Tolkien 4.0 (A dark and hungry sea lion arises)

[butterweedstrover]

22 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

The mythological basis is Christian Platonist, with heavy influences from Germanic myth (plus the various hodge-podges of folklore, Finnish traditions, Welsh, and Classical material. Plus shout-outs to Shakespeare and Rider Haggard, among others. All filtered through Tolkien's personal linguistic interests). The result is a rich and complicated stew.

Tolkien (and more especially Lewis) would see nothing contradictory about meshing together Christianity and Plato. 

This is also true in Milton's work which is what I compared it too. Even those who were not Neo-Platonists had a western ideal that combined the Greco-Roman world with the Christian bible. 

[The Marquis de Leech]

4 hours ago, butterweedstrover said:

This is also true in Milton's work which is what I compared it too. Even those who were not Neo-Platonists had a western ideal that combined the Greco-Roman world with the Christian bible. 

Milton is the fellow responsible for the popularisation of Evil having a Charismatic Glamour. That's about as far away from Platonic notions of Evil as it is possible to go.

(Tolkien actually gives us both: Feanor as Milton's Satan, Morgoth as a Platonised notion of the Devil).

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by The Marquis de Leech

[butterweedstrover]

2 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Milton is the fellow responsible for the popularisation of Evil having a Charismatic Glamour. That's about as far away from Platonic notions of Evil as it is possible to go.

(Tolkien actually gives us both: Feanor as Milton's Satan, Morgoth as a Platonised notion of the Devil).

 

The angels are described as being made of pure wisdom/knowledge unlike the humans Adam and Eve. They (the angels) are prescribed like greek/roman gods which give them heightened purpose like the Valar. 

[The Marquis de Leech]

Well, seeing as Milton literally sticks the Greek and Egyptian pantheons in Hell, one can see a difference with Tolkien's Valar...

[The Marquis de Leech]

Lockdown means I won't get my paws on The Nature of Middle-earth for a while, but I see there's some natter about Numenorean bear dances. Which I don't think anyone expected.

(Oh, and apparently we're getting confirmation that Aragorn - and more surprisingly Denethor - were beardless).

Edited September 2, 2021 by The Marquis de Leech

[Ran]

28 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

 

(Oh, and apparently we're getting confirmation that Aragorn - and more surprisingly Denethor - were beardless).

If you go to Amazon and search the kindle preview, that section of the book is part of the preview. 

Essentially Tolkien says that descendants of the royal house of Númenor were beardless because of the elven blood in their lineage. Húrin, the First Steward, was a kinsman of King Minardil, and so he and his descendants also had ties to the royal line. Denethor was something of a throwback to the old royal line, hence no beard (but this implies this wasn't necessarily the case for all the Stewards), and of course Faramir and Boromir's mother provides another tie to elven blood because she was the daughter of Prince Adrahil of Dol Amroth, whose ancestry includes a legendary marriage to one of Nimrodel's companions.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Ran

[The Marquis de Leech]

Oh, I understand the reasoning. It's just that hitherto I had always imagined Denethor with a beard (via Pippin telling us that he looks like a great wizard, and Pippin only having met bearded wizards).

[SeanF]

On 8/22/2021 at 11:27 PM, butterweedstrover said:

Tolkien can be forgiven for writing his books. He did so as an academic exercise and we can all excuse his enthusiasm. 

What society can't forgive is the influence he has had on fantasy. He set the genre on the trajectory it is today via his despise for romance. 

Tolkien was a medievalist, but he wasn't much of a Christian. If you want to see how Christian morality can be applied to literature read "Paradise Lost". Elsewise ignore Lord of the Rings, that moralizing spiel that has seduced three generations of readers with its aristocratic superiority complex. 

 

You mean what You can't forgive is the influence he had on fantasy.  Don't assume that the rest of society agrees.

[Lord Varys]

I think the Númenóreans lacking beards is very old news. That said, I recall that I also thought Denethor must have a beard if he looked so much like Gandalf to Pippin when I was first reading the book.

As to the Christian issues:

The structure and basic plot of most of the Silmarillion stories has little to nothing to do with Christianity or Christian values - that is because structurally they never really changed from the shape they were given back in the 1910s. Back then Tolkien tried to write a mythology for England which was supposed to resemble real mythology - and that meant mythology that would look and feel like *real mythology* and not explicitly or implicitly Christian tales from later ages. Even if you think about the Music of the Ainur - that is something that can be reconciled with the Edda where this super god of gods is also mentioned at the end of the Ragnarök story. Not to mention that it is, at best, setting up some kind of monotheistic metaphysical order (or at least a super god ruling over a pantheon of lesser gods) rather than a specific religion. Keep in mind that within Arda folks do not have to have - and likely didn't have - Christian concepts of gods and divine powers - and many readers of the stories might have similar views. Which means that a Vala can easily enough be viewed as a god when your concept of god isn't that the being is omnipotent or must be able to create a universe from nothing.

