Tolkien related video's.

I don't even remember that trousers line. Egads, must have blocked it out.

Lessee, they definitely gave Bilbo enough time to look significantly aged, so I don't think the 17 years will be a problem since the activities can easily be compressed to a shorter period of years. I think they'd just leave out the Aragorn/Arwen stuff already covered.

{{ There's a fair bit of mess when it comes to introducing elements in this time period from Tolkien and making it fit with their version. It not only moves when Arwen and Aragorn got betrothed from the 2nd Age to the 3rd, and right before the Council at that, but if they bring in Elrond's objections to it and his laying down of the bar that she can marry no less than the King of Gondor and Arnor, which is what happens regards their relationship during this period in Tolkien, it contradicts what they've already done in the films. There, there is no such bar set and Elrond simply says no to it and even then does not voice his objections to it until right after the Council and it immediately results in Aragorn going along with it and trying to give Arwen back the gem she gave him at their betrothal scene, right before he embarks with the Fellowship.
Because they decided to tell that relationship in 'real time' within the films time frame, rather than flashbacks or such, and just shifted a lot of stuff forward in time by huge amounts that they then altered to fit and suit their reluctant Aragorn, making Elrond an obstacle to them, its much harder now to tell Tolkien's version of events within the time frame of the Gollum films setting.
But can they feasibly include Aragorn as a main character in this time period and not bring in his relationship with Awen? I don't think they can or will just ignore it, but if they want it to fit their version it's going to be a lot different from the one Tolkien wrote.
Then there is an issue with sticking more time in for the 17 year gap, in the film version they seem to have moved Bilbo's party forward from Autumn into summer going on the looks of the Shire, for that nice green bright summer feel, and thus giving Gandalf plausible time to ride to Minas Tirith and back before the end of Autumn, as film Frodo seems to leave about the same time as book Frodo and the seasons follow the books pretty much in the films from here on. That there is only a small time gap is also reinforced by the fact the Ring is still sealed in the same envelope it was when Gandalf left, and has just been left where Frodo put it, and hasn't had time to even gather dust. So there are issues there too in tying what Tolkien wrote happened during that 17 year gap, and what PJ's version has already told viewers happened. }}

{{ And these are the people we are trusting will write a good Tolkien film? Really? }}

Trying to remember if Bilbo looked significantly older when Frodo first meets him in Rivendell. Maybe not. I'll have to haul out the DVD and do a party/Rivendell comparison.

{{ In the film he looks much older, white hair, walking stick, but the implied excuse there is not the passage of time, barely any has passed in the films, it's that he has aged now he no longer has the Ring. They reinforce this by coopting a line from the book 'age has finally caught up with me' implying it all happened at once.
So they could work round that and just say yeah he was there years before Frodo left- but that contradicts other things in their films. That's the problem with doing this to Tolkien, his work is a tapestry, pull on a thread and you effect so many other bits, now the changes they made in LotR's don't agree with or fit the version of events Tolkien wrote they now want to use.}}

yeah the problem with the idea that "age catches up" quickly once you lose the ring would mean that Gollum would have to be little more than an animated corpse by the time he catches up to the fellowship.

Actually this does point out a problem with Tolkien's conception as well.  If life is supposed to pick up where it left off once one loses the ring, then shouldn't Gollum be staggering about with a cane after 80 years?  hmm... if the natural lifetime of a hobbit is perhaps 130 years then he'd be an age equivalent to about 100, which by scaling to human years of perhaps 70 would put him at 100*70/130 ~ 54 years old.  So okay, no cane.  I suppose it works since Gollum doesn't come across as either old or young.

{{ I dont have RotK to hand so can't check the Tale of Years to see if it includes a birth date for Gollum or not. But I always pictured his fishing trip with Deagol (were it humans) to be somewhere between 14 years old and 17 at most. So in Hobbit terms not yet their Coming of Age.

If so then Gollum would be effectively 'young' again when the Ring left him and may explain what Gandalf meant when he said Gollum started to regain some of his old strength, which eventually led him to leave the mountains and back into the world, granted driven by desire for the Ring, but not just that from Gandalf's words.
So he would in a weird way be younger than Frodo in hobbit years when they meet. Gollums life experience is very limited, he was young when he got driven out his home and hid himself away and he has been there most of the rest of his life alone. This youthfulness and lack of life experiences I think comes across in how Tolkien writes him. }}

I think your calculations are off. Frodo is 50 years old when he leaves for Rivendell (33+17). Gollum would be 14+77 = 91 at least.

{{ Quite right I forgot to add the years between when he lost the Ring and Bilbo leaving - still puts him well within Hobbit lifespans though. }}

I suppose those who have read HOME already know that Bilbo was originally married and Frodo (then Bingo) was his son. Tolkien thought better of the idea.

Funny that Tolkien described LotR as "bitter". I suppose I can see that mainly in the denoument, but I'd probably use words like melancholy and nostalgia rather than bitter.

Funny that Tolkien described LotR as "bitter" - Halfy

{{ Think it depends what you mean by 'bitter'. Tolkien was careful in word choice and 'bitter' is a word he often uses in relation to death- the bitterness of mortality. And he also said that when you got right down to it LotR's, like all human tales is ultimately about death. Of the passing of things, the loss of things. So it makes sense he'd use that word to sum it up, it's bitter like death is bitter, it has the same feel of loss and of passing of things from the world, forever. }}

Ooo cringe: I just watched a video where the narrator pronounced "Illuvatar" to rhyme with "elevator".

