seen the elves in the LOTR series so there's not much I can say about the Silmarillion elves that isn't hearsay. They did come off as more serious in Children of Hurin from what I read but again we're dealing with a different age on Middle Earth when Morgoth was moving around.

I never read the book series nor have I watched the movies. I never really felt a need to. How would you rate the books compared to the movies between 1 - 10?

Oh, you don't want to use my opinion as a guideline on that, Nanka. I have an almost irrational hatred of the movies. A lot of people love them, though. The book is slower and goes into a lot more detail about things, and the way it's written isn't all that exciting.

I'd say watch the movies first, and if you like them enough, give the books a shot.

@Quiet, that's very sound and sensible (as your points usually are), the only thing I'd raise in counter to it is that in the beginning of the Silm., before Morgoth steals the Silmmarils and Ungoliant kills the Trees of Light, the elves are all happy and enjoying making beautiful things like you mentioned above, and they still don't act like that.

How long are the books? The movies are three freaking hours long and I can't pay attention that long. xD

The books are 300ish pages each, the whole thing (if you get one of those all-in-one omnibus copies) is around 1,000 pages.

And just think, the extended versions of the movies are 4 hours. :p

The book doesn't sound that long and maybe I'll give it a try. I've never really been into Sci-Fi before, but I should at least give it a shot. xD