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Compa_Mighty
Tol Eressea
Dec 8 2013, 3:43am
Post #1 of 25
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Thranduil, Thingol, and the relation of the Sindarin of Beleriand and the East...
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Hello, dear forummers! I look to your wisdom to solve a doubt that I got in my most recent listening of The Hobbit on audiobook.
When Tolkien first describes "the Elven King" and his people, he goes on to write a short description of their history, which involves not having gone to Faerie (Valinor) and thus not being as wise as the Elves from the West, the Noldor. My question here is what relation Thranduil and the Elves from Mirkwood have with Thingol and the Sindarin of Beleriand.
Thanks!
Visit Mexico from A to Z! Index to the whole series here.
Essay winner of the Show us your Hobbit Pride Giveway!
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squire
Half-elven
Dec 8 2013, 12:11pm
Post #2 of 25
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The Elven King is Thingol, but Thranduil is not
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When writing The Hobbit, Tolkien didn't much care whether his re-use of his own characters and stories from the Silmarillion legends was consistent or exact. So the 'Elven King' (who is never named) resembles Thingol in so many particulars (how his palace worked and looked, the necklace dispute with the dwarves) that one might as well call him Thingol and be done - Thingol, that is, in what Tolkien called "another state of imagination".
By the time The Lord of the Rings had been completed, Tolkien had discovered that the world of LotR (and by extension the world of The Hobbit) were continuations of the Silmarillion cycle into a later age. The Thingol angle in The Hobbit was shut down and the King given the name Thranduil.
His folk got demoted too. In The Hobbit they are called Wood-elves but described in terms that match the Sindarin of Beleriand (those who went west but never crossed the Sea). LotR is rather vague about their origins, as we might expect when Tolkien is changing the terms of his world in front of our eyes. But in his notes published in Unfinished Tales the Elves of Mirkwood are described as "Silvan" (i.e., "Wood") Elves living much further to the East than Beleriand with a Sindarin ("Grey Elven" or "Twilight Elven" - The Hobbit does not use these terms) ruler from Beleriand named Thranduil -- who is definitely not Thingol.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
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squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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Fredeghar Wayfarer
Lorien
Dec 8 2013, 11:08pm
Post #4 of 25
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Yes, the Silvan Elves and the Sindar are related. They are both branches of the Elf kindred known as the Teleri. In The Silmarillion and other works, it's explained that this kindred split into many smaller groups. Some of them went to Valinor and became the Falmari, greatest of shipbuilders. Some remained in Middle-earth searching for their lost lord (Thingol) and became the Sindar. And some did not cross the Misty Mountains, becoming a rustic country folk called the Nandor. The Nandor were the ancestors of the Silvan Elves.
In the revised version, it's thought that Thranduil was probably at Doriath (Thingol's realm) in the First Age due to the similarity to his own halls in The Hobbit. He may even have been a kinsman of Thingol. But this has never been confirmed. In any case, he is inspired by Thingol both within the story and in reality.
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Hamfast Gamgee
Tol Eressea
Dec 8 2013, 11:45pm
Post #5 of 25
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Depends on your definition of wise
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The Noldor might have seen the light of the trees, been better at inventing alphabets, mighty swords, poetry, condemning yourself and your sons to eternal damnation, talking to the Valar etc. But the Sindar might have been better at hiding in woods, surviving in forests, been more at one with nature and wisdom of a more earthly and practical kind. Wisdom does come in many shapes and forms.
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Dec 9 2013, 4:01pm
Post #6 of 25
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The Noldor might have seen the light of the trees, been better at inventing alphabets, mighty swords, poetry, condemning yourself and your sons to eternal damnation, talking to the Valar etc.
How does that sound on a resume/CV? "I'm good at forging swords and making pretty jewels, and also excel at condemning myself to eternal damnation. That's why your job opening grabbed my interest."
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Hamfast Gamgee
Tol Eressea
Dec 10 2013, 12:09am
Post #7 of 25
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I have heard this before, and I have wondered if all of the actions of the Noldor count under the wisdom category!
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Plurmo
Rohan
Dec 10 2013, 2:24am
Post #8 of 25
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I wonder if Thranduil, or rather what came to be known as Thranduil,
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was an early draft of Thingol. It seems that Thranduil could not keep the Nan Dungortheb of his realm apart from its Neldoreth. But Thingol had Melian to keep those two archetypal places from mingling. This sort of ordering, of perfecting, especially through female balance, speaks of refinement of a baser primal character. Thranduil, even though he was a bit tamed in The Hobbit, is a veritable First Age elven powerhouse. I doubt Tolkien would call him an elven king had he not been one of the mighty at the time of his conception. But then that's my impression, not based on true information about Tolkien's writing process. Just an unwarranted guess. A chance to condemn myself to eternal damnation along the Noldor...
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ElendilTheShort
Gondor
Dec 12 2013, 7:13am
Post #9 of 25
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described his use of wisdom in this context as knowledge not the other more common use of the word.
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Annael
Immortal
Dec 17 2013, 4:23pm
Post #10 of 25
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there are people who argue that the invention of the alphabet led inevitably to a separation with nature. Once people could write ideas down the ideas could live as abstract concepts unrelated to experience, and then the ancient philosophers like Plato said that hey, abstract concepts are the purest things, real life is tainted, an idea which other philosophers like Descartes took and ran with, leading to the Enlightenment, a big backlash from the Romantics, and the current valuing of "science" over intuitive, emotional ways of knowing (although the quantum physicists are challenging that . . .). All because of letters. David Abram makes this argument in The Spell of the Sensuous if you're interested.
But he's not nearly as funny in how he says it. 
