# What changes would you have suggested for the Lord of the Rings novel? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** middle-earth, books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [February 19, 2022, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782 "2022-02-19T14:48:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/21 "2022-02-20T02:17:26Z")
I’d like the orcs to have a moral compass, and not make them genetically evil people. I suppose “original sin” doesn’t sit well with me. Especially not like that. I’d like to see more female characters. There’s only one (Eowyn). Arwen is just a prize, and Galadriel is a god, not a person. And… I can’t think of any others. Oh, Frodo’s aunt, I actually rather liked her. I agree about the lack of “toxic masculinity”, though. Yeah, I’d let Glorfindel stay dead. He seemed jammed in. But I adore Bombadil. I only wish he were better integrated into the rest of the story. Why is he so close to the shire? Had he been protecting it? I’d also be happy to see more dwarves. Although I suppose we get some of that in The Hobbit. But I’d like to see a mature work with more dwarves, and hey, maybe even meet a female dwarf. > [@DigitalC](#): > > but all the good humans were white I thought there was some suggestion the hobbits were brown? ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/22 "2022-02-20T02:43:11Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I’d like to see more female characters There was Sam’s love interest, but she was also a goal as opposed to a character. (I’ll admit I just wanted to show off my knowledge there. 😄) I’d also like to have seen what Beorn was up to after The Hobbit, but that’s just me. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > I thought there was some suggestion the hobbits were brown? I always assumed that was just being tan from outdoorsiness, but I’m happy to be corrected. On a side topic, there’s a Tolkien RPG set between the Hobbit and Fellowship that looks interesting. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/23 "2022-02-20T02:46:57Z")
The age difference was huge, and Eoywn realized later that it was just hero worship, she had a crush. Aragorn was about 90, he had served with her Grandfather. Cut some of the slog through Mordor. But the book is nigh perfect. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > I thought there was some suggestion the hobbits were brown? Yes. The The **Harfoots** were _nut brown_, and by far the most population. They also had curly brown hair. **Fallohides** had paler skin. The Stoors were in between, say normal tan human? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/24 "2022-02-20T02:47:21Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > I’d also like to have seen what Beorn was up to after The Hobbit, but that’s just me. I feel like he was just a first draft of Tom Bombadil. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/25 "2022-02-20T02:51:14Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I feel like he was just a first draft of Tom Bombadil. He _was_ sort of a one-off, wasn’t he? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/26 "2022-02-20T02:53:35Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > I’d also like to have seen what Beorn was up to after The Hobbit, but that’s just me. He fathered scads of "beornings’ who made waybread, etc, guarded the path through Mirkwood, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/27 "2022-02-20T02:55:42Z")
Less singing. Every time i reread the books my eyes glaze over as aoon as he goes into verse. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/28 "2022-02-20T02:56:56Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > He fathered scads of "Beornings’ who made waybread, etc, guarded the path through Mirkwood, etc. “Hey. Want to help raise some cubs? I promise I’ll sleep all winter.” That never occurred to me before. So magic ability is inherited in Tolkien? Unless she was a female Beorning? There are really no other examples, I guess. " During the War of the Ring, while wearing the One Ring at Amon Hen upon the seat of seeing, Frodo Baggins saw many things from afar, including the land of the Beornings aflame. This hints at an attack by Sauron’s forces upon the Beornings, though the outcome of this attack is unknown." ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/29 "2022-02-20T11:10:28Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The age difference was huge, and Eoywn realized later that it was just hero worship, she had a crush. Aragorn was about 90, he had served with her Grandfather. Well, the age difference between Aragorn and Arwen was only a few thousand years … he was going to die first anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/30 "2022-02-20T13:18:43Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Well, the age difference between Aragorn and Arwen was only a few thousand years … he was going to die first anyway Thanks, I was going to point this out. Arwen was 2800(or so) years old in Lord of the Rings. She did die just one year after Aragorn, though, I think. ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/31 "2022-02-20T13:49:42Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > On a side topic, there’s a Tolkien RPG set between the Hobbit and Fellowship that looks interesting. [_The One Ring_ RPG](https://freeleaguepublishing.com/en/games/the-one-ring/). A new edition was just published by Fria Ligan; there was an earlier edition\* published by Cubicle 7. I got my Kickstarter copy of the core book and the starter set just last week. Both editions are set in the time period between _The Hobbit_ and _The Lord of the Rings_. The first edition was set in “the Wilderland” of the North, basically the area between the Shire and the Iron Hills, including Rhovanion. The new edition is set in Eriador (really Eriador and Arnor). The idea, which I think is brilliant, being that these regions are at once iconic and familiar to fans of Tolkien, while not being all that well explored, and we don’t actually know all that much about what happened in them during that time period. So there’s a lot of room for adventures that can extend storylines from _The Hobbit_ or involve the run-up to the War of the