World Building @entmootatderndingle - Tumblr Blog

The Age of Dragons

Almost universally in fiction -- traditional mythology and modern fantasy -- dragons are defined by two things: age and power. These two are often linked together in a sort of linear relationship, i.e. older dragons are also more powerful, either physically or magically. In Ursula Le Guin's The Farthest Shore we see this same relationship played out on a cultural level among the dragons, or at least we do at first. In how she characterizes dragons, it highlights the strengths and weaknesses of man in quite a beautiful way.

When Ged and Arren make their trip down the Dragon's Run, the size of dragons they encounter becomes larger and larger, until at last they meet Orm Embar, whose sheer size makes Arren realize "how small a thing a man is." I think it is by design that we see all interactions with dragons through Arren's eyes in this book, since he can't comprehend their speech, yet it still fills him with awe and reverence. Here too we see the crucial relationship dragons have with their language. Without it, they are literally winged beasts, cannibals who cannot help but feast upon their dead -- a chilling parallel to humans; without language, what else separates us from beasts?

But this power, this incredible scale, is subverted near the end of the book. In Orm Embar we saw power and age as one, but [SPOILERS] the so-called "greatest" dragon dies like any mortal creature by the hand of one man. After Ged and Arren's quest is complete, however, we see one more dragon, the very oldest of their kind: Kalessin. This iron drake is old, so old its sides are "scored and scarred" and "the long teeth yellowed and blunt." Arren does not cower in awe or fear at Kalessin, and just looks into his eye, where he describes "the mourning of the world was deep in it." So here we see the price of age, the cornerstone of dragon culture. The relationship is not linear; they grow, become powerful, and they too wane like men, reduced to scars and blunted teeth and memories.

Dragons in Earthsea are deeply, fascinatingly human, which makes sense in world, but really helps drive home the themes of The Farthest Shore. We see a culture upheld as something vast, unknowable, and infinitely powerful reduced to cannibalism and ruin. Those believed to be its oldest and wisest sit by, the weight of their memories dragging them down. The writing is subtle and leaves much to the imagination, like much of Le Guin's work, and I won't pretend to make some grand point here. I just really appreciate how she is able to humanize something so wonderful and quintessentially fantasy without losing any of the magnificence of a dragon.

And if you're reading this post when it goes up, Happy Thanksgiving!

entmootatderndingle

I love the line: “without language, what else separates us from beasts?” Happy Thanksgiving!

Loss of Words: writing for 11/24 EarthSea

“He cannot speak! The words of the Making are taken from him, and he is left like an adder, like a tongueless worm, his wisdom dumb. Yet he can lead, and we can follow!” (Le Guin, The Farthest Shore, 214).

What is language? Is it a combination of semantic information with associated lexical, phonological, and motor information? Is it a tool that we use? Is it a defining essence of our being? Is it all the above and more?

Questions like these are too complex for modern neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics. When faced with a complex behavior or process, psychology and neuroscience find the most success in studying disorders that cause loss of function. The closest real life scenario that causes loss of language in an individual is aphasia.

Ged’s description of Orm Embar’s loss of language reminded me of aphasia. In the Wernicke-Geshwind, an early oversimplified neurological model, damage to Wernicke’s area located in the superior temporal lobe would cause Wernicke’s aphasia. Wernicke’s area is thought to contain clusters of neurons (nuclei) responsible for the storage and retrieval of words and their associated meanings.

Assuming the Wernicke-Geshwin model for understanding Wernicke’s aphasia is applicable to a dragon, does Orm Embar display symptoms of Wernicke’s aphasia?

Wernicke’s aphasia is also, and perhaps more correctly, known as fluent aphasia. Patients with fluent aphasia speak fluently (their ability to speak is not inhibited) but they speak in either nonsense words or use words in a way that makes no contextual sense. They also seem to lack comprehension of words said to them. Patients will attempt to answer questions asked of them but that may be their reaction to the intonation (vocal modulation) which is thought to be controlled elsewhere in the brain and therefore may not be damaged by the injury that caused the aphasia. The terrifying question to me is whether or not their utterances have meaning. Decades of studies seem to indicate a disconnect between meaning and the utterances produced but it cannot truly show it. People with this aphasia still try to communicate and still attempt to use language, they just can’t use language in the way they could before. What does this say about language as a tool or as a part of the brain or as a concept?

Based on Orm Embar’s inability to speak, I’d argue the dragon does not have fluent aphasia. Additionally, Orm Embar displays the ability to comprehend speech which further rules out fluent aphasia. Does Orm Embar displays non-fluent aphasia?

