Discussion Masterpieces to Touch the Heart, Stir the Soul (Tolkien Thread) Hobbits; Friendship: 07/15/17

Hello, I have to thank Mira_Jade and NYCitygurl for their approbation for this amazing brainchild of mine.



I have re-discovered a love that was never lost, thanks to some amazing Tolkien works. So I wanted to have discussions and perhaps mini-writing challenges.



The first topic is like in the Ask Anything in SW Resource,

What was your first immersement in the beautiful Tolkien 'verse?

Mine was in high school. "The Hobbit" was on the reading list. I geeked out over Gandalf LOL and have been a fan ever since.

 

[Reserved]

 

I'm going to echo Mira and say how thrilled I am to see this! I love the Tolkien love around these parts, and I can't wait to see more

Like Mira, my first exposure to Tolkien was in middle school when FOTR was released. My friends and I obsessed about it, and a couple of them read the books and even learned Elvish -- but also like Mira, SW was my main love then. I got copies of the books and decided to read them after the movies all came out. I finally got around to them in senior year of high school. I didn't love them, but I still have them and intend to read them again someday (and I got a copy of the Hobbit to read after the last movie comes out).

 

Hi there. I love the books because I am not just in love with the epicness of the stories, the compelling nature of the characters, which I am sure can be echoed by all Tolkien fans, but literally am just blown away by Tolkien's poetic beauty of narrative. All the senses are engaged.

 

My first pull was Gandalf Then Galadriel - The depth of past experiences and the sheer courage of these two. They were stewards of Rings without being sucked in and overcome like Smeagol and, apparently, Durin.

Even Frodo -- had the strength not to lose his innate self.

What are your thoughts, and also on Valinor, before and after the Era of the Trees? This latter I will comment on later in reply to further comments. Suffice it to say that Valinor touches something soul-deep and awoke an inner truth for me.

 

I'll geek out to this Nyota!

The first exposure I had to Tolkein was when I checked a copy of The Hobbit out of my elementary school library. I must have been around the third or fourth grade. I remembered my dad saying something about it once, and my library had this cool illustrated copy. I read that, and then I picked up The Lord of the Rings at about age 11. I basically got through the whole thing, but I skipped a lot of the battle scenes because I found them hard to wrap my head around at that point. I even did a book report about The Fellowship of the Ring in 7th grade. I tend to reread LotR every few years, but now I make it through the battle scenes.

This is so true. I've had moments when I was reading about the black riders or the mines of Moria in the middle of a sunny day and I found the terror palpable even there in my own room. Minutes later, they're arrived in Lothlorien or Rivendell. The cloud passes and we're all safe, for the time being.

Also, I'm an Aragorn-girl to the max and I think Viggo Mortenson's portrayal is probably the closest they could have gotten to how I imagine him looking and being.

I was recently talking with a friend of mine who's learning English and is very interested in English Lit. She reads exceptionally well, but comes from a culture that just doesn't have a lot of exposure to science fiction or fantasy other than through the big-budget superhero kind of movies. And she doesn't really like those because she says she doesn't really like stories that are just action. I set her straight about the genre generally.

And then I told her that I consider The Lord of the Rings to be one of the most amazing and classic novels ever written in English.

 

Great thread!

I first read the The Hobbit when I was eight or so. I fell head over heels in love with Gandalf. I think he's the first fictitious *book* character I ever had a crush on but the first ever, that would have to be Qui-Gon, when I saw TPM just a few months earlier.

I read Lord of the Rings (and the appendices) when I was ten/eleven. We had the Hobbit and LotR books at home, and when I was twelve I borrowed The Silmarillion from a friend and ploughed through it (received a copy years later as a gift from my mum). I didn't get round to watching the PJ movies until years after they came out, when my parents got the videos cheap. Of course, as a teen I was fairly awestruck by the movies, but I still preferred the books, and I have to confess, I like the films less as time goes on, which is why I didn't see The Hobbit ones.

Naturally, as a Gandalf fangirl, I cried after Moria, and memorised pages and pages of Gandalf's best scenes. I absolutely love 'The Shadow of the Past', especially his little soliloquy about Pity and mercy, so you can imagine how I went to pieces when I later read that as Olórin he was Nienna's pupil. I also wrote terrible fanfic and made a total nuisance of myself by reciting things like Bilbo's Song of Earendil and the Rohirrim's Lament of the Pelennor Fields ad nauseam to my family. There was a particularly obnoxious period when I'd greet friends with Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo. Yeah I was a total dweeb probably still am LOL.

