The literary legacy that members of the Tolkien Estate want to protect

By:  Brian Tither

Introduction

I think that the reason why some members of the Tolkien Estate have sued Saul Zaentz and its subsidiaries over JRR Tolkien’s literary legacy is because of their overriding concern for protecting that legacy above all else. In particular I think that this is the intention of Christopher and Priscilla Tolkien, the surviving children of Tolkien. And as a former student of Tolkien’s academic speciality in Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic in New Zealand I personally support this intention after being frustrated at The Hobbit production being only valued for the other Hollywood productions and tourist dollars that it may bring into New Zealand. I am also frustrated at the way a lot of the people involved in the production seem to only value it for its enhancement of their individual film projects.

The literary legacy of JRR Tolkien

Tolkien was the Professor of Anglo Saxon at Oxford University in the years that Christopher and Priscilla and their deceased brothers John and Michael were children and Tolkien would come home and tell them stories based on the literature that he was teaching at Oxford. This came from Old Icelandic texts like Voluspa, which describes the rise and fall of Midgard, the Old Icelandic Middle-earth, where Tolkien got his names for his Dwarves, and The Saga of the Volsungs, where Tolkien got his ideas for Bilbo’s encounters with Gollum and Smaug from the God Loki taking off Andvari the Dwarf a ring which causes problems for its bearers and Sigurd’s slaying of Fafnir the dragon, which are supplemented by similar things in the Old English poem Beowulf. This was also supplemented by Tolkien getting his ideas for Beorn, which translates as ‘warrior’ from Old English and as ‘bear’ from Old Icelandic, and Bilbo Baggins, which translates as ‘dweller in a dwelling in a bag’ from Middle English and ‘dweller with a sword from ones in a bag’ from Old English, from characters such as Bodvar Bjarki, which translates as ‘the bear warrior’, and Hott Hjalti, which translates as ‘the small sword hilt’, from The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, where Hott’s parents are described as living in what appears to be a house built in a hole in the ground.

Given that the name Hott and the Old English word holbytla for ‘hole-builder’ conflate together as hobbit, which means ‘small hole-builder’, and given the oral tradition that developed between Tolkien and his children, it is easy to see how Tolkien took it a step further with his children and got them to help him with creating a story from him one day writing down the words: ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’. And from there the story developed as an oral tradition between them until Tolkien decided to write it down in a manuscript and this was published as The Hobbit some years later after he happened to show it to someone who recommended that he got it published. Then he wrote The Lord of the Rings, in which he referred to the mythology, later published as The Silmarillion, that he had been creating since before his children were born, while incorporating a character that he and his children devised from a doll that they owned, which they named Tom Bombadil.

The legacy of the Tolkien Estate

But the story of his children’s involvement did not stop there because Tolkien consulted Christopher on virtually every turn of The Lord of the Rings as he wrote it, while Christopher went on to become a university lecturer in Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic as well. Then when Tolkien passed away he had Christopher appointed as his literary executor and charged him to complete The Silmarillion, which Christopher did. And he also appointed him with John, Michael and Priscilla to take care of other estate matters as well.

This included taking care of matters regarding his selling off the film rights to the books to Saul Zaentz, which Tolkien did to cover the high inheritance taxes that the books accrued upon his death, all which grew out of his experiences with being swamped by the royalty taxes that he had to pay due to the sale of the books from the popularity that he did not anticipate for them. And this included the estate ensuring that Saul Zaentz and its subsidiaries did not step out of parameters that were set by Tolkien to protect the literary legacy of his works, which by implication stretched into his academic speciality to the original texts where he got his ideas from that have no copyright on them. And this experience grew out of seeing what Walt Disney did to the works of the Grimm’s Brothers the latter who Tolkien had a particular affinity for because the Grimm’s brothers also created philological principles, which Tolkien applied in his academia and works. Hence Tolkien did not want to see tangible things like this in his works being turned into intangible things like theme parks, which by implication extends into things like video games and gambling outlets such as slot machines.

And there is a need to protect this literary legacy if this literature is not to become something only valued by the money that people might make out of it at the expense of accessing that literature to many. And one of the things that I have been perturbed about as a student of Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic is experiencing both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit productions consulting linguistic and Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic experts for the purpose of developing the movies without considering how such expertise comes from the collective intellectual property of teachers and students in these specialities, even though such intellectual property was strangely fused with Hollywood action movie conventions in the films. And possibly this is why The Hobbit movies have so far not had such experts promoting them like The Lord of the Rings movies had, which probably made it expedient for the first trilogy of movies to be nominated for Oscars in categories like Best Director and Best Film, which they won on the third movie, while the second trilogy so far has not received any such nominations.

The valuation of the legacy in New Zealand

Meanwhile, as I said above, The Hobbit movies have been only valued as a means to bring more Hollywood productions and tourist dollars into New Zealand and it has been seen by people involved in the production as only a means to develop their individual film projects. The latter was made clear to me in October 2010 when allegedly there was industrial action going on which was allegedly having Warner Brothers considering moving the production elsewhere. The impression I got then from such individuals was that if the production went offshore it would severely jeopardise their projects, which was enhanced to me by someone who spoke at The Hobbit rally, which occurred a few days before Warner Brothers decided to keep the production in New Zealand. This person referred to how The Lord of the Rings production created a community of filmmakers, which has left me the impression that this community has been dependent on both that and The Hobbit production for its existence.

Consequently I have decided that I will only support the film projects of individuals involved in these productions if they demonstrate to me sufficient appreciation for the intellectual property that was drawn on for these productions. And for me the benchmark that has been set for that is that shown to me by a prominent New Zealand Maori writer, some of whose works have been turned into films, who supported the teaching of Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic at the New Zealand university that he used to work for. He also left me with the impression that the term ‘Middle-earth’ should not be used as a means for cultural groups to promote their culture to gain tourist dollars without acknowledging the culture that Middle-earth comes from as Tolkien acknowledged and intended it, who said Middle-earth was a use of the Middle English middel-erde, which derived from the Old English Middangeard and is thus related to the Old Icelandic Midgard.

Meanwhile, universities have had to cut their Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic courses even when they have had a reasonable number of students doing them due to a reallocation of university funding from a government who has used The Hobbit production so far for political gain. And I think that this is abysmal given the free promotion that The Lord of the Rings movies got from the New Zealand experts in these specialities through public lectures that they delivered like other experts in the specialities in other places in the world on the release of each movie, which if it had of been picked up on by The Hobbit production might have meant that the media surrounding the movies would have been less focussed on the apparent lack of material in the first Hobbit movie and the technology used, which not all the movie viewers were happy with.

The actual legacy in New Zealand

Also, for the New Zealand world premiere of the first Hobbit movie such experts could have highlighted how it was part of New Zealand’s culture and heritage that our education system produced Kenneth Sisam, a graduate of both Auckland and Oxford Universities, who was Tolkien’s New Zealand born tutor when Tolkien first started learning these specialities. Sisam introduced texts to Tolkien that Tolkien said that he had previously never heard of before, which included the Old English poem Crist, which had words in it translated as: ‘Hail Earendil, brightest of angels/ above the middle-earth sent unto men’. This led to the first draft of the poem of Earendil the mariner that Bilbo sings in Rivendell the night before the Council of Elrond in The Lord of the Rings, which, in turn, Tolkien wrote after his first year of having Sisam as his first tutor, which was the beginning point of his legendarium.

In addition, these New Zealand specialists could have also highlighted how Tolkien alluded in his valedictory address, when retiring from being Professor of English language and literature, to the contribution that New Zealanders (and Australians) made to the Oxford School of English and the close contest which he had with Sisam for Professor of Anglo Saxon. The latter was also referred to in an interview just before the first Lord of the Rings movie’s release with an English born former lecturer in the speciality at a New Zealand university who was at Oxford when Tolkien was Professor there at the time the book was published who said that most undergraduates thought that Sisam should have been Professor.

Conclusion

This lecturer also told my classmates and me that the undergraduates at Oxford formed the basis for the Hobbits in Tolkien’s legendarium, them being derived from the undergraduates living in study groups with a tutor and a servant called a scout who looked after their personal needs assigned to each group. That is, Frodo Baggins and his cousins were based on the undergraduates, Bilbo Baggins on the tutor and Samwise Gamgee on the scout. And hence, whereas The Hobbit was something derived by Tolkien from his telling of stories to his children based on his academia, The Lord of the Rings was derived from his actual teaching of that academia. And I experienced an evolved version of that at university from a former PhD graduate of Oxford who got some of her Bilbos to teach Sams like me our letters like Bilbo does for Sam in the book. And according to one of those Bilbos my classmates and I are the envy of many who learn these letters around the world for having had this lecturer as a teacher, which is a sure foot in the door for any of her Frodos into universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. And it is such legacies that Christopher and Priscilla Tolkien are concerned with protecting knowing full well that without it their father’s legendarium would not even exist.

Brian lives in Wellington New Zealand on the main drag to both Victoria University where he was he was taught Old and Middle English and Old Icelandic at undergraduate level by an Oxford University PhD graduate and the Embassy Theatre where the red carpet rolled out for all New Zealand premieres for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies. He goes under the pen name of Brian Boru, which refers to his family descent from a famous Gaelic warrior-king of a millenium ago called Brian Boroimhe who is part of a Gaelic literary canon that he also wants to study.

Q: Dear Everybody, I was just curious as to when it is Frodo’s and Bilbo’s birthday according to our calendar? I really enjoy your site, keep up the great work.

– Dan

A: Frodo and Bilbo shared their birthday on September 22^nd, as stated in “The Long-Expected Party.” The Hobbits called this month Halimath. The duration of the solar year for Middle-earth was the exact same as that of our Earth; namely 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds (see Tolkien’s note in The Return of the King, Appendix D, “Shire Calendar”). So we are basically measuring the same span of time but with a different enumeration of days. Small differences in each month’s duration make it a little tricky to compare the Shire Calendar to our Gregorian Calendar. We have months with 28, 30, or 31 days, but every Shire month is exactly 30 days. But look very closely, and you’ll see Tolkien added days like 1 Yule, 2 Yule, the Midyear’s Day, etc. It’s enough to cross your eyeballs!

I managed to do a simple overlay of our current year 2000 (which is a Leap Year here in the United States) with the Shire Calendar table. I added the Overlithe holiday the Hobbits would have used for their Leap Year (as we would add February 29^th) and counted forward to find the equivalent of Halimath 22^nd. It turns out Frodo and Bilbo’s birthday falls on the day we call September 23^rd… at least this Leap Year. Any other year it would fall on September 22^nd. But don’t ask me to calculate for the Chinese or Hebrew calendars, I claim no talent in mathematics!

- Quickbeam

Update!

I saw the question you answered about Frodo and Bilbo’s birthday in relation to our calendar, and looked it up in Appendix D. I noticed that it says that the hobbits’ Midyear’s Day corresponded to the summer solstice, making our New Year’s Day the hobbits’ January 9. Therefore, Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday would be September 12th (13th in leap years).

- David Massey

Interesting process of calculation, David! I am afraid I’ve spent too many years counting my own branches and little else, leaving me ill-equiped for higher forms of algebra.

- Quickbeam

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Q: I got a question in reference to the historic background Tolkien might or might not have used. In particular I was wondering about Gondor and Minas Tirith and if there was correlation between that and the Byzantine Empire. Especially since Byzantium was seen as sort of the last hope for Christianity in the east? Anyway, it seems logical to me, but I was wondering if there was any actual written evidence of a correlation there.

–John Simmons

A: To draw any specific correlation between the history of the imagined world of Middle-earth, and the history of Europe, invites problems—which is not to say that certain connections do not exist, but they are easily misinterpreted or over-analyzed. Treading softly in answer to this question, I note that Tolkien wrote in a letter that “the action of the story takes place in the North-west of ‘Middle-earth’, equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of the Mediterranean… If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford, then Minas Tirith, 600 miles south, is about at the latitude of Florence. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient city of Pelargir are at about the latitude of ancient Troy… The progress of the tale ends in what is far more like the re-establishment of an effectively Holy Roman Empire with its seat in Rome.” (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, p. 376). In Tolkien’s long letter to Milton Waldman (also in The Letters of JRRT), Tolkien explicitly makes a correlation of Gondor to Byzantium, writing that “in the south Gondor rises to a peak of power, al most reflecting Númenor, and then fades slowly to a decayed Middle Age, a kind of proud, venerable, but increasingly impotent Byzantium.” (p. 157).

- Turgon

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Q: Celeborn led the attack on Dol Guldur during the War of the Ring. Is there any book that describes this battle?
–Tim

A: The only account I find of this conflict is in The Return of the King, Appendix B, “The Tale of Years.” Look on page 375 to learn more of the force commanded by Celeborn and Galadriel. You can find further synopsis and a map with dates and movement of troops in The Atlas of Middle-earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad, on page 150, “Battles in the North.”

- Quickbeam

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Q: Since Elrond and Galadriel have great rings can they not perceive each other? Why then is the Fellowship not welcome in Lothlórien? Why the blindfolds and surprise to see Gimli? Can’t Elrond communicate this through the rings without sending messengers?

– Trevor Price

A: This is indeed a seeming paradox. Let’s take it one at a time. Firstly, about the Fellowship’s welcome in Lothlórien. If you read carefully, the Elves on the borders of Lórien, though at first suspicious, welcome the Company as graciously as they may and try to be courteous. They are willing to receive them and host them, though this is partly because Legolas is with them. They speak of Elrond’s messengers passing by Lórien on their way home up the Dimrill Stair. These are the Elves, you remember, that Elrond sent out to scour the countryside for sign or news of the Black Riders before he would allow the Company to set out, so they were not sent expressly for the purpose of telling those in Lórien about the Company. Okay, to answer the next points about the blindfolds and the surprise to see Gimli, I’ll have to work backwards. Galadriel and Celeborn already knew who and what were each member of the company. But, the border guards didn’t. When they saw a dwarf, they followed the law of the land, which stated that he wouldn’t even be allowed to enter Lothlórien. It was only on the say-so of Aragorn and Legolas that they let him in at all, because they were simply following the rules and didn’t know how a dwarf would be received in the City of the Galadhrim. “A dwarf!” said Haldir. “That is not well… they are not permitted in our land. I cannot allow him to pass… very good… we will do this, though it is against our liking. If Aragorn and Legolas will guard him, and answer for him, he shall pass; but he must go blindfold through Lothlórien.” So you see, their information was incomplete, but later we see that Galadriel had full information. Elves come out the forest and bring messages to Haldir. “Also, they bring me a message from the Lord and Lady of the Galadhrim. You are all to walk free, even the dwarf Gimli. It seems that the Lady knows who and what is each member of your Company. New messages have come from Rivendell perhaps.” *Perhaps.* Haldir really didn’t know how the Lady got her information, he just knew enough to know that she knew there was a dwarf in her land and she was commanding that he be allowed to walk free. For all we know, these messages may have come through the power of the rings. But here’s another question to throw on the fire. Is it really the rings which convey the power of communicating with thought? Does Tolkien actually state that? The quote runs thusly: “Often long after the hobbits were wrapped in sleep they would sit together under the stars, recalling the ages that were gone and all their joys and labours in the world, or holding council, concerning the days to come. If any wanderer had chanced to pass, little would he have seen or heard, and it would have seemed to him only that he saw grey figures, carved in stone, memorials of forgotten things now lost in unpeopled lands. For they did not move or speak with mouth, looking from mind to mind; and only their shining eyes stirred and kindled as their thoughts went to and fro.” Keep in mind that we are not speaking only of Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel, but also of Celeborn, who did not hold a ring. So was this a power of the rings that came to Celeborn by extension through Galadriel, or was it a power of the Eldar and of Gandalf as a Maiar? Tolkien doesn’t really say. So while I’m sure they used messengers when it suited them, I’m also willing to bet that Galadriel and Elrond and Celeborn, between them, had other ways of communicating, and since Tolkien didn’t specify how she got her information, we don’t really know how Galadriel knew what was going on. Also, don’t forget that Lothlórien was built and defended largely with the power of Galadriel’s ring, and I suspect that she had power to see what was passing on the borders of her land, possibly in the Mirror. So she had many ways of gathering news, and we’re left not knowing whether the telepathy was a function of the rings or a function of the minds of Eldar and Maia.

- Anwyn

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Q: What happened to Legolas? Did he eventually go over the Sea like the others? And could Sam have also gone at some later date?

–Judith A. Sullivan

A: Yes, and yes. Return of the King states in various places what happened to each member of the Company and especially those who had earned the privilege of sailing over-sea. The Tale of Years states it the most concisely. The entry for Shire-year 1482 runs thusly: “Death of Mistress Rose, wife of Master Samwise, on Mid-year’s Day. He comes to the Tower Hills, and is last seen by Elanor, to whom he gives the Red Book afterwards kept by the Fairbairns. Among them the tradition is handed down from Elanor that Samwise passed the Towers, and went to the Grey Havens, and passed over Sea, last of the Ring-bearers.” So it is oral tradition and not documented fact, but it seems logical and likely. Tale of Years goes on, with the entry for 1484 speaking of the deaths of Eomer, Merry and Pippin, and then the entry for 1541: “In this year on March 1st came at last the Passing of King Elessar. It is said that the beds of Meriadoc and Peregrin were set beside the bed of the great king. Then Legolas built a grey ship in Ithilien, and sailed down Anduin and so over Sea; and with him, it is said, went Gimli the Dwarf. And when that ship passed an end was come in Middle-earth of the Fellowship of the Ring.” So it is fact that Legolas went over Sea, and again oral tradition that Gimli went with him. In another place it is speculated that Galadriel remembered Gimli and obtained the grace for him to sail.

- Anwyn

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Q: Gandalf the Grey held Weathertop against 5 Black Riders. Later at Minas Tirith when he is Gandalf the White he concedes in discussions with Denethor that he may not be equal to the Witch-king. I realize that Gandalf using his power for defense only. However, he let the Witch-king break through the first level of Minas Tirith. How can these facts be reconciled?

–Trevor Price

A: Okay, my answer here has multiple points. (A) At Weathertop, the objective was for Gandalf not to be captured or killed, not for him to kill the Witch-King or any other Nazgûl. I think it is safe to say that even if Gandalf might or might not have killed a Nazgûl in single combat, he is capable of defending himself against five of them. (B) At Minas Tirith, it was not the Witch-king on his lonesome who broke through the first circle of the City, and as a matter of fact, they *didn’t* break through the first circle. They broke through the wall of the Pelennor, many miles from the City, and used catapults to throw what amounted to bombs and also human heads over the wall of the City and *into* the first circle. This doesn’t mean an enemy ever set foot into the city. Gandalf met the Witch-king in the Great Gate, after the battering-ram had done its work on the Gate itself. So you see, it was the power of Sauron’s armies that got them past the wall, over the fields, and on to break down the Gate. The Black Rider expected to ride right in through the Gate, obviously, but Gandalf was there to stop him. In the end, the sudden arrival of the Riders of Rohan made the Witch-king feel it was not the right time to continue to challenge the White Rider, and he “left the Gate and vanished.” So in neither of these cases was the objective of Gandalf the death of the Witch-king. He knew of the prophecy that not by the hand of man would he fall, and his objective was merely self- and City-preservation. He blocked the Rider’s entry into the Gate and he escaped Weathertop with his life.

- Anwyn

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Q: There is a question that has always bothered me since reading the Silmarillion. The great strength of Gondolin was its secrecy. That secrecy had long been preserved by the vigilance of the Eagles that kept a look out for Morgoth’s spies. The Eagles were sure enough of themselves to declare that if it were not for their watch, then long ago Gondolin would have been discovered. They were sharp enough to see and even recognize individuals such as Hurin after his release from Angband. What happened to the Eagles that were keeping watch on the borders of Gondolin when Morgoth’s army arrived? I understand that Turgon and the Gondolindrim had been warned by the Valar via Ulmo’s message given to Tuor and that Maeglin betrayed the location of the city to Morgoth. However, once that message that the city was not long to last was delivered and Maeglin’s treason accomplished, were the Eagles released from their watch on Gondolin? If the Eagles were at the bidding of Manwë did he know that they were not going to be able to keep guard and that is why he sent Tuor? I guess I just don’t understand how one minute no spy of Angband can get near the place unnoticed and the next a whole army of orcs, dragons, and balrogs gets to the city walls without any warning

The Silmarillion is the only account of the fall of Gondolin that I have read so it may be that I just haven’t heard the whole story. Whatever the reason, I wondered if you could help.

–Joe Roark

A: Tough-sounding question, but ultimately it might be a bit simpler than it appears. In other questions about the Eagles, we’ve established that they were indeed Manwë’s special servants, interfering little in human affairs except at dire need and when no other help was available, giving rise to the ‘deus ex machina’ comparison. Well and good. Now, take for a moment this theory: Small parties or individuals wandering around, vaguely looking for Gondolin but not really sure where to start, compared to an army which had been given specific instructions from somebody who knew exactly where to go. Am I making sense yet? I thought not. My supposition is that as long as the location wasn’t really known, but only guessed, it was still within Manwë’s jurisdiction (or within the Eagles’ as his representatives) to help protect it by somehow distracting or waylaying the ones who were looking for it, and also keeping Morgoth’s eyes from penetrating the place. But if once somebody took an active interest in betraying the location, it was not for Manwë (or his Eagles), to be able to interfere. What could they do? Pick out the eyes of an entire army? They couldn’t remove the knowledge from the minds of the enemies as to where Gondolin was hidden. Once the location became known, it was too late, there was nothing the Eagles could do. It might also be argued that the betrayal of Gondolin was Fate, foretold by Ulmo who told Turgon not to get too attached to his toys, because one day a messenger would come and that would be the sign that the fall was at hand. Turgon decided to stay and fight. Well and good, but now we’re getting into a whole realm of Fate vs. Free Will that I can’t even begin to address in this space. But I firmly believe that the Eagles were not permitted to interfere too freely in the affairs of Elves and Men, and that once an action was done by Maeglin, it could not be undone or even reasonably counteracted by the Eagles.

- Anwyn

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Maglor by ~spicedwinefanfic

Q: Maglor was left singing by the shore where he cast the Silmaril. So really he should still be there, or did something else happen to him????

–Tim

A: Maglor’s fate is recorded in The Silmarillion as follows: “And it is told of Maglor that he could not endure the pain with which the Silmaril tormented him; and he cast it at last into the Sea, and thereafter he wandered ever upon the shores, singing in pain and regret beside the waves. For Maglor was mighty among the singers of old, named only after Daeron of Doriath; but he came never back among the people of the Elves.” (p. 254). In The Shaping of Middle-earth, Christopher Tolkien published a text of the “Annals of Beleriand”, and in a late addition to it, his father wrote “but Maithros perished and his Silmaril went into the bosom of the earth, and Maglor cast his into the sea, and wandered for ever on the shores of the world” (note 71, p. 313)

That’s really all that is recorded of his fate, and we can read into that whatever we please.

