The Letter of the Law

[Formendacil]

Over in my other recent thread, Huinesoron (as he is wont to do) said something that struck me as quite accurate:

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Tolkien is not, by and large, an unreliable narrator, so when he says in a published book that 'everyone thought X', I'm inclined to accept that X is something he wants to tell us is true. But! Also, that line about how the plague came 'with dark winds' out of the East. That's not a natural phenomenon - it reminds me too much of the Shadow over Minas Tirith, or of the Black Breath.

As I said, I think this is quite accurate: Tolkien doesn't generally play games with narration (not that the potential isn't there, since his texts very much mimic historical documents at times and he knew better than most the extent to which those were retellings and reshapings of material handed on and changed by the transmission), but it did make me wonder:

What are the most egregious distortions you can fit into the text of Middle-earth?

I think we're actually going to see a lot of this that gets us all riled up once the Amazon series releases, because the 2nd Age is full of unpainted canvas and they have a whole show to fill, but I'm thinking of things closer to the texts themselves: what odd things would you plug into the cracks that you absolutely know Tolkien wouldn't approve of but he leaves space for?

This is, admittedly, a broad, conceptual topic and I don't have a ready example. The best I can do is point at the inspiration in the other thread, where Huin is arguing that, even though Tolkien doesn't SAY it, he pretty much implies Sauron created/spread the Great Plague. So I'm looking for the opposite examples: where Tolkien heavily infers that Æ happened, but since he didn't SAY it did, you can argue that anti-Æ happened.

I would probably need to comb through the Appendices looking for "the Wise say" or "many believed." The counterarguments to THOSE are what I'm talking about.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Over in my other recent thread, Huinesoron (as he is wont to do) said something that struck me as quite accurate:

Why thank you!

Originally Posted by Formendacil

What are the most egregious distortions you can fit into the text of Middle-earth?

I was born for this.

~

The one that instantly springs to mind is "for elves, sex = marriage". Tolkien clearly believed it, but what he actually says is that:

Originally Posted by LaCE

It was the act of bodily union that achieved marriage, and after which the indissoluble bond was complete

But if I say "It's the priest saying 'man and wife' that makes you married," that doesn't mean that any time you can get a priest to say those words, someone somewhere is instantly wedded! Can doesn't mean always does, and anyway:

Originally Posted by LaCE

... it was at all times lawful for any of the Eldar, both being unwed, to marry thus of free consent one to another without ceremony or witness (save blessings exchanged and the naming of the Name)...

So if you, ah, 'achieve the act of bodily union' without the blessings and the Name of the One, it don't count. ^_~

~

Also, Maglor. "It is told" that he chucked his Silmaril in the sea and now wanders around singing a lot, but the Silm itself admits that there's no evidence, and it's just saying it to claim that the Silmarils are in mystically/elementally significant places forever. For all we know, Maglor could have chucked himself in there with the jewel - or maybe he kept it, and is living off on Tol Fuin with it around his neck even now!

~

Come to think of it, we don't even know when Beren and Luthien died! Tolkien only tells us that Dior "knew" that the Nauglamir being sent to him was a sign that they'd perished, but he could have been... y'know, wrong. Their great-grandson Elros lived 500 years, and only 60-odd of those can be written off as 'he wasn't mortal yet'; his son lived over 400. Even if we assume actually visiting the Undying Lands and returning has no more effect than just living slightly closer to them, a 400-year second life would take them a good three centuries into the Second Age. They probably just sent the Silmaril over to Dior for safekeeping and bopped off to hang with Galadriel.

I mean, heck: Tol Galen is well inside the areas of Ossiriand that survived to become Lindon. Maybe they just stayed put! At the very least, that's a plausible myth/rural legend of the Sindarin refugees in the early Second Age: that their princess is still out there, watching over them from the forests south of Harlond...

hS

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

So I'm looking for the opposite examples: where Tolkien heavily infers that Æ happened, but since he didn't SAY it did, you can argue that anti-Æ happened.

