Why Tolkien is not coddling his readers, why Tolkien is awesome

[Lord Varys]

9 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

That the class-differences EXIST doesn't necessarily think Tolkien was idealizing them either. To quote Martin Scorsese, portrayal isn't condoning. Samwise Gamgee is a Working Class hero of the most decided working sort but ends up in the position of the Shire's ruler every bit as much as Aragorn. Sam has no secret bloodline and is decidedly the HeroTM of the piece more so than Frodo (who is the adopted son of an upjumped merchant) or the Brandybucks.

Well, he was the one creating them, wasn't he? Considering that Tolkien didn't exactly portray the Hobbit classes in detail all the time I'd say it is important to know that those class differences existed and are visible in the way people are addressed. Sam's family tree also confirms that his career marked the rise of his prodigy to Hobbit royalty, basically. Sam is pretty much a working-class boy who has been taken under the wing of gentleman and the training he received enabled him to rise above his station. Sort of like Maggie Thatcher being allowed to study at Oxford with the rich people.

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It's actually my point that orcs are a plot device for the most part. They're something which exists to give the humans something to stab and it's something he's known to have struggled with. One of the things which Tolkien believed in due to his Catholic beliefs was redemption and mercy as an importat thing but this actually runs up against the themes of the story he wants to tell. It's why they're given lip service in the books but they always have villains who die or reject it.

Hm. Does anybody ever offer mercy and redemption to the Orcs in the books? I don't remember any such lines. In fact, Frodo himself exclaims (I'm paraphrasing) that Gollum is now as bad/evil as an Orc and just an enemy. Sure, that's in the beginning of the story and all but Frodo never gets a chance to change his mind on that one, does he? He never meets a friendly Orc throughout the story, after all.

I'm with you that technically the Orcs should be redeemable in light of their origin stories (being either twisted elves or men or both). In fact, it is far worse than that considering that no Elf/Man who was once abducted by Melkor's servants and transformed into an Orc had any choice or say in the matter. And neither did the thousands of little Orc babies who were bred and twisted by the Dark Lords in the millennia to come. We cannot assume the average Orc had the option to reject serving the Dark Lords nor are these creatures likely to have as much free will as the clean Children of Ilúvatar.

You probably recall the whole metaphysics of Arda Marred which involves Melkor permanently staining the substance of the world itself by imbuing it with its essence (the explanation why there is a tendency to evil and corruption even in the entire world, Valinor included) as well as putting even more of his own essence into all his servants (which would be mostly Orcs). And that actually means killing an Orc might be a worse crime, metaphysically speaking, than killing an evil Man, because the latter would have chosen evil in Tolkien's mindset while the Orc pretty much had no choice at all.

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I'm actually not sure that concept is as ingrained as people make it out to be. The Rohan are ruled by a King but Tolkien is very clear they're "low blood" in the context of not being Numenoreans and the Gondorians are "high blood" but Faramir outright says there's almost no difference between the two of them.

At this time, yes. I mean, we have no idea how many Númenóreans actually came with Elendil and his sons to Middle-earth (couldn't have been all that much in those seven ships they had) and those would then have cross-bred on a large scale with the lesser men of Middle-earth (the nobility excluded, of course, who would have entered into perpetual cousin marriages. One can rectify it a bit by assuming that a lot of the Faithful were already at Gondor because Pelargir was this huge haven but 3,000 years are a pretty long time and there would have been regions in Gondor where no Dúnedain lived at all.

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As for Aragorn not "earning" his kingship, with all due respect, that's ludicrous. He spends decades as a Ranger on the front lines fighting the forces of Mordor and keeping the lands of the West safe. He also takes over from Denethor in leading a military rescue of the Gondorian host as accompanied by a host of specters. He's not "The Sword in the Stone", showing up and claiming the sword.

But is truly earning his kingship that way? I mean, it is his special royal blood that enables him to do all that. Aragorn is blessed with an exceptional long life for a Dúnadan for his day and age, and that's something Eru or the Valar granted him long before he did his great deeds. Denethor or Boromir would have been old done men when the War of the Ring began.

Granted, his century-long reign might have been divine reward after he played his role in the downfall of Sauron.

What we safely can say is that Aragorn only got permission to marry Arwen Undómiel by proving his worth in the war against Sauron. But that's a separate issue.

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Indeed, he's very much instead one of the working class heroes who is secretly a Prince versus the Wise Prince Archetype.

Oh, come on, his specialness is pretty much shown with the palantíri thing. Saruman has no right not use them is thus becomes very easily ensnared by Sauron. Denethor has a right to use the Anor stone because he is the steward of the king. He remains steadfast but is tricked and deceived anyway. Aragorn is the king and rightful owner of the palantíri and can thanks to his divine right to rule as well as due to his impeccable royal bloodline win the fight for the Anor stone against Sauron.

That's not something anybody else could have done. Not even Gandalf could have done it, according to his own words. Only the king could do that. Remember what Aragorn says when Gimli dared chide him for looking into the stone.

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Interestingly, those of different "bloods" are constantly marrying with no stigma to that. Faramir and Eowyn, Arwen and Aragorn, Beren and Luthien, and so on.

I'd never say purity of race and blood takes precedence over love and destiny in Tolkien's word. If some special hero protagonist wants to marry the beautiful Elven maid then this is perfectly fine. In that sense he is pretty progressive. And keep in mind that I never said he was obsessed with racial purity.

But you should also keep in mind that the great unions between elves and men are pretty much projects of god. It is according to Eru's plan that Beren and Lúthien marry (hence the permission that Beren returns from the dead to father a child and Lúthien is allowed to be counted among the Mortal) as well as Idril and Tuor (who is then indeed, according to a comment in the letters, counted among the Elves). God can make exceptions. But those exceptions are not the rule.

