[DbS] LOTR:FOTR Book 1, Ch I - II
Thomas Yan
sure how long I'll keep it up. They are less detailed than many of my
Brust notes: I think (correctly?) I'm more familiar with the material
and expect many people are intimately familiar with the material.
chapter I: pp 29 - 50
p29: Bilbo at 99 declares Frodo --in his tweens, "the irresponsible
[20s] between childhood and coming of age at [33]"-- his heir.
They have the same birthday.
pp29-30: after 12 years, Bilbo is 111 and Frodo is 33.
p33: Gandalf's "eyebrows # stuck out beyond the brim of his hat".
{I don't remember (maybe I did but forgot) noticing this before.
But his eyebrows aren't as helpful / powerful as one character's
in the movie "Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain".}
p35: Some of the toys Gandalf brought were "obviously magical",
but no details / examples are provided. The fireworks are
also obviously magical, or else Gandalf's non-magic tech is
waaaay ahead of ours. Again, there is no indication how
the magic works, only the visible effects.
p36: The mountain fireworks "spouted green and scarlet flames".
{pretty colors or faithful rendition?}
p38: "I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
Most silent while "trying to work it out and see if it was
a compliment". {I had assumed it was actually an insult,
but in fact it is a compliment, right? "I like # you half
as well as you deserve" = 'I ought to like you twice as
much as I actually do'.}
p40: "never seen by any hobbit in Hobbiton again" {pedantic nitpick:
this could be misintepreted as 'never seen again by any
hobbit from Hobbiton' instead of 'never seen again in
Hobbiton by any hobbit'.}
p40: Bilbo already has the Ring on a chain. (see also p56.)
p43: "trust me as you used" {is this British versus American
English? I would expect 'as you used *to*'.}
chapter II: pp 51 - 73
p51: Merry and Pippin were among the kids who had "been fond of
Bilbo and in and out of Bag End".
p52: "his [40s] were running out and his [50th] birthday drawing near"
{note to self: near, but not yet reached: see p55.}
p52: "Merry and his other friends watched [Frodo] anxiously".
{Why emphasize Merry -- why not just say 'his friends'}
p53: Sighting of walking tree. {Definitely or only probably Entwives?}
p55: Timeline: Gandalf away for 3 years, visit often for the "next
year or two", away for over 9 years, show up again. Gandalf
remembers it was "nearly [80] years ago" that Bilbo left on his
adventures. {3 + 2 + 9 = 14 years, plus or minus, say,
3 * .5 = 1.5 years, so Frodo should be at most about
33 + 14 + 1.5 = 48.5, but later we learn Frodo is 49: he leaves
after his 50th birthday. Close enough. That makes
Bilbo 111 + 14 + 1.5 + .5 = 126 = 50 + 76: 76 is close to 80.}
p56: {surprising typo: "Elvin-rings" instead of "Elven-rings".}
p56: Gandalf makes a distinction between the "lesser rings" and
"the Great Rings, the Rings of Power".
p56: "A mortal, # who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die #
until at last every minute is a weariness".
{And yet, the when did the nazgul ever seem weary?!}
p56: "And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible,
he *fades*: # becomes # invisible permanently"
{Implications: it may be possible to use the Ring to do
other things besides make one invisible, and fading only
happens with frequent use specifically to make one invisible.
Gandalf says the later explicitly on p58 and p64.}
p56: "it did not seem always of the same size or weight;
it shrank or expanded in an odd way" {Is the weight change
purely psychological, or is there also partly a physical
basis? As pointed out on RASFF, when Frodo finds it
unbearably heavy in Mordor, Sam has no trouble carrying
Frodo and the Ring, which suggests it is primarily
psychological but does not rule out a small physical weight
change.}
p57: "I might perhaps have consulted with Saruman the White,
but something always held me back." {Had Saruman already
betrayed them when Bilbo found the Ring?}
p58: "only one Power in this world" {who are all the people that
Gandalf considers to be a Power?}
p61: "[Sauron] believed that the One had perished"
{Implication: Sauron believed he survived the destruction
of the Ring. Why, e.g. why not wonder if his continued
existence is only because the Ring is not unmade?}
p61: "[Sauron] let a great part of his own former power pass
into [the Ring], so that he could rule all the [other
Rings]. If he recovers it, then he will command them all
again, wherever they may be, even the Three".
{Implication: Even if / although he built trapdoors into
the other Rings, mastering them still required much power.
I wonder if I would have preferred 'the greater part'
instead of just 'a great part'.
Question: He 'ruled' the Three at one point, but still
could not locate them or influence their bearers. What is
different *now* so that if he rules them *again*, then all
is lost?}
p62: {what does "hobbit-kind" mean? were Smeagol's people
essentially hobbits? If not, given that, apparently, brand
new races could not / did not just appear, what were they
and who created them? See p63.}
p62: {It seems unlikely to me, but I still can't help wondering:
is Deagol being drawn into watery depths by a fish meant
as some kind of allusion to Jonah and the whale?}
p63: {why does Gollum dislike the Sun (and Moon) so much? too much
similarity to the psychic threat of the Eye?}
p63: "About their origins, # I know more than hobbits do themselves"
{Created by a good buddy of his?}
pp63-64: Smeagol and Bilbo "understood one another remarkably
well, very much better than a hobbit would understand, say,
a Dwarf, or an Orc, or even an Elf. Think of the riddles
they both knew, for one thing." {Abstractly fine, but
concretely I don't grok the chasm between Hobbit and
non-Hobbit thought.}
p58, p64: Gandalf remarks that both Bilbo and hobbit-like Gollum
have survived the Ring surprisingly well, and that neither
has faded since neither used it very often.
p65: "There was more than one power at work"
"Bilbo was *meant* to find the Ring, and *not* by its maker"
"you were also *meant* to have it"
{Um, does Gandalf mean divine intervention / planning?}
--
Thomas Yan (ty...@twcny.rr.com) Note: I don't check e-mail often.
Be pro-active. Fight sucky software and learned helplessness.
Apologies for any lack of capitalization; typing hurts my hands.
Progress on next DbS installment: pp1-38 of pp1-181 of _Taltos_
Dorothy J Heydt
Thomas Yan <ty...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>p40: "never seen by any hobbit in Hobbiton again" {pedantic nitpick:
> this could be misintepreted as 'never seen again by any
> hobbit from Hobbiton' instead of 'never seen again in
> Hobbiton by any hobbit'.}
No, I think he was being exact. He was seen by hobbits again,
but they weren't in Hobbiton. He was also seen by a few others
in Hobbiton, viz., Gandalf and the dwarves who were to accompany
him, but they weren't hobbits.
When you get to the third volume we can discuss the delicate play
on the word "man".
>p43: "trust me as you used" {is this British versus American
> English? I would expect 'as you used *to*'.}
Yes.
>p53: Sighting of walking tree. {Definitely or only probably Entwives?}
Or maybe a wandering Ent. We never know. Remember they are not
far, in terms of Ent-strides, from the Old Forest. (btw you do
know that "ent" is Old English for "giant"?)
>p57: "I might perhaps have consulted with Saruman the White,
> but something always held me back." {Had Saruman already
> betrayed them when Bilbo found the Ring?}
I suspect so. He was already on the slippery slope.
>
>p58: "only one Power in this world" {who are all the people that
> Gandalf considers to be a Power?}
Himself, Elrond, Galadriel, Cirdan.
>p62: {what does "hobbit-kind" mean? were Smeagol's people
> essentially hobbits?
Yes. Stoors or related.
If not, given that, apparently, brand
> new races could not / did not just appear, what were they
> and who created them? See p63.}
Eru Iluvatar.
