what is the world of lord of the rings called
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The Fellowship of the Ring is the first of three volumes of the epic novel The Lord of the Rings by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It is followed by The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The action takes place in the fictional universe of Middle-earth. The book was first published on 29 July 1954 in the United Kingdom. The volume consists of a foreword, in which the author discusses his writing of The Lord of the Rings, a prologue titled "Concerning Hobbits, and other matters", and the main narrative in Book I and Book II. Scholars and critics have remarked the narrative structure of the first part of the volume, which involves five "Homely Houses", the comfortable stays alternating with episodes of danger. Different reasons for the structure have been proposed, including deliberate construction of a cosy world, laboriously groping for a story, and Tolkien's work habits, involving continual rewriting. Two major chapters, "The Shadow of the Past" and "The Council of Elrond", stand out from the rest in consisting not of a narrative of action centred on the Hobbits, but of exceptionally long flashback narrated by a wise old character. The volume was in the main praised by reviewers and authors including W. H. Auden and Naomi Mitchison on its publication, though the critic Edmund Wilson attacked it in a review entitled "Oo, Those Awful Orcs!". The two flashback chapters have attracted scholarly discussion; Tolkien called "The Shadow of the Past" the "crucial chapter" as it changes the tone of the book, and lets both the protagonist Frodo and the reader know that there will be a quest to destroy the Ring. "The Council of Elrond" has been called a tour de force, presenting a culture-clash of the modern with the ancient. Title and publication Tolkien envisioned The Lord of the Rings as a single-volume work divided into six sections he called "books" along with extensive appendices. The original publisher decided to split the work into three parts. Before the decision to publish The Lord of the Rings in three volumes was made, Tolkien had hoped to publish the novel in one volume, possibly also combined with The Silmarillion. However, he had proposed titles for the individual six sections. Of the two books that comprise what became The Fellowship of the Ring the first was to be called The First Journey or The Ring Sets Out. The name of the second was The Journey of the Nine Companions or The Ring Goes South. The titles The Ring Sets Out and The Ring Goes South were used in the Millennium edition. Contents The volume contains a prologue for readers who have not read The Hobbit, and background information to set the stage for the novel. The body of the volume consists of Book One: "The Ring Sets Out", and Book Two: "The Ring Goes South". Prologue The prologue explains that the work is "largely concerned with hobbits", telling of their origins in a migration
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J. R. R. Tolkien's presentation of heroism in The Lord of the Rings is based on medieval tradition, but modifies it, as there is no single hero but a combination of heroes with contrasting attributes. Aragorn is the man born to be a hero, of a line of kings; he emerges from the wilds and is uniformly bold and restrained. Frodo is an unheroic, home-loving Hobbit who has heroism thrust upon him when he learns that the ring he has inherited from his cousin Bilbo is the One Ring that would enable the Dark Lord Sauron to dominate the whole of Middle-earth. His servant Sam sets out to take care of his beloved master, and rises through the privations of the quest to destroy the Ring to become heroic. Scholars have seen the quest of the dissimilar heroes Aragorn and Frodo as a psychological journey of individuation, and from a mythic point of view of marking the end of the old—in Frodo's quest with its bitter ending, and the start of the new, in Aragorn's. The heroic aspects of The Lord of the Rings derive from sources including Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon culture, seen especially in the society of the Riders of Rohan and its leaders Théoden, Éomer, and Éowyn; and from Germanic, especially Old Norse, myth and legend, seen for example in the culture of the Dwarves. Origins Beowulf's heroic culture Tolkien was a philologist and an expert in heroic Anglo-Saxon culture and literature, especially Beowulf. He derived many aspects of The Lord of the Rings from the poem, including the heroic culture of the Riders of Rohan, who resemble the Anglo-Saxons in everything including their Old English language, except for Rohan's widespread use of horses. Théoden's hall, Meduseld (the word means "mead hall" in Beowulf), is modelled on Beowulf's Heorot, as is the way it is guarded, visitors being repeatedly but courteously challenged. The warhorns of the Riders of Rohan exemplify, in Shippey's view, the "heroic Northern world", as in what he calls the nearest Beowulf has to a moment of Tolkien-like eucatastrophe, when Ongentheow's Geats, trapped all night, hear the horns of Hygelac's men coming to rescue them; the Riders blow their horns wildly as they finally arrive, turning the tide of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields at a climactic moment in The Lord of the Rings. Norse heroic culture Tolkien took the concept of Northern courage from Norse mythology, where even the gods know they are doomed and everything comes to an end. The Tolkien scholar Marjorie Burns writes that the theme of courageous action in the face of inevitable loss in The Lord of the Rings is borrowed from the Nordic world view which emphasises "imminent or threatening destruction". In Norse mythology, this began during the creation: in the realm of fire, Muspell, the jötunn Surt was even then awaiting the end of the world. Burns comments that "Here is a mythology where even the gods can die". Receiving the magic sword The Tolkien scholar
Heroism in The Lord of the Rings
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J. R. R. Tolkien took part in the First World War, known then as the Great War, and began his fantasy Middle-earth writings at that time. The Fall of Gondolin was the first prose work that he created, and it contains detailed descriptions of battle and streetfighting. He continued the dark tone in much of his legendarium, as seen in The Silmarillion. The Lord of the Rings, too, has been described as a war book. Tolkien was reluctant to explain influences on his writing, specifically denying that The Lord of the Rings was an allegory of the Second World War, but admitting to certain connections with the Great War. His friend and fellow-Inkling C. S. Lewis however described the work as having just the quality of the Great War in many of its descriptions. Biographers and scholars including John Garth and Janet Brennan Croft have suggested multiple specific correspondences and the war's likely influences on Tolkien's work, including in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and Tolkien's poetry. Dome Karukoski's 2019 biographical drama film Tolkien visually links the Great War to Middle-earth by depicting Tolkien with trench fever hallucinating scenes from his future books. Some critics found this at best a reductive approach to literature. Context J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was an English Roman Catholic writer, poet, philologist, and academic, best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The Great War, later called the First World War, broke out in 1914. Among other nations, Britain and France fought Germany, resulting in a long and bloody period of trench warfare in northeastern France. Tolkien was attached to the Lancashire Fusiliers who fought in the Battle of the Somme from September 1916. Tolkien's battalion stayed in reserve for the first week. It went into action at Ovillers, Tolkien's company again staying in reserve to carry supplies. Tolkien became battalion signals officer and often worked close to the front line. The battalion helped to win the Battle of Thiepval Ridge in late September, and took part in the capture of Regina Trench in late October. On 25 October, he went down with trench fever, and was sent home a fortnight later. Responding to war with fantasy The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey writes that "The Lord of the Rings in particular is a war-book... framed by and responding to the crisis of Western civilisation, 1914–1945". The scholar of literature David Kosalka similarly writes that Tolkien created his mythology, as the poets and novelists Friedrich Gundolf and Robert Graves did to a lesser extent, to find meaning for his Great War experiences. In his view, they adapted the Romanticist 19th century approach to myth to create mythic histories that addressed what they had encountered in the war. The Lord of the Rings, he suggests, shows how the modern world could engage with myth to address "modern decay". Shippey comments that it is not obvious why multiple English and American authors including