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Théoden certainly lives to learn and recant from his mistakes.

I'd not count Théoden among the people who actually fell (but even he died in battle, remember?). Gríma was the guilty one there, remember? And what happens? The man rejects mercy when offered, commits a last heinous crime, and is killed.

8 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

• Denethor and the Stewards are, legally, waiting until the return of Earnur - the King who never returned.

Well, I guess it began that way. But, you know, Earnur would have been dead for centuries in the days of Denethor II. People can be declared to be dead in their absence, you know, and one would expect that the second or third Ruling Steward would have done so.

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• The precedent is that the House of Anarion rules Gondor, not the line of Isildur - if they were waiting for a Heir of Isildur, the monarchy would have been restored much earlier. Hell, Aragorn as Thorongil could have revealed himself to Ecthelion at the height of his popularity.

They are twisting the law in that regard. Isildur was king of both Gondor and Arnor by the time of his untimely death, and Meneldil only served as King of Gondor at his leisure. Presumably his plan would have been that the elder line of Elendil would remain high-king of the entire realm.

Not to mention that Aragorn happens to be descended from both Isildur and Anárion, making this point moot. The idea that descent through the female line didn't count in Gondor is very unlikely considering that Earnil and Earnur were both rather distant cousins of the royal line.

But then, the fact that there was no Ruling Queen in either Gondor nor Arnor may be a hint that Elendil and his sons broke with Tar-Aldarion's progressive law allowing women to take the throne.

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• Related to the above, the "seeking consent of the people" is acknowledging the precedent of rejection. Are they willing to set aside the dead legalities of the past? Yes, they are. Had this taken place at any time other than the War of the Ring, the result might well have been different, and the Stewards are the one with the army.

Sure, but we are not talking about other scenarios. Aragorn only claims the throne when the time is right, not when it might not have worked. But we can be reasonably sure that divine punishment would have quickly followed had the Stewards actually warred against the Dúnedain of the North. Gondor would have been destroyed.

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• Faramir notes that the Kings of Gondor became "childless Lords, musing on heraldry" - and that the Stewards were better and more active rulers. Certainly, no-one should see Earnur (blood of Anarion or not) as anything more than a meat-headed idiot.

Well, he was a false king, anyway. Arvedui and Fíriel were supposed to take the throne, that would have saved both kingdoms at that point.

Not sure about the childless lords, though. Most of the kings had sons if you check the lists.

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• The third book is called The Return of the King because that was a publishing decision. Tolkien thought it was too spoilery, and preferred The War of the Ring.

I know that. But that doesn't change the way Aragorn is portrayed on the pages, or does it?

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Incidentally, compare Aragorn with the "return of the King" in The Hobbit. Thorin goes around screaming "I am the King. Obey me!" Yes, he has the lineage, but it doesn't do him any good. Aragorn by contrast earns the throne.

So what? Thorin still is the king, is he not? He even dies a king. Nobody ever said he was a good king.

8 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I'd like to mention the Kingship vs. the Stewardship isn't exactly unprecedented as well.

Shogun vs. Emperor.

Well, that's sort of a historical accident due to the fact that Japanese emperors lost their political power. Once they had the chance to regain they quickly enough crushed the samurai and set themselves as god-emperors with absolute power.

8 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Given what we know about Feanor, that Nerdanel was able to restrain him when no-one else could, says a fair bit about her. Maedhros and Maglor inheriting her temperament (rather than Dad's) also allows us to make inferences about her personality, given what we know about her sons.

Oh, come on, now you are trying to describe a woman's character by referring to the traits her sons inherited from her. That in itself reveals that we don't really know anything about her.

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Oh, and there's the other bits and pieces - she wasn't particularly pretty (brown hair and ruddy complexion), but Feanor married her anyway.

Well, it doesn't reflect well on you that you think a man like Feanor (or any man, for that matter) is strictly focused on a pretty face. I mean, come on, you know that yourself. Beauty is well and good, but beauty and brains is much better, and if you can't have both then taking the second is much better than the first (within reason, of course, but then Nerdanel is nowhere described as being ugly, is she?).

And we should also keep in mind that Feanor also supposedly had an unhealthy obsession with his half-niece, Galadriel. Was that strictly professional interest in her beautiful hair or was there more to that...?

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She went through more pregnancies than any other Tolkien Elf - which again testifies to her strength (since Elf pregnancies are apparently very draining). She was a talented smith in her own right (HOME XII has her being able to build uncanny statues), from a family of smiths. And she and Feanor went through the closest Tolkien ever comes to describing a divorce.

Well, the first part makes producing the most important task a woman can possibly do (which sits very fine with Tolkien's own views, I assume). However, a lot of other insignificant Noldor wives remained behind in Valinor - which would essentially also be a divorce, so there is nothing special about that (by the way, that is usually just an ad hoc explanation as to explain why the hell the Noldorin princes in exile apparently had no wives - Tolkien didn't think about them when he was writing the story). Tolkien also points out that Elven spouses often lived apart later in life so that's no big deal, either.

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All in all, there's a fair bit to unpack there. She doesn't get many lines, but as with so much of Tolkien, there's plenty implied.

Sure, I'm not saying Nerdanel is a complete failure as a background female character. But you have to really be into the work to even remember her.

8 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

As has been pointed out, the entire point of the Rings of Power was to preserve the past. And that was not a Good Thing(TM). 

I happily concede that. But that's part of the tragedy/pessimism of the story. The past was great but we can't go back and trying to do it 'by force' is evil.

2 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I, personally, also think Tolkien did a really great job with quality over quantity. Galadriel and Eowyn really make up for a lot of in terms of female representation. Frankly, Eowyn going off to be a "housewife" is kind of an interesting bit of shaming given the fact THE WAR IS OVER. You could argue her putting up the sword is a defeat but that's a view of conflict where only the career soldier is justified.

