***spoiler Warning***
 

Does anyone as but me find it slightly annoying that Tolkien includes so many spoilers in his work, like 'my heart foretells... yadda yadda' The worst one I find is the one when Feanor dies and he sees Thangorodrim and with the foresight of death knows no force of the Noldor could defeat them. I thought of that quote throughout the Nirnaeth and it destroyed any suspense for me whether they were going to win it or not.

On another I know Tolkien cannot be blamed for it because he's dead but is it really necessary for the Chapter title for the chapter in which Beleg dies, in 'The Children of Hurin', to be 'The Death of Beleg'. If I was a first time reader that would have completly spoiled it for me, having previously thought Beleg and Turin would have been merry friends forever... :p

Actually you're right about that, but today the style in which most writers write is different ten the one used 50 years ago.
If you take a look at more modern books you find this, since they usually try to keep interested.
I agree with the examples, though in the case of Beleg you are still surprised that it is Turin that accidentally kills him.

HWAIM.... 'Mon the Dons!
 

:D

I suppose it comes from the style of the tale. It's a history, rather than a thriller. Like anyone reading the sagas would already know that the characters were dead, and having chapters named 'The Death of so-and-so' will make for easy reference.

There's at least one of those in The Lord of the Rings too, when the author talks about Merry, I believe, gaining a scar which lasted until the end of his days.

Some authors, rightly or wrongly, write with the presumption, to say nothing of gall, impudence and temerity, that their books will be reread. Tolkien appears to belong to this crowd and fortune seems to have favoured him.

When we go to the theater/cinema, before the main attraction, we are bombarded seemingly for hours with movie trailers that show bits of coming attractions. Maybe these chapter titles are just the textual form of the same? Whet the appetite a bit?

"Things sound bad for this group of Nine, as the chapter title is, 'The Breaking of the Fellowship,' but exactly how does it happen, me wonders?"

At least we are spared the LotR Chapter title, in place of "The Shadow of the Past," "The Shadow of the Past and How Frodo will Accomplish his Mission and Defeat Sauron, and the Nazgul Never Really do Much."

I like the titles Tolkien gave his chapters. They are defined and each significant, and each for me at least evoke certain emotions and pictures that I latch on to that chapter or point in the story. Like most said, there are the questions that leave suspense as to why things happened producing the title Tolkien gave.

I recall reading somewhere that Tolkien originally wanted to call RotK The War of the Ring, because he thought The Return of the King gave away too much of the plot. His publishers thought that Return of the King worked better, though. So perhaps Tolkien shared some of your concers about giving too much of his plots away?

I'm not sure I like The War Of The Ring. Look at the ends of the current titles - 'Ring' and 'Towers' and 'King'. Each focuses on a different subject. Adding in another 'Ring' in place of 'King' would offset the balance.

It always gets my friend that in the Fellowship Gandalf remarks that Gollum still has a part to play. She feels it gives something away about the end of the Ring. However, I feel giving away a little bit at the beginning of a chapter or in the chapter name (ex: The Breaking of the Fellowship) pushes me to read faster so I know how it happens. Most people can guess that the good defeats evil when it comes to the trilogy, but so many continue to read so they know how.

I feel too many authors today are stuck on twists and turns to keep the relatively short attention span of the readers and they focus less on solid story telling. The "spoilers" that Tolkien puts in actually enhances the story to me.

That's going a bit too far. It's like 1000 pages in between, when you first read the book, you most certainly forget such minor details from the beginning.

You speak from my soul. This is exactly how I felt about Tolkien when I first read it, and I didn't even remember that, now you awoke the memory in me: yes, that's exactly how it was. It does not matter you know how it ends, you want to know how it happens - this is the point of epic, not a detective novel. This is, I think, something I actually lack at the other authors of today (*ahem* I originally wrote toDay...).
As I said, I'd subscribe this one.

I think it really comes down to if you think Tolkien has followed what Finrod said to Andreth

I will apoligize before hand, because I haven't read all the previous posts.

In movies, and a few times in books, even when I know what is going to happen I keep hoping, a futile hope to be sure, but hope none the less. In reading a book by Twain on Joan of Arc, you know from the beginning that she is going to die, but so many times you feel as if she could live. In movie's, forgive me for bringing up Star Wars, but in #3, you know what is going to happen, but I at least, would keep forgetting, and I kept hoping. For me personally, things like what Tolkien did don't bother me.

The titles sometimes enhance the surprises.

F.ex, the Breaking of the Fellowship, you know that the Fellowship is going to decide upon whether to go to Mordor or Gondor, or to split, from earlier discussion. So you think that they will decide, but you have no idea about the drama involving Boromir and Frodo. It has greater emotion because of it, I feel. And in the next chapter, The Departure of Boromir, because of the title you just think Boromir is going to go to Gondor, and of this in-bred feeling it comes as a greater shock.