If you look at it, Beren and Lúthien is basically a gender-swapped version of the story Orpheus and Eurydike, Túrin Turambar is a tragic hero straight out of Norse saga or a Greek tragedy (in a sense he is both Sigurd and Oedipus), Eärendil resembles Ulysses and Aeneas as a mariner and a mythical Greek hero in his effective deification at the end - he becomes a star in the heavens, like so many other Greek and Roman heroes. The Valar are effectively a Greek or Norse pantheon, they are not 'angelic beings', they are, effectively, pagan gods. It took Tolkien a very long time to get rid of the children of the Valar - and in light that Melian had to remain Lúthien's mother I'd say that was a mistake. Only actual people need houses and cities like the Valar do.

Fate and the judgment of the gods plays as important a role in the Silmarillion stories as it does in Homer. The Doom of Mandos is pretty much the same as a judgment of Zeus, and like the Olympian gods cannot break a vow if they invoke the river Styx, Feanor and his sons cannot break the vow they swore in Eru's name. The plot devices used in all that all come from myths and not Christian stories.

In the later versions of the stories the one important Christian aspect Tolkien cared about became stronger - the story about the Fall. The Fall of Númenor is just a rather unimaginative version of the Christian Fall of Man, right down to them becoming Satanists, merged with the Atlantis story. And that aspect also crept more and more into the Elven stories - we have Feanor being corrupted, we have the Kin-strife as another Fall, we have the Fall of Eregion, and we have the insistence that Mankind must have fallen once, too, long before the first Men came west, we have Thingol's and Turgon's pride which leads to their downfall, etc.

In essence I'd say that Tolkien's work was more shaped by his love for mythology and languages as well as his profession as a Anglo-Saxonist than his religious beliefs.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Well, Pagan Neoplatonism did of course consider the Greek Pantheon to be the Demiurge, so in that sense Tolkien could have his cake and eat it too, what with a monotheistic One and a lower demiurgic pantheon. Though I would note that the Valar get a lot less Greek over the course of Tolkien's life.

While I generally agree with your mythological reading, I would make some quibbling points:

• The monotheistic reference post-Ragnarok is clearly a later Christian add-on. The Eddas, after all, were written by Christians.
• Turin is Sigurd meets Kullervo (Finnish Kalevala), not so much Oedipus.
• Earendil strikes me as Tolkien engaging with Irish Immram stories and the Voyage of St Brendan (in much the same way as C.S. Lewis does, with Voyage of the Dawntreader).
• Numenor is actually a quite fascinating case of Tolkien potentially (and almost certainly second or third hand) engaging with contemporary occultism. It's basically ground zero in the legendarium for occult themes.

Edited September 2, 2021 by The Marquis de Leech

[Lord Varys]

12 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Well, Pagan Neoplatonism did of course consider the Greek Pantheon to be the Demiurge, so in that sense Tolkien could have his cake and eat it too, what with a monotheistic One and a lower demiurgic pantheon. Though I would note that the Valar get a lot less Greek over the course of Tolkien's life.

In the sense that he never again wrote in as much detail about them or what they did than he had done in the LT. But the setting and their characteristics never truly changed. Even when he erased their children, he kept them being male and female and them being marrying - or only 'marrying' in Arda, as is the case for Nessa and Tulkas.

And the latter really remained Tolkien's version of Thor.

12 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

While I generally agree with your mythological reading, I would make some quibbling points:

• The monotheistic reference post-Ragnarok is clearly a later Christian add-on. The Eddas, after all, were written by Christians.

Of course, but the Edda is everything we have of the stories told therein, so this is a reference point. It is quite likely that earlier versions of the stories lacked such a reference but it also provides you with quite strong pretext that a fictional Norse-like pantheon can be reconciled with a more powerful super god.

12 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

• Turin is Sigurd meets Kullervo (Finnish Kalevala), not so much Oedipus.

Yes, I know that he is based more on that fellow, my point was just that the basic plot is taken (or can be found) in many mythological tales.