Well, just sit down a moment and ask yourself if you would enjoy reading LotR (or even feel comfortable reading it) when there would only be two qualified male characters in the story. Probably not. I definitely wouldn't. It would feel very odd, actually.

Éowyn's arc is pretty bad, actually. She is riding to war because she is depressed and effectively seeking death in battle after Aragorn's rejects her. Then she suffers a trauma, recovers, and accepts her role as a proper woman (which is not this shield maiden crap) with the help of a nice guy - and Faramir really is a nice guy. Their love story works pretty well if you read it.

Just compare Merry and Pippin's rise to prominence and fame. They not only become war heroes but also have no issue pacifying the Shire in the end. Why couldn't Éowyn come into her own in a similar fashion? I mean, Tolkien was born a subject of a Queen Regnant and died during the reign of a Queen Regnant (and wrote Éowyn's story with the Princess Elizabeth being heir-presumptive to the throne).

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Eowyn is also going to remain royalty.

Yeah, her brother will remain king, but nobody doubted that. Being a housewife is a term that describes what you do, not so much to whom you are related or married.

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Could Tolkien have used some more female characters? Yes, but he has big and important ones involved in rulership and war.

Which at the time was incredibly progressive.

Yeah, well, today it isn't anymore.

2 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I also think that kind of frames things in a too linear fashion which isn't true to the narrative. Numenor was the greatest in terms of largest civilizations in the world and longest lived but it was also morally corrupt. Yes, the World is Broken by Melkor. However, Tolkien also established everything Melkor did was also to the eventual betterment of the world.

Númenor was not 'morally corrupt' in the beginning. I did not refer to Númenor under, say, Ar-Adunakhôr. I was referring to Númenor as it was supposed to - as it was under Elros Tar-Minyatur and his immediate successors.

And we know that Númenor was a blessed realm nearly until the end. The climate was perfect, they had no problems with storms at sea, and so forth. God was smiling upon them and everything they did.

Not everything Melkor did was to the betterment of the world. Some of it was, those tones the discord the Music of the Ainur could integrate into Ilúvatar's themes. But the noise that remains, presumably, still a part of creation and it is nothing but garbage. It won't be part of the Second Music of the Ainur.

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Aragorn also makes Gondor a greater civilization. kingdoms get established which have fallen, and the passing of the elves is the way it was meant to be.

The decline/fading of the Elves is a symptom of the fallen world. It is not part of the original plan. Especially not the way it came about in the story, with the Elves having to leave the land of their birth to spend the remainder of the world in some ethereal otherwordly exile. It may have been that Eru always imagined the Elven bodies to eventually fade. But the Melkor element in the world hastened that effect, not to mention that the Valar moving from Middle-earth to Aman and calling the Elves there separated them from their roots and origins from the beginning. That was never the plan. Not at first.

7 minutes ago, SeanF said:

She was obviously very important politically in Rohan, given that Théoden left her in charge of the Kingdom (presumably, she must have handed over authority to someone when she rode away).

Oh, come on, Éowyn is just the nursemaid of her ailing uncle. Gríma runs the show at Edoras, not Éowyn. With Théodred dead and Éomer accompanying Théoden to war the only remaining member of the House of Eorl is Éowyn. But that is a less-than-ideal situation. Ideally there should have been another man of the royal family, and then he would have taken charge. In absence of that a royal woman has to do the job. Noble birth usually beats the restriction of gender roles in such a society. The niece of the king is not going to be bossed around by some servant or peasant.

In addition, we have to keep in mind that Éowyn was just expected to take charge of women, children, and old people. Hardly a difficult or important task, nor a job the average male warrior would have gladly volunteered for. After all, Éowyn herself didn't like the job description, either.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

How did "The Hobbit" "ruin the geography of 'the Silmarillion'"?  Tolkien is quite explicit that the War of Wrath against Morgoth at the end of the First Age resulted in the sinking of most of Beleriand.

[SeanF]

53 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

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Well, just sit down a moment and ask yourself if you would enjoy reading LotR (or even feel comfortable reading it) when there would only be two qualified male characters in the story. Probably not. I definitely wouldn't. It would feel very odd, actually.

 

If it was a gripping story, with good characters, I'd be perfectly happy reading an epic fantasy with a largely female cast of characters.

[Lord Varys]

10 minutes ago, SeanF said:

If it was a gripping story, with good characters, I'd be perfectly happy reading an epic fantasy with a largely female cast of characters.

But it would be something outside the box, no? An experiment and something new/extraorinary. I mean, there would have to be an explanation why that is and we would need (or demand) an explanation why the hell there aren't any men in this story. So we would have to have a matriarchy or a world in which there were only very few men because of this or that reason.

Does anybody know a fantasy novel/series where women feature as prominently as men do in Tolkien's world (and men play as irrelevant a role as women do in Tolkien's world)? I don't know anything even remotely resembling something like that.

Nobody asks the question why the hell there are (pretty much) no (active) women in Tolkien's work, though. Because we accustomed to that kind of thing.

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How did "The Hobbit" "ruin the geography of 'the Silmarillion'"?  Tolkien is quite explicit that the War of Wrath against Morgoth at the end of the First Age resulted in the sinking of most of Beleriand.

Oh, great question. If you check the early maps from the Ambarkanta depicting the entire world it is quite clear that the lands immediately east of Baleriand are supposed to western Europe. 'The Hobbit' got the Shire, Eriador, the Misty Mountains, Mirkwood, and all the other children's book crap in the way.

