Outrage?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

Yet we have Tolkien's own assessment of the Elves' motives (can't say which letter, as I've just found the quote on a search) :

This to me bears out some of my suspicions about Galadriel. In Middle-earth she is able to have her own realm and to exercise power, something she desires. That she desires it is borne out in both the wooing gifts of Celebrimbor which will bestow greater power, and her comment about the One Ring that she has 'desired' it at some point, whether to see if she can be the one to destroy it or use it I'm not commenting on here. When she says she will 'diminish' and go West, it is literally that - she will give up notions of power and independence as in the Undying Lands there are undoubtedly many Elves greater than she is and she will once more be but one of many.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

This to me bears out some of my suspicions about Galadriel. In Middle-earth she is able to have her own realm and to exercise power, something she desires. That she desires it is borne out in both the wooing gifts of Celebrimbor which will bestow greater power, and her comment about the One Ring that she has 'desired' it at some point, whether to see if she can be the one to destroy it or use it I'm not commenting on here. When she says she will 'diminish' and go West, it is literally that - she will give up notions of power and independence as in the Undying Lands there are undoubtedly many Elves greater than she is and she will once more be but one of many.

And just to remind the point made earlier by davem, she is making the Lorien stand with the help of a craft, or technology (ie. the ring she has), and even having doubts', whether she should continue doing so, maybe taking the One Ring to settle things for the time being...

And if we interpret Tolkien being against all technological views' of the world, then also Galadriel is "damned". She also represents the age of the fallen, those who try to yield powers that make themselves slaves at the same time.

Holding Lorien blossoming, is against the turn of the tide. To try to reserve it, is a "blasbhemy", not yielding to the "natural" shape of events' unfolding. So she must wane. (She might have fought back, with her ring - or even with the One Ring - but in the end, she would have lost the battle). And there is heroism in her decline! She is the last to willfully deny technological might and freely wane herself out of power. So one of the elders', true kin to generations' that have passed before her. (Well, we could discuss Boromir or Faramir in here, but I think, they haven't the symbolical value of Galadriels' denial)

These "people" entangled themselves with the fortunes' of the ring. They beated the One Ring, just to build up their own society, based on principles' that the ring could vote for...?

[davem]

Of course, we have to be careful not to lay all the 'sin' at Galadriel's door. Tolkien states that this is an Elvish failing, not simply a 'Galadrien' one. Her ambition was higher than her compatriots, so she became greater, but consequently her 'sin' was greater. Its interesting that she 'passes' the test & is allowed to return into the West not because of her efforts in the battle against Sauron, not because of her struggles & sacrifices in the war, but because in the end she repents & chooses humility. It is only when she is prepared to 'diminish' (ie to let go of her dreams of power & become simply herself once more) that she is allowed to go home.

This is in sharp contrast to Frodo for whom there is 'no real going back'. The Shire will not be the same for him because he is not the same Hobbit he was. Galadriel can let go of everything she had been & return to her original state - Frodo cannot. Why?

Perhaps because the persona Galadriel had created for herself was, in the end, a false one, while for Frodo the changes that happened to him were not self imposed falsehoods but were a true transformation. The Galadriel we meet in LotR is not the true Galadriel - only after the offer & rejection of the Ring do we see the real Elf-Woman :

She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.

I wonder what this tells us about Tolkien's philosophy, about the 'laws' of Middle-earth?
In this passage we see first of all the false persona: 'She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful.' Then we see the real woman:'a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad..

Galadriel changes herself, effectivly makes herself into a work of Art (yet can we call it 'Art' in the Tolkienien sense when it is achieved through magic, the powers of Elessar & Elven Ring? Frodo, on the other hand, is transformed through his experiences. Galadriel can go home merely by letting go of the false persona she has built up, Frodo cannot go home because he has actually become a different person. Galadriel has been playing a game with power, she is like a child playing at grown-ups (this is true for all the good she achieves). In the end she 'merely' has to put away her toys (much though she may have loved those toys, much though she may have achieved with them). Frodo hasn't been playing at all. In the end, though, it is Frodo who achieves the great victory, not Galadriel. So, it is Frodo who loses all not Galadriel.

