Well, yes, wussier in a plot perspective. But not so wussy from a rank and file perspective. I mean Balrogs can jump around and kill people, or other people can jump around and kill people, but the people are still dead.
Tolkien was a product of his age - WWI. I’m not convinced that mustard gas would be any less terrifying than a balrog.
Plenty of stunning novels have been written where the bad guys are wussy compared to gods. Plenty of war novels have been written where there is no supernatural baddie. However, they tend not to be fantasy novels.
I can understand a desire to “get more” but in the end LOTR and the Silmarillion said what he had to say.
I suppose that ‘learning’ more about Middle Earth would be interesting, above all the little described Second Age, indeed the Numenorean period might well be fascinating. Actually it would be endlessly fascinating.
However, the author, the creator is dead. Pushing up the daisies. No more. etc. etc. So other than those volumes Christopher Tolkien has put out, there is no more access to the rich mulch of learning on Northern European mythology and linguistics, combined with ferverent Catholocism, that made Tolkien’s writings interesting.
At least in my opinion, I generally despise fantasy.
Another author, were the author to have talent, would likely be better served working on his or her own vision, not trying to breathe life into a dead author’s corpus.
I’d further hazard the opinion that one of the diseases of the entire genre at present is an addiction (as I recall from that period in adolescence when after reading Tolkien I briefly thought the genre might be interesting, soon to be disabused and to return to Russian literature) to saying too little with too many pages. Trilogies for stories that might better fit a short novella, endless exposition of what in the end are trite rehashing of second rate reflections on Tolkien or some impoverished understanding of history. Pehraps the genre has improved. in what 20 years?, but I doubt it.
Find another author with some ideas and depth beyond trite fantasy stereotypes and you might have a good candidate, but you would also have a good candidate for his or her own corpus.
Oh, Col. Go get yourself some Robert Jordan. The man has written thousands and thousands of pages of trite fantasy stereotypes in a single series (Wheel of Time, IIRC). The triology is dead. Fantasy has evolved into the decology - and not for the better, IMHO.
(Never was my genre, either. Russian Literture, however…)
Heh, Robert Jordan is like fantasy crack. I was quite taken with the first one (Eye of the World, which definitely seemed hacked from JRR, but had its own charm as well), liked the second and third, and started getting annoyed from the 4th book on.
I think the problem is that he is trying to give that same Tolkien weight behind his stories, which leads him to introduce about a thousnd characters a novel with long, verbose, repetitive, redundant, long, verbose descriptions about those places and people. Tempo is forsaken for some stab at legitimacy or grandeur or who knows what. But I can’t ever stop a series I started (unless I stop at the first book), so I think I’m in for the long haul…
And it is people like me who would read the new LOTR sequels, if they were to be made, no matter how bad they are.
The Witch-King of Angmar would fit the pattern of lieutenant taking over the Dark Lord. But the Nazgul chief was destroyed – or was he?
“A cry went up into the shuddering air, and faded to a shrill wailing, passing with the wind, a voice bodiless and thin that died, and was swallowed up and was never heard again in that age of this world.”
Why “in that age of this world”? Could Angie, no longer enslaved by the Ring, exert an evil will of his own? Could his houseless spirit possess another body and become a Sorcerer-Wight, a wussier but still formidable Dark Lord? I dunno. But Tolkien could just as easily have written “in any age of this world” or simply “in this world” if that’s what he meant.
This is just idle speculation, of course. A sequel would still suck and the Tolkien Estate will prevent it for many years.
Have you read Christopher Tolkiens History of Middle Earth Books? There are 12 books in the set, Ive got a few of them, and Im pretty certain all the information about the above incidents is in them. Of course I could be very wrong.
Personally I dont think there should be a sequel or a preqel to Lord of the Rings, actually if one was wrote, Id probably flat out refuse to read it because it wasnt Tolkien.For about a week anyway
What I would like to see though are some of the stories that are linked to Lord of the Rings, like what exactly happens to Arwen when Aragorn dies? The image of her in the movie completely alone after all her kind have left Middle Earth really gets to me. And what about Legolas and Gimlis journey, Id like to read about that to. And Id like to see what difference Aragorn makes to Gondor, if any.
But of course ins aying all that, while its possible those stories could be told, it wouldnt be Tolkien telling them, so I dont know how interested in them I would be.
I always think of something else I wanted to say after I hit submit!
TWDuke: The reason the nine became was because they were swayed by the power of the one ring, and there will was tied to that ring. So if the ring is destroyed, surely they are to??
Im sure you already know what I just said, but Im just wondering did you have a theory as to how the Nazgul could still be alive?
[size=1]That looks kind of bitch, I dont mean it too, sorry![size]
Someone I know loved the first book so much that she is holding off reading the rest of the series until it is complete. I think she’s in for one hell of a major disappointment.
OTOH it’s likely he will never finish so she may never read the whole turgid ugly mess.
Interesting idea. The Fourth Age is obviously a new age, and the Witch-King could be returning as the Dark Lord. Two problems, though:
He can still only be killed by women, so they’d have to make a plot device out of that. Again.
He was kept alive by the power of his ring. When the One Ring was destroyed, don’t you think that should have affected him, if indeed he did survive his encounter with Eowyn?
Back to the original topic for a sec, you need to have a fanbase that actually wants something like this in order for it to work. The best example to use is the Star Wars universe. There are many many books written that happen before, during, and after the George Lucas movies. The catch there is that George himself reads the authors works and approves them for publishing. If the Tolkien estate so desired, they could take submissions for books regarding the history or future of middle earth, and add them onto the series. This way you know going into it that it’s not an extension of the authors original works, but still a part of the bigger “universe” he originally made. Just an idea!
Thats a fine Idea BL1, but what could they possibly write about that would directly relate to the Lord of the Rings when you consider that at the end of the third age, all of the Fellowship have left Middle Earth?
(a) Didn’t the nine rings have power of their own? The ring he wore wasn’t destroyed and may not have lost all its power immediately – Galadriel’s ring seemed to retain some of its juice for a while. (b) Spirits are immortal.