>p62: {It seems unlikely to me, but I still can't help wondering:
> is Deagol being drawn into watery depths by a fish meant
> as some kind of allusion to Jonah and the whale?}
Maybe very very slightly. If you haven't read his essay "On
Fairy-Stories, you might look it up. See what he says about the
difference between allegory and applicability.
>
>p63: {why does Gollum dislike the Sun (and Moon) so much? too much
> similarity to the psychic threat of the Eye?}
He's become a creature of darkness, both literally and
figuratively.
>
>p63: "About their origins, # I know more than hobbits do themselves"
> {Created by a good buddy of his?}
Can even an angel speak of God as his good buddy? Maybe.
>pp63-64: Smeagol and Bilbo "understood one another remarkably
> well, very much better than a hobbit would understand, say,
> a Dwarf, or an Orc, or even an Elf. Think of the riddles
> they both knew, for one thing." {Abstractly fine, but
> concretely I don't grok the chasm between Hobbit and
> non-Hobbit thought.}
Keep reading, you'll see some (subtle) differences presently.
>
>p65: "There was more than one power at work"
> "Bilbo was *meant* to find the Ring, and *not* by its maker"
> "you were also *meant* to have it"
> {Um, does Gandalf mean divine intervention / planning?}
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Travis Casey
> I'm going to be posting my notes incrementally as I reread; I'm not
> sure how long I'll keep it up. They are less detailed than many of my
> Brust notes: I think (correctly?) I'm more familiar with the material
> and expect many people are intimately familiar with the material.
[cutting lots of the notes]
> p38: "I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
> Most silent while "trying to work it out and see if it was
> a compliment". {I had assumed it was actually an insult,
> but in fact it is a compliment, right? "I like # you half
> as well as you deserve" = 'I ought to like you twice as
> much as I actually do'.}
Note, though, that zero would be "less than half". And further, what does
that imply about the ones who aren't in that "less than half" group, if
anything?
> p56: "A mortal, # who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die #
> until at last every minute is a weariness".
> {And yet, the when did the nazgul ever seem weary?!}
I always assumed this a psychological weariness rather than a physical one.
Plus, there's intimations that the Nazgul are now some sort of undead --
thus, they've already died, so this wouldn't necessarily apply to them any
more.
> p56: "it did not seem always of the same size or weight;
> it shrank or expanded in an odd way" {Is the weight change
> purely psychological, or is there also partly a physical
> basis? As pointed out on RASFF, when Frodo finds it
> unbearably heavy in Mordor, Sam has no trouble carrying
> Frodo and the Ring, which suggests it is primarily
> psychological but does not rule out a small physical weight
> change.}
The size change, at least, seems to be physical. The ring made itself slip
off of Gollum's finger, we're told.
> p61: "[Sauron] let a great part of his own former power pass
> into [the Ring], so that he could rule all the [other
> Rings]. If he recovers it, then he will command them all
> again, wherever they may be, even the Three".
>
> {Implication: Even if / although he built trapdoors into
> the other Rings, mastering them still required much power.
>
> I wonder if I would have preferred 'the greater part'
> instead of just 'a great part'.
>
> Question: He 'ruled' the Three at one point, but still
> could not locate them or influence their bearers. What is
> different *now* so that if he rules them *again*, then all
> is lost?}
I don't see where commanding the three rings necessarily means that he also
knows where they are, or commands their wielders.
I see this more as about the fact that those who defeated Sauron before
have for the most part died or gone to the West. Gandalf thinks that there
is no hope for those who remain to defeat Sauron if he regains the ring.
> pp63-64: Smeagol and Bilbo "understood one another remarkably
> well, very much better than a hobbit would understand, say,
> a Dwarf, or an Orc, or even an Elf. Think of the riddles
> they both knew, for one thing." {Abstractly fine, but
> concretely I don't grok the chasm between Hobbit and
> non-Hobbit thought.}
I don't think it's supposed to be a chasm in thought -- more one in
language and culture. Elves and dwarves might well not play the
riddling-game, or might know different riddles, for example.
--
ZZzz |\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <efi...@earthlink.net>
/,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)
Emma Pease
> Thomas Yan wrote:
> I'm going to be posting my notes incrementally as I reread; I'm not
> sure how long I'll keep it up. They are less detailed than many of my
> Brust notes: I think (correctly?) I'm more familiar with the material
> and expect many people are intimately familiar with the material.
>
[snipping some notes]
> chapter I: pp 29 - 50
>
> p35: Some of the toys Gandalf brought were "obviously magical",
> but no details / examples are provided. The fireworks are
> also obviously magical, or else Gandalf's non-magic tech is
> waaaay ahead of ours. Again, there is no indication how
> the magic works, only the visible effects.
Some of the toys were made by dwarves whose tech was much greater than
hobbits (see Clarke's law). Note that they are magical from the
viewpoint of the hobbits. Much later on note Galadriel's comment
about not really knowing what Sam means by 'magic'.
I suspect from the Dwarves' point of view, the hobbit ability to move
so silently was magical.
> chapter II: pp 51 - 73
>
> p51: Merry and Pippin were among the kids who had "been fond of
> Bilbo and in and out of Bag End".
>
> p52: "Merry and his other friends watched [Frodo] anxiously".
> {Why emphasize Merry -- why not just say 'his friends'}
Merry was the eldest among them and was later the ringleader of the
party who helped Frodo leave the Shire.
> p53: Sighting of walking tree. {Definitely or only probably Entwives?}
Unlikely to be an Entwife. Possibly an Ent, possibly a Troll,
possibly Sam's cousin had had too much to drink.
> p57: "I might perhaps have consulted with Saruman the White,
> but something always held me back." {Had Saruman already
> betrayed them when Bilbo found the Ring?}
He definitely wanted the ring for himself much earlier (probably even
before Bilbo found it) and had already set himself up as a military
power by the time of this discussion (takes time to breed orcs, cut
trees, etc).
> p58: "only one Power in this world" {who are all the people that
> Gandalf considers to be a Power?}
Power capitalized probably means the Valar and possibly the Maiar and
possibly also fallen Maiar such as Sauron. As to which Power? I
don't know.
> p61: "[Sauron] believed that the One had perished"
> {Implication: Sauron believed he survived the destruction
> of the Ring. Why, e.g. why not wonder if his continued
> existence is only because the Ring is not unmade?}
Gandalf may also be guessing at this part.
> p61: "[Sauron] let a great part of his own former power pass
> into [the Ring], so that he could rule all the [other
> Rings]. If he recovers it, then he will command them all
> again, wherever they may be, even the Three".
>
> {Implication: Even if / although he built trapdoors into
> the other Rings, mastering them still required much power.
>
> I wonder if I would have preferred 'the greater part'
> instead of just 'a great part'.
>
> Question: He 'ruled' the Three at one point, but still
> could not locate them or influence their bearers. What is
> different *now* so that if he rules them *again*, then all
> is lost?}
The holders of the Three had not used them at any time before the fall
of Sauron at the end of the Second Age; they had just kept them safe.
Afterwards they had used them and that is what made them vulnerable.
> p63: {why does Gollum dislike the Sun (and Moon) so much? too much
> similarity to the psychic threat of the Eye?}
In Tolkien's world the sun and the moon contain the remnants of light
from the Two Trees of Valinor and are guarded by two Maiar. That
light burns really evil things.
> p65: "There was more than one power at work"
> "Bilbo was *meant* to find the Ring, and *not* by its maker"
> "you were also *meant* to have it"
> {Um, does Gandalf mean divine intervention / planning?}
almost certainly divine planning.
