# Would you live in Middle-earth, if you could? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 13, 2006, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325 "2006-07-13T14:31:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Monstre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@Monstre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monstre)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/21 "2006-07-13T16:53:31Z")
As long as I could be Sauron. But I’d have been a smarter Sauron. First, when forging the One Ring, I would not have stopped with invisibility and control over the other rings. The latter becomes less useful if the other ring owners realize it and just stop using theirs (like the Elves). My ring would also allow me to create an invisible force shield around myself, and it would shoot fire. That rat-bastard Isildur would never have gotten close to me. And once I’d conquered Middle Earth, I wouldn’t be a totally unreasonable evil overload… the people would still have their fields for tilling and food to eat, as long as my harem of elven maidens continued to do my bidding. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/22 "2006-07-13T16:53:54Z")
Sure! I think it would be… _the greatest adventure…_ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/23 "2006-07-13T16:58:43Z")
How many languages would I have to learn?? I’ll go with the hard core answer that I am living in Middle-earth–it’s just a timing issue. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/24 "2006-07-13T17:34:31Z")
[QUOTE=Humble Servant] How many languages would I have to learn?? I’ll go with the hard core answer that I am living in Middle-earth–it’s just a timing issue. [/QUOTE] Probably not, the Middle-Earth we know of would be Eurasia not Chicago. We in North America live in an uncharted land that probably came into reach of Middle-Earth only after the fall of Numenor. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/25 "2006-07-13T17:40:08Z")
[QUOTE=What Exit?] Aye Laddie, that may well be true. But I still await your apology for the insult to fair Galadriel. Gimli son of Gloin. [/QUOTE] Not possible. Do you Demand Satisfaction? Is it an Affair Of Honor, then? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/26 "2006-07-13T17:59:03Z")
[QUOTE=Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor] Not possible. Do you Demand Satisfaction? Is it an Affair Of Honor, then? [/QUOTE] I am afraid I must demand satisfaction. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/27 "2006-07-13T18:20:49Z")
I’d be most happy as an Elf, probably in Second Age. I’d love to be a ring-smith. This isn’t some sort of viral marketing for a certain upcoming MMORPG? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/28 "2006-07-13T19:11:52Z")
[QUOTE=What Exit?] Probably not, the Middle-Earth we know of would be Eurasia not Chicago. We in North America live in an uncharted land that probably came into reach of Middle-Earth only after the fall of Numenor. [/QUOTE] We could quibble (the Americas could be the far east of Gondwana Middle Earth or newly-created by Eru in the drowning of Numenor and the removal of the true west)–the shape of all lands has been changed–ME as a label and idea is used to mean ancestral earth (excluding Valinor or not, depending). ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/29 "2006-07-13T19:14:32Z")
I think I would if I could be a human Ranger a couple of hundred years before Frodo pissed off Sauron. And as long as I didn’t have to live next door to Tom Bombadil. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/30 "2006-07-13T19:34:37Z")
[QUOTE=Pleonast] This isn’t some sort of viral marketing for a certain upcoming MMORPG? 😉 [/QUOTE] [hijack]Why would you want a new MMORPG when we never see you in a perfectly functional and fun old MMORPG? 🆒 [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/31 "2006-07-13T19:39:13Z")
[QUOTE=Humble Servant] We could quibble (the Americas could be the far east of Gondwana Middle Earth or newly-created by Eru in the drowning of Numenor and the removal of the true west)–the shape of all lands has been changed–ME as a label and idea is used to mean ancestral earth (excluding Valinor or not, depending). [/QUOTE] Not really [Middle-Earth](http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.asp?url=http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/m/middleearth.html) was the lands that basically correspond to Eurasia. The Mortal Lands. The Americas are either new lands or lands not discussed. > [@](#): > > Where? > Despite the change in the shape of the continents, it isn’t hard to locate the action of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien makes this particular clear in a comment in the Prologue to that book: > > ‘…the regions in which Hobbits then lived were doubtless the same as those in which they still linger: the North-West of the Old World, east of the Sea.’ (2) > > In other words, the Shire and the lands around lay in the same region of the world as modern Europe. As the characters travel south from the northerly latitudes of the Shire, the climate becomes warmer and drier, just as it would for a traveller journeying from (say) Britain to the southern parts of Europe. > > Beyond the lands visited by the Hobbits are others, less familiar, to the south and east. It doesn’t take much imagination to identify the mysterious eastern lands of Rhûn with part of Asia, or the hot southern lands of Harad as being part of Africa. > > The Americas are a little more difficult to place in Tolkien’s world. Until the Downfall of Númenor at the end of the Second Age, their approximate place in the World was taken up by Aman in the Uttermost West. After the Downfall, though, Aman was taken away from the mortal world, and there are hints about the new geography of the world among the closing lines of Akallabêth: > > ‘Ilúvatar cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Lands east of it, and new lands and new seas were made…’ (1) > > **The new lands to the west must surely be the Americas**. Those in the east are less easy to identify - perhaps these words refer to the emergence of, say, Australia or Japan, though it’s much harder to be sure of Tolkien’s intentions in this area. My Bolding above Jim ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/32 "2006-07-13T19:44:58Z")
Don’t have any of my HOME volumes handy, but I think in early drafts Tolkien went so far as to explicitly state that the British Isles were all that was left of Beleriand after the destruction of Thangorodrim. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/33 "2006-07-13T19:53:32Z")
Living through a seven thousand year long war sound great in the book. Me, I think the numer of good hotels, with concierge service, and indoor pools is just a bit below my threshold. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/34 "2006-07-13T20:14:52Z")
If I get the chance to study up on a few mining and metallurgy textbooks before I go, sure! Knowledge of how to refine mithril from common ores, and a few key dwarven contacts, would be quite enough to enable me to live like a king. Admittedly it’d take quite a lot of infrastructure, but dwarves are patient, and good at building infrastructure, especially when the potential reward is worth so much. Even more so if I can bring back my pop can pull-tab collection to use as seed money. A few of those given as a gift would probably be enough to get any dwarf-king to listen to the rest of the plan. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/35 "2006-07-13T21:52:29Z")
[QUOTE=What Exit?] I am afraid I must demand satisfaction. [/QUOTE] Very good, sirrah! Well said, donca know! Since you are an advocate of Middle Earth, & of Dwarves, you get a Magic Axe. Since I am an advocate of the 21st Century, I get a Submachine Gun. 30 paces, turn & attack. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/36 "2006-07-13T21:53:14Z")
Yes. I’d finally get to be myself. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/37 "2006-07-13T21:59:03Z")
Only if I could be an Elf. [QUOTE=Little Nemo] I’ve always suspected that being a medieval peasant wasn’t as much fun as a 20th century language professor thinks it was. [/QUOTE] I suspect a professor of Anglo-Saxon and a scholar of Old and Middle English knew more about the realities of the life of a peasant of those eras than anyone on the SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![DiggitCamara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@DiggitCamara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiggitCamara)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/38 "2006-07-13T22:18:02Z")
[QUOTE=What Exit?] Not really [Middle-Earth](http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.asp?url=http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/m/middleearth.html) was the lands that basically correspond to Eurasia. The Mortal Lands. The Americas are either new lands or lands not discussed. My Bolding above Jim [/QUOTE] I seem to recall that the destruction of Númenor, the Fair Lands to the West were placed “away of the spheres of mortal lands” and the only way to reach them was if it was “granted”. Somewhere I saw an Atlas where they explained that the destruction of Númenor was actually a transformation of the Middle Earth into a Sphere and the Elven Lands somehow floated away into space :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/39 "2006-07-13T22:23:38Z")
[QUOTE=DiggitCamara] I seem to recall that the destruction of Númenor, the Fair Lands to the West were placed “away of the spheres of mortal lands” and the only way to reach them was if it was “granted”. Somewhere I saw an Atlas where they explained that the destruction of Númenor was actually a transformation of the Middle Earth into a Sphere and the Elven Lands somehow floated away into space :eek: [/QUOTE] Not quite true, as stated; the destruction of Numenor happened at the same time as the transformation of Aman from plane to sphere, but the island itself simply sank. As for the Deathless Lands, I never thought they were so much moved physically as it was the topological shift; that is, the path to Aman & Tol Eressea is no longer perceptible to Mortals and Dwarves, though it’s still possible for a mariner to go there by accident–but probably not to return. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325/40 "2006-07-13T22:27:57Z")
I like reading fantasy. Truely I do. One thing I definately realize is that while it may be cool for the guy that never knew luxary and has all kinds of magical powers or becomes king or whatnot, for the average guy it sucks. Would I want to be that person? Frodo? Heck no! Gandalf, maybe… No definate yes though. I love technology too much, so while I like fantasy worlds and magic and all that, I definately don’t ever wish to live there, and most of the time, I definately don’t wish I were the main character. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-live-in-middle-earth-if-you-could/364325.md?page=3)