The time has come to speak the TRUTH about Middle-earth!

Cafe Society
1

By which I mean this is the thread for Dopers to express views about Tolkien’s mythology which are frankly heretical.

A brief note. The purpose of this thread is not to say "Tolkien was a talentless hack and Lord of the Rings blows chunks. It is, rather, to explain why everything we all think we know about the Frodo or Isildur or the Valar is wrong. Persons wishing to slam the movies (such as me, ordinarily :wink: ) are likewise invited to start their own damn threads.

I write the above in full knowledge that I’ll be ignored by post 4, because I enjoy being ignored as it gives me an excuse to rant.

Okay, housekeeping’s done. Now on to the thread topic. Here’s my opening volley of heresy:

Manwë and Melkor were the same purpose. They were both merely aspects of Eru.

Consider. Does it not seem odd to any of you that Eru appointed, as lord of the Valar and regent of Aman, that Ainu who seemed least suited for the job. Reading the Silmarillion makes it hard to see Manwë as anything other than an incompetent twit. He does not see through Melkor’s feigned repentance at the end of his first imprisonment, even though Ulmo and Oromë and, for Zeus’ sake, TULKAS see right through it. Why is this? Well, we’re told it’s because he has no evil in him, and thus does not understand it. But if we grant that, why then was he put in charge in the first place?

The answer is that the Elves’ theology is wrong. Eru is the author of all, and that includes both good and evil. Seeking to purge as much of the chaotic and cruel portions of himself as possible, he separates himself into two aspects. Melkor is pure malice; Manwë is pure benevolence. As Eru intended, Melkor set about with the despoiling of Arda, the murder of countless Elves and Men, the ravishing of endless maidens, and so forth. In the process of doing this, he spreads his power among many, and thus diminishes himself. At the end of the First Age, when Melkor, now Morgoth, was exiled into the Void, he was much diminished; and so Eru could safely re-assimilate him into himself.

But that’s just me. Anybody else want to volunteer to be burned the stake of Tirion?

2

If Gandalf could have been rescued from Orthanc by an eagle, then an eagle could have taken the ring to Mt. Doom, but then, instead of 3 of my favorite books there’d be, maybe a pamphlet.

3

Fool of a Took!

THAT is the best you can come up with? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

Hang your head in shame. My then-seven-year-old niece brought that up, as have 2,439,448 people in Texas alone.

4

That’s not bad at all, Skald. In fact, I’m inclined to agree. I’ll offer:

  • Arda was a sphere all along.

  • Arda isn’t the Earth long ago, since among other things we know there were not Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits running around six thousand years ago. Arda is an entirely different world, very similar to Earth, but not the same.

  • Aragorn and Arwen probably had premarital sex. I mean, c’mon, decades of heartfelt dewy romance but no nookie? The mind boggles.

  • Sauron had no way of getting his Ring back to the mainland after the fall of Numenor. That was just a dumb oversight by the Professor.

  • Saruman would’ve known better than to look around the Gladden Fields for Isildur’s bones centuries after the king’s death.

  • Hobbits aren’t a kind of Men. They’re a similar but quite different species.

  • Aragorn shouldn’t have ruled pretty much only because of his bloodline. Much as I admire the literary notions of mythic kingship and divine right, Tolkien should’ve acknowledged the virtues of democracy and meritocracy.

  • Yes, indeed, the Council of Elrond should’ve looked more diligently into using Eagles to get the Ring into Mordor. I know, I know… wouldn’t have been as dramatic, the Eagles were too haughty, the Nazgul would’ve been on the watch, yada yada yada. Still.

  • Balrogs had real but vestigial wings. They couldn’t fly but damn, they looked badass.

ETA: I doubt that many Texans have read LOTR. Or anything else, for that matter.

:: hunkers down for a volley of rotten vegetables ::

5

Apporpriate day for this thread. (Or any LOTR thread.)

6

I say Samwise was a better choice to carry the ring from the get-go. Face it. The reason Hobbits were resistant to the ring’s lure is they had little ambition, particularly with regards to imposing their will on others. (Disregarding their ambition for a nice garden, comfortable house, 7 or 8 good meals a day and a good pipe from time to time.) Now Frodo was a good choice, little ambition besides inheriting Bilbo’s money and hanging out with Gandalf whenever he’s in the Shire. But Sam was his servant, his gardener, his faithful retainer. So he has even less ambition than Frodo. Also, seemingly more in the way of good Hobbit common sense. If Sam had not heard the Orcs talking about how Shelob never kills her victims right off, Sam would have taken the ring right up to the volcano and thrown it in, and possibly himself too, “For Mr. Frodo!”

7

Heretics!, all of you should burn in the stake!.

The red book of westmarch (the King James translation of course) is the definitive word of Eru, The Professor said it, I believe It, That settles it.

humpf

8

Elves aren’t cool. Elves are assholes.