Based on the same model and assumptions, Broca’s aphasia or non-fluent aphasia is characterized by halted speech where only content words are successfully produced. Patients show extreme difficulty accessing words even common words in a state reminiscent of a tip-of-the-tongue state (the state you experience when you have trouble recalling a word and “it’s on the tip of your tongue”). People with non-fluent aphasia retain most of their previous level of speech comprehension (except they have difficulty with function words). Broca’s area, which is according to this model is damaged for Broca’s aphasia, is thought to plan and organize speech movement. It’s located on the left (for right handed people) near the inferior frontal gyrus of the frontal lobe. Because the nuclei associated with this area are in close proximity to the primary motor cortex, damage to Broca’s area often damages the primary motor cortex. Patients who experience non-fluent aphasia often experienced a stroke or other traumatic brain injury which often damages more of the primary motor cortex resulting in loss of motor control or use of part of the dominant side.

Orm Embar seems to not speak at all but can still comprehend words. The dragon can also still move in what I assume is the same way as before the loss of language. Perhaps the damage to Broca’s area only impacted the exact nerves necessary for motor movements associated with speech. The likelihood is impossibly low, but we are talking about dragons and magic.

Maybe speech loss in dragons cannot be understood through the Wernicke-Geshwind Model. More and more this model becomes a simple relic of the past. It’s a fine initial teaching tool, but it cannot explain why damage to just Broca’s area doesn’t actually cause non-fluent aphasia or why damage to just Wernicke’s area doesn’t actually cause fluent aphasia. It also can’t explain why tumors in those regions don’t always result in loss of language function. The model breaks down in real situations because damage in the brain often affects more areas and no two brains are the same. More research shows that language abilities are not even localized to just the areas in this model which topples the assumptions and brings down the model.

Humans thrive on communication. If we lose our words, do we lose ourselves? Do we lose our relationships without the words to maintain them? What happens when we lose the ability to tell our loved ones how much we care or what happens if we can no longer understand them? These questions bring tears to my eyes--tears for the families that go through the aftermath of the traumatic brain injuries I’ve discussed and tears for the people afflicted by such poorly understood phenomena. Maybe with better models or with better understanding and better technology we can give language back to those who’ve had it so cruelly stripped away by fate.

faithlessishethatsaysfarewell

You can be a girlboss if capitalism deems your skills valuable

Cases like these underline to me how unnatural the gender inequality we face in the modern world is. Today we largely devalue feminine hobbies and activities, including weaving and spinning, because we implicitly associate them with homemaking and being a housewife. But weaving within Palmyra was not only “an economic necessity” both also “carried with it cosmic associations to the roles of powerful female deities” (5). The author notes too, that there is a strong indication of “indigenous Palmyrene wealth,” underlined by local wool and textiles production that existed outside of silk production. Forming a strong basis for their economy, it makes sense that those who had the largest monopoly on silk production would also be those who had the most power within society. If the main source of wealth within a society is something shared mostly amongst women, then of course that society will organize increasingly around them. Ultimately, it seems like gender inequality falls largely on the division of skills conducive to accumulating wealth, and that in the case of Palmyra, traditionally feminine skills came into use.

entmootatderndingle

I agree. Growing up in a system makes the system seem natural up until the point of developing the level of awareness necessary to see how artificial all the systems that define roles in societies or the strata truly are. The current inequalities long accepted as status quo in America have no intrinsic or innate reasoning. Everything from religious to superstitious to psuedoscientific reasons were invented during different periods of history to maintain a status quo of inequity. It’s interesting to ponder if circumstances or resources or geography or value systems had been different at any of the points that bred oppressive movements, would the current inequity persist? Did society have to develop this way? What would industrial and post industrial society look like with women leaders or with anything other than the enfranchisement of rich white men at the cost of everyone else? If millions of worms half a world away could enfranchise a group of skilled women for several hundred years, what might have had to change for gender equality to have been the standard even fifty years ago?

The Women of Palmyra

First, can we get a big budget Queen Zenobia movie?

It’s fitting that Palmyran’s had a powerful female deity who weaves “cosmic destiny” and “controls fate” for the women of this oasis could decide their own fate, at least as much as any people can (Finlayson). It’s refreshing to read of a society with empowered women and it really challenges a somewhat unstated western dogma that implicitly maintains gender inequity in favor of men. The silk textile trade formed the beating heart of Palmyra’s economic system. Women dominated the silk industry and reaped the benefits not only economically but culturally. Silk enabled the way of life for the oasis therefore the silk trade and silk as a resource became culturally central and the women who worked the silk too became central to Palmyra. Their portraits in the cities’ tombs “are more lavishly attired, far surpassing their male counterparts” for a reason--they generated the Palmyran wealth (Finlayson).

