New answers tagged tolkiens-legendarium
6
Generally, when someone buys the "movie rights" to a work, it's an exclusive deal, though often limited to a set period of time.
So, to do something like this, one would need the cooperation of whoever currently owns those rights. If they are currently still in the hands of Jackson et al, then there's probably no path forward (at least for now). If/...
13
It was painted green
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, "painted green", with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle.
The Hobbit - Chapter 1: An Unexpected Party
As stated in the opening of The Hobbit the door was painted green.
Bilbo paints the door from time to time, in fact it was painted just a week before the Dwarves' ...
0
Sam is a beloved and most virtuous character. However, the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic context of "the chef hero" phrase in that letter are nearly impossible to accept as referring to Sam.
The more reasonable interpretation of the phrase is that he's clarifying that "his" refers to the chief hero (likely Aragorn), as opposed to &...
4
The door does seem rather large here. A few possible explanations:
While not necessarily needing to be large enough to accommodate larger beings, it would need to be large enough to accommodate any and all furniture, deliveries, etc., as I presume there is definitely no other opening to get such things in.
It was drawn a bit exaggerated to emphasize and ...
5
Basically, (1) he thought he could get away with it and (2) he probably saw himself as justified and maybe even a good guy, at least to start.
The Valar have been described by some critics as deus otiosus "idle gods" who create the world and then step back from it, leaving it to itself. (And this may show the Valars' good judgment, since their ...
1
The languages came first.
J.R.R Tolkien was s philologist, and he loved languages. So he started creating a few himself. After a while, I suppose he realised these languages could be used, and he created a world (Middle Earth) and, for it, characters to speak the languages.
8
I think you've made a category error.
The Istari are Maiar, as discussed in Part Four, chapter I, "The Istari" in Unfinished Tales. They are five individual members of that group who were given a specific task and sent to Middle-earth.
And yes, the singular is "Istar".
0
In the case of hobbits: in the lands of elves, there wasn't actually a creature called a 'hobbit' (except maybe in lore) till Merry, Pippin, Frodo and Sam go adventuring on the Quest of the Ring! So, as the Elves forged the Rings of Power, how could they know that those mythical creatures would go on to save Middle Earth?
In the case of Orcs: Orcs are ...
6
As your question arose while watching the movie, it may be worth noting the movie itself provides an answer to it, though only in the extended edition.
In a small addition to the Long-expected Party scene, Bilbo and Frodo share a brief moment away from the bustle of the party to hide from the Sackville-Bagginses:
Suddenly ...
30
No, it is not normal.
Tolkien describes Hobbit society in the section 1 of the Prologue. He explicitly singles out Frodo and Bilbo as being unusual in this:
The houses and the holes of Shire-hobbits were often large, and inhabited by large families. (Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were as bachelors very exceptional, as they were also in many other ways, such as ...
35
Frodo's parents drowned in a mysterious moonlight boating accident, possibly involving a bottle of wine or ale.
After all his father was a Baggins. A decent respectable hobbit was Mr. Drogo Baggins; there was never much to tell of him, till he was drownded.'
'Drownded?' said several voices. They had heard this and other darker rumours before, of course; but ...
0
Is there a way to determine the respective canonical status of Tolkien's Middle-earth related works?
OP says:
the problems are even more complicated in regards to Tolkien's Middle-earth/Arda related material
The answers above do a great job. But I'd like to elaborate on one complication that was only alluded to. The books actually exist inside the fictional universe. Even if you care about canonicity (if, OP wonders, that's a word), still, fictional ...
4
After the destruction of the ruling ring, the Elven-rings lost their potency as well, becoming little more than trinkets. As it is told in the "Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" (from appendix A of Return of the King):
When the Great Ring was unmade and the Three were shorn of their power, then Elrond grew weary at last and forsook Middle-earth, never to ...
2
Rape and/or enslavement are horrible. But that may only have been part of it.
What was the worst thing Morgoth had done up to that point?
But of those unhappy [elves] who were ensnared by Melkor little is known of certainty. For who of the living has descended into the pits of Utumno, or has explored the darkness of the counsels of Melkor? Yet this is held ...