This whole thing goes back to the good old concept of Tol Eressea being England (which was eventually abandoned). There was never a question that Middle-earth (and the earlier name for it from the LT I don't recall right now) was supposed to be Europe. Thus the lands east of Beleriand would have to have been the British Isles still attached to Europe, and then France, Germany, Scandinavia, etc.

On the fantasy level of the story we should Tolkien thank for the inclusion of 'The Hobbit' because the geographic elements invented in that story greatly contributed to the fantasy element in LotR. But then, without 'The Hobbit' would never have wasted time writing a sequel to the Silmarillion.

[David Selig]

4 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I, personally, also think Tolkien did a really great job with quality over quantity. Galadriel and Eowyn really make up for a lot of in terms of female representation. Frankly, Eowyn going off to be a "housewife" is kind of an interesting bit of shaming given the fact THE WAR IS OVER. You could argue her putting up the sword is a defeat but that's a view of conflict where only the career soldier is justified.

Eowyn is also going to remain royalty.

Could Tolkien have used some more female characters? Yes, but he has big and important ones involved in rulership and war.

Which at the time was incredibly progressive.

That's kind a stretch. Having a few female characters being given secondary roles and have them involved in ruling countries was hardly all that progressive and unusual even back then.

[Hereward]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

 

But is truly earning his kingship that way? I mean, it is his special royal blood that enables him to do all that. Aragorn is blessed with an exceptional long life for a Dúnadan for his day and age, and that's something Eru or the Valar granted him long before he did his great deeds. Denethor or Boromir would have been old done men when the War of the Ring began.

 

Forgive the nitpick, but Denethor is older than Aragorn. He is 89 at the time of his death, and although he is said to have been aged prematurely by stress and his use of the palantir, he is still hale and hearty, fully able to fight, as he says himself. We are also told that few in Gondor now lived past 100 with vigour, except in houses of nobler blood, so it seems reasonable to say that Denethor could have expected to live another 20 or 30 years. 

[C.T. Phipps]

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Sam is pretty much a working-class boy who has been taken under the wing of gentleman and the training he received enabled him to rise above his station. Sort of like Maggie Thatcher being allowed to study at Oxford with the rich people.

That's a poor choice of comparisons as Sam doesn't actually get any higher education (if such a thing exists in Middle Earth) but simply returns from war time to become a hero of the local civil war. If anything, he's more like a WW1 turned local politician. Certainly, he's left a fortune by Frodo and that seals his movement from working class to upper class but he doesn't receive any "training" beyond the fires of conflict and struggle.

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I'm with you that technically the Orcs should be redeemable in light of their origin stories (being either twisted elves or men or both). In fact, it is far worse than that considering that no Elf/Man who was once abducted by Melkor's servants and transformed into an Orc had any choice or say in the matter. And neither did the thousands of little Orc babies who were bred and twisted by the Dark Lords in the millennia to come. We cannot assume the average Orc had the option to reject serving the Dark Lords nor are these creatures likely to have as much free will as the clean Children of Ilúvatar.

This is entirely inferance but I always felt it was meant to be assumed modern humanity was a descendant of Hobbits, Humans, and Orcs with Dwarves having faded away into their mountains while Elves left Middle Earth. Hence Modern Humans are possessed of all three races qualities. This may be reaching, however.

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And that actually means killing an Orc might be a worse crime, metaphysically speaking, than killing an evil Man, because the latter would have chosen evil in Tolkien's mindset while the Orc pretty much had no choice at all.

Given Elves reincarnate, I had the idea it's possible the orcs may be the same way. After all, they wouldn't go to the Halls of Mandos given they're not possessed of human souls nor would they go to Valinor. That may be attempting to ascribe too much Celestial justice to a system which is sometimes cold and arbitrary.

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At this time, yes. I mean, we have no idea how many Númenóreans actually came with Elendil and his sons to Middle-earth (couldn't have been all that much in those seven ships they had) and those would then have cross-bred on a large scale with the lesser men of Middle-earth (the nobility excluded, of course, who would have entered into perpetual cousin marriages. One can rectify it a bit by assuming that a lot of the Faithful were already at Gondor because Pelargir was this huge haven but 3,000 years are a pretty long time and there would have been regions in Gondor where no Dúnedain lived at all.

Interbreeding is certainly possible between the two allied peoples and we see at least one example at the end of ROTK.

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But is truly earning his kingship that way? I mean, it is his special royal blood that enables him to do all that. Aragorn is blessed with an exceptional long life for a Dúnadan for his day and age, and that's something Eru or the Valar granted him long before he did his great deeds. Denethor or Boromir would have been old done men when the War of the Ring began.

Well the context of Aragorn's claim to the throne is a lot more than simply showing up and claiming it as Denthor certainly could have challenged it. By that point, however, Denethor and Boromir are dead while Faramir is also incapacitated with a dire need for military leadership which Aragorn can provide.

As for his special royal blood, Denthor is about as close to a Numenorean as exists still in Gondor save Aragorn himself. This is why he's got telepathy and is probably stronger as well as fitter than his own sons--who are exceptional themselves.

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Granted, his century-long reign might have been divine reward after he played his role in the downfall of Sauron.

With the exception of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins as well as Gimli I don't think there's any actual divine rewards at play here.

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Oh, come on, his specialness is pretty much shown with the palantíri thing. Saruman has no right not use them is thus becomes very easily ensnared by Sauron. Denethor has a right to use the Anor stone because he is the steward of the king. He remains steadfast but is tricked and deceived anyway. Aragorn is the king and rightful owner of the palantíri and can thanks to his divine right to rule as well as due to his impeccable royal bloodline win the fight for the Anor stone against Sauron.

