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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Jul 5 2017, 1:58pm
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Whether or not the other three lost stones were ever found is never indicated; the Osgiliath-stone may have rolled into the Sea, or it may have lain still in the Anduin.
Tolkien's legendarium tells us that the Osgiliath-stone was much larger than most of the other palantíri, too large to be carried by a single man. The Seeing-stone of Amon Sûl (the watchtower upon Weathertop) was also very large.
Although the palantír that we see in Dol Guldur in the films is not exceptionally large, it might have been intended to be the Osgiliath-stone, especially since it seems to get left behind when Sauron is driven away by Galadriel. It can't be the Ithil-stone unless it is the Osgiliath-stone that is instead taken to Barad-dûr in the continuity of the films.
"Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall.” -- The Doctor
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on Jul 5 2017, 1:58pm)
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squire
Half-elven
Jul 5 2017, 5:21pm
Post #77 of 323
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In the films, do we even know if Sauron has a palantir, much less which one?
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It seems to me that the films take the point of view that the Orthanc stone simply opens its users directly to the Eye that the film uses to personify Sauron. Saruman also uses the Stone to dominate Theoden, highlighting its role in the film as a kind of standalone weapon or tool.
There's no such thing as the "Ithil-stone" or "Osgiliath-stone" or "Anor-stone" in the films. We book-readers may enjoy projecting into the script what we know from the texts, but non-book viewers cannot, and it seems like that is the only possible test of what is and isn't actually in the "film LotR universe".
I agree that it's no more likely that the huge, heavy, and round Osgiliath-stone was "rolled into the Sea" hundreds of miles along a muddy river bed, than that a small, heavy, and open Ring would have done so.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Jul 5 2017, 6:00pm
Post #78 of 323
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It seems to me that the films take the point of view that the Orthanc stone simply opens its users directly to the Eye that the film uses to personify Sauron. Saruman also uses the Stone to dominate Theoden, highlighting its role in the film as a kind of standalone weapon or tool.
You make some big assumptions here, based on no evidence whatsoever. Just because we never see Sauron with the Ithil-stone why should we suppose that he does not possess it? He has it in Tolkien's legendarium and there are no sequences that contradict this in the films. And how do you make any connection at all between King Théoden and the Seeing-stone of Orthanc? Yes, Saruman has it in his possession, but if he can use it to dominate Théoden then why doesn't he use it in the same fashion to dominate anyone else?
There's no such thing as the "Ithil-stone" or "Osgiliath-stone" or "Anor-stone" in the films. We book-readers may enjoy projecting into the script what we know from the texts, but non-book viewers cannot, and it seems like that is the only possible test of what is and isn't actually in the "film LotR universe".
Again, you make a bold claim based on nothing but your personal opinion. The Arnor-stone is at least hinted at by Denethor's madness and his knowledge of events beyond Minas Tirith. And I seem to recall that there was a prop Arnor-stone that could be seen in deleted footage. Granted, Denethor does not have it with him in Jackson's RotK when he burns to death. Plus, we have confirmation of a palantír in Dol Guldur in the Hobbit films. It makes much more sense to assume that it is one of the Seeing-stones of Gondor than to speculate about the lost stones of Arnor or ones invented specifically for the films.
"Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall.” -- The Doctor
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on Jul 5 2017, 6:07pm)
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Jul 5 2017, 6:24pm
Post #79 of 323
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I do understand your point, Squire
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Peter Jackson has made his own version of Middle-earth and it does not always line up with Tolkien's legendarium (some might insist that they 'seldom' line up--I'm looking at YOU, Wizzardly). However, the inclusion of the Orthanc-stone does at least imply the existence of the others. And there is the palantír of Dol Guldur which could be the one possessed by Saruman (which ought to be already stored in Isengard) or could be one of the missing stones.
"Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall.” -- The Doctor
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on Jul 5 2017, 6:28pm)
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squire
Half-elven
Jul 5 2017, 6:37pm
Post #80 of 323
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Actually, I'm subtracting assumptions, not making them; likewise, "no evidence whatsoever" is exactly my point.
I'm well aware that book readers, including myself, take pleasure from seeing in the films a host of background elements accurately adapted from the book that aren't strictly necessary for exposition of the film's story. But there are also a host of changes to the book, necessary in the producers' eyes at least, that make the film a different story from the book in small and large ways - changes that have fueled years of pleasant (usually) debate amongst fans.