- Turgon

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Q: Why were the Nazgûl so afraid of, or at least able to be harmed by, water?

–Alex Hesser

Also

Q: Where can one find an account of the Witch-king of Angmar? I just finished The Silmarillion, but it glosses over the history of Arnor.

–Chris Nicholson

A: It is sometimes hard to find detailed information on the Nazgûl, or going by their elvish name, the Úlairi. You just need to know where to look. Pull out your copy of The Return of the King and read through those wonderful Appendices! The Professor wrote them for YOU, his faithful readers.

First look at Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers, Part I—”The Númenorean Kings,” and narrow it down to Sections (iii) and (iv). On page 320 begins an account of ‘The North-kingdom and the Dúnedain,’ which reveals fascinating details of the Men who were Aragorn’s ancestors and their strife with the Witch-king. On page 331 you’ll read of the climactic battle which joined Elves from the Grey Havens, a fleet of Men from Gondor, and skilled Hobbit archers from the Shire; all united in a last front against Angmar. Concise maps of the battle, which are very helpful, can be found in Karen Wynn Fonstad’s The Atlas of Middle-earth, pages 58-59.

As for the Nazgûl being harmed by water, I’m not certain that’s the case. Only magical blades laden with Elvish spells could do true harm to a Ringwraith. As Frodo attempted escape across the Ford of Bruinen, the Nine Riders were not afraid of the water itself… the Morgul-lord spurred his horse forward, the others following. Ordinary water would not hinder them but burning fire in the hands of an Elf-lord is a great deterrent! But remember Elrond commanded this river and it was certainly not ordinary; thus the brute force of his magic flood was strong enough to sweep them away.
- Quickbeam

Update!

Thanks to several readers who have a keen eye for Unfinished Tales. I would be remiss if I did not add more to my incomplete answer. Look in Part III—The Third Age, Section IV: “The Hunt for the Ring” wherein we learn from Christopher Tolkien that JRRT had drafted material about the Nazgûls’ fear of water but then finally made the concept less specific because it was problematic.

At the Ford of Bruinen only the Witch-king and two others, with the lure of the Ring straight before them, had dared to enter the river; the others were driven into it by Glorfindel and Aragorn.

and also:

My father nowhere explained the Ringwraiths’ fear of water… thus of the Rider seen on the far side of Bucklebury Ferry just after the Hobbits had crossed it is said that “he was well aware that the Ring had crossed the river; but the river was a barrier to his sense of its movement,” and that the Nazgûl would not touch the “Elvish” waters of the Branduin. But it is not made clear how they crossed other rivers that lay in their path, such as the Greyflood, where there was only “a dangerous ford formed by the ruins of the bridge.” My father did indeed note that the idea was difficult to sustain.

Here is what one reader had to say:

If you check out “The Hunt for the Ring” in Unfinished Tales, you will find a lot more about the Nazgûl’s fear of water (although it seems that ultimately Tolkien was going to give up the idea as being “difficult to maintain.”) Also, the idea of ghosts or spirits being unable to cross bodies of water is not an uncommon folk-tale motif. This section of Unfinished Tales has lots of good stuff on the Nazgûl, and the account of their arrival in Hobbiton the very day Frodo was setting out is absolutely fascinating (especially their encounters with Saruman, Wormtongue, and the “squint-eyed southerner” at Bree).

–Philip Covitz

Also on a separate note, some readers took issue with my point that “only magical blades laden with Elvish spells” could harm a Nazgûl. Consider the episode where Merry and Éowyn face the Lord of the Nazgûl and defeat him. One Hobbit using a Númenorean blade; one human woman using steel of the Mark. Neither are using Elvish blades yet they both seem to get the job done. This is true and sound logic, so let me modify my answer briefly: the most lethal implements against a Ringwraith would be those imbued with some greater skill or magic beyond common steel. Be it the magic of Elves or the high spirit of Númenor—it would be some component that upheld the legacy of Valinor and scorn for the works of Shadow. Merry had the proper instrument and delivered a blow breaking the spell of the Witch-king’s invulnerability. And Éowyn may have been wielding only a “regular sword” but the rules of the game had changed at that point. Éowyn’s role was to fulfill the prophecy, and being not a mortal man, she brought Fate full circle to the dreaded Morgul-lord.

- Quickbeam

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Q: Why were the Orcs so easily able to spot Frodo’s body lying in the passage of Cirith Ungol when he was wrapped in his elven cloak? It was dark in the passage and even accepting that Orcs have good night/dark vision, would their night vision surpass the excellent day vision of the Men of Rohan who passed the Three Hunters in good light on the plains of Rohan?

–The Grey Pilgrim

A: Consider how watchful the Orcs were from high up in the Tower. Frodo was running around shouting, with Sam yelling behind him… and in the battle with Shelob the Phial of Galadriel was blasting elf-light in all directions. There’s not an Orc anywhere who would have missed the commotion! Shagrat indicates that his boys were full witness to the “lights and shouting and all.” They knew exactly where to look at the mouth of the Lair.

Also recall it wasn’t a large, exposed space. The area just past the webbed tunnel exit was only 600 feet across measuring to the steps of the Cleft, maybe less. Where the two Orc troops converged, they found Frodo “Lying right in the road.” Maybe they didn’t see him right away, but with dozens of Orcs tramping about looking for further evidence in an enclosed space, they likely stumbled right over him.

- Quickbeam

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Q: Legolas and Gandalf (on Shadowfax) rode “elf-fashion” (without saddle or bridle), yet when Glorfindel lets Frodo ride his horse at the Ford, he “shortens the stirrups up to the saddle skirts”. The best I can figure is that since Glorfindel was riding to seek out Frodo and help him (possibly by fighting the Nazgûl) he rode out equipped for battle, and a saddle and bridle would make reasonable sense in that case. What are your opinions?

–Ed Bauza

A: In The Fellowship of the Ring, the first appearance of Glorfindel on the road is described as follows: “Suddenly into view below came a white horse, gleaming in the shadows, running swiftly. In the dusk its bit and bridle flickered and flashed, as if it were studded with gems like living stars.” (page 221 of the first edition, 1954)

Later, Glorfindel tells Frodo: “You shall ride my horse. I will shorten the stirrups up to the saddle-skirts” (page 223).

In 1958, a reader of The Lord of the Rings asked Tolkien the following question: “Why is Glorfindel’s horse described as having a ‘bridle and bit’ when Elves ride without bit, bridle or saddle?”

Tolkien’s answer was as follows: “I could, I suppose, answer: ‘a trick-cyclist can ride a bicycle with handle-bars!’ But actually bridle was casually and carelessly used for what I suppose should have been called a headstall. Or rather, since bit was added (I 221) long ago (Chapter I 12 was written very early) I had not considered the natural ways of elves with animals. Glorfindel’s horse would have an ornamental headstall, carrying a plume, and with the straps studded with jewels and small bells; but Glor. would certainly not use a bit. I will change bridle and bit to headstall.” (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, page 279)

In the second edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, the reading of “bridle and bit” was changed to “headstall” on page 221, but the reading on page 223 remains the same as in the original edition. So, for whatever reason, Glorfindel must have been riding with a saddle, even though that is not normally elf-fashion.

- Turgon

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Q: If Frodo was a little hobbit, how did the Ring always stay on his finger and never fall off? That goes for Bilbo too.

–Alex Hesser

A: The Ring had strange powers that we aren’t fully informed of, but one of the powers that we *are* told about was the ability to change its size. Gandalf is speaking to Frodo about the Ring: “Though he had found out that the thing needed looking after; it did not seem always of the same size or weight; it shrank or expanded in an odd way, and might suddenly slip off a finger where it had been tight.” “Yes, he warned me of that in his last letter,” said Frodo, “so I have always kept it on its chain.” So that answers both questions: the Ring stayed on the finger if it was pleased to do so. You may remember also in The Hobbit how when Bilbo thought he was wearing the Ring, it suddenly wasn’t on his finger and he was seen by goblins. Also, there is the fact that Frodo never wore it much, and kept it on its chain, as he said.

- Anwyn

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Q: I have forgotten what became of the Seven Rings for the Dwarven lords. I am sure the answer to this question is fairly easy, but it has been quite a while since I really studied the books and I guess I have just gotten lazy.

–Jeremy Danford

A: When Gandalf entered Dol Guldur in 2845 (Third Age) and found Thrain imprisoned there, Thrain complained that “the last of the Seven” had been taken from him. The Rings of Power were forged in the middle of the Second Age. The ring that was possessed by Thrain was believed to have been the first of the Seven that was forged, and it was said that it was given to the King of Khazad-dum, Durin III. The possessors did not display their rings, nor speak of them, and the histories of the Dwarves do not detail the fate of each of the Seven. In “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age”, a section published in The Silmarillion, it is written that the Dwarves “used their rings only for the getting of wealth; but wrath and an overmastering greed of gold were kindled in their hearts, of which evil enough after came to the profit of Sauron. It is said that the foundation of each of the Seven Hoards of the Dwarf-kings of old was a golden ring; but all those hoards long ago were plundered and the Dragons devoured them, and of the Seven Rings some were consumed in fire and some Sauron recovered.” (pages 288-289)
- Turgon

Update!

Rallas has written in with the following interesting comment: “Remember that in the text preceding the Council of Elrond where Frodo and Gimli are talking, Frodo asks what has brought the Dwarf so far from the Lonely Mountain, Gimli winks but defers further conversation till later. During the council he states that the messengers from the South had come a number of times to offer great wealth and precious things for information about Bilbo. In the “History of Middle-Earth” Tolkien’s writings clearly state that the precious things which were offered if the Dwarves could obtain the ‘trifle’ from Bilbo would be three rings as their forefathers had had of old. Sauron must have had at least three of the Dwarven rings in his possession.”
- Turgon

Update to the Update

Reader “Ban” brought up a good point about Rallas’s comment: “Pardon my nit-pickiness, but wasn’t it Gloin that Frodo was talking to before the Council? Gimli wasn’t introduced as Gloin’s son until everybody was introduced by Elrond.” Ban is absolutely correct–it was Gloin!

- Turgon

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Stars by Douglas Chaffee

Q: Why did Tolkien mention stars so much? I’ve heard that he had a love of astronomy, but there seems to be more in his mentioning of stars in almost all of his books than just his hobby. There seems to be some sort of symbolism in connecting the stars to the elves, but I just can’t seem to figure it out! Does anyone over at the Green Books or any other fan have any idea what stars are supposed to symbolize?

–The Dodger

A: Tolkien clearly had an immense love of the natural world, from flora and fauna to the orbs in the sky. In one sense, his entire mythology of Middle-earth is based upon looking at the natural world and presenting new “myths’ for why things are the way they are. His mythology began in the teens with a question of the meaning of a word in an Anglo-Saxon religious poem, “Crist” by Cynewulf: “Eala Earendel engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard monnum sended”. In English: “Hail Earendel, brightest of angels, above the middle-earth sent unto men.” Tolkien viewed that the word ‘Earendel’ had originally been a name for the evening star, or Venus, and Tolkien created the myth of Earendil, who sailed the heavens in a ship, bearing a Silmaril. The Silmarillion also contains Tolkien’s wonderful story of the creation of the Sun and the Moon from the last fruits of the Two Trees of Valinor. And the stars themselves were kindled by the Vala Varda, who was the spouse of Manwe and who was especially concerned with light. (Varda filled the lamps of the Valar with light, and set the courses in the sky of the Sun and Moon.) Varda was especially revered by the Elves, who first awoke in Middle-earth in the vale of Cuivienen, under the starlight of Varda. She was usually called Elbereth (Sindarin, ‘star-queen’). And that is basis of the internal symbolism connecting the Elves and the stars.
- Turgon

Update!

A reader (“VLT”) wrote in with some interesting observations: “There might be another simple reason why stars get so often mentioned in Tolkien’s books. In the past – especially for travellers – stars played very important role: they were used for orientation at night, to determine cardinal points, to tell the time…. Their movements announced seasonal changes (Nile´s flooding). Their behaviour and appearance were base for many myths, stories and tales, often of symbolical meaning. To sum it up, stars had much greater importance and significance in people´s lives in the past and this might be reflected in the books.”

- Turgon

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Q: Where did Ungoliant come from?

–Alex Hesser

A: The most information we get out of Tolkien concerning Ungoliant’s origins is found in The Silmarillion: “There, beneath the sheer walls of the mountains and the cold dark sea, the shadows were deepest and thickest in the world; and there in Avathar, secret and unknown, Ungoliant had made her abode. The Eldar knew not whence she came; but some have said that in ages long before she descended from the darkness that lies about Arda, when Melkor first looked down in envy upon the Kingdom of Manwë, and that in the beginning she was one of those that he corrupted to his service.” This tells me that she was likely a Maiar, who, like Sauron, was corrupted by Melkor. It goes on to say, however, that she soon ceased to serve Melkor, serving only herself and her great hunger, devouring everything she could eat, even light itself.

- Anwyn

This weekend’s Roundup brings you The Reading Room as it hosted the very first TORn Amateur Symposium.  Many Message Board Members have found it difficult to attend national symposiums and conferences that include studies on J.R.R. Tolkien and his works.  As a result, TORn has conducted its own Symposium.  Members have contributed personal essays on philosophic opinions, scientific theories, or analytic approaches to understanding or highlighting some facet of Tolkien’s writings and world.  Please enjoy the following topics offered in this first TORn Amateur Symposium.

Day One – The Physics of Middle-earth

Day Two – Fauna of Middle-earth

Day Three – Geography and Literature, Art & Language

Day Four – The Hobbit Topics

Day Five – The Lord of the Rings Topics

Day Six – The Silmarillion Topics

Want Hobbit Movie News?  Each week, TORn poster DanielLB ventures into the very rich and fast-moving Hobbit Discussion Board to collect The Hobbit Headlines of the Week.  Check out this week’s action here.

We’ll share more topics next week and hope you join in on the conversation!  Don’t forget, TheOneRing.net’s Message Boards have nearly 9,900 registered Tolkien fans, just like you.  Let your voice be heard!

Q: Gandalf and the other wizards were obviously powerful Maiar sent to protect Middle Earth. If Tom Bombadil is a lesser Maiar, then why was Tom completely unaffected by the ring when he placed it on his finger, Tom didn’t even disappear. When Gandalf was offered the ring he refused saying that the power would corrupt him as any other. I hope you can explain this to me. I don’t think it’s because Tom Bombadil didn’t want power so he was unaffected, because Gandalf was just as uninterested in power as Tom. Thank you.

- The Dunedain

A: It seems more plausible that Tom Bombadil was uninterested in the kind of power that the Ring conveyed. Tom also clearly had his own boundaries, at least geographically, for when he takes leave of the hobbits he says “Tom’s country ends here: he will not pass the borders”. If Tom would have been persuaded to take the Ring, it would, over time and in the end, have worked its power upon him and corrupted him. But for the short time of its passage through his own country, it seems not to have affected him, and within the boundaries of his own realm, Tom seems certainly to have been Master.

- Turgon

Update!

A few people have written in questioning whether Tom Bombadil might not actually be Eru. Truly, there are no hints of this in Tolkien’s writings, and I think that such a Twilight-Zone styled twist would be uncharacteristic of him. Also, in view of Tolkien’s devotion to his Catholicism, and in light of his extensive rationalization of “sub-creation” in his famous essay “On Fairy-Stories”, I just don’t think his mind worked that way. But that’s only my view.
- Turgon

Update to Update!

One reader wrote in to point out a few passages in Letters where Tolkien states explicitly that, in Middle-earth, “there is no embodiment of the One, of God, who indeed remains remote, outside of the World, and only directly accessible to the Valar or Rulers”. These statements rule out the possibility that Tom Bombadil might be Eru.

Another theory that has been proposed is that Tom Bombadil is Aule. For more on this, see the essay by Gene Hargrove at: http://www.cas.unt.edu/~hargrove/bombadil.html

(Personally, I don’t find this argument convincing, but the possibility is intriguing.)

- Turgon

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Ted Nasmith – Luthien’s Lament Before Mandos

Q: In “Unfinished Tales,” reference is made to “The Second Prophecy of Mandos.” This foretells the Dagor Dagorath, the final battle against Melkor that will end the world (a la Ragnarok, Armageddon). But except for that tidbit, the Second Prophecy is a throwaway reference. So I’m asking–when did Mandos make this prophecy? Where and under what circumstances? What mortal ears heard it? And what, exactly, does it prophecy? Is there more to it? The First Prophecy (which I’m assuming refers to the Doom cast on the Noldor as they were high-tailin’ it out of Aman) was pretty specific and wide-ranging. The Second must be more substantial than simply, “There’s gonna be a big fight with Morgoth”.

-The Prankster

A: The reference in Unfinished Tales comes from a passage quoted in the section on “The Istari”, and reads as follows: “Manwe will not descend from the Mountain until the Dagor Dagorath, and the Coming of the End, when Melkor returns” (p. 395). Christopher Tolkien has footnoted this to read: “This is a reference to ‘the Second Prophecy of Mandos’, which does not appear in The Silmarillion; its elucidation cannot be attempted here, since it would require some account of the history of the mythology in relation to the published version.” (footnote 8, p. 402).

Unfinished Tales came out in 1980, and fortunately, with the publication in 1986 of volume four of The History of Middle-earth, entitled The Shaping of Middle-earth, we can understand much more about the Second Prophecy of Mandos. It appears in this volume in two forms, in the earliest ‘Silmarillion’, the ‘Sketch of the Mythology’ as written for Tolkien’s former teacher R. W. Reynolds around 1926, and in the ‘Quenta Silmarillion’ proper, written around 1930. For the version from the earliest ‘Silmarillion’, see section 19, pp. 40-1 of The Shaping of Middle-earth. The second version, from which I give some extracts below, can be found in full in section 19 , pp. 163-5 of the same volume:

“After the triumph of the Gods, Earendel sailed still in the seas of heaven, but the Sun scorched him and the Moon hunted him in the sky . . . Then the Valar drew his white ship Wingelot over the land of Valinor, and they filled it with radiance and hallowed it, and launched it through the Door of Night. And long Earendel set sail into the starless vast, Elwing at his side, the Silmaril upon his brow, voyaging the Dark behind the world, a glimmering and fugitive star. And ever and anon he returns and shines behind the courses of the Sun and Moon above the ramparts of the Gods, brighter than all other stars, the mariner of the sky, keeping watch against Morgoth upon the confines of the world. Thus shall he sail until he sees the Last Battle fought upon the plains of Valinor.

“Thus spake the prophecy of Mandos, which he declared in Valmar at the judgement of the Gods, and the rumour of it was whispered among all the Elves of the West: when the world is old and the Powers grow weary, then Morgoth shall come back through the Door out of the Timeless Night; and he shall destroy the Sun and the Moon, but Earendel shall come upon him as a white flame and drive him from the airs. Then shall the last battle be gathered on the fields of Valinor. In that day Tulkas shall strive with Melko, and on his right shall stand Fionwe and on his left Turin Turambar, son of Hurin, Conqueror of Fate; and it shall be the black sword of Turin that deals unto Melko his death and final end; and so shall the Children of Hurin and all men be avenged.

“Thereafter shall the Silmarils be recovered out of sea and earth and air; for Earendil shall descend and yield up that flame that he hath had in keeping. Then Feanor shall bear the Three and yield their fire to rekindle the Two Trees, and a great light shall come forth; and the Mountains of Valinor shall be levelled, so that the light goes out over all the world. In that light the Gods will again grow young, and the Elves awake and all their dead arise, and the purpose of Iluvatar be fulfilled concerning them. But of Men in that day the prophecy speaks not, save of Turin only, and him it names among the Gods.”

- Turgon

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Q: Back a while ago (before the internet) I remember seeing a piece written where someone was arguing that Tolkien elves were actually taller than humans. I don’t remember where it was but that doesn’t matter now. Is there any actual mention in any of the books or professor Tolkien’s letters about this? Or are elves really shorter as is shown in just about every picture painted of the Fellowship (i.e. Legolas and the humans)? If they are shorter, how do the half-elves (Elrond and Aragorn’s line) all end up being generally bigger than other humans?

-Mark Ervin

A: The cheating answer is to use Robert Foster’s Complete Guide to Middle-earth and cite his entry for Elves, in which he writes, “Elves were the fairest of all earthly creatures, and resembled the Ainur in spirit. They were about six feet tall and somewhat slender…”. But the real challenge is to find where in Tolkien that Foster found this information. In The Lord of the Rings, the first meeting with an Elf occurs in Book I , Chapter 3, “Three Is Company”, where the hobbits encounter Gildor and his party of elves in the Shire. As the hobbits are marching along with them, Pippin begins to stagger, “but each time a tall Elf at his side put out his arm and saved him from a fall”. Later in The Fellowship of the Ring, in Book II, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”, when the fellowship meets Celeborn and Galadriel, they are described as follows: “Very tall they were, and the Lady no less tall than the Lord”. I’m sure that there are other similar references scattered throughout the books. The earliest mention chronologically within Tolkien’s life that I can find about the stature of Elves comes from Tolkien’s early poetry, c. 1915, in which the Elves were conceived with a diminutive stature. But, as Christopher Tolkien notes in The Book of Lost Tales, Part One, “All the ‘elfin’ diminutiveness soon disappeared” (p. 32). And in the prose narrative of The Book of Lost Tales (written c. 1917-20) there is some confusion as to whether Men or Elves were of a greater stature, but they are certainly seen to be of a similar size. One added note by Tolkien states that “Men were almost of a stature at first with Elves, the fairies being far greater and Men smaller than now.” (p. 235) Tolkien seems to have regarded Men and Elves to be of a similar size for the rest of his life.

- Turgon

Update!

Vladimir Lukic sent in a bunch of interesting observations, pointing out that there are some really fascinating comments in Tolkien’s notes on “Numenorean Linear Measures,” published inUnfinished Tales (pp. 285-287). Tolkien writes of the unit of measurement “ranga” that “two rangar was often called ‘man-high’, which at thirty-eight inches gives an average height of six feet four inches; but this was at a later date, when the stature of the Dunedain appears to have decreased. . . . Elendil was said to be ‘more than man-high by nearly half a ranga’; but he was accounted the tallest of all the Numenoreans who escaped the Downfall. The Eldar of the Elder Days were also very tall. Galadriel, ‘the tallest of all the women of the Eldar of whom tales tell’, was said to be man-high, but it is noted ‘according to the measure of the Dunedain and the men of old’, indicating a height of about six feet four inches.”

- Turgon

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Q: At the Doors of Durin, what is Gandalf referring to when he says that Merry of all people was on the right track about the proper words to open the gates? I can’t see that Merry says anything very profound.

-Dr.Joe

A: Gandalf read the elf-letters on the Doors of Durin as follows:

“The words are in the elven-tongue of the West of Middle-earth in the Elder Days,” answered Gandalf. ‘But they do not say anything of importance to us. They say only: The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter. And underneath small and faint is written: I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs.”

