As we all know, Professor Tolkien’s magnum opus is not original to him, but rather a translation of the Red Book of Westmarch. That volume, though originally the work of Bilbo, Frodo, Samwise, & Meriadoc passed through many hands before reading the perfesser’s: there were Gondorian scribes, Shire scriveners, & Eru knows how many amanuenses in between the original authors and John Roland.
Many additions, distortions, and downright inaccuracies were introduced in this process; for example, it’s obvious that Aragorn, Legolas, & Gimli could not have taken the time to hold an elaborate funeral for Boromir while Merry & Pippin were being takent to be interrogated, tortured, gang-raped, and eaten by orcs.
Additionally, there were many events & sights which the hobbits who began the narrative did not understand and thus misinterpreted. There is a scene Book II, for instance, in which one of the hobbits – probably Samwise–refers to something in Lothlorien as magical, only to be corrected by an elf (probably Galadriel), who complains that Westron uses only the same word for their technology as for the “deceits of the enemy.” Thus it’s clear that most if not all of the apparent “magic” in LotR did not actually have a supernatural origin in the true events.
This thread is about setting the record straight. What really happened during the Quest for the Ring?
I’ll start with a couple of softballs: the bitter, stimulating drink the Uruk-Hai force upon Merry & Pippin is some formof coffee, and lembas (the waybread of the elves) is a Powerbar.
I refuse to engage in this sort of historical revisionism. As everyone knows Magic slowly faded over time, so in that age there really was magic. Explaining it any other way is just radical dialectical materialist redactionism.
Well, the sheer existence of Sauron as some supposedly eternal, mostly immaterial malevolent entity is an obvious fabrication, a straw dummy invented by the militaristic warlords of Rivendell, Gondor & Rohan, to justify a genocidal war vs. their peaceful neighbors in Mordor, struggling to survive in the only homeland available to them, a toxic wasteland rendered nearly uninhabitable by generations of exploitation by ruthless rulers who were so successful at working from behind the scenes that they were able to convince everyone involved that there were actually “spirits” of ancient kings running everything.
You are completely and totally insane. It’s a cool thought, but you’re definitely nuts.
I think that we can’t have this discussion without some kind of working theory about the ring itself. If there is no magic, then the quest to destroy the ring is utterly meaningless and the success of that quest, the sudden destruction of Mordor, is inexplicable. Get past that and the rest is details.
And did you really need to give us the image of merry and pippin being gang-raped by orcs? grimace
The palantirs? Two-way video-cams. Sauron had the deluxe model with multiple tuners. When Denethor took his into the fire with him, the heat fried the circuits and the screen froze on the last image it picked up before it gave out.
I was trying not to do my usual overwriting of the OP. But if you simply must have one, my personal theory is that the only super-natural elements are the Ring, Sauron, & Gandalf. By I didn’t wish to restrain y’all’s creativity – and, besides, Scumpup’s already provided the germ of a non-magic origin for the ring.
Look, I know my sig says I’ve given up the Overlord thing, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still evil. It juest means I’ve abanedoned conquering the Earth & forcing Robin Meade to deliver the dews naked while being spanked by Campbell Brown in favor of doing stuff like that to y’all.
That sounds just like something Ann Coulter would say.
Anduril of course had a compartment for phosphorus and Aragorn was quite good at using it for dramatic effect and scaring the rubes.
The Orcs were actually the last of the Neanderthals and this story hides the genocidal end of our nearest relatives.
Hobbits and Woses were nothing more than inbred tribes of humans. Dwarves and Elves were more numerous tribes. The Elves were long lived compare to most humans but the immortality was just stories added later but like our Celtic tales of the Tuatha Dé Danann.
You have a good point there. But play the game, man! Point out why the rest of us are full of shit, at least.
What Exit?, I think the Woses were the Neanderthals, not the Orcs. The whole thing’s clearly a race war, though. And just as clearly, once the House of Telcontar finished exterminating them, the halflings were next on their genocidal agenda. I’m pretty sure Pippin was the last to die.
No, even the scholarly works surrounding the Red Book made it clear Woses and Hobbits were human. I think this was the story of the beginning of the final elimination of the Neanderthals called Goblins and Orcs.
The Hobbits lasted a long time and inspired later stories of Pixies, Sprites, Leprechauns and other Wee Folks. The Woses were already dying off without any additional help. They probably lasted a few hundred more years and faded away.
Now the special properties of many Dwarven items were real. They mastered and kept secret the making of quality steel and even aluminum. Mithril was simply an aluminum alloy. They were technologically advanced compared to other tribes and ran to the short and stout side and this got exaggerated.
The Balrog did not have wings or fuzzy slippers. He was however a freakishly tall human with clever pyrotechnic tricks to cow the Neanderthals and frighten the Dwarven Tribe that was still very superstitious despite their advance metallurgy. Gandalf recognized a fellow using similar “magic tricks” to his own and knew he could stop him. He just didn’t expect the large pyro to be so damn good or lucky with his whip.
Trolls: trolls were simply large and dumb Neanderthals that normally got by simply by being bullies. The whole turning to stone bit was just one of the humorous anecdotes that Bilbo largely made up whole cloth. This is why the Fellowship never ran into Trolls that turned to stone.
Now Fell Beasts were actually real and very rare remnants of the pterodactyl family.
I can’t point out why your full of shit because part of the notion of dialectical materialism is that it will only accept explanations that fall within its evidentiary standards. I mean how does one prove that, ‘Magic has diminished through the ages.’? All we have to go by is historical records left by hobbits. Either it’s totally a myth or it actually happened, sort of like the Bhagavad Gita.
Why couldn’t the Ring be just that- a symbol of authority? Since no one knew where the real king of Gondor was, Sauron (who was in charge of the dreaded Mordor political machine) wanted the ring in order to put a puppet on the throne of his neighbor. Simple politics. The various “races” were just different political groups that were trying to block him: dwarves were conservatives, elves liberal (and how!) hobbits were the Green party…
Orcs and goblins were the illegal immigrants Sauron brought in to try and stuff the ballot box or failing that, stage a political coup. The Balrog? A “dirty-tricks” player hired to run stuff. The palantir was just a copy of Sauron’s playbook, and it “tempted” Denethor to switch parties, so that he committed political suicide when it was discovered.
Destroying the ring just meant that Gandalf was trying to end the “divine right” it represented and allow the people to choose their own ruler.
Love Rhombus A symbol of authority when lost would just be replaced by another symbol of authority, particularly when lost for as long as this was claimed to have bee lost.
Don’t ruin a perfectly cromulent post with cold logic. I loved casting the different forces in terms of politics. Now I want to take Tammany Hall and recast it as the bad guys in an Epic Fantasy. I am picturing Teddy Roosevelt as the One True King. Boss Tweed of course as the undead Dark Lord.
Don’t ruin a perfectly cromulent post with cold logic. I loved casting the different forces in terms of politics. Now I want to take Tammany Hall and recast it as the bad guys in an Epic Fantasy. I am picturing Teddy Roosevelt as the One True King. Boss Tweed of course as the undead Dark Lord.