I think you're ascribing formality to simple willpower. Unlike the movies, Sauron can't really bend the will of strong-willed humans out of hand. Denethor is mislead by what he sees in the Palantir but he's never actually dominated by it (due to being too powerful for Sauron) while Aragorn is only able to mislead Sauron through his own immense well. Both Denethor and Aragorn are magical humans, which isn't due to their kingship or steward status.

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I'd not count Théoden among the people who actually fell (but even he died in battle, remember?). Gríma was the guilty one there, remember? And what happens? The man rejects mercy when offered, commits a last heinous crime, and is killed.

I'd actually cite this as a positive on Tolkien's part, though not for reasons of justice but the simple fact that he's not making things magically work out because of a choice for forgiveness. While Thorin dies in the process, I'd also state that he's the best example of an individual learning from his mistakes.

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Well, I guess it began that way. But, you know, Earnur would have been dead for centuries in the days of Denethor II. People can be declared to be dead in their absence, you know, and one would expect that the second or third Ruling Steward would have done so.

As mentioned with the Shogunate, there's historical precedent and while the Emperor eventually reclaimed his powers (just as Aragorn does), the simple fact is the Stewardship has all the authority of being a King while also perhaps having other advantages. In addition to the Shogunate, there have been other "King in all but name" rulerships including Rome and things like Archdukes or Principalities.

When people overthrow tradition, they invite civil war. I remind you that Julius Caesar got away with dictatorship right until he ascribed monarchical status for himself in lands outside of Rome.

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Not to mention that Aragorn happens to be descended from both Isildur and Anárion, making this point moot. The idea that descent through the female line didn't count in Gondor is very unlikely considering that Earnil and Earnur were both rather distant cousins of the royal line.

My headcanon is the lineage moved from equality with women due to Ar-Pharazon.

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Sure, but we are not talking about other scenarios. Aragorn only claims the throne when the time is right, not when it might not have worked. But we can be reasonably sure that divine punishment would have quickly followed had the Stewards actually warred against the Dúnedain of the North. Gondor would have been destroyed.

Divine punishment seems highly unlikely given the only active agents of supernatural GoodTM in the world are Gandalf, Radaghast, and Saruman in the West. Gandalf would see the destruction of Gondor as counter-intuitive, Radaghast wouldn't care as its non-animal related, and Saruman would probably approve.

Also, the general attitude I get from the White Council is that they don't disapprove of Gondor as ruled by the Stewards since they're entirely competent at opposing Sauron. It's just Aragorn is needed because they need someone EXTRA competent (i.e. of a lineage known for slaying Archdemon Lich Kings) when Sauron returns.

Basically, I see the Return of the King because Gandalf believes Aragorn is the only one with a possible chance of destroying Sauron again for a time.

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Well, he was a false king, anyway. Arvedui and Fíriel were supposed to take the throne, that would have saved both kingdoms at that point.

Tolkien doesn't seem especially disturbed at the prospect of new kingdoms or dynasties. Lineages die out and new kingdoms spring up. The concept of the "true king" is one exploited by Gandalf but as we see, he makes no real effort to usurp the Stewards until Sauron has returned.

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Well, just sit down a moment and ask yourself if you would enjoy reading LotR (or even feel comfortable reading it) when there would only be two qualified male characters in the story. Probably not. I definitely wouldn't. It would feel very odd, actually.

Japan has made an entire industry of boy-marketed stories about one guy in a sea of competent women.

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Éowyn's arc is pretty bad, actually. She is riding to war because she is depressed and effectively seeking death in battle after Aragorn's rejects her. Then she suffers a trauma, recovers, and accepts her role as a proper woman (which is not this shield maiden crap) with the help of a nice guy - and Faramir really is a nice guy. Their love story works pretty well if you read it.

Being a shield maiden is something she brings up with Aragorn before she rides out to war. Likewise, nurses being something vital to the war effort is something Tolkien would have experienced as part of World War 1.
Indeed, Tolkien believing shield maidens as auxillary soldiers as a literal thing also puts him up to at least the 90s in the Western World's armies.

[Lord Varys]

3 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Forgive the nitpick, but Denethor is older than Aragorn. He is 89 at the time of his death, and although he is said to have been aged prematurely by stress and his use of the palantir, he is still hale and hearty, fully able to fight, as he says himself.

Oh, yes, I dropped the ball there. But Denethor still is physically weaker and no longer in his prime, essentially an old man at the time of the story. He could perhaps lived another 10 years (if we take his father as an example, who died at the age of 98) or perhaps another twenty if we assume Denethor was also granted longer life by the Valar/Eru in an attempt to help him deal with the Sauron crisis.

Aragorn is still physically young and could expect to remain this way for another fifty years or so, even without the divine gift of being granted a reign of 120 years. Aragorn's great-grandfather, Argonui, lived to the age of 155. Since Arador and Arathorn II both died prematurely, we don't know how old Aragorn's natural declining extended lifespan would have been (without the additional century). I guess he could have hoped to live around 150 years or so.

[C.T. Phipps]

Just now, Lord Varys said:

Oh, yes, I dropped the ball there. But Denethor still is physically weaker and no longer in his prime, essentially an old man at the time of the story. He could perhaps lived another 10 years (if we take his father as an example, who died at the age of 98) or perhaps another twenty if we assume Denethor was also granted longer life by the Valar/Eru in an attempt to help him deal with the Sauron crisis.

Aragorn is still physically young and could expect to remain this way for another fifty years or so, even without the divine gift of being granted a reign of 120 years. Aragorn's great-grandfather, Argonui, lived to the age of 155. Since Arador and Arathorn II both died prematurely, we don't know how old Aragorn's natural declining extended lifespan would have been (without the additional century). I guess he could have hoped to live around 150 years or so.

Like I said, I think there's still some Numenorean blood in the Stewards above even normal Gondorians.