It seems as if “cosmic destiny” and “fate” took the side of Palmyra (Finlayson). Palmyra sat in a strategic military position and Rome’s need for caravan trade, mostly silk, “guaranteed high status” to women and “vibrant political and social” roles to them too (Finlayson). I’m fascinated that silk developed in China during the Han Dynasty flowed through trade routes which carried it through Palmyra and thus enabled Palmyra to flourish. The access to silk empowered those with the skill to embroider and work this resource which enhanced the importance of Palmyra to buyers in Rome and elevated women in Palmyran culture. Geography met opportunity as only the “cosmic weave” could predict. The cultivation of moths who just happen to produce a usable cloth making substance when boiled in their pupal stage in China led to skilled workers in the region to develop techniques to make textile from this silk. Skill and material evolved in quality over time and met with demand across a massive continent and necessitated long trade routes. Geographic and political factors forced the trade route through Palmyra. Silk transformed Palmyra and Palmyra transformed the silk in the city. This relationship between material and location encouraged the development of skills to take advantage of this opportunity. Anywhere along the silkroad could have developed the skills to improve the textiles or take advantage of economic power of this trade. If other civilizations did this, it would have eroded Palmyra’s importance. However, this did not happen and the demand for Palmyran embroidery even drove China to send less ornate textiles to Palmyra so that Palmyran’s could improve them. Palmyra received a gift from “fate” in the form of geography and China’s silk trade, but the women of Palmyra also wove their own “cosmic destiny” (Finlayson).

damgoodfantasy

A Trauma of the Land and of the Soul

I have not been to war, and every day I am grateful for that. In fantasy, though, war is almost ubiquitous. What better conflict is there between good and evil, after all, than a great war between the two? Tolkien certainly knew of war when writing Lord of the Rings -- it is in some ways representative of the World Wars he lived in and through.

One thing that has always stuck with me about the ending of Return of the King is its ending. Even after the ring is destroyed and Sauron is vanquished, the world remains. Those who had to live through the War of the Ring remain. The blasted, defiled landscapes and permanent scars of Mordor remain. And as Gandalf says, "There is a long road yet" for Middle Earth and all who live in it (RotK). It is often said that time heals all wounds, and for wounds of the flesh and of the land, that may be, but wounds of the mind and soul may never heal. The scarred landscape around the tower of Orthanc becomes a garden by the effort of the Ents, yet Frodo, one more deserving of rest than any other, bears a wound that, by his own admission "will never really heal" (RotK).

This is the one instance where I will not recommend that everyone incorporate this into your own fiction. Frankly, without experiencing this sort of trauma, I think placing it into a work of fiction can come across as inauthentic. I believe that realistic portrayals of the trauma of conflict and loss of self and home are incredibly powerful and elicit very strong emotions, so I would exercise caution in writing them. That being said, I believe there is nothing more moving than when this is done right.

Even in the movies, where the trauma of the war is not nearly as explored as it is in the books, the scene of Frodo leaving this world at the Gray Havens brings me to tears every single time in a way not many other sights can manage. The only feeling I can relate that scene to (in text and on the screen) are memorials of war. Staring at the memory of those who died and those who will never really live again, I am held enraptured by at once a great futility and great respect. It is a paradox of war that those who fight it never really stand to gain. It is through them that all who remain can live, and the sheer selflessness of that act I cannot quite put into words. Really, reason the movie moves me in this respect more than the book is simple: Into the West. I'll leave this post with the opening stanza from that song, a sort of cathartic lullaby for Frodo and for all the survivors of war. I implore you to listen to the song in its entirety.

Lay down Your sweet and weary head The night is falling You have come to journey's end Sleep now And dream of the ones who came before They are calling From across the distant shore

entmootatderndingle

Did you read the books and hear Howard Shore’s music? I couldn’t help but hear it so I’m really glad you brought up Into the West. I definitely paid more attention to the return home during this reading of the series and the writing makes it plain that Frodo can never really return home. He has become someone new and his burdens will never allow him rest for as long as he walks Middle Earth. I thought it was interesting to read the part of Livingston’s paper that addressed Sam’s role as a stand in for the British private who Tolkien admired for having the ability to reintegrate after war. Sam always looks home and always thinks of returning home or being in the Shire and even thinks to prepare for the journey home while Frodo does not. Frodo does not expect to come home. He knows the journey will claim him and it does for it’s not truly Frodo who returns, at least not the same Frodo.

Shell-shocked Hobbit: Is there a good war?

I found it interesting to ponder if Tolkien’s decision to create a fantasy about a war between a certain good against a certain evil grew out of his experience in the First World War. World War I developed from a period of competitive imperialism by European nations as they sought resources to fuel their own industrial and commercial interests. A mixed web of treaties were made as the results of wars and negotiations and political machinations, and these treaties became a powder keg. The assassination of the Austro-Hungarian archduke and heir Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by Bosnian rebels ignited the powder keg that plunged Europe into war. The decisions of kings, emperors, and politicians, born from entitlement and greed, doomed boys to die in the mud. Because a rich enfranchised class sought to control the resources of countries far away, children went fatherless. Racist ideologies proclaiming non-European societies to be in some sense inferior or savage encouraged aristocrats and royalty to cut up other countries and claim dominion over places people already lived in order to relieve those people of resources in the name of some idiotic nationalistic game of monopoly between European powers. To be a normal European person and be called on to pay for the decisions of royalty is bad enough but imagine doing this when the actions of the royals were carried out for no better reason than “they have, and I want.” Imagine wondering “why am I out here in this trench?” Or imagine thinking, “what am I risking my life for exactly?” Maybe there is a reason literature from the “lost generation” reflects on the cost and senselessness of the First World War. The following passage struck me:

“But, unlike many of his counterparts — T. S. Eliot in The Waste Land, for example—Tolkien does not appear to have perceived that the slaughter, incommunicable though it might be, was senseless and indicative as a loss of meaning; quite to the contrary, even while he is at the Somme he writes in a letter to his friend Geoffrey Smith that the nature of the war was “for all the evil of our own side with large view good against evil” (Letters 10) Not a senseless slaughter, then, but its antithesis: a slaughter of the most profound importance; a position that is not surprising from a man who would create such equally profound battles between good and evil in his fiction (Livingston, 87).”