Are you literally still fishing for material you could give to the Amazon series' makers?

Originally Posted by Formendacil

This is, admittedly, a broad, conceptual topic and I don't have a ready example.

My first thought upon seeing this was that I am rather afraid that there are gazillions of such things, countless examples, many of which have been already exploited by various game-makers or at least fan-fiction writers, Peter Jackson included. For instance, it is pretty much implied that, say, spiders of Mirkwood pretty much existed only in Mirkwood and they were the offspring of the offspring of Ungoliant, but I recall some video games where you had them in random small forests in the Shire because, well, you need to have random killable "mobs" and they can't just all be Orcs.

That's just from the top of my head, and that is even a fairly broad thing.

Something like that might concern the Nazgûl, meaning, the original Men. I remember that under the I.C.E. license, various roleplaying games and the Middle-Earth: The Wizards card game operated with one of the Ringwraith being female (for those interested, her name was Adûnaphel). I personally kinda like the idea (and could have been more than one), but I am pretty much convinced that when Tolkien said the Nazgûl were "Men", he meant "men". Even though, arguably, who knows. It's rather based on "circumstantial evidence", such as that as a rule of thumb, female characters in such positions in Middle-Earth are rare, and if one happened to be a Nazgûl, Tolkien would likely have pointed it out as a notable exception.

While we are on the topic of the Nazgûl, you could probably come up with lot of things about that. It is for example also heavily implied that they were some nobility, some of them of the Númenorean stock, but likely NOT Númenorean kings. So, like, it isn't that Ar-Gimilzôr became a Ringwraith. BUT, it is not specifically mentioned. So I can easily imagine a writer who is lazy to come up with a Númenorean name, or a character for that matter, to just pick one of the later kings and be like "ok, this is one of the Nazgûl!" (Or, even better, pick three of the last kings and be done with it.)

And on that note, it is also implied that the Ringwraith appeared more or less all at once at roughly the same time, considerably earlier than many of the "bad kings" lived, but that is also not said explicitly. So, I am pretty sure, somebody could come up with a case that Pharazôn became one. (Because among other things, nobody also says that Sauron did not go and pick him up from wherever he ended up under an avalanche at the outskirts of the Undying Lands.)

Thinking of it, it is not even said that the Nine were always the SAME Nine, was it? As in, maybe the Ring #9 was for instance worn by one person the first two hundred years, then he was killed, Sauron gave it to another, who became the wraith then, then he gave it to Ar-Pharazôn...

Well, clearly one can come up with lots of things...

[Morsul the Dark]

From RoTKYes, when you also have the Keys of Barad-dûr itself, I suppose; and the crowns of seven kings, and the rods of the Five Wizards, and have purchased yourself a pair of boots many sizes larger than those that you wear now.

Obviously Boots are on Par with crowns, and Wizards’ Staffs. This explains the enigmatic Bombadil, he is master because of his great yellow boots. They endow him with power over a realm where no other boots are as powerful.

This is also why people belittle the Hobbits, not their size but their lack of boots or shoes at all.

Edit: I’m not sure this fits the “implied X but the opposite of X could also happen” idea but I do feel it fits “distort the text” prompt.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

...I am pretty much convinced that when Tolkien said the Nazgûl were "Men", he meant "men"...

It is for example also heavily implied that they were some nobility, some of them of the Númenorean stock, but likely NOT Númenorean kings...

Is this where I get to push Tar-Telperiën as a candidate again?

The counter argument to 'men' is that Tolkien wrote "Three Rings for the Elven-Kings under the sky" at a time when the Three were held by the Lady of Lorien, the master of the Last Homely House, and a wizard whose best claim to 'elven' is that some rural bumpkins used to think he was one. "Mortal Men" could easily include "and woMen", and it's not like anyone writing the Red Book would know.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

...female characters in such positions in Middle-Earth are rare...

brb, off coming up with an excuse to time-travel Artanis, Aredhel, Luthien, Haleth, Eowyn, and Belladonna Took together for some exciting adventures.

