The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - The decision to compress the timeline might have affected Numenor's lore

***Mithadan*** · 11-03-2022, 08:08 AM

As Victariongreyjoy notes, RoP necessarily had to compress the timeline in order to present a story that was crisp and easier to follow for the average viewer. Let's define "average viewer" as someone with, at best, a passing familiarity with LoTR, either from the Jackson movies or from a read of the books. The average viewer would not necessarily be aware (and was not intended to be aware) of the compression of thousands of years of history into the brief span of time as portrayed. So, compression of the timeline was necessary from the perspective of presenting the story to the average viewer. This commercial necessity is potentially annoying to viewers who are more familiar with the actual timeline from reading the Silmarillion, Unfinished tales and, maybe HoME. The latter category of viewers (let's call them "Tolkienists") understandably have the tendency to compare RoP to "canon" (we always keep going back to "canon") and gripe about inconsistencies.

So, the better questions might be: (1) does the compressed timeline work for the average viewer; and (2) could RoP have been presented in a manner that would have made Tolkienists happier?

11-03-2022, 08:08 AM	#4
*Mithadan* Spirit of Mist Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Tol Eressea Posts: 3,310	As Victariongreyjoy notes, RoP necessarily had to compress the timeline in order to present a story that was crisp and easier to follow for the average viewer. Let's define "average viewer" as someone with, at best, a passing familiarity with LoTR, either from the Jackson movies or from a read of the books. The average viewer would not necessarily be aware (and was not intended to be aware) of the compression of thousands of years of history into the brief span of time as portrayed. So, compression of the timeline was necessary from the perspective of presenting the story to the average viewer. This commercial necessity is potentially annoying to viewers who are more familiar with the actual timeline from reading the Silmarillion, Unfinished tales and, maybe HoME. The latter category of viewers (let's call them "Tolkienists") understandably have the tendency to compare RoP to "canon" (we always keep going back to "canon") and gripe about inconsistencies. So, the better questions might be: (1) does the compressed timeline work for the average viewer; and (2) could RoP have been presented in a manner that would have made Tolkienists happier? __________________ Beleriand, Beleriand, the borders of the Elven-land.