Very many film fans have argued that some of the changes are even "better than in the book" or "make sense because after all it's a film, not a book". Such criticisms are only valid if the film is taken on its own terms, with its own story to tell and with every right to change and all aspects of the book as needed for filmic purposes.
My point in my post today, is that those changes should alert us to the nature of a film adaptation: nothing not seen in the film can be assumed to "be there", just because it was in the book, because there are obviously plenty of things that are in the film that aren't in the book. In other words, the changes cut both ways; we can't say, if we like it or want it, it must still be there, but if we don't like it or want it because it conflicts with the changes made in the script, it can't be there. If it's not on screen or in the dialogue, it's just no longer there in film terms.
Denethor's stone is a fine example. Yes, they tried to include it and outtakes exist. But in the end they omitted it, and the film works fine without it. It's no longer in the story, on purpose. To suppose it is "still there" somewhere in Minas Tirith, in unstated backstory to explain Denethor's odd behavior, even though it didn't get used, seen, or mentioned, just because after all it's in the book, is to, as you say, make a big assumption based on no evidence whatsoever.
Why does it have to be there, when Aragorn's character is changed, the Army of the Dead's role is changed, Denethor's death scene is changed, Gandalf's confrontation with the Witch-king is changed, etc. - when there is a host of changes, omissions, and additions to the entire structure of that part of the story compared to the book? Given all those changes, is the missing Anor-stone needed to understand this part of the film in any way? If so, then surely the film has made an error. Like any other film, adapted or original, its goal as a work of art must be to be viewed with complete enjoyment and understanding by anyone who has never read Tolkien's book. As far as I know, millions of such viewers (including, I dare say, the Academy Awards voters) have agreed that there is no Anor-stone in New Line's LotR: The Return of the King.
squire online:
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squire
Half-elven
Jul 5 2017, 6:46pm
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Thanks for this follow-up - my screed just above aside, I think you and I do understand the point in question. The Anor-stone "could be" there, to be sure, as could any number of other elements, in the imaginations of us book fans (Jackson has always maintained that if fans want to think so, Tom Bombadil "was in" the film, just not on film, so to speak!).
I guess in the end I'm arguing for more exact or qualified statements of counter-factuals when discussing the differences between film and book. Eruonen's continuing series here is taking such debates as an anchor to much of his book-commentary, so I am more sensitive to the subject than I have been in several years.
I don't see how the so-called Dol Guldur "palantir" fits into this discussion at all. There was never a palantir at Dol Guldur in any account that Tolkien wrote. You must be referring to a film-invention, which can hardly be used to argue for a non-film element "existing" in another film - if I make myself clear!
squire online:
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FarFromHome
Valinor
Jul 5 2017, 7:46pm
Post #82 of 323
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"They are not all accounted for, the lost Seeing Stones."
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"We do not know who else may be watching." This is Gandalf when he first sees Saruman's palantír. Gandalf goes to throw a cloth over the Stone, receiving a brief flash of the Eye as he does so, and by his expression showing that he now knows "who else" is watching via one of those "lost Seeing Stones". That seems a fair indication that Sauron is using a palantír, although it's only a brief reference. Still, even in the book the references to Sauron using a palantír are sparse.
It's true that later in the films, and especially from Frodo's point of view, the Eye seems to be unmediated by a palantír. But this is how it is in the book too. Frodo feels the Eye directly, as an Eye, with no indication that a palantír is involved:
“The Eye: that horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strove with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and earth, and flesh, and to see you: to pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable. So thin, so frail and thin, the veils were become that still warded it off. Frodo knew just where the present habitation and heart of that will now was: as certainly as a man can tell the direction of the sun with his eyes shut. He was facing it, and its potency beat upon his brow.” (The Passage of the Marshes)
Saruman also uses the Stone to dominate Theoden, highlighting its role in the film as a kind of standalone weapon or tool. I don't see this at all. In the scene you're referring to (I'm assuming the EE Voice of Saruman scene), what Saruman is doing is taunting Theoden with the evil things that he can see in the Stone. That's a perfectly standard use of a palantír, as far as I'm aware.
They went in, and Sam shut the door.
But even as he did so, he heard suddenly,
deep and unstilled,
the sigh and murmur of the Sea upon the shores of Middle-earth.