This shouldn’t be heretical to anyone who ever read “The Silmarrillion”, but some people think Elves are just dreamy, which defies understanding.

9

Stick with me, Skald. Old School Druids can teleport.

And you know my rant.

Gandalf-Smandalf. Candy-ass magic-user wannabe that can’t DPS his way out of a wet paperbag.

OH YAY! Gandalf the Useless made a fire and some glowie-lights. Maybe if he’d learned Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Stinking Cloud, or Cloudkill instead, he coulda done something useful in battle. Dude wears cloth armor and enters melee combat? Even a first-level noob knows better than that.

Casters are fearsome, powerful wielders of arcane might. Not impotent old fools that can’t even cast Magic Missile. Bah.

10

The orcs were the true victims of the War of the Ring. Manipulated and brainwashed literally from birth by Sauron and Saruman, there was never any evidence that they were innately “evil,” despite the inflammatory and one-sided rhetoric of the elves and men. Condemning the entire race to slaughter was a war crime of the highest magnitude. Gandalf, the Ringbearer, the elven leadership, and the entire royal line of Gondor should stand trial for their active roles in this atrocity!

11

I beg to differ, Elves are not perfect, but they are not assholes, furthermore they are cool, yes they are arrogant sometimes, but Tolkien’s elves have reason to be (this in contrast with D&D elves who have the arrogance but not the accomplishments).

The Elves in the Silmarillion have:

  1. Created marvelous Art (the Silmarils that name the book, for one thing)
  2. Accomplished extraordinary feats (like walking through the Ice of helcaraxe (sp?) to reach Middle Earth)
  3. Accomplished extraordinary military feats too, they, friggin fought a god (Morgoth) to an standstill without any help whatsoever from the other gods (the Valar).
    I think they are cool.

(And you’ll burn once the Gondorian Inquisition unexpectedly falls on you and gives you what you deserve)

12

Bah…fighting gods isn’t so impressive. Several of the raid guilds in Everquest had most of the available gods on farm status…used them for training up new raid troops and farming loot.

13

Wow, that is heretical. Because of course the whole Eru/Ainur mythos is quite clearly and obviously based on judeo-christian mythology. By saying such things like Melkor is a part of Illuvatar is the same as saying the Devil is a part of God. Note I’m not disagreeing, just pointing out how heretical it is.

While I agree on your premise, I don’t quite agree on your conclusions. While the Ainur are created and a part of Eru, I got the impression that they were seperate from Eru, capable of independent thought and free will. I don’t think that Melkor was an attempt by Eru to ‘purge’ himself of evil. He is a perfect being, beyond good and evil. I rather think the good and evil are not in fact opposing forces, but the same. Opposite ends of the same street. Just as red and blue are opposite ends of the light spectrum, good and evil are opposite ends of the morality spectrum. And so, as the Ainur could choose, one chose to exemplify good, and one evil. And the other Ainur that became the various Valar and Maiar arranged themselves along the rest of this ‘morality spectrum’. Greens and oranges and yellows and so forth.

And as for why Manwe became the leader of the Valar, according to Mr. Tolkien it was because he was closest to Illuvatar and knew his mind best. But also perhaps, in a way I prefer to think of it of course, because Manwe represented an ideal. Something us lesser children of Illuvatar had a lot more trouble trying to attain. Something that elves and dwarves and men could one day become, if they tried.

14

Why would you say that? I’m honestly curious. A tad miffed, of course, but curious.

15

Tirion tastes horrible on tuna.

16

I’m kind of confused with where you’re going here. :smiley:

Anyway, just call me Mani.

17

And I guess I’ll just call you Charlie Russell.

18

Just a damyankee joke. Some of my best friends… well, two, anyway… are Texans. And they both read.

19

I don’t see how what happened to the Orcs was in any way Frodo, Sam, or Bilbo’s responsibility. None of them commanded any armies or in any way participated in any genocidal actions. I don’t think the two Senior Bearers (the Bagginses) ever even killed an Orc, though I could easily be wrong. Young Master Samwise slew many, but he had a clear case for self-defense and defense of others.

Gandalf, too, gave no command to exterminate the Orcs after the Ringwar, and though he also slew many, it was always in the heat of battle.

Aragorn? Pure, unblinking evil. String that bastard up.

20

A few months after the wedding, when Aragorn discovered that Elvish maidens come into heat somewhat less often than Vulcans, he realized what a mistake he had made in turning down a lusty Rohirrim lass. Soon Faramir found himself being sent on long, dangerous, and strangely unimportant missions - of course they had to start and end with debriefing at Minas Tirith, and of course Eowyn stayed there during the missions themselves. Which led to Elboron’s odd birth - he had to be either 3 months premature or 4 months overdue.