I like the name of the chapter The Departure of Boromir. While it certainly says Boromir will leave, it does not tell that he dies, although the name hints that way...

Like Eomer said above, the tales of the First and Second Ages are mostly written as histories in the tradition of Old English, Old French, and Latin chronicles from Medieval Britain. It is, roughly, the equivalent of chapter headers like, "Sherman's March to the Sea" or "The Burning of Atlanta" in a modern Civil War text. A good illustration of this style might be The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer, which is divided into 'substories' a reader of the Silm might recognize.

Although Tolkien meant for the Silm to be published, he is said by CT to have meant it as a suppliment to the LotR (at least in its comprehensive version). When expanding the particular stories, he kept this historical view; never was it meant to be seen as a narrative in the style of a (modern) novel. Even LotR is a compromise between the two styles, because it began as a sequel to The Hobbit, yet ended up an epic every bit as full as the Narn.

Spoilers eh? Well I'd say the biggest spoiler in anything is the whole "Good triumphs, evil loses" thing. the entire concept is getting REALLY old.
I really wish that Tolkien had written alternate ending chapters where Sauron does get the Ring. That would be a much welcomed plot twist on my part.

Which is why CoH is such a different book. Evil winsss!

No, LotR isn't that black and white that you can truly say that evil loses and good triumphs. Both triumph and both lose greatly.

And CoH is even less black and white in the victory terms.

Bloody plot twists. I once took a creative writing seminar, in which we all gave copies of our pieces to all the other students to read and criticise. My God, virtually every one was somehow convinced that he (or she) absolutely *must* have a surprise ending or a last-minute plot twist or some kind of unexpected zinger. Good gracious, O. Henry is not the only short-story writer out there!

Surprise is one technique in the writer's toolbox. It's by no means the only one. I never felt it wasn't worth going to see "Death of a Salesman" because the title gave away the ending. And I went ahead and read Moby Dick even though I already knew---***SPOILER ALERT*****--- the whale sinks the ship. Sheesh!

I suppose on these grounds we should chastise Shakespeare for using giveaway titles like "The Tragedy of King Lear."

One thing I found interesting about Romeo And Juliet is that the entire story and ending is basically summed up in the opening paragraph:

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Essentially that's the whole story - if we just wanted to know the story we would only have to read the first paragraph and no more. What's the point of reading on? The last three lines tell us that what the play will show is not the story itself - that's been done already in this prologue - but *how* it happens: here we 'shall miss' the specific details of the plot and that is what the play will show us. It's not the 'what' that's interesting; it's the 'how'.

This is the same with Tolkien. When reading The Children Of Hurin, we have two consecutive chapters - 'The Death Of Glaurung' and 'The Death Of Turin'. So we know that both these characters will die, one after the other; the ultimate in spoilers. But why? Why would Turin die shortly after the destruction of his enemy, and not during it or long after? It's a mystery that keeps us guessing until we actually read it.

Reminds me of my own creative writing class. However in some instances many of the stories read were very cliched ideas that any four year old could predict the ending to. Surprise and plot twists can be a welcome relief in such a situation. But predictable endings and surprise plot twists both get stale and a happy medium can be hard to find. And it's in good story telling that we can find that medium.

Sir Kohran quotes the beginning of Romeo and Juliet, virtually everyone knows how that ends and still generation after generation reads it or sees the play. Why? It is wonderful storytelling.

And that's what I love about Tolkien. The Departure of Boromir, clearly he's leaving, but how and why? Oh he dies trying to save Merry and Pippin in an act of redemption. *gasp* That's brilliant.

When it comes to creative writing courses I feel there needs to be more on solid story telling. In my class we focused on poems and structure, but never how to craft a good story. It's something any aspiring writing should know. Plot twists and cliched endings can only go so far.

It may seem that clean cut on the surface, but think of all that happened within. Think of the conflict among the heroes. Frodo nearly falls to the evil of the Ring and it's not through his good heart it gets destroyed, is it? I felt Gollum actually destroying the Ring and himself was a bit of a twist. I mean, it wasn't Frodo's want to destroy the evil the Ring brought, but instead Gollum's great need for it. When I started reading LOTR for the first time I assumed Frodo would destroy it, it was a shock to learn it was Gollum.

Gollum Saves the World!
 

If anything, I think the Legendarium is an exercise in the idea that evil basically cannot be stopped until the very end, as is implied in the Ainulindale. No matter how far out in the Void Melkor is thrown, he always finds his way back, or his leiutenant does, or people get to squabbling over the neato stuff he left behind. After all, the doom of the Silmarils wasn't to end up in the crowns of the Good Guys and the One Ring wasn't destroyed by the goodness of Frodo, but the greed of Smeagol. Eru never quite gets around to letting Good win completely. If that happened, there would be no reason to set down the 'lessons of history'.