~

Actually, that's another one that straddles the line between 'suggested' and 'suggested against'. Did Bilbo's mother have any adventures? She's called 'remarkable' (along with her sisters), and the best The Hobbit says is "Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures after she became Mrs. Bungo Baggins." So... before, then? Did Gandalf lead the three Took sisters off into the Blue for mad adventures, climbing trees and visiting elves and sailing off to other shores, facing dragons and goblins and giants, rescuing princesses and hanging out with widows' sons?

I bet he did.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Thinking of it, it is not even said that the Nine were always the SAME Nine, was it? As in, maybe the Ring #9 was for instance worn by one person the first two hundred years, then he was killed, Sauron gave it to another, who became the wraith then...

>_> You've not been playing Shadow of War, have you?

hS

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Is this where I get to push Tar-Telperiën as a candidate again?

You just got yourself a convert, sir.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

The counter argument to 'men' is that Tolkien wrote "Three Rings for the Elven-Kings under the sky" at a time when the Three were held by the Lady of Lorien, the master of the Last Homely House, and a wizard whose best claim to 'elven' is that some rural bumpkins used to think he was one. "Mortal Men" could easily include "and woMen", and it's not like anyone writing the Red Book would know.

I take my words back. Good catch. (Even though, to be sure, the original verse counted with Círdan, so...) But if Galadriel can be a King, then a "mortal Man doomed to die" can surely be a woman.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

brb, off coming up with an excuse to time-travel Artanis, Aredhel, Luthien, Haleth, Eowyn, and Belladonna Took together for some exciting adventures.

I'd dearly love to see that.

But exactly - that's the one sad counter-argument: if there had been a powerful sorceress or evil conquering warrior Númenorean lady who became a Ringwraith, her unusual qualities would likely have been mentioned somewhere.

That being said, for various reasons I find it not unlikely that some such may have existed somewhere among the Easterlings, Southrons or other peoples and would not have found her way into the historical annals, simply because these people were too far from the Númenorean sphere of interest, and/or also illiterate to begin with.

(I personally somewhat cringe at how much this fits into the trope of "the civilised people have a patriarchal society, whereas it may be perfectly common to have a female chieftain in the 'exotic' societies that are wild and primitively barbaric/wild and free and egalitarian" - depending whether you want to paint this trope positively or negatively, both of which are cringeworthy in my opinion. But let's face it, the setup of Middle-Earth sort of supports this distinction.)

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Actually, that's another one that straddles the line between 'suggested' and 'suggested against'. Did Bilbo's mother have any adventures? She's called 'remarkable' (along with her sisters), and the best The Hobbit says is "Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures after she became Mrs. Bungo Baggins." So... before, then? Did Gandalf lead the three Took sisters off into the Blue for mad adventures, climbing trees and visiting elves and sailing off to other shores, facing dragons and goblins and giants, rescuing princesses and hanging out with widows' sons?

I am 100% for seeing that. And certainly yes. Obviously, putting there the denotation that something did not happen after clearly implies that it happened before.

Oh! Oh!!! That reminds me of one thing that definitely belongs to this thread. Interestingly enough, again connected to the Ringwraith. Specifically, I am referring to the well-known description that upon the Witch-King's death,

Originally Posted by RotK

a cry went up into the shuddering air, and faded to a shrill wailing, passing with the wind, a voice bodiless and thin that died, and was swallowed up, and was never heard again in that age of this world.

...which obviously implies that it was heard again in another age. (And given that the Fourth Age started just a bit over a week later, that's not saying much.)

