Enough acronyms in the thread title for all of you?
Anyhow, I had a few questions come to my mind when watching RotK extended edition, that I hope people can help answer.
Do the swords Narsil and Anduril have any magical powers documented in any of the books (I’ve read LotR and the Hobbit, but not the additional works)? As far as I have been able to tell, they are crafted extremely well, and symbolize the kingship of Grondor, but nothing beyond that.
When Denethor dies in the movie, he said he’d be burned like the heathen kings of old. Does this have any basis in the writings of Tolkein, and do we know anything about these kinds? If so, why were they considered heathen?
When reading a book of Lost Tales, I saw references to gnomes. I have yet to figure out what, if anything, these creatures corresponded to in Tolkein’s later output, and wondered if such information was available.
The Gnomes are a subgroup of Elves, the Noldor. The Noldor were the Elves most interested in knowledge and craftsmanship, so in the early drafts Tolkien called them Gnomes (from gnomen, Greek for knowledge).
It was the Noldor who set off the major events of the First Age. Fëanor, the son of the chief of the Noldor, created the Silmarils, three jewels that captured the Light of the Two Trees. When Morgoth stole these jewels, Fëanor led the majority of the Noldor from the Blessed Land back to Middle-Earth to get them back. This led to the Wars of the Jewels, the deaths of Thingol, his daughter, his grandson and successor, and most of the sons and nephews of Fëanor, and ultimately the Drowning of Beleriand.
As for Denethor, the Gondorians were descended from the Numenoreans, the Dunedain (Men of the West). These men worshipped Eru Iluvatar through the Valar. The “heathen kings of old” were the kings of the Men of Darkness, the Easterlings, the Haradrim and the Dunlendings. These men (except for the Rohirrim and the Woses) worshipped Sauron (or Morgoth, through Sauron), and were thus considered heathens.
Not to my knowledge. Very few LoTR items have true magical properties. Off the top of my head, Sting and the Rings of Power are the major ones. Anduril was reforged by the elves, so one must imagine it had strength we would consider magical but only because of their great skill. Innate talent versus spell. Their power existed as symbols and inspirations more than anything else.
Once Narsil was reforged by the Elves as Anduril, it would have exhibited the same property as Sting - namely that it would glow (IIRC Tolkien said, “glitter”) in the presence of orcs. I would count that as magical. Gandalf’s sword should have done the same thing, as it was an old and storied elvish sword. As this was never established in the film, apparently Jackson felt free to leave it out. In fact, they downplayed this property all around. I seem to remember Jackson saying that he didn’t want it to look like everyone was wielding lightsabers while they fought.
In the book, when the company departed Lothlorien, Galadriel gifted Aragorn with an ornate scabard for Anduril which, again if IIRC, protected the blade from ever being broken. Since in the film Narsil had not yet been reforged, the gift of the scabard would not have been quite so meaningful (except maybe as a foreshadowing of Aragorn’s kingship?).
Do you have a cite for that? I don’t recall reading anything at all (in H, LOTR, Sil, UT, or HOMES I-XII) about that occuring to Narsil reforged. Remember, the elves made a ton of weaponry in their day, and the only elvish blades which are mentioned as glowing were those forged in Ondolindë for the forces of Turgon. One could even make the conjecture that it was the skill of Maeglin, nephew of the king and son of Eol the dark elven smith, which enabled the smiths of Ondolindë to forge such blades.
Just to elaborate a bit on jayjay’s excellent answer, JRRT really really really wanted to use the term “gnomes” for the Noldor in his published works. Unfortunately by that time gnomes had an even stronger association with little tiny comic pixies than elves did. He grudgingly removed references to the Gnomes from LOTR, and CJRT did the same when he edited Silmarillion. The only place it was retained was in the name Nomin, ‘Wisdom’ and ‘the Wise’, the names that the Men of Beor’s following gave to Finrod and his people in their own tongue.
Well, you need to consider moving fully into the rank of JRRT uber-geek, m’boy.
Come join me at: The Invented Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien
Drawings and Original Manuscripts from the Marquette University Collection
October 21- January 30, 2005
Central Milwaukee. I haven’t figured out when exactly I’m going, but I’m gonna go. I missed the conference attached to the display (sadly, I have a job and family and all the baggage that entails) but this is a “do not miss” event!
Unfortunately beyond my means in time and money at the moment. It is a temptation on the order of the One Ring, though. If I’d known about it this time last year, I’d have been saving up vacation days and cash in preparation.
This is what I get for posting off the top of my head. I was certain that Anduril did the whole glow-when-orcs-are-near thing, but a quick search through LOTR finds nothing. I wonder where I got that from? :smack:
At least it looks like I was right about Glamdring, although even then the passages I could find quickly from the Hobbit ad LOTR are not quite as explicit as I’d like.