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J. R. R. Tolkien repeatedly dealt with the theme of death and immortality in Middle-earth. In fact, he once stated that the "real theme" of The Lord of the Rings was "Death and Immortality." In Middle-earth, Men are mortal, while Elves are immortal. One of his stories, The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, explores the willing choice of death through the love of an immortal Elf for a mortal Man. He several times revisited the Old Norse theme of the mountain tomb, containing treasure along with the dead and visited by fighting. He brought multiple leading evil characters in The Lord of the Rings to a fiery end, including Gollum, the Nazgûl, the Dark Lord Sauron, and the evil Wizard Saruman, while in The Hobbit, the dragon Smaug is killed. Their destruction contrasts with the heroic deaths of two leaders of the free peoples, Théoden of Rohan and Boromir of Gondor, reflecting the early Medieval ideal of Northern courage. Despite these pagan themes, the work contains hints of Christianity, such as of the resurrection of Christ, as when the Lord of the Nazgûl, thinking himself victorious, calls himself Death, only to be answered by the crowing of a cockerel. There are, too, hints that the Elvish land of Lothlórien represents an Earthly Paradise. Scholars have commented that Tolkien clearly moved during his career from being oriented towards pagan themes to a more Christian theology. Context J. R. R. Tolkien was a scholar of English literature, a philologist and medievalist interested in language and poetry from the Middle Ages, especially that of Anglo-Saxon England and Northern Europe. His professional knowledge of Beowulf, telling of a pagan world but with a Christian narrator, helped to shape his fictional world of Middle-earth. His intention to create what has been called "a mythology for England" led him to construct not only stories but a fully-formed world, Middle-earth, with languages, peoples, cultures, and history. Among his many influences were his own Roman Catholic faith, medieval languages and literature, including Norse mythology. He is best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, both set in Middle-earth. A central theme Tolkien set out his view of "Death and Immortality" as a theme in The Lord of the Rings in a 1956 letter: The scholar of fantasy literature Charles W. Nelson writes that this seems surprising at first sight, given the prominence of other themes like "loyalty, love, [and] the importance of compassion and selflessness". But, he comments, alongside the major battles, there are "intense scenes of particular deaths which impress the reader with their impact". He gives as instances Sam Gamgee's reaction to the death of a warrior in Ithilien, and Bilbo's "moving" final farewell to Thorin Oakenshield as the Dwarf-leader dies. He argues, too, that a central event in The Hobbit is the death of the dragon Smaug, while the novel sees the three trolls turned to stone, and the deaths of many goblins and their
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Forests appear repeatedly in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth. In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins and party have adventures in the Trollshaws and in Mirkwood. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo Baggins and his companions travel through woods in The Shire, and are pursued by Black Riders; to evade them, the party enters the feared Old Forest, where they encounter other hazards. Later the Fellowship comes to the Elvish forest realm of Lothlórien; and after the Fellowship has split up, Frodo and Sam Gamgee travel through Ithilien with its Mediterranean vegetation, while Merry Brandybuck and Pippin Took enter the ancient forest of Fangorn. The Riders of Rohan, on their way to war, are allowed to travel on a secret road through another ancient forest, that of the Drúedain or woses. The Silmarillion, too, features several forests, both in Beleriand which is home to places like the Elvish forest realm of Doriath, protected by the magic of Melian the Maia, and in the south of Valinor, where the Valar liked to hunt in the woods of Oromë. Critics note that Middle-earth was set in the distant past, when primeval forests still existed. Forests play varying roles in his books. In The Hobbit, Mirkwood is the dark forbidding forest of fairy tale. In The Lord of the Rings, scholars suggest that the forests symbolise nature as opposed to industrialisation, but also embody links to fairy tale and folklore, and carry a psychological message. Context J. R. R. Tolkien was a scholar of English literature, a philologist and medievalist interested in language and poetry from the Middle Ages, especially that of Anglo-Saxon England and Northern Europe. His professional knowledge of works such as Beowulf shaped his fictional world of Middle-earth, including his fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. Middle-earth, or more precisely the world of Arda, represents what Paul Kocher has called "our own green and solid Earth at some quite remote epoch in the past." Forests Tolkien makes use of forests across Middle-earth, from the Trollshaws