“What does it mean by speak, friend, and enter?” asked Merry.

“That is plain enough,” said Gimli. “If you are a friend, speak the password, and the doors will open, and you can enter.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, p.318)

Merry’s observation was not very profound, but he was at least questioning the odd phrasing of “speak, friend, and enter”, and its meaning. The phrasing proved to be the key to opening the door, as Gandalf soon figured out. The translation should have been “Say ‘friend’ and enter”, and Gandalf merely had to say the Elvish word for ‘friend’, mellon, and the doors opened.

- Turgon

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Q: What do you know of the theory that the hero in C.S. Lewis’ space trilogy is actually a thinly discussed characterization of Prof. Tolkien?

A: Tolkien himself felt that Ransom (at least in the first two books of the so-called Space Trilogy, Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra) resembled himself in superficial ways. In a letter to Stanley Unwin of 18 February 1938, Tolkien wrote about the Ransom in Out of the Silent Planet as being the hero who “is a philologist (one point in which he resembles me) ” (Letters, no. 24). But in a letter to Christopher Tolkien of 31 July 1944, Tolkien mentions that his daughter Priscilla has “just read Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra; and with good taste preferred the latter. But she finds it hard to realise that Ransom is not meant to be a portrait of me (though as a philologist I may have some part in him, and recognize some of my opinions and ideas Lewisified in him)” (Letters, no. 77).

So it seems at least some elements of Tolkien ended up in the character Ransom, but I doubt that Lewis himself intended the character to be in any sense a ‘real’ portrait of his friend. The relevance of real people to fictional characters is always a difficult issue, as the characters tend to grow to meet the needs of the story, taking on a life of their own, and then they become something other than that which they might have started out being. As anyone who has ever read the third volume of the trilogy will tell you, That Hideous Strength is rather a different book than the first two. It certainly grew and evolved in ways to match the changes in Lewis’ own life during the time of its writing, and it shows the considerable influence of Charles Williams, whom Lewis did not know particularly well when he wrote the first volume. So things evolve, and things change.

- Turgon

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Q: So how is Glorfindel an Elf-Lord? The Glorfindel that crossed over with the Noldor in Silmarillion fell in battle with a Balrog while escaping Gondolin. And the Noldor are the only elves who crossed over, weren’t they? The only thing I can think of is the possibility that Glorfindel was a descendant of Thingol, who of course made the initial trip to Valimar and then didn’t make it back the second time around. Also, since Thingol married well (to say the least), all of his descendants could be considered Elf-Lords, I guess. But is there anything in writing that supports the idea of Glorfindel being a descendant of Thingol?

-Tom Phillips

A: This questions ties into the whole problem of whether the Glorfindel of The Silmarillion, who was killed in a fight with a Balrog in Gondolin, is the same Glorfindel as is found in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien himself considered this, and wrote a few fascinating short essays, which are printed in The Peoples of Middle-earth, pp. 377-82. I recommend that anyone interested in this very curious matter seek them out.

In one of these pieces Tolkien himself interprets a small passage in The Fellowship of the Ring (from p. 235) as pertaining to Glorfindel (when the passage itself doesn’t necessarily have to refer to him). Tolkien writes that Glorfindel “is said to have been one of the ‘lords of the Eldar from beyond the furthest seas … who have dwelt in the Blessed Realm.’.” [p. 379 of The Peoples of Middle-earth; the ellipses are Tolkien's] This would rule out Glorfindel being Sindarin (and thereby ruling out the possibility that he is a descendant of Thingol).

Though it remains problematical, one nearly has to come to the conclusion that the Glorfindel of The Silmarillion, slain in the Fall of Gondolin, was indeed reborn in Aman and allowed to return to Middle-earth, where he had a role to play in the War of the Ring, as is narrated in The Lord of the Rings.

- Turgon

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‘Turin Turambar’ by Dovile Tarutyte

Q: More out of curiosity then an attempt to stump…..how is it that the sword of Turin, Gurtholfin, was able to speak? What other details of this artifact can you guys did up?

-Tookish

A: Turin’s sword was named Gurtholfin, ‘Wand of Death’, in The Book of Lost Tales. In later writings, particularly in the published Silmarillion and in the “Narn i Hin Hurin” in Unfinished Tales, it was called Gurthang, or ‘Iron of Death’. It was named thus after it was reforged in Nargothrond from Anglachel, the sword of Beleg. The Silmarillion describes it being “though ever black its edges shone with pale fire”. And Turin’s use of it on the Guarded Plain made him known as Mormegil, the Black Sword.

To turn back to The Book of Lost Tales, it is described therein as follows: “It was made by magic to be utterly black save at its edges, and those were shining bright and sharp as but Gnome-steel may be. Heavy it was, and was sheathed in black, and it hung from a sable belt, and Turin named it Gurtholfin the Wand of Death; and often that blade leapt in his hand of its own lust, and it is said that at times it spake dark words to him” (The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, p. 83).

The important passage where the sword itself speaks is found first in The Book of Lost Tales, and later in revised forms in the “Narn i Hin Hurin” and in The Silmarillion. I quote from the latter:

“There he [Turin] drew forth his sword, that now alone remained to him of all his possessions, and he said: ‘Hail Gurthang! No lord or loyalty dost thou know, save the hand that wieldeth thee. From no blood wilt thou shrink. Wilt thou therefore take Turin Turambar, wilt thou slay me swiftly?’

“And from the blade rang a cold voice in answer: ‘Yea, I will drink thy blood gladly, that so I may forget the blood of Beleg my master, and the blood of Brandir slain unjustly. I will slay thee swiftly.’” (p. 225)

Within the world of Middle-earth it is indeed odd for a sword to speak. There are some instances of animals speaking (I am thinking here of Huan in The Silmarillion, of the eagles and spiders and ravens in The Hobbit, and then there is that curious fox in The Lord of the Rings who passes the hobbits sleeping out in the Shire, in Book 1 Chapter 3, and “thinks” for a few sentences…), but the speaking inanimate object seems very unusual. I don’t really have a good answer for this within the world of Middle-earth itself, unless, for some reason the Valar permitted the sword to speak (or spoke through it), but that seems to be interpreting too far.

There is a more reasonable answer to this question, which comes from Tolkien’s own sources. As an undergraduate, Tolkien had become enamoured with the Finnish epic Kalevala, in the W. F. Kirby translation. The Kalevala includes the story of the hapless Kullervo, whose basic story resembles Turin’s very closely. (In fact, Tolkien himself wrote a verse-version of “The Story of Kullervo” in 1914, but this has never been published.) In both stories, Kullervo and Turin, after similar upbringings, fall in love unknowingly with their own sisters, and when the sisters learn of their incest, they drown themselves. Kullervo, like Turin, seeks release from his life from his sword, asking it if it will drink his blood. Kullervo’s sword answers very similarly, and takes its master’s life in an identical manner. The following quotation comes from the W. F. Kirby translation of the Kalevala:

Kullervo, Kalervo’s offspring
Grasped the sharpened sword he carried,
Looked upon the sword and turned it,
And he questioned it and asked it,
And he asked the sword’s opinion,
If it was disposed to slay him,
To devour his guilty body,
And his evil blood to swallow.
Understood the sword his meaning,
Understood the hero’s question,
And it answered him as follows:
“Wherefore at thy heart’s desire
Should I not thy flesh devour,
And drink up thy blood so evil?
I who guiltless flesh have eaten,
Drank the blood of those who sinned not?”
Kullervo, Kalervo’s offspring,
With the very bluest stockings,
On the ground the haft set firmly,
On the heath the hilt pressed tightly,
Turned the point against his bosom,
And upon the point he threw him,
Thus he found the death he sought for,
Cast himself into destruction.

- Turgon

Update!

A reader who signed himself “The Blacksword” provided some additional, very interesting insights into the question of Turin’s speaking sword:

“The answer comes from within Middle Earth. In The Silmarillion, there is a passage in [Chapter 21] ‘Of Turin Turambar’ which may provide some insight as to how the Gurthang spoke. It is as follows, ‘Then Beleg chose Anglachel; and that was a sword of great worth and it was so named because it was made of iron that fell from heaven as a blazing star. . . . and that smith was Eol the dark elf. . . . He gave Anglachel to Thingol as a fee, which he begrudged, for leave to dwell in Nan Emloth.’ [p. 201-2] And later, ‘But as Thingol turned the hilt of Anglachel towards Beleg, Melian looked at the blade; and she said: “There is malice in this sword. The dark heart of the smith still dwells in it. It will not love the hand it serves.”‘ [p. 202]

“Gurthang is Anglachel after it was reforged. At this time we know that Eol is slain, in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad Maeglin fought beside Turgon, and Eol his father was cast from Caragdur only a few days after Maeglin arrived in Gondolin. Turin was a boy when Hurin went off to that battle. There are instances in Middle Earth where spirits inhabit places; the Barrow-wights, the Dead men of Dunharrow, the Dead Marshes, Caradhras, I am sure there are more examples. I can’t think of any examples of elven spirits inhabiting objects, however, one could argue that the spirit of Sauron inhabited The Ring. . . . The conclusion is that the spirit of Eol was within the sword, and that was how it spoke. Perhaps the strange origin of the iron also made it possible for the sword to be ‘possessed.’”

Thanks for writing in and sharing these insights.

-Turgon

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Q: Did the Decline of the Elves (in the Fourth Age) also affected the Dwarves? Did they ever went back to live in Moria? What’s the story around that place where Durin used to go, at Moria’s top, that Gimli tells us about?

thanks from Buenos Aires
–Juan Pablo Pasini

A: In The Peoples of Middle-earth, Christopher Tolkien quotes a short passage from an earlier version of the Tale of Years (Appendix B in The Lord of the Rings) in which his father wrote: “The Fourth Age ushered in the Dominion of Men and the decline of all the other ‘speaking-folk’ of the Westlands” (p. 172). In another passage from the same volume Christopher quotes from a version of “Durin’s Folk” (a section of Appendix A in The Lord of the Rings) the following statement concerning the re-population of Moria in the Fourth Age: “And the line of Dain prospered, and the wealth and renown of the kingship was renewed, until there arose again for the last time an heir of that House that bore the name of Durin, and he returned to Moria; and there was light again in deep places, and the ringing of hammers and the harping of harps, until the world grew old and the Dwarves failed and the days of Durin’s race were ended.” (p. 278). Christopher Tolkien notes that while none of this is mentioned in The Lord of the Rings proper, “Durin VII and Last” is mentioned in the genealogical table accompanying the “Durin’s Folk” portion of Appendix A in The Lord of the Rings.

As to your third question, I think you mean Durin’s Tower, which was “carved in the living rock of Zirakzigil, the pinnacle of the Silvertine.” (The Two Towers, p. 105) This was at the very top of the Endless Stair, which ran from the lowest dungeon to the highest peak of Khazad-dum, and which Gimli said had long been lost, if it ever existed. Unfortunately, aside from this brief reference, I find no other significant mention of it.

- Turgon

Update!

A few readers have pointed out that Gandalf chased the Balrog up the Endless Stair, during their long struggle. And they came out at last through Durin’s Tower, “carved in the living rock of Zirakzigil, the pinnacle of the Silvertine.” (The Two Towers, page 105) In their struggle, Durin’s Tower was destroyed, and the stair ruined.
- Turgon

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Amroth by Olga Kukhtenkova

Q: I thought that there were only three marriages between men and elves: Luthien and Beren, Idril and Tuor and Aragorn and Arwen. But in “The Return of the King” at the beginning of chapter IX Legolas meets with prince Imrahil and he saw “that there indeed was one who had elven-blood in his veins”. So do other unknown marriages between the two races exist?

- Cathy

A: The reference you sight reads more fully: “At length they came to the Prince Imrahil, and Legolas looked at him and bowed low; for he saw that here indeed was one who had elven-blood in his veins. ‘Hail, lord!’ he said. ‘It is long since the people of Nimrodel left the woodlands of Lorien, and yet still one may see that not all sailed from Amroth’s haven west over water.” (p. 148, The Return of the King).

Amroth was a Silvan Elf (of the early Third Age), and thus not among the Eldar; Amroth founded the port of Dol Amroth in Belfalas, in the south of Gondor. Imrahil was, at the time of The Lord of the Rings, the Prince of Dol Amroth, and of Numenorean descent. The elvish blood in his ancestry came from a marriage between a Silvan Elf and a human, not between an Elda and a human. The famous three marriages between Elves and Men are actually counted as being marriages between Elves of the Eldar and Men. Thus any number of uncounted marriages could have happened between Silvan Elves and Men.

- Turgon

Update!

Mithrigil has written in and further clarified my point: “In reference to the “Imrahil” question, the marriages in question were between the Eldar and Edain. As far as I know, the Eldar never gave such a thought to any lesser men.”
- Turgon

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Q: What is the Gray Havens and what is its importance?

A: The Grey Havens was the coastal town and harbor founded by Cirdan at the beginning of the Second Age of Middle-earth. Cirdan held one of the Three Elven rings, Narya the Ring of Fire, which he gave to Gandalf upon his arrival in Middle-earth around the year 1000 of the Third Age. It was a stronghold for the Elves throughout the Second and Third Ages, and even into the Fourth Age. It was symbolically as well as physically the connecting point between the Valar in Valinor and the peoples of Middle-earth. By sailing from the Grey Havens, the Elves could find the straight road to Valinor after Valinor had been removed from the circles of the world, and the seas had been bent.

- Turgon

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Q: I have a question for which I personally have 2 theories, but was wondering what “the experts” have to say. In re-reading the Prologue to Fellowship, I noticed that Tolkien refers to the party in the Hobbit getting wailaid by orcs, and Bilbo getting lost in orc caves, and Gollum eating orcs and so on. In The Hobbit, Tolkien calls them goblins. What’s the reason for this? My theories are these: 1) Blatant inconsistency (as much as I hate to even say it); 2) Tolkien uses the words interchangeably — goblins for a younger, less fantasy educated audience and orcs for a more mature fantasy audience. People who do not read fantasy would most likely not recognize orcs, whereas goblins and trolls would most likely be understood as “evil monsters.” Perhaps it’s neither. Please give me your insight with perhaps a more literate answer. I’d appreciate your time.

- Matt Creelman

A: Your answer number two pretty much captures my thoughts. In a letter dated 18 September 1954, Tolkien wrote to Hugh Brogan: “Your preference of goblins to orcs involves a large question, and a matter of taste, and perhaps historical pedantry on my part. Personally I prefer Orcs (since these creatures are not ‘goblins’, not even the goblins of George MacDonald, which they do to some extent resemble).” (Letters, no. 151). In an earlier letter to Naomi Mitchison, dated 25 April 1954, Tolkien had mentioned that his orcs “owe, I suppose, a good deal to the goblin tradition (goblin is used as a translation in The Hobbit, where orc only occurs once, I think), especially as it appears in George MacDonald, except for the soft feet which I never believed in.” (Letters, no. 144). Tolkien’s references to George MacDonald refer to MacDonald’s children’s books, The Princess and the Goblin (1872), and its sequel, The Princess and Curdie (1883).

- Turgon

Update!

Lee Waldman wrote in with a very pertinent comment: “It is important to note that Thorin Oakensheild’s sword was called Orcrist or goblin-cleaver by the elves of Gondolin who forged it. This suggests that Tolkien meant for the words to be interchangeable.”

- Turgon

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Q: Perhaps Turgon would be best suited to answer this, as I suspect this would fall into his realm of expertise. Regarding the Hidden City of Gondolin (for whose story I confess a certain interest in)… there are several mentions of the Seven Names for the city within the body of Tolkien’s writings. However, in my readings I have not found out what these seven names actually were. They are not spoken of in either The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales, although I recently found two in the section on the Fall of Gondolin which I believe was in the Book of Lost Tales 2. One of these was “Gondobar”, though the other one escapes me at the moment. There is the Sindarin Gondolin, which of course means “hidden rock”, and the Quenya Ondolinde, meaning “rock of the music of water”. I do not believe that these names actually count among the seven, though. Perhaps someone with greater familiarity with the History of Middle Earth series, and/or other “sources” can find out what Tolkien originally had in mind for these names (doubtless in the early days of the conception of the Quenta Silmarillion, since it never made the final drafts). Or maybe it’s just one of those things that only Christopher knows for sure.

- Dan Fernandez

A: Asking me about my own domain, eh? Well, here’s the answer…

In “The Fall of Gondolin” in The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, Tuor asks your very question (“What be those names?” ) to the chief of the Guard of the Gondothlim. The answer is given as follows: “‘Tis said and ’tis sung: ‘Gondobar am I called, and Gondothlimbar, City of Stone and City of the Dwellers in Stone; Gondolin the Stone of Song and Gwarestrin am I named, the Tower of Guard, Gar Thurion or the Secret Place, for I am hidden from the eyes of Melko; but they who love me most greatly call me Loth, for like a flower I am, even Lothengriol the flower that blooms on the plain.’” (p. 158) In The Lays of Beleriand, Christopher Tolkien gives some information about the poem “The Lay of the Fall of Gondolin”, in which one of the seven names of Gondolin differs slightly: “Loth-a-ladwen, the Lily of the Plain” is given by the Guard instead of Lothengriol. (see p. 149).

- Turgon

The House That Bilbo Built: Tolkien’s Literary Legacy
by Clifford “Quickbeam” Broadway

Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien have a distinctly creative way of expressing what they like; and perhaps that is the very quality that makes them the greatest fandom to propagate a literary phenomenon. It has been said there’s Life within the words of a great book. The ultimate expression of that can be seen in the inspired individual who builds his Life from the words. Those are the types of fans who carry their love so strongly forward, into bookstores and cineplexes alike, that everyone gets swept up. Their friends and children inevitably receive the books from them when the time comes; each parent, with a knowing smile, handing the key to Middle-earth to their young ones. I sometimes wonder what Professor Tolkien would think of ‘The House That Bilbo Built:’ a wave of cultural influence and entertainment begotten by the high romantic world he invented, along with so many original languages and alphabets, such a long time ago.

Talk about longevity! THE HOBBIT just celebrated its 75th anniversary. First published in 1937, well before the first volume of THE LORD OF THE RINGS came out (1954), the whimsical adventure of the diminutive Bilbo Baggins stands as a giant among 20th century fiction. Certainly few other books sustain the same revolving fandom over decades. I don’t believe in the least that TWILIGHT or THE HUNGER GAMES will have this measure of adoration in 75 years (but POTTER damn well might). Don’t underestimate how beloved and emulated Tolkien’s books are to a surprisingly different quilt of nations, regions, and times. The world’s appetite for Tolkien’s uniquely rich fantasy storytelling caused the actual “Fantasy” section to appear in bookstores; a niche market broadened tremendously, a statement was made to the publishing industry, and there was certainly no going back. Elves, Hobbits, Wizards, Goblins and Dragons were here to stay.

So much of my own creative life has sprung from my love of Tolkien and willingly have I swam the subculture that embraces his work. Ringer fans are counted among the best of friends and talents I’ve had the pleasure to meet. They never cease to surprise me in their endless originality. Interviewing them for our documentary, RINGERS: LORD OF THE FANS got me really up-close; and I take joy in exploring this never-ceasing question: why are these readers so deeply connected to Bilbo’s and Frodo’s story? Why does this phenomenon keep expressing itself in the desire for cosplay, spontaneous music, academic symposiums, boisterous conventions, movie adaptations, and profuse indulgence in second breakfasts? I keep asking through all my interviews and meetings and moots; yet the answer is mercurial.

And what humble, delicate beginnings for a behemoth like THE LORD OF THE RINGS! Let’s take a look at Tolkien’s remarkable publishing history, and thence pop cultural history, because it almost didn’t happen, for many reasons.

Tolkien started off developing the languages, and the foundational cosmological basis for his “secondary world,” while he was still a youngling in college, earning a degree in English Language & Literature. Then World War I arrived with death and disruption. Tolkien survived unwounded but his friends did not – he was medically discharged himself with trench fever. While on sick-leave in 1917 his wife Edith assisted him with hand-copying one of his earliest tales: “The Fall of Gondolin,” a fictional wandering that would ultimately become part of THE SILMARILLION (in fact, much of the content of THE SIL was created in Tolkien’s earlier years).

He was to become an Oxford philologist, dedicating his scholarly life to the study of languages. What better way to explore them than inventing your own! There’s a term for it: glossopoeia. As explained by TORn staff contributor Ostadan: “The word glossopoeia is a coinage derived from Greek, meaning ‘the making of tongues.’ As Tolkien explains, the creation of languages offers both intellectual and aesthetic satisfaction, but at the time he wrote, there were few such creations known to the public.”

By 1917 he was on his way to inventing Quenya and Sindarin – Elvish languages yet to be uttered by Orlando Bloom. Tolkien toyed with bits of poetry and his own slant on languages that he fancied (Finnish, Old Norse, Welsh), an effort which, oh-so-gradually over forty years, became an entire universe. He was also intent on creating a new mythology for England, which he felt lacked its own panorama of deities and “epicness” as Norway did. So THE HOBBIT was begun somewhere around 1930-31 (Tolkien recalls scribbling on a blank sheet of paper while marking examination papers, ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’).

In 1936 Sir Stanley Unwin of Allen & Unwin Publishers got his 10-year-old son Rayner on board as the first ‘early reviewer,’ believing a child was the best judge of children’s fiction. Rayner loved it and wrote a glowing report, describing it as ‘very exciting.’ So THE HOBBIT launched in September 1937, to considerable acclaim and boffo sales.

Sir Stanley quickly asked for a sequel; and the Professor sent them THE SILMARILLION, a woefully different ball of wax, with oddments of archaic manuscripts, a dense mine of data about Middle-earth’s pre-history, genealogies and somewhat biblical-style tracts that didn’t suit anyone’s taste at the publisher’s office. They wanted something with furry feet and gentle appeal.

Saying politely, “No thanks, but give us more material akin to THE HOBBIT,” they received in 1937 the first chapter Tolkien could manage – “A long expected party,” which reveled in much more hobbity sensibilities. The publishers loved what they read. But in so small an act can the hand of destiny be changed. The writing of the damn thing spiraled entirely out of control.

Tolkien felt endless pressure but wrote to Sir Stanley: “The work has escaped from my control and I have produced a monster.” This new epic was to take nearly 13 years, some say 17, during which time he held a chair at Oxford; and then, quick as you can say schnell, World War II arrived. THE LORD OF THE RINGS was finally finished in 1949. Tolkien was nigh 60 years old.

Over those years Tolkien had become quite miffed at Allen & Unwin for saying “no” to THE SILMARILLION. In 1949 he got entangled in a lengthy flirtation with Collins Publishers, hoping a new relationship would yield a home for his greatest effort.