Sidenote, given that it also refers to the wail itself, it does not refer to something such as that the WK himself would be seen in perhaps a different form, but rather that it would be pretty much the same form - or at least a form making the very same sounds. (It also seems to refer specifically to that particular wail, not to that of the Nazgul in general, so it isn't like that somebody would hear a random Xth Age new breed of wraith wailing in the same manner, but rather Witch-King in person.)

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

>_> You've not been playing Shadow of War, have you?

Can't say I am familiar with that one. I have only heard about Shadow of Mordor and I decided not to pay much attention to it back then. From a brief glance I am maybe glad that I did so.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

You just got yourself a convert, sir.

^_^ Of all my daft ideas, this and "Celeg Aithorn is the sword of Manwe" are the ones I like the most.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I'd dearly love to see that.

I did sketch out an all-woman Fellowship a while back along the same lines, though to my shame I had to tap the movies for Ranger Arwen and, of all people, Tauriel. It does showcase both how interesting Tolkien's female characters can be - and how few of them there are. (I suppose I could find a way to replace Tauriel with Ioreth of Minas Tirith, but she might be a bit much...)

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I take my words back. Good catch. (Even though, to be sure, the original verse counted with Círdan, so...) But if Galadriel can be a King, then a "mortal Man doomed to die" can surely be a woman.

Cirdan is a shipwright, Lord, and Master, and Celebrimbor was a Lord. The only King to hold any of the three was Gil-Galad.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

But exactly - that's the one sad counter-argument: if there had been a powerful sorceress or evil conquering warrior Númenorean lady who became a Ringwraith, her unusual qualities would likely have been mentioned somewhere.

...

(I personally somewhat cringe at how much this fits into the trope of "the civilised people have a patriarchal society, whereas it may be perfectly common to have a female chieftain in the 'exotic' societies that are wild and primitively barbaric/wild and free and egalitarian" - depending whether you want to paint this trope positively or negatively, both of which are cringeworthy in my opinion. But let's face it, the setup of Middle-Earth sort of supports this distinction.)

Well... yeah. I think the only purely matriarchal society Tolkien describes is the Haladin under Haleth, who had her own bodyguard of amazons, and she gets pretty heavily highlighted - while also falling firmly into the "wild and primitive" trope.

That said, I believe the amazons only get a single passing mention, buried somewhere in a linguistic essay, so perhaps "they would have been mentioned" isn't necessarily true? A whole lot of women have prophetic/visionary abilities which are never mentioned explicitly, only obliquely shown (Rosie Cotton, for one!); and the one bona fide evil sorceress has her story told solely in a single "primitive" and partly-illegible outline: Queen Beruthiel. It's entirely within reason that Tolkien would have restricted a description of Nazgul #5, the Sorceress of the Last Desert to an utterly unreadable scribble on the back of an envelope.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

...which obviously implies that it was heard again in another age. (And given that the Fourth Age started just a bit over a week later, that's not saying much.)

But of course! The Nine Rings weren't destroyed, just buried under Barad-dur when it fell (along with the Ithil Stone); per "The Dead and the Undead", it's perfectly plausible that the Nazgul would be bound to their Rings even in actual death. Once they were unearthed - which I seem to recall Aragorn had no intention of doing - they could return as genuine wraiths.

Or maybe they just come back for Dagor Dagorath. I mean, Turin's going to, why not Sauron's pet Men?

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Can't say I am familiar with that one. I have only heard about Shadow of Mordor and I decided not to pay much attention to it back then. From a brief glance I am maybe glad that I did so.

Shadow of Mordor is... tolerable if you accept the basic premise of 'Celebrimbor was trapped as a ghost and turned evilish'. Shadow of War - spoilers, I guess? - made Isildur and Helm Hammerhand into Nazgul. I've played the first, but won't touch the second with a bargepole.

hS

[Morsul the Dark]

The people of Laketown had barrel races. They would ride barrels across the lake and see who was the fastest. After all, why else would Barrel Rider clue Smaug into Laketown? Obviously Barrel Riding was extremely common, ergo Barrel Races.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

The people of Laketown had barrel races. They would ride barrels across the lake and see who was the fastest. After all, why else would Barrel Rider clue Smaug into Laketown? Obviously Barrel Riding was extremely common, ergo Barrel Races.