--
\----
|\* | Emma Pease Net Spinster
|_\/ Die Luft der Freiheit weht
Taki Kogoma
to rec.arts.sf.written decree...[...]
>>p57: "I might perhaps have consulted with Saruman the White,
>> but something always held me back." {Had Saruman already
>> betrayed them when Bilbo found the Ring?}
>
>I suspect so. He was already on the slippery slope.
Until the year of Bilbo's adventure, Saruman actively resisted any
move to drive The Necromancer/Sauron from Dol Guldur, even though
Gandalf had clearly identified him a hundred years earlier. Concerns
about Sauron searching the Gladen Fields for the Ring made him
reconsider, if I recall Appendix B and _Unfinished Tales_ correctly.
>>p58: "only one Power in this world" {who are all the people that
>> Gandalf considers to be a Power?}
>
>Himself, Elrond, Galadriel, Cirdan.
Plus Saruman. Possibly Radagast as well, but I don't think so.
[...]
>>p63: "About their origins, # I know more than hobbits do themselves"
>> {Created by a good buddy of his?}
>
>Can even an angel speak of God as his good buddy? Maybe.
Also, Hobbits aren't much for lore asside from selective facets of
genealogy. Shire hobbits don't much care about what happened before
the start of the Shire Reckoning, and the Bree folk seem rather
insular as well. The migration across the Misty Mountains seems to
have been almost entirely forgotten.
--
Capt. Gym Z. Quirk | "I'll get a life when someone
(Known to some as Taki Kogoma) | demonstrates that it would be
quirk @ swcp.com | superior to what I have now."
Veteran of the '91 sf-lovers re-org. | -- Gym Quirk
Taki Kogoma
to rec.arts.sf.written decree...
>Thomas Yan wrote:
>[cutting lots of the notes]
>> into [the Ring], so that he could rule all the [other
>> Rings]. If he recovers it, then he will command them all
>> again, wherever they may be, even the Three".
>>
>> {Implication: Even if / although he built trapdoors into
>> the other Rings, mastering them still required much power.
>>
>> I wonder if I would have preferred 'the greater part'
>> instead of just 'a great part'.
>>
>> Question: He 'ruled' the Three at one point, but still
>> could not locate them or influence their bearers. What is
>> different *now* so that if he rules them *again*, then all
>> is lost?}
>
>I don't see where commanding the three rings necessarily means that he also
>knows where they are, or commands their wielders.
>
>I see this more as about the fact that those who defeated Sauron before
>have for the most part died or gone to the West. Gandalf thinks that there
>is no hope for those who remain to defeat Sauron if he regains the ring.
IIRC, when Sauron forged the One, Celebrimbor and the other wearers of
the Three *took off their rings*: The Three were not used against
Sauron at all. Indeed, they could not be so used as long as Sauron
held the ruling ring.
That the Last Alliance was able to defeat Sauron at Dagorlad and then
beseige Barad Dur for several years without the use of the Three says
something about the power of Gil-galad and the Numenorean Exiles as
compared to their descendants three thousand years later.
(Note to self: Check _Silmarillion_ to see if Erenion/Gil-Galad was
born in Aman...)
Michael S. Schiffer
<GqKDD...@kithrup.com>:
>...
>>p53: Sighting of walking tree. {Definitely or only probably
>>Entwives?}
>Or maybe a wandering Ent. We never know. Remember they are not
>far, in terms of Ent-strides, from the Old Forest. (btw you do
>know that "ent" is Old English for "giant"?)
Also possibly a Huorn, an awakened tree. We know of at least one such
in the Old Forest, though it apparently hadn't gotten so far as walking.
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
ms...@mail.com
msch...@condor.depaul.edu
Michael S. Schiffer
<tyan-BE8428.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>:
> Most silent while "trying to work it out and see if it was
> a compliment". {I had assumed it was actually an insult,
> but in fact it is a compliment, right? "I like # you half
> as well as you deserve" = 'I ought to like you twice as
> much as I actually do'.}
"...but I don't." Is it nicer to say that you don't like someone even
though you should, or that you do like someone even though you
shouldn't? Ultimately, it wasn't much of a compliment.
>...
>p56: "A mortal, # who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die #
> until at last every minute is a weariness".
> {And yet, the when did the nazgul ever seem weary?!}
Gandalf may have read records of what they were like when they were
mortal kings falling under the Rings' spell. The part about the length
of time for the effect to take place varying depending on the holder's
innate strength and goodness suggests that some of the Nazgul may not
have been such bad sorts in the beginning.
>...
>p65: "There was more than one power at work"
> "Bilbo was *meant* to find the Ring, and *not* by its maker"
> "you were also *meant* to have it"
> {Um, does Gandalf mean divine intervention / planning?}
Planning, more. There are a few incidents of clear divine intervention
in the history (the fall of Numenor, and Gandalf's resurrection) but
there's a lot more working out of Providence.
aRJay
Thomas Yan <ty...@twcny.rr.com> writes
>I'm going to be posting my notes incrementally as I reread; I'm not
>sure how long I'll keep it up. They are less detailed than many of my
>Brust notes: I think (correctly?) I'm more familiar with the material
>and expect many people are intimately familiar with the material.
>
> Most silent while "trying to work it out and see if it was
> a compliment". {I had assumed it was actually an insult,
> but in fact it is a compliment, right? "I like # you half
> as well as you deserve" = 'I ought to like you twice as
> much as I actually do'.}
>
>
>
>p58: "only one Power in this world" {who are all the people that
> Gandalf considers to be a Power?}
>
(maybe).
>p65: "There was more than one power at work"
> "Bilbo was *meant* to find the Ring, and *not* by its maker"
> "you were also *meant* to have it"
> {Um, does Gandalf mean divine intervention / planning?}
>
Yes.
--
aRJay
"In this great and creatorless universe, where so much beautiful has
come to be out of the chance interactions of the basic properties of
matter, it seems so important that we love one another."
- Lucy Kemnitzer
Paul Andinach
> Thomas Yan <ty...@twcny.rr.com> wrote in
> <tyan-BE8428.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>:
> >p38: "I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
> > Most silent while "trying to work it out and see if it was
> > a compliment". {I had assumed it was actually an insult,
> > but in fact it is a compliment, right? "I like # you half
> > as well as you deserve" = 'I ought to like you twice as
> > much as I actually do'.}
>
> "...but I don't." Is it nicer to say that you don't like someone
> even though you should, or that you do like someone even though
> you shouldn't? Ultimately, it wasn't much of a compliment.
No; but it was something of an apology.
Paul
--
The Pink Pedanther
Robert Shaw
"Thomas Yan" <ty...@twcny.rr.com> wrote
> p61: "[Sauron] let a great part of his own former power pass
> into [the Ring], so that he could rule all the [other
> Rings]. If he recovers it, then he will command them all
> again, wherever they may be, even the Three".
>
> {Implication: Even if / although he built trapdoors into
> the other Rings, mastering them still required much power.
>
> I wonder if I would have preferred 'the greater part'
> instead of just 'a great part'.
>
> Question: He 'ruled' the Three at one point, but still
> could not locate them or influence their bearers. What is
> different *now* so that if he rules them *again*, then all
> is lost?}
>
"all that has been wrought with [the three] will be laid bare"
That is, everything that done by the Three will fall under
Sauron's control.
That includes the defences of Lorien and Rivendell.
Both places would instantly be exposed to the full
power of Sauron, directed via the One and the Three,
quickly becoming as corrupt as Mirkwood.
