The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - In the Shadow of the Star: Discussion Thread (Part 1)

mark12_30 · 03-14-2003, 07:27 AM

Okay, fair question!

What totally steams me is not when we fill in a blank with something wild and creative. I think of the time crystal sort of like the mechanical dragons, I guess; Tolkien might shudder a bit, but I don't think he'd go ballistic.

But having Frodo and Bilbo come back when it's expressly stated that they went west and Didn't come back, puts us in the position of negating the contents of the Red Book of Westmarch. That bugs me. No, it drives me crazy. Everybody concerned made that book as accurate as possible, recording everything as faithfully as they could. If Bilbo and Frodo had come back, they would have said so. If Bilbo was buried in the Shire, they would have said so.

UNLESS it was for some reason a dead secret. Then they would have left it unsaid. So-- how can we make their return a dead secret?

Secrets exist, stuff is left out of history books because it's classified in nature. I'm fine with that. But I'm NOT fine with Sam and all the rest of the historians failing to mention that oh, yeah, Frodo did come back for a couple of months, once, and everybody knew it and we had a great time, but it's not important information, so we'll leave it out because nobody would be interested. They put details into that book like Elanor serving as Arwen's handmaiden; why would they leave out the Ringbearer's return? Unless, as I have said, it was supposed to be a secret.

(Or, I would have been happy with, "Sam woke up and looked for Frodo, and he was terribly disappointed to realize it had all been just a dream." But we all disagree on that, so, okay.)

So-- how about making it a secret? This is the excuse I used for Noldo's marriage to Lorien. Someplace, Tolkien says that there were only ever three elf-human unions: Arwen, Idril, Luthien. I didn't feel right saying "Noldo's a hobbit so he doesn't count." No, he does count. But what worked (for me) was that their underage marriage was such a shocking disgrace that it was hushed up especially from the rest of the elves, and so therefore didn't make it into the history books. So the historians can still (honestly) state that there were only ever three human/elf unions-- that's all they KNOW about.

Am I making sense yet?

The time crystal-- same thing. Everything that the Lonely Star did, was all a "super-classified mission", top-secret, and so of course didn't make it into the history books. Same with Maura's relocation-- classified info. That's why that whole epilog thing, him being a mystery to most of the rest of the Anduin group, is important to me, I guess.

Mith did a good job blending the rescue of the numenoreans out of the temple-- he made everything secret, putting the descendants under oath. Again, it didn't go into the history books. We didn't contradict the history books-- we wrote events that were intentionally left out of them for reasons of (national) security.

Same with the Hobbits relocations, and imprisonments, etc; not in the history books because it was a matter of (future) national security. Secret mission; doesn't contradict the historians; we can just wink and say, "How could they have known?" And "Those who did know, couldn't or wouldn't tell."

Now am I making sense?...

ps. "an elf in the clear light of day in the Shire"... well, yeah, it's wierd. But you started all this by saying, "It's a dream"! You bamboozled me!!! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] (Kidding. Okay, I'm not kidding, but anyway, not important.) No, there are places in the LOTR that talk about elves coming through the Shire, so that doesn't bug me, and you did say that The Green Dragon is a Lorien/ Bombadil/Rivendell-ish place for the purposes of this story. Does it bug me? I guess a little, if I think hard about it-- but not NEARLY as much as, "Oh, the Ringbearer came back and everybody knew but we didn't bother to add that to the Red Book." The one is creative license, the other is, well... dare I say heresy?

(all concerned reach for rotten tomatoes... Fire!)

[ March 14, 2003: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]

[ March 14, 2003: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]

03-14-2003, 07:27 AM	#377
mark12_30 Stormdancer of Doom Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Elvish singing is not a thing to miss, in June under the stars Posts: 4,349	Okay, fair question! What totally steams me is not when we fill in a blank with something wild and creative. I think of the time crystal sort of like the mechanical dragons, I guess; Tolkien might shudder a bit, but I don't think he'd go ballistic. But having Frodo and Bilbo come back when it's expressly stated that they went west and Didn't come back, puts us in the position of negating the contents of the Red Book of Westmarch. That bugs me. No, it drives me crazy. Everybody concerned made that book as accurate as possible, recording everything as faithfully as they could. If Bilbo and Frodo had come back, they would have said so. If Bilbo was buried in the Shire, they would have said so. UNLESS it was for some reason a dead secret. Then they would have left it unsaid. So-- how can we make their return a dead secret? Secrets exist, stuff is left out of history books because it's classified in nature. I'm fine with that. But I'm NOT fine with Sam and all the rest of the historians failing to mention that oh, yeah, Frodo did come back for a couple of months, once, and everybody knew it and we had a great time, but it's not important information, so we'll leave it out because nobody would be interested. They put details into that book like Elanor serving as Arwen's handmaiden; why would they leave out the Ringbearer's return? Unless, as I have said, it was supposed to be a secret. (Or, I would have been happy with, "Sam woke up and looked for Frodo, and he was terribly disappointed to realize it had all been just a dream." But we all disagree on that, so, okay.) So-- how about making it a secret? This is the excuse I used for Noldo's marriage to Lorien. Someplace, Tolkien says that there were only ever three elf-human unions: Arwen, Idril, Luthien. I didn't feel right saying "Noldo's a hobbit so he doesn't count." No, he does count. But what worked (for me) was that their underage marriage was such a shocking disgrace that it was hushed up especially from the rest of the elves, and so therefore didn't make it into the history books. So the historians can still (honestly) state that there were only ever three human/elf unions-- that's all they KNOW about. Am I making sense yet? The time crystal-- same thing. Everything that the Lonely Star did, was all a "super-classified mission", top-secret, and so of course didn't make it into the history books. Same with Maura's relocation-- classified info. That's why that whole epilog thing, him being a mystery to most of the rest of the Anduin group, is important to me, I guess. Mith did a good job blending the rescue of the numenoreans out of the temple-- he made everything secret, putting the descendants under oath. Again, it didn't go into the history books. We didn't contradict the history books-- we wrote events that were intentionally left out of them for reasons of (national) security. Same with the Hobbits relocations, and imprisonments, etc; not in the history books because it was a matter of (future) national security. Secret mission; doesn't contradict the historians; we can just wink and say, "How could they have known?" And "Those who did know, couldn't or wouldn't tell." Now am I making sense?... ps. "an elf in the clear light of day in the Shire"... well, yeah, it's wierd. But you started all this by saying, "It's a dream"! You bamboozled me!!! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] (Kidding. Okay, I'm not kidding, but anyway, not important.) No, there are places in the LOTR that talk about elves coming through the Shire, so that doesn't bug me, and you did say that The Green Dragon is a Lorien/ Bombadil/Rivendell-ish place for the purposes of this story. Does it bug me? I guess a little, if I think hard about it-- but not NEARLY as much as, "Oh, the Ringbearer came back and everybody knew but we didn't bother to add that to the Red Book." The one is creative license, the other is, well... dare I say heresy? (all concerned reach for rotten tomatoes... Fire!) [ March 14, 2003: Message edited by: mark12_30 ] [ March 14, 2003: Message edited by: mark12_30 ] __________________ ...down to the water to see the elves dance and sing upon the midsummer's eve.