and Mirkwood in The Hobbit, reappearing in The Lord of the Rings, to the Old Forest, Lothlórien, Fangorn, and the Mediterranean forest in Ithilien, all of which feature in chapters of The Lord of the Rings, and the great forests of Beleriand, a region of the west of Middle-earth, lost at the end of the First Age, and Valinor, the blessed realm, mentioned in The Silmarillion. Indeed, while Middle-earth was still "in a twilight under the stars", the "oldest living things had arisen: ... on earth, the shadows of great trees". The Hobbit Bilbo and his party travel from his home in the Shire into the wild, encountering the Trolls in the Trollshaws, a wooded region, lying north of the East Road between the rivers Hoarwell and Bruinen. Described as "the Trolls' wood" in the main text, the name "Trollshaws" is derived from troll and shaw, an archaic term for a thicket or small wood. After crossing the Misty Mountains and the
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Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings, alternatively subtitled A joyous exploration of Tolkien's classic trilogy and of the glorious tradition from which it grew is a 1969 non-scholarly study of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien by the science fiction author Lin Carter. The original version of the book was among the earliest full-length critical works devoted to Tolkien's fantasies, and the first to attempt to set his writings in the context of the history of fantasy. The book was poorly received by scholars. The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia calls the study "the first worthwhile book on Tolkien", with the proviso that Carter's lack of scholarly training resulted in insufficient rigor and numerous errors. Jared Lobdell in National Review calls it "pleasant but not very rewarding", noting inaccuracies and lack of expertise. Sandra Miesel in the Tolkien Journal finds the work excessively long with much irrelevant material, ill-informed, ineptly written and insensitive to Tolkien's themes. Outline Lin Carter's study was intended to serve as an introduction to Tolkien for those unfamiliar with his work. His introduction briefly reviews the publishing phenomenon of The Lord of the Rings and its burgeoning popularity in the wake of the first paperback editions in the 1960s, after which he devotes three chapters to a short biography of the author through the late 1960s, including an account of how The Lord of the Rings was written. Four chapters follow explaining Tolkien's invented Middle-earth and summarizing the stories of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Carter next turns to the question of what the works are. The then-current vogue for realistic fiction provided critics with few tools for evaluating an out-and-out fantasy on its own terms, and attempts were rife to deconstruct it as a satire or allegory. Carter debunks these efforts, citing Tolkien's essay "On Fairy-Stories" on the functions and purposes of fantasy. Carter then contextualizes Tolkien's works by broadly sketching the history of written fantasy from its earliest appearance in the epic poetry of the ancient world through the heroic poetry of the Dark Ages and the prose romances of the medieval era, down to the fairy tales, ghost stories and gothic novels of the modern era and the rediscovery of the genre by writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, prior to and contemporary with Tolkien. The origins of the modern genre are traced to the writings of William Morris, Lord Dunsany and E. R. Eddison, and followed through the works of authors they influenced, including H. P. Lovecraft, Fletcher Pratt, L. Sprague de Camp, and Mervyn Peake. Carter next highlights some of Tolkien's particular debts to his predecessors, early and modern, tracing the motifs and names he utilizes to their beginnings in Norse mythology, and highlighting other echoes in his work from legend and history. A "Postscript" features Tolkien's influence on contemporary fantasy, which was evident in the 1960s, primarily in children's books by Carol Kendall, Alan Garner, and Lloyd Alexander. An updated 2003 edition