--
'It is a wise crow that knows which way the camel points' - Pratchett
Robert Shaw
Thomas Yan
em...@kanpai.stanford.edu (Emma Pease) wrote:
> In article <tyan-BE8428.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>,
> > Thomas Yan wrote:
-snip Emma's helpful reminder of Clarke's law and hobbits' POV-
> > chapter II: pp 51 - 73
> >
> > p52: "Merry and his other friends watched [Frodo] anxiously".
> > {Why emphasize Merry -- why not just say 'his friends'}
>
> Merry was the eldest among them and was later the ringleader of the
> party who helped Frodo leave the Shire.
Makes sense.
> > p53: Sighting of walking tree. {Definitely or only probably Entwives?}
>
> Unlikely to be an Entwife.
Why unlikely?
> Possibly an Ent, possibly a Troll,
> possibly Sam's cousin had had too much to drink.
Hm. Since Treebeard said the Shire sounded like a play the Entwives
would like and asked if any had been seen (I think), I wondered if that
sighting was supposed to be of an Entwife and suggest that the Ents and
Entwives would 'soon' (maybe in Ent time rather than Hobbit time)
reconcile.
But then that seemed too easy to me.
-snip-
> > p58: "only one Power in this world" {who are all the people that
> > Gandalf considers to be a Power?}
>
> Power capitalized probably means the Valar and possibly the Maiar and
> possibly also fallen Maiar such as Sauron.
That was my guess, but my impression was that many of them were no longer
active in Middle-Earth, so I was wondering which were around: Sauron,
Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast, other "istari" (?), Balrogs, and ... ?
(And it looks like Balrogs aren't very active in the world.)
> As to which Power? I
> don't know.
(In this case it was definitely Sauron: "only one Power # knows all
about the Rings", but "no Power in the world knows all about hobbits".)
> > p61: "[Sauron] believed that the One had perished"
> > {Implication: Sauron believed he survived the destruction
> > of the Ring. Why, e.g. why not wonder if his continued
> > existence is only because the Ring is not unmade?}
>
> Gandalf may also be guessing at this part.
[re: confusion about why the Three are (more) vulnerable now]
> The holders of the Three had not used them at any time before the fall
> of Sauron at the end of the Second Age; they had just kept them safe.
> Afterwards they had used them and that is what made them vulnerable.
Ah. Did the wielders of the Three believe Sauron was vanquished
forever? That is, (a) did they believe it was safe to wield the Three,
did they feel obliged to wield them, or was that a calculated risk? and
(b) Since the Three were still potent, did that imply to them that the
One was still a concern? I guess that predated Saruman, who seems to
have been the best Ring authority save Sauron himself.
> > p63: {why does Gollum dislike the Sun (and Moon) so much? too much
> > similarity to the psychic threat of the Eye?}
>
> In Tolkien's world the sun and the moon contain the remnants of light
> from the Two Trees of Valinor and are guarded by two Maiar. That
> light burns really evil things.
Oh yeah. I did read _The Silmarillion_, but I found it hard going and
don't remember much. Um, did Morgoth keep the stolen Silmaril(s) in
his presense despite the pain as kind of a macho thing, or did he tend
to keep them hidden / covered?
> > p65: "There was more than one power at work"
> > "Bilbo was *meant* to find the Ring, and *not* by its maker"
> > "you were also *meant* to have it"
> > {Um, does Gandalf mean divine intervention / planning?}
>
> almost certainly divine planning.
Good. Intervention didn't seem consistent to me, but planning seemed
to be reasonable.
Thomas Yan
Travis Casey <efi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Thomas Yan wrote:
>
> [cutting lots of the notes]
>
> > p38: "I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
> > Most silent while "trying to work it out and see if it was
> > a compliment". {I had assumed it was actually an insult,
> > but in fact it is a compliment, right? "I like # you half
> > as well as you deserve" = 'I ought to like you twice as
> > much as I actually do'.}
>
> Note, though, that zero would be "less than half".
Which would render it pretty much meaningless, right?
> And further, what does
> that imply about the ones who aren't in that "less than half" group, if
> anything?
It implies little. Specifically, it implies he likes half or more as
much as they deserve, which is such a large range that it provides
little information.
> > p56: "A mortal, # who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die #
> > until at last every minute is a weariness".
> > {And yet, the when did the nazgul ever seem weary?!}
>
> I always assumed this a psychological weariness rather than a physical one.
> Plus, there's intimations that the Nazgul are now some sort of undead --
> thus, they've already died, so this wouldn't necessarily apply to them any
> more.
I interpreted the undead state as the ultimate result of eternal weariness,
with no dissipation of the weariness.
-snip-
> The size change, at least, seems to be physical. The ring made itself slip
> off of Gollum's finger, we're told.
>
> > p61: "[Sauron] let a great part of his own former power pass
> > into [the Ring], so that he could rule all the [other
> > Rings]. If he recovers it, then he will command them all
> > again, wherever they may be, even the Three".
-snip-
>
> I don't see where commanding the three rings necessarily means that he also
> knows where they are, or commands their wielders.
Ok, maybe he can't find their physical location, but the quote above
says he'll have control of them, and given the strong effect of Rings
on their wielders and the tone of the book, I think that means he can
control their wielders.
-snip-
Thomas Yan
msch...@condor.depaul.edu (Michael S. Schiffer) wrote:
> Thomas Yan <ty...@twcny.rr.com> wrote in
> <tyan-BE8428.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>:
> >p38: "I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
> > Most silent while "trying to work it out and see if it was
> > a compliment". {I had assumed it was actually an insult,
> > but in fact it is a compliment, right? "I like # you half
> > as well as you deserve" = 'I ought to like you twice as
> > much as I actually do'.}
>
> "...but I don't." Is it nicer to say that you don't like someone even
> though you should, or that you do like someone even though you
> shouldn't?
True, but he doesn't quite say 'I dislike / hate you although I should
like you'. He says, 'I do like you, but I should like you even more:
twice as much'.
> Ultimately, it wasn't much of a compliment.
Fair enough. I like Paul explicitly pointing out that it is an apology.
> >...
>
> >p56: "A mortal, # who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die #
> > until at last every minute is a weariness".
> > {And yet, the when did the nazgul ever seem weary?!}
>
> Gandalf may have read records of what they were like when they were
> mortal kings falling under the Rings' spell. The part about the length
> of time for the effect to take place varying depending on the holder's
> innate strength and goodness suggests that some of the Nazgul may not
> have been such bad sorts in the beginning.
Sure, but that's a tangent, right? It doesn't address whether they are
weary or not. I believe the progression is that they became weary and
then weary and undead. Fading occurs too, but it's not clear where in
that 'timeline'.
-snip-
David Eppstein
Thomas Yan <ty...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
> > > p38: "I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
> > > Most silent while "trying to work it out and see if it was
> > > a compliment". {I had assumed it was actually an insult,
> > > but in fact it is a compliment, right? "I like # you half
> > > as well as you deserve" = 'I ought to like you twice as
> > > much as I actually do'.}
> >
> > Note, though, that zero would be "less than half".
>
> Which would render it pretty much meaningless, right?
>
> > And further, what does
> > that imply about the ones who aren't in that "less than half" group, if
> > anything?
>
> It implies little. Specifically, it implies he likes half or more as
> much as they deserve, which is such a large range that it provides
> little information.
I think you're misreading. At least, I read it differently.
I interpret his sentence as saying that there is some number of hobbits
that he likes half as well as they deserve; that number is small.
The majority of hobbits, he likes even less.
So it's partly a compliment (they all deserve to be liked better than he
likes them) and partly a comment on his own antisocial nature.