As someone said to me, "Remember the humans of the LOTOR aren't humans. They're the humans of Beowulf and epic fantasy. The Hobbits are the actual humans as we know them."

[Lord Varys]

1 minute ago, C.T. Phipps said:

Like I said, I think there's still some Numenorean blood in the Stewards above even normal Gondorians.

Sure, that was never in question. But Númenórean king is still different from a Númenórean peasant (or non-royal noble), right? Depending on Tolkien's take on the Númenórean longevity a member of the Line of Elros had a much longer life than the average Númenórean. That's the whole topic of the Story of Aldarion and Erendis.

29 minutes ago, David Selig said:

That's kind a stretch. Having a few female characters being given secondary roles and have them involved in ruling countries was hardly all that progressive and unusual even back then.

Yeah, thinking a little bit about that many of the Gothic novels and other books written in the 19th century featured women in prominent roles. You can complain about the gender roles in the novels of, say, the Bronte sisters or Jane Austen, but at least the women are visibly there in those books. In Tolkien's works you have to search for them (and you won't find any if you read 'The Hobbit').

The only important women in Tolkien's works essentially are goddesses and larger-than-life figurines who transcend their gender - women like Lúthien and Galadriel (and to a lesser extent, perhaps, Aredhel, although she gets punished for her willfulness). But there are no female equivalents to, say, Sam or Pippin. And the handling of Arwen completely sucks. She isn't a character, she is only the prize the guy gets at the end.

[C.T. Phipps]

A prize? Perhaps but subverted given their marriage is only approved of when it happens rather than given. They're in love already.

[Jo498]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But it would be something outside the box, no? An experiment and something new/extraorinary. I mean, there would have to be an explanation why that is and we would need (or demand) an explanation why the hell there aren't any men in this story. So we would have to have a matriarchy or a world in which there were only very few men because of this or that reason.

[...]

Nobody asks the question why the hell there are (pretty much) no (active) women in Tolkien's work, though. Because we accustomed to that kind of thing.

Maybe because it is a story of a dangerous quest and a war? And until very recently women were only very rarely and in extraordinary circumstances used as soldiers or for dangerous expeditions and we are used to this stuff from other older epics, like the Iliad?

How many Austen-style books with reversed gender roles and focussed on men exist? Hardly any, because their plots are tied to the early 19th "marriage market" from a female perspective and would not work with reversed gender roles.

Now, fantasy stories are obviously more flexible (and sorceresses, princesses, temptresses abound in traditional fairy tales and myths) but I find it narrowminded to take the lack of important female characters per se as a fault of the book. This would be similar to complaining about the females usually being better developed characters than the males in a lot of e.g. Austen.

[Lord Varys]

8 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

A prize? Perhaps but subverted given their marriage is only approved of when it happens rather than given. They're in love already.

Yes, okay, if you read the appendices then we have some sort of old-fashioned love story with the guy being smitten by the beautiful elven maiden who doesn't really have a character. I mean, what the hell is there to Arwen aside from being a Lúthien lookalike? 

If we just read the novel one might even not remember who the hell that woman is Aragorn marries in the end. She didn't really show up in the book.

8 hours ago, Jo498 said:

Maybe because it is a story of a dangerous quest and a war? And until very recently women were only very rarely and in extraordinary circumstances used as soldiers or for dangerous expeditions and we are used to this stuff from other older epics, like the Iliad?

That isn't a good explanation considering a lot of the novel has nothing to do with war nor with the expectation of war. Why isn't Frodo married when the story truly begins, seventeen years after he got the Ring? A woman who could accompany him, at least until Rivendell? Or why isn't at least one of his companions his girlfriend? Why isn't any of the other Hobbits married? Why is it that they never meet any women on the road or in the places they visit (Lórien excluded)? Why the hell was Elrond's wife absent (I assume because he didn't think of her until much later and then put her in the appendices)? Why are all the wizards male? Why are the wives of Théoden and Denethor already dead?

And I guess you are aware of the irony that Tolkien successfully included Éowyn and Ioreth in a war setting while keeping women completely out of the more peaceful settings. That makes your entire point moot.

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How many Austen-style books with reversed gender roles and focussed on men exist? Hardly any, because their plots are tied to the early 19th "marriage market" from a female perspective and would not work with reversed gender roles.

We are not discussing the merits of those books. They just serve as examples that other authors could do much better long before Tolkien's time. Hell, Bram Stoker has more (and much more active) women in 'Dracula' than Tolkien in LotR. Both Mina and Lucy are crucial to the story, with Mina even being a main narrator. You could easily enough take Galadriel, Éowyn, Arwen, Lobelia, Ioreth, and any other woman out of the novel (or make them male) without losing anything significant.

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Now, fantasy stories are obviously more flexible (and sorceresses, princesses, temptresses abound in traditional fairy tales and myths) but I find it narrowminded to take the lack of important female characters per se as a fault of the book. This would be similar to complaining about the females usually being better developed characters than the males in a lot of e.g. Austen.

Would you say the same about a book lacking 'important male characters'? And we are not talking about any book. LotR is a pretty major book both in itself and in the genre it helped to create. Tolkien didn't consciously write for a misogynistic audience. He pretty much targeted everybody (and was pretty successful at that). You can expect that authors such as those give a full picture of the human condition. And women are an integral part of that.

A historical novel covering the trenches of World War I shouldn't include all that many women in the front lines. But a fantasy author is completely free to include as many characters of various genders in his stories as he liked. The fact that he didn't care about women at all (or all that much) is a statement in itself.

[Darth Richard II]

10 hours ago, SeanF said:

If it was a gripping story, with good characters, I'd be perfectly happy reading an epic fantasy with a largely female cast of characters.