From the unpublished Epilogue to the Lord of the Rings
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Jul 5 2017, 7:52pm
Post #83 of 323
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I guess in the end I'm arguing for more exact or qualified statements of counter-factuals when discussing the differences between film and book. Eruonen's continuing series here is taking such debates as an anchor to much of his book-commentary, so I am more sensitive to the subject than I have been in several years.
I don't see how the so-called Dol Guldur "palantir" fits into this discussion at all. There was never a palantir at Dol Guldur in any account that Tolkien wrote. You must be referring to a film-invention, which can hardly be used to argue for a non-film element "existing" in another film - if I make myself clear!
I'm not sure that I am reading you clearly. I specifically indicated the Hobbit films, not Tolkien's The Hobbit, which are implicitly part of the same film-universe as Jackson's LotR trilogy. By mentioning Dol Guldur I am not going from Jackson's films to the books and back to the films. I am making a direct connection between one film trilogy and the other.
Now, in Tolkien's legendarium, the Orthanc-stone was kept at Isengard since the days of the kings. Saruman knew of it, but did not make use of the stone until about the year 3000. The point I was trying to make was, if we cannot assume with any certainty that Saruman's palantír (in-film) was recovered from a storeroom in Orthanc, then it might be the same Seeing-stone from Dol Guldur. Now, it could have also been stolen from Isengard in the first place; we have no way to be certain of its origin.
"Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand is where I fall.” -- The Doctor
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squire
Half-elven
Jul 5 2017, 8:22pm
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In the script, which I had referred to for references to the palantiri, it specifies that Saruman, when exorcised from Theoden by Gandalf at Edoras, is using the palantir.
[...Théoden is thrown back into the chair and the shot changes to Saruman flying backwards from the Palantír which he used to manipulate Théoden....] - Two Towers script on IMDB. But I forgot to check the film itself. The shot does not show the palantir in Orthanc at that point, just Saruman flying backwards etc. So (luckily for consistency with the book) the film-palantir actually is not used to dominate/possess distant people!
You also make a fair point about Gandalf's line to Saruman about the lost Stones, and the flash of Sauron's Eye. I'd missed that, and I'd have to say that arguably puts a Stone in Sauron's hands in the filmverse, even if no further reference is made to it. There is, I'm still pretty sure (!), no mention of where any of the other Stones were located, came from, etc.
squire online:
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Darkstone
Immortal
Jul 5 2017, 10:56pm
Post #85 of 323
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From http://www.tolkien-movies.com/...2001/11-24-01a.shtml
"I prefer to say it’s not so much that they never happened, as that those parts of the story just aren’t told in this film version.” A key character in Fellowship, for instance, Tom Bombadil, is gone; but he is part of “several false starts in Frodo’s journey, and you cannot have things happening quite so episodically; that’s not what film storytelling is all about.” She insists that to the actors and director, meeting with such characters as Bombadil surely took place. “We just don’t meet them.
“It’s not so much a case as dropping incidents or characters, as it is focusing: focusing on Frodo and Sam and the saga of the Ring.”
One is minded of the experience of fans of the movie Gone with the Wind, who are amazed to turn to the novel and find an additional husband for Scarlett and two extra children, that the film utterly ignores. It’s disheartening only until you recognized that those characters could (and do, in one’s imagination) easily live within the movie’s vivid world. We simply, well, “just don’t meet them,” and one’s enjoyment is not compromised. Walsh and Boyens clearly hope that Tolkien fans will react the same way to the character elusions in their film.
******************************************
"We’re orcs of the Misty Mountains,
Our singing’s part of canon.
We do routines and chorus scenes
While dancing with abandon.
We killed Isildur in the Gladden,
To help Sauron bring Armageddon!"
-From "Spamwise The Musical"
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Eruonen
Half-elven
Jul 6 2017, 2:20am
Post #86 of 323
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I inferred the same thing (which is also based on what we know from the book)
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- that Sauron has a palantir. Jackson's films are his vision, but they are derived from the books, so what is not presented in the films does not affect what knowledgeable book readers assume for themselves about the known world while watching the films. In the end, it does not matter - whatever works for the viewer is that persons experience.
I tend to think Frodo's possession of the Ring opens him up to Sauron as he get closer in proximity and has his will wears away.
Re:
"Eruonen's continuing series here is taking such debates as an anchor to much of his book-commentary, so I am more sensitive to the subject than I have been in several years. "
Hmm, I was not aware of that. Of course, debates and discussion occur with some post points, but my book commentary is focused more on those things that stand out to me upon reading - big, small and / or obscure but curious statements, etc.