--
David Eppstein UC Irvine Dept. of Information & Computer Science
epps...@ics.uci.edu http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/
Jo Walton
ty...@twcny.rr.com "Thomas Yan" writes:
> In article <slrna56c1...@hypatia.Stanford.EDU>,
> em...@kanpai.stanford.edu (Emma Pease) wrote:
>
> > Possibly an Ent, possibly a Troll,
> > possibly Sam's cousin had had too much to drink.
>
> Hm. Since Treebeard said the Shire sounded like a play the Entwives
> would like and asked if any had been seen (I think), I wondered if that
> sighting was supposed to be of an Entwife and suggest that the Ents and
> Entwives would 'soon' (maybe in Ent time rather than Hobbit time)
> reconcile.
The only thing against it being an Entwife is that it was described as
being "as tall as an elm tree" whereas Entwives were fruit trees, and
therefore smaller than that. An elm tree would be an ent, or a huorn.
But I want it to have been an Entwife.
> But then that seemed too easy to me.
The lack of Ents in the world today seems to imply that they never
found each other. Hoom, hom, life's like that sometimes.
--
Jo J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
I kissed a kif at Kefk
*THE KING'S NAME* out now from Tor!
Sample Chapters, Map, Poems, & stuff at http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk
Emma Pease
> Thomas Yan wrote:
> In article <slrna56c1...@hypatia.Stanford.EDU>,
> em...@kanpai.stanford.edu (Emma Pease) wrote:
>
>> In article <tyan-BE8428.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>,
>> > Thomas Yan wrote:
>
> -snip Emma's helpful reminder of Clarke's law and hobbits' POV-
>
>> > chapter II: pp 51 - 73
>>
>> Unlikely to be an Entwife.
>
> Why unlikely?
If Entwives were wandering around west of the Mountains I think they
would have been found by the Ents already. Entwives if they still
lived would have to be in an area not previously searched by Ents
(i.e., either to the far east or the far south).
Even if some had wandered into the west after the Ents stopped
searching, I would expect to hear of a domesticated region where they
settled and grew their trees and plants. Such a region would be known
to someone. Either the elves who know that the Ents are searching for
Entwives and would probably have passed the word along or by Rangers
who would have probably passed it along to Elrond.
> -snip-
>
>> > p58: "only one Power in this world" {who are all the people that
>> > Gandalf considers to be a Power?}
>>
>> Power capitalized probably means the Valar and possibly the Maiar and
>> possibly also fallen Maiar such as Sauron.
>
> That was my guess, but my impression was that many of them were no longer
> active in Middle-Earth, so I was wondering which were around: Sauron,
> Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast, other "istari" (?), Balrogs, and ... ?
> (And it looks like Balrogs aren't very active in the world.)
Overtly active yes, covertly is another matter. Boromir's boat
surviving Rauros and being seen by Faramir (not to mention the
dreams those two have) feels like Ulmo's hand. The wind that drives
away the darkness at the battle before Minas Tirith is possibly
Manwe's hand.
>> The holders of the Three had not used them at any time before the fall
>> of Sauron at the end of the Second Age; they had just kept them safe.
>> Afterwards they had used them and that is what made them vulnerable.
>
> Ah. Did the wielders of the Three believe Sauron was vanquished
> forever? That is, (a) did they believe it was safe to wield the Three,
> did they feel obliged to wield them, or was that a calculated risk? and
> (b) Since the Three were still potent, did that imply to them that the
> One was still a concern? I guess that predated Saruman, who seems to
> have been the best Ring authority save Sauron himself.
Well they knew the one had not been destroyed as two of them at been
present when Isildur took the ring.
>> > p63: {why does Gollum dislike the Sun (and Moon) so much? too much
>> > similarity to the psychic threat of the Eye?}
>>
>> In Tolkien's world the sun and the moon contain the remnants of light
>> from the Two Trees of Valinor and are guarded by two Maiar. That
>> light burns really evil things.
>
> Oh yeah. I did read _The Silmarillion_, but I found it hard going and
> don't remember much. Um, did Morgoth keep the stolen Silmaril(s) in
> his presense despite the pain as kind of a macho thing, or did he tend
> to keep them hidden / covered?
Put them in his crown and endured the pain (one must suffer for the
sake of beauty). Luthien and Beren eventually cut one from the crown
in a quest that must count as among the most dangerous ever.
Nancy Lebovitz
Jo Walton <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <tyan-3BC3A6.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>
> ty...@twcny.rr.com "Thomas Yan" writes:
>
>> In article <slrna56c1...@hypatia.Stanford.EDU>,
>> em...@kanpai.stanford.edu (Emma Pease) wrote:
>>
>> > Possibly an Ent, possibly a Troll,
>> > possibly Sam's cousin had had too much to drink.
>>
>> Hm. Since Treebeard said the Shire sounded like a play the Entwives
>> would like and asked if any had been seen (I think), I wondered if that
>> sighting was supposed to be of an Entwife and suggest that the Ents and
>> Entwives would 'soon' (maybe in Ent time rather than Hobbit time)
>> reconcile.
>
>The only thing against it being an Entwife is that it was described as
>being "as tall as an elm tree" whereas Entwives were fruit trees, and
>therefore smaller than that. An elm tree would be an ent, or a huorn.
What's the source for the Entwives being fruit trees? A fast scan turns
up a mention of the Entwives having cheeks as red as apples and a
preference for tame plants, but nothing about what sort of tree the
Entwives were based on.
A fast googling turns up that elms can reach 120 feet tall or so,
and cherry trees can reach 60 to 80 feet. I don't know whether cherry
trees are the tallest plausible fruit-tree-based Ent, but the difference
between 80 and 120 feet as seen by a hobbit (and allowing that neither
trees nor ents always reach their maximum possible height) seems
minor enough to me that it may have been an Entwife even if they *are*
all fruit trees.
>
>But I want it to have been an Entwife.
>
I don't especially need for it to be an Entwife sighting--in fact
my preference is that it was some odd creature that never got
described in the story. But I would very much prefer that the Entwives
survived (istr a theory that they'd been wiped out by Sauron).
>> But then that seemed too easy to me.
>
>The lack of Ents in the world today seems to imply that they never
>found each other. Hoom, hom, life's like that sometimes.
>
What do you make of
We believe that we may meet again in a time to come, and perhaps we
shall find somewhere a land where we can live together and be content.
But it is forboded that that will only be when we have both lost all
that we now have.
?
The Grey Havens? Heaven? "Leaf by Niggle"?
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com 100 new slogans
"Awake. Aware. Functional. Pick one."
Thomas Yan
em...@kanpai.stanford.edu (Emma Pease) wrote:
> In article <tyan-3BC3A6.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>,
> > Thomas Yan wrote:
-snip good and helpful stuff-
> > Ah. Did the wielders of the Three believe Sauron was vanquished
> > forever? That is, (a) did they believe it was safe to wield the Three,
> > did they feel obliged to wield them, or was that a calculated risk? and
> > (b) Since the Three were still potent, did that imply to them that the
> > One was still a concern? I guess that predated Saruman, who seems to
> > have been the best Ring authority save Sauron himself.
>
> Well they knew the one had not been destroyed as two of them at been
> present when Isildur took the ring.
Doh! I knew that.
-snip-
> > Oh yeah. I did read _The Silmarillion_, but I found it hard going and
> > don't remember much. Um, did Morgoth keep the stolen Silmaril(s) in
> > his presense despite the pain as kind of a macho thing, or did he tend
> > to keep them hidden / covered?
>
> Put them in his crown and endured the pain (one must suffer for the
> sake of beauty). Luthien and Beren eventually cut one from the crown
That is faintly familiar.
> in a quest that must count as among the most dangerous ever.