This is getting weird

[Slurktan]

13 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, yes, I dropped the ball there. But Denethor still is physically weaker and no longer in his prime, essentially an old man at the time of the story. He could perhaps lived another 10 years (if we take his father as an example, who died at the age of 98) or perhaps another twenty if we assume Denethor was also granted longer life by the Valar/Eru in an attempt to help him deal with the Sauron crisis.

That is not how the Dunedain age.  Once they reach the age of 35-40 they stop aging until literally a couple years before they die then they rapidly age (unless they choose to surrender their life right before they hit hat point, like Aragorn does. He never "grows old" and is in his prime physical health until he chooses to die).  Denethor should have looked and felt pretty much exactly as healthy and strong as Boromir and Faramir.  He only didn't because of the strain of using the Palantir.  Gandalf specifically comments on it.

[TrackerNeil]

On 11/2/2016 at 8:03 AM, Lord Varys said:

Well, those are mostly extras. I mean, who was Nerdanel as a character. All we know about her is that Feanor listened for her at a time. That's it. And Gollum's grandmother is a character that is sort of flashed out in a letter. And even there Tolkien got around the idea that the woman was legitimately in charge of the family but made her a widow sort of taking over after her husband had died. 

I agree, and I'd argue that Nerdanel, for all her influence over Feanor, is still a traditional female character. She has little power of her own, and the important deeds that are done are not hers but her husband's. That's pretty standard stuff for female characters.

[The Marquis de Leech]

On 03/11/2016 at 9:47 AM, C.T. Phipps said:

 

[Jo498]

10 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That isn't a good explanation considering a lot of the novel has nothing to do with war nor with the expectation of war. Why isn't Frodo married when the story truly begins, seventeen years after he got the Ring? A woman who could accompany him, at least until Rivendell? Or why isn't at least one of his companions his girlfriend? Why isn't any of the other Hobbits married? Why is it that they never meet any women on the road or in the places they visit (Lórien excluded)? Why the hell was Elrond's wife absent (I assume because he didn't think of her until much later and then put her in the appendices)? Why are all the wizards male? Why are the wives of Théoden and Denethor already dead?

[...]

Would you say the same about a book lacking 'important male characters'? And we are not talking about any book. LotR is a pretty major book both in itself and in the genre it helped to create. Tolkien didn't consciously write for a misogynistic audience. He pretty much targeted everybody (and was pretty successful at that). You can expect that authors such as those give a full picture of the human condition. And women are an integral part of that.

Actually, I do not expect a book like LotR to give anything even close to "a full picture of the human condition". It is most certainly not comparable in this respect to one of the great realist societal/social novels of the 19th century most of which focus on romance, marriage and adultery, so one needs interesting female characters. I think of LotR more as an heroic epic or an adventure tale, it is certainly neither realistic nor societal, and I don't miss Frodo's gf anymore than I miss Ishmael's, Jim Hawkins' or Allen Quartermain's brides or wives. (Sam has Rosie and I guess the younger hobbits are considered so young by hobbit standards that being without a fiancée is to be taken as normal - Bertie Wooster also tried to get rid of his accidental fiancées ASAP.) I have no problem to admit that Arwen is window dressing but the story is not about Aragorn but about Frodo's quest. The book mostly lacks the dimension of romance/eroticism (and I'd also admit that Eowyn-Faramir is somewhat lame) but I don't really miss that dimension any more I miss it in Treasure Island. I find it narrowminded to demand of a piece of art something it never promised to deliver.

As for the widowed old rulers Theoden and Denethor, I'd guess that this is part of the plausibility of their lonely, bitter and desperate conditions which is not unimportant for the plot.

[C.T. Phipps]

Your post got eaten, Roose.

[The Marquis de Leech]

22 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, he was the one creating them, wasn't he? Considering that Tolkien didn't exactly portray the Hobbit classes in detail all the time I'd say it is important to know that those class differences existed and are visible in the way people are addressed. Sam's family tree also confirms that his career marked the rise of his prodigy to Hobbit royalty, basically. Sam is pretty much a working-class boy who has been taken under the wing of gentleman and the training he received enabled him to rise above his station. Sort of like Maggie Thatcher being allowed to study at Oxford with the rich people.

Thatcher was middle-class; Sam is working class. And Sam's position as Mayor was as the one elected official in The Shire - unlike Merry and Pippin, whose eventual positions were hereditary.

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Hm. Does anybody ever offer mercy and redemption to the Orcs in the books? I don't remember any such lines. In fact, Frodo himself exclaims (I'm paraphrasing) that Gollum is now as bad/evil as an Orc and just an enemy. Sure, that's in the beginning of the story and all but Frodo never gets a chance to change his mind on that one, does he? He never meets a friendly Orc throughout the story, after all.

At the beginning of the story, Frodo thinks Gollum deserves death. He Learns Better. The possibility for Orkish redemption is theoretically there (c.f. the Wise's stance that Orcs fall under the Law, and are not to be killed if they surrender).

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But is truly earning his kingship that way? I mean, it is his special royal blood that enables him to do all that. Aragorn is blessed with an exceptional long life for a Dúnadan for his day and age, and that's something Eru or the Valar granted him long before he did his great deeds. Denethor or Boromir would have been old done men when the War of the Ring began.

• Sixty years looking after ungrateful hobbits (and Men - see Aragorn castigate Butterbur as a Fat Man in Bree. Believe it or not, Aragorn isn't perfect).
• Service under a pseudonym in Gondor against Umbar - which would have been leverage for a claim to the throne if he were so inclined.
• Wandering the wilds, even into the Southern Hemisphere, thereby getting an understanding of the world.
• Assisting the Ring Quest.
• Helping save Rohan at Helm's Deep.
• Taking out the Corsairs again.
• Pelennor Fields.

Yeah, he earned it.