He eventually went back to Allen & Unwin under terms of a new agreement: they would indeed publish THE LORD OF THE RINGS, even though there was a critical paper shortage during wartime. Sir Stanley did not take on THE SILMARILLION, either, another stroke against it (after Tolkien died it finally saw print in 1977, thanks to his son Christopher’s tireless efforts).

The decision to split LOTR into three volumes left the Professor rather unhappy. But he settled on the main title as THE LORD OF THE  RINGS, with sub-titles for three distinct volumes (containing two “Books” each)– THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, THE TWO TOWERS and THE RETURN OF THE KING. He would much rather it had been THE WAR OF THE RING, which he sensed would reveal much less of the actual plot, but that didn’t stick.

It was the High Summer of 1954 – Bill Haley and His Comets would rock around the clock, just as Frodo Baggins made the scene in Volume 1 of LOTR; then Volumes 2 and 3 would arrive later in 1955.

The first wave of fandom simply ate up copies regardless of its mixed reviews. Tolkien’s good friend (and fellow Inkling) C.S. Lewis came to the books’ spirited defense, declaring famously: “Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron. Here is a book which will break your heart.” W.H. Auden also lauded: “No fiction I have read in the last five years has given me more joy.”

Steady sales and continued profits were nice, but when the American counterculture embraced THE LORD OF THE RINGS some ten years later it really skyrocketed. Over a few months time in 1966, THE LORD OF THE RINGS became a campus craze and books were seen everywhere through dormitory halls – even the University of Southern California Irvine Campus had a housing section renamed a lá Middle-earth. Causing admiration and titters alike (depending on your level of fandom) 1700 students to this day lounge in halls with such names as “Rivendell” or “Quenya.” The first and strongest wave of Western pop culture, the hippie movement, was staking its claim on how Tolkien was perceived and enjoyed by a broadly literate youth generation. Then there was the scandal of the “bootleg paperback version” of LOTR that were completely unauthorized (the guilty party being ACE Paperbacks) but that was resolved with the support of students/fans protesting booksellers who carried ACE and thus a new Ballentine edition was soon printed with Tolkien’s note on the back cover — much of this fuss we cover in greater detail in our documentary.

Then the Rock & Rollers picked up the books. An entire section of the RINGERS film covers that dynamic period where Tolkien unwittingly affected musicians of the time. Marc Bolan (of T-Rex) and David Bowie hit the underground “Middle-earth Club” on the seedy side of London. Connect the musical dots to Led Zeppelin; whose albums are rife with LOTR references and characters due to Robert Plant’s fertile affection for Tolkien’s books. I had a revealing chat with director Cameron Crowe who confessed: “Oh you’ve got to talk with my wife Nancy (Wilson of Heart), because she just loves it!” Then there was Geddy Lee (Rush), and nowadays we have Justin Timberlake – hardcore Ringers one and all.

Tolkien was uncomfortable with the explosion of attention. He was a tweedy Oxford don, after all, and wanted nothing to do with the drug-addled young people tramping across his rose garden and peeping into his windows while he worked. He once called them “my deplorable cultus.” After his death in 1973, and the posthumous publication of THE SILMARILLION, the wave of pop surrounding Bilbo and Frodo became a unique beast of another color.

The holiday animation company Rankin/Bass (yes, the folks who did stop-motion Rudolph and Frosty) brought us THE HOBBIT in less than 90 minutes of Japanese-produced 2D glory in 1977. Then Ralph Bakshi rotoscoped his drop-acid take on the first half of LOTR, but he never got to make his finale. Yet the fantasy explosion of the Eighties was off to a roaring start. Tolkien fueled all this, without dispute, and up sprang authors like David Eddings, Terry Brooks, Stephen R. Donaldson, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. Someone with a polyhedral die and several pages of Middle-earthy maps invented a pen & paper game that you might vaguely recall. And you can bet your Muggle face that J.K. Rowling was devouring the Professor’s books at the time, storing it all away for future inspiration.

Enter onto the 1990′s digital stage TheOneRing.net – an online fan community affectionately known as TORn – the largest, longest-running, all-volunteer web portal unique to a single fandom. As contributors to TORn, we spend our energy reporting news, presenting special panels coast-to-coast at massive Comic-Cons and Dragon*Cons, moderating forums, chat rooms, and Facebook timelines with an endless flow of fans who collide as much as confer. We produced three gobsmacking Oscar Parties just for Ringers, one event yearly for each of Peter Jackson’s sprawling films, which were attended by the trophy-bearing cast and crew. On the year of THE RETURN OF THE KING’s 11-Oscar sweep, the Kiwi filmmakers were especially eager to greet the grassroots fan audience that so avidly showed them three years of love (and repeat ticket sales). We also produced a hellzapoppin’ Oscar event for the HOBBIT: AUJ in 2013, providing a unique atmosphere for aficionados to celebrate a shared affection for Tolkien with creators from behind the camera.

Now the newest excursion into Tolkien’s legendarium is upon us with the late 2012 release of THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY. Not to mention the attendant merchandising and collectibles now flooding the market. Jackson and his team of film artisans surmounted terrific odds to return all the familiar players to New Zealand. The anticipation has left most fans breathless; while many purists may bemoan the stretching of an episodic 280-page children’s story into 3 extra long films. The level of involvement among fans hasn’t lessened, instead reaching a new zenith by way of shared electronic media.

On our weekly live webcast aptly named “TORn Tuesday,” actors and artists ranging from Sean Astin to Peter S. Beagle join me for a merry discussion of how THE LORD OF THE RINGS has impacted their lives. They definitively illuminate how Tolkien remains so relevant. These artists have lived and breathed the magic of Middle-earth in myriad ways. Nearly 60 years later Tolkien’s masterworks have reached countless millions; and there’s a vibrant community online that supports many great events and causes, all sharing the same literary joy. I’ve never witnessed another phenomenon like it. A shared passion for the Professor’s 1200 page opus is the very liferoot of it all.

As I said, Ringer fans really do know what they like.

Much too hasty,

‘Quickbeam’

Clifford Broadway

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Clifford Broadway, longtime contributor and webhost for TheOneRing.net, is co-author of the bestseller “The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien” (2003) and co-writer/producer of the award-winning RINGERS: LORD OF THE FANS (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2005).

Follow us on Twitter:

TheOneRing.net @theoneringnet

Cliff Scott Broadway @Quickbeam2000

This thing went nuts with 200,000 views in 7 hours! With a busy Facebook timeline like ours at TheOneRing.net, it is always cool to see what stands out as a favorite popular post.  Today’s image of Aragorn having a fun soliloquy about the day we STOP loving The Lord of the Rings became our most widely-seen and mega shared post of the year!

So why are fans so quickly drawn to a declarative statement like: “Other Fandoms may ebb and flow, but Tolkien fans are committed to these stories for life?” Quickbeam has pondered that very thing: and here is his article from this week, above

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A couple of weekends ago, we discussed the character of Isildur in Hall of Fire. Was he, we asked, the true shaper of the Third Age? For those who couldn’t attend, here’s a log. And a reminder: tomorrow (Saturday June 8 at 6pm EDT) we’ll be returning to the Hobbit movies for the first time in a while and examining the new details about Tauriel, and what they might mean for the films.