 

Welcome Viridian-Maiden and Cael-Fenton



I love your responses and LOL on the Qui reference. Oh, I could tell you about my Trek crush, which is still ongoing. Duh!

Would love to read your stuff, Cael, based on your terrific insights in Mira's threads.

Aragorn is amazing. He's definitely and positively a hero type without being over or under confident. And the Arwen element just puts it over the top.

 

Those are really interesting points. I agree that those who elected to stay behind should be denigrated for their choice but I could understand the thought: We have known little but suffering here and the Land West is a reward and a restoration of that which was lost and of a past literal Golden Age.

The idea of different Fates for the different races - and the rationale behind them would be an interesting puzzle to unravel I think. Especially for spouses of different Races. The divergent outcomes would lead to difficult choices or partings.

 

For me, it's actually the dichotomy I see in Aragorn and I think, at least when I was younger, it was a variation on the bad boy thing.

On the outside, he's a scraggly, wild, and dangerous rebel. But through his veins runs the blood of a king.

 

I have mixed feelings about Valinor.

As 'Heaven', the Blessed Realm, the Undying Lands, the Uttermost West, etc, it's obviously an object of desire. The idea that there exists a place which is physically within our world where what is beloved or beautiful does not fade or pass away...obviously, it's the very embodiment of our deepest longings. 'Faerie', as Tolkien generically refers to it, always awaits us in our dreams and waking fantasies, from the earliest time in childhood when we first understand the imperfection or transience of the world and its non-conformity with our wish to cling to the objects of our desires (which doesn't necessarily involve death, in our first experiences of this transience), until we're old and painfully well-acquainted with loss.

But Tolkien's mythology isn't about wish-fulfilment escapism. He makes it clear not only that it is something mortals can never have within the 'circles of the world', but that any attempt to attain it is inherently disordered from the beginning, and doomed to ultimately turn evil. Not only are mortals precluded from seeking deathlessness, even immortals' attempts to grant it to mortal things, or to prolong our span of days by Power or 'magic' machinations, is wrong.

For mortals, Valinor would be as much a confinement as Middle-earth is, because it's still within the world, and as Finrod suggests to Andreth, we're made for something else. Death is a blessing, a gift. The Gift. "Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory."

I love the Athrabeth. I was in tears when I first read it. Something about it moved me even more deeply than Aragorn's death scene. But I think Tolkien quite rightly thought that such specifically Christian ideas shouldn't be explicitly made part of the 'canonical' mythos. (Although personally I have no problem with those ideas, and the Hope spoken of in the Athrabeth is definitely part of my headcanon.)

I think that was intentional. I don't think he intends to portray the Valar as always doing the right thing. I definitely think that retreating to a sanctuary secluded from the rest of Arda, and then subsequently attempting to get the Elves to relocate there, was supposed to be understood as a mistake on their part. That was the impression I always got, anyway.

The Children were made for the world (or vice versa, actually). Arda in all its wide wonder is meant to be their home. To remove them to a protected little corner of it would be to disinherit them. I feel sure that Tolkien was aware of this, and in this sense Valinor isn't meant to be a good thing.

The immediate objection that might arise is that Arda had been marred from the beginning. From the time it came into existence, it bore some of Melkor's taint; it was his Ring. And the Valar were not strong enough to entirely defeat him; nor could they remove his stain, which was part of the very fabric of the world. How could Eru have intended this flawed place to nurture his Children? I'm sure the Valar were thinking along those lines. And I think Tolkien intends this to be understood as a mistake, not only for the reason I gave above, but also because this line of thought shows lack of faith in Eru. The Valar failed to trust in Eru's declaration that even Melkor's rebellion would form part of the Music, and increase Its beauty (I'm overseas and don't have access to The Silmarillion, so that's off the top of my head as best I can remember the Ainulindalë).

Mira_Jade may I ask how you think it reflects Tolkien's religious views? I think my interpretation in the immediately preceding paragraph is consonant with his thoughts on the problem of evil, but it seems we have different perspectives on whether the Valar's actions best accorded with Eru's Will on this point, so I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about Tolkien's portrayal of Valinor and his religious views, if you'd care to elaborate

ps: As for Gandalf, what I love to bits about him (besides the obvious, like having courage and integrity) is that he's so human in his impatience and quick temper (swift in anger / quick to laugh); yet he is the character who most deeply understands pity, forgiveness, and if I may say it, Grace. The idea that everyone should have mercy shown them even when everything they have done merits condemnation.