Heh, no kidding. Despite their success, was it considered foolhardy of them
to try?
Thomas Yan
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> In article <tyan-BE8428.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>,
> Thomas Yan <ty...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>
> >p40: "never seen by any hobbit in Hobbiton again" {pedantic nitpick:
> > this could be misintepreted as 'never seen again by any
> > hobbit from Hobbiton' instead of 'never seen again in
> > Hobbiton by any hobbit'.}
>
> No, I think he was being exact. He was seen by hobbits again,
> but they weren't in Hobbiton. He was also seen by a few others
> in Hobbiton, viz., Gandalf and the dwarves who were to accompany
> him, but they weren't hobbits.
Yes, that's my second interpretation, which as you point out is clear
from context is correct. However, don't you agree that logically my
first interpretation is reasonable if the phrase is taken in isolation?
> When you get to the third volume we can discuss the delicate play
> on the word "man".
You're referring Eowyn and the nazgul king, right? Or is there a play
on 'adult male' versus 'Mortal Humankind'?
-snip-
> (btw you do
> know that "ent" is Old English for "giant"?)
Nope, or else I had forgotten. That's cool; thanks for pointing it out.
-snip-
> >p62: {what does "hobbit-kind" mean? were Smeagol's people
> > essentially hobbits?
>
> Yes. Stoors or related.
Is that from the LOTR text?
> If not, given that, apparently, brand
> > new races could not / did not just appear, what were they
> > and who created them? See p63.}
>
> Eru Iluvatar.
Eru breathed life into the various animals and races, but I thought
many / most races were created by the Maiar or Valar.
> >p62: {It seems unlikely to me, but I still can't help wondering:
> > is Deagol being drawn into watery depths by a fish meant
> > as some kind of allusion to Jonah and the whale?}
>
> Maybe very very slightly. If you haven't read his essay "On
> Fairy-Stories, you might look it up. See what he says about the
> difference between allegory and applicability.
*hangs head* I'm not familiar with the point of the Jonah story. All
I remember is that he gets swalled by some big fish and then escapes
unharmed (I think).
-snip-
> >p63: "About their origins, # I know more than hobbits do themselves"
> > {Created by a good buddy of his?}
>
> Can even an angel speak of God as his good buddy? Maybe.
If hobbits were made by a Maiar / Valar, I was wondering if Gandalf
knew who it was and was particularly friendly with him or her.
> >pp63-64: Smeagol and Bilbo "understood one another remarkably
> > well, very much better than a hobbit would understand, say,
> > a Dwarf, or an Orc, or even an Elf. Think of the riddles
> > they both knew, for one thing." {Abstractly fine, but
> > concretely I don't grok the chasm between Hobbit and
> > non-Hobbit thought.}
>
> Keep reading, you'll see some (subtle) differences presently.
I'll try to spot it, but I think this is something of a blind spot for
me and / or I'm idiosyncratic as to how I categorize the source of the
differences.
Thomas Yan
msch...@condor.depaul.edu (Michael S. Schiffer) wrote:
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote in
> <GqKDD...@kithrup.com>:
> >...
> >>p53: Sighting of walking tree. {Definitely or only probably
> >>Entwives?}
>
> >Or maybe a wandering Ent. We never know. Remember they are not
> >far, in terms of Ent-strides, from the Old Forest. (btw you do
> >know that "ent" is Old English for "giant"?)
>
> Also possibly a Huorn, an awakened tree. We know of at least one such
> in the Old Forest, though it apparently hadn't gotten so far as walking.
Oh! I hadn't ever thought of Old Man Willow as a Huorn.
Dorothy J Heydt
Thomas Yan <ty...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>
>You're referring Eowyn and the nazgul king, right? Or is there a play
>on 'adult male' versus 'Mortal Humankind'?
Yes. Or, as you might put it, _vir_ vs. _homo_.
>
>-snip-
>> >p62: {what does "hobbit-kind" mean? were Smeagol's people
>> > essentially hobbits?
>>
>> Yes. Stoors or related.
>
>Is that from the LOTR text?
Yes. I don't have the book in my hand, but in Ch. 2 where
Gandalf is telling his tale, he says something like "Many years
later, there were some people living near the river; I guess that
they were related to the fathers of the Stoors, because they were
fond of water...."
>> >p62: {It seems unlikely to me, but I still can't help wondering:
>> > is Deagol being drawn into watery depths by a fish meant
>> > as some kind of allusion to Jonah and the whale?}
>>
>> Maybe very very slightly. If you haven't read his essay "On
>> Fairy-Stories, you might look it up. See what he says about the
>> difference between allegory and applicability.
>
>*hangs head* I'm not familiar with the point of the Jonah story. All
>I remember is that he gets swalled by some big fish and then escapes
>unharmed (I think).
That's just a brief episode in the story. There's a lovely
retelling of the story of Jonah in one of the old Whole Earth
Catalogues, which since you are unlikely to find let me excerpt
as briefly as possible.
Jonah is a prophet. God tells him one day, "Go to Nineveh and
tell them to repent or they'll be destroyed." Jonah says, "I
don't wanna, those Ninevites are a bunch of jerks, I think you
should destroy them." God insists, Jonah still rebels, and gets
on a ship to try to get away from God nuudging him. Guess what,
that doesn't work. There's a terrific storm and the sailors say,
"Somebody is in serious trouble with God, we need to find out who
so we can throw him overboard." Jonah says, "Don't bother, it's
me." They throw him overboard and he is swallowed up by a great
fish.
He sits in the belly of the great fish for three whole days (in
among the dead fish and digestive juices, says the WEC) before
breaking down and saying, "OK, OK, God, I'll go TALK to the
Ninevites." And the great fish swims up to the shore and barfs
him up, and Jonah goes to Nineveh.
Nineveh is such a great city that it takes three days to walk
across it. Jonah starts across muttering "repent, repent or
you'll be destroyed," and the Ninevites LISTEN TO HIM and they
all go and repent in sackcloth and ashes, and God spares them.
And Jonah is pissed. He goes off outside the city and sits under
a tree and sulks.
God casts a thunderbolt and destroys the tree, and Jonah
complains. God answers, "Why, Jonah, wherefore how come why is
it, that you complain about my destroying that tree, and you
weren't concerned about my destroying that city full of people,
and all the animals too?"
And that's the end of the story, says the WEC. It leaves you
with a question. Can you learn to live without hating?
Flash forward to the New Testament, where the crowd is asking
Jesus for a sign. "Show us something concrete, to prove that
you're the Messiah." Jesus says, "The only sign you're gonna get
is that of the prophet Jonah. Just as Jonah spent three days in
the belly of the great fish, so shall the Son of Man spend three
days in the belly of the earth."
So you see the connection is a little bit slight, but you
couldn't prove it wasn't there.
Michael S. Schiffer
>In article <GqKDD...@kithrup.com>,
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>> In article <tyan-BE8428.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>,
>> Thomas Yan <ty...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>...
>> If not, given that, apparently, brand
>> > new races could not / did not just appear, what were they
>> > and who created them? See p63.}
>> Eru Iluvatar.
>Eru breathed life into the various animals and races, but I thought
>many / most races were created by the Maiar or Valar.