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The Maiar (singular: Maia) are a fictional class of beings from J. R. R. Tolkien's high fantasy legendarium. Supernatural and angelic, they are "lesser Ainur" who entered the cosmos of Eä in the beginning of time. The name Maiar is in the Quenya tongue (one of several languages constructed by Tolkien) from the Elvish root maya- "excellent, admirable". Commentators have noted that since the Maiar are immortals but can choose to incarnate fully in Men's bodies on Middle-earth, they can be killed; Tolkien did not explain what happened to them then. Others have observed that their semi-divine nature and the fact that they can be sent on missions to work out the divine purpose makes them much like the angels of Christianity. Description Lesser Ainur Tolkien stated that "Maia is the name of the Kin of the Valar, but especially of those of lesser power than the 9 great rulers". In the Valaquenta, Tolkien wrote that the Maiar are "spirits whose being also began before the world, of the same order as the Valar but of less degree". According to the Valaquenta, many Maiar associated themselves with a particular Vala; for example, Salmar created for his lord Ulmo great conches who produce the music of the sea known as Ulumúri, while Curumo, who came to be known in Middle-earth as Saruman, was with Aulë the smith. The being once known as Mairon also was with Aulë, before being corrupted by Melkor and becoming Sauron, the main antagonist of The Lord of the Rings. Sauron continued his association with smithcraft by befriending the Elven-smiths of Eregion during the Second Age, so that he could gain power over the other rings by forging his One Ring. On the other hand, certain Maiar like Olórin and Melian develop associations with multiple Valar Lords and Queens. Being of divine origin and possessing great power, the Maiar can wander the world unseen or shape themselves in fashion of Elves or other creatures; these "veils", called fanar in Quenya, could be destroyed, but their true-being could not. Rarely did the Maiar adopt their visible forms to Elves and Men, and for that reason, very few of the Maiar have names in their tongues, and the elves do not know how many of the Maiar exist. Named Maiar Only a few of the Maiar are named. These include the Chiefs of the Maiar, Eönwë the Herald of Manwë, King of the Valar, and Ilmarë the Handmaiden of Varda, Lady of the Stars; Ossë and Uinen, spirits who ruled the seas and act under the Lord of Waters Ulmo; Arien, guide of the sun and a spirit of fire uncorrupted by Melkor; Olórin, the wisest Maia, and Tilion, guide of the moon and the servant of the Huntsman of the Valar, Oromë. Melkor (known in Sindarin as Morgoth), the evil Vala, corrupted many Maiar into his service. Among Morgoth's most dangerous servants, they are called Úmaiar in Quenya: these include Sauron, and Gothmog, Lord of the Balrogs, large
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J. R. R. Tolkien was attracted to medieval literature, and made use of it in his writings, both in his poetry, which contained numerous pastiches of medieval verse, and in his Middle-earth novels where he embodied a wide range of medieval concepts. Tolkien's prose adopts medieval ideas for much of its structure and content. The Lord of the Rings is interlaced in medieval style. The Silmarillion has a medieval cosmology. The Lord of the Rings makes use of many borrowings from Beowulf, especially in the culture of the Riders of Rohan, as well as medieval weapons and armour, heraldry, languages including Old English and Old Norse, and magic. Context The Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the Post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. In the Early Middle Ages, the End of Roman rule in Britain c. 400 was soon followed by the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. By the sixth century, Anglo-Saxon England, "the bit [of Medieval culture] that Tolkien knew best", consisted of many small kingdoms including Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia, engaged in ongoing warfare with each other. Tolkien the medievalist J. R. R. Tolkien was a scholar of English literature, a philologist and medievalist interested in language and poetry from the Middle Ages, especially that of Anglo-Saxon England and Northern Europe. His professional knowledge of works such as Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight shaped his fictional world of Middle-earth. His intention to create what has been called "a mythology for England" led him to construct not only stories but a fully-formed world with its own languages, peoples, cultures, and history, based on medieval languages including Old English, Old Norse, and Old High German, and detailed knowledge of medieval culture and mythology. Medieval themes in Middle-earth Poetry Tolkien stated that whenever he read a medieval work, he wanted to write a modern one in the same tradition. He constantly created these, whether pastiches and parodies like "Fastitocalon"; adaptations in medieval metres, like "The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun" or "asterisk texts" like his "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late" (from "Hey Diddle Diddle"); and finally "new wine in old bottles" such as "The Nameless Land" and Aelfwine's Annals. The works are extremely varied, but all are "suffused with medieval borrowings", making them, according to the Tolkien scholar John D. Rateliff, "most readers' portal into medieval literature". Not all found use in Middle-earth, but they all helped Tolkien develop a medieval-style craft that found expression in his legendarium. One of the most distinctively medieval poems in The Lord of the Rings is the Riders of Rohan's Old English-style lament for Théoden, written in what Tolkien called "the strictest form of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse", complete with balanced half-lines separated by a caesura, each half-line with two stresses,
