my bony fealty posted:

Tolkien's Middle-Earth: Hobbit poo poo

Imagined posted:

A couple of things I thought about during this reread:

- Aragorn mentions several times how he's a Numenorean of "line unblended", but who is his mom? All the Numenoreans mentioned in the book are men, and rangers who don't have any settlement of their own seemingly. Where is this enclave of Numenorean women so large it could sustain their numbers through the ages without ever once interbreeding with outsiders?

Heithinn Grasida posted:

Tolkien also gives mixed messages about that because the Numenoreans who were obsessed with racial purity really hosed things up in Gondor and were obviously the bad guys, while those who were willing to intermarry were clearly right. On the other hand, he makes a big deal of Numenoreans being diminished because of blending with “lesser men” and Aragorn and Imrahil being special because they are from “race unmingled”.

I think overall the idea is that mixing of the races is good in concept, but for people with “high destiny” or whatever it’s better to marry within the race. In other words, it’s fine for my friend’s daughter to marry an Italian, but God forbid any of my kids do, and while white people in the newspaper might marry black people, it would be horrifying and shocking if anyone I know actually did.

My Grandfather was a leftist academic in the South in the 50’s who did minor, but noteworthy work in civil rights, but I’m sure you could have heard similar things (though not as bad) from him from time to time.

That said, there’s no two ways about it, Tolkien was racist. His racism was more complex and not nearly as bad as most people think, but it’s absolutely there and he shouldn’t be given a pass for it. He was from a time where he could have known better. He obviously struggled to improve his views on race, but not hard enough. If we enjoy his works, we have to enjoy them in spite of that.

Heithinn Grasida posted:

Numenoreans are definitely the “highest” race of men and there are several passages where it’s described as good that they mixed or were willing to mix with “lesser” (though still white, obviously) races. Faramir says that at one point, and of course married Eowyn. There’s also a big thing in the appendices about racial purity assholes loving things up in Gondor, if I recall.

Mixing with elves is generally so rare that it’s a matter of legend and high destiny or whatever and any time elves did marry with mortal heroes it was explicitly good.

Son of Sam-I-Am posted:

Waiting for Frodo

Son of Sam-I-Am posted:

OK Bombadil

sweet geek swag posted:

At this point I don't think it is a huge deal though. I think the separation between The Lord of the Rings as a literary work and The Lord of the Rings as a media brand has been established, largely because of the way that Christopher safeguarded the written material. I think that the main threat would have come from the Tolkien estate trying to write or commission a sequel or something, but without Christopher there no one would take such a project as having any real relation to the original book/writings even if it were to get made.

euphronius posted:

Silmarillion movie rights have never been sold afaict.

I’m probably wrong. Obviously no one is allowed to sell licensed fiction.

cheetah7071 posted:

I grew up with these terrible covers

Sky Shadowing posted:

I... I had forgotten these.

I read them until they literally started to fall apart, then got new versions (that have since been replaced with a Kindle version).

E: I distinctly remember the Fellowship of the Ring one, but not the second or third ones.

2E: Oh god, it's all coming back. The second book was purple, in my case.

3E: Bad covers. Bad covers in the deep. They are coming.

They are coming...

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Tree Bucket posted:

It occurs to me that The Studios are run by awful, awful people.

skasion posted:

The estate had no direct connection to those movies though, the rights were held by Saul Zaentz Co./Middle-earth Enterprises/whatever they were called and not the estate

Imagined posted:

The people who insist that the LotR was allegorical or symbolic of WW1 or WW2, or of Tolkien's idealized childhood, generally drive me nuts. That being said, there are definitely some points in the books where I felt like his background as a combat veteran comes out. In particular, the passages in the 'The Two Towers' where the orcs are talking to each other about the progress of the war struck me as something Tolkien might have lifted nearly verbatim from his fellow soldiers during the war.


And we know from other passages and from his letters that Tolkien associated orcs and goblins with modern day warmongers and profiteers.

Tree Bucket posted:

Hang on, how long's this subforum been called "The Book Bran"?

Heithinn Grasida posted:

I think that’s a really cynical take, and I’m not sure if it’s just bait. Obviously Gandalf’s goal was to defeat Sauron while preventing as much suffering to the people of Middle-Earth as possible. That was the whole point of sending the Istari. If the primary goal of the Valar had just been Sauron’s defeat, Eonwe would have just come over with a big army and hosed him up. But that would have resulted in a lot more death and destruction than what Gandalf accomplished.

Where Gandalf differs from Denethor is that Denethor completely takes a “Gondor first” attitude. He primarily cares about the power and prestige of his own country, and his lineage in charge of it and he sees Gondor as the only significant enemy of Sauron when in fact it’s the primary, but not only power opposing Mordor. Gandalf obviously cares about the people of Minas Tirith (otherwise why bother going to the Houses of Healing with the Battle of the Pelennor Fields still raging) but puts the fate and wellbeing of all of Middle-Earth before any single country or individual.

Gandalf absolutely does use people and armies as “pawns”, though. Frodo is the most obvious case of that. There’s no way Gandalf didn’t know that the quest of the Ring could end in any way other than complete ruin for Frodo personally, regardless of whatever else happened, but he still encouraged him on it. Sure he probably was operating on faith that Eru (God) chose Frodo for the quest and would make sure he came out if it okay in the end, but it was still a very cold decision in some ways.

euphronius posted:

Frodo calls him out on it directly

But what can you do, he was chosen by the gods.

