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The One Ring Forums: Tolkien Topics: Movie Discussion: The Hobbit:
Peter Jackson frees ourselves out of Tolkien's obsession with battles
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Morthoron
Gondor


Dec 16 2014, 5:45pm

Post #26 of 41 (307 views)
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Your feelings are misplaced.... [In reply to] Can't Post

And I am not entirely sure why you even bother commenting on the books or the films if you are so appalled by the content of either. In fact, your entire argument is a head-scratcher. You want to demonize Tolkien for writing books that have been loved the world over for almost a century, yet you want to canonize Jackson who brought Tolkien's story to the screen with his "wonderful images", even though he has multiplied the violence in the movies far beyond anything Tolkien wrote?
Poor Peter Jackson! Forced by cruel fate to be dragged kicking and screaming and told in no uncertain terms that he must film Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, those evil books! Jackson can't be responsible for what Tolkien wrote, but he must film the books even though he, for obvious moral reasons, should hate filming them, and he should hate the books themselves.

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Of course Peter Jackson shares something of Tolkien's battles he puts on screen, but he and his crew put on screen much more than Tolkien's words and Tolkien's wars. Get a look at Laketown and all of the other sets. Did Tolkien wrote about those sets more than few lines ?


Oh, at least you admit that Jackson shares SOME responsibility for what he puts on screen. Crazy
As far as Laketown, Tolkien made precise drawings, as he did of the Shire, Beorn's House, the ElvenKing's demesne, and Erebor. Again, your lack of research lead me to believe you are completely misinformed. I would suggest you read Tolkien's letters to get a better idea of how and why he wrote his stories. Otherwise, you are confusing to say the least.






Please visit my blog...The Dark Elf File...a slighty skewed journal of music and literary comment, fan-fiction and interminable essays.



Milieuterrien
Rohan

Dec 16 2014, 7:11pm

Post #27 of 41 (299 views)
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Writing this, I realize [In reply to] Can't Post

that Erebor's Gold has certainly something to do with the Gold mines of South Africa, since there has really been there a war for gold.

That war for gold wasn't the WWI. It was named the Boer War. Tolkien grew up in England, but he was born as an english boy in 1892 in Bloemfountain, a town which became the capital of the free (boer) state of Orange, the free state the english army crushed because not far from there, in the north, were found the mightiest gold mines ever found
And Tolkien's father certainly knew something about it, because he had been promoted... chief of the Bank of Africa for the region. But three years only after John Reuald's birth, in april 1895, his mother left South Africa, regaining England with her son. His father didn't come with them : he stayed in South Africa, where he died only one year after.

There had already been a first war for gold in Transvaal and Orange at those times. The Boers were colons from the Netherlands who had taken arms and victoriously separated themselves from the British Dominion in 1881.
But in 1886, gold was found in those Northern regions of South Africa. Within 10 years, 60 000 expatriate came from all British empire to Johannesburg, where the mines were found. That was twice the number of the native Transvaalers, called the burghers.
No surprise that a second war was in the making, as soon as the english tried to trigger an uprising among those british expatriate workers against the Boers ; it failed for a while, but that was the 'climate' that led Tolkien's mother to ship back to England.

When JRR Tolkien grew older, he didn't know much of what happened, but this story of a huge mountain of gold have been a part of his own story, and that's why he felt the desire to tell something about it to his own son.
But what he couldn't do was to speak directly about the historical events of the Transvaal/Orange, but he could understand most of it once he became an adult. His father having been a banker there, JRR Tolkien just couldn't ignore this part of his past.


Milieuterrien
Rohan

Dec 16 2014, 7:34pm

Post #28 of 41 (284 views)
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When I make researches, i always prefer looking into the real history [In reply to] Can't Post

... than in fictional reflections of the background they give.