Yet both have learned a lesson & 'grown' (ironically, the consequence of Galadriel's 'growth is to become 'shrunken' - though actually she only 'shrinks' to her true 'size'. Frodo actually 'grows' morally & spiritually). Galadriel comes to the realisation that she is too 'small' for her fantasy, Frodo that he is too 'big' for his old reality. Galadriel goes home, Frodo goes into exile. I don't know who gets the better of the deal: We can't say that in her return to the Undying Lands Galadriel is being rewarded - she's only going back to what she had before. Frodo, on the other hand, is said to be being 'rewarded' by being allowed to pass into the West. Yet we have to ask whether the 'reward' is worth the suffering he had to go through - we're never actually told whether he felt it was all worth it: he merely tells Sam that sometimes it must be so - that someone has to lose the things they love so that others may keep them. He cannot just let his hand fall, laugh, & become a simple Hobbit again.

Of course, she, at the test, was able to reject the Ring. He was not.

[drigel]

wonder what this tells us about Tolkien's philosophy, about the 'laws' of Middle-earth?

Its a wonderfull personification of the elvish story by that time (actually starting at the conclusion of the Last Alliance). The transition age where legend slips away, and the harsh reality of the fact that the age of mankind is being ushered in, like it or not. To me, the rings use for her (could she have done the same thing with Vilya?) was all about the attitude of a High Elf that remembered paradise, but also remembered ME in its vigorous youth, and how close it was to paradise, before so much marring. And the realization by LOTR that the ravages of time can sweep away both the ideal of ME and the ideal of her people.

The Galadriel we meet in LotR is not the true Galadriel - only after the offer & rejection of the Ring do we see the real Elf-Woman

She was both because she HAD to be both, IMO. It may have been regional by that time, but her kingdom was necessary and vital to the ultimate mission. Plenty of chances to sail west for her, although I think pre-Frodo, in her mind, she didnt think she had Pardon. Which to me sets up the idea that the idea of being unforgiven motivated a lot of her decision making, to her credit. Not that she had something to prove, but that she didnt let that change her soul, ultimately.

Holding Lorien blossoming, is against the turn of the tide. To try to reserve it, is a "blasbhemy", not yielding to the "natural" shape of events' unfolding.

It is, and the use of technology augments it. But then again, so is any civilized existense, no? We all blaspheme as soon as we left the tree. It reminds me of a conservation project that is trying to save a certain species from extinction, regardless of the impact, or even whether or not it was our fault. Plenty of extinctions occur, most have happened long before we came on the scene to have an impact. Some would call that a sin, others would call it benevolent, most wouldnt decry blasphemer, would they?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Interesting that Tolkien gives central importance to riddling not to the Rohirrim, but to the hobbits--or at least Gollem and Bilbo. Also interesting that riddles are absent from Beowulf. I can't recall that The Battle of Maldon has any, but it's been some time since I read it. Maybe our resident Old English scholars--Squatter and Fordim-- can suggest why-- if indeed it is the case--riddles are absent from the heroic literature.

To be quite honest, a lot of the belief in the Anglo-Saxon love of riddles is based on conjecture, mainly raised to explain why a bishop would donate a collection of them, some of which are extremely suggestive, to a group of Benedictine monks. Clearly wisdom and knowledge were important to Anglo-Saxons, just as to their cousins in the Norse world, but their own maxims could well have been influenced by biblical models, and much ink has been spent on debating the point. What we might term (and I will because I'm not being marked) the 'greatest hits' of Anglo-Saxon England, apart from the Exeter Book riddles themselves, contain little of the character of Bilbo and Gollum's encounter in The Hobbit. That looks more like the sort of wisdom contest that one encounters in Vafþrúðnismál (translated here and here), although in the Icelandic poem there are no riddles, only a direct testing of knowledge with a suitably high stake. An Old-English treatment of the same form of contest is Solomon and Saturn, in which the pagan deity, made human in line with early-medieval thinking, contends with the legendarily wise king of Israel. In this latter contest, the stake is not a head but faith: Saturn is eventually convinced of the truth of Christianity and laughs with joy at the realisation.

