Amph One Thread To Rule Them All: The Rings of Power, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings & Middle-earth films

I mean, again, probably the comparison to Spider-Man is helpful. The specific content of the Miles Morales stories about collapsing universes is not at all relatable or even actually understandable. The emotional and thematic core about young people (Miles and Gwen) trying to figure out what their lives mean and how that changes their relationships with their parents as they move towards adulthood is not only pretty universally, but pretty well-played.

The MCU has never really put in that kind of effort. Whenever they become self-conscious about being in relatable, they pivot to a fourth wall gag. I’m honestly surprised it took almost a quarter century before people stopped paying to see that. As with grade school children who are worried about their performance someone should have pointed out that not everything needs to be a joke. It’s okay to just try sometimes.

 

Speak for yourself Wocky

Galadriel: “And this is my husband, Teleporno.”

Sauron/Halbrand: *snerk*

The lotr media content we all crave.

 

The MCU turned 15 this year.

 

Suffering always feels like an eternity.

 

Except we aren't talking about the MCU, we are talking about what is probably the most successful trilogy in terms of accolades in movie history. So they clearly got something right.

 

Um, no. You’re stating patently untrue things. It is neither a history nor a prehistory. But Tolkien made explicit comparisons to a number of early-to-mid Dark Age, as well as ancient, cultures when describing the peoples he created. For example, comparisons between Numenor and ancient Egypt, and the Rohirrim and a mix of Gothic horsemen and Anglo-Saxons. Not to mention endless references to mail (chainmail) and almost no mention of plate mail… (there was a famous and now amusing row over that in the fandom when the first set pics of Osgiliath leaked). So of course it makes perfect sense for the costumes, cultures and architecture of the films to draw from history, and real world myth. It’s what Tolkien did, and explicitly what he intended.

But an odd conflation of Tolkien and Jackson has occurred since the films were released. Wherein people routinely tell me about what Tolkien said, did or meant, while simply repeating things said, done or meant by Peter Jackson and members of his crew. And it’s very difficult to convince them otherwise, despite being a massive Tolkien geek who knows the nature of every single blade of grass in Arda…

 

"I imagine the gap [between the Fall of Barad-dûr and our Days] to be about 6000 years: that is we are now at the end of the Fifth Age, if the Ages were of about the same length as S.A. and T.A. But they have, I think, quickened; and I imagine we are actually at the end of the Sixth Age, or in the Seventh."

- The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

It is indeed a prehistory.

 

Let’s remember that the PJ films are an interpretation, not a modification or a replacement of the actual material. With film, it’s impossible for the look of things to not solidify much more clearly than in the books. Remember it was Tolkien who said he welcomed others to interpret his works and add to it… he wanted to create a shared universe.

Tolkien: "I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.”

Anyway, something done amazingly well in both books and movies: Theoden.

 

No it is not - and certainly not a real prehistory as you’re defining it - before bronze and iron tools were invented. You have to present Tolkien’s letters in context, including when they were written, and when his other comments on the subject were written (including ones that contradict his previous words on the subject, as the man’s mind, like all minds, simply changed). Which is why I won’t engage in the childish practice of copy and pasting one passage from Tolkien’s letters to support a flimsy point. He wrote a lot, and all of it has to be considered to get close to understanding his intent (and not even his son could fully grasp it).

He began his writings on Arda with the intent of re-creating the mythic prehistory of England that was lost in the Norman conquest, but that soon morphed into a much broader imagined history that stretched well beyond those confines. And he noted, a number of times, the ancient-to-Dark Age inspirations for the cultures he presented. I mean, if he was actually writing a prehistory of Europe, would he have placed a city like Minas Tirith in it, or Edwardian hobbits in waistcoats? Or languages inspired by Finnish and Welsh - cultures that didn’t exist in the prehistory you’re referring to. And if he was actually creating a pre-Bronze and Iron Age culture, would he have written about people who were clearly using bronze and iron arms and armor, not to mention working gold and silver into complex forms? Or people running around in chainmail, which didn’t and couldn’t exist before the Bronze and Iron Ages? Whu is everyone not living in caves and hunting buffalo?

