What makes you think I was referring to you?
I just wanted to add that I’m geeking out while following along the various arguments. Good stuff!
Carry on.
A connection was obvious. I have spoken unflatteringly of Mr T’s oeuvre. Exapno Mapcase has taken the high road while I have said flatly that I do not like his writing style. However, it is worlds better than the Dungeons and Dragons, Swords and Sorcery, dwarf and wizard-filled dreck that cashed in on it’s popularity. Pray then, who here has been one of the “hooligans who think its fun to try to trash a literary masterpiece,” if not me? Everybody else has been quite civil.
Character with similar names making it difficult to keep track of who is who. Like Saruman and Sauron.
Where are the women? You mean to say the Frodo and company crossed the world and encountered only one female (an elf queen). Where are they in the land of the Smurfs?
How come they are always saved by eagles? Why then walk anywhere thru Mirkwood or thru underground caverns full of firebreathing monsters at all why not just fly around on eagles?
How were the Goblins in "The Hobbit " (movie) able to build all those elaborate wooden structures underground? Where did they get the wood?
Looking at the map of middle earth it really isnt that big of a place. Maybe roughly the size of central Europe. Gandalfs magic horse seems to cross it quite easily in less than a day and really the people of the Fellowship walk across it in around 30 days or so. In such close proximities I just cant see a “dark force in the east” sitting quietly for hundreds of years without the neighbors knowing about it. I’d think there would also be closer trade between all the groups including the humans and orcs.
And Goldberry and Eowyn and Rose Cotton and…
What people who think that Frodo didn’t change or grow in character through his experiences aren’t realizing is that this is the point where he fell to the Ring’s temptation. He actually called upon the Ring’s power to impose his will upon Gollum; arguably, it is Gollum’s breaking his oath upon the Ring that dooms him (and the Ring) to fall to his doom. Frodo did not resist the Ring’s temptation; he gave into it. Furthermore, this happened well before entering Mordor – Frodo was resisting giving into the Ring even more the entire time.
Yes, he did have PTSD-equivalent when he couldn’t get comfortable back in the Shire. But the biggest reason he no longer fit in was that he’d now a visceral understanding of evil, because he had succumbed to it. Check out his declaration seizing the Ring as his own in Mount Doom: he was proclaiming himself the new Dark Lord. And he didn’t become the Dark Lord because he’d repented of his choice – that came later – it was because Gollum snatched it all away from him.
- So, only one character with a name beginning with “S” per book?
- Quartz got that one.
- The eagles, being servants of Manwë, are no more allowed to solve all of mankind’s problems than Gandalf was. They’re allowed to help, which is why they’re mainly involved in rescues.
- Because their back door opens to a giant woodland which they frequently raid.
Gandalf’s riding back and forth takes much longer than the length of its narration implies. It’s just that it occurs without Tolkien going on and on about the landscape, various trees, and etymological history of any nearby landmarks that makes it seem so much faster.
Gondor and Rohan (and Lothlorien and Rivendell) are quite aware of Mordor, and have been embroiled in an ongoing war since the One Ring was lost. The rest of Middle-Earth is ridiculously depopulated, though, given the intervening time between that loss of the One Ring and the current situation.
There actually is quite a lot of trade going on – dwarves from the Blue Mountains regularly pass by the Shire/Bree on trade, Mirkwood trades with Laketown, Gondor and its satellites like Rohan all trade. The Corsairs of Umbar are pirates, so there is some sea trade for them to pirate upon.
Yes, the Creator of that Universe intended some overall “master plan” (destiny, described as a “song” in the Silmarilion), but I think that plan sorta got derailed.
I don’t think that Morgoth’s (and Sauron’s) actions (their betrayal, the War of the Wrath, the rise and fall of Numenor, etc.), for example, were all part of the Creator’s initial master plan. (Nor things like Ungoliant.) These events were driven by the choices and actions of the various characters involved.
Don’t forget Ioreth: “Long may men remember your words, Ioreth!”
There was a Great Plague 1400 years before, that killed off “hundreds of thousands”. It spread and affected the region unevenly (I think it was supposed to have killed off half the population of Rhovanion, for example), but it might account for some vast wilderness areas that also contain handy ruins for Orcs to infest (and for hardy adventurers to loot).
The Great Plague being 1400 years prior and vast swaths of Middle-Earth still being unpopulated is actually a bit of a problem in the backstory. That’s 10 times longer than it took for Europe to recover from the Black Death. It’s unrealistic that there’d still be that much empty territory which is known to be fertile (it was all previously settled); that’s not what we see happen in the real world, at all.
Well, it is a general guideline that you should not have two similar sounding character names in the same book. Authors break it all the time though and to be honest, yes, for someone like me who is bad at names it makes it difficult and pulls me out of the story. Every time I run into the equivalent of “Rebecca” and “Rowena” in the same book I have to stop, smack myself out of the story for a second, and remember “ReBECca is this girl, RowENa is that girl. OK. Back to reading”.