Ring, but that won’t contradict canon. I’m not nearly as big a Tolkien fan as a lot of folks on this board, but for my money (literally), it’s by _far_ the best table-top RPG adaptation of the material. Unlike _Middle-Earth Role Playing_ or _The Lord of the Rings RPG_ or _Adventures in Middle Earth_\*\*, it doesn’t try to cram Tolkien into a pre-existing rules system, it’s built from the ground up for Tolkien-style adventures. I think it _really_ captures the feel of Tolkien. \*Cubicle 7 actually published two “editions”, first a set of core books, and then a consolidated core book that made some significant revisions, which I would consider a second edition, but officially they were both part of the first edition of the game. \*\*_Adventures in Middle Earth_ was a 5E D&D adaptation that Cubicle 7 published alongside _The One Ring_. I thought it was probably the second-best adaptation, and did a surprisingly good job of adapting the material to the rules and adapting the rules to the material. Unfortunately, it was released shortly before they lost the license, and not much material was released for it beyond the core books. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/32 "2022-02-20T14:04:47Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > LOTR is better in this respect than _The Hobbit_ , at least Well, it could hardly be worse- is there a named female character in The Hobbit aside from Bilbo’s dead mother? ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/33 "2022-02-20T14:18:58Z")
Fili and Kili’s Mother (Dis) is mentioned but not named in The Hobbit, but is named in appendix A of LOTR. I think some if not all the spiders are female, but are not named. Brian ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/34 "2022-02-20T14:47:05Z")
Before someone corrects me, I know it is Dís, just didn’t know how to do that on my iPad (hold down the “i” key) Brian ---
**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:** [February 20, 2022, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/35 "2022-02-20T15:07:15Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Well, the age difference between Aragorn and Arwen was only a few thousand years _And_ they were first cousins to boot. About 60 removals but, still, first cousins. 😬 ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/36 "2022-02-20T18:45:44Z")
> [@N9IWP](#): > > I think some if not all the spiders are female I suppose I can add Shelob to the female characters in LotR. But like Galadriel, I think she’s a god, not a person. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/37 "2022-02-20T20:57:31Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Having never been able to sustain interest long enough to finish LOTR or the Hobbit, I guess I’d make the prose easier to wade through and make both works less of a sausage fest. Ditto. Also, I fell asleep – twice – trying to watch the second movie. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/38 "2022-02-20T22:48:24Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Ditch Arwen, Aragorn should marry Eowyn. Tolkien did consider this originally. Eowyn was of a bloodline that was not noble enough. Aragorn was a direct descendant of kings of Numenor; Eowyn was in the royal family (niece, was she?) but the Rohirrim were not, shall we say, as high as the kings of Gondor. It would be like the Norman king Richard II marrying Rowena (a Saxon princess) in Ivanhoe. She was personally worthy, but not socially appropriate. Also, it makes sense to want to renew the elf element of his bloodline, to provide for longer life for his offspring, at least for a while. All for the sake of the stability of Gondor and Arnor. The love element was written in so that it doesn’t seem so mercenary (or so I think). ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/39 "2022-02-20T23:02:53Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > Phil Dragash made the greatest audiobook I have ever heard and it is the Lord of the Rings. … I heard it is up on [archive.org](http://archive.org), but I am not sure. [The Fellowship of the Ring](https://archive.org/details/the-fellowship-of-the-ring_soundscape-by-phil-dragash) [The Two Towers](https://archive.org/details/the-two-towers_soundscape-by-phil-dragash) [The Return of the King](https://archive.org/details/the-return-of-the-king_soundscape-by-phil-dragash) ---
**Author:** ![gdave](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gdave/32/3683_2.png) [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2022, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782/40 "2022-02-20T23:06:05Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Eowyn was of a bloodline that was not noble enough. Aragorn was a direct descendant of kings of Numenor; Eowyn was in the royal family (niece, was she?) but the Rohirrim were not, shall we say, as high as the kings of Gondor. It would be like the Norman king Richard II marrying Rowena (a Saxon princess) in Ivanhoe. She was personally worthy, but not socially appropriate. I don’t know enough about all of the genealogies to know if that makes sense and is consistent across Tolkien’s legendarium, but it certainly seems plausible off-hand to me that he’d be class-conscious enough to make sure the love matches also happened to all be class-appropriate. But, > [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > Also, it makes sense to want to renew the elf element of his bloodline, to provide for longer life for his offspring, at least for a while. All for the sake of the stability of Gondor and Arnor. The love element was written in so that it doesn’t seem so mercenary (or so I think). This frankly doesn’t make sense to me. They’re fictional characters. _All_ of the elements of their relationships were “written in.” Either Aragorn’s motives were mercenary because that’s the way Tolkien wrote it, or they actually pure because _that’s_ the way Tolkien wrote it. Or are you saying that you think Tolkien intentionally wrote Aragon as a cold dynastic calculator and that _Aragon_ “wrote in” the love element to cover his base motives in-universe? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-changes-would-you-have-suggested-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-novel/959782.md?page=3)