Session Start: Sun May 26 07:15:38 2013
Session Ident: #thehalloffire
* Now talking in #thehalloffire
* Demosthenes changes topic to ‘The HOF topic for today: Isildur, shaper of the third-age? | General TORn chat thataway! click –] #theonering.net’
[Demosthenes] So this about Isildur fella.
[Puma] Isildur.a way more complex character than many see
[dombillyfan] lotr
[Demosthenes] err, aobut this*
[Demosthenes] puma: why do you say that?
[Puma] well..Isildur preserved the kingship of the numenoreans…and did end up making an error with the ring….but i have reasons not to totally blame him for that
[Demosthenes] Is the former more to the credit of Elendil?
[Puma] but i think the tree is the best place to start as that is young isildur
[Puma] no…….its not
[Darkover] Mae govannen, all!
[Darkover] What are we discussing this week?
[Demosthenes] Elendil seems to have driven the exiles. Or maybe even /Amandil/.
[ChristineGolden] I’d agree with that, Demosthenes.
[ChristineGolden] Hi, Darkover, Isildur’s the topic.
[Puma] Tar-palantir prohesized that when the white tree was no more.the line of kings would end
[Darkover] Thank you, Chris
[ChristineGolden] Nice to see you as always.
[Ringlordsander] I don’t think Isildur made an error with the Ring. I don’t think you can call it an error while everyone would do the same in that position.
[Puma] Isildur saved the white tree.by doing so.symbolically the kingship passed to the line of amandil
[Darkover] Thank you, you too!
[stargategeek] hi can I have that link to HOF again. was using different irc
[Demosthenes] Hmmm, so is the white tree thing more important than the seven ships thing? Without the ships you have no white tree, and Elendil organised the boats….
[Demosthenes] trees don’t usually float very well.
[sunshower] you are in HOF, stargategeek
[Darkover] And maybe also it was a symbol that life could go on
[Puma] yes….it was joint
[Puma] but ships with no tree……means no kingship
[ChristineGolden] If not for Elendil, there would have been no Gondor, etc.
[Puma] and there were 9 ships
[miriel] The tree is more important IMO
[Puma] look at the importance aragorn placed on the tree
[Darkover] Sounds like both tree and ships were very important
[Puma] no tree.no king
[miriel] they could have used any boat to get from Numenor, but not any tree
[Demosthenes] Darkover: i think so too.
[Rivornel] And Gandalf (importance thing)
[stargategeek] whats tonights topic?
[Puma] isildur rescued a fruit of the white tree at great risk
[Lasak] I agree with miriel there
[miriel] isildur
[stargategeek] hi sunshower
[Darkover] Isildur, Stargategeek
[Demosthenes] Isildur seems to have gone to rescue the tree from Armenelos of his own accord?
[stargategeek] hi darkover
[ChristineGolden] If not for Elendil, Isildur wouldn’t have gotten very far with his fruit.
[Puma] without the tree…..the exiled numenoreans could have come to middle earth…….but there could be no rightful king
[Darkover] would there really not have been a king, without the symbolism of the tree?
[Puma] Elendil had nothing to do with the rescue of the fruit
[Ringlordsander] I agree with ChristineGolden here. I don’t think Isildur would’ve gotten far without his father…
[Demosthenes] Darkover: i dunno. what makes a king?
[miriel] I think it is interesting that we have isildur doing it, only to later fail with the ring
[Lasak] The kings always find a reason to make them above the people
[Puma] there might have been a ruler with no tree.but no king
[Teowang] u seriously are stargategreek?
[Darkover] I understand the importance of symbolism to M-E societies, but there is symbol, and there is substance
[ChristineGolden] I agree, Darkover, the tree was merely one symbol of the kingship.
[Darkover] Well, Demosthenes, in practical terms, being able to fight off enemies and lop their heads off is pretty important
[Puma] even aragorn knew.no tree.no true king
[miriel] do you think tolkien might have wanted to show that someone could both be wise/good/whatever and yet fail when tested by a supreme power?
[Darkover] More so than trees, although Tolkien might not agree
[Darkover] That is a possibility, Miriel
[Puma] also.with out the tree.the line of kings end…does that mean if they arrived in middle earth…they would not have survived
[Demosthenes] So in what ways does Isildur preserving the white tree (twice, not once!) shape the third age?
[Darkover] Although to be fair to Isildur, did he truly understand the nature of the One Ring when he took it?
[Demosthenes] Also, is it that act that earns the hatred of Sauron?
[Puma] lets hold off on the ring a bit please
[ChristineGolden] I think he did, as far as man could understand the evil of Sauron, Darkover
[miriel] well, we have a king that has something to base his claim of power on… would not have happened otherwise?
[Darkover] Well, Demosthenes, as Puma observed, symbolism is important. So is tradition. And the White Tree was a thing of beauty
[Demosthenes] All good points.
[Goldberry] Crazy that isildur could walk in there any take the fruit without anyone stopping him
[Darkover] Preserving it was undoubtedly a good action on Isildur’s part, and may have made him seem more heroic
[Demosthenes] He was injured in the process, iirc?
[Puma] when the tree sprouted in the house of amandil…isildur who had been gravely wounded.awoke for the 1st time….there is symbolism in that
[ChristineGolden] The King of Gondor had many symbols. Wasn’t there one found in Orthanc after the fall of Saruman?
[Darkover] He didn’t exactly “walk in,” as I recall, Goldberry. I think he sneaked in
[miriel] the tree is also a way of showing that the line is the right one, remember it withers when the kings disappear
[Demosthenes] Did that signify that Isildur was the true king, not elendil?
[Goldberry] Pretty good at sneaking
[Darkover] That too, Miriel. Symbolism strikes again
[Puma] and isildur was wounded gravely when taking the fruit
[Puma] isildur also had great forsight
[Goldberry] He nearly died didn’t he?
[Demosthenes] Goldberry: yes i believe so.
[Puma] it did fail him once though
[Demosthenes] puma: yeah. minas ithil. stupid place to put a city.
[Goldberry] Then he recovered when the tree started growing
[Demosthenes]
[miriel] I think he was a very devoted biologist (jk jk)
[Darkover] Most of the heroes in Tolkien’s writings had great foresight. I always wondered if that is meant to be a mystical thing, or if the heroes were just people who were smarter and thus could make predictions better than most.
[Puma] as i said earlier.when the young tree sprouted.isildur awakened
[Puma] probably both Darkover
[Demosthenes] Darkover: better intuition?
[Darkover] Maybe a sign that Isildur–or his line–were connected with the Tree?
[miriel] very hard to say, Darkover
[Darkover] That’s just it, Demosthenes–intuition, or intelligence? As Miriel says, hard to say. Probably some of both.
[Puma] but isildur….had the men of the white mtns take an oath at the stone of erech…he had the forsight to know the war with sauron would go on a long time…of course he brought that about in part himself
[Demosthenes] Probably both. Intuition, empathy, insight … all these things make people better leaders. And Isildur seems to have been albe to lead people — he essentially sets up Arnor AND Gondor as realms.
[Demosthenes] And everyone went along with his ideas.
[Demosthenes] Isildur was also instrumental in setting up the Arnor/Gondor system, which greatly shaped the government of the Third Age.
[Puma] yes
[Darkover] So he must have been quite a leader. A pity that at the end, he was remembered mostly for failing to destroy the One Ring, and getting killed by orcs int he process.
[miriel] I never really understood the benefits of s
[Goldberry] It is a pity
[Puma] well….i have reasons that the taking of the ring….was a bit more complex than people attribute to it
[miriel] *splitting up the kingdom
[Darkover] Wasn’t Isildur the eldest son? or were he and Anarion twins, and Isildur the elder? Didn’t Tolkien dither over that issue for a time?
[Lasak] that truly is a pity
[Demosthenes] I guess you could say that politically he established the foundations of a golden age. a bit like augustus.
[Demosthenes] with Rome.
[Goldberry] Easier to rule a smaller place than a bigger
[thefoolishtook] im reading what all you guys say, and i say parallels with gollum/smeagol. the whole they should of renounced the ring but they didnt know better. ultimately their fate was to help middle earth etc?
[Puma] the elves had kept the rings a secret….the numenoreans knew nothing of the rings…numenor was perhaps destryed because they did not know fo the rings.so the elves had some fault in the fall of numenor
[Darkover] yes, Demosthenes
[thefoolishtook] see* parallels
[Puma] so do you blame isildur for not trusting the elves advice with the ring
[miriel] yes. He did have the potential to destroy it
[Puma] isildur was in exile for lack of knowledge about the ring
[miriel] he had done many great deeds in the past
[Darkover] Well, thefoolishtook, I’m not sure I agree that Isildur and Gollum were exactly analogous. Isildur cut it directly from the Dark Lord’s hand, after the latter just killed his father, and Gollum murdered his BF and kinsman. Not quite the same
[Demosthenes] Or maybe Diocletian. Diocletian started the process of splitting the Roman empire into east and west.
[Goldberry] Maybe isildur did know better he just wasn’t able to lett it go
[Puma] isildur did know his mistake and repented to elendur
[Puma] so isildur in that respect can be compared to boromir
[Rivornel] Well, I think the ring also played a big role. Cause when Frodo went to toss it into Mt. Doom he couldn’t do it either
[thefoolishtook] yeah darkover, i get you in that they arent like for like, but still, their whole relationship with the ring being love hate rings a bell, just an observation anyways!
[Darkover] Well, Puma, elves usually give good advice, when they give it at all. But did Isildur understand at the time what the nature of the Ring was? That in order to use it, one had to become like Sauron? Did he understand the way It was tempting him? I’m not sure about any of that.
[miriel] good point Rivornel
[Darkover] Agreed, thefoolishtook, I think the Ring did that to almost everyone who came into contact with it.
[Puma] go not to the elvesd for advice cause they say both no and yes
[Demosthenes] Darkover: that would depend on how much information Celebrimbor passed on to his compatriots.
[Darkover] True, Demosthenes
[Goldberry] Puma:yes isildur reminds me of Boromir in some ways
[Demosthenes] And then how much Gil-galad passed on to … well … the Numenoreans of the 2nd age for starters
[miriel] which leads to another question: should the elves have *forced* him to throw it into mount doom?
[Demosthenes] And then later to Elendil.
[Darkover] But if we believe Elrond’s account of events, Puma, for a change, his advice was pretty explicit–destroy It
[Rivornel] the ring in general is evil, and i think it’ll turn anybody who has good intentions to bad and selfish intentions
[Puma] the numenoreans knew nothing of the ring.till gil-galad told elendil
[ChristineGolden] I think Isildur was a very proud man, Darkover, and would have believed he could control it.
[miriel] possible, ChristineGolden
[Demosthenes] ChristineGolden: i could see that too.
[thefoolishtook] like denethor thought boromir could
[Darkover] No, Miriel, I think the Elves would have had to murder Isildur to take the Ring from him, and clearly they couldn’t persuade him to do so, and nothing good would have come from that.
[Puma] there is also some evidence isildur was an overbearing older brother to anarion
[Darkover] Chris, I agree. I suspect even if Isildur had known all the facts, he would have kept the Ring. Just not sure how much guilt was his, if he didn’t have all the facts.
[Demosthenes] No-one would have tried to sneak the white tree out of armenelos without having a surfeit of self-confidence.
[miriel] so in the end, as soon as he laid hands on the ring, it really could not end any other way than in disaster
[Anameleth] I kinda think the elves should have forced him to destroy the ring
[Darkover] Really, Puma? I disagree. Isildur and Anarion seem to have gotten along astonishingly well, to the point that they were co-rulers.
[Lasak] But how should they force him?
[Darkover] I heartily agree, Demosthenes
[Puma] he felt at the time as any1 would.the elves lied to us about this ring….fall of numenor is in part the elves fault….and in his pride thought ring was better off with a numenorean
[thefoolishtook] elrond could of literally pushed him into mt doom?
[Anameleth] If they knew its power and what it could do, why didn’t they get rid of it?
[miriel] indeed, dems
[ChristineGolden] He may not have known the depths of its evil, Darkover, but he knew its nature.
[Demosthenes] Darkover: I think Meneldil was happy to see the back of Isildur when he left. Possibly because he felt he was being shaded.
[Puma] yes.co rulers in separate cities
[Lasak] i see that, but should they kill isildur?
[Darkover] More like disaster postponed, Miriel. Isildur got murdered shortly after, which was bad for him, but the Ring was lost for ages.
[Demosthenes] I’m sure that is in UT.
[miriel] true, Darkover
[Puma] and why was meneldil so happy he left gondor and would long be gone
[Darkover] Yeah, Demosthenes, that was strongly implied, I agree
[Demosthenes] Another indication of big egos?
[Darkover] Lasak, no, they should not have killed Isildur. It would have been murder, regardless of their motives.
[thefoolishtook] lesser of two evils Darkover?
[Puma] taking the ring by murder…..that results in a gollum
[Darkover] Well put, Puma
[Darkover] Yes, thefoolishtook
[miriel] we also rarely find people in charge who do not have some kind of want to be leaders
[Demosthenes] I am kinda surprised there was not more squabbling over the ring after sauron was brought down. But maybe everyone was too exhausted by war.
[Demosthenes] A kind of pyrric victory.
[Darkover] Or maybe it disappeared too fast
[Demosthenes] maybe?
[Puma] no one was there…..but gil-galad.elendil.isildur elrond and cirdan
[Demosthenes] “i would have this as weregild…” etc etc
[Rivornel] Isildor died either way though, they could have prevented the whole war of the ring if they had killed him..?
[Lasak] we know saruman looked after it
[Puma] so they did not know of the ring
[miriel] do you think the ring had part in this, Demosthenes?
[Puma] and the only person isildur told was elendur
[ChristineGolden] After Sauron was brought down, there was still a lot to do. The Orcs, for example, didn’t just wave and say, “see ya around” and walk off the battlefield.
[thefoolishtook] concerning fighting over the ring after the defeat of sauron, do you think its because the elves knew its true nature, and wouldnt of wanted it anyway?
[Darkover] Well, Isildur’s death resulted in It being lost. And his death seemed like a tragedy, but wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened. Rather like the death of Boromir centuries later.
[Darkover] lol, Chris
[Puma] exactly darkover
[Darkover] Maybe, thefoolishtook. I’m pretty sure that was Elrond’s attitude.
[Demosthenes] thefoolishtook: that’s another possibility. and maybe they felt, mistakenly, that it wouldn;t be that bad?
[Darkover] Thank you, Puma
[Demosthenes] and only reconsidered later.
[samsbestfriend] ChristineGolden: they kinda did in LOTR
[miriel] it would have suited it to not have a strong person yielding it, not to mention many of them being aware of it. It slipped through the net of greedy hands and into the river, laying dormant while sauron regained strenght — would not have happened if a lot of people were wanting to have it
[ChristineGolden] I think Elrond’s attitude was “let sleeping dogs lie.”
[Rivornel] But Isildur’s death delayed the whole process because the ring was lost. But then I guess it allowed the “good” guys to have a chance and not be overwhelmed
[thefoolishtook] if the elves considered it lost for all of time, they might of seen the ring as destroyed anyway. lost/destroyed = same thing?
[Demosthenes] hullo Isildursbane19. we’re just talking about you.
[Anameleth] Did Elrond realize the danger of the ring though?
[ChristineGolden] Only in the movies, samsbestfriend
[Puma] back to the tree 1 second….who 1st planted a fruit up above minas tirith.anotther act of forsight….most likely isildur.since he is most connected to the tree
[Darkover] Yeah, samsbestfriend, but that was because the movie had to end. In the book-verse, King Elessar and his men had to spend years killing off various bands of orcs, even after the Ring War
[ChristineGolden] But it does contradict Aragorn’s later words about the new owner of the ring.
[Darkover] Sorry, Chris, what does?
[Demosthenes] puma: returning to your point about whether the Numenoreans had received Full Disclosure. Well, Isildur did seem to take it as a memorial … not as a “wooo this will make me all-powerful!” thing.
[ChristineGolden] That Sauron would expect there to be confusion and a power struggle within the allies over who should wield the ring.
[miriel] I think it suited the ring best to lay dormant out of reach for the good guys
[Darkover] Right. “weregild”
[Puma] yes Demz
[samsbestfriend] i nwas meaning at the end of the 3rd age. sorry for the confusion
[Demosthenes] Maybe the elves didn’t tell everything. Maybe Gil-galad and co /didn’t know themselves/.
[Anameleth] True
[Puma] i think they did know
[Rivornel] Gotta go, see ya’ll soon
[Darkover] Sauron probably couldn’t conceive of anything else. That was the way his mind worked. He assumed no one would willingly pass up power.
[Demosthenes] Maybe that knowledge died with Celebrimbor?
[Goldberry] Bye
[miriel] cya Rivornel
[ChristineGolden] Ok, who do we know was aware that Isildur had the ring?
[samsbestfriend] I’d imagine orcs would always be an irritant, but no longer a threat
[miriel] elrond
[Goldberry] His sons?
[Puma] Celebrimbor would ahve passed on enough infor when he passed on the 3
[Darkover] did the Elves tell everything? Probably not. Did they know themselves? Hard to tell. Did Elves, by this time, like to get involved in the events of M-E? Not very often, which is something else to bear in mind.
[Demosthenes] ChristineGolden: Elrond, Cirdan, Elendur and Meneldil.
[Goldberry] Isildurs son
[Demosthenes] maybe Isildur’s other sons too.
[Puma] it seems not
[Puma] just elendur
[ChristineGolden] and Sauron.
[Demosthenes] It’s ambiguous anyhow.
[Darkover] Elrond. Probably his twins. Isildur, of course, and his oldest son, at least. Maybe the others, too, except for the youngest.
[Puma] and most likely not meneldil.which is why he left a written record
[Demosthenes] lol and Sauron the I’m doing a Cthulhu.
[Darkover] lol, Demosthenes
[miriel] Darkover: they just fought in the last alliance. If that is not “being involved” then what is?
[Demosthenes] but the written record would have gone to Meneldil. It was there to instruct the Kings of Gondor.
[Puma] the rings were never a thing of common knowledge
[Darkover] Okay, maybe that was too harsh of me, Miriel. I was thinking more of their behavior during the Ring War, than the Last Alliance, but you have a point.
[Demosthenes] so he would have known sooner or later.
[Puma] yes Demz…….but as gandalf had said.seems to be rearely if ever read
[ChristineGolden] No, I think Darkover has a point.
[ChristineGolden] After the fall of Sauron, didn’t the elves return to their own kingdoms and cares?
[Demosthenes] Yeah that’s true. The elves were very hands-off.
[Puma] yes
[Darkover] Thank you, Chris
[miriel] there must be so much material to read, who would find that one little piece of paper about a heirloom that was lost?
[Demosthenes] “not our fault!”
[Puma] hands off only after sauron thrown down
[Darkover] It took even Gandalf a while, and he was looking for that reference
[ChristineGolden] So, while Isildur’s roaming around ME with the ring, the elves are back in Rivendell, etc.
[Demosthenes] Darkover: that was 3K years later though.
[Darkover] What’s 3K among Elves, Demosthenes?
[Puma] lol
[miriel] that is true, there is a grain (quite a big one) of truth in what Darkover said
[Demosthenes] about from now till lunchtime?
[Darkover] Thank you, Miriel
[Darkover] lol, Demosthenes. You folks are witty tonight.
[ChristineGolden] The elves were hands-off during Sauron’s reign of terror, too, Puma. They locked themselves inside their kingdoms.
[Puma] jrr wrote than in the area of the rings of lothlorien and rivendell….1000 yrs seemed like 10
[Puma] so time did pass.just slowly
[Demosthenes] To some extent they had no choice there Chrstine. They needed Numenor’s help.
[miriel] now, what I do find interesting: if Elrond knew so much about this ring (he was there), why did not gandalf seek the answers from him?
[Anameleth] Hmm… I’ve never even thought about that..
[Puma] i am sure gandalf did get answers from gandalf
[ChristineGolden] I know, Demosthenes, I was just responding to Puma’s remark.
[Demosthenes]
[Puma] but no1 had handled the one to know its identifying marks other than isildur
[Darkover] Hmm, good question, Miriel. Do you think Elrond would have felt called upon to report any such questions/concerns to Saruman, who technically what still on the Council–maybe its head, I don’t recall, and Gandalf didn’t want that?
[miriel] he distrusted saruman, but he seems to trust elrond pretty much (brought the ring to rivendell etc)
[ChristineGolden] Gandalf was trying to find out how to identify the ring; I doubt Elrond could have helped him.
[miriel] that could be it, perhaps, Darkover
[Puma] no 1 but isildur knew what the rings marks were
[Lasak] But that was after he knew of sarumans betrayal
[Puma] elrond could not have known that
[ChristineGolden] Elrond didn’t know about the inscription, for example, or how to make it readable.
[thefoolishtook] rookie question, but im guessing gandalf and the istari where about during the first age?
[Puma] exactly
[Puma] no
[miriel] ChristineGolden: but would it not be more likely that elrond, who had seen it, would know, rather than that there would be a note from ages past still saved about this matter?
[Darkover] No, the foolishtook, they weren’t
[Puma] the istari came mostly about 1000 3rd age
[ChristineGolden] No, the istari arrived at the beginning of the 3rd age.
[Demosthenes] I have another question. If the Ring has an inevitably corruptive power (which everyone agrees on), was what Isildur and Elrond and Cirdan chose to do the best (least worst?) possible choice?
[Puma] not till sauron was arising again
[thefoolishtook] ok, thanks darkover, puma, and chris!
[ChristineGolden] I don’t think so, miriel, unless it was still hot from Sauron’s hand when he saw it.
[Puma] only isildur saw and took the ring
[miriel] so elrond never saw it?
[Puma] elrond and cirdan would not jhave known
[Darkover] Isildur should have thrown the Ring into Mt. Doom when he had the chance, but since we don’t know how much he knew for a fact about It, I don’t think we can judge him *too* much. Hindsight and all that.
[miriel] nessyness, welcome to the madNess
[Puma] they saw a gold ring
[ChristineGolden] Could you be more specific, Demosthenes, about what choice?
[Nessy] Ha, 5
[Darkover] Elrond couldn’t have destroyed It at the time without murdering Isildur to do it.
[Goldberry] They asked him to destroy it puma
[Nessy] Thanks….random 5
[Demosthenes] Darkover: but no-one could have done that it seems. it seems to be physically beyond anyone.
[Puma] ty Darkover…..i have been trying to make that point
[ChristineGolden] Then we would have had a much shorter saga, Darkover.
[Darkover] Yes indeed, Chris!
[miriel] had elrond perhaps told gandalf all he knew already?
[miriel] at an earlier point
[thefoolishtook] and Peter JAckson would be much less well off!
[Puma] its all just a bit more complex than a surface story….glad we are discussing it
[Darkover] Sadly true, Demosthenes
[miriel] oh, but now I remember, he knew that saruman had gotten the info somewhere… that explains it
[Puma] yes
[ChristineGolden] Well, it’s speculation about fiction, miriel, but it’s reasonable to assume that the White Council discussed the ring.
[Demosthenes] ChristineGolden: Well, Isildur took the ring. this had all sorts of outcomes. Barring destroying the ring, which seems to require an impossible act of will, was he the best possible guardian in the circumstances?
[ChristineGolden] what a terrible thought, thefoolishtook.
[Darkover] didn’t Saruman keep insisting that the One Ring went into the sea long ago, so they should all just forget about it?
[Demosthenes] Darkover: yes he did.
[Puma] for the wearers of the 3 rings.the one has an especial power
[Puma] cirdan and elrond had 2 of the 3
[thefoolishtook] yeah darover, but wasnt that so he could search for it without anyone taking too much notice
[ElenGalad] How long a time period did Isildur have the ring?
[ChristineGolden] Oh, gotcha, Demosthenes. God, no, he was a terrible keeper of the ring.
[Demosthenes] ElenGalad: a year or so?
[miriel] since he died: yes. give the ring to elrond and he would have been corrupted (eventually) =] great loss
[Anameleth] Night everyone
[ElenGalad] Thanks
[Goldberry] And gandalf had the third ring
[Demosthenes] ChristineGolden: so what would have been a better option (apart from destroying it)?
[Puma] isildur had the ring a bit over 2 yrs
[Darkover] Sure, thefoolishtook, but I brought that up as a way of saying that the Council did discuss the One Ring, but Saruman kind of stonewalled any further discussion
[Puma] no goldberry
[Darkover] night, Anameleth
[Puma] galadriel had the 3rd ring
[Puma] cirdan gave his to gandlaf 1000 yrs later
[thefoolishtook] ahh okay, i follow you now darkover
[Goldberry] Oops!
[Demosthenes] Isildur said to Elendur at the Gladden Fields that it was beyond his power and should go to the keppers of the three. Is that really any better?
[ChristineGolden] There was only one ‘good’ option, Demosthenes, and that was to destroy it. But half of ME would have been a better guardian than Isildur.
[Demosthenes] But you can’t destroy it.
[Darkover] I think the problem was that there really was no one who could be an adequate “guardian” for the One Ring, Dmeosthenes
[Puma] well…..they would not have taken the one….but perhaps it was not so easy to destroy.who could they send
[Demosthenes] Just leave it in the dirt? is that possible either?
[Puma] then sauron would still arise
[thefoolishtook] How about galadriel, do you think in the second age she would of taken it as opposed to letting frodo go in the third?
[miriel] I disagree: anyone was a bad keeper. It was best that it was not kept. Thus, isildur was perfect
[Lasak] wasn’t that what happened in a way
[Darkover] Is that truly fair, Chris? After all, Isildur doesn’t seem to have tried to use It much, even at the last.
[Demosthenes] miriel: logic would seem to indicate that?
[ChristineGolden] If the ring had been ‘given’ to someone else, perhaps that person would have had the humility to destroy it.
[Puma] isildur never used it
[Darkover] Leaving It in the dirt would have been a horrible idea, Demosthenes
[Darkover] It wouldn’t have stayed in the dirt
[Demosthenes] So what Isildur did was better than nothing?
[miriel] doubt that, the only one to give away the ring was bilbo. Isildur would not have done that
[ChristineGolden] Isildur suffered from Tolkien’s #1 sin, Darkover: pride.
[Puma] Darkover…..i am convinced now you get this topic well
[Darkover] I think being able to give the Ring to someone else would have been almost as difficult as destroying It.
[Lasak] I think what isildur did was better
[Lasak] he moved the ring to place where it wouldn’t be found for ages
[Demosthenes] Darkover: this seems likely too.
[Darkover] Yes, Demosthenes, I think so. Isildur was not a good guardian for the Ring, but who would have been? No one.
[miriel] darkover. like I said, agreed
[Darkover] Not intentionally, Lasak
[Lasak] no
[Lasak] but he did
[Darkover] Thank you, Miriel
[Puma] true Lasak
[ChristineGolden] Isildur lost the ring in a river, Lasak; it wasn’t deliberate.
[thefoolishtook] but all hiding the ring for 100′s of years did was allowed sauron to rebuild
[thefoolishtook] 1000′s of years*
[Darkover] I mean, if we are discussing “what ifs,” an orc might have taken the Ring from Isildur when he was killed. Just pure good luck/Providence that didn’t happen.
[Demosthenes] thefoolishtook: true. but it allowed prosperity in the meantime? does that outweigh the negatives?
[Darkover] It also allowed the good guys to rest up, so to speak.
[Puma] now in the great music….eru was said to make things anew that were unforseen….had hobbits evolved on purpose by eru.so they could handle the ring better than others?
[thefoolishtook] hmmm, so it allowed the free peoples to rebuild well enough to defeat sauron entirely demosthenes?
[miriel] btw, very interesting: hobbits seem to resist the ring (frodo and bilbo ) but gollum fell to its lure immediately
[Demosthenes] That too, Darkover. Like IU said earlier. the last alliance seems to have been a pyrric victory.
[Darkover] An intriguing thought, Puma
[ChristineGolden] Did it really allow prosperity in the meantime, Demosthenes? By the LotR, the West was in rapid decline.
[Puma] ty Darkover
[Demosthenes] ChristineGolden: not many empires last a thousand years. let alone three thousand.
[miriel] and according to gandalf, gollum was a hobbit… more or less
[miriel] so puma: I disagree
[Demosthenes] By human standards, Gondor in particular can claim an extraordinary longevity.
[Puma] even facing death.isildur knew saving the shards of anrsil was of great import….anotheer act of great forsight
[Demosthenes] And a great deal of that is because of Isildur.
[Lasak] I’m leaving now
[Demosthenes] seeya lasak!
[Puma] narsil
[ChristineGolden] I’m not talking about empire, Demosthenes, just prosperity, trade, communications, etc.
[Lasak] seeya
[Darkover] Yeah, Miriel, but I think Gollum was kind of a nasty type, anyway. I know he was being influenced by the Ring when he first saw It, but it didn’t take much for him to murder poor Smeagol, who was his best bud and relative. Contrast that with Bilbo sparing the life of Gollum, someone he didn’t know, who had been trying to harm him.
[miriel] now, wether Bilbo and frodo were “evolved on purpose” is another matter
[thefoolishtook] elves managed to maintain a standard but with the loss of arnor and the northern kingdoms?
[Demosthenes] puma: he should have given them to elendur.
[Darkover] bye, Lasak
[Puma] why Demz
[miriel] indeed Darkover, but he was a hobbit, so if the “hobbits resist the ring” was true, it should not have happened
[Isildursbane19] If I remember correctly, Puma, when the ainur and eru witnessed the music with the discord, they basically saw Arda in its entirety, including its creation, life and destruction, so yes, I would think, he did create them knowingly, or maybe not the race as a whole, but Bilbo and Frodo and Sam for sure
[Demosthenes] thefoolishtook: yes Arnor decayed more quickly. Possibly in part because it was the kingdom of Isildur’s direct heirs. And Sauron had especial malice toward them.
[ChristineGolden] I agree, Darkover, Gollum was already corrupted before he took the ring.
[Demosthenes] puma: well, elendur might have survived then.
[Puma] no.the vision of the future was not complete
[Darkover] But Gollum’s resistance took a different form, Miriel, but it was no less resistance. He survived for centuries with the Ring eating at him, but he did not turn into a wraith, as a Man would have done
[Puma] i dont think so Demz
[miriel] very good point Darkover
[Darkover] and he endured torture and terror at the hands of Mordor, all because he loved and hated the Ring
[Darkover] Thank you, Miriel
[Puma] excellent Darkover!!!!
[Darkover] Thank you, Puma (blushes)
[Darkover] Thank you, Chris
[thefoolishtook] haha its a very good point darkover
[Puma] also there was still a small window to a good gollum….he did have that 1 point of near reprentence
[Darkover] ty, thefoolishtook. You folks will turn my head.
[miriel] that one makes me so sad, puma
[Goldberry] Me too
[Puma] jrr said it was saddest moment in book
[miriel] I agree
[Puma] i do also
[Darkover] Yes. It was close, and it was sad, but nasty little cynic that I am, I doubt if Gollum’s repentance, even if carried out, would have lasted for long.
[miriel]
[ChristineGolden] Me, too, Darkover.
[Puma] not with sam around
[Puma] but sam had also to emain himself
[Darkover] Well, I agree with Sam about Gollum.
[Puma] remain
[ChristineGolden] Or as Reagan said, Darkover, trust but verify.
[thefoolishtook] call me harsh, but i’ve never really got the whole pity for gollum thing
[Darkover] Good advice, Chris
* Puma is smiling….this is a great discourse today
* miriel is yawning … great, but very late
[Puma] aww
[Goldberry] Thefoolishtook you are called harsh
[miriel] I think I shall go get some sleep
[Puma] you are a trooper miriel
[miriel] Night all!
[Puma] sweet dreams
[thefoolishtook] ah goldberry, im sorry!
[Darkover] Well, thefoolishtook, the Ring had done a job on him. Of the two, Smeagol was the lucky one, even if he did get murdered.
[Goldberry] Night mirie
[Darkover] But as I said, I think he was a nasty type to begin with. His bad luck doesn’t change that.
[Darkover] Night, Miriel
[ChristineGolden] Well, then, I’m harsh, too, because I never felt sorry for Gollum. I’ve never understood the whole “Gollum fan club” thing.
[thefoolishtook] i know he’s had a horrid life and it wasnt his fault, but still, ive never really felt any pity for him
[Puma] yet as bad as gollum was.he kept his word to frodo.to never let sauron get the ring
[Darkover] Lord, no. Feeling a bit of pity for him doesn’t mean I want to form a fan club for him.
[Demosthenes] One other thing I’d like to raise briefly. Twice Sauron exerts himself (via his chief minions) against Isildur’s descendents/legacies. Once to destroy Arnor, once to take and then corrupt Minas Ithil. (the corruption thing seems especially vindictive).
[ChristineGolden] Well, I doubt that was deliberate, Puma.
[thefoolishtook] hi five ChristineGolden!
[Goldberry] I agree dark over
[Darkover] Well, Puma, I suspect that wasn’t a matter of trying to keep his word, but because he didn’t want Sauron or anyone other than Gollum himself to have it
[Puma] it was the pity of bilbo and frodo for gollum that saved middle earth
[Darkover] I think “vindictive” is Sauron’s middle name, Demosthenes
[thefoolishtook] i get that Puma, but on an emotional level, ive never really felt sorry for the character
[Puma] i agree Darkover.sort of lefthanded keeping his word….but word kept none the less
* Vince (Mibbit@torn-15B97E0D.nycmny.fios.verizon.net) has joined #thehalloffire
[Demosthenes] Darkover: yes, but Isildur seems to have earned an especial ire.
[Puma] yes
[Puma] isildur took the ring
[Demosthenes] His chief foe and bugbear almost.
[Puma] isildur kept the kingship alive with the tree
[Demosthenes] isuldur saved the white tree. isildur established arnor and gondor.
[thefoolishtook] i’m talking to much about gollum anyway, not isildur, do we need to pull it back on topic?
[Darkover] Well, he did cut Sauron’s greatest toy/tool/weapon off Sauron’s hand, and knock out his power for a long time. Sauron’s not likely to forgive and forget.
[ChristineGolden] Well, first of all, he had to regain his strength, rebuild Barad-dur, etc., Demosthenes. By then, he probably thought that the heirs of Isildur had faded into inconsequence.
[Demosthenes] I guess key historical figures do attract powerful enemies.
[Demosthenes] In that context, it makes sense.
[Puma] it was the 1st sight of a surviving heir of isildur that drove sauron to attack too soon in the war of the ring
[Darkover] Plus, all the things you mentioned that Isildur did, would have displeased Sauron immensely
[Goldberry] Also cut off one of his fingers
[Darkover] Quite so, Demosthenes. Sauron would fear the powerful, and Isildur was a very powerful enemy
[Puma] in the palantir i am referring
[ChristineGolden] Imo, Isildur is a tool Tolkien used, a means to explain how the ring was lost by Sauron.
[Demosthenes] And any surviving symbol of Isildur would be a slight against Sauron.
[Puma] after sauron saw an heir of isildur.he did not pay atention to all the things he should have
[Vince] how did the white tree of Gondor save the bloodline, Puma? You said Isuldor kept the line alive through the tree. I thought the tree was only a symbol of sorta.
[Darkover] As well as a big worry to the Dark Lord
[Vince] *sorts
[Puma] the tree was a symbol.but when no tree.there can be no king
[Demosthenes] oh, another thought, Luthien compelled Sauron’s surrender at Tol in Guaroth. And Isildur and Aragorn are descendents of Luthien.
[Puma] yes!!!!!!!
[Demosthenes] So it goes back even further.
[Puma] yes!!!!!
[Darkover] And I suspect Sauron has a *very* long memory
[Demosthenes] that’s about 6000 years of being pwned.
[Puma] great point Demz!!!!!
[Demosthenes] No wonder he was so cranky.
[Puma] and gady Vince…..did not see you were here
[Goldberry] It’s past 1 am, I am going to have to leave you all
[Vince] Hello Puma. I didn’t wanna distract the discussion by introducing myself.
[Darkover] hi, Vince
[Demosthenes] Gnight goldberry!
[Puma] sweet dreams goldberry
[ChristineGolden] Whoa! Sleep well, Goldberry.
[Darkover] goodnight, Goldberry
[Goldberry] Cya
[Demosthenes] Hmmm. We seem to have come to halt. Any points we’ve missed?
[Darkover] Don’t believe so
[Puma] saurons hate from isildur could be examined after the palantir….sauron lost his concentration
[Darkover] Excellent discussion
[ChristineGolden] The tole Isildur played in regard to Aragorn?
[ChristineGolden] role
[Demosthenes] Was Isildur an inspiration for Aragorn?
[Puma] yeah.we did a great job on this topic
[Darkover] There is that. That increased Aragorn’s claim to the throne
[ChristineGolden] Sorry, a 2-year old pried off a few keys on my laptop.
[Vince] not according to the movie
[Puma] oh my Chrsitine
[Darkover] The movie was entertaining, Chris, but not always canon
[Demosthenes] He did want to see the Argonath. So maybe Isildur was an inspiration.
[Darkover] Sorry, Vince, not Chris
[ChristineGolden] It’s okay, Puma, the funeral is monday.
[Vince] in the movie, Isildur holds Aragorn back
[Puma] the movie got a lot wrong Vince
[Darkover] lol, Chris
[ChristineGolden] I think Isildur was both an inspiration and a warning to Aragorn.
[ChristineGolden] Puma.
[Puma] thats why we read books Vince
[Demosthenes] ChristineGolden: yeah that’s probably true. More often he says he is Elendil’s heir too.
[Puma] Exactly Christine
[Darkover] Agreed, Chris
[ChristineGolden] He showed Aragorn the heights to which Gondor could rise and how far a king could fall/be corrupted by power.
[Puma] Aragorn has to be elendils heir….since gondor had all ready excluded isildurs heir
[Demosthenes] puma: there s that
[Puma] and it seems in jrr once a law is made.its forever
[ChristineGolden] Yes, but it was Isildur who was not able to overcome the lure of the ring, Puma, and that had to weigh on Aragorn’s mind.
[Puma] agreed Chrsitine
[Demosthenes] ChristineGolden: which we kinda see in Bree.
[Puma] but in his travels aragorn had to see the will of sauron at work…so knew a good bit of saurons mind
[ChristineGolden] Psychologically speaking, you have to wonder if Isildur’s “example” didn’t buttress Aragorn’s ability to resist the ring: “No, I will be different….”
[Puma] which aragorn did use to turn the tide of war
[Puma] it did Christine
[Darkover] and Aragorn felt a degree of responsibility for the fate of the Ring because of his ancestor. He said something about how it was appropriate that “Isildur’s Heir should help repair Isildur’s fault,” as I recall.
[Puma] do you not think aragorn might have been afraid of that moment in bree
[Demosthenes] ChristineGolden: i think there’s something in that. he seems to have been very aware of his ancestors .. “isildur’s heir should repair isildur’s fault…”
[Demosthenes] oh. hah. gmta.
[Darkover] Afraid, no. but that was his moment of temptation, and he passed, Puma
[ChristineGolden] Yes, that’s what I meant, Demosthenes… and good point, Darkover.
[Darkover] So, have we covered everything?
[Demosthenes] i think so!
[Puma] would there have been a 3rd age without isildur….makes me wonder
[ChristineGolden] Probably not, but it’ll do.
[Demosthenes] puma: it would have been very different.
[Puma] yeah.i think we did great today
[ChristineGolden] Sure, Puma, Tolkien would have just written a different version.
[Demosthenes] Next weekend we’ll be visiting Helm’s Deep btw.
[Puma] cool beans
[Puma] short chapter
[Demosthenes] yeah. i like short chapters.
[Darkover] Back to the book
[ChristineGolden] brb, somebody’s fooling around the fence. gotta get my gun and see what’s going on.
[Demosthenes] Back to the book!
[Puma] enjoyed this great today people
[Puma] great job Demz!!!!!!!!!
[Demosthenes] Thanks everyone. Great discussion.
Session Close: Sun May 26 09:27:12 2013

Because I’ve read a lot and thought a lot about Tolkien and his invented world, and I’ve engaged in a lot of debates about the quality and accuracy of the movies, I feel entitled to say things like, “Well, there are parts he would have loved and parts he would have hated.”  But that’s not Tolkien talking. That’s me. The author died long before The Fellowship of the Ring was released in 2001, so I’ll never know how he might have reacted to the Jackson films, and neither will anyone else.