Perhaps the closest episode to the contest in The Hobbit that I've seen is Alcuin's Disputatio Pippini cum Albino scholastico. This is a Latin work, written at the court of Charlemagne, but its author was a Northumbrian with close ties to the northern English church. Then again, in this third piece, there is no stake. The contest is a light-hearted game between two learned men, scholar and patron, and lacks the confrontational aspects of the two examples above.

What Tolkien did in Riddles in the Dark and throughout The Hobbit was to combine disparate Germanic ideas in a new context (yes, I know there's a word for that, but I don't like it). Bilbo stands in the role of Oðinn, and his head is also at stake. However, instead of the rather disappointing oral examination to which the Norse god and the frost-giant subject one another, Tolkien substitutes actual riddles with the same enthusiasm as did Alcuin. He reconstructs a game in which the Exeter Book riddles might have been used, following the pattern of medieval exemplars.

Heroic poetry has little space for formalised riddle-contests, although it does abound with maxims and contests of wit and intelligence. Indeed, the opening lines of The Finnsburh fragment may be the conclusion of a pseudo-riddle, in which a mysterious phenomenon is described in riddling terms, only to be explained by the hero of the piece. The most obvious point is that heroic literature lives chiefly on the battlefield, whereas riddles are definitely an occupation for an idle hour. There seems little sense in warriors hurling crossword clues at one another when they ought to be throwing spears, and the main use of conundra is therefore to demonstrate the intellectual superiority of the protagonists. In The Hobbit, Bilbo's winning riddle only demonstrates his own confusion, which is probably a subtle joke on Tolkien's part: many hours have been spent in debate over the meaning of Old English riddles.

The Rohirrim, although Anglo-Saxon in many respects, are based on the characters of Old English poetry, which as it survives is not laden with formal riddles. The closest that heroic Anglo-Saxon verse comes to genuine riddles is its extensive use of metaphor and variation, which is used by some to suggest a love of enigmatic speech. Being more rooted in the heroic episodes, the Rohirrim are less likely to show the more playful aspects of surviving Anglo-Saxon culture that Tolkien gives to the Hobbits, although it is unlikely that the Rohirrim were without riddles; I am sure that The Lord of the Rings contains a passing reference by Merry to Théoden's knowledge of them, although I must rely on another member's better memory to confirm or deny this. [EDIT: Actually it doesn't. I looked last night and could find no such reference. Since it doesn't seem to appear in the Letters or Unfinished Tales either, it must have been a figment of my imagination.]

On the subject of Mercia, we should be very circumspect. The Old English form of this name, Mierce means 'border people', which is a good description of both the Rohirrim and the Mercians. The Old English word mearc, mearce means, among other things, a boundary, and Tolkien's use of it in The Lord of the Rings is probably descriptive rather than related to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It should also be borne in mind that Mercia does not equal the West Midlands, as Tolkien would have been the first to point out. At its height under Offa, Mercia formed the whole of central England, from the northern borders of Kent and Wessex to the Humber, from parts of modern Wales to East Anglia. Tolkien sometimes described himself as a Mercian, but his fiction in that direction need not have influenced his portrayal of Rohan.

Sorry to continue down what looks to be a cul-de-sac, but in my defence I was asked.

As for Tolkien's love of the culture which, as Lal says, "was cut off in its flowering"--and to relate this to the question of nostalgia--I know of at least one Old English scholar who used to hand out a chronology which ended with this:

"1066 Sic Transit Gloria Mundi"

Indeed it does, and, indeed, did: sic semper barbari vincent. This is the main pillar of my proof that in the end every civilisation is destroyed by pretentious nouveaux riches.