Could this be the same reason that Tolkien’s fantasy world centers on conflict between a clear villain with evil intentions and people seeking to end this evil at the cost of death or enslavement? Did he seek to find meaning in the loss of his friends? Perhaps something so terrible and so costly needs a sense of purpose to fit squarely in the human psyche.

I’ve never been to war. But, I served during the longest war in American history and have a fancy global war on terrorism medal to commemorate it. My years of service prepared others for war and even those sailors would be aboard ships off the coasts of lands where war was fought. It’s been decades since America fought a naval force that could truly threaten a modern warship. Still, I trained over two thousand engineers and technicians who operated propulsion plants that moved warships and made steam. The steam launched jet aircraft off carriers and those jets bombed people far away who I will never know. Those bombs destroyed ways of life in countries I’ve never seen. The submariners I’ve trained operated similar reactor plants that made electricity to fire missiles from the sea to targets on land. Aircraft carriers also ferry marines overseas to carry out offensives against combatants. How can I make sense of the impact of any of this experience? Some politician deploys force against a nation or group for a reason and then what should be a resource to prevent aggression or war becomes an implement of destruction. People who would have instead been taught skills such as engineering or other technical applications become agents of terror.

I am haunted by imagining a life where I can’t go to school because it was destroyed a battle between a group that seeks to control my life and another group in a country far away that doesn’t care that I exist but instead cares about the resources in the ground beneath my feet or the geopolitical importance of the land I call home. The work I did helped make that nightmare a reality for families in Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite never committing an act of violence against anyone, I likely made life worse for people I can never apologize to because I will never meet them. I’ll never know their suffering. No one signs up to commit violence, or at least I’d hope those people get screened out before they have the chance. Yet, there’s no denying that all involved end up advancing violence in time of war.

America recently botched a withdrawal from Afghanistan. The person who slept in the same bunk as me during bootcamp, a person I saw every day and spent almost every moment with for two months of my life, died from the suicide bombing at the gates of the Afghanistan airport where the withdrawal was taking place. He didn’t sign up to commit violence. He was a hospital corpsman, a medic, hoping to become a nurse or doctor after his enlistment. Two months later, he was supposed to be coming home to get married to his fiancé in Virginia and then spend the next two years in Virginia working at a military hospital. I don’t blame Tolkien for creating a world where the violence makes sense. Unfortunately, it feels senseless in our own world. America spent most of my life destroying Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, some schools were built, and some electricity found homes that previously had no “western” comforts. More than that, some people benefitted from more freedom than they had under previous regimes. Women in some cities and villages especially benefitted from increased freedom and hopefully some of that remains after the US is gone. However, the destruction of Iraq allowed ISIL/ISIS to form and seize the military equipment from the disbanded Iraqi army. ISIL/ISIS committed as many atrocities to the people of the middle east as they did to the American occupiers. The power vacuum created in Afghanistan from trying to destroy Al-Qaida allowed a heroin market to flourish, and the money from the heroin sales fueled further acts of terror. This made the region less safe for the people living there. The people of this region had to contend with the fear of getting mistakenly killed by the American military or the pure trauma of living in a war zone with constant explosions and gunfire and they had to contend with the violence of the forces trying to get America to withdraw troops. People climbed aboard airplanes that were trying to take off from the runway of the Afghanistan airport out of fear of reprisal from the Taliban for having cooperated with the American occupying force. We gave those people no choice. They didn’t choose for us to be there, and they had little choice in working with troops, but now they must pay the price. Why did they find themselves in this situation?

Some American university educated son of a wealthy Saudi Arabian real estate developer decided to fight against the Soviets when they invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s. This war experience and his views of wanting the United States out of the region led to years of planning that culminated in two planes striking the World Trade Center and a third striking the pentagon (a fourth was headed for the white house but was thwarted by passengers and crashed into rural Pennsylvania). Thousands of Americans died. The US retaliated by destabilizing an entire region and violated the independent sovereignty of those areas despite Al Qaida being a group independent from any government and mostly aided by Pakistan, who went unbothered because they have nuclear weapons.