The nearest we can come to Tolkien’s assessment might be that of his son, Christopher Tolkien, who did not give the Jackson movies a positive review.  “They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25,” Christopher told the French newspaper Le Monde in July 2012.

There’s a good chance Christopher’s father would have agreed with his son’s (rather unfair, in my opinion) assessment. It’s well known that, of Tolkien’s four children, Christopher was the one most drawn to his father’s creation.  “As strange as it may seem, I grew up in the world he created,” Christopher (who is 88) told Le Monde. “For me, the cities of The Silmarillion are more real than Babylon.”

As a boy, Christopher, “huddled for warmth by the study stove, would listen motionless while his father told him” tales from his imaginary world, Humphrey Carpenter wrote in his biography of Tolkien. In his teens and twenties, Christopher was “deeply involved with the writing of ‘The Lord of the Rings’. He had read the first chapters in manuscript, and had drawn maps and made fair copies of the text for his father,” Carpenter wrote in The Inklings.  When Christopher eventually joined the Inklings (the informal literary group that included Tolkien and C.S. Lewis), “it grew to be the custom that he, rather than his father, should read aloud any new chapters of The Lord of the Rings to the company, for it was generally agreed that he made a better job of it than did Tolkien himself,” Carpenter wrote.

Christopher Tolkien

So Christopher, clearly, knows The Lord of the Rings and his father’s thoughts about it more intimately than anyone else alive. With that in mind, it may be safe to assume Tolkien’s view would have aligned with Christopher’s, and he would therefore have hated the Jackson movies.

Then again, father and son don’t seem to have shared the same opinion about whether or not the book should be turned into a movie – any movie – at all. Christopher seems to think that The Lord of the Rings is so layered and complex that no film version could do it justice.  “My own position is that The Lord Of The Rings is peculiarly unsuitable to transformation into visual dramatic form,” Christopher stated in December 2001, just before the first Jackson movie hit theaters.

Tolkien himself, however, was quite willing to see his book turned into film – under the right circumstances. In fact, he sold the movie rights for The Lord of the Rings (along with The Hobbit) to United Artists in 1969, according to Le Monde.

Tolkien was first approached about a Lord of the Rings movie in 1957, when three American businessmen proposed an animated version, according to Carpenter’s biography. “I should welcome the idea of an animated motion picture, with all the risk of vulgarization; and that quite apart from the glint of money, though on the brink of retirement that is not an unpleasant possibility,” Tolkien wrote one of his publishers that year. (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter No. 198)

In regards to selling the film rights, Tolkien and his publishers came up with a “cash or kudos” policy, according to Carpenter. Tolkien put it this way: “Either very profitable terms indeed; or absolute author’s veto on objectionable features or alterations.” (Letter No. 202)

The 1957 proposal included some “really astonishingly good pictures (Rackham rather than Disney) and some remarkable colour photographs. They have apparently toured America shooting mountain and desert scenes that seem to fit the story,” Tolkien wrote (202).  But the synopsis of the proposed film they gave him was “on a lower level. In fact bad,” Tolkien wrote (202). Carpenter summarized the problems: “A number of names were consistently mis-spelt (Boromir was rendered ‘Borimor’), virtually all walking was dispensed with in the story and the Company of the Ring were transported everywhere on the backs of eagles, and the elvish waybread lembas was described as a ‘food concentrate’.”

Tolkien’s overall problem with the script was that it was “a compression with resultant over-crowding and confusion, blurring of climaxes, and general degradation: a pull-back towards more conventional ‘fairy-stories’. People gallop about on Eagles at the least provocation; Lorien becomes a fairy-castle with ‘delicate minarets’, and all that sort of thing.” (Letter No. 201)  But as bad as it was, he was still willing to “play ball, if they are open to advice.” (201)

In these letters, published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, we get a rare glimpse of Tolkien the (surprisingly shrewd) businessman. The book also gives extracts from Tolkien’s comments on the 1957 film synopsis (Letter No. 210). The synopsis itself isn’t included, but Tolkien’s “review” sheds some light on its contents – and is probably the closest we’ll come to his vision of how The Lord of the Rings should be filmed.

The author’s comments also give an indirect glimpse of what he might have thought of Peter Jackson’s films.  Tolkien’s “review” of the 1957 synopsis dwelled on one scene, from The Fellowship of the Ring, in particular: the Weathertop confrontation of Aragorn and the four hobbits with the Black Riders.  “I have spent some time on this passage,” he wrote, “as an example of what I find too frequent to give me ‘pleasure or satisfaction’: deliberate alteration of the story, in fact and significance, without any practical or artistic object.”

He gave examples of what displeased him:

“Strider does not ‘Whip out a sword’ in the book. Naturally not: his sword was broken … Why then make him do so here, in a contest that was explicitly not fought with weapons?”

“The Black Riders do not scream, but keep a more terrifying silence. Aragorn does not blanch. The riders draw slowly in on foot in darkness, and do not ‘spur’. There is no fight. Sam does not ‘sink his blade into the Ringwraith’s thigh’, nor does his thrust save Frodo’s life.”

“A scene of gloom lit by a small red fire, with the Wraiths slowly approaching as darker shadows – until the moment when Frodo puts on the Ring, and the King steps forward revealed – would seem to me far more impressive than yet one more scene of screams and rather meaningless slashings …”

I could spend a lot of time laying out the similarities and differences of the 1957 and 2001 versions of the Weathertop scene, but you’re probably replaying the Jackson version in your head right now, and you don’t need my help.  I will say this: Aragorn is too much the beefcake in Jackson’s version of this scene, swinging his big sword and throwing his flaming torches at the Black Riders, who run away like screaming babies. But I’ll side with Jackson on one point: It was kind of strange for Aragorn to be carrying a broken sword, which he did at that point in the book. Besides being a priceless heirloom, the Sword that was Broken was rather useless in a fight (which Aragorn acknowledged). Why not leave it in Rivendell until it’s ready to be re-forged, and carry a workable sword in the meantime?

Tolkien also addressed the overuse of the Eagles in the 1957 version: “I feel this to be a wholly unacceptable tampering with the tale,” he wrote. “‘Nine Walkers’ and they immediately go up in the air! The intrusion achieves nothing but incredibility, and the staling of the device of the Eagles when at last they are really needed.”  At least Jackson didn’t commit that unpardonable sin.

The 1957 synopsis leaves out a scene that Tolkien considered extremely important, a scene that Jackson left in: “The disappearance of the temptation of Galadriel is significant. Practically everything having moral import has vanished from the synopsis.”

Tolkien was, however, OK with cutting out some parts of the book, if necessary. He even suggested cutting out the battle of the Hornburg (Helm’s Deep), “which is incidental to the main story; and there would be this additional gain that we are going to have a big battle (of which as much should be made as possible), but battles tend to be too similar; the big one would gain by having no competitor.”  (By the “big one”, the author must have been referring to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields in The Return of the King.)

Jackson didn’t cut the battle of Helm’s Deep. Oh no. It’s the big set piece of his second movie. Whether or not that diminished the big battle in his third movie is debatable.

Then there’s the handling of Saruman’s end. The 1957 synopsis cut out the “end of the book, including Saruman’s proper death. In that case I can see no good reason for making him die,” Tolkien wrote. “Saruman would never have committed suicide: to cling to life to its basest dregs is the way of the sort of person he had become.”  If Saruman needed to be tidied up, Tolkien wrote, “Gandalf should say something to this effect: as Saruman collapses under the excommunication: ‘Since you will not come out and aid us, here in Orthanc you shall stay till you rot, Saruman. Let the Ents look to it!’”

Seems like Jackson’s shorter version of “The Return of the King”, the version that ran in theaters (as opposed to the extended edition), handled “Sharkey’s End” in a manner Tolkien would have preferred.

Despite his distaste for the 1957 synopsis, Tolkien was still willing to “play ball”, as he wrote. So why was that version never made into a movie?

In his biography, Carpenter gave an explanation: “There did not seem to be much prospect of kudos in this, and as there was not much cash either, negotiations were not continued.”

Like I said at the beginning, we’ll never know what Tolkien would have thought of the Jackson movies; but based on what we’ve just read, it’s safe to say he would have preferred them over the 1957 proposal. And not to sound too vulgar, but there probably would have been more cash involved as well…

===================

Maedhros is a guest writer and his views do not necessarily reflect those of TheOneRing.net. Maedhros lives in Grand Rapids, MI. He’s been hooked on Tolkien since he was 11, when he opened the first page of “The Two Towers” and read about Aragorn tracking a hobbit; and Boromir’s death scene, of course. 

Q: Hello. I have one, but I’m sure that you’ll get it easy enough. It has become evident to me that me George Lucas used two names for two of the places in Star Wars movies (the first three released). Also, I have a question that I’m hoping you might be able to answer. I have read The Lord of the Rings (sadly) only once. I am 15 and currently working on The Silmarillion, while my friends read my copies of LOTR. I’m having problems with names and locations in The Silmarillion. Is Beleriand the same as Middle-earth? I know that that is a simple question for you, but I frankly have no clue. Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance,

–Niles “Dargon” Armstrong

A: Yes, Beleriand was originally created as part of Middle-earth. Technically speaking, the lands of the Valar, or Valinor (a.k.a. “The Undying Lands”), are all found across the sea to the west. Any landmasses on the east of Belegaer, The Great Sea, are considered part of Middle-earth.

In the First Age, the earliest settlements of Elves, Dwarves, Ents, and Men were in Beleriand, which stretched from the coast as far east as the Blue Mountains (Ered Luin). If you look at the map in The Silmarillion you’ll see this mountain range on the furthest east. Now look at any edition of The Lord of the Rings and you’ll see the Ered Luin on the far western edge of the land, bordering the coast.

This is due to the events that brought about the end of the First Age and irrevocably changed the face of the land. During the War of Wrath a great host of Valinor approached the stronghold of Morgoth to destroy him in a final confrontation. When the great towers of Thangorodrim were smashed, the entire continent was thrown into a cataclysm. The breaking of Thangorodrim laid bare the pits of Angband, and the Great Sea engulfed everything. Nearly one million square miles of land were submerged. A new coastline appeared at the Blue Mountains, becoming the more familiar area just west of the Shire where the Grey Havens would be founded centuries later.

So there you are. Beleriand was once truly part of Middle-earth, but the epic and certainly tragic events imagined by Tolkien changed all of it. Belegaer would later be called “The Sundering Sea.”

A while back one reader asked about finding a good map of Númenor. We strongly recommend “The Atlas of Middle-Earth” (1991, Houghton Mifflin) by Karen Wynn Fonstad. For those readers trying to wrap their brain around the many places mentioned in The Silmarillion, take heart! Tremendous light is shed on the material recounted there, and many nebulous things are made clear.

As for your query about George Lucas… who’s he? Never heard of him. The only filmmaker I know of is Peter Jackson.

- Quickbeam

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Q: I’m Portuguese, so I’ve read the Portuguese version of O Hobbit (The Hobbit). In my version, in Chapter 3, on the third page, just before the song, it is written:

‘Cheira a Elfos,’ pensou Bilbo. —

‘It’s elf smell,’ thought Bilbo, (or something like that).

If Gandalf, or the Dwarves, never mentioned the elves, and when Gandalf, after the troll event, talked about Rivendell and Elrond never saying that there were elves: how did Bilbo know that there were elves? Could he really smell or detect their presence? It’s just an error?

–Ângelo

A: Well, if there’s one thing you really can’t miss a mile off it’s the smell of Elves in the morning. One good whiff will clear up any sinus problem, I guarantee it. But seriously, Ângelo, the translation of your version of The Hobbit is not mistaken. In the original Allen & Unwin edition, the English text says:

‘Hmmm! it smells like elves!’ thought Bilbo, and he looked up at the stars.

And no, there is no earlier mention that Rivendell was a community of elves, or that Bilbo had ever met them. You could easily assume that, like Samwise, our dear Bilbo had never laid eyes on an elf his whole life. But if you look at the next page after the elves complete their song, it says:

He loved elves, though he seldom met them; but he was a little frightened of them too.

And later:

Elves know a lot and are wondrous folk for news, and know what is going on among the peoples of the land, as quick as water flows, or quicker.

So he had seen them in the Shire, probably in the vicinity of Bywater, I would guess, especially if the elven-folk were traveling through on their way to the Havens. We can glean from the above that Bilbo must have had an actual conversation with an Elf, at least once, to learn news of other happenings beyond the Shire’s borders:

As to what they actually smell like? Well, I don’t know. But there are several places in Professor Tolkien’s work where elves and all things elvish are strongly connected to flora and fauna. There are passages that lovingly describe the valley of Rivendell, its fragrant woods and “green pleasant places.” And when the Fellowship arrives in Lórien, great attention is paid to the vibrant plant-life and especially the mallorn trees. Remember Cerin Amroth?

‘Here ever bloom the winter flowers in the unfading grass: the yellow elanor, and the pale niphredil.’

With this literary device, the reader makes a connection with elves and the symbolism of green, living, growing things. Maybe it’s not actually the elves that Bilbo smells, but his memory of fragrant valleys and pine trees is recurrently matched with the fair elven race… and our memory is too.

- Quickbeam

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Q: If Sauron can defeat all his enemies if he has the power of the Ring, why on earth did he make such a blatant tactical error and put a lot of that power into something which can be taken from him?

–Nebel

A: The most obvious answer is that without the existence of the Ring, Sauron would not have a reliable method of controlling the other rings (especially the Elven rings) and, through them, their wearers and their actions. Sauron’s power in the Ring is different from what it would be outside the Ring. Outside the Ring (with his full power restored to himself), Sauron is a mighty spirit with far sight and great power, but he still has to defeat his enemies the old-fashioned ways: trickery and war. He tricked the Men of Númenor into listening to him until they were under his sway; then later, he tricked the Elves of Hollin into listening to him until they showed him all they knew about ring-making. You can’t control other people unless you have soldiers with weapons around to kill or make an example of any that don’t obey, so despite the power of a Maiar, Sauron would have had no actual control over others without war. It’s a chain: Sauron controls a few by threats or promises of reward, who then turn around and do Sauron’s dirty work in controlling others for him. Same thing with Saruman: he had the power of a Maiar, but had to have a bunch of other creatures around to do his dirty work. But Sauron coveted not only control over other peoples but over their works and powers and lands, as well. Tolkien never spells out what all the Three Rings were capable of, but he gives the impression that many of the special qualities of Rivendell and Lothlórien were created and maintained by the power of the Elven rings. Sauron never touched those, but he learned all about their forging and actually helped in the forging of the Seven and the Nine, so that he learned all about the power that was imbued in all the rings, giving him the knowledge needed to make a Ring that would control all the others, control their wearers and their creations. However, the power in this Ring, the power to control the others, had to come from somewhere. So Sauron put a great deal of his own will and power into the forging, transforming his power into a specific channel: that of controlling the other Rings. He assumed he could always keep this Ring with him, thereby having access to all of his power AND controlling the other rings. I guess he didn’t reckon on the Last Alliance. =)

- Anwyn

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Q: What are the Barrow Wights? We are never really given a clear description of them (at least as far as I could figure out). It almost seems like the sort of thing that we should have prior knowledge of, but this is the only place I’ve ever seen them.

This was the major mystery that I was left with after finishing the series.

–Terry O’Briant

A: First let us examine the etymology of the actual word, Barrow Wight. My fellow Green Books staffperson Turgon (who is held high among the Wise) shared the following with me:

A barrow is an earthmound marking a grave (from Middle English “berw,” Anglo-Saxon “beorg”). But “wight” is also an archaic word, meaning 1) a human being, or 2) a preternatural or supernatural being. It derives from Middle English “wight” and Anglo-Saxon “wiht,” meaning “creature, animal, person, thing.” So of course the terms have a perfect resonance for Tolkien’s use of them…

Put the two together and you have “supernatural creature of the grave.” This is a shining example of Professor Tolkien’s erudition with these ancient languages.

The Barrow-downs were, as you know, dome-shaped hills crowned with monoliths and ringed with white stones. But we need to look closely at the history of the surrounding lands, as it yields more lucid information about the nefarious Barrow Wights. I will try to keep this “history lesson” as succinct as possible, for there is much to tell. What follows is most germane to your question:

Early in the Third Age, the race of Men (the Dúnedain) held power in two main Kingdoms, Arnor and Gondor. In the north, Arnor was split into three principalities: 1) Arthedain, 2) Rhudaur, and 3) Cardolan. This triad of the Dúnedain had a capital city at Annúminas (and later Fornost). There was constant strife between them and the Witch-King of Angmar, who reigned from his cold seat in Carn Dûm.

The power of the Witch-King was undoubtedly great–he was chief of the Nazgûl, after all. He took into his service Hillmen of the North, and a variety of Orcs and other foul creatures. Not the least of which were the demonic spirits that would eventually become the Barrow Wights, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Many battles were fought over the centuries between the Dúnedain and the Witch-King, and Elrond himself makes mention of them during the high Council in The Fellowship of the Ring:

“In the North … the Men of Westernesse were diminished, and their city of Annúminas beside Lake Evendim fell into ruin; and the heirs of Valandil removed and dwelt at Fornost on the high North Downs, and that now too is desolate. … For the folk of Arnor dwindled, and their foes devoured them, and their lordship passed, leaving only green mounds in the grassy hills.”

Those ‘green mounds’ he speaks of are the burial mounds the four hobbits passed through only a few chapters earlier. The men of Cardolan used the fields of Tyrn Gorthad (the Barrow-downs) as a refuge and also as a burial field for their fallen kings and warriors. The white monoliths marked the gravesites of many of the fallen.

When the Witch-King was ultimately defeated, he fled into the shadows of dusk and vanished from the north. Many tortured servants and spirits also fled from Angmar after his power was broken, no longer having their lord to rule them (or enslave them, if you prefer).

There were also demons, now disembodied and wandering aimlessly, looking for other bodies in which their evil spirits could dwell. And so that’s how I speculate the Wights came into being, as they traveled southward from Angmar to the Barrow-downs and inhabited the bones and jeweled armour of the ancient dead.

The Wights could crush the will of an unwary traveler. Apparently they wielded spells that hypnotized the victim, rendering him mindless, and luring him into the treasure tombs below ground. As you’ll recall from “Fog on the Barrow-downs,” the Barrow Wight laid the hobbits on a stone altar and bound them with gold chains. He draped them in the pale cloth and precious jewelry of the long-dead kings, then readied to take their lives with a sacrificial sword.

It certainly was a good thing Frodo did not succumb to the spell as readily as Sam, Merry, and Pippin. He found his courage and his bearing, asserting himself without the aid of the Ring.

As Tom Bombadil knew all too well, daylight would be the undoing of the Barrow Wight. Once a stone chamber was broken open, light would pour in and the Wight would fade, perishing before the sun. Gandalf would later say of these events:

“That was touch and go: perhaps the most dangerous moment of all.”

And indeed that much is true. With no Wizard or Ranger to help them, the hobbits were in their greatest peril at the hands of such an ancient evil. In the moment where Merry returns to consciousness, the golden circlet around his head falls over his face, and it somehow brings out the voice of the dead man who was originally buried with it:

“Of course, I remember!” he said. “The Men of Carn Dûm came on us at night, and we were worsted. Ah! the spear in my heart!”

Having a good understanding of Arnor and the history of the Dúnedain makes many of these small details more vibrant as you read. For the best information, you should turn to the Professor himself. Read Appendix A, “Annals of the Kings and Rulers,” especially Section I, “The Númenorean Kings,” Subsection (iii), “Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur.” As you pore over these pages you’ll gain a greater understanding of the scope of Tolkien’s world. I’m also certain that you’ll appreciate Aragorn much more, as his background and lineage is made clear.

- Quickbeam

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Q: Could Gandalf have slain the Witch-king? The reason I ask is because when Gandalf is discussing the Witch-king with Denethor, Denethor asks Gandalf if he met a foe he could not match. To which Gandalf replied, Well if the old prophecy be true then he will not fall by the hand of Man. Now Gandalf was a Maiar and not a man. He may have been in the form of a man but he could use spells and he had a hidden power it says. Or maybe Gandalf just meant male. But if that were the case how did Merry help slay the Witch-king and Merry was a hobbit? I know he didn’t deal the deathblow, but his strike is said to have unknit the Witch-king’s flesh. So was this a blunder? Thanks for your time.

- Gandalf

ALSO: related to the above question:

Here’s one that’s bothered me for a while: How is it, if only specially-wrought Elvish and Westernesse blades are any use against the Nazgul, t hat Eowyn was able to kill one (the Witch-King, no less) with her plain old Rohan sword? And with a blow to a “spiritual” area no less, the unseen head. Thanks for your time.