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The History of The Lord of the Rings is a four-volume work by Christopher Tolkien published between 1988 and 1992 that documents the process of J. R. R. Tolkien's writing of The Lord of the Rings. The History is also numbered as volumes six to nine of The History of Middle-earth ("HoME"). Contents The volumes are: (HoME 6) The Return of the Shadow (1988) (HoME 7) The Treason of Isengard (1989) (HoME 8) The War of the Ring (1990) (HoME 9) Sauron Defeated (1992) The first volume of The History encompasses three initial stages of composition or, as Christopher Tolkien calls them, "phases", including what Tolkien later called "the crucial chapter" which sets up the central plot, "The Shadow of the Past". It finishes with the Fellowship of the Ring entering the Mines of Moria. The second volume continues to the meeting with Théoden king of Rohan, and includes the invention and evolution of Lothlórien and Galadriel; plans for Frodo and Sam's progress to Mordor; the invention and evolution of Treebeard, the Ents, and Fangorn; discussions of the original map of Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age; and of the evolution of Cirth in an appendix. The third volume, The War of the Ring continues to the opening of the Black Gate. The last volume finishes the story and features the rejected Epilogue, in which Sam answers his children's questions. It also includes The Notion Club Papers (a time-travel story related to Númenor), a draft of the Drowning of Anadûnê, and the only extant account of Tolkien's fictional language Adûnaic. Some paperback editions of the fourth volume, retitled The End of the Third Age, include only the materials for The Lord of the Rings. The original idea was to release The History of The Lord of the Rings in three volumes, not four. When The Treason of Isengard was first published in paperback Volume 8 was to be called Sauron Defeated and was to be the last volume. Some information concerning the appendices and a soon-abandoned sequel to the novel can also be found in volume 12, The Peoples of Middle-earth. Titles The titles of the volumes derive from discarded titles for the separate books of The Lord of the Rings. J. R. R. Tolkien conceived that novel as a single volume structured into six "books" plus extensive appendices, but his publisher split the work into three volumes, each containing two books; the appendices were included in the third. The titles proposed by Tolkien for the six books were: Book 1, The First Journey or The Ring Sets Out; Book 2, The Journey of the Nine Companions or The Ring Goes South; Book 3, The Treason of Isengard; Book 4, The Journey of the Ring-Bearers or The Ring Goes East; Book 5, The War of the Ring; and Book 6, The End of the Third Age. The title The Return of the Shadow was a discarded title for Volume 1. Three of the titles of the volumes of
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J. R. R. Tolkien's best-known novels, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, both have the structure of quests, with a hero setting out, facing dangers, achieving a goal, and returning home. Where The Hobbit is a children's story with the simple goal of treasure, The Lord of the Rings is a more complex narrative with multiple quests. Its main quest, to destroy the One Ring, has been described as a reversed quest – starting with a much-desired treasure, and getting rid of it. That quest, too, is balanced against a moral quest, to scour the Shire and return it to its original state. Tolkien superimposed multiple meanings on the basic quest, for example embedding a hidden Christian message in the story, and marking the protagonists Frodo and Aragorn out as heroes by giving them magic swords in the epic tradition of Sigurd and Arthur. Context J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was an English Roman Catholic writer, poet, philologist, and academic, best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, both set in Middle-earth. A quest is a difficult journey with a specific goal. It serves as a plot device in mythology and fiction, and is often symbolic or allegorical. The quest, in the form of