6
One could argue, from an ontological perspective, that Eru (God) allowed evil to exist in the first place, in order to ultimately allow an example to be set for the others not to do evil.
Free will (or the illusion thereof) is the greatest gift given to the living. Like a kind father, Eru does not destroy Melkor when this latter first shows his true nature. ...
17
Firstly, Hobbits were never mentioned prior to the year 1050 of the Third Age when the Harfoots entered Eriador and in doing so were first mentioned in the records:
1050 The Periannath are first mentioned in records, with the coming of the Harfoots to Eriador.
Appendix B: Tale of Years
The next mention of Hobbits comes in 1150, when the Fallohides ...
8
JRRT gives us very little information about Hobbit history and nothing at all before the Third Age. From the introduction:
The beginning of Hobbits lies far back in the Elder Days that are now lost and forgotten. Only the Elves still preserve any records of that vanished time, and their traditions are concerned almost entirely with their own history, in ...
-1
Curiously, in The Two Towers there is a discussion between Frodo and Sam about the difference between stories which are good to read and stories which are good to experience as characters in them.
And the answer to why there is so much horror and sffering, death and destruction, in Middle-earth is:
Because Eru is a story teller like Tolkien. Only Eru tells ...
28
The Marring of Arda was intentional
The idea of Arda Marred (as it's commonly referred to) is a direct reflection of the downfall of Man in the bible and the imperfections of the world. Similar to the bible, the history of Arda Marred ends with an apocalyptic event — Dagor Dagorath — after which the People's of Ëa begin living in what is known as Arda ...
4
The Oxford English Dictionary provides an obsolete definition of werewolf as
also, an exceptionally large and ferocious wolf.
It is almost certainly this definition that Tolkien had in mind, despite any more modern meaning of the word.
The OED also casts doubt on the analysis of werewulf as being a compound of Old English wer ("man") and wulf (&...
9
I very much doubt that Tolkien cared greatly about modern ideas of werewolves and especially gaming, comic-book and movie notions of what werewolves are. (If for no other reason than that they hadn't been invented yet!)
Older traditions about the supernatural are much less precise and consistent than modern. The ancient traditions were rarely codified and ...
25
If any of the other rings were in active use, then the verse is correct.
Sauron could not discover them, for they were given into the hands of the Wise, who concealed them and never again used them openly while Sauron kept the Ruling Ring [...] yet they also were subject to the One.
-- Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age
It is not until after the Last ...
36
Gandalf says more than once that if he regains the One, then all that is protected by the Three will be laid bare. Before Isildur cut the Ring from Sauron, the elves and men were stronger and could resist him. If I recall correctly, he had gathered the others to him before the last alliance. And since he hasn’t touched the Three directly, they could hold out ...
1
As user 8719 and Ofek Aman already said, there is no detailed description of the Nenya in the books.
But if you are thinking about the movies, the first one does look a bit like the one Cate Blanchett wore (bottom right one in the screenshot below).
Why do you think silver is innapropriate? According to Wikipedia:
Gold (Available in Yellow Gold, White Gold ...
-1
I dont believe in any curse in regards to the gold in Erebor. The story tries to hint at us that the gold has a corrupting power like the one ring but I never bought that. Its obvious with the one ring thier is power but in my opinion gold sickness is just a name the inhabitants gave for the greed addiction that the line of Durin had. Maybe it is a mental ...
13
Tolkien never wrote on this as far as I know, so one can only speculate. The vast majority of dragons were killed in the War of Wrath at the end of the First Age. Indeed we do not know of any dragon alive in the Third Age other than Smaug, who was killed by a single arrow shot by Bard, a normal human, albeit a hero and a descendant of a King.
But leaving ...
71
First, dragons are not all powerful, and the dragons still alive in Middle-earth at the time of LotR are weak compared with the ancient dragons. In "The Shadow of the Past", Gandalf says
It has been said that dragon-fire could melt and consume the Rings of Power, but there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough; ...
0
Looking at history, I would have to go with Battle of Szigetvar and Battle for Vienna in the 16th century. I mean, look at these similarities from Battle at Szigetvar:
The European army was pretty much an alliance of different nationalities all trying to stop the Ottoman invasions.
The castle from which Europeans defended from the Ottoman hordes was divided ...
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