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LittleHobbit
Lorien
Apr 16 2016, 9:51pm
Post #1 of 14
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The Battle of THE Five Armies? Or...
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The most nitpicky thread of all time.
I was just wondering now, why did Jackson add an extra ''THE'' to the title? In the book, the battle is referred simply as Battle of Five Armies. Why take an (seemingly) unnecessary departure from the book, and change even the very title?
I know what you're thinking. ''Gee, of all the changes Jackson made in the movies, you are asking about this one?''. But, unlike the others, it ''bugs'' me, because I can think of no explanation.
Funnily enough, I even read someone on the Internet saying that he thought that someone else was referring to the movie, and not the book, because he (the person he was writing to) wrote Battle of the Five Armies, not just Battle of Five Armies.
What could be PJ's rationale? Does he says something in the Appendices to the EEs, perhaps? 
(This post was edited by LittleHobbit on Apr 16 2016, 9:56pm)
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dormouse
Half-elven
Apr 16 2016, 11:14pm
Post #2 of 14
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In the Hobbit it's the Battle of Five Armies. In Lord of the Rings it turns up as Battle of the Five Armies in the Tale of Years and in the index. If you have the first version firmly fixed in your head then it probably is a bit frustrating but the fact is, this isn't a change Peter Jackson made. I doubt very much if he even thought about it. It's not a departure of Tolkien, it just happens that he picked on one version rather than the other.
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood and every spring
there is a different green. . .
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Darkstone
Immortal
Apr 17 2016, 4:47am
Post #3 of 14
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Military historians got no respect for definte articles.
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For example, The Battle of Five Forks (April 1, 1865) is also called the Battle of THE Five Forks, and the Battle of the Vale of Siddim (early second millennium BC) is also called the War of Nine Kings and the War of THE Nine Kings.(It's also sometimes called the War of ("THE" optional) Five Kings versus ("THE" optional) Four Kings, and the War of ("THE" optional) Ten Kings, or The War of Any Number of Kings Within Reason.)
I figure as a scholar of Anglo-Saxon history Tolkien deliberately messed the name up to lend verisimilitude to his "found manuscript" conceit.
******************************************
“Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!"
"Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."
"Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may."
"Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!"
"But no living man am I! I am Eowyn, daughter of Theodwyn!”
"Er, really? My mother's name was Theodwyn, too!"
"No way!"
"Way!"
"Wow! Let's stop fighting and be best friends!"
"Cool!!"
-Zack Snyder's The Return of the King
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LittleHobbit
Lorien
Apr 19 2016, 1:13am
Post #4 of 14
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I like your explanation. That way we don't have to see the 'name change' as a contradiction in Tolkien's work, but rather something that he deliberately employed in order to make his literary creation more 'realistic'. Amazing cop-out......... ops, explanation! 
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LittleHobbit
Lorien
Apr 19 2016, 1:36am
Post #5 of 14
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I don't have the English books, so I didn't know there was one version in Hobbit and another one in LOTR. I only heard that in the original Hobbit it was Battle of Five Armies, and I already knew before that that the movie was Battle of THE Five Armies.
But which index are you talking about? The Brazilian Portuguese editions of the books that I have do not seem to have it.
(This post was edited by LittleHobbit on Apr 19 2016, 1:38am)
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LSF
Gondor
Apr 19 2016, 1:47am
Post #6 of 14
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Of the two options, "Battle of the Five Armies" sounds more like a momentous event. Having that definite article makes it sound more important. Like, it's not just any old five armies, it's THE five armies.
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dormouse
Half-elven
Apr 19 2016, 8:25am
Post #7 of 14
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The index in the UK edition of 'Return of the King'....
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...second edition, third impression, 1968, under section IV - Things, on page 437. There's a whole list of Battles and it's there - Battle of the Five Armies. It also appears in the Tale of Years on page 370 of Appendix B, under the year 2941 - 'The Battle of the Five Armies in Dale.' I wouldn't mind betting that's where Peter Jackson took the title from.
Funnily enough, the same battle is also referred to in the text of Appendix A, on p.359, as the 'first Battle of Dale'. As someone (Darkstone, I think) pointed out, this is typical of the way battles are named in real-world history. Lots of battles have more than one name, depending on who gave the name in the first place and what happened afterwards.
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood and every spring
there is a different green. . .
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LittleHobbit
Lorien
Apr 22 2016, 6:54am
Post #8 of 14
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I don't have any English (US or UK) editions of the book(s), so I can't check the index, but I will check the bit in the ''Tale of Years'' and Appendix A. 
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Omnigeek
Lorien
Apr 23 2016, 5:14am
Post #9 of 14
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It's more momentous when it's THE Battle
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Of the two options, "Battle of the Five Armies" sounds more like a momentous event. Having that definite article makes it sound more important. Like, it's not just any old five armies, it's THE five armies.
Using the definite article emphasizes the word it's in front of. "THE Battle of ..." emphaseize the battle itself while "Battle of THE" emphasizes the participants of the battle. Most common military usage is to refer to a singularly important battle as "THE Battle of ...." e.g., The Battle of Jutland, The Battle of Little Big Horn, The Battle of Midway, etc.
In this case, while Tolkien appears to have framed it both ways, referring "The Battle of Five Armies" rather than "Battle of the Five Armies" is more in keeping with military convention. I never had a problem with the title because it's not often you will get five different armies at a single battle.
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LSF
Gondor
Apr 23 2016, 5:26am
Post #10 of 14
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The movie is called "The Battle of the Five Armies," so we've got our momentous-sounding event options covered 
(I thought I had put the first "the" in my post)
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dormouse
Half-elven
Apr 23 2016, 8:37am
Post #11 of 14
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....referring "The Battle of Five Armies" rather than "Battle of the Five Armies" is more in keeping with military convention.
I'm not sure about that....
The Battle of THE Somme
The Battle of THE River Plate
The Battle of THE Alma
The Battle of THE Bulge
The Battle of THE Alamo
The Battle of THE Nile
The Battle of THE Boyne
The Battle of THE Aisne
I think perhaps it has more to do with English grammar than military convention. A lot of the examples above are rivers and in English we normally use the article when referring to a named river (or other landmark), while we wouldn't use it for a country or a town. So the naming of the battle just follows the way the place is named in ordinary speech. As for the article in front, that's grammatical as well. There was only one Battle of the Alma so it's THE Battle of the Alma. If there had been more than one we'd have 'the first', 'the second' and so on.
I'm usre there must be real-world examples of battles named after the participants but I can't think of any offhand!
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood and every spring
there is a different green. . .
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LittleHobbit
Lorien
Apr 29 2016, 3:48am
Post #12 of 14
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Yeah, just to clear up this point...
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When I created this thread, I was referring only to the existence of the SECOND ''the'', as in, The Battle of THE Five Armies -- so that's why I may have forgotten sometimes, like LSF did, to put the article in front as well.
By the way, dormouse, I found the references to the Battle that you mentioned in The Return of the King appendices. Interesting stuff indeed!
(This post was edited by LittleHobbit on Apr 29 2016, 3:54am)
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Jeffrodo
Bree
May 4 2016, 7:16pm
Post #13 of 14
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I wonder if it's to keep the titles more in line with their counterparts in LOTR...??
The Battle of the Five Armies/The Return of the King
??
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LittleHobbit
Lorien
May 14 2016, 8:00am
Post #14 of 14
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But there are better reasons. For example, as pointed by dormouse, the fact that Tolkien uses both terms in the books. :D
(This post was edited by LittleHobbit on May 14 2016, 8:02am)
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