If you want to know, i made some years ago a trip in England to see some places that are known - or less known - to have inspire Tolkien. I came to Birmingham, saw the bog where he played being young. tried to approach the old mill that inspired him The Shire, but didn't find it (It hasn't yet become the museum it is now).
I photographed the Two Towers which standed, and still stand, in his neighborhood. The cities (Leeds, Oxford) where he had been a teacher. The tidal wave that may have inspired him the Bruinen flow. Some caves in some hills where miners search precious stone.
Some castle nearby evoking Helm's Deep, some Abbey evoking Rivendell, some labyrinthic rocky area evoking Emyn Muil, some Library in Oxford evoking Gandalf's old manuscripts. Some Stone fields near Leeds evoking the troll's turned stone. Some ladder leading up to black-scorched lands called the Moors dotted with 'Tors' and evoking Mordor.

That's what I like. The real world. Landscapes I can travel through, breathing air, finding hazelnuts.
As Ian McKellen states recently, England (and furthermore the Midlands) is the real Middle-Earth.

Not that I don't like New Zealand landscapes, where I would be glad to travel in search of Peter Jackson's filming locations
Not that I don't like Weta's CGI landscapes, that I someday will be able to see wide screen in my apartment

But what I surely don't like is real wars.
And what I may don't like is people committing themselves in assertions as if they pretend to know the reality of the world after exploring a fictional world.


Morthoron
Gondor


Dec 16 2014, 7:40pm

Post #29 of 41 (290 views)
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Please provide a shred of evidence.... [In reply to] Can't Post

Any historical documentation, a footnote, an aside, a casual comment to bolster your inaccurate assumption. You will not find it. And your bias against Tolkien, bordering on obsession, is troubling as it is incorrect to say the least.


Tolkien was three when he left South Africa. His father died when he was three and his mother died when he was twelve. Any influence from South African affairs would be minimal in the extreme. The idea of the dragon and the horde of gold were derived from Tolkien's Anglo-Saxon studies (Beowulf being a primary influence), and his love of Norse myth (like the Volsunga Saga, Nibelungenlied and the Eddas).


Rather than pulling assumptions from thin air, do some research. Read a book or two.

Please visit my blog...The Dark Elf File...a slighty skewed journal of music and literary comment, fan-fiction and interminable essays.



Milieuterrien
Rohan

Dec 16 2014, 8:05pm

Post #30 of 41 (281 views)
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And you, try to show me evidence [In reply to] Can't Post

.. that norse myths could have any better connections to Tolkien's life than the lost history of his own family, regarding to a certain mountain of Gold desired by many peoples leading to a war.
After the death of his mother, Tolkien had nobody to talk with about his own father. So he went into inventing : Maybe Volsunga, Nibelungen or Eddas, I don't care, I won't scratch my head where I can't put my shoe.


Morthoron
Gondor


Dec 16 2014, 8:10pm

Post #31 of 41 (278 views)
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Okay... [In reply to] Can't Post

Read Tolkien's Letters (available on Amazon), read his biography by Humphrey Carpenter, read the books by Thomas Shippey, read the academic research by Verlyn Flieger.


I've studied Tolkien and Middle-earth for over 40 years. Get back to me when you catch up; otherwise, stop making libelous accusations without any documentation.

Please visit my blog...The Dark Elf File...a slighty skewed journal of music and literary comment, fan-fiction and interminable essays.



Milieuterrien
Rohan

Dec 16 2014, 8:38pm

Post #32 of 41 (274 views)
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Thank you for the advice [In reply to] Can't Post

So sorry we didn't meet 40 years ago.
My own advice would surely have been not to spend 40 years of a lifetime studying the fictional world of one author and ending asking others to imitate.
In my opinion, there is a life - an even a world - outside Tolkien, and i stay comfortable with it.


Morthoron
Gondor


Dec 17 2014, 12:32am

Post #33 of 41 (269 views)
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I have a Degree in English lit.... [In reply to] Can't Post

And another in Medieval History. Believe me, Tolkien is only one of my favorite authors. Would you prefer to argue about Victor Hugo or Umberto Eco?
And I am not asking for imitation, merely that you research an author you are making assumptions and accusations regarding.