12 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

• Earendil strikes me as Tolkien engaging with Irish Immram stories and the Voyage of St Brendan (in much the same way as C.S. Lewis does, with Voyage of the Dawntreader).

I don't really know those, so I cannot comment on them, although I guess chances are not that bad that Tolkien knew those stories. The parallels with Ulysses and Aeneas I see more with the notes of the notes about the planned, very long tale of Eärendil which was never written, which included multiple voyages and odysseys all across the world (including a confrontation with Ungoliant I'd have very much liked to read). That is rather reminiscent of Ulysses trying to get home and Aeneas trying to find a home - the only difference is that Eärendil wasn't looking for a home but for help for his people.

12 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

• Numenor is actually a quite fascinating case of Tolkien potentially (and almost certainly second or third hand) engaging with contemporary occultism. It's basically ground zero in the legendarium for occult themes.

You really think so? Because of The Lost Road/Notion Club Papers frame story about mental time travel and stuff? Or because of the actual Satanism stuff?

[The Marquis de Leech]

The Valar become less Greek, in the sense that as time goes on, they become less overtly a squabbling bunch of overly-powerful kindergarteners, and more regal/holy/worthy of respect. In the earliest version, Melko even had support from others in the pantheon,.

Numenor's occultism connected with its role as the Atlantis stand-in. Recall where the Atlantis myth comes from - Plato's Timaeus, the founding document of Neoplatonic mysticism, and also recall that early twentieth century occultists were obsessed with Atlantis. By accident or design, there is actually some overlap between the story of Numenor and early twentieth century Theosophy. Not that Tolkien would have studied up on that directly - IIRC, it was a designated heresy - but rather, there were plenty of such ideas floating around the intellectual community at the time. C.S. Lewis liked himself some Yeats, of course, as did Lord Dunsany, and Charles Williams was a bona fide Inkling.

[Lord Varys]

9 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

The Valar become less Greek, in the sense that as time goes on, they become less overtly a squabbling bunch of overly-powerful kindergarteners, and more regal/holy/worthy of respect. In the earliest version, Melko even had support from others in the pantheon,.

Yes, of course, Makar and Measse disappeared, and Melko - who was more like Loki than Lucifer in the LT - became much more darker.

But you still have Uinen and Osse - the latter of which behaves very much like a capricious pagan god. And in essence, if you look at the description of Valinor in the LT the setting never really changed - Valmar and all the other places in the Blessed Realm remained the same.

In the end, the kind of 'Dark Lord' character which Tolkien basically invented is sufficiently distinct from any Christian demon characters. Morgoth and Sauron are both demons in (sort of) mortal bodies who rule a mundane evil empire in the real world. The deceiver/tempter remains there, too, both with Melkor in Aman as well as Sauron as Annatar and in Númenor, but as the Dark Lord characters they are genuine new inventions.

Quote

Numenor's occultism connected with its role as the Atlantis stand-in. Recall where the Atlantis myth comes from - Plato's Timaeus, the founding document of Neoplatonic mysticism, and also recall that early twentieth century occultists were obsessed with Atlantis. By accident or design, there is actually some overlap between the story of Numenor and early twentieth century Theosophy. Not that Tolkien would have studied up on that directly - IIRC, it was a designated heresy - but rather, there were plenty of such ideas floating around the intellectual community at the time. C.S. Lewis liked himself some Yeats, of course, as did Lord Dunsany, and Charles Williams was a bona fide Inkling.

Ah, okay, yes that makes sense. We also have the whole 'lost continent' plot in a lot of the early 20th century pulp fantasy/horror genre, e.g. Howard, Lovecraft, etc. Lovecraft explicitly references Theosophy in 'The Call of Cthulhu', indicating that this stuff really widely circulated even among people who didn't really buy into that stuff.

Although I don't know if Tolkien much cared about Neoplatonist writers or whether he only absorbed such ideas through Augustine and other church fathers - or later theologians referencing them.

[Lord Varys]

Wow, there are great tidbits in the new book.

Not only does Tolkien effectively confirm the view that Elrond and Elros were effectively the same in mind and body (the only reason Elros died is that his spirit wanted to move on), he also considered the case of the children of the Half-elven having the right to choose for the descendants of Elros. We actually have to assume that Vardamir and his three siblings could have decided to join the Eldar, like Arwen decided to join Men:

Quote

Eärendil was only 39 when he came to Valinor. He was not allowed to return to Middle-earth, but he obtained the grace (from Eru via Manwë) that his children, being half-elven on both sides – descendants of Idril and of Lúthien – should (a) have a choice of which kindred they would belong to, and (b) should in each kind have “a long and fair youth” – sc., should only slowly reach maturity – and that this should extend to the second generation: thus Elrond : Arwen and Elros : Vardamir.