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Well, I guess it began that way. But, you know, Earnur would have been dead for centuries in the days of Denethor II. People can be declared to be dead in their absence, you know, and one would expect that the second or third Ruling Steward would have done so.

Except that Appendix A says everyone feared another Kin-Strife, so it was best to leave things alone.

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They are twisting the law in that regard. Isildur was king of both Gondor and Arnor by the time of his untimely death, and Meneldil only served as King of Gondor at his leisure. Presumably his plan would have been that the elder line of Elendil would remain high-king of the entire realm.

Regardless of what Isildur planned, he got taken out at Gladden Fields. At that point, Valandil was Heir of Isildur in Arnor, and Meneldil was Heir of Anarion in Gondor. That was how the Gondorian nobility (from Earnil to Denethor) understood it - their view was that Isildur relinquished the South - and no-one in the North tries to press the issue until Arvedui gets desperate.

Of course, Arnor also got split into three sub-realms, and even the King of Arthedain had his claim contested when he tried to reunify the North. The line of Isildur are unquestionably the poor relations, vis-a-vis Gondor, thus Denethor's "last of a ragged house" line.

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Not to mention that Aragorn happens to be descended from both Isildur and Anárion, making this point moot. The idea that descent through the female line didn't count in Gondor is very unlikely considering that Earnil and Earnur were both rather distant cousins of the royal line.

Arvedui was descended from Isildur and Anarion too. Didn't help him. Earnil and Earnur were male-line. Gondor explicitly doesn't do inheritance through females.

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Sure, but we are not talking about other scenarios. Aragorn only claims the throne when the time is right, not when it might not have worked. But we can be reasonably sure that divine punishment would have quickly followed had the Stewards actually warred against the Dúnedain of the North. Gondor would have been destroyed.

Divine punishment in what form? Eru and the Valar don't intervene in struggles between humans.

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Well, he was a false king, anyway.

A shred of evidence?

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Arvedui and Fíriel were supposed to take the throne, that would have saved both kingdoms at that point.

Rather like putting a distant hillbilly descendant of Romulus Augustus on the throne of the Byzantine Empire.

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Not sure about the childless lords, though. Most of the kings had sons if you check the lists.

It's clear from the Appendices that nobility marrying late (if at all) was a big problem for Gondor. That and giving themselves over to luxury and elegant ancestral tombs.

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So what? Thorin still is the king, is he not? He even dies a king. Nobody ever said he was a good king.

You are saying that Aragorn's blood matters more than his deeds. I am saying that deeds matter - having the blood and breeding (c.f. Thorin) does not make one a good leader. 

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Oh, come on, now you are trying to describe a woman's character by referring to the traits her sons inherited from her. That in itself reveals that we don't really know anything about her.

From the Later Quenta Silmarillion (HOME X):

Seldom were the hand and mind of Feanor at rest. While still in early youth Feanor wedded Nerdanel, a maiden of the Noldor; at which many wondered, for she was not among the fairest of her people. But she was strong, and free of mind, and filled with the desire of knowledge. In her youth she loved to wander far from the dwellings of the Noldor, either beside the long shores of the Sea or in the hills; and thus she and Feanor had met and were companions in many journeys. Her father, Mahtan, was a great smith, and among those of the Noldor most dear to the heart of Aule. Of Mahtan Nerdanel learned much of crafts that women of the Noldor seldom used: the making of things of metal and stone. She made images, some of the Valar in their forms visible, and many others of men and women of the Eldar, and these were so like that their friends, if they knew not her art, would speak to them; but many things she wrought also of her own thought in shapes strong and strange but beautiful. She also was firm of will, but she was slower and more patient than Feanor, desiring to understand minds rather than to master them. When in company with others she would often sit still listening to their words, and watching their gestures and the movements of their faces. Her mood she bequeathed in part to some of her sons, but not to all. Seven sons she bore to Feanor, and it is not recorded in the histories of old that any others of the Eldar had so many children. With her wisdom at first she restrained Feanor when the fire of his heart burned too hot; but his later deeds grieved her and they became estranged.

This got edited down in the published Silmarillion. In contrast to Fingolfin's spouse, that's hardly "nothing".

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Well, it doesn't reflect well on you that you think a man like Feanor (or any man, for that matter) is strictly focused on a pretty face. I mean, come on, you know that yourself. Beauty is well and good, but beauty and brains is much better, and if you can't have both then taking the second is much better than the first (within reason, of course, but then Nerdanel is nowhere described as being ugly, is she?).

Woah. I'm not suggesting that Feanor was simply after a pretty face. I'm noting that the Noldorin Elves themselves considered the marriage an interesting choice - "at which many wondered, for she was not among the fairest of her people." That's Elvish judgement at work, not mine.

(In fact, apart from The Book of Lost Tales, with Salgant the heavy and squat, Nerdanel is the closest Tolkien comes to describing an ugly Elf). 

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Well, the first part makes producing the most important task a woman can possibly do (which sits very fine with Tolkien's own views, I assume).

That's twisting my words. I cited Nerdanel's six pregnancies as impressive because of how spiritually draining an Elvish pregnancy is supposed to be (supposedly why they have so few children, even when they are in the mood). This implies Nerdanel has a fair amount of stamina (as does Feanor himself, of course. The implication is that Feanor and Nerdanel have the healthiest libido of any Elven couple ever).

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Númenor was not 'morally corrupt' in the beginning. I did not refer to Númenor under, say, Ar-Adunakhôr. I was referring to Númenor as it was supposed to - as it was under Elros Tar-Minyatur and his immediate successors.

And we know that Númenor was a blessed realm nearly until the end. The climate was perfect, they had no problems with storms at sea, and so forth.

And yet Aldarion and Erendis shows us "trouble in paradise". Numenoreans are human, and human troubles will always follow.

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