This must be true, because how else would Smaug know about the barrels? They came down-river all tied together in rafts, so would only be discernable as barrels from close up. Are we to imagine Smaug crouched down on the river-bank with a branch over his head, tail wagging slowly as he watches the barrel-rafts float past? Absurd!

The only possibility is that individual barrels were ridden regularly on the Long Lake itself, where Smaug could see them from his mountain. (There's not a lot that would look like a barrel being ridden, is there?) Humans being humans, competition - races - is an inevitability.

hS

[Galadriel55]

I am currently reading a fanfic where one of the characters proposes that Amrod and Amras are the same person, because allegedly they are never seen together, and they are just all too identical even for twins.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I am currently reading a fanfic where one of the characters proposes that Amrod and Amras are the same person, because allegedly they are never seen together, and they are just all too identical even for twins.

"No, he's Amras today."

The version of this I'm thinking of is even more extreme: it holds that after Amras was burned with the ships, his spirit possessed his brother on a sort of time-share basis. Voluntarily on both sides, naturally!

Which is very much the sort of thing Tolkien might have done! We know from the Glorfindel example that he was happy to employ the nature of Elvish life to resolve what he saw as conflicts between two "fixed" works: rather than changing either the Fall of Gondolin or LotR, he used Elvish reincarnation and the fact that it is possible to sail back from "heaven" under the right conditions. So, had he considered both "Amras burns at Losgar" and "Seven sons of Feanor in Beleriand" to be unchangeable texts, he might well have turned to the comments in LaCE on possession:

Originally Posted by LaCE

Some say that the Houseless desire bodies, though they are not willing to seek them lawfully by submission to the judgement of Mandos. The wicked among them will take bodies, if they can, unlawfully. The peril of communing with them is, therefore, not only the peril of being deluded by fantasies or lies: there is peril also of destruction. For one of the hungry Houseless, if it is admitted to the friendship of the Living, may seek to eject the fea from its body; and in the contest for mastery the body may be gravely injured, even if it he not wrested from its rightful habitant. Or the Houseless may plead for shelter, and if it is admitted, then it will seek to enslave its host and use both his will and his body for its own purposes.

hS

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

"No, he's Amras today."

The version of this I'm thinking of is even more extreme: it holds that after Amras was burned with the ships, his spirit possessed his brother on a sort of time-share basis. Voluntarily on both sides, naturally!

Which is very much the sort of thing Tolkien might have done! We know from the Glorfindel example that he was happy to employ the nature of Elvish life to resolve what he saw as conflicts between two "fixed" works: rather than changing either the Fall of Gondolin or LotR, he used Elvish reincarnation and the fact that it is possible to sail back from "heaven" under the right conditions. So, had he considered both "Amras burns at Losgar" and "Seven sons of Feanor in Beleriand" to be unchangeable texts, he might well have turned to the comments in LaCE on possession:

Ah, so the whole thing is practically canonical!

I mean, I would jokingly think on occasion that Amrod and Amras must have been conjoined twins, they're always together. But this is even better! For the official history records!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

What if Ambarussa was actally one Elf with multiple personality disorder? Feanor, mindful of his family's reputation, just put it about that the "Amrod" and "Amras" personas were identical twin brothers....

Sort of like Zoot and her "identical twin sister" Dingo.

[Morthoron]

Fanficolfin, Fingolfin's alter ego at Eldamar's Saturday night open mic comedy revue:

"Hey, nothing smells worse on a hot Summer's day than Tirion upon Túna."

Ba-dump-tisch

"I just flew in last night with Gothmog. Boy, were his Balrog's wings sore."

*crickets*

"Tough crowd."