Was there no other way to remedy this situation? How was 9/11 justification for the atrocities that followed? Why did people of a foreign country have to pay for the acts of an independent group that wasn’t even from their country? Why did American young men and women get sent to die in a foreign country? What did any of this accomplish? Why didn’t my friend get to go home and get married? Why did hundreds of thousands suffer “senseless slaughter” (Livingston 87). I too want to believe this was a “slaughter of most profound importance” and I don’t blame Tolkien for immersing himself in creating a world where the war amounts to “equally profound battles between good and evil.” Otherwise, it becomes difficult not to feel like an agent of evil. Otherwise, clear delineations between good and evil seem arbitrary or false. When can one justify violence? If violence can be justified, can it ever be lived with? Can one ever be whole again after committing or aiding violence? Do we even have the choice, or are we simply subject to the systems and the institutions in power in the place we live? Without agency, how can one make sense of violence without believing their “actions” justified by acting for good against evil? It’s impossible to comprehend the situation. Those that risked their lives deserve commemoration, commendation, and praise for their sacrifice and valor. However, it’s hard to rationalize that they should ever have been put in that position in the first place.

#shell shock #war #lotr #livingston

gracetobin25

The Marshes Response

This dangerous watery place reminds me of the movie Titanic. More specially, it reminds me of the fictional ending of Titanic. When describing the marshes, Frodo says, “They lie in all the pools, pale faces, deep deep under the dark water. I saw them: grim faces and evil, and noble faces and sad…all foul, all rotting, all dead” (628). I imagine this scene is similar to the experience of the tiny lifeboat that went back for survivors of the Titanic. After they had floated away, they realized they could fit more people so they returned to the site of the sunken ship. All around them were dead people, floating on objects but unable to survive in the cold ocean. I imagine their faces were just as pale and frozen in time since the water was extremely cold. Similar to the orcs, elves, and men in the marshes, the people from the Titanic had undergone and lost a battle fighting against others for their right to live on the lifeboats. A major difference of the two scenes is that the lifeboat found Rose whereas Frodo and Sam did not find any survivors of the historical battle. I imagine the look on Jack’s face when he started sinking to be quite similar to the grim faces in the marshes. In conclusion, the marshes seem akin to the end of Titanic as both places reek of death and sadness.

entmootatderndingle

That quote stuck out to me too. I actually referenced the funding the Navy gave James Cameron that he used to find the shipwreck of the Titanic in my post.

Dangerous Watery places: Don’t go into the water

I entered the Navy in 2012 to be a nuclear technician aboard a nuclear powered submarine. The greatest danger out at sea is the sea itself. Navy bootcamp is 12 weeks of mostly marching and folding clothes, but in between those benign activities there are weapons trainings, firefighting trainings, and line handling trainings. Everything culminates in an overnight training simulation where you operate a simulation ship and then battle fires and flooding aboard it. The simulation is based on the USS Cole which was attacked in 2000 by a suicide bombing launched from a dingy. The damage to the hull quickly flooded compartments and flooding often causes fires because of damaged electrical components. The skills learned in battle stations and then continually trained on throughout a naval career help in the event of the rare situation that hull damage and flooding occurs. In 2020, the USS John McCain collided with an oil tanker and suffered hull damage. The impact and flooding claimed the lives of several sailors. I went to bootcamp with one of them.

After two years of training, I became a qualified nuclear operator and then was rewarded with an instructor position where I trained sailors to fight fires and flooding onboard a nuclear submarine prototype. It is said that much of the casualty procedures in the Navy are “written in blood” because when events occur that damage the ship or take lives, the investigations after create new procedures. Much of the submarine programs procedures grew out of the sinking of the USS Thresher. The Thresher was an early nuclear submarine that was performing sea worthy testing on how deep it can safely dive when contact with the Thresher was lost. It’s assumed that a design failure caused the Thresher to not be able to resurface and it sank below crush depth where it succumbed to oceanic pressure and claimed the lives of all aboard. The SubSafe program grew from the investigations into the Thresher. In 1995, the remains of the Thresher and another submarine that sunk around that time named the USS Scorpion were discovered by James Cameron on the same grant that he used to find the Titanic. It took Cameron so long to find the Thresher and Scorpion that he barely had enough footage of the Titanic wreck to use for the movie.

The dead marshes reminded me of the power treachery of the sea. There’s a part of battle stations where the simulation ship rocks from a simulated explosion and then you have to stop the flooding in a compartment by patching pipes. The water fills up the small room at a remarkable speed and you’re applying the patch while getting sprayed and having water rise over your boots. Then you have to put out a fire. After the fire, you go into a compartment with dummy bodies strewn around and you have to try to evacuate the dummies on a stretcher through a ruined compartment. Remembering the simulation makes me imagine what it was like to actually have to fight flooding when your life depends on it and remove real injured people from flooded and destroyed compartments. I’ve fought my fair share of massive fires in the Navy but those were on land in an industrial area. It’s another thing to do it when it’s where you live and sleep. It’s another thing to do it when what’s on fire needs to get you home. The same goes for flooding. We had to simulate flooding at the prototype because no one in their right mind will flood a reactor plant worth hundreds of millions of dollars on purpose.