Of the sapient races, Elves and Men were created directly by Eru. (The
Valar weren't even given much information about Men's place in the
world, which is why they were so reluctant to directly involve
themselves with Men.) Dwarves and Ents were created by Aule and Yavanna
respectively (though it required Illuvatar's sanction and assistance to
give them real independent life). Eagles were Manwe's, IIRC. Orcs were
perverted by Morgoth from Elves (or, according to Tolkien's later
rethinking, Men). Trolls and Dragons are unaccounted for, though Trolls
may have been perverted Ents or golem-like creatures without real
sapience (textev of _The Hobbit_ notwithstanding. It's a given in
Tolkien's world that evil can't truly create anything, which means that
they pretty much have to be bred from one of Eru's creations or the
Valar's subcreations, or they can't be truly alive. While Treebeard
says the trolls were made in envy and mockery of the Ents, he doesn't
say they were made *from* the Ents, and it appears that trolls are
originally stone, not wood or flesh.)
Hobbits are a subrace of Men, so are ultimately direct creations of
Illuvatar. But that doesn't make it completely impossible that one of
the Ainur was involved in whatever process bred them out of Men proper.
(Presumably with authorization, since the Hobbits have no shadow on
them.) All we can really say is that the Elves never heard of Hobbits
while they were in Aman, so the ancient histories don't say anything
about them, and Hobbits don't have records or legends that go back far
enough (or at least didn't write them down in the Red Book).
Andrew Plotkin
> In article <slrna56c1...@hypatia.Stanford.EDU>,
> em...@kanpai.stanford.edu (Emma Pease) wrote:
>> Unlikely to be an Entwife.
Jo Walton wrote:
> The only thing against it being an Entwife is that it was described as
> being "as tall as an elm tree" whereas Entwives were fruit trees, and
> therefore smaller than that. An elm tree would be an ent, or a huorn.
> But I want it to have been an Entwife.
I'm with that.
> The lack of Ents in the world today seems to imply that they never
> found each other.
Or they did, they all settled down happily together, and they have
very, very little to keep them awake these days.
> Ah. Did the wielders of the Three believe Sauron was vanquished
> forever?
Everyone was fairly sure, after Sauron lost the Ring, that he was
permanently out of play. I don't know who had any doubts at all, and
when they started doubting.
Ah, got it. Everyone knew it was a possibility that Sauron would
return; it was the Ring that most people thought lost forever. Isildur
lost it in the Anduin, and if the Ring had washed out into the Sea,
and Sauron never got it back, the Three were safe to use.
> I guess that predated Saruman, who seems to
> have been the best Ring authority save Sauron himself.
The wizards didn't arrive until about a thousand years after Sauron
lost the Ring.
> Oh yeah. I did read _The Silmarillion_, but I found it hard going and
> don't remember much.
You might want to go back and hit the last chapter, which covers the
Third Age and the Rings. It's short, but gives details about Elrond,
Gandalf, and Saruman that don't show up in the trilogy.
> Um, did Morgoth keep the stolen Silmaril(s) in
> his presense despite the pain as kind of a macho thing, or did he tend
> to keep them hidden / covered?
He kept them because they were the most beautiful material things in
the world. They were set in his iron crown: "That crown he never took
from his head, though its weight became a deadly weariness..."
--Z
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
* Make your vote count. Get your vote counted.
Andrew Plotkin
> Of the sapient races, Elves and Men were created directly by Eru. (The
> Valar weren't even given much information about Men's place in the
> world, which is why they were so reluctant to directly involve
> themselves with Men.) Dwarves and Ents were created by Aule and Yavanna
> respectively (though it required Illuvatar's sanction and assistance to
> give them real independent life). Eagles were Manwe's, IIRC. Orcs were
> perverted by Morgoth from Elves (or, according to Tolkien's later
> rethinking, Men). Trolls and Dragons are unaccounted for, though Trolls
> may have been perverted Ents or golem-like creatures without real
> sapience (textev of _The Hobbit_ notwithstanding.
_The Hobbit_ also has mountain giants, and Gandalf mentions talking to
them, so they seem to be sapient too. Also the Wargs.
Ross TenEyck
>In article <slrna597v...@hypatia.Stanford.EDU>,
> em...@kanpai.stanford.edu (Emma Pease) wrote:
>> In article <tyan-3BC3A6.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>,
>> > Thomas Yan wrote:
>> > Oh yeah. I did read _The Silmarillion_, but I found it hard going and
>> > don't remember much. Um, did Morgoth keep the stolen Silmaril(s) in
>> > his presense despite the pain as kind of a macho thing, or did he tend
>> > to keep them hidden / covered?
>> Put them in his crown and endured the pain (one must suffer for the
>> sake of beauty). Luthien and Beren eventually cut one from the crown
It was more of a tormented can't-stand-to-be-apart-from-them-
despite-the-agony thing.
>> in a quest that must count as among the most dangerous ever.
>Heh, no kidding. Despite their success, was it considered foolhardy of them
>to try?
They were pretty much destined to try it -- the proximate cause
was that Luthien's father, who didn't relish the idea of a mere
mortal human as a son-in-law, demanded a Silmaril as the price
for his daughter's hand in marriage. He didn't expect Beren
to try to get one, he certainly didn't expect Luthien to help
Beren, and he absolutely never expected them to succeed -- but
they had the power of love and doom on their side, both potent
hoodoos in Tolkien's cosmology.
(It should be noted that Luthien's father didn't get to enjoy
the Silmaril all that long. You remember that one Kipling
story where Mowgli finds a jeweled elephant goad, and a dozen
or so people kill each other over it before he returns it to
the hoard it came from? The Silmarils were like that, only
worse.)
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Ross TenEyck
>In article <GqKDD...@kithrup.com>,
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>> In article <tyan-BE8428.1...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>,
>> Thomas Yan <ty...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>> If not, given that, apparently, brand
>> > new races could not / did not just appear, what were they
>> > and who created them? See p63.}
>>
>> Eru Iluvatar.
>Eru breathed life into the various animals and races, but I thought
>many / most races were created by the Maiar or Valar.
Sentience -- or Will, if you prefer -- was the sole gift of
Iluvatar. Not even the Valar could create a new sentient
species without the specific intervention of Iluvatar; that's
how the Dwarves came about.
Hobbits -- I think this is mentioned in one of the appendices,
or perhaps the introduction -- are clearly a subrace of Men.
Michael S. Schiffer
> Travis Casey <efi...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> Thomas Yan wrote:
>> [cutting lots of the notes]
>> > p38: "I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
>> > Most silent while "trying to work it out and see if it was
>> > a compliment". {I had assumed it was actually an insult,
>> > but in fact it is a compliment, right? "I like # you half
>> > as well as you deserve" = 'I ought to like you twice as
>> > much as I actually do'.}
>>
>> Note, though, that zero would be "less than half".
>
>Which would render it pretty much meaningless, right?
Not meaningless, just twisty. (Compare "I'm as glad to see you as you
are to see me" on the meeting of bitter enemies.)
>> And further, what does
>> that imply about the ones who aren't in that "less than half"
>> group, if anything?
>It implies little. Specifically, it implies he likes half or more
>as much as they deserve, which is such a large range that it
>provides little information.
Especially since "as much as they deserve" (or, strictly speaking, more
than half as much as they deserve) might be very little indeed. He
probably likes the Sackville-Bagginses exactly as much as they deserve
(or as Bilbo thinks they deserve, anyway).
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS
William T. Hyde
>
> p58: "only one Power in this world" {who are all the people that
> Gandalf considers to be a Power?}
Hard to say. Any of the greater Maiar might
qualify. Sauron is definitely one. The five
wizards are Maiar, but are somehow restricted
in their mission. I get the impression that
Radagast and the other wizards are weaker, and
wouldn't be Powers even if unfettered. The Balrog(s)
are also weaker Maiar, while Bombadil is an enigma.
Or maybe he's just talking about Eru, making the
point that the big guy is as far above Sauron as
Gandalf is above an ant.