(This post was edited by Eruonen on Jul 6 2017, 2:25am)
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Jul 6 2017, 2:46am
Post #87 of 323
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The palantiri mystery on first read
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I have wondered if after all the drama sourunding the Rings if it was a good plot move of Tolkiens to introduce another collection of lost or semi-lost ancient magical artificats. One wonders if there where any more magical group of items which Tolkien fails totally to tell us about.
I can still recall on first read being both confused and delighted by the palantiri. Confused, because it was rather late in the book to be introducing entirely new magical artifacts with all their attached mystery. But delighted for the same reason, because I wondered how many more magical mysteries would appear. That is the nice thing about fairy tales: they often feel like walking down a path where you are certain to encounter one magical apparition after another, things you'd never thought of before.
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Darkstone
Immortal
Jul 6 2017, 3:05am
Post #88 of 323
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Anyway, now we are coming up to the point where the palantir are introduced. A strange collection of things they are. I have wondered if after all the drama sourunding the Rings if it was a good plot move of Tolkiens to introduce another collection of lost or semi-lost ancient magical artificats. One wonders if there where any more magical group of items which Tolkien fails totally to tell us about.
"...and the crowns of seven kings, and the rods of the Five Wizards, and have purchased yourself a pair of boots many sizes larger than those that you wear now."
-The Voice of Saruman
I'm especially curious about where the heck Gandalf would be able to buy those boots. From an Ent bootmaker? A Stone Giant cobbler?
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Elves and Men and Dwarves gonna cower,
When I finish building my tower,
When I finish building my tower with the Eye on top!
Watch that Eye and see how it glowers,
Ain't no contest between the Two Towers,
Nosy folks'll peek thru' palantirs and their eyes will pop!
The battlement's black and immeasurably strong, an adamant mountain of iron,
A buttress of steel, impossibly tall, held aloft by the power of Sauron!
See that Eye a winkin' and blinkin',
Ain't no finer tower I'm thinkin',
You can keep Orthanc if you're thinkin' that I'd care to swap,
For my black and shiny tower with the Eye on the top!
-Rodgers and Hammerstein, The Lord of the Rings
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Eruonen
Half-elven
Jul 6 2017, 5:00am
Post #89 of 323
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Not a lot to say about this chapter - it tracks Frodo and Sam in Emyn Muil, Sam discovers his elven rope and its attributes and Gollum is eventually captured. The film portrtayed the scenes above well.
One sentence stood out - Frodo to Sam: "No, No, Sam you old ass!"
Frodo is being a bit critical of Sams rock scrambling/climbing skills. Losing patience and using (for Frodo) somewhat harsh language. Class distinction comes to mind. I don't know if Frodo would call Merry an ass.....he might want to call Pippin one, but I think he would hold his tongue. Sam, his gardner and bodyman / batman - as Tolkien described the model - "A batman is a soldier or airman assigned to a commissioned officer as a personal servant. Before the advent of motorized transport, an officer's batman was also in charge of the officer's "bat-horse" that carried the pack saddle with his officer's kit during a campaign." Frodo is a bit of Lord Crawley and Sam has the role of Mr. Bates (Downton Abbey)
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jul 6 2017, 10:27am
Post #90 of 323
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The Palantiri would appear to have been a mystery to their author too!
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I knew nothing of the Palantiri, though the moment the Orthanc-stone was cast from the window I recognized it, and knew the meaning of the 'rhyme of lore' that had been running through my mind: 'seven stars and seven stones and one white tree'.
JRR Tolkien in a 1955 letter to WH Auden, quoted by C Tolkien in HoME (commentary on The Voice of Saruman.
So I think we have one of those moments where JRRT appears to 'discover' something that definitely belongs in his story, and then has to figure out the details. (I mean this in contrast to an author realising the need for a particular object/place/character/thing first, and then consciously designing something suitable to fit.)
I sometimes think that something of this 'discovery' communicates itself to readers and contributes to making Middle-earth feel convincing while you read the story. JRRT sometimes seemed to have had to pay a price though, trying to work out how this new discovery fits into the existing world of Middle-earth. In the UT of the Palantiri, he's still trying to write a technical and historical background for the stones. When we last read-through that chapter, several of us (me, certainly) felt that JRRT was creating further 'fridge-logic' problems as rapidly as he was clearing them up.