Because it is an imaginary world that very clearly reflects medieval, and ancient, cultures that Tolkien knew deeply and drew inspiration from.

Not to mention that even if it definitely was a clearcut imagined prehistory, why couldn’t Tolkien include the roots of future historical cultures in his earlier cultures? Did the cultures of our world spring from nothingness? Could the ancestors of the Welsh and Finns not be elves who spoke a proto-ancestor language? Or could the Goths and Anglo-Saxons not have derived from an imagined ancestral culture that shared both of their characteristics (the Rohirrim)? Or could the ancient Egyptians not be descended from the Numenoreans, in this imaginary world rooted in real human cultures? That is Tolkien’s world. An imagined history inspired by early medieval and ancient history. Not a cave man story.

But please, post one more sentence written by Tolkien that definitively describes his final and everlasting intent.

 

"Childish practice?" So using a primary source, a quote directly from the man himself describing his own work is "childish?"

Do you have a source of him saying that he changed his mind? Unless there is a direct contradiction later on, we need to take his writings at face value, because it is literally what he said.

 

It is clear he never meant it to be literal prehistory… I believe he in another letter said the War of the Ring or the Fourth Age correlates with what we know to be Ancient Egyptian times. It’s a legendary/mystic prehistory, if anything. Like the War of the Titans.

EDIT: here’s what I’m remembering
In the Letter 211 that Tolkien wrote on 14 October 1958 to Rhona Beare, he writes that the time gap between the fall of Barad-dûr (in T.A. 3019) and the present-day (as in 1958, at the time that Tolkien wrote the said letter) was c. 6,000 years.

 

I’m not getting into a posting war where I copy and paste hundreds of letters from Tolkien, not to mention numerous passages from his books, that clearly show that Tolkien’s world was not based on Stone Age culture. Just think about it for a second. Think about how literally you are interpreting one quote from Tolkien, and ignoring nearly everything else written by Tolkien - in letter or in fictional form. Including the entirely of the Lord of the Rings, which doesn’t begin with hobbits beating each other to death with animal bones.

You questioned the idea that the cultures of Middle Earth should reflect actual historical cultures when they are clearly meant to. And then asserted that they would have been based on pre-Bronze and Iron Age cultures, when they clearly are not.

The burden of proof is on you, not me.

Right. And a legendary/ mythic prehistory would naturally contain the roots of actual history. Which Darkslayer rejects outright for an actual Stone Age Middle-earth. Don’t mind the waistcoats and the tobacco.

 

I mean, you're the one calling me a child for backing up my claim with words from the man himself.

 

^Darkslayer, I answered you above.

Anyways, that awesome Theoden video…

 

Good post, give me a minute to take a look. And I appreciate you using textual evidence instead of petty, childlike insults.

 

For believing that your claim of a Stone Age Middle Earth is actually backed up by one sentence from one letter of Tolkien’s, that doesn’t say his works should reflect actual prehistorical realities? Yeah, I think that’s childish. And ignorant of some pretty fundamental standards of evidence.

Look, you don’t want me to present Tolkien’s other words on the subject. Because your argument will be demolished. The issue is that I don’t have to present those words here because his book we’re discussing - the Lord of the Rings - by itself shows that you’re wrong. I mean, from the very beginning. What are Edwardian hobbits smoking American tobacco doing in a world where caveman shamans are the height of civilization?

Tolkien’s Middle Earth is absolutely dripping with real historical influences, and that’s clear in the books, and in his letters. I don’t have to waste my time posting excerpts from his letters to prove it. You can simply read a few passages from the books, and take a look at some of his letters, and stop pretending that you have a leg to stand on with the one quote you offered.

 

Where did I say anything about a Stone Age Middle-Earth?