I could only hear about this here "hero elevator" so many times before I had to go look up what superpowers an elevator might have. The world was apparently created by a turbocharged elevator.

halfwise wrote:I thought the little known about the Blue Wizards had already been done to death, but this video is nicely done and brings in an alternate version from HOME that I didn't know existed.

Yep, but just to add, in my opinion the implication of part of this video -- and many posts I run into on the World Wide Web which raise the late note about the other two arriving in the Second Age -- the implication is that the late note is Tolkien's latest word on the subject. . .  

. . . but (and not mentioned in the video, unless I missed it somewhere) there's very late text appearing on the other side of the very same sheet of paper, and it's the one published in Unfinished Tales.

So, in any case the story described in this video is not necessarily later than the UT story, just harder to read, and that's why the two were published years apart, in different books.

halfwise wrote:Some clarification on the ever shifting story of Galadriel.

And just to add (again): and (again) unless I missed it, this video makes no mention that this "unstained" idea contradicts already published text -- description written and published by JRRT himself of course -- contradiction with stuff in both The Lord of the Rings and The Road Goes Ever On.

Ya gotta at least mention this in my opinion  

Yet some folk (including this video person) often use the word "clearly" Tolkien "intended" to do X or Y simply because one text is later than another. It's not so clear here in my opinion. Another reason to mention this (besides me being bored right now and harping on this string yet again) concerns the constructed Silmarillion: yes, Christopher Tolkien couldn't always employ later "unpublished" ideas because they were difficult to fuse with earlier "unpublished" ideas, but here we have Christopher Tolkien's choice agreeing with works his father had already published. . .

. . . namely that Galadriel did indeed take part in the Rebellion, and in fact became a leader of the Exiles when it came to crossing the Grinding Ice, and Celeborn being Sindarin (not Telerin).

Just sayin' (again)

Elthir wrote:

. . . but (and not mentioned in the video, unless I missed it somewhere) there's very late text appearing on the other side of the very same sheet of paper, and it's the one published in Unfinished Tales.

So, in any case the story described in this video is not necessarily later than the UT story, just harder to read, and that's why the two were published years apart, in different books.

And that's why we pay our dues to hire you as loremaster. Little physical arcana like this makes all the difference. I tell my students (in a totally different context) that data is NOT just a bunch of numbers, it has a story behind it; how it came to be. And unless you understand that story in intimate detail you'll never interpret the data correctly.

And apologies for harping on Halfy, but I can't recall anyone ever agreeing (or disagreeing) with me, as to whether or not these two late texts (about the "other two" wizards) disagree with each other. And so I invite anyone to comment about this -- if anyone cares, of course -- cough -- as maybe I'm missing something here.

Basically: late text from POME versus late text from UT.

POME (the video)

Tolkien here muses on the success of the other two: "The "other two" came much earlier, at the same time probably as Glorfindel, when matters became very dangerous in the Second Age" (and it was said that the reincarnated Glorfindel probably came to Middle-earth in SA 1600). And... [they] "... must have had very great influence on the history of the Second Age and Third Age in weakening and disarraying the forces of East ... who would both in the Second Age and Third Age otherwise have... outnumbered the West."

According to this late note their names are Morinehtar and Romestamo (or Rome(n)star). According to another late note: "no names are recorded for the two wizards"

UT (the "other side" of the page)

In yet another text similarly dated very late (probably 1972, Tolkien writes (I underline, as I did above):

"Saruman is said (e.g. by Gandalf himself) to have been the chief of the Istari -- that is, higher in Valinórean stature than the others. Gandalf was evidently the next in order. Radagast is presented as a person of much less power and wisdom. Of the other two nothing is said in published work save the reference to the five wizards in the altercation between Gandalf and Saruman. Now these Maiar were sent by the Valar at a crucial moment in the history of Middle-earth to enhance the resistance of the Elves of the West, waning in power, and of the uncorrupted Men of the West, greatly outnumbered by those of the East and South."

It's difficult to know if this note came before, or after, the other two late notes, but in my opinion this one appears to state that all five of the Istari, here briefly described, came at generally the same time (at a crucial moment), rather than two wizards coming in SA 1600 -- well before Gandalf! And then we have the two statements, for comparison, about the good guys being outnumbered.

These things seem at odds to me. Or is my ageing skull misreading something?

And anyway, in the end, shouldn't better penmanship (UT version) rule the day?

Now that I think about it, I probably already rambled about this here -- in my earlier days. Anywho.

So, in any case the story described in this video is not necessarily later than the UT story, just harder to read- Elthir

{{ Having seen facsimiles of Tolkien's letters and hurried, scribbled notes, it comes as no surprise that the deciding factor would come down to not if it was necessarily the latest, but the most legible. You could spend some time trying to decipher Tolkien's more hasty notes, and with no certainty if it was in his mind a 'finished' thought, or just a jotted reminder for a possible route to explore for later anyway, one he may have discarded or not. I don't think just because it was thought of later it is necessarily what Tolkien would have settled upon in the end had he the chance. It's nice to read the option however and try to imagine where Tolkien's train of thought was leading him in various choices. }}

Never heard of this.

Pettytyrant101 wrote: (. . .) You could spend some time trying to decipher Tolkien's more hasty notes, (. . .)

Indeedy!

chris63 wrote:Never heard of this.

I knew of Haleth and her people from the Silmarillion, but pictured her as a stocky, sturdy battle-ax of a middle aged woman, not as the blonde dish pictured here. But she was young when she took on the mantle, so my impressions could well be off the mark.

I must read The Silmarillion again