<font face="Verdana"><table><TR><TD><FONT SIZE="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The Unquiet Dead
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/nenya.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: Who knows their trolls?
Yes, Saulotus, you are correct. I was conflating the two designations which are clearly distinguished in the black-speech as discrete races (despite the overwhelming similarity of their descriptions and origins). Frankly, I have always been rather doubtful that were such things as Olog-hai. I acknowlege that their existence has been explained and yet I can't remember one. There are Uruk-hai out the wazoo in LotR and there are trolls and there seem to have been half-orcs. But I just don't ever remember an "Olog-hai" appearing anywhere. That is, I remember no Olog-hai if the distinction between Olog-hai and garden-variety trolls is to be maintained (as the distinction between Uruk-hai and garden variety orcs very carefully was). I may very well have forgotten. Where does one appear in the story?
And while you are correct that there is a clear explanantion of them in Appendix F, I take Tolkien at this word that the Appendices are supposed to be transcriptions from the Red Book, and therefore they are by no means infallible. Tolkien himself was often vague and contradictory about the evil races. I never forget his descriptions of the black men from southern Harad as "half-trolls." With this kind of nuanced race-theory, I've never bothered to think that any of the monster stuff is best taken at face value. I don't distinguish any too carefully between trolls, orcs and goblins nor am I convinced that Tolkien distinguished them carefully. I suspect that he distinguished them at all for the purpose of introducing a little variety into the narrative.
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