The way we imagine our lives is the way we are going to go on living our lives.
- James Hillman, Healing Fiction
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NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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Hamfast Gamgee
Tol Eressea
Dec 19 2013, 12:40am
Post #11 of 25
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But I don't think I would go quite that far! 
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Gurtholfin
Bree
Dec 20 2013, 4:05am
Post #12 of 25
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I knew that Oropher (Thranduil's father) was at Doriath, but here's what I found about Thranduil himself...
From LOTR wiki:
"Thranduil was the only son of Oropher. He was born sometime during the beginning of the First Age and lived in Doriath with Thingol and Melian before its fall. At the beginning of the Second Age, Thranduil lived in Lindon with Gil-galad while his father lived in Greenwood. After Oropher died in the war of Last Alliance, Thranduil went east to claim his inheritance and sometime before TA 1000 he established a kingdom in Greenwood the Great. In the spring he wore a crown of woodland flowers; in the autumn of berries and red leaves. He carried a carven staff of oak."
LOTR wiki is your friend.
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Gurtholfin
Bree
Dec 20 2013, 4:07am
Post #13 of 25
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that it's accurate.
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squire
Half-elven
Dec 20 2013, 9:24pm
Post #15 of 25
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As Gurtholfin warns us, articles like this are accurate except when they aren't. A wiki is by definition a user-contributed reference work with fact-checking by other users on a random basis. You as a reader have to decide how seriously to take the information, based on previous experiences with the wiki.
In this case, most of the info on "Thranduil" is taken from The Hobbit (where, as noted before, he is not called Thranduil as the name had not been invented yet). I'd say most of it is about right, to my memory. But the wiki writers' interpretations seem at times to be a little off-key:
"Subsequently, when the rest of the dwarves had been captured by the elves, Thranduil had them unbound and treated them as his guests (save that they were not allowed to leave the caverns), until they angered him by being surly and impolite, insulting him for keeping them as prisoners, and not revealing why they had entered the forest, after which he gave them each their own cell." LotR Wiki, "Thranduil: The Quest of Erebor" at http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Thranduil
If you've read The Hobbit (pp. 183-84), you might disagree with parts of the above plot summary; it seems to me to badly misread the meaning of the text.
It's also noticeable that the material on the First and Second Age is unsourced - I believe the information given is taken from Unfinished Tales, but it would be worthwhile to check. This writer may have gotten it from other secondary reference sources - certainly UT is not given in the citations as a source for information on Thranduil, which is an unfortunate omission.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd (and NOW the 4th too!) TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion; and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
= Forum has no new posts. Forum needs no new posts.
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Grimbeorn
The Shire
Dec 20 2013, 10:21pm
Post #16 of 25
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From the Encyclopedia of Arda entry for Thranduil:
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Footnote #3
"The text of Appendix B to The Lord of the Rings seems to imply that Thranduil was himself the founder of the kingdom of Elves in Greenwood the Great. However, later writings challenge this assumption, suggesting that Thranduil travelled eastward with his father, Oropher, who was the original ruler of the woodland realm. According to this source, Thranduil did not become king until the loss of Oropher in the War of the Last Alliance at the end of the Second Age. Whether this account should be considered canonical is open to question; for full details refer to Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth II 4 The History of Galadriel and Celeborn Appendix B."
http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/t/thranduil.html
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N.E. Brigand
Half-elven
Dec 20 2013, 11:31pm
Post #17 of 25
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TORN's character articles can also be helpful.
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As handy resources when you don't have the books nearby. This is the one for the Elvenking. It's nice to see it hasn't been rewritten yet to account for all of the movie's ideas. One error jumps out in the first sentence: read "northeast" for "northwest"!
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Discuss Tolkien's life and works in the Reading Room!
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How to find old Reading Room discussions.
(This post was edited by N.E. Brigand on Dec 20 2013, 11:32pm)
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Grimbeorn
The Shire
Dec 21 2013, 12:58pm
Post #24 of 25
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Regarding the encyclopedia (with apologies...
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...for continuing off-topic).
The EoA is still being updated; the most recent just yesterday (December 20 -- 68 entries updated).
CoH and HoMe are now part of the bibliography (relating to previous Reading Room mentions [circa 2007-2008] back when these works weren't referenced by the EoA).
EoA Bibliography
I do beg your pardon for the OT, but I thought you might be interested in the state of its upkeep* since you said it had been a few years.
(*I do realize it is just one source among many, but I've always found it reliable as a dowsing rod, if you will, to the Tolkien legendarium, and especially convenient since the advent of the mobile apps.)
Cheers.
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Elthir
Grey Havens
Dec 22 2013, 8:46pm
Post #25 of 25
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I think that stating [not that you did of course] that the Tawarwaith of Mirkwood are Sindarin is a bit too misleading in any case.
At the time The Hobbit was written one could draw the conclusion that they were those 'Sea Elves' [JDR, History of The Hobbit] who did not pass over sea, and so draw a line to the 'Sindar' in one sense; but on the other hand I think this possibly misrepresents the seemingly intended 'rustic' nature of these Elves, both at the time The Hobbit was written, and with respect to the later scenario of Sindar versus Nandor [who are still both from the wider Telerin clan too].
I would say Ilkorins if 'as conceived at the time The Hobbit was written' is meant. Although only HME readers will 'get' that even if correct enough.
Anyway later Tolkien called the Mirkwoodians 'East-elves' in The Lord of the Rings. That seems safe.
Or just Tawarwaith
(This post was edited by Elthir on Dec 22 2013, 8:54pm)
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Haha! Excellent Elizabeth!!!! I needed that laugh //
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