Please visit my blog...The Dark Elf File...a slighty skewed journal of music and literary comment, fan-fiction and interminable essays.



demnation
Rohan

Dec 17 2014, 1:59am

Post #34 of 41 (252 views)
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I've returned from my months long sabbatical [In reply to] Can't Post

only to say that nothing about this makes any sense.

"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule." Gandalf, "The Last Debate."


Bumblingidiot
Rohan

Dec 17 2014, 2:55pm

Post #35 of 41 (243 views)
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Your history is rather selective. [In reply to] Can't Post

First, the Boer wars were rather more complicated than 'a war for gold'. Also, the Burghers weren't native to Transvaal - they were recent settlers. The Boers were a group of slave owning strict protestant farmers - they objected to British rule, after the Cape was handed over to the British by the Dutch. One of the bones of contention was that the Boers were great fans of slavery, and resented Britain's anti-slavery laws. The 'freedom' the Boers were seeking was the freedom to impose their own racially segregated society on the native Africans - something they managed to do right up to recent times.

The whole area at the time was a complex mix of trading interests, tribal wars, border disputes, and shifting alliances, all mixed in with the actions of individual adventurers and prospectors for diamonds and gold. On top of that, were the effects of religious - Christian - missionary activity, and the changing moral landscape of colonial Europe. There weren't good sides and bad sides, although the Boers certainly have little claim to any moral high ground. And it wasn't just a case of European colonial oppression - Zulu expansion was also destructive and ruthless.

So, did Tolkien base The Hobbit on this complex situation? If so, who is Sauron? - the leader of the slave-owning Boers, perhaps? Who are the dwarves reclaiming their gold? - the native tribes, ousted from their own territory, either by conquest or deprivation of rights?

And why would Tolkien bother to reference this, just because he'd spent three years of his life there, that he'd have little memory of? Why not reference the things he was truly and professionally passionate about - European myths and language?


In Reply To
that Erebor's Gold has certainly something to do with the Gold mines of South Africa, since there has really been there a war for gold.

"certainly" as in "I've just made that up"? And, incidentally, it was rather more complicated than "a war for gold".

That war for gold wasn't the WWI. It was named the Boer War. Tolkien grew up in England, but he was born as an english boy in 1892 in Bloemfountain, a town which became the capital of the free (boer) state of Orange, the free state the english army crushed because not far from there, in the north, were found the mightiest gold mines ever found

And Tolkien's father certainly knew something about it, because he had been promoted... chief of the Bank of Africa for the region. But three years only after John Reuald's birth, in april 1895, his mother left South Africa, regaining England with her son. His father didn't come with them : he stayed in South Africa, where he died only one year after.

There had already been a first war for gold in Transvaal and Orange at those times. The Boers were colons from the Netherlands who had taken arms and victoriously separated themselves from the British Dominion in 1881.
But in 1886, gold was found in those Northern regions of South Africa. Within 10 years, 60 000 expatriate came from all British empire to Johannesburg, where the mines were found. That was twice the number of the native Transvaalers, called the burghers.
No surprise that a second war was in the making, as soon as the english tried to trigger an uprising among those british expatriate workers against the Boers ; it failed for a while, but that was the 'climate' that led Tolkien's mother to ship back to England.

When JRR Tolkien grew older, he didn't know much of what happened, but this story of a huge mountain of gold have been a part of his own story, and that's why he felt the desire to tell something about it to his own son.
But what he couldn't do was to speak directly about the historical events of the Transvaal/Orange, but he could understand most of it once he became an adult. His father having been a banker there, JRR Tolkien just couldn't ignore this part of his past.


"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear."


