J.R.R. Tolkien was a master of restraint. Don’t believe me?
Oh, sure, the running internet-meme joke is that he describes every tree, but that’s precisely what he doesn’t do. Does that mean he doesn’t go on and on about the textures of the land? Oh, sure, he does do that sometimes but he does it with purpose.
describe *all* the trees!In The Lord of the Rings, in “A Part of the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen” (from Appendix A) we learn that Aragorn’s birth name was Estel, which means “hope” in Elvish (Sindarin specifically). But did you know that in Middle-earth, in Arda, and possibly the real world, there are two varieties of hope: estel and amdir?
(more…)With the third season of The Rings of Power coming later this year, Amazon is starting up its promo material. This—combined with ongoing political turmoil, war, and the powerful “charismatic” demagogues that make the real world worse than it needs to be—seems like the right time to talk about Sauron again. That is, Sauron the Third Wheel, as he is portrayed in Amazon’s adaptation.
Sauron in the books and in other adaptations is fairly clear cut: he’s terrifying, faceless, and evil, and had been evil since long before Elves and Men even awoke in Middle-earth. His phase of moral ambiguity began and ended before time was measured. That’s what Elrond is referring to when he says . . .
(more…)“Nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so.”
The Rings of Powers Season Three press release is out now. I’d like to comment on just one passage from it.
(more…)In the real world, what we in the Tolkien fandom call the primary world, Orcs are not a race. They’re a mindset, an ideology, the basest outlook of humanity. Tolkien certainly thought so.
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