Sam’s discovery of the “dead faces in the water” and Frodo’s description of the “many faces proud and fair” that were “all foul, all rotting, all dead” reminds me of the stories from the divers who had to pull remains from the McCain (LOTR, TT, IV, 628). They’re too terrible to recount. No one should have to pull the body of their shipmate from a flooded room days after the room was sealed off to protect the ship.

In better news, I did find this video of a YouTube channel visiting the ship of my former boss and coworker Matt, who just re-enlisted to do another four years, who teaches the YouTube channel’s host about fighting flooding on a nuclear submarine. That video is at the bottom. The other videos in order are about US navy bootcamp battle stations, remembering the USS Cole, the USS McCain accident, depth testing a submarine.

faithlessishethatsaysfarewell

Pattern and order in hall-life

One of the sections that struck me about the Hume article was how the hall represents a sense of “pattern and order,” constructed by “all the ceremony, all the elaborate beauty of hall-treasures and decorations” and “the music and the stories of past heroes” (Hume 66). In the midst of uncertainty and tumultuous times (we can see that those who slept in the hall slept warily and in constant fear that the hall would be attacked), the hall seemed to serve as a refuge, the idea of epic heroes and chivalry brought to life. Theoden’s halls too are richly decorated with different colors and patterns, but also the reflections of a storied past. Over the spaces of the tapestries “marched figures of ancient legend,” with our attention drawn to an evocative image of Eorl the Young, the founding king of Rohan (510). Earlier too, Aragorn recites the words of an ancient poet about the same king, contributing to this conception of the hall as a place where the past and present mingle. It is here that Theoden feels the weight of his ancestors’ legacy most strongly, through ceremony and song. Like the hall that served as a refuge from the “chaos” of the outside, so too does the ceremonial drinking and gift-giving at Meduseld offer a measure of comfort from the news of impending war.

entmootatderndingle

I really appreciate how you drew the connection between hume and the images of Eorl the Young in Meduseld. The rich history of the hall and the connection to the history both in imagery and song really parallels the mead halls of poetic tradition.

Halls of Mead: Burbs of defense or symbolic theaters indeed

We find Rohan in turmoil. Great halls act “as a circle of light and peace, enclosed by darkness, discomfort and danger”(Hume, 65). Darkness creeps upon the vast fields and the enemy has “spies” that “slip through every net” for Eomer, third marshal of the Riddermark, does “not know hot it will all end” but to him “it seems” that the friends of the enemy “ do not all dwell in Isengard” (LOTR, TT, III, 437). Instead of respite from the dangers lurking outside, visitors who “come to the king’s house” will “see” for themselves (LOTR, TT, III, 437).

As Eomer suspects, the enemy has infiltrated great hall putting the hall in grave danger for “the most feared agent of destruction was strife-internal or external” (Hume, 66). The company finds Wormtongue sitting at the foot of Theoden’s chair poisoning the king of Rohan’s mind. The decline in the hall’s ability to grant safety becomes mirrored in the reduction in the king’s generosity and the king’s responsibility to this place, physically and ceremonially, measured by the “fundamental gesture of giving treasure from the high seat” now finds him rejoicing at the return of a gift without the recipient (Hume, 65). It’s poignant that Gandalf says, “The courtesy of your hall is somewhat lessened of late, Theoden son of Thengel,” which insult the king for it highlights the failing of his rule.

Fittingly as Wormtongue and the influence of Saruman becomes jettisoned from the hall, “the darkness seemed to clear” (LOTR, TT, III, 514). It’s as if the hall became a “circle of light and peace” once more (Hume, 65). Once again the hall became “strikingly different from the chaos outside” for outside the darkness still encroached and war marched on Rohan (Hume, 66). Fittingly, Theoden bestowed gifts upon the party after casting out Wormtongue thus returning to his ceremonial duty as king of the hall.

The hall itself however symbolically functions as a bastion against darkness it seems to not actually provide adequate defense for Theoden musters his forces to ride for Helm’s Deep. Therefore, Meduseld like many halls of our world is a “theater of power” (Thomas, 23). They leave the symbolic hall and ride into the darkness to ensure the safety of the hall and continuity of the culture perpetuated by the mead hall.

#hume #thomas #meduseld #edoras #lotr

damgoodfantasy

Nature's Ancient Allies

The forest of the huorns in The Two Towers has always held for me a special fascination. It is one of the least explained aspects of all three novels in the trilogy, and engenders a strange, unique feeling in all those who pass beneath its boughs. It also, I think, highlights a great portrayal of the different ways the peoples of Middle Earth perceive the world around them.

At first, all but Gandalf are "unwilling to pass in," for "the trees were grey and menacing." Even Legolas, normally at home in any kind of forest, feels there is "a great wrath" in the air. To all but Gandalf, oldest and wisest of their company, it is an evil place.