 

Dare I say it? Fascinating points Cael. I believe the timing is very interesting as to when the free will and the avarice for power and worship took hold of Morgoth versus Satan. Depending on when it occurred in the creative process, the world would indeed be tainted. That is why I think or ponder if Death for mortals was the original intent or was the offshoot of all that subsequently occurred and in the eventual remaking of the world, would the Destinies of the Races become one and the same?

If Morgoth's influence could have been totally vanquished or curtailed to a degree, would not the glory of Valinor spread across the Sea? Rivendell and Gondolin and Lothlorien reflect some of the innate serenity and loveliness of the Eldar's first home.

 

As one who has skimmed through parts of, but not really delved that deeply into some of his more esoteric/mythological works, I can't really add much to this discussion.

But I do want to ask something. You see, I frequently deal with a circle of people who are not members of, but very familiar with, a certain group of world cultures. (It's irrelevant which.) And more than once I've had discussions where LotR/Tolkein's work more generally is criticized for being racist in the way he not only depicts the men from the South (didn't he say they were dark-skinned? Honestly I can't remember now.) But more than that, in the way particular species/races are inherently either good or evil.

I wondered what you think?

Personally, I just don't really see it that way. When it comes to the men from the South who join Sauron's forces, first of all, we know so little about them as to be able to make that many assumptions. I suppose I always assumed they were men who, just like the men of any city in the series, could choose to join with either side and I guess I figured we couldn't really know exactly why they sided with Sauron. They're very similar to the Calormenes in Narnia in a certain sense, and while I do agree that the Calormenes seem to bear resemblance to so-called "Oriental" cultures, and while they're painted sortof as opposed to Narnia, we get to see in The Horse and His Boy (which I don't think I've read since I was about 10, so correct me if my memory is off) that they're also just like other people in the sense of having both good and bad tendencies. And at least in the case of the Calormenes, Lewis essentially absolves them in the end anyway with an ecumenical message about good people worshipping Tash being the same thing as serving Aslan.

When it comes to races like the orcs though...I think I recall something about them possibly once having been elves. So aren't they actually in that sense proof that all races had the capability to become corrupted? And maybe then the point actually isn't what those people say it is -- which is that LotR suggests that specific races are either good or bad from the get-go, but is instead the exact opposite: they any race, presumably created good, can become corrupted, and even to the point where they no longer resemble in any recognizable way the original creations they were meant to be.

Men certainly clearly go both ways in the books, both as a people and on an individual level too. And while the elves as a people (I'm sure individuals are another matter) do generally have more qualities that we would ascribe to virtue or goodness, I don't recall reading anything that said they were incapable of evil.

 

Viridian-Maiden -- I agree and do not think LoTR was making any kind of racial statements, one way or another, but if it was, more along the lines you suggested, that there are good and bad in any species/race. Any member can be corrupted or change their stance. That's why I like the friendship of Legolas and Gimli. They were kind of chary of each other but through striving together, gained a true respect and liking of one another and Gimli certainly became a staunch defender of Galadriel.

 

In Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, Tolkien makes it clear that evil has power only over particular individuals. Evil could not corrupt entire races or peoples. I think that's in-universe evidence that he wasn't racist. I'm not all that familiar with his non-fictional personal writings, letters, etc, but I'm sure I also read somewhere that he also admired the proto-Aryan (ie, Dravidian, from South Asia) people, culture and language.

I think you're right that the point was the converse. In fact it's a recurring theme throughout the mythos that even the "Dark Lords" were not evil originally.

In fact I'd say that the Oath of Feanor in The Silmarillion led the Elves to dark deeds that were far worse than anything Men are ever shown to do in canon, except perhaps for the human-sacrificing Morgoth-worship urged by Sauron in Númenor. And even then, what the Elves did may have been worse because they did it freely, not under the influence of an external evil spirit.

 

Great post, Mira_Jade!

Yes, that is an important point, and it always frustrates me when people miss it. Tolkien was creating a mythology for his beloved home islands, which is not necessarily a work that accurately reflects his own views about race, much less the modern-day consciousness of diversity forced upon us in a globalised post-colonial age. To expect non-white characters to have any more than a peripheral role is like expecting white people to have more than bit parts in, say, Romance of the Three Kingdoms or The Ramayana (and I say that as someone of pretty mixed Southeast Asian heritage, none of which is white).

Those are great quotes, thanks!