> p63: {why does Gollum dislike the Sun (and Moon) so much? too much
> similarity to the psychic threat of the Eye?}
The sun and moon are created by the Valar, and partake
to some degree of their innate nature. It was a sign
of the forthcoming fall of Melkor, Sauron's lord, that
he was fascinated by the outer darkness, or it may in
fact have been part of the reason for his fall.
Light good, darkness bad.
Being "of the valar" in even a tiny degree gives
some power in middle earth. I seriously doubt that
any "ordinary" great warrior could have held off the
Nazgul at weathertop as Aragorn did. His relatively
close connection with the Valar (distant, but close
compared to, e.g. Boromir's) appears to give him some
power against them.
In Tolkein's world virtue (almost equivalent to
worship of the Valar) amplifes your strength. Evil
saps it, but the evil are allowed sources of power
not allowed to the good.
>
> p63: "About their origins, # I know more than hobbits do themselves"
> {Created by a good buddy of his?}
Most of the minor races were created by the Valar,
with the final step done by Eru. Gandalf was probably
there when Dwarves, Ents, and Hobbits were created.
William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University
Thomas Yan
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> In article <tyan-33B3F6.2...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>,
> Thomas Yan <ty...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
> >
> >You're referring Eowyn and the nazgul king, right? Or is there a play
> >on 'adult male' versus 'Mortal Humankind'?
>
> Yes. Or, as you might put it, _vir_ vs. _homo_.
> >
> >-snip-
> >> >p62: {what does "hobbit-kind" mean? were Smeagol's people
> >> > essentially hobbits?
> >>
> >> Yes. Stoors or related.
> >
> >Is that from the LOTR text?
>
> Yes. I don't have the book in my hand, but in Ch. 2 where
> Gandalf is telling his tale, he says something like "Many years
> later, there were some people living near the river; I guess that
> they were related to the fathers of the Stoors, because they were
> fond of water...."
Whoops! That was semi-silly of me. That occurs right after Gandalf's
use of "hobbit-kind". In my partial defense, I'll say that 'Stoors'
didn't make much of an impression on me (I guess it's in the prologue),
and Gandalf's use of 'guess' made me think his speculation might not be
reliable.
Sometimes I have trouble telling when an educated guess should be taken
as being true or not. For example, at the end of the trilogy or in the
Appendix, there's an (oral?) tradition that Sam, like the other
Ring-bearers, gets to go away West. It's presented as not a documented
fact, but I take it as being true.
> >> >p62: {It seems unlikely to me, but I still can't help wondering:
> >> > is Deagol being drawn into watery depths by a fish meant
> >> > as some kind of allusion to Jonah and the whale?}
> >>
> >> Maybe very very slightly. If you haven't read his essay "On
> >> Fairy-Stories, you might look it up. See what he says about the
> >> difference between allegory and applicability.
> >
> >*hangs head* I'm not familiar with the point of the Jonah story. All
> >I remember is that he gets swalled by some big fish and then escapes
> >unharmed (I think).
>
> That's just a brief episode in the story. There's a lovely
> retelling of the story of Jonah in one of the old Whole Earth
> Catalogues, which since you are unlikely to find let me excerpt
> as briefly as possible.
-snip-
Thanks! That didn't ring any bells. (Before reading Pamela
Dean's _Tam Lin_, I thought that I hadn't read the Tam Lin ballad
before, but in fact I had or had been exposed to the story because
there were elements that I recognized in the book.)
> And that's the end of the story, says the WEC. It leaves you
> with a question. Can you learn to live without hating?
Ah, and that might point to the difference between Bilbo and Gollum's
tenures as Ring-bearers: One stayed his hand from pity, and the other
killed out of greed.
> Flash forward to the New Testament, where the crowd is asking
> Jesus for a sign. "Show us something concrete, to prove that
> you're the Messiah." Jesus says, "The only sign you're gonna get
> is that of the prophet Jonah. Just as Jonah spent three days in
> the belly of the great fish, so shall the Son of Man spend three
> days in the belly of the earth."
>
> So you see the connection is a little bit slight, but you
> couldn't prove it wasn't there.
I don't think I see any connection here, except for possibly Gandalf's
ressurection.
Dorothy J Heydt
Thomas Yan <ty...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
{I said)
>> Yes. I don't have the book in my hand, but in Ch. 2 where
>> Gandalf is telling his tale, he says something like "Many years
>> later, there were some people living near the river; I guess that
>> they were related to the fathers of the Stoors, because they were
>> fond of water...."
>
>Whoops! That was semi-silly of me. That occurs right after Gandalf's
>use of "hobbit-kind". In my partial defense, I'll say that 'Stoors'
>didn't make much of an impression on me (I guess it's in the prologue),
Yes. There were three tribes of Hobbits who settled in the
Shire, the Stoors, Fallohides, and Harfoots. Just as England was
settled by three Germanic tribes: Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. And
the leaders of the colonizing hobbits were Marcho and Blanco,
which are modified OE for "horse" and Romantic for "white", cf.
Hengist and Horsa, who led the invasion of England. And so on
and on; Shippey puts it neatly when he says that the Shire is a
"calque," that is, a loan-translation, of England.
>
>Sometimes I have trouble telling when an educated guess should be taken
>as being true or not. For example, at the end of the trilogy or in the
>Appendix, there's an (oral?) tradition that Sam, like the other
>Ring-bearers, gets to go away West. It's presented as not a documented
>fact, but I take it as being true.
I do too.
>
>> And that's the end of the story, says the WEC. It leaves you
>> with a question. Can you learn to live without hating?
>
>Ah, and that might point to the difference between Bilbo and Gollum's
>tenures as Ring-bearers: One stayed his hand from pity, and the other
>killed out of greed.
>
>> Flash forward to the New Testament, where the crowd is asking
>> Jesus for a sign. "Show us something concrete, to prove that
>> you're the Messiah." Jesus says, "The only sign you're gonna get
>> is that of the prophet Jonah. Just as Jonah spent three days in
>> the belly of the great fish, so shall the Son of Man spend three
>> days in the belly of the earth."
>>
>> So you see the connection is a little bit slight, but you
>> couldn't prove it wasn't there.
>
>I don't think I see any connection here, except for possibly Gandalf's
>resurrection.
But Smeagol wasn't resurrected. As I said, it's really slight if
it's there at all.
Thomas Yan
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
> Yes. There were three tribes of Hobbits who settled in the
> Shire, the Stoors, Fallohides, and Harfoots. Just as England was
> settled by three Germanic tribes: Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. And
> the leaders of the colonizing hobbits were Marcho and Blanco,
> which are modified OE for "horse" and Romantic for "white", cf.
> Hengist and Horsa, who led the invasion of England. And so on
> and on; Shippey puts it neatly when he says that the Shire is a
> "calque," that is, a loan-translation, of England.
Very Cool.
_The Annotated Hobbit_ sounds accessible to me, but my guess is that
detailed analyses or annotations of LOTR or the history of Middle-Earth
would overwhelm me.
However, learning bits of it at a time is lots of fun. :)
Thomas Yan
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> In article <tyan-BAD2D5.2...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>,
> Thomas Yan <ty...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
> >Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
[Deagol/Smeagol connection with Jonah and the whale?]
-snip-
> >> So you see the connection is a little bit slight, but you
> >> couldn't prove it wasn't there.
> >
> >I don't think I see any connection here, except for possibly Gandalf's
> >resurrection.
>
> But Smeagol wasn't resurrected. As I said, it's really slight if
> it's there at all.
Ok, I think I'll lean towards 'isn't there', but I do want to point out
that Smeagol's persona(lity) does resurface.