#the appendices

[drowninginmytbr]

i just flipped to the end of rotk because i wanted to know how many pages I had left right

and when i tell you I think i was the happiest person in the world for a moment

[readinginithilien]

Lord of the Rings read-through, Appendix A, Chapter I The Númenórean Kings, (iii) Eriador, Arnor and the heirs of Isildur

this is an exciting read because I feel I know little about Arnor, and find it's history as well as its borders interesting

Beyond the Lune was Elvish country, green and quiet, where no Men went; but Dwarves dwelt, and still dwell, in the east side of the blue mountains [...]

How interesting! Another elven dwelling in middle-earth of the later ages, and it sounds beautiful. It does go down to the Gulf of Lune and the Grey Havens where Cirdan dwells, but does not seem to belong to the same group. It is green, and it is quiet, despite Elves living there together with Dwarves. Of course they have their own niches - the Elves the trees and meadows, and Dwarves the mines and mountains, I assume - but they are still neighbours sharing space, and probably trading, maybe even being friends. There's probably not many Sindar there, but I wonder who else lives there. Green elves? Noldor? It must have been an interesting place.

So one of the main reasons Arnor broke apart was the dissence about who would get Amon Sûl (weathertop). Because that's where the Palantir was. In other words: another realm breaks apart because people are arguing over jewellery - albeit this time very practical one - made by Fëanor.

The witch king, already under the control of Sauron, was sent north by Sauron to establish a realm at the northern borders of Eriador (which are never clearly defined anyway), in the ettenmoors (moors are great for witchery) and on both sides of the mountains (conveniently including orcish realms) so that he can build up an evil force in the least nice lands and get men and orcs on his side. I wonder how many dragons, other then Smaug, where still alive, and if Sauron ever tried to deal with them directly?

At this time Arnor was already officially split in three. I wonder if Gondor/Arnor is influenced by the east and west roman empire.

Rivendell was besieged by the witch king of Angmar. Wasn't it also besieged sometime in the second age?

During the wars with Angmar Rivendell was besieged; Cirdan and his people joined in the fight; weather top was razed but the palantir saved; the Stoors fled from where they were dwelling; and Eriador became unfriendly. Interesting times.

The plague also raged in middle earth and killed a lot of people, including Hobbits.

It seems the barrow down graves where made by men before they ever met elves! That is very ancient. Though the evils spirits only entered when Angmar spread its reach.

Dunedain where driven over the Lune, but earlier that was a country where Men do not go. Is that referring to different times?

The Lossoth, the Snowmen of Forochel [...]

The Lossoth live in igloos, they have sleds and ice skates! They live in different camps! They are said to be unfriendly, but I'm assuming that's just cultural differences. They did not value jewellery (well, that is some cultural differences to basically anyone else in Tolkien's world). They did help king Arvedui, though not willingly (because he wanted to pay them in jewellery). They believed the witch king could make frost and thaw at will. I wonder if they were right? I wonder if they were ever in contact with the elves of Lune? I wonder how different their culture and language were, as they lived there since before men met elves at all? They actually did manage to communicate with Arvedui, and I'd wager he didn't learn their language. They also helped him get to Cirdan's ship with sleds, and they gave great advice (that Arvedui ignored)

Arvedui gave the Lossoth a ring that would basically be a favour. He stressed that it was not magical in the slightest. You can see he learned from history. Also, this was - it was said - actually the very same ring Finrod gave Barahir. No favor done for them is ever mentioned, though obviously the Dúnedain regained the ring.

People much later actually learned about Arvedui's faith from the Lossoth, there must have been more communication then I thought.

Two palantiri of the north vanished in the ice, one stayed with Cirdan until he took it with him west. Nice.

The hobbits sent archers to help the king, though they never returned, and others helped in the battle when Angmar was overthrown.

Another piece of jewellery that so far noone fought over: the scepter of Annúminas!

Celebrian left for Valinor within one year of being captured, tortured and poisoned.

Bandobras Took who fought off orcs from the shire!

The main home of the Dunedain seems to have been at Lake Evendim, though mostly they were a wandering people. But they probably had more or less stable environments to raise children, give birth, take care of the elderly and sick? I have a lot of trouble imagining their lives.

So the Dunedain were really proud that the line was unbroken from father to son. Sounds sexist to me. And after Númenór didn't care about the gender of their monarch, either!