the hero's journey, plays a central role in what Joseph Campbell called the monomyth: the hero sets forth from the world of common day into a land of adventures, tests, and magical rewards. In a conventional heroic romance quest, the knight-errant in shining armour overcomes obstacles to win the heart of a beautiful princess. Quest novels The Hobbit and its sequel The Lord of the Rings can both, the scholar of literature Paul Kocher writes, be viewed as quest narratives, with parallel structures: the stories begin at Bag End, the home of Bilbo Baggins; Bilbo hosts a party; the Wizard Gandalf sends the protagonist on a quest eastward; the wise Half-Elf Elrond offers a haven and advice; the adventurers escape dangerous creatures underground (Goblin Town/Moria); they meet another group of Elves (Mirkwood/Lothlórien); they traverse a desolate region (Desolation of Smaug/the Dead Marshes); they are received by a small settlement of men (Esgaroth/Ithilien); they fight in a massive battle (The Battle of Five Armies/Battle of Pelennor Fields); their journey climaxes within an infamous mountain peak (Lonely Mountain/Mount Doom); a descendant of kings is restored to his ancestral throne (Bard/Aragorn); and the questing party returns home to find it in a deteriorated condition (having possessions auctioned off/the Scouring of the Shire). Randel Helms, a scholar of literature including Tolkien, comments that the two novels have the same story and the same theme, "a quest on which a most unheroic hobbit achieves heroic stature". Further, Helms writes, both have the "there and back again" quest romance format, and both quests have a timescale of one year (spring to spring, and autumn to autumn, respectively). He comments that while the two novels are thus structurally similar, "the natures
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Elendil is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He is mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. He was the father of Isildur and Anárion, last lord of Andúnië on the island of Númenor, and having escaped its downfall by sailing to Middle-earth, became the first High King of Arnor and Gondor. In the Last Alliance of Men and Elves, Elendil and Gil-galad laid siege to the Dark Lord Sauron's fortress of Barad-dûr, and fought him hand-to-hand for the One Ring. Both Elendil and Gil-galad were killed, and Elendil's son Isildur took the Ring for himself. Tolkien called Elendil a "Noachian figure", an echo of the biblical Noah. Elendil escaped from the flood that drowned Númenor, itself an echo of the myth of Atlantis, founding new Númenórean kingdoms in Middle-earth. Fictional history Biography Elendil was born in Númenor, son of Amandil, Lord of Andúnië and leader of the "Faithful" (those who remained loyal to the Valar), who maintained a strong friendship with the Elves and preserved the old ways against the practices of king Ar-Pharazôn and Sauron. His father Amandil had been a great admiral of the Númenórean fleet and a close friend to Ar-Pharazôn in their youth, but as Sauron's influence grew, he resorted to doing what their ancestor Eärendil had done: sailing to Valinor and asking for the pardon of the Valar. Amandil was never heard of again, but on his urging, Elendil, his sons Isildur and Anárion, and their supporters fled the downfall of Númenor at the end of the Second Age, escaping to Middle-earth in nine ships. Elendil landed in Lindon, where he was befriended by Gil-galad, the Elven King. The waves carried Isildur and Anárion south to the Bay of Belfalas and the mouth of the River Anduin. With them the leaders took the palantíri, the "Seeing Stones" that were given to the Lords of Andúnië by the Elves of Tol Eressëa, and a seedling of Nimloth, the White Tree of Númenor. Unfinished Tales states that, upon landing in Middle-earth, Elendil proclaimed in Quenya: "Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come. In this place will I abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world." His heir and 40th generation descendant in father-to-son line Aragorn spoke these traditional words again when he took up the crown of Gondor in The Return of the King. Elendil founded the northern realm of Arnor and its capital city of Annúminas. His sons founded the southern realm of Gondor; Anárion founded the city of Minas Anor (later Minas Tirith) in Anórien, and Isildur founded Minas Ithil (later Minas Morgul) in Ithilien. Elendil was the High King, ruling directly over Arnor and indirectly over Gondor, via its King. As explained in The Fellowship of the Ring, Sauron eventually returned to Middle-earth, establishing a stronghold in Mordor, which was next to Gondor. He attacked, seizing Minas Ithil. Isildur fled north to his father, leaving Anárion in charge of Gondor.
