[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Tar Elenion

"Of their original home the Hobbits in Bilbo’s time preserved no knowledge. A love of learning (other than genealogical lore) was far from general among them, but there remained still a few in the older families who studied their own books, and even gathered reports of old times and distant lands from Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Their own records began only after the settlement of the Shire, and their most ancient legends hardly looked further back than their Wandering Days."
LotR, Prologue

Hobbits were illiterate until ca. TA 1300:
"It was soon after their learning of letters, about Third Age 1300, that Hobbits began to set down and collect the considerable store of tales and legends and oral annals and genealogies that they already possessed."
PoMe, Appendix on Languages

Ah well, my bad. Thanks for the correction. That is on me not remembering then. Guess I am getting old.

But I anyway have to say that I like it. It preserves some of the feel, if not the canon (which is already not preserved by the names, see above).

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

It's a prime (ho ho) example of how something read, and interpreted according to your own experience of the world, is different to how another person reads and imagines it. To me, that transition to Valinor would be like sailing into the silvery curtain of a 'sea fret' (a type of fog that forms in particular over the sea and coast of NE England) and emerging to see green fields ahead. It sticks powerfully as an image, the quiet, the damp, the eerie sound. In RoP it was really grand and golden.

This doesn't mean it's *wrong*, it's just not in any way as I'd imagine it, and like they were taken by something rather than quietly disappearing.

Interesting contrast though to how the Barrow-wights were prepared as dead Men for their own final journey, with their weapons accompanying them.

I imagined the curtain first of all as kind of semi-metaphorical, or something that is borderline hard to describe, a mystical experience of sorts: something that is like a feeling of passing the curtain, but obviously not literally, but you don't really have any better words for it (and in retrospect, you also can't tell if it was "real", i.e. tangible, or not).

But I personally also imagine it rather silver than golden. Maybe the showmakers have some obsession with gold as opposed to silver. First Gil-Galad, who too was supposed to "shine" with the light of "stars" and "silver shield"; now this...

Nice spotting the thing about the Barrow-Wights though! I actually like that marked difference between the Men (notably "evil" Men) and the Elves (notably "good" Elves)...

Originally Posted by Boromir88

I'm not sure if herald's had other meanings, besides being a messenger? All Elrond says is he "marched with his [Gil-galad's] host" and "stood by" him at the end as one of the few there who knew what happened.

I personally imagine herald as being the guy who stands next to Gil-Galad with a trumpet and announces "Lord of the Black Land! Hear us! Gil-Galad, the First (and Only) of His Name, King of the Noldor and the Free Realms, now challenges you to a duel! Come forth if you do not wish to be seen as rotten coward!"