One of the things that used to make me uncomfortable, and perhaps a factor that contributes to people's feelings that LotR is racist, is the emphasis on bloodline, especially amongst the Dúnedain. The whole division between the "Númenorean race", the "Middle-men" (like the Rohirrim) and then the rest (Dunlendings, Bree-folk, Easterlings, Southrons etc), and the repeated mentions of how Dúnedain blood, especially in Gondor, became "diluted" and "mingled with that of lesser Men". It's redolent of Nazi eugenics.

But my perspective changed after I read The Silmarillion, and its chilling portrayals of bloody conflict between different races of Elves, some of which considered themselves superior to others, as well as between Elves and Dwarves. I realised that Tolkien was completely opposed to that stupidity. Re-reading LotR in light of The Silmarillion, I saw that although the Dúnedain are generally the "good guys", on the point of blood purity and racial heritage, Tolkien intends them to be seen as having gone terribly astray. The passages in the Appendices where he comments on the Númenorean obsession with past lineage rather than with children (there's a fantastic line about them reckoning the names of their ancestors with greater pride than those of their sons, but I can't remember it verbatim), funerary rites, embalming and preserving forever their honoured dead, all took on a new significance, as being critical of such a culture that emphasised racial purity. Even the depiction of the peace of Rath Dínen in 'The Pyre of Denethor' , I began to see as deliberately being somewhat off-kilter. And I began to appreciate the juxtaposition of those scenes against 'The Houses of Healing', where a Númenorean man of (relatively) old nobility is courting a lady of the "middle races", whom some Gondorian aristocrats would no doubt have felt was "beneath" him in terms of bloodline.

Generally, I think that those who read racism into Tolkien's work are maybe attributing the characters' views to the author, who was perhaps too subtle in his criticism of such views.

 

This is all very interesting. I agree that it is far too simple to just assume, particularly within the genres of speculative fiction that the presence of a particular attitude, problem, or practice indicates anything about the author's belief on that point. To me, both reading and writing fiction are an exercise in exploration, and there are many times one might like to explore an idea without necessarily agreeing with it in principle.

I myself have been sortof peripherally working on an original urban fantasy. It's meant to be something of an "ensemble drama" with a group of characters each with their own complicated flaws dealing together with a similar problem. I've worried a little bit about how to portray one specific character who begins as an antagonist, because he's from a specific racial/cultural group and I see that I could easily be criticized for following stereotypes and being racist. The problem is that he's not actually meant to be an antagonist in the end. He's not a villain - he's only one in the beginning because he misunderstands the nature of his abilities, viewing them as inherently a gift for evil rather than the gift for good as the other characters. He only needs to realize it and choose his own orientation rather than assuming that his gift is itself a reflection on his internal nature. (This would be something like Rogue coming to grips with the fact that she's always hurting people.)

Some of the other characters are something the opposite. One in particular is exactly the opposite in the sense that he's fighting for the right side, but his large internal flaws twist the way he see his own abilities. He's also not a villain, but he does hurt a lot of people in the end.

But my worry is that the readers will jump to an easy conclusion -- that I've given in to stereotypes -- rather than being patient enough to come to see the character as I see him and as he comes to see himself, which is quite the opposite from how he is in the beginning of the story.

Have you ever thought about or dealt with a problem like this while writing? I've considered changing the character so he is not from that cultural group. The fact that he comes from that background is quite irrelevant to the story. But he's so vivid in my mind already...and I see the other possibility, which would be to play into the stereotype so much that it's almost obvious that I'm not serious about it. But that was not my intention either. Mostly, I just think that culture is kindof cool and I wanted one of my characters to come from it, and it just happened that in my mind it ended up being the guy who starts out on the other side.

I've moved the conversation away from Tolkein now. But I'd be curious to hear what you think.

 

Viridian-Maiden -- I think your tale sounds extremely psychologically complex and thusly a worth-the-read. I think you could be describing a lot of SW Jedi LOL Kyp and Anakin Skywalker for two examples. They are twisted by their circumstances, besides external influences, but mostly by their insecurities and fears; both become and do horrific things but are redeemed in the end. Mara is another example. She works for the most dastardly Sith ever and remakes herself into something we all love LOL

Personal-growth and change stories are always fascinating.

Which I can tie back to Tolkien What do y'all think of Smeagol/Gollum's character?

 

I shouldn't be surprised that Mira's commentary is eloquent and insightful

I agree with the thoughts on the intermixing of good versus evil and the inner struggle. Part of Tolkien's timeless and universal appeal I think is the ability to give us echoes of our own world and the complexity of Human nature all in a setting of such panoramic and riveting depths, on an individual and societal scale.