- Todd M. Aglialoro

A: I don’t think there was any blundering involved here. The quotations go like this: “Or can it be that you have withdrawn because you are overmatched?” “It might be,” Gandalf answered softly. “But our trial of strength is not yet come. And if words spoken of old be true, not by the hand of man shall he fall, and hidden from the Wise is the doom that awaits him.” (RotK.) First of all, this means that Gandalf himself did not know whether or not he could have slain the Witch-king in a one-on-one. “Hidden from the Wise” includes “hidden from Gandalf,” and Gandalf did not know. He did not know if he was overmatched, because it was not his time to face the Witch-king. That comes later, in the gate of Minas Tirith, and although they do not fight, Gandalf is able to drive him away because the wraith cannot claim victory yet; Rohan shows up to contest the field. As we see later, of course, “not by the hand of man” simply means “by the hand of woman and hobbit.” For myself, I believe that a one-on-one contest between Gandalf and the Witch-king would have been almost as iffy as the battle between Gandalf and the Balrog. Gandalf and the Balrog are both Maiar, and the Witch-king began as a normal human, but the ring he wore, one of the Nine, gave him power approaching the spiritual realm. So there is really no telling. I believe Gandalf was aware that the fate of the Witch-king did not rest with him, and that’s why he responded to Denethor as he did. But also he didn’t know with whom the fate actually *did* rest. As we see later, the Witch-king was so off his guard that there was no actual fight. He believed he was invincible to anything currently on the field, and probably did not realize there were those on the other side who were not men, but hobbits and women.

“‘Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may.’

‘Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!’

Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel. ‘But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.’

… but the Ringwraith made no answer, and was silent, as if in sudden doubt.”

We all know what happened next. After Eowyn manages to dispatch the beast, Merry gets in one for the Shire at the wraith’s knee, and the very unexpectedness of the stroke breaks the wraith’s concentration to the point where his will no longer holds as steady, and Eowyn is able to drive her sword into what’s left of his power, shattering it. So, I believe that A) Gandalf did not know at whose door the death of the Witch-king would be laid, and he didn’t know if he would be the winner in a fight with him. B) Eowyn’s sword, so far as we know, was a “plain old Rohan sword,” but don’t forget that Merry’s blade was “forged many long years ago by the Men of Westernesse: they were foes of the Dark Lord” (FotR.) It is clear to me that Merry’s stroke shattered the spells that allowed the Black Rider his cohesiveness of form and his concentration of will, and allowed Eowyn’s sword to demolish the center of his power, the spiritual head.

Q: Exactly who is Morgoth? How did he influence the would-be Dark Lord, Sauron?

-Cold Blue

A: Morgoth is another name for Melkor, mightiest among the Ainur before his fall. In the creation of the world by Eru, the One, Melkor was chief among his servants, the Ainur, but his mind began to stray out of the will of Iluvatar. He wished to control the free peoples for his own ends, and wanted to create beings who would serve and be controlled by him, and not be free to serve Iluvatar or to pursue their own wills. His lust for domination became so great that eventually his former brothers and sisters, the Valar, Ainur that had taken up residence in the world to look over it, made war upon him, chained him in the Void, and named him Morgoth, so that he would no longer be a danger to the Children of Iluvatar. Sauron was a Maiar and the servant of Melkor. His evil influence contributed to Sauron’s downfall until he was no more than a shadow-copy of Morgoth, seeking to dominate others for his own ends.

- Anwyn

Update:

Several people have written in to clarify an error on my part, when I stated that the Valar fought and chained Melkor in the Void, naming him Morgoth. I basically lumped all the actions against Melkor together under the banner of the Valar, but in actuality… well, read my astute readers’ comments below!

–Anwyn

Hi. Sorry to bother you with such a silly trifle, but I wanted to clear something up for my own edification. You said in your response to “Cold Blue” that:

“the Valar…made war upon him [Melkor], chained him in the Void, and named him Morgoth.”

I thought that after Melkor killed Finwë and made off with the Silmarils, Fëanor in his rage named him Morgoth. I don’t have access to my copy of The Silmarillion as it’s on loan, so I can’t check this out. I just wondered what you thought.

If you’ve been bombarded with messages from snotty know-it-alls, please just consider me another and accept my apologies. I very much appreciate the breadth and depth of knowledge at the Green Books and always find the site enlightening.

Thanks for your efforts,

–Eric

Sorry to nitpick, but it was Fëanor who named him Morgoth, and not the Valar.

–Constantine Pappas

Just an amendment. Melkor was named Morgoth (“Black Enemy of the World”) not by the Valar but by Fëanor after Melkor slew his father Finwë and stole the Silmarils.

–Tormenderk

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As we all know, J R R Tolkien was, from an early age, fascinated by myth and heroic legend, reading all he could of the romances and epics of many nations.  In a letter to Milton Waldman, which appears in the Preface to the second edition of The Silmarillion, he wrote that he was ‘grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own … Of course there was and is all the Arthurian world, but powerful as it is, it is imperfectly naturalized, associated with the soil of Britain but not with the English; and does not replace what I felt to be missing…’

The Professor, then, had little time for the legends of King Arthur; but he did make one foray into those tales, and we are about to be able to read for ourselves the results of those labours!  Tomorrow, publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt release Tolkien’s narrative poem The Fall of Arthur, edited as ever by his son Christopher.  HMH’s press release tells us:

‘The Fall of Arthur, the only venture by J.R.R. Tolkien into the legends of Arthur, king of Britain, may well be regarded as his finest and most skillful achievement in the use of Old English alliterative meter, in which he brought to his transforming perceptions of the old narratives a pervasive sense of the grave and fateful nature of all that is told: of Arthur’s expedition overseas into distant heathen lands, of Guinevere’s flight from Camelot, of the great sea battle on Arthur’s return to Britain, in the portrait of the traitor Mordred, in the tormented doubts of Lancelot in his French castle.’

Alas, Tolkien never finished his poem; but amongst his manuscripts were sketches and drafts, which included ‘significant tantalizing notes. In these notes can be discerned clear if mysterious associations of the Arthurian conclusion with The Silmarillion, and the bitter ending of the love of Lancelot and Guinevere, which was never written.’

It’s a day of celebration for Tolkien fans whenever we have a chance to read more of the Professor’s work, and gain further insight into the explorations which lead to his great myth of Middle-earth.  You can read Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s full information about the book here; and you can order your copy from Amazon by clicking here. The Fall of Arthur will also be available as an e-book.  Happy reading!

[Order The Fall of Arthur from Amazon]

Back in September 1999, these were the questions on the minds of fans…

Q:What role did Glorfindel play after the incident at the Fords of Bruinen? I don’t remember any further mention of him and it seems strange that such a noble Elven Lord would not be involved at all in the War of the Ring.

- Quinton Carr

A: He wasn’t. But if you think about it, many “noble Elven lords” did not do anything *active* in the War after the Fellowship left Rivendell or Lorien. Elrond, Celeborn, noble Elven ladies like Galadriel, Arwen . . . their roles were peripheral. Not to mention the fact that I’m sure both Elrond and Celeborn had a goodly number of strong, well-armed Elves at their disposal, who didn’t go with the Fellowship *or* down to the battles in Gondor. But the answer is actually pretty simple, and Elrond gives it to us in “Fellowship:” “The number must be few, since your hope is in speed and secrecy. Had I a host of Elves in armour of the Elder Days, it would avail little, save to arouse the power of Mordor.” So that explains why none of them went with the Fellowship. Why did none of these mighty Elves save Elrohir and Elladan ride down to Gondor once it was clear that there would be battle? My answer has a couple of parts. Firstly, Elrohir and Elladan, according to the Tale of Years, were born after the wars at the end of the Second Age when Sauron was thrown down, and were not a party to them as their father was. They’d never gotten their “chance,” so to speak. As for the rest of them, they had all gone to war against Sauron at the end of the Second Age. They felt their time had passed, and moreover that the hour of the Secondborn was striking. They knew that the power of their Rings would fade if Frodo was successful, and that Men would rise and Elves would dwindle. They must have felt it was right for the men, i.e. the armies of Gondor and Rohan, to earn for themselves the privilege of ushering in the Fourth Age.

Now, I don’t know how long Glorfindel had been alive at this point. Whether he was around at the first overthrow of Sauron, I can’t say. All I know is that he, like Elrond and Celeborn and Erestor and Cirdan and all, elected not to go down to the war this time. Turgon says that there is some speculation about an earlier elf, also named Glorfindel, who had been killed in battle. The question revolves around whether or not this is the same guy, somehow returned to life and to Middle-earth, or is it a namesake? I haven’t delved into the History of Middle-earth volumes, but Turgon tells me more Glorfindel information can be found in the Peoples of Middle-earth, volume 12 of the History, on pages 377-384.

-Anwyn

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Q: I want to know if Bilbo was Frodo’s cousin or uncle.

- Heather Mackie

A: Chestnuts, chestnuts! The answer to this is in The Fellowship of the Ring, Book I, Chapter 1, page 1:

“Mr. [Bilbo] Baggins was generous with is money, … But he had no close friends, until some of his younger cousins began to grow up.The eldest of these, and Bilbo’s favourite, was young Frodo Baggins.”

If you take a look at Appendix C, “Family Trees” at the end of The Return of the King, you’ll see that Frodo was the Great-grandson of one Largo Baggins, whom Bilbo saw only as a Granduncle, if you can imagine such a thing. Now, according to modern American standards this familial relationship might seem quite thin, but in the Shire cousins are held very close to the heart, no matter how distantly related (unless of course you’re a Sackville-Baggins). Hobbits held great interest in their own genealogy, as Tolkien wrote, and the operative term “cousin” would probably be liberally applied to any of a number of different relatives.

- Quickbeam

Update!

Your answer about Bilbo and Frodo being “cousins” is accurate, as far as it goes. But their relation is slightly more complex than that, since they are related not only on the Baggins side, but on the Took side as well. But to explain it properly I have to refer to the technical names of different types of cousins, which most Americans, at least, do not understand.

A quick refresher course for those who do not share a Hobbitish interest in genealogy: the ordinal number before “cousin” (as in “first cousin”, “second cousin”, “third cousin”) refers to how many generations back you have to go before you reach siblings. If I had a son, he would be a first cousin with my sisters’ children. His children would be second cousins with my sisters’ grandchildren, and so on. Another way of looking at it is that first cousins share grandparents, second cousins share great-grandparents, and so on.

“Removed” refers to a difference in generation. Suppose I have a first cousin, and she has a daughter. That child is my first cousin once removed, the “removed” signifying that she and I are one generation apart. If she then had a son, that child would be my first cousin twice removed, and so on. If you think of a genealogical chart, you will notice that all first, second, third, etc. cousins will be on the same level horizontally; if you go one step down, you will get a “remove.”

All right: let’s apply this to Frodo and Bilbo. Looking at the chart in Appendix C, we find the common ancestor, Balbo Baggins. Among his children are Mungo and Largo; they are siblings. Mungo begat Bungo, and Largo begat Fosco; Bungo and Fosco are therefore first cousins. Bungo begat Bilbo, and Fosco begat Drogo; Bilbo and Drogo are second cousins. Finally, Drogo begat Frodo; therefore, Frodo and Bilbo are second cousins once removed — on the Baggins side.

But they’re also related on the Took side. Look at the Took family tree on the next page. You’ll see that Bilbo’s mother Belladonna Took was the sister of Mirabella Took, Frodo’s maternal grandmother. So (are you following this?) on the Took side, Frodo and Bilbo are *first* cousins once removed.

So while the short and easy answer is that Frodo and Bilbo are just cousins, the long answer is that, as the Gaffer explains on the third page of A Long-Expected Party:

“Mr. Frodo is his first *and* second cousin, once removed either way, as the saying is, if you follow me.”

I have no idea whether the readers of the Green Books would have any interest in this… but here it is, all the same.

–Si Rowe

Yes, indeed we ARE interested, and I appreciate the clarification! You’ve made easy work of this complicated family tree! And I really have no excuse for not knowing my trees.

–Quickbeam

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Q: Does Saruman survive after he is killed? Sauron was killed three times before he actually died. They were both Maia and they both had the same master Aulë the smith. So is it possible that Saruman lived?

–Saruman19

A: Very, very good question. Let me start by quoting you the passage that is also in my second “Counterpoint;” it is Saruman’s death scene.

“To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill. For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing.” [Excerpted from Return.]

To me, this seems final as regards Saruman’s demise, but let me first interject an interesting thought: Was Sauron ever actually killed before the War of the Ring? When was the last time he had a corporeal body? He “perished” once in the drowning of Númenor, and beyond that, I don’t know to which other two times you are referring, unless you refer to him fleeing Angband for Mordor, then at the end of the Second Age when the Ring was taken from him. As far as that last time, does it say he was killed, or merely that the Ring was taken and he was defeated? Sauron had long ago lost the ability to keep a corporeal body, but it seems obvious to me that his spirit was never dissolved before the Ring was destroyed. His own folly in putting the majority of his original power into an object outside himself was his undoing, in that when *that* “corporeal body,” the Ring, perished, the part of his spirit/power that was in it was dissolved, and the rest of his spirit could no longer survive. And on a final note about Sauron, he had long ceased to acknowledge Aulë as his master, and had been Melkor’s servant for as long as anybody could remember.

So, the point I’m making is that Maiar, good or evil, do not “die,” no matter what the state of their corporeal bodies, until their spirits are dissolved. I think it’s safe to say that Gandalf’s original corporeal form was killed in the battle with the Balrog. But at the end of the day, it was the spirit of the Balrog that was dissipated, not Gandalf’s, and those in charge (i.e., Valar) saw fit to allow him to take on another body. Sauron did not have the power, after the theft of the Ring, to take a body any more, and Saruman still had his own body. Well and good. Well, when Saruman’s body was destroyed, then what was left was the spirit, and the hobbits witnessed this being blown away on the West Wind. I feel that this was the final destruction of the Maiar spirit that had been Saruman, and that he would not have survived this. On a final note, my fellow Green Books staffperson Turgon mentioned that he had always thought of the breeze that blew away the mist as the Breath of Manwë. Talk about your poetic justice!

–Anwyn

Update!

A reader has written in to direct me to be more specific about the “death,” before the return, of Gandalf…

–Anwyn

In your answer to the question about Saruman’s death, you make a reference to Gandalf being returned after death by the Valar. That’s not exactly correct.

Gandalf’s words and a couple of letters by Tolkien (I can look up the exact references if you’re interested) indicate that when he was killed in his battle with the Balrog, Gandalf’s spirit left this world entirely, going beyond even the Valar’s ability to interfere. He was returned and imbued with new power by none other than Eru Ilœvatar Himself, the One.

–Tim Frankovich

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Q: Do Tolkien’s Elves have pointed ears? (I’ve never found any reference to this in any of his writings, and many artists portray them without pointed ears…)

–Quinton Carr

A: This is a tough question that has baffled many Tolkien-readers for years and years. The only evidence there is, and it can be interpreted in several ways, comes from a letter Tolkien wrote to the American publishers of The Hobbit, sometime around March 1938. This letter, a response to a request for some drawings of hobbits in various attitudes, is published in Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Letter no. 27, p. 35). Part of the description reads as follows: “A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and ‘elvish’.” The quotes around “elvish” are Tolkien’s own, so what does he mean? Elvish, as in his own Elves? Or “elvish” as in what the recipient of the letter might think of as “elvish”–i.e., a more public idea of “elvish”? I suspect Tolkien meant the latter, but the remarkable thing here is that Tolkien does imply that Hobbits have ears which are “slightly pointed”.

–Turgon

Update!

Carl F. Hostetter pointed (no pun intended) us to another consideration that really makes a much stronger case that Tolkien intended his elves to have pointed ears. In “The Etymologies”, a very important work for the study of Tolkien’s Elvish languages, first published in The Lost Road (1987), the two entries given for the elvish element “las” show that “las”, as in the Quenya *lasse, meaning “leaf”, is possibly related to “las” meaning “listen”, and *lasse meaning “ear”. Tolkien wrote: “The Quendian ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped than [?human]” (The reading of the last word is uncertain in the lightly pencilled manuscript.) Fascinating!

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Q: What’s the deal with the “stone giants” that are mentioned in The Hobbit? Are they chronicled anywhere in the history of Middle Earth? Are they allied with good or evil? Did they have any part in the War of the Ring?

–Quinton Carr

A: To answer you in order: No, neither, and no. The singular mention of them anywhere seems to be only in The Hobbit, during that thunderstorm as the travelers attempted to cross the high pass through the Misty Mountains. They were given neither names nor station in the vast Tolkien legendarium, though most beasts and creatures were. Then again, not every single denizen of Middle-earth is revealed plainly. There was the slimy, tentacled Watcher in the Lake that assaulted Frodo and the Fellowship as they stood just outside Moria’s East Gate. Consider it one of those occurrences where the mystery of the thing is an important storytelling device. Gandalf gives no details, no history, to the frightened and inquisitive Hobbits, and that leaves the reader’s mind to wander. What on earth could it be? Who set it there to guard the Gate? And why did it attack the Ringbearer first? By keeping some of these monsters/creatures more obscure, Tolkien makes them more fantastical, and thus they carry more of a wallop to the imagination.

Also, it has been suggested throughout the years that Professor Tolkien wrote The Hobbit directly for his children. My guess is that the inclusion of these Stone Giants could have been to add fairy-tale flavor to the proceedings, as you will find throughout The Father Christmas Letters.

–Quickbeam

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Q: You mentioned Glorfindel, what race was he, how awesome was he and what was he to do to help Elrond?

–Tim

A: Well, I think this question (or questions) is best answered with the words of the Professor:

“‘This is Glorfindel, who dwells in the house of Elrond,’ said Strider.

‘Hail, and well met at last!’ said the Elf-lord to Frodo. ‘I was sent from Rivendell to look for you. We feared that you were in danger upon the road.’” [Excerpted from Fellowship.]

So far so good. His race is Elven, and he dwells in the house of Elrond. Moving on:

“‘There are few even in Rivendell that can ride openly against the Nine; but such as there were, Elrond sent out north, west, and south. … It was my lot to take the Road … three of the servants of Sauron were upon the Bridge, but they withdrew and I pursued them westward.’ …

With his last failing senses Frodo heard cries, and it seemed to him that he saw, beyond the Riders that hesitated on the shore, a shining figure of white light; …

‘I thought that I saw a white figure that shone and did not grow dim like the others. Was that Glorfindel then?’

‘Yes, you saw him for a moment as he is upon the other side: one of the mighty of the First-born. He is an Elf-lord of a house of princes.’” [Ibid.]

As for how “awesome” he was, there you have it. He is a mighty Elf-lord with power to intimidate even Black Riders. Gandalf also says of him:

“Caught between fire and water, and seeing an Elf-lord revealed in his wrath, they were dismayed…”[Ibid.]

What was he to do to help Elrond? It seems clear that he obeyed Elrond’s orders, since it was Elrond who ordered riders into the wilderness to search for Frodo. It seems likely that whatever Elrond needed him to do, he would undertake.

–Anwyn

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Q: Who is Tom Bombadil anyway? Is he a Valar, Maia, or something else entirely? Does anyone even really know?

–Namuras

Also:

We have had a few major discussions in Barliman’s about this… Who was eldest–Fangorn or Tom Bombadil? Fangorn is said to be “eldest” in one spot, and Bombadil is known as “oldest” and “fatherless”. The folks at Barliman’s would love your insight on this matter!

–Jincey

A: Tom Bombadil is another really tough person to place and define in the whole scheme of Tolkien’s legendarium. This topic also has been debated for many years. About the best answer one can give, and it is still only a speculation, is that Tom Bombadil was some lesser form of Maia. After all, Tom refers to having been around Arda from very early on– “He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless–before the Dark Lord came from Outside.” And the reference to the Dark Lord must to refer to Morgoth, rather than Sauron. Treebeard’s title as “Eldest” must be some sort of honorific, for he and the Ents as a race seem likely to be slightly younger than Tom Bombadil.

–Turgon

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Q: Who was Aragorn I destroyed by?

–JacenS010

A: Aragorn I was a mighty chieftain of the Dúnedain and a direct descendant of Isildur. He was the Great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-grandfather of Aragorn II (a.k.a. Strider, and later crowned King Elessar in The Return of the King). According to Tolkien’s record, Aragorn I was killed not by a whom but by a what:

“Aragorn I, it is said, was slain by wolves, which ever after remained a peril in Eriador, and are not yet ended.”

Please see his notes in Appendix A; “Annals of the Kings and Rulers” at the very end of the trilogy.

–Quickbeam

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Q: Maybe I misread the Fellowship, but in the scene at the Barrow-Down was Frodo actually wearing the princely white outfit like Merry and Pippin? When he was captured, he immediately looked in his pocket for the Ring. Now why would he search in his pockets for the Ring if he was wearing a different outfit? Also, Frodo said to the other Hobbits that their clothes were probably lost forever. So if Frodo was wearing something else, and the missing clothes were gone for good, wouldn’t the ring be in his old Shire pants and not in his new white outfit? Was Frodo in his normal outfit while the others were dressed up?

–CASH219767

A: I won’t try to quote directly from Fellowship on this, as the passages involved are rather lengthy, so I’ll just paraphrase. The short answer is yes, you did misread just a bit. Here’s the sequence of events:

1. Frodo becomes separated from Sam, Merry, and Pippin in the darkness and fog at the end of the day. He hears cries, his friends calling out for him in distress and alarm, but he cannot find his companions in the dark. So Merry, Sam, and Pippin were captured first.
2. Frodo hears a deep voice coming out of the ground, feels a freezing touch, and falls unconscious.
3. Frodo wakes up in the barrow. He is lying on his back and his hands are on his chest, but this seems to be the only thing the Wight has done with him. There is no mention of his clothes being different.
4. Frodo looks around and sees Sam, Merry, and Pippin all laid together, dressed in white with gold jewelry, with weapons laid at their sides, and across their three necks, “one long naked sword.” [Shiver!]
5. It’s obvious at this point that the other three were captured together in a bunch and dressed up like this, and laid there with spells on them. It becomes apparent later that the spells laid on them to keep them unconscious also gave them dreams in which they were forced to re-enact some of the battles that took place in those lands during the rule of Angmar. You remember that Merry speaks of the attack of the men of Carn Dûm, etc., once they wake up. Frodo was captured later, and laid down with lesser spells upon him and his clothes were not touched. The conclusion that he had fewer or even *no* spells laid upon him is evidenced by the fact that he woke up before the other three, had not been touched except to be brought into the Barrow and laid down, and did not have these dreams about battles.
6. He at first thought of putting on the Ring and trying to escape the Barrow, but decided he could not leave his friends. He hacked off the hand of the Barrow Wight, pitch black instantly fell, and he called for Tom Bombadil, who almost immediately appeared, bringing the walls and ceiling of the Barrow crumbling in, dissipating the Wight, and releasing Merry, Sam, and Pippin from the spell. Merry, Pippin and Sam wake up, look in amazement at the clothes and gold they are wearing, and wonder where their clothes are. Tom tells them that clothes are a small loss for people who escape drowning. JRRT goes on to tell us that Sam, Pippin, and Merry were soon too warm, for they had to put on in place of their clothes some of the heavier garments they’d brought with them to prepare for the winter. It says nothing about Frodo needing to change his clothes.

So there you have it, I hope that helps. The only other question that this brings up for me is: Why didn’t the Barrow-Wight take the Ring?