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The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology is a scholarly study of the Middle-earth works of J. R. R. Tolkien written by Tom Shippey and first published in 1982. The book discusses Tolkien's philology, and then examines in turn the origins of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and his minor works. An appendix discusses Tolkien's many sources. Two further editions extended and updated the work, including a discussion of Peter Jackson's film version of The Lord of the Rings. The book's various versions, including new editions in 1993 and 2005, have been welcomed by Tolkien scholars and others as rigorous, convincing, and "the single best book written on Tolkien". Shippey won the 1984 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award in Inklings Studies for the book. Book Background Tom Shippey is, as Tolkien was, a philologist. Early in his career he taught English at the University of Oxford, using the same syllabus as Tolkien. He became a full professor at the University of Leeds, a post that Tolkien had once held. He then moved to St. Louis University, Missouri. Since the 1980s, he has worked on Tolkien studies, becoming a leading expert on the subject. Synopsis The book discusses Tolkien's inspiration in creating the world of Middle-earth and the writing of works including The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. A recurrent theme is that of Tolkien's detailed linguistic studies (particularly of Old Norse and Old English) and the creation of languages (such as Sindarin and Khuzdul) which feature prominently throughout his works. The book begins by explaining Tolkien's philology, his belief in its ability to show what happened as the Gothic empire fell in the 4th century as hinted at in brief mentions of the mythical Mirkwood, and his feeling that if he reconstructed an imagined past on such foundations, it would not be wholly false. It then examines the origins of The Hobbit, how Tolkien rebuilt a picture of Elves and Dwarves from the available clues, and from the different ways of speaking of each race, how he ended up writing a richly-characterised story. Three chapters then explore The Lord of the Rings, its map-based plot, its elaborate interlacement of narrative threads, its roots in literature including Shakespeare, and its underlying mythical and Christian themes. A chapter examines The Silmarillion's origins and structure, looking at Christopher Tolkien's 1977 selection from his father's legendarium, and his further selection in 1980, published as Unfinished Tales. These had dark themes, especially of death and immortality, and Shippey notes that readers have found them difficult, providing a good reason for a chapter on them. Another chapter looks at Tolkien's minor works. An appendix discusses Tolkien's many sources, from the Elder Edda and Beowulf through to the many languages that Tolkien knew. Also attached are four of Tolkien's "asterisk" poems (so called as, like conjectured wordforms, they are not actually recorded in any medieval manuscript), written to appear to be the ancient origins of
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J. R. R. Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, created what he came to feel was a dilemma for himself with his supposedly evil Middle-earth peoples like Orcs, when he made them able to speak, so they were sentient and sapient, and portrayed them talking about right and wrong. This meant, he believed, that they were open to morality, like Men. In Tolkien's Christian framework, that in turn meant they must have souls, so killing them would be wrong without very good reason. Orcs serve as the principal forces of the enemy in The Lord of the Rings, where they are slaughtered in large numbers in the battles of Helm's Deep and the Pelennor Fields in particular. If Tolkien wanted killing Orcs not to be such a problem, then they would have to be without any moral sense, like ordinary animals. Both Tolkien and other scholars have been aware of the contradiction implied by this position: if Orcs were essentially "beasts", then they should not have had a moral sense; if they were corrupted Elves, then treating them as "other" to be slaughtered was straightforward racism. Tolkien made repeated attempts to resolve the dilemma, trying different approaches but not arriving at what he felt was a satisfactory solution. Context J. R. R. Tolkien was an English author and philologist of ancient Germanic languages, specialising in Old English; he spent much of his career as a professor at the University of Oxford. He is best known for his novels about his invented Middle-earth, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and for the posthumously published The Silmarillion which provides a more mythical narrative about earlier ages. He invented several peoples for Middle-earth, including Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, Orcs, Trolls, Ents, and Eagles. Orcs serve as the principal forces of the enemy in The Lord of the Rings, where they are slaughtered in large numbers in the battles of Helm's Deep and the Pelennor Fields in particular. A devout Roman Catholic, he described The Lord of the Rings as "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work", rich in Christian symbolism. Implied morality Men and elves In the cosmology of Tolkien