Originally, Tolkien wanted that to extend to the third generation, including for Elrond the generations of Arwen and Eldarion, and for Elros the generations of Vardamir and Amandil. But that was discarded.

This makes a lot of sense considering it simply makes no sense that Elrond's children should get special treatment while Elros' children did not.

It is also quite interesting to see that Arwen is imagined as adopting the growth/age rate of her husband upon her wedding or the conception of Eldarion. After that, she aged at the same rate as Aragorn, the last Númenórean.

Quite similar is the situation of Melian who is very much stuck in her bodily form after conceiving and giving birth to Lúthien, something that diminishes her powers and insights. But after Lúthien and Thingol die - the people chaining her to body - she casts off her bodily raiment and returns to Aman as a bodiless Maia. I think that's the first explanation as to how Melian disappeared after Thingol's death - at that time no ship could carry her to Aman, but bodiless Maiar can go wherever they will. I think most people thought that she was permanently stuck in her body after Lúthien's birth, but this wasn't the case.

Some things are really peculiar, indicating an obsession with irrelevant details. When he made the change that 1 Valian = 144 sun years he desperately tried to make things fit with the new growth/aging rates of the Elves and the established dates rather than to consider to add more years. And still he actually tries to sell us that it took the Noldor 144 sun years to cross the Helkaraxe and that the Great Journey took thousands of sun years.

If he had thought about increasing the Siege of Angband for, say, 1,000-2,000 years he wouldn't have had problems with Maeglin's age nor the awakening and fall of Men - which then could have easily happened after Morgoth's return to Angband.

[SeanF]

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Wow, there are great tidbits in the new book.

Not only does Tolkien effectively confirm the view that Elrond and Elros were effectively the same in mind and body (the only reason Elros died is that his spirit wanted to move on), he also considered the case of the children of the Half-elven having the right to choose for the descendants of Elros. We actually have to assume that Vardamir and his three siblings could have decided to join the Eldar, like Arwen decided to join Men:

Originally, Tolkien wanted that to extend to the third generation, including for Elrond the generations of Arwen and Eldarion, and for Elros the generations of Vardamir and Amandil. But that was discarded.

This makes a lot of sense considering it simply makes no sense that Elrond's children should get special treatment while Elros' children did not.

It is also quite interesting to see that Arwen is imagined as adopting the growth/age rate of her husband upon her wedding or the conception of Eldarion. After that, she aged at the same rate as Aragorn, the last Númenórean.

Quite similar is the situation of Melian who is very much stuck in her bodily form after conceiving and giving birth to Lúthien, something that diminishes her powers and insights. But after Lúthien and Thingol die - the people chaining her to body - she casts off her bodily raiment and returns to Aman as a bodiless Maia. I think that's the first explanation as to how Melian disappeared after Thingol's death - at that time no ship could carry her to Aman, but bodiless Maiar can go wherever they will. I think most people thought that she was permanently stuck in her body after Lúthien's birth, but this wasn't the case.

Some things are really peculiar, indicating an obsession with irrelevant details. When he made the change that 1 Valian = 144 sun years he desperately tried to make things fit with the new growth/aging rates of the Elves and the established dates rather than to consider to add more years. And still he actually tries to sell us that it took the Noldor 144 sun years to cross the Helkaraxe and that the Great Journey took thousands of sun years.

If he had thought about increasing the Siege of Angband for, say, 1,000-2,000 years he wouldn't have had problems with Maeglin's age nor the awakening and fall of Men - which then could have easily happened after Morgoth's return to Angband.

I think I must get this.  Is there anything about the political and military structure of Gondor?

[Lord Varys]

12 hours ago, SeanF said:

I think I must get this.  Is there anything about the political and military structure of Gondor?

Not so far, but there is more about Númenor in the later chapters.

There is a really great extension of the story from the Awakening of the Elves to the Great Journey. Ingwe, Finwe, and Elwe are direct descendants of Imin, Tata, and Enel, the Three Fathers of the Elves (it is not clear, though, in which generation - there are version where they are 3-4th descendants and then they are 25-26th generation). Tolkien stresses that they are descended from the eldest sons, so they are not just great-great ... -grandsons, but the rightful heirs through primogeniture.

