I think that should be, “They made like communists…and LEFT!”.
Oh wait…
They made like trees…and took their leave…
They embarked on a voyage? Branched out? Lumbered off?
ETA: On a more serious note, the fact that the entwives are gone and there will be no more entlings is a sign that the old world is passing away, regardless of what happens to the ring, just like the frequent mentions of the elves’ passing into the west.
I wooden make jokes like that if I were yew.
Actually, logically, I don’t disagree with you at all. But it does get my hackles up. I will forever wonder “what happened next”; that is one of the hallmarks of a good reader. And I admit I probably like having this mystery around.
Well, quite, because it’s the hallmark of a good *writer *to leave some questions unanswered, and the audience wishing for more. It’s always better to feel “he stopped writing too soon” than “he carried on writing too long”.
Perhaps the Ents and Entwives just never had quite enough of the mating instinct to cause them to value each others’ society instead of pursuing their other interests. And perhaps, although they miss each other, Treebeard’s song When Spring unfolds the beechen-leaves expresses it truly: that Entkind will do no more than pine for each other until the very end of the world, where they will be reconciled in a sort of on-the-beech scenario, for one last moment in the lime light before all their dreams turn to ash. But Ent and Entwife will be looking a little straggly by then, unless they spruce themselves up.
Talk about getting back to your roots.
The problem I have is not that he left some questions unanswered but when it comes to the Ents & Entwives, left nearly all of the questions unanswered while he yammered on about (to me) unimportant things. The man wrote treatises on the subject of Middle Earth; he could have written a bit more on The Ents.
I am ignoring all of your puns.
OK, this reminds me of the story of the sapling who wanted to know if he was a son of a birch or a son of a beech…
…He went and asked the Old Oak, who replied, “I don’t know, my boy, but your mother was the finest piece of ash in the forest.”
Wooden you agree with me
If I axe you in a song
Acorny pun (or two or tree)
Is knot so very wrong?
All right! That’s enough! Stop this thread! It’s just gotten silly!
Started out with a very nice discussion about a question from Tolkien’s stories and then it just degenerated into a bunch of puns. Next thing you know some retired British Colonel type will bust in trying to …
er …
ummm …
Never mind!
I really laughed out loud when I saw that the google ad was ‘Bipolar Wives?’
Yeah, they were passing into the east, until the quarter ended and they had to change ends of the field. 
OOOOH, the BOGGIES got to them!!
That explains EVERYTHING. 
Speaking of which, am I the only person who has looked at a carrot he’s eating and wondered if it was fecund? :eek:
Artists are weird. The professor was far more forthcoming and open about his creative processes than most. I remember an interview with Joss Whedon where he was talking about the push for more and more special features and analysis of everything. I think it was in reference to the special features for the Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and how they did a musical commentary track. He has this little bit about how everyone wants more and more, “why did you make him do this, what was he thinking when he did that, what was your inspiration for the other thing” and it’s put a lot more pressure on artists not just to create, but to create in a way which can be made transparent later. It’s not enough anymore to just tell a story, you have to tell the story behind the story and sometimes even tell the story of the person who lived the story that shaped the story that shaped the story. In a very real way, Tolkein was ahead of the curve on this front, and while it is mainly Christopher who has opened it all up to us, it was JRRT who made it possible by keeping his drafts and notes and correspondence.
I think I remember Joss being frustrated and saying he wishes people would just appreciate the story and move on because he’s got more stories to tell and doesn’t want to spend his life re-hashing the creation of some detail. Tolkien did spend his life re-hashing his epic, and that’s set a bar I don’t think most artists are able to live up to, and in the case of things like “what happened to the Entwives?” maybe he wasn’t either.
Enjoy,
Steven
They’re pining for the fjords.
Won an award for that one, I did…
I guess what aggravates me about the missing and uncared for entwives is that there’s hardly any female characters in the books. To have removed all the females of an entire species without comment seems to just emphasize the lack of women.
I’m sure it’s not what Tolkien intended, but it leaves me with the feeling he represents a generation of people to whom female characters and women’s stories were just not very interesting.
I can’t help but feel that you’d probably have been even -more- disappointed had the Entwives appeared, seeing as how they are/were apparently domestic busybodies.
I still find all this focused attention on what is essentially a throwaway portion of the book to be rather baffling. You’d think he’d gone on for chapters teasing you about these people instead of mentioning them once for a couple of pages.
Do you feel Luthien is marginalized too, because she only gets a couple of casual mentions? Though I daresay she gets more than Beren. It’s history. They’re dead or at least gone, and have been for a very long time. The Ents searched for a long time and couldn’t find them. I don’t understand what you’re looking for here.
I think to read anything more into it than a tragedy and the makings of good story is to get worked up about nothing.
I think you are looking at this rather the wrong way. It is, however, a product of a somewhat stuffy old fashioned English mind. I think it’s inappropriate to say that the professor deemed women/female characters uninteresting (or you’d think the ones he created would have been less interesting) but rather that they’re not a large part of this sort of story - which is fundamentally in many respects, a war story.
I agree. Tom Bombadil’s origins, Elves’ pointy ears (Y/N) and the existence of balrogs’ wings (Y/N) fall into the same category. I don’t mind not knowing for sure, and it makes for interesting discussions.
I don’t know how I’d feel about it if the entwives were still with the ents. I think I’d feel happier, as the reason I noticed the missing entwives is because Treebeard seemed sad about it.
Yes, I do. There’s very little about any of the female characters in the story, unlike (for example) Boromir and Faramir.
I’m not looking for anything, I just wish the entwives were found. I would have liked Treebeard and the other ents to have a happy ending. They sacrificed a great deal, up to and including their lives.
Tolkien wrote an interesting story, and geeking about the details is part of what makes it fun. However, I agree with Mtgman’s summation of the Artist’s Problem. You can spend your life defending your work, or creating more work.
Should be Bipoplar wives.