Milieuterrien
Rohan

Dec 17 2014, 4:48pm

Post #36 of 41 (235 views)
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The facts are : [In reply to] Can't Post

  • There wouldn't have been thousands of 'Uitlanders' in Transvall and so, nobody to ignite war, without the Gold suddenly found there
  • England went into war because they didn't want the Germans trading with free Transvaal and Orange as it was near to be.
  • Tolkien was born in that region where his father died, so it's a perpetual part of his personal story
  • Tolkien lost his two parents before growing adult, so he had to find himself some imaginary past to have a grip on
  • Most probably his mother didn't talk very much of what happened in NZ to her young son, waiting form him to be adult to do so
  • Tolkien's father's job had much to do with gold, because in that era, banksters were keepers of gold reserves.

Put this together, and you have more than one reason for Tolkien to keep something alive into his memory and to transmit it to his son.
I just asked if Beowulf or the other references anywhere gave special connexion to that special quest for gold and war for gold we have in Bilbo.
And even if so, would these legends have erased that personal connexion Tolkien had with his own 'family arc' ?
It's known that Tolkien had been an avid reader of many myths and legends when he was young and fatherless. But when he was a kid, wasn't South Africa for him like a far & legendary kingdom plenty of sun and riches (Arda), lost forever when he understood he had stay in foggy and dusty and cold Birmingham ?
Come on. It's not as if he had been educated by factual elves and werewolves. Or do you really believe so ??


Bumblingidiot
Rohan

Dec 18 2014, 5:42pm

Post #37 of 41 (221 views)
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She and King's Solomon's Mines and Beowulf. [In reply to] Can't Post

Those texts contain: dragon, stealing of the cup, underground passage, chamber full of gold, lonely mountain, also seems to contain a prototypical Galadriel. Tolkien's influences were multiple and his passion was for the written word - particularly mythological and adventure texts, and of course philological sources. Of course he also referenced his own life experience, particularly of the countryside and the natural world.

And of course he wasn't obsessed with battles. That assertion is ridiculous. Both The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings are very light on actual fighting. Tolkien was a storyteller - stories rely on a degree of tension and primary sources of tension in stories have always been conflict situations. If your stories are set in - or based on - the ancient world, then war is likely to be a major source of conflict. If you read the books, you will notice that Tolkien concerns himself less with the mechanics of war and more with its effects, both direct and indirect, on those who live in its shadow.

As for the other issue, I was merely pointing out that your depiction of history was simplistic and inaccurate.

The last sentence in your post makes no sense, by the way. I have no idea what it was supposed to mean, so can't answer it.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear."

(This post was edited by Bumblingidiot on Dec 18 2014, 5:54pm)


Milieuterrien
Rohan

Dec 18 2014, 8:00pm

Post #38 of 41 (213 views)
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The question is not to wonder if Tolkien had read legends [In reply to] Can't Post

which inspired and colored his writings, the question for me is to understand why in the first place he prefered chose to be inspired by legends instead of real histories.

For me the answer is simple : he has been cut from most of his own story at an early age.

Now look at the map of 'Middle-Earth' : it is the south part of a large continent... roughly similar to South Africa : most of where the adventures of Bilbo and Frodo happen sets in central a section of Middle-Earth which is similar to the position of Orange State (cap. Bloemfountain, where JRR Tolkien was born).

And if you put the Shire somewhere in Orange State, the Transvaal and its 'mountain of Gold' sets pretty well on the NW, at the place occuped by... Erebor... As well as the 'Grey Havens' on the South Coast, at a place occupied by... Capetown, from where young Tolkien sailed to Great Britain, not to come back ever. Even at age three, you don't forget all about a great sea travel, coming back a far island where the 'elves' came from. Elves that are supposed to be immortal, except when they unfortunely die like Tolkien's father did.