Ingwe is the only one married prior to the March, Finwe is betrothed to Míriel and Elwe obviously hasn't found a future spouse. Olwe is younger than Elwe and already around at that time, but Elmo, Celeborn's ancestor, is only born during the March. Indis is reimagined as either Ingwe's eldest child or his second child.

Melian has a dream about the awakening of the Elves when it happens and leaves Valinor thereafter. Later she also is, for some reason, the leader of five other Maiar - who are the future Istari - who live among the Elves while Orome returns to Valinor.

Before Ingwe and the others visit Valinor, there is a proto-Feanorian movement at work among the proto-Noldor - and Finwe is one of the loudest among those. These Elves believe that it is their duty/mission/destiny to deal with Melkor and take possession of Middle-earth which they view as their inheritance.

The visit to Aman overwhelms the messengers, and Finwe becomes determined that they must go there to gain more knowledge and, especially, so that Míriel - the artisan from whom Feanor apparently inherited his talents - can learn more about smithwork and stuff. That is a rather nice trait there.

Imin, Tata, and Enel are still around at that time, and are the rulers of the Quendi with Imin - like Ingwe later - taking precedence, because he is the first. There are two versions there: (1) Has the Fathers refuse to go to Valinor and see for themselves (which is why the youngsters had to go) and eventually reject the idea to go to Valinor, causing them all to become Avari. (2) makes the youngster the companions of the Fathers who go to Valinor with Orome but when a third of the Quendi - many of them older fellows - refuse to go, they decide to stay behind with their people.

This raises an interesting conundrum with the Eldar/Avari split Tolkien never seemed to have considered. If mainly young Elves go to Valinor and if most or all the older generations already produced their share of children, then the Avari are very much a dying race because they would no longer be able to procreate - or at least not on a very high scale, with there being only very few pairs among the Avari who might still have children.

This whole thing could easily have made a very fine chapter in the Silmarillion.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Just finished my first full re-read of The Lord of the Rings in many years (and my first since I started doing my own writing). Apart from Books I and VI, it is notable how fast-moving the book is, and even those can move when they want (fun fact: Farmer Maggot appears in the space of three pages). One can see the flaws, however: Merry's decision to serve Theoden because Theoden was polite to him feels extremely forced. Frodo disappears throughout swathes of his own book, while keeping Saruman off-stage (save for a flashback) until his actual defeat feels like a questionable structural decision.

Gandalf and Denethor verbally sniping at each other is just brilliant though. Gandalf has had his own way thus far,.. and now runs into an antagonist who is Smarter than the Average Bear.

[SeanF]

8 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Just finished my first full re-read of The Lord of the Rings in many years (and my first since I started doing my own writing). Apart from Books I and VI, it is notable how fast-moving the book is, and even those can move when they want (fun fact: Farmer Maggot appears in the space of three pages). One can see the flaws, however: Merry's decision to serve Theoden because Theoden was polite to him feels extremely forced. Frodo disappears throughout swathes of his own book, while keeping Saruman off-stage (save for a flashback) until his actual defeat feels like a questionable structural decision.

Gandalf and Denethor verbally sniping at each other is just brilliant though. Gandalf has had his own way thus far,.. and now runs into an antagonist who is Smarter than the Average Bear.

And, Denethor's views are actually entirely reasonable.  If I were in this world, I would be arguing along the lines of Denethor rather than Gandalf.  I would think that sending the Ringbearer to Mordor was an act of appalling folly.  I would view Aragorn's claim to the throne as being like some descendant of Charlemagne telling me, the President of France, that he was the rightful king.

[Ran]

42 minutes ago, SeanF said:

 I would view Aragorn's claim to the throne as being like some descendant of Charlemagne telling me, the President of France, that he was the rightful king.

Except the President of France doesn’t have it as part of their official role to await the return of an heir of Charlemagne to be a true king. It’s explicit that the Stewards in general, and Denethor in particular up until his despair (as recounted by Faramir’s recollection of Boromir questioning his father) saw their awaiting the return of the rightful king to be a foundational aspect of their role.

Edited September 11, 2021 by Ran

[ASOIAFrelatedusername]

22 minutes ago, Ran said:

Except the President of France doesn’t have it as part of their official role to await the return of an heir of Charlemagne to be a true king. It’s explicit that the Stewards in general, and Denethor in particular up until his despair (as recounted by Faramir’s recollection of Boromir questioning his father) saw their awaiting the return of the rightful king to be a foundational aspect of their role.

That king being Earnur. The claim of Aragorn's line was rejected a thousands years prior to the events

Edited September 11, 2021 by ASOIAFrelatedusername