I think JRRT had similar problems elsewhere - e.g. upon 'discovering' that Glorfindel was not just someone named Glorfindel, but was The Glorfindel, who JRRT knew perfectly well had died in Gondolin, and so couldn't be trotting down the road to meet Strider and the hobbits..
Another interesting palantir item from HoME - Christopher Tolkien points out that JRRT's 'recognition' of the Palantiri was not instantly complete, because in the first known draft, this happens:
He [Saruman] left the balcony. he had hardly turned away, when a heavy thing came hurtling down from above. It glanced off the parapet, narrowly missed Gandalf, and splintered into fragments on the rock beside the stair. It seemed to have been a large ball of dark shining crystal.
HoME Vol 8: Chapter:The Voice of Saruman. (Struck though effect shows JRRT's own amendments)
It's only in the next draft that the ball survives, and is foreshadowed as an object of importance.
~~~~~~
Where's that old read-through discussion?
A wonderful list of links to previous chapters in the 2014-2016 LOTR read-through (and to previous read-throughs) is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jul 6 2017, 12:04pm
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We get an interesting an important insight into Frodo's state of mind here
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While Frodo and Sam have to labour and strive to get towards Mordor, Frodo seems to have the nightmarish sense that he's the tool or instrument of fate. But, if he's being steered by Higher Powers, then which ones?:
‘I wonder’ said Frodo. ‘It is my doom, I think, to go to that shadow yonder, so that a way will be found. But will good or evil show it to me? What hope we had was in speed. Delay plays into the Enemy’s hands - and here I am: delayed. Is it the will of the Dark Tower that steers us? All my choices have proved ill.
Frodo's doubts are understandable given his recent Amon Hen experience ("He heard himself crying out: Never, never! Or was it: Verily I come, I come to you? He could not tell."). I think he's both striving to get to Mordor to destroy the Ring, and simultaneously being drawn there. Frodo's self-doubt, and the sense of being the focus of Powers both good and evil with a little wiggle-room for free will, are both things we'll see come up repeatedly in Book IV.
~~~~~~
Where's that old read-through discussion?
A wonderful list of links to previous chapters in the 2014-2016 LOTR read-through (and to previous read-throughs) is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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FarFromHome
Valinor
Jul 6 2017, 12:08pm
Post #93 of 323
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I don't think "you old ass" is actually harsh ....
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... I think it would come across as the kind of affectionate insult that comrades (or maybe schoolmates) would use with each other. Like saying "No no, you idiot, don't try that!" when you see your friend doing something crazy and dangerous. I think Frodo is not so much critical of Sam's skills as alarmed by his attempts to do something that's way too risky. Sam is always inclined to try to go first to "take the hit" for Frodo. In this case, with his fear of heights and no idea how to climb, he hasn't a chance, and Frodo is afraid he'll fall.
The "batman" thing sort of works, but Bag End was never Downton Abbey. In that world, there is a whole formal hierarchy of staff so it's a very different situation. Even though Mr Bates knows Lord Grantham from the war, when they did have a close working relationship, it causes jealousy and resentment with the rest of the staff when Bates is given a job they don't think he's earned. Perhaps it's more like Lord Peter Wimsey and his valet (and ex-batman) Bunter. Like Frodo, Lord Peter is a bachelor who needs only one servant, and the two work very closely together. There's an implication that Lord Peter is careful never to say anything undeservedly harsh to Bunter because he knows he can't answer back on the same terms. I suspect something similar is going on between Frodo and Sam. It's only at times like this, when there's clear and present danger, that Frodo has to put his foot down - and even then, as I read it, it's done with exasperated affection, not criticism.
(By the way, Tolkien was apparently a fan of Dorothy L. Sayers' detective stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and Bunter. He hated the ones where Lord Peter falls in love with a lady detective story writer though!  )
They went in, and Sam shut the door.
But even as he did so, he heard suddenly,
deep and unstilled,
the sigh and murmur of the Sea upon the shores of Middle-earth.
From the unpublished Epilogue to the Lord of the Rings
(This post was edited by FarFromHome on Jul 6 2017, 12:10pm)
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Eruonen
Half-elven
Jul 6 2017, 3:25pm
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(Grantham of course, not Crawley).
In fact, in the next chapter, Frodo shows how dear Sam is to him calling him his closest friend.
