The truth is that, until awakened from their slumbers in the nethermost pits, Balrogs exist in a state of quantum indeterminancy, simultaneously both winged and unwinged.
Aiigh! Now I’m imagining Balrogs are the Angel statues from Doctor Who. Ack!
Dearest Professor: It probably would have made the slog through Mordor a little easier to read if you’d have done the whole thing chronologically rather than separate.
And that’s what makes it so cool and mysterious. Keep the mystery!
(Although I had the same opinion about The West before I read the Silmarillion, and it’s one of the few unexplained fantasy things that did not lose any of its enchantment when fully revealed, so if anyone could make Moria still dark and mysterious after fully delving into it, it would be Tolkien.)
She also gave him jewelry. Just think of her as taking after her grandma Galadriel more (“on a quest? have some jewelry”), than after Lúthien (“on a quest? let me cast down that Dark God for you”).
If I had a time machine set to go back and chat up Prof. Tolkien, I’d want to explain the concept of “whiny emo kid” to him – and then point out that he made it so everyone who reads about Túrin Turambar wants to slap him around, despite how otherwise good the story might have been.
Really, I’d’ve advised him to drop emo boy in favor of Beleg, but Tolkien had a mad-on for Túrin.
Alas, if we really did have a Tolkien time-machine, Terrifel would’ve already found out what letter glee wrote the Professor… so I must conclude that the Mormegil will continue whining and Arwen will continue knitting.
I’d work out a deal with him. Dump the linguistics for more Radagast!
Screw Radagast. I want to know more about the Blue Wizards.
Also more tales of Elendil & Sons.
And backstories of the Nazgul before they became Nazgul.
There were seven Fathers of the Dwarves. Tolkien only wrote about Durin’s descendants. That leaves six more tribes/nations/cultures.
In the appendix to ROTK, Tolkien mentions that after the War of the Ring, a dwarven ruler will be born: Durin the Seventh (and last). Why was he the last?
Get rid of Eowyn mooning over Aragorn and you can have your cake (Eowyn) and eat it to (Arwen doing something other than making banners - which has always driven me up the wall bonkers as well). In fact, Eowyn might be improved ever so slightly (I know, impossible with perfection) if she is inspired to ride out by Arwen, rather than her (in my interpretation) “well, we are all going to die anyway, I might as well die doing something” fatalistic motivation.
YOU…
SHALL NOT…
BLINK!
Consider me a commie as well then.
You mean Alatar and Pallando? Wikipedia has a bit more info on them.
JRRT sketched that in too. Longbeards, Firebeards, Broadbeams, Ironfists, Stiffbeards, Blacklocks, & Stonefoots (Stonefeet?) From: Category:Dwarven clans - Tolkien Gateway
Apparently Eru meant for his children by adoption to leave the stage on Middle-earth about the same time the firstborn did. Or so I recall JRRT hinting somewhere in HOMES. Damned if I remember exactly where, though.
While I’d like to see what happened with Radagast, I’d actually like to see more of Bombadil. That is, more of his back story. It’s clear that there is a lot more to him than what’s bubbling on the surface; even Elrond calls him “Eldest”, and predicting that if he were entrusted with the Ring it would simply mean that the Shadow would still engulf him in the end, “last as he was first”.
So… Is he an Elf? Or some kind of Beta-Mode Test Elf? Maybe even Elu Thingol reborn in Middle Earth, who perhaps woke first by the waters of Cuiviénen under starlit skies, but much more mellow now that he’s shacked up with a River’s daughter instead of a Maia? 
I’d also suggest doing something to make Arwen more than an Elven kewpie doll for Aragorn. At least show her getting into a catfight with Eowyn. 
I have always found the Ringwraiths lacking in badassitude, especially on Weathertop. I mean, all nine of them together have the Ringbearer cornered, and all they can do is have their Captain stab him with a magically poisoned blade and retreat to wait for him to fade away, and not even kill any of his companions? Especially Aragorn, whom Sauron apparently feared was one who could truly wield the Ring against him, armed with a broken sword and a torch?
I know, I’ve read it quoted from his letters that They have no great physical power against the fearless, but what they have, and the fear that they inspire, is enormously increased in darkness. Even with that, the scene is a little lacking, and all indications until then in The Fellowship of the Ring are that the Ringwraiths are Sauron’s biggest weapons.
I’d find the Weathertop scene more plausibly explained as the Ringwraiths being held at bay out of dread for the power of the Ruling Ring, and only able to deliver it to Sauron by “enwraithing” Frodo with the knife so as to compel him to hand the Ring over personally. As for why his companions are not killed, perhaps Frodo, in desperation, commands them to “go back to Mordor” after being stabbed, forcing them to withdraw as he is wearing the Ruling Ring. But since he’s only a Hobbit and has not mastered the Ring, they don’t go all the way back to Mordor, just pull back a little bit and trail him to Rivendell.
I completely agree with you, robardin. Tolkien himself, in one of his letters, conceded that the Ringwraiths were not entirely consistent in their badassitude (although he didn’t use that word), esp. as to crossing running water.
I agree with just about all of the suggestions made here, as a matter of fact. I’d like to read a lot more about Elendil himself (big surprise), Radagast and the Blue Wizards, Cirdan the Shipwright, Elessar and Eomer’s joint military ventures early in the Fourth Age, etc. etc. etc. Come to think of it, the Corsairs of Umbar could have a book all to themselves.
SpazCat is definitely right about the Hobbit names. “Whaddya mean his name wasn’t Frodo all along…?”
Hmmm. With fifteen minutes and a time machine, I’d take a printout of this thread, a DVD player and EE DVDs of the movie trilogy, copies of every major edition of his work, a copy of The Times article on the national poll in which LOTR was named the greatest work of English literature of all time, and a whopping big check so that he wouldn’t have to waste his time on grading student papers or preparing British Army officers for their qualifying exams. “Please, Professor,” I’d say, “please just deposit this in your bank account, and write more about Middle-earth for us…!”
I’d feel compelled to warn him about how Peter Jackson was going to manipulate his characters to bring the trilogy to the screen and help the Professor develop a contract that forbid certain forms of artistic license related to character development in any future film adaptations including (but not limited to):
All Ents
Aragorn
Faramir
Boromir
Gandalf
Barliman Butterbur
Saruman
Theoden
Arwen
You might be thinking of Morgoth, like QTM mentioned Sauron was actually defeated by an elven maiden with an assist from a talking dog. The numenoreans were at the height of their power, and as far as i know Sauron didn’t command Balrogs or Dragons.
God, I need to read some P.G. Wodehouse. That is a *marvelous *phrase and I can’t wait to use it on somebody.
Broadbeam? Knew a girl like that once…Snerk
Wetwang… …hee hee hee.
That line is from the truly wonderful Leave It To Psmith, which against some pretty stiff competition is the best book he ever wrote.