Quickly, though, curiosity gets the better of Legolas, and he desires to know and speak to the huorns. After a quick conversation with Gimli, even the dwarf agrees that he will visit the forests of the world with his friend. In the end, then, elves and dwarves, elder of the races of the world, are quick to give up their prior notions of the huorns.

Men, however, remain afraid. When the ents, shepherds of the huorns, emerge from the living wood, "some set their hands upon their sword-hilts." To men, whose lives are short and memories not much longer, the ents and their flocks are but children's tales. Not until they see the ents with their own eyes does Théoden regard them as "fair and wonderful."

In short, I think the journey from Helm's Deep to Isengard through the forest of huorns encapsulates the different perspectives of the races of Middle Earth, ones born from length of life and trust of nature. Also, the image of a bunch of trees tearing apart the Uruk-hai is just very entertaining and cathartic!

entmootatderndingle

I loved how the huorns are brought out to meet the fleeing uruks at Helm’s Deep and then how the ents herd the huorns back to Isengard. I forgot how much you really get to see the ents at work in Isengard. Also, it’s wonderful to see the men of rohan come face to face with the stories they heard as children. You get to see the history and mythology of Rohan become one in the midst of the magical forest. It’s interesting how both Rohan and the forest were asleep prior to Gandalf’s arrival and then both rose up to overthrow Saruman. Great post!

Rohan Entry: Meduseld

I remember getting the VHS of The Two Towers when I was ten. My mom got it next to the counter of a gas station on our way to our new house. The movers had just moved in the last batch of furniture and we sat down to watch it in our new living room. The summer before we had read the Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy together and then borrowed the fellowship of the ring from a blockbuster (and never returned it). We had anxiously awaited the release of the next film to VHS, but we didn’t have a computer or the internet so we didn’t know when that would be and came across the vhs by chance (or providence). I remember the first time I saw Edoras and Meduseld portrayed on the screen accompanied by the building violin progression of Howard Shore’s score. Somehow, more than anything else from the first viewing of the films, this sticks out to me. Rohan, Fangorn, the Shire, and Minas Tirith were fantasy magic to me and fueled my love for Middle Earth. I’ll always remember the first day in the house and the first time I saw Meduseld. It’s hard for that not to bleed into my rereading the material.

When Gandalf beckons Legolas to report what he sees, and he reports, “there stands aloft a great hall of Men. And it seems to my eyes that it is thatched with gold. The light of it shines far over the land. Golden, too, are the posts of its doors”, I could not help but hear the swelling Howard Shore score(LOTR, TT, III, 6, 597). My heart warmed as if reunited with an old friend or returning to a familiar place--home.

#rohan #meduseld #edoras

Weathertop? What’s That?

When Aragorn anounces his intent to “make for Weathertop”, Sam says “Weathertop?... What’s that?“ (LOTR, FOTR, I, 10, 172). Aragorn tells the hobbits of the strategic importance of Weathertop since it provides a view of the whole area, is half way to Rivendell from Bree, and to Aragorn marks where their journey will become more perilous. The first the hobbits see of Weather top is on the fifth day from Bree when they see a “line of hills” in the distance “eastward” with the rightmost hill being the highest with a “conical” and “slightly flattened” top (LOTR, FOTR, I, 11, 183). Aragorn explains that this distinct hill is Weathertop. However, where before in Bree he stated simply that “it is a hill”, now he muses that when the company gets there “it is not certain” what they will find (LOTR, FOTR, I, 11, 183). Weathertop has changed from being an advantageous resting point before the more arduous leg of their journey where they could survey their surroundings and prepare to an unknown risk in its own right. In this unknown, Frodo finds hope of finding Gandalf, but Aragorn muses that the Riders would seek to use Weathertop for the same reasons he intended to and that if they got to this strategic location first, then the party was already in danger. The hobbits “looked anxiously at the distant hills” and Aragorn rethought his plan and decided to make for the other hills rather than Weathertop which fully transformed Weathertop from an opportunity to rest and gain information into the threat of danger to the party.

I appreciate how Tolkien slowly brings the party to Weathertop in a natural way. It first appears as an idea of where Aragorn wishes to go. Then it’s seen on the horizon and continues to loom overhead until it’s only half a day’s walk away. At this point it becomes transforms from opportunity to dread that the enemy arrived first at this strategic position first. The journey transitions from getting to Weathertop as fast as possible to sneaking up onto Weathertop through the hills. These hills display the broken remnants of the northern kingdom and through Aragorn’s recollection of Elendil and Gil-Galad and Sam’s memory of Bilbo’s translation of ‘The Fall of Gil-Galad’ we seen the different relationships to middle earth’s lore between Aragorn and the hobbits. To Aragorn Weathertop brings about the memory of the fall of his people and perhaps to his destiny to bring glory back to the descendants of this fallen kingdom and to the hobbits it brings fascination with times long ago in areas that might as well be on another earth from the Shire.

