# LOTR Inconsistencies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 20, 2002, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974 "2002-12-20T04:14:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2002, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/41 "2002-12-21T15:58:43Z")
Re Sauron’s appeareance: Perhaps I’ve played too much Angband, but that looked a lot more like Morgoth with Grond to me. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2002, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/42 "2002-12-21T22:44:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Qadgop the Mercotan \* > \*\*When did Gil-Galad defeat Sauron? He held him at bay at times, and threw back his forces from time to time, but I don’t believe Gil-Galad faced Sauron in battle until his death. > > In the War of Wrath, there is no mention of individual combat with Sauron, only that Sauron surrendered after the defeat of Morgoth. > > IIRC, the only ones mentioned to have defeated Sauron in battle were Luthien and Isildur. \*\* ‘Defeating’ was not quite the right term. ‘Fighting off’ and capturing is more accurate. Sauron was captured and brought to Numenor in the Second Age after he (slyly) surrendered after another assault on Barad-Dur. He still had the ability to appear fair in those days, so that and his cunning linguist skills kept him alive, and even flourishing. ---
**Author:** ![Homer\_J](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c37758/32.png) [@Homer\_J](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homer_J)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2002, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/43 "2002-12-22T20:55:33Z")
One thing i never really understood was why didnt the fellowship just use eagles to fly to mordor on? After froido and sam destroy the ring, the eagles fly from the black gatre to mount doom in a few minutes so surely it woyld only take a day or so to fly to mount doom from The misty mountains? ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2002, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/44 "2002-12-22T21:21:36Z")
JRRT was quite annoyed with a proposed movie script for LOTR. It it, eagles were used to take the heros everywhere. JRRT complained that they were being treated like taxis. That screenplay did not get his approval. Actually, Gwaihir, Landroval, Meneldor, etc. were free agents, and not at anyone’s command for taxi duty. Besides, They’d have drawn a lot of attention from flying nazguls and Sauron on their way in. ---
**Author:** ![scablet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@scablet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scablet)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2002, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/45 "2002-12-22T21:23:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Homer J \* > \*\*One thing i never really understood was why didnt the fellowship just use eagles to fly to mordor on? After froido and sam destroy the ring, the eagles fly from the black gatre to mount doom in a few minutes so surely it woyld only take a day or so to fly to mount doom from The misty mountains? \*\* Because they are huge and extremely conspicuous things flying around in the sky and Sauron would probably notice them very, very quickly and send out a fleet of nasty winged things to take 'em down. ---
**Author:** ![Arden\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@Arden\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arden_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2002, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/46 "2002-12-22T21:26:49Z")
And the books would have been a lot shorter. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2002, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/47 "2002-12-22T23:37:27Z")
A slight hijack: Did the audience laugh at Gollum in your theatre? Was Gimli protrayed too much as comic relief? ---
**Author:** ![scablet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@scablet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scablet)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/48 "2002-12-23T01:10:31Z")
The audience at my theatre laughed during Gollum’s soliloquy. They laughed loudly. Throughout the whole thing. Now I can understand the grimly humorous appeal to the early moments of his external monologue… but really, it’s a serious and powerful scene if everyone would just shut the hell up. Nevertheless, everyone’s jaw was in their respective laps at Gollum’s end scene. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/49 "2002-12-23T03:05:36Z")
> [@](#): > > ‘Defeating’ was not quite the right term. ‘Fighting off’ and capturing is more accurate. Sauron was captured and brought to Numenor in the Second Age after he (slyly) surrendered after another assault on Barad-Dur. He still had the ability to appear fair in those days, so that and his cunning linguist skills kept him alive, and even flourishing. Having just read that part in the Akalabeth, I thought that Sauron just came out and surrendered when the king of the Numenorians showed up and demanded he swear fealty. It was a ruse, of course, but he wasn’t defeated in battle according to the text I was reading. > [@](#): > > Did the audience laugh at Gollum in your theatre? Of course people laughed at Gollum. He was alternatively a humorous and pitiful creature. There was hardly a single line he had even in his emotional scenes that wasn’t geared at least halfway to getting a laugh. Makes his dark turns darker. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/50 "2002-12-23T03:10:46Z")