My only guess is that he was too weak a spirit to use it–he was bound in his Barrow and had no influence outside of it. This is clear from the fact that Tom is easily able to dissipate him as soon as the Barrow is demolished. I think he was too bound to the Barrow to be able to make any use of the Ring, but that’s just speculation for fun on my part.

–Anwyn

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Q: In The Two Towers, Aragorn states that Sauron does not allow his name to be spelt or spoken. So why in The Return of the King does Sauron’s Lieutenant clearly state “I am the Mouth of Sauron?”

–Namuras

Also: Aragorn states (Two Towers, p. 18 hardback) that Sauron never uses the name “Sauron”, nor does he “permit it to be spelt or spoken”. Reconcile this text with the text of Return of the King, p. 164 hardback, where the Lieutenant of Barad-Dûr clearly states, “I am the Mouth of Sauron.”

–Chris Nicholson

A: The passage on p. 18 of The Two Towers (hardcover), after Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas have seen some goblin-soldiers with S-runes on their shields, reads as follows:

‘S is for Sauron,’ said Gimli. ‘That is easy to read.’

‘Nay!’ said Legolas. ‘Sauron does not use the Elf-runes.’

‘Neither does he use his right name, nor permit it to be spelt or spoken,’ said Aragorn.

By implication, it appears that Aragorn is referring to the name ‘Sauron’ as his ‘right name’, but that might not necessarily be the case (Who in fact knows what Sauron’s true name was?). But it may be that Aragorn misstated the case, or misunderstood it slightly. Certainly the lowest of the hierarchy of Mordor were not allowed to speak Sauron’s name, but perhaps those higher-ups in fact were. Or it could be, too, that the “Mouth of Sauron” was speaking his master’s name in a way which the gathered hosts would recognize, or he might have used the name even as a show of pride in his own position as the “Mouth of Sauron.”

–Turgon

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Q: This is in response to your answer concerning the names of the Nazgûl. At the siege of Gondor, after the death of the Witch King, Gothmog leads the army of Sauron. He is described as “the lieutenant of Morgul.” I had always assumed he was a Nazgûl. My question, therefore, is: Of what race was Gothmog if he was not a Nazgûl?

–Balin

A: Sharp eyes and quick wits! My first answer was going to be very short: He was a Balrog. There is ample evidence for this, as it is stated in Lord of the Rings encyclopedias and in excerpts from The Silmarillion that he is a Balrog. But, like any good researcher, I checked another source, and in the index to Sil, it states the following: “Gothmog: Lord of Balrogs, high-captain of Angband, slayer of Feanor, Fingon, and Ecthelion.” Quite a résumé for one very long-lived Balrog, wouldn’t you say? But, reading on in the same source: “(The same name was borne in the Third Age by the Lieutenant of Minas Morgul; The Return of the King V 6.)” Oops! So while my answer was correct, that the *original* Gothmog was a Balrog, the question now becomes: is the Lieutenant of Minas Morgul, who would not seem to be the same spirit, since it makes a point of saying the name was ALSO borne, etc., a Balrog or a Nazgûl? I have to say I’m with you on this one, Balin, that all my reading leads me to believe that Minas Morgul was the Nazzie headquarters, so to speak, and that the Lieutenant would naturally be the second head-honcho Black Rider. So the conclusion is that the name Gothmog applied first to the leader of the Balrogs in the time of the power of Angband, and later to the second-in-command of the Nazgûl, during the War of the Ring.

–Anwyn

Update!

A few eagle-eyed readers have noted a discrepancy between Anwyn’s comment about Gothmog, and my (Turgon’s) comment in an answer from 9/5/99. Technically, Gothmog is described as the “Lieutenant of Morgul,” and this doesn’t tell us whether Gothmog is a Nazgûl, an Orc, or even a Man. Anwyn has interpreted that Gothmog is a Nazgûl. She may be correct, but it is not certain. In any case, a Captain can have more than one Lieutenant, so if Gothmog is a Nazgûl, and Khamul is the second to the Chief, Gothmog could have been the name of another Nazgûl.

- Turgon

Update!

Update! In a question from LONG LONG AGO, in September 1999, I got myself in trouble with the wording of my answer to a question about Gothmog. Because he was called “the Lieutenant of Morgul,” I referred to him as “second in command of the Nazgûl,” and not only got into hot water with lots of readers but into discrepancy with another answer given by Turgon. I wish to set the record straight–I have no clue what his place was within the Nine. I simply mean to say that I believe–and I could be wrong, of course–that Gothmog during the War of the Ring was the Nazgûl who was in charge at the tower of Minas Morgul. Thus he was the “Lieutenant” of that tower–he held it at the pleasure of the boss Nazgûl. I do not mean to imply I believe he is above Khamul in the ranks of the Nine or whatever. Thanks for all those who wrote in, anxious to be sure Khamul got his rightful place! J

- Anwyn

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Q: I was just wondering did they ever explain the origin of hobbits in Middle-earth?

–ThelookATP

A: The records do not seem to say much on this point, other than that the hobbits were more nearly akin to Men than any of the other races of Middle-earth. Though obviously their origins were earlier, they seem to have lived quite unobtrusively in the Vales of the Anduin until early in the Third Age.

–Turgon

Q: Greetings masters of lore. My question deals with the Nazgul. I know of Khamul, but I have not found the names of the other Nazgul. If they had names, what were they as well as who were they prior to their transformation? Furthermore, is there any story about their creation and why Sauron decided to choose them specifically?

-Reginold

A: Khamul seems to be the only named Ringwraith. What we know of him is given in the section “The Hunt for the Ring” in Unfinished Tales (1980). He was second to the Chief, and his name is given as Khamul the Shadow of the East. Some more about the Nazgul, or the Ulairi, can be found in some of the volumes of the History of Middle-earth, particularly in the section “The Story of Frodo and Sam in Mordor” in Sauron Defeated (1992), and in the work on the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings as printed in The Peoples of Middle-earth (1996). But, unfortunately, the histories of the men who became the Nazgul seems nowhere to be specifically illuminated.

-Turgon

Update!

Okay, we’ve had a number of people writing in and saying that all of the Nazgul are named in one of the Middle-earth games. Yup, we know about that. But the truth is that those names were made up by the people who created the game, not by Tolkien, so we don’t view them as authoritative. They’re simply not in Tolkien anywhere!

- Turgon

Update!

A few eagle-eyed readers have noted a discrepancy between my comment above and Anwyn’s comment an answer from 9/12/99. Technically, Gothmog is described as the “Lieutenant of Morgul,” and this doesn’t tell us whether Gothmog is a Nazgûl, an Orc, or even a Man. Anwyn has interpreted that Gothmog is a Nazgûl. She may be correct, but it is not certain. In any case, a Captain can have more than one Lieutenant, so if Gothmog is a Nazgûl, and Khamul is the second to the Chief, Gothmog could have been the name of another Nazgûl.

- Turgon

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Q: In The Hobbit, at the start of the quest, the dwarves believed that Gandalf was going along with them to Mount Doom [sic], 13 dwarves + 1 Gandalf = 14 in the Party; why were they worried about another member….. and if so surely they could’ve found another greedy dwarf?

-John & Tasha Miller

A: Actually, in The Hobbit the ultimate destination was not Mount Doom, but rather the Lonely Mountain, otherwise referred to as Erebor, once the seat of Thrór’s Kingdom in the North. The clearest answer regarding Bilbo’s inclusion with Thorin Oakenshield’s party is found in the pages of Unfinished Tales (1980). Look in Part Three: The Third Age, Section III: “The Quest of Erebor.” Here we learn of a conversation where Gandalf explains to Gimli, Frodo, Pippin & Merry how he had a chance meeting with Thorin many years earlier and learned of the dwarf’s burning desire for revenge. Originally, Gandalf was not impressed with Thorin’s poorly strategized plans of making armies and war against Smaug. He meant to convince him that stealth and secrecy was his best course of action. Gandalf also had other plans of getting rid of the dragon so that Sauron would not use him as an extension of his power. The wizard himself never intended to go along with Thorin’s Quest, but he knew of a certain Hobbit that he thought would be a valuable asset.

“Suddenly in my mind these three things came together: the great Dragon with his lust, and his keen hearing and scent; the sturdy heavy-booted Dwarves with their old burning grudge; and the quick, soft-footed Hobbit, sick at heart (I guessed) for a sight of the wide world.”

The dwarves were very much against adding Bilbo to the party, especially after meeting him in person, and it took a LOT of convincing on Gandalf’s part to get Thorin to yield to his counsel.

“‘Listen to me, Thorin Oakenshield!’ I said. ‘If this hobbit goes with you, you will succeed. If not, you will fail. A foresight is on me, and I am warning you.’”

In the end, a deal was struck where Thorin reluctantly took heed of Gandalf’s urging; allowing Bilbo to accompany them in exchange for Gandalf’s temporary inclusion in the party.

“‘Very well,’ Thorin said at last after a silence. ‘He shall set out with my company, if he dares (which I doubt). But if you insist on burdening me with him, you must come too and look after your darling.’

“‘Good!’ I answered. ‘I will come, and stay with you as long as I can: at least until you have discovered his worth.’”

And so the inspired number of 14 was created at the last possible second. The poor hobbit was “volunteered” because of Gandalf’s unswerving conviction that Bilbo was more important than anyone foresaw, and also because of his exceptional debating skills with Dwarves. Please see Unfinished Tales (1980) for the full account.

-Quickbeam (@quickbeam2000)

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Q: Why did Sauron never come forth himself to do war? Couldn’t he have flattened all of Minas Tirith with one outstretched hand?

-from the Q & A Introduction

A: Perhaps. But perhaps not. Remember that without the Ring, Sauron was not at his full power. When he created the Ring, Tolkien tells us that he allowed “a great part of his own former power [to] pass into it, so that he could rule all the others.” This allotment of power to the Ring seems to have been permanent. This is evidenced by the fact that if he *could* have won the War without the Ring, he would have done so. *With* the Ring, he would have been terrifyingly unstoppable. Without it, he had perhaps half, perhaps as much as two-thirds the power he possessed in the end of the Second Age, when it took *all of the combined power of Elves and Men* to defeat him. I.E. the Last Alliance of Gil-Galad and Elendil, when both races brought out and sacrificed their best to defeat him. When at last he was defeated and the Ring stripped from him, he became crippled as regards the amount of his power. Tolkien seems to imply that he was able to nurse himself back to health somewhat when he states “always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes shape and grows again.” But it is clear that he could never return to full power without the Ring. So the conclusion is that if he could be attacked and defeated by Gil-Galad and Elendil, Elendil’s sons and the Hosts of Gil-Galad *with* the Ring, then perhaps the combined might of Gandalf, Aragorn, the Sons of Elrond, Theoden, Eomer & Eowyn, Denethor’s & Theoden’s armies, and Faramir… could have defeated him *without* it. I think it’s safe to say that if he could have captured Frodo and regained the Ring, we probably would have seen him make some attacks in a more personal way, but it’s as Denethor said: “He will not come save only to triumph over me when all is won. He uses others as his weapons. So do all great lords, if they are wise, Master Halfling. Or why should I sit here in my tower and think, and watch, and wait, spending even my sons?”

-Anwyn

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Q: The Istari are a council of wizards. They number 7 total but we only know about 3 of them, Saruman the White/Many colors, Gandalf the Grey/White, and Radagast the Brown. Each had their own particular abilities and interests. Who are the other 4 and what are their interests/abilities?

-Karl J. Jurek

A: This question has been asked by many visitors to the TheOneRing.Net. As to the Istari, only three seem to play any role in events related to The Lord of the Rings, Saruman the White, Gandalf the Grey, and Radagast the Brown. Saruman’s outburst at Orthanc, when he spoke of ‘the rods of the Five Wizards,’ seems to have been letting out some private information. Nowhere in The Lord of the Rings do we learn anything more about the two other wizards, though Tolkien seems to have considered the question on a few occasions, and come up with a few different theories. Some of Tolkien’s notes on the Istari appear in Unfinished Tales (1980). In one of these passages, apparently written around 1954, Tolkien named the other two as Ithryn Luin, ‘the Blue Wizards,’ who passed into the East and never returned. Some other notes indicate that they were named Alatar and Pallando. To complicate matters, some more notes are published in The Peoples of Middle-earth(1996), in a small section “The Five Wizards” in the section titled “Last Writings.” There Tolkien wrote:

“No names are recorded for the two wizards. They were never seen or known in the lands west of Mordor.” In a still further note, Tolkien wrote: “The ‘other two’ came much earlier, at the same time probably as Glorfindel, when matters became very dangerous in the Second Age. Glorfindel was sent to aid Elrond and was (though not yet said) pre-eminent in the war in Eriador. But the other two Istari were sent for a different purpose. Morinehtar and Romestamo. Darkness-slayer and East-helper. Their task was to circumvent Sauron: to bring help to the few tribes of Men that had rebelled from Melkor-worship, to stir up rebellion…”

These various notes are very interesting, and certainly worth looking up. Plus they give as best an answer as we’ll ever know to questions about the Istari.

-Turgon

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Q: If Samwise hated Bill Ferny so much, (bad enough to waste an apple, by throwing it at him) why then did he name the pony that he bought from Ferny, (the one he loved so much) Bill?

-John & Tasha Miller

A: First of all, your question lies more in the realm of subjective interpretation than it does in hard black & white facts. But my best interpretation is this: If you look closely at the text, Samwise does not actually refer to Bill Ferny as ‘Bill’… it seems he was using the Hobbit-ish practice of referring to an individual by the informal means of last-name-only, ‘Ferny.’ Perhaps because of his contempt for Bill Ferny we never hear Samwise give the courtesy of addressing him by first name. Several chapters later, before the Fellowship makes their departure from Rivendell, Samwise names the pony. Certainly not out of memory of Bill Ferny, but maybe because he was just fond of the name ‘Bill.’

-Quickbeam (@quickbeam2000)

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Q: Why do the Black Riders, though painted as so utterly terrifying, seem to have so little power for actual harm?

-from the Q & A Introduction

A: My answer to this is in two parts: the answer that is indicated by the content, i.e., what is it about the characters that makes them this way, and secondly the fact that it constitutes a literary device that Tolkien used.

Part One: Yes, the Black Riders are terrifying. But what is the main strength of their image? Just that: an image. The tall, black shadow. (Please, don’t anybody jump on the George Lucas/Jar Jar Binks racism bandwagon. I am using “black” here not as a color of a person/creature, but as Darkness, or a Shadow. Evil images, not skin color.) The tall black shadow, towering over smaller creatures, intimidating. Tolkien tells us their weakness flat out. They do not see well, hardly at all, in daylight. Thus they are at the mercy of the black horses for direction and guidance much of the time. They can smell. Well and good, but it takes time to sniff out prey, and as we’ve seen, rescue or help can come in the time it takes to sniff somebody out. The five Black Riders, advancing over the lip of the dell… horrifying image. But what was the main fear? The knife. They had to rely on steel weapons just like the “good guys,” or at least until Frodo succumbed to the temptation of the Ring and became one of them, visible in their world, when they would then be able (presumably) to wrest the Ring from him by force. Again, in Return of the King, we see the Witch-King relying on a weapon, his mace, to kill Eowyn. So when it comes to actual physical combat, they are hampered by their limited daylight vision, and just as reliant upon weapons as any mortal. We’re not talking about Dungeons and Dragons dark mages or dark clerics here, who can cast spells with a single word. No. These are formerly mortal beings who have crossed into the spiritual realm, but are still able to wield a presence in the physical. Personally I think they’re fortunate to be able to wield the influence that they do! Now if Frodo were to put on the Ring, it would be another matter. They got him with the knife when he put it on at Weathertop, and they would have done more had not the others with their flaming brands driven them away. At that point they let them alone not because they couldn’t do more, but because they believed there was no need: the wound would overcome Frodo and all they had to do was follow, and he would fall into their hands. So spiritually, they are a horror to any rational being. Physically, they are hampered, and can be foiled with fire, rushing water, and even by broad daylight.

Part Two: I believe Tolkien deliberately used them this way to create a literary device by which Frodo would have no choice but to continue the journey. Everybody has to have some strong motive for leaving their home and pursuing a Quest. Desire to serve the Good is one motive, but Fear is usually stronger. With these creatures driving behind, Frodo and the gang had no choice but to continue to Rivendell or risk capture and wraith-making at the hands of the Black Riders and the Dark Lord. Since my other answer was so long, I’ll keep to that. I think it’s clear enough.

-Anwyn

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Q: Why do the Eagles never show up until the very last minute?

-from the Q & A Introduction

A: I must confess I stole this question from a friend of mine who was frustrated with The Lord of the Rings because he felt Tolkien used too much of what is known as “deus ex machina.” Basically what this means is that just as soon as we see the hero getting into a situation that looks totally inextricable, something we never knew could be part of the equation swoops in to rescue them! As I understand it, it’s based on an old technique of Greek Theater–when the hero got into trouble, they raised him out of the action in a chair, signifying that the Gods had stepped in to rescue him. Thus, “deus ex machina” or “machine of the gods.” So the Eagles, in three instances, act very much like our chair of the gods. First in the Hobbit, rescuing the party from Wargs and goblins and coming in at the last minute in the Battle of Five Armies, then in The Lord of the Rings, helping to win the battle before the Black Gate, and most importantly, pulling Sam and Frodo out of the lava once their Quest was complete. Not to mention Gwaihir’s little “side trips,” rescuing Gandalf from the pinnacle of Orthanc and bearing him from the top of Silvertine.

Now why is this, that if they were such a force to be reckoned with, that they did not come south and join the armies to begin with? Why would they only offer help when it was dire? Doesn’t it say something about their character that they would hold back until things were desperate?

My answer is, I readily admit, not verifiable in print. I can only offer a hypothesis that fits the facts and let you take it as you will. My opinion is this: they are animals. Talking animals, yes, but animals nonetheless. As such they are not one of the Free Peoples. Now, Tolkien’s use of animals falls into two categories: much beloved servants, such as the horses of the Rohirrim, Shadowfax and Sam’s faithful Bill. Or, they fall into the villainous category, usually in the form of giant spiders (Mirkwood and Shelob) but also the horrible carrion beasts which carried the flying Riders. (Servitude again, but for the other side.) I think the Eagles fall into this category also, kind of an antithesis to the horrible carrion creatures of the Riders. We do not know about the intelligence of these creatures. They may have been speechless animals, but they retained enough intelligence to know a foe (recall the beast “screaming” at Eowyn after she defied the Witch-King). The Eagles retain that much intelligence and much more, so that they can put forth their strength for the use of the Good when they are most needed, but perhaps know they would not fit into the grand scheme of the war as a regular force. I guess they would fall into the category of Special Forces, used as a last resort! But that is my answer, that as animals they are not one of the free peoples and their primary role is service to the Good, *when* it becomes necessary. Even Shadowfax was not in use all the time, and when Gandalf wasn’t riding him, he did not go out to war as a soldier.

-Anwyn

Update!

Well, folks, some readers thought that I was not specific enough with my Eagles answers. There were several people who wrote in to tell me the following information, so I’m only posting a few versions. Thanks to all who wrote to clarify for me!

–Anwyn

The answer to the question of the Eagles lies in The Silmarillion. It is revealed there, that the Eagles and the Ents were both, in a sense, agents of the Valar (of one particular one, in fact, the one associated with nature-was it Yavanna? I’m at work and can’t look it up). They were created after she saw what had been done in the creation of the dwarves. So the Eagles only interfere when the Valar allow, so the deus ex machina is an appropriate analogy indeed. (There are also one or two instances where they interfere in The Silmarillion – one I recall was the rescue of Fingon-I think-from Thangorodrim.)

–Tim Frankovich

As an aside on the subject of the Eagles, and why they are usually late to the fray… Manwe‘ was the Lord and Master of the winds and the creatures of the winds, and so the appearance of the Eagles at the last minute is seen as a form of Divine intervention (the form being the Valar overriding their usual modus operandi and stepping in to influence events in Middle-earth).

–Tony Hillerson

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Q: Did Tolkien ever draw a detailed map of Numenor? If so does anyone out there know where its possible to find one?

-Aaron

A: Tolkien only ever drew one sketch-map of Numenor, and Christopher Tolkien redrew it to appear in Unfinished Tales (1980). It’s facing page one of the Introduction in the Houghton Mifflin hardcover edition.

-Turgon

Update!

Also: For an in-depth look at Numenor and many other fantastic maps of Middle-earth, grab yourself a copy of The Atlas of Middle-earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad. This book has been around for many years, but with Christopher Tolkien’s publication of The History of Middle-earth volumes, many changes were made and a new edition appeared. You’ve never seen anything so comprehensive in your life! Zillions of details from all Four Ages and across all the volumes of Tolkien’s masterworks are represented. Cartography, languages, battles, journeys, and amazing cross-sections of underground cities. I highly recommend it as a companion piece to anything you read by Tolkien, and you’ll never be lost in the woods again! The paperback edition is readily available on Amazon.com.

Welcome to our collection of TORn’s hottest topics for the past week. If you’ve fallen behind on what’s happening on the Message Boards, here’s a great way to catch the highlights. Or if you’re new to TORn and want to enjoy some great conversations, just follow the links to some of our most popular discussions. Watch this space as every weekend we will spotlight the most popular buzz on TORn’s Message Boards. Everyone is welcome, so come on in and join in the fun!

Every week on the Main Discussion Board, poster Roheryn shares a game she creates from Tolkien’s works.  We’ve been having fun playing SAST (Short Attention Span Theatre) from The Hobbit.  Come join the fun here.

In the Reading Room, posters are still discussing The Silmarillion.  They’re well into Chapter 12, “Of Men”. If you’ve ever wanted to delve into The Sil, but you weren’t sure you wanted to tackle the enormity of this deep Middle-earth history, the Reading Room is the perfect way to start.  Join them with Chapter 12 Part 1 and Part 2.

In Lord of the Rings Movie Discussion Board, we never get tired of sharing our favourite quotes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s works.  Stop by and let us know what yours are.

   There was a thunderous round of applause on the Feedback Discussion Board when Admin and long-time poster dernwyn pointed out that there are now banner circle pictures from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey mixed with the LotR pics!  For those who haven’t visited the Boards, you really must go take a peek.  When you read posts or visit the main pages of each Discussion Board, take a look in the upper left-hand corner of your screen.  Up until now, there have been pics from The Lord of the Rings.  Check out The Hobbit pics here.  For those of us who live on the Discussion Boards, this is Awesome!!

   Want Hobbit Movie News? Each week, TORN poster DanielLB ventures into the very rich and fast-moving Hobbit Discussion Board to collect the Hobbit Headlines of the Week.  Check out this week’s action here.

   We’ll share more topics next week and hope you can join in on the conversation!  Don’t forget, TheOneRing.net’s Message Boards have over 9,600 registered Tolkien fans, just like you.  Let your voice be heard!