Other types of meaning for barrow-downs in fantasy and reality

In both Middle Earth and our Earth, centuries and even millennia have passed since the creation of each world’s barrows. Tom Bombadil tells the hobbits of the creation of the downs and gives them a glimpse of the long dead kings that haunt them. The mounds were erected over dead kings and stuffed with gold from wars that embroiled the land. Eventually the land became pastures for sheep. Then Sauron (or maybe Morgoth, I’m not well versed in whom Tom is referring to as the shadow out of dark places far away) awakened the greedy spirits of the kings to haunt the barrows as wights. This changed the relationship of the people to the barrows. No longer could these barrows be peaceful pastures. The resident of these barrows returned as if to remind the living of their presence.

The same changing relationship seems to have been found between people of different time periods and the round barrows that Cooper studies. Depending on the inhabitants of the region and their culture, the barrows take on different meaning. At one time this could be an important spiritual and ritual site to a group of people. To another group at a different time these could signify a claim to the land where the barrows sit because they house ancestral remains. Another group could see these as artifacts of ‘pagan’ times. The ever changing relationship between the living and the barrows functions in both directions and in this way Cooper argues the barrows act as “active participants in the development of landscapes” (Cooper, 688). The relationship people have with the barrows changes how those people interact with the land around the barrows. The same happens in Middle Earth where the barrows can be a sign of the history of the area, or a sign of danger, or a peaceful pasture, or a boundary of the old forest depending on the relationship to the land at that time. The barrows themselves act on the Hobbits as much as any character.

Barrow-Downs dividing the past and present

Tom Bombadil lives beyond time for, “Tom was here before the river and the trees“(Tolkien, LOTR, FOTR, I, 131). The hobbits live in the present and experience their small time segment of existence in a world with only remors of days long passed, relative to Tom. Tom observed all of it and connects the present events in the old forest to the days when men battled for control of those lands. The hobbits see the Downs as a scary place in the present with a vague notion of dread, but Tom knows the history of the place and its ghostly inhabitants. The Barrows keep the dead and their memories and those memories are the history of the land. The history of the land gives it context. Tom knows the history of all for “Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn,” and “he was here before the Kings and the graves and the Barrow-wights” ( Tolkien, LOTR, FOTR, I, 131). To Tom, every hill and every acorn has a story and he knows each story because he saw the stories unfold before him. The transition from present to past unfolds in one of my favorite passages:

“Suddenly Tom’s talk left the woods and went leaping up the young stream, over bubbling waterfalls, over pebbles and worn rocks, and last up on to the Downs. They heard of the Great Barrows, and the green mounds, and the stone-rings upon the hills and in the hollows among the hills. Sheep were bleating in flocks. Green walls and white walls rose. There were fortresses on the heights. Kings of little kingdoms fought together, and the young Sun shone like fire on the red metal of their new and greedy swords. There was victory and defeat; and towers fell, fortresses were burned, and flames went up into the sky. Gold was piled on the biers of dead kings and queens; and mounds covered them, and the stone doors were shut; and the grass grew over all. Sheep walked for a while biting the grass, but soon the hills were empty again. A shadow came out of dark places far away, and the bones were stirred in the mounds. Barrow-wights walked in the hollow places with a clink of rings on cold fingers, and gold chains in the wind Stone rings grinned out of the ground like broken teeth in the moon light” (Tolkien, LOTR, FOTR, I, 130).

Tom tells the history of the land before the barrows and how the barrows came to be. He provides the bridge over the temporal division to connect the hobbits to the past of which the Barrow-wights are shadows cast by a sun long set.

O’ why O’ why did Luminae, Throw herself away? Into Starlight Lake she dipped, And there did she remain, Never to return, one San Arlus Day. The sky saddened and broke over, The ashen plains. For the love that was lost? To end insufferable pain? We will never know, some say. Look to her tidings in the falling rain, May it bless you on San Arlus Day. O’ why O’ why did Luminae, Throw herself away? Tears from above, Washed away the remains, Of the great battle, To free the chained, And cleansed the land, Of the Blood King’s reign. For five hundred years fell the rain, Refilling the rivers and the lakes. From the drenched earth, a miracle came. The forests returned to Ameros again. O’ why O’ why did Luminae, Throw herself away? To be reunited with her, Beloved Arlus, some say. The Prima house diminished, When Luminae vanished, And the first kingdom ended On one San Arlus Day. A horse returned, Without a rider. The people mourned, Without their mother. O’ why O’ why did Luminae, Throw herself away? She became one with, The waters, some say. Up from the lake, An island raised. On it, a city was laid, The city of Luminae. Green are its gardens, And pink are the sands. Blessed are its harvests, The fruit of Luminae. O’ why O’ why did Luminae, Throw herself away? She never left for her presence, Guides the city of her name. Peace surrounds those, That live on the lake. Beautiful is their song, And hearty is their laughter. For they bear the gift of, The love of Luminae. Make you a pilgrimage to Luminae, And bathe in its waters on San Arlus Day.

“Luminae of Starlight Lake” from Song of the West.

#entry10 #menotti #giftsforthegods

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