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Eruonen
Half-elven
Jul 6 2017, 3:36pm
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This is another example of what I brought up in another thread earlier this year -
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the idea that much of this story "came to Tolkien" - almost like it
was already written and he is discovering it. A literary Platonic realm of ideas / forms:
"Plato’s Realms of Forms
Plato had a different view. He believed that the answer to this question was that there is certain truth, but that this material world cannot reveal it. It can only present appearances, which lead us to form opinions, rather than knowledge. The truth is to be found elsewhere, on a different plane, in the non-material world of ideas or forms. For Plato, in order for something to be real, it had to be permanent and unchanging. Reality and perfection for Plato were closely related."
I assume that everyone experiences insights or flashes of images that can inspire a story or a particular scene. The source of those flashes of creativity - the mere firing of brain neurons or is the brain like a tv and is tuned into a signal? An age old debate.
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Jul 7 2017, 2:27pm
Post #96 of 323
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Palantiri popping out of nowhere, just like Faramir
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The wording there reminded me of Tolkien in his Letter about Faramir:
A new character has come on the scene (I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him, though I like him, but there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien): Faramir, the brother of Boromir – and he is holding up the ‘catastrophe’ by a lot of stuff about the history of Gondor and Rohan (with some very sound reflections no doubt on martial glory and true glory): but if he goes on much more a lot of him will have to be removed to the appendices –
Tolkien, J.R.R.. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Kindle Locations 1682-1684). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition. I'm so glad Faramir didn't wind up in an appendix! It's funny how JRR almost sounds like he's being held hostage by his inventions. Faramir is practically bossing him about, and those palantiri needed so much explanation about how they worked, didn't they?
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jul 7 2017, 3:45pm
Post #97 of 323
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"The book is the boss" Alfred Bester
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When I'm asked why I decided to write the sort of thing I do write, I always think the question is more revealing than any answer I could give. Wrapped up in it, like the chewy stuff in the centre of a Tootsie Pop, is the assumption that the writer controls the material instead of the other way around...
...Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer's job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible.
Stephen King, On Writing - a memoir of the craft
King elaborates this extensively, including giving the Alfred Bester quote I used as a title. He does admit that the above isn't true for all writers and writing - allegories presumably start with the idea of allegorising a thing, and inventing (say) some talking animals on a farm as the way to do it. But I note the similarities between King's "fossil-hunting" and JRRT's 'recognition'.
To my mind, the 'fossils' are stuff from the writer's subconscious: the minarilised remains of life events, or expressions of the primal concerns we all might share. But that's quite close to the earlier idea that the 'fossils' pre-exist like Platonic forms: maybe it's the same idea in a different analogy.
~~~~~~
Where's that old read-through discussion?
A wonderful list of links to previous chapters in the 2014-2016 LOTR read-through (and to previous read-throughs) is curated by our very own 'squire' here http://users.bestweb.net/...-SixthDiscussion.htm
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Eruonen
Half-elven
Jul 7 2017, 4:40pm
Post #98 of 323
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Exactly, which is what explains some of Tolkien's interesting comments.
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"Stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world."
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Eruonen
Half-elven
Jul 7 2017, 6:05pm
Post #99 of 323
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The Passage of the Dead Marshes
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In reading this chapter, I was once again surprised how my memory was affected by the films. I thought for certain that Frodo fell into a pool and had to be pulled out....wrong. Though he is affected, he did not stumble.
The faces of the dead - not substantial, just phantasms of some sort - have an unclear cause. The marshes have extended over the centuries per Gollum and now cover old graves.
Multiple battles took place in the area and so the dead from all of those were buried near the marshes.
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Dead_Marshes
(This post was edited by Eruonen on Jul 7 2017, 6:05pm)
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Jul 7 2017, 6:07pm
Post #100 of 323
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yes, I know that's infuriating. But to carry on: I was thinking about how Tolkien didn't just tinker with what he wrote, he would profoundly reshape it. Coming prominently to mind is how Trotter, the hobbit with wooden feet, morphed into Aragorn, the Prince Arthur type with lineage all the way back to the First Age. That's not just giving Trotter copper feet or a new name, and he made lots of changes everywhere and contemplated others (such as the significant change in Galadriel's backstory of going from one of the Noldor rebels to someone who left Valinor pre-rebellion, so she'd be "unstained"). So maybe in the initial creative process people walked out of Ithilien into his story, unsummoned and uninvited, but later, he would take control of them and transform them into anything that suited his feelings.
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