There was a book I read recently where two main characters had the first three letters of their names the same as well as the last letter. I can’t remember which it was. Imagine maybe “Marlon” and “Martin” as the names. It was just nuts for me.
So, in answer, yes, Sauron & Saruman actually did give me a lot of trouble, especially when there wasn’t any scenery to place me. I’m sure Tolkien did it as some sort of foreshadowing. I did myself think, “man, these guys’ names are so similar…considering how Tolkien names stuff with a purpose, they gotta be in cahoots or something.”
I don’t buy this. You have to wear the Ring to wield its power. Frodo can dominate Gollum because Gollum perceives him as the Ring’s keeper, and Gollum is cagy enough to realize he has a better chance of recovering the Ring sticking close to Frodo.
The trouble is that neither Frodo nor the narrator ever say this; it’s not supported by the text. “I am too badly hurt, Sam” — these are not the words of someone wrestling with guilt over their weakness or regret over their bad choices.
Frodo’s failure to give up the Ring is inevitable. There is no question of it. Gandalf all but says as much: “[It is] so powerful that in the end it would utterly overcome anyone of mortal race who possessed it. It would possess him.” “A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it.” I could go on. Even as a kid reading the book for the first time, I knew Frodo would never — could never — simply chuck it into the fire and be done with it. He’s not seduced by the Ring, he’s beaten into submission by it. It is simply too powerful for him to resist. No one in his position could do so — not Aragorn, not Gandalf. This is why I liken Frodo’s ordeal and its aftereffects to torture: sooner or later, under torture, everybody breaks, but that doesn’t mean they become bad people, nor that they’ve chosen to give up being good people. Frodo’s actions at the Cracks of Doom are not a choice; they are foreordained, and completely defensible.
I’m not sure why this is such a contentious topic, or why people try to argue Tolkien achieves something that he plainly never set out to do. Tolkien was interested in myths and archetypes, and was not interested so much in his characters’ choices as in their nature: only a hobbit can carry the Ring to Mount Doom because only a hobbit lacks the greed, vanity and lust for power that makes the Ring so corrupting; Tolkien’s is fundamentally an essentialist vision. This moral simplicity is exactly what gives the book its epic sweep, as well as its enduring popularity.
Obligatory Oglaf comic. (Note this comic isn’t, but many others on that site are NSFW.)
It’s true that you have not offered criticism of any substance, nothing more than “I don’t like it so it sucks.” To be clear, in no way were my feelings or those of anyone else hurt by anything you wrote.
“As to Beowolf [sic], it’s dreck.” That kind of stuff is just tiresome. It’s not insightful. It’s not persuasive. It’s just unenlightened and boring. Beowulf is not dreck. It was and is remembered for some damn good reasons. Similar to this is something like “only someone who encounters it before the age of 12 likes The Lord of the Rings.” Tell that to W. H. Auden.
Don’t read Tolstoy.
I agree with a lot of what you write, Nonsuch. However it seems obvious to me that Frodo was overcome with guilt and a sense of failure, as well as other psychic and physical pain. To the reader, the guilt is not justified. But I think that’s what Frodo felt.
I also disagree to some degree with those who seem to think Tolkien’s characters lack any dimension. They are not all flat fill-ins for archetypes (though Aragorn and some others might be). Denethor is a quite complicated character, as is Boromir. Tolkien even sets up a parallel story in Theoden’s “arc”. Fairly sophisticated writing, I think. And when Tolkien did include a female character he made her, Eowyn, a complex character too. I have read many a discussion of why she left to ride to her death when she was ordered to stay, and if her choice of pacifism in her life with Faramir was a good one. etc, etc.
I, for one, was shocked when Frodo did not destroy the ring. Of course I was young when I first read it and missed a lot that seems obvious on rereading.
Lastly, for those who criticize the time and detail that Tolkien spends describing the various journeys in the book - I really appreciated the realism. This was how it was when people traveled on foot . And the closeness the members of the Fellowship felt is more real after reading about their travels together.
It is not meant to be realistic.
Just what is the ring’s power? Ok I know its invisibility, the power to live forever, and the feeling of arrogance but in itself I dont see it giving a person super strength, invulnerability to weapons not does it shoot lightning bolts or anything so I frankly dont see it real power. Nobody who has worn the ring has ruled for very long. Gollum lives for what - 300 years but only just barely survived. if the ring had had real power he would not have needed to hide from those Goblins but instead would have been there leader.
The Ring, it is explained, gives one power according to one’s stature. Gollum is nasty, furtive and small, and so the Ring makes him better at being those things; it doesn’t reshape who he is. In the hands of someone like Gandalf, it is very dangerous indeed —not least to Gandalf himself.