[day-shall-come-again]

Ever since reading this, I’ve been thinking about it:

I stand by the ocean. There is a ship at the quay… I stand on the beach and watch as it disappears as a speck on the horizon. At that moment, I hear someone by my side speak, “Now she has left us.”

Left us for what? She has only left my line of sight. That’s all. She is as beautiful and sturdy as when she left this beach.

That she has lessened and disappeared is only a matter of perspective, and as the voice from beside me says that she has left us, on another beach, someone watches her appear on the horizon, and another voice yells, “Here she comes!”

…And especially in the context of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

The comparison is fairly obvious when you look at it, but I found this piece to be especially poignant (and as far as I know, the author is unknown. As I’m translating this, I’m also going off of a copy I found online and not the physical I read, so there are some ever so slight differences that may make it resonate less. Apologies.)

It’s particularly haunting to me, and I couldn’t believe that I’d found a piece that was exactly on the mark as far as Tolkien’s Elves and Sailing went, and I mean exactly on the mark emotionally.

It came from an old newspaper clipping, with a bit of an introduction from I believe, a member of the church (this was from a Swedish newspaper, so I’ll love you forever if you can identify the person referencing the poem or any background information, because I sadly can’t remember. Here it is: closer to the abridged version I read in the paper.)

It read something like this: What is death? It is not an end, but a beginning. For as we have to say farewell, there is a chorus of helloes! on some far shore. What is death? It is a ship passing, and as a voice from behind me says, “She is gone now,” on some far shore another says, “Here she comes!”

What is death, but the passing of a boat from one shore to another.

Many thanks to anyone who can help me identify! I felt I needed to share this wonderful, underrated piece with the wider Tolkien Community.

TL;DR: I may write more on the matter, but for now here it is.

Art credit: John Howe’s The Grey Havens

[ebaeschnbliah]

“One remarkable thing about reading The Lord of the Rings is ... 

“... you go into this world this is a fairy tale. It’s dragons and it’s trolls and it’s Hobbits and it’s Elves. It’s amazing how authentic, how genuinely authentic, it feels. That you start to believe that it could possibly be history. That somehow Tolkien found some lost parchment, some secret parchment that we don’t know about. That he really took all this from a true historical event. It has that degree of believability about it. 

“I guess the way that we tried to hint at the depth, which is all that the film could really do, was partly in our design process. While we were working on the screenplay we were able to start a team of people designing. Because the great thing about Tolkien is that all the descriptions of what you need are in the book. You don’t have to wait for the script unlike you would on a normal movie. I didn’t want movie design, I didn’t want fantasy movie, Hollywood sort of style of design. I wanted something that felt authentic. I gave a little speech to the design crew very early on. This is a little bit weird, but it was the only way I could really express myself. I said ... 

„Look, we’ve been given the job of making The Lord of the Rings. From this point on, I wanna think that Lord of the Rings is real, that it was actually history, that these events happened. And more than that, I want us to imagine that we’ve been lucky enough to be able to go on location and shoot our movie where the real events happened. Those characters did exist and they wore costumes and I want the costumes to be totally accurate to what the real people wore. Hobbiton exists. It’s overgrown with weeds and it’s been rundown and neglected for the last 300, 400 years. But we’re gonna go back in there and clean it up. We’re the luckiest film crew. We can shoot in the real locations that these real events actually took place in.“ 

“That was effectively my speech to try to get everybody‘s head into what I actually sort of wanted in terms of a feeling of reality.”

Peter Jackson, Designing Middle-Earth, The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Appendices, Part One, From Book to Vision, Extended DVD 

[mentibusnoctis]

how possible is it to do thorough research, write the literature review and the discussion in under 10hrs, and end up with a paper that's worth a first class?

[colourblue]

just finished reading the return of the king!! that was a lot of reading, glad that’s over- *turns page* …

[citizen-of-the-fandom]

Um so I was looking up something to prove a point re-reading the appendices, and I realized that Aragorn was (1) two years old when his father died and (2) eighteen years young when he met Arwen. That entire dialogue makes so much more sense now. Her amusement. His brash 'but, like, I'm cool too, right Miss Evenstar?' and (3) Aragorn was 23 when he met Gandalf and (4) Faramir and Samwise were born in the same year.

[oscarwetnwilde]

The Hobbit: The Appendices- Stephen Fry eats testicles.