The invisibility power of the Ring is inextricably bound up with its evil. Tolkien had to have realized this from the start, even when writing _The Hobbit_, because he was read in the classics. The invisibility/evil nexus of the Ring goes all the way back to the story of the [Ring of Gyges](http://plato-dialogues.org/tetra_4/republic/gyges.htm) in Plato’s _Republic_. This passage, one of the earliest in fantasy literature, reads as though Plato had suddenly started channeling Tolkien from the far future. Once the ancestor of Gyges discovered the invisibility power of the Ring, he used it to wreak all kinds of selfish evil, since he (erroneously) believed it removed all moral restraint from him. (His ethics amounted to nothing more than “Don’t Get Caught.” The _Republic_ is the first work to debate the question of whether “Don’t Get Caught” is a valid basis for morality.) Tolkien echoed the Ring of Gyges story in _FoTR_’s “The Shadow of the Past” chapter, when Sméagol discovered the invisibility power of the Ring and used it to thieve and aggravate his fellow citizens in the riverbank Stoor community. I believe Tolkien was consciously rewriting Plato here, and he showed that the Ring’s invisibility/evil nexus had social consequences, since the other Stoors soon got sick of Sméagol and drove him out. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/51 "2002-12-23T14:29:13Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by sqweels \* > \*\* Tolkein uses artistic license to bring tobacco (if that’s what pipe-weed is) to Middle Earth, but the word is never used sinsce it’s Native American in origin._\* Pippin (or Merry) offers Gimli his “tobacco” while they are resting at the guardhouse after their meal at Isenguard. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/52 "2002-12-23T15:32:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bibliophage \* > \*\*Frodo was invisible (at least to Sam) when Gollum attacked him. > > It may be that Gollum, through long years of wearing the ring himself, was able to see Frodo even when he was wearing it. At any rate, Gollum may have been watching when Frodo slipped on the ring, so he could have had a good idea of where he was standing anyway. Or it may be that he was able to use his other senses to find him. He did live under the Misty Mountains and seems to have been able to get around pretty well without light both there and in Moria. \*\* He could have also seen Frodo’s shadow. I mean, in the Hobbit didn’t some of the orcs see bilbo’s? ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/53 "2002-12-23T16:59:20Z")
> [@](#): > > Pippin (or Merry) offers Gimli his “tobacco” while they are resting at the guardhouse after their meal at Isenguard. You sure? Damn. As for Gollum, how was he able to live on for nearly 80 more years after losing the Ring when Bilbo was shown to age so rapidly after giving it up? ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/54 "2002-12-23T17:12:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sqweels \* > \*\*As for Gollum, how was he able to live on for nearly 80 more years after losing the Ring when Bilbo was shown to age so rapidly after giving it up? \*\* My guess is that it is a function of how long they posessed it. Gollum had it for hundreds of years; the effect on his longevity perhaps had a chance to become more permanent than on Bilbo, who only held on to it for 50 years or so. ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/55 "2002-12-23T18:36:36Z")
Also, Smegol was much younger than Bilbo was when he first acquired the Ring. That may have something to do with it… ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/56 "2002-12-23T19:33:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sqweels \* > \*\*You sure? Damn. > > As for Gollum, how was he able to live on for nearly 80 more years after losing the Ring when Bilbo was shown to age so rapidly after giving it up? \*\* Yeah, I’m sure. I just read that portion to my 13 year old 2 days ago. When you have a couple of teenagers in the house giggling at all the references to ‘weed’ and ‘pipeweed’ and you know damn well that JRR was referring only to tobacco (only a gut feeling, but look at most edition’s author photo, he’s holding a pipe!) The few times you can actually say “HA!” to a smart-alec kid kind of sticks in your mind. Plus, Bilbo did not age all that rapidly, he just picked up where he left off. He gave the ring to Frodo and buggered off to Rivendale, the next chapter says something like “many years later” (forgive me but I’m at the office and I don’t have the books in front of me). It wasn’t like the picture of Dorien Gray. Another inconsistancy from “The Hobbit” to “Lord of the Rings” was that in “The Hobbit” I believe bilbo had a pocket watch _and_ a clock on the mantle piece, I’ll bet even Saruman didn’t have one of those.😉 ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2002, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/57 "2002-12-23T22:38:56Z")
Yes, “The Hobbit” is loaded with anachronisms. Tolkien concieved the hobbits as archetypically english. This leads to an interesting mish-mash of 19th century tea, pipes, drawing rooms, pocketwatches and handkerchiefs with 6th century thains, broadswords and battle axes. I was kind of annoyed with the movie in including many shots and references to new world crops. In the movie, Sam and Frodo are shown clearly traveling through a corn (ie maize) field, and Pippen complains loudly when Frodo kicks ashes into his tomato breakfast. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/58 "2002-12-24T05:25:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lemur866 \* > \*\*I was kind of annoyed with the movie in including many shots and references to new world crops. In the movie, Sam and Frodo are shown clearly traveling through a corn (ie maize) field, and Pippen complains loudly when Frodo kicks ashes into his tomato breakfast. \*\* Better plug your ears, then, when Sam talks to Gollum about 'taters to go with the coneys in TTT. Middle Earth isn’t England and there is no ‘New World’ to introduce tobacco and potatoes (book and movie), and tomatoes and maize (movie only) from. DD ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2002, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/59 "2002-12-24T20:06:17Z")
In the first edition of _The Hobbit_, the “Unexpected Party” included “tomatoes.” These were purged from subsequent editions, replaced with “pickles,” I think. The reason being that tomatoes are a New World crop and couldn’t have been known in Middle Earth, which is the pre-ancient Old World of this planet. As for “taters” and _Nicotiana_, well, … umm… gotta allow an Englishman/hobbit his simple homely pleasures, I guess, geography be d\*mned. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2002, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974/60 "2002-12-26T13:08:31Z")
Also in the first edition of “The Hobbit” in the last chapter Lotho Sackville-Baggins makes a reference to Bag-End being ‘cable-ready’ Just kidding.😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-inconsistencies/143974.md?page=4)