Something to add : everywhere northernly, South Africa was still occupied by.. black people. Then consider that Christian education in the XiXth century explained that some people were black, like zulus, because they 'fell from grace'... Then came the Boers war, between afrikaans and England, Young Tolkien necessarily heard about, for he was around 10 years old at this age and came from this very country : somewhat, talking about dwarves and elves was a comfortable way no to talk about south Africa.

No TV then, so young Tolkien didn't know much of that country except out of books and some maps.
Dragons and Solomons haven't got to stay behind every legend written about the real Earth.


Bumblingidiot
Rohan

Dec 19 2014, 8:33am

Post #39 of 41 (211 views)
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It's impossible to take your arguments seriously now. [In reply to] Can't Post

The icy wastes of the north are based on the Kalahari Desert? There's a bit in Unfinished Tales or the Silmarilion where ships sailing north get stuck in the ice floes and rescued by people that resemble the peoples of the polar region. In ME, it gets hotter as you go south, not north, and we know that Tolkien based his invented land on Europe. Anyway, I don't mind taking part in ridiculous discussions occasionally. But I can't play any more - I will become extremely sarcastic if I do, which will violate the TOS of this site.

We may as well be discussing the theory that Tolkien and Lewis were the same person, and were never seen together in the same room. The levels of evidence are similar.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear."


Milieuterrien
Rohan

Dec 19 2014, 11:12am

Post #40 of 41 (205 views)
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There is seriousness, and there is basic geography [In reply to] Can't Post

What you can't do is changing geography.

You may imagine that Middle-Earth is in fact Europe, but where is its Italy, its Spain, its France, its North Sea ?
The fact is that morphologically, ME resembles SA more than Europe.

Of course we know that the Shire is inspired by central England, for Tolkien lived for a while in a cottage named 'Bag End', when he was back from the war in France and had to recover from his wounds.
In that region too he was interested by a golden ring with ancient characters engraved, that had recently been discovered in an Estate nearby, and as I stated before he found in England many inspiring spots for his stories.

But obviously enough, Middle-Earth is not England. It is much larger, and much more continental. Didn't Tolkien insist enough on how big it is ? His heroes keep walking during weeks and weeks...
So we have South Africa candidating for a bit of Middle-Earth global structure. Why not ? Wasn't Tolkien just born there ? Didn't he leave this country with almost all his family ?

If we look further, you can find at the East of the former 'Orange Free State' a region which escaped european colonialism. It is now called Lesotho and it's a little independant country populated by african people.
About ten years before JRR Tolkien's birth, a war happened between the colonists and those people, when the colonists demanded that they renounce to be armed. They didn't accept and they even killed a batallion of experienced english troops
The country where those people lived was - and still is - a mountainous enclave. So english colonists and afrikaans as well renounced to uphold it. For a while this enclave was considered by a potential menace if all black people around would unite and take it as a base.
This fear of black people among europeans living in SA finally gave way to Apartheid. It is not so fun, but it could as well give a hint of what Mordor could be for few white colonists settling in this country.

Then the question of the 'arctic side' stays obviously left opened, What you can notice is that Tolkien avoided the subject. In the North of SA too, there are lands unsuitable for agriculture. Not because they are too cold, but because they are too hot and desertic.

Of course nobody can ignore the difference between Northern Hemisphere (where England is), and Southern (where SA is). But if you wish to somewhat mix those two lands, you have to invent a new one. A fictive country that is nor the North of the Earth, nor the South of the Earth, but something in-between.
That could be a fairly good definition for 'Middle-Earth'.

Think about it a little bit and then let your sarcasms flow, if it is where your pleasure stays Cool

Personaly I don't care much about them for I'm not pretending to be a scholar on this subject and I'll never do.
And I didn't spend many years searching in books, because it just happens that as a matter of taste I prefer to look at maps.


Bumblingidiot
Rohan

Dec 21 2014, 12:13pm

Post #41 of 41 (190 views)
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All I can say is I prefer Tolkien's fantasy writing to yours. [In reply to] Can't Post

 

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear."

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