 

I have presented numerous examples of textual evidence from Tolkien’s books, including the one we’re discussing, as well as summarized hundreds of his letters that confirm he was not writing a Stone Age story. The point is that posting one quote from one letter, out of context (and interpreted literally, despite Tolkien speaking of “imagining”) is a disingenuous way to make your point that the people of Middle Earth shouldn’t have any characteristics of real world cultures in history.

You said that the cultures depicted in the Lord of the Rings should not reflect actual historical cultures because they existed before the Bronze and Iron Ages. The implication is that you’re assuming actual Stone Age realities as the basis for the cultures in Middle Earth, as opposed to the very clear medieval and ancient inspirations Tolkien was drawing from.

And please, don’t be disingenuous in saying I haven’t provided any evidence from Tolkien himself. I noted Tolkien’s comments on Numenor and ancient Egypt before, for example. And yet you ignored it until it was mentioned by another poster. Not to mention the other examples I’ve mentioned regarding the historical inspirations for the Rohirrim (Gothic and Anglo-Saxon), the elven languages (Finnish and Welsh), and the hobbits (Edwardians). All confirmed by Tolkien himself.

I’m not making this stuff up. I’m summarizing all of Tolkien’s writings, fictional and otherwise, which I know better than Star Wars. That takes more than selectively digging up one quote to support my point. There are endless pages that support mine. Including the endless pages of LOTR!

 

Again, where did I say he was writing a Stone Age story?

 

I’ll repost:

You said that the cultures depicted in the Lord of the Rings should not reflect actual historical cultures because they existed before the Bronze and Iron Ages. The implication is that you’re assuming actual Stone Age realities as the basis for the cultures in Middle Earth, as opposed to the very clear medieval and ancient inspirations Tolkien was drawing from.

And which he confirms in multiple letters…

Look, let’s just agree that it’s a kind of prehistory. A legendary one. OK. But it’s a legendary prehistory that contains actual linguistic and cultural connections to history - ancient, medieval and Edwardian. It is not devoid of actual historical influence because Tolkien once placed this imaginary prehistory some time during what we now know was the Stone Age.

The point is that your point - arguing against real historical influences in the films - is not supported by Tolkien.

 

Gondor wouldn’t have used those cultures as an influence. Tolkien would have (and did). With the imaginary implication that later ancient and medieval cultures would have derived their cultures from Numenor and Gondor. Just as Goths and Anglo-Saxons might have a common imagined ancestor in the Rohirrim.

I mean, you can’t say that medieval cultures shouldn’t be reflected in LOTR when the Rohirrim, for example, all have Old English names. And their ancestors have Gothic ones! And Gondor, Tolkien noted, he considered to be a sort of late Byzantium, with the Return of the King being styled as a kind of re-establishment of a Holy Roman Empire in Rome. Here are some letter excerpts, for your benefit:

Letter no. 131

“In the south Gondor rises to a peak of power, almost reflecting Númenor, and then fades slowly to decayed Middle Age, a kind of proud, venerable, but increasingly impotent Byzantium.”

Letter no. 294

“The progress of the tale ends in what is far more like the re-establishment of an effective Holy Roman Empire with its seat in Rome than anything that would be devised by a ‘Nordic’.”

The point is simple, and I regret overcomplicating it. The point is that real world historical culture - especially language but also costume, architecture, food and daily practices - are absolutely at the heart of the Lord of the Rings. It’s not a psychedelic fantasy unmoored from history, or a story set in actual prehistory as we know it. It’s literally a world designed to function as the birthplace of actual historical languages that Tolkien loved!

Let’s just agree on that obvious fact, and let this thing lie.

Anyway, my apologies for the dismissive tone (and my apologies to the other thread denizens for this tedious tangent). One might say that I was triggered.

 

But most of all, my apologies to @Darkslayer You didn’t at all deserve that harangue. I’m just a grumpy bastard this week.

 

I enjoyed the harangue.

 

it was compelling content. thank you, creators.