Poor Frodo. He didn’t even want to go to Mordor but was literally possessed by the gods in the fateful moment and forced to. At least they sent the eagles so he didn’t die on the side of a volcano and instead died weary and in pain in the west

galagazombie posted:

You have to remember that the last time the forces of heaven decided to dab on the Dark Lord they blew up half of Middle-Earth. After the shitshow that was the War of Wrath they made the right call in trying to act more low-key against Sauron.

Eighties ZomCom posted:

They should've just gone with Boromir's idea to launch Frodo and the Ring into the volcano with a catapult imo.

sassassin posted:

When you start reading a text around what you perceive to be an author's mistakes you come up with strange readings.

The eagles are not the only group who refuse to commit utterly to Gandalf's crazy scheme, and the war in general. The Fellowship has token representation from a small number of allied forces, but most Men, Elves, Dwarfs and Miscellaneous stay at home until the war is on their doorstep. No one is putting themselves on the line en mass to save "hundreds of thousands of other lives" until they're directly threatened (and sometimes even then a magic spell is required). Only the survivors of Minas Tirith march on the Black Gate. The Eagles, being eagles, are especially safe and secure where they are. Individuals are happy to meddle and do favours, but that's not inconsistent at all. Every other group of people is the same.

If they had tried to fly the ring to Mount Doom they would have failed. It's not a big open top cartoon volcano you can drop something into, the forge is in the heart of a mountain. Mordor is full of troops. They would be seen coming.

Runcible Cat posted:

Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:

A wizard comes precisely when he means to.

Imagined posted:

Tolkien clarified in later writings and letters that Sauron held the nine rings himself, not the Nazgul. I'm inclined to think that the idea of the eagles flying straight to Mount Doom is a dumb idea and I wish it would stop coming up. Do you not think the Eye would see giant loving eagles coming straight at Mordor? Do you not think he would send the winged Nazgul against them the instant he saw them? The only reason the eagles can show up at the battle of the black gates is that the Nazgul have been called away toward Mount Doom with all possible speed. Besides all that, Frodo couldn't drop the ring at the end. It took the intervention of fate/god through Gollum to do it. Even if he were on the back of an eagle, he couldn't do it. Nor would he give it up to somebody else to do it, nor would anyone else be able to do it even if they forced him to give it up.

Tree Bucket posted:

"What if instead of Christopher Tolkien we had Kevin J Anderson"

Deptfordx posted:

I know it's not the point, but after a few minutes I'm unimpressed with him as a narrator.

euphronius posted:

Oh I got the wrong part it was a couple liens further as Skaison says

Trin Tragula posted:

If you're into this sort of thing, you probably also want to check out the 1981 BBC Radio dramatisation.

Mahoning posted:

Radio dramas have a full cast, with actors playing individual parts.

In that BBC version, Ian Holm plays Frodo.

skasion posted:

No, it’s rearranged a bit as well. e.g. they show Gollum getting captured and tortured directly rather than just letting you know after the fact

Mahoning posted:

I believe they also omitted Ho Tom Merry Tom Bombadillo!

Imagined posted:

I guess I should say that each of the other movies includes additions and new inventions that piss me off -- the elves showing up at Helms Deep, for ex. The character assassinations of Denethor and Faramir. Where Fellowship differs largely from the book is in leaving things out, which on the whole I'm more sympathetic to.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Gonna really nerd the gently caress out here, hold on tight:

One reason it works is that the movie is very clearly cast with a female gaze. All the men are hunky beautiful bois you can easily sexualize

Yes, even Ian McKellen, who I have on good authority packs absolutely huge dong (a friend saw him do a nude scene on Broadway)

This sort of thought exercise isn't possible with the bare text because Tolkien did not sexualize his characters to anything like the same extent

dwarf74 posted:

Somehow I fell down a rabbit hole into ICE's Middle Earth Role-Playing this weekend, and silly though it's been, I am enjoying this Middle-Earth Extended Universe stuff they have got going on.

I got dragged into it by going back and marveling at how amazing Fenlon's maps are.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9qwm-rNX9YEX0hUYkZDdzY1Tjg

Tree Bucket posted:

Oh look, it's a bingo card for us social workers!

sweet geek swag posted:

On the recommendation of this thread I got the Lord of the Rings audio book. This Inglis guy is really good. It isn't what I expected, but that kind of makes it better. It gives me a new voice to hear the books from, which is refreshing.

Pham Nuwen posted:

He is good, although I think he just dives into the songs with no preparation and it gives me serious fremdschämen. I salute his enormous balls for recording these songs completely unaccompanied, though.

I wonder if Tolkien actually sang all his songs aloud to try them out? Some of them feel a little clunky when I read through, but of course I've got no idea how he intended them to sound.

Data Graham posted:

The Eärendil poem is even more of an Inklings shoutout, what with all the banter afterwards about the style and voice

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

https://twitter.com/theoneringnet/status/1265294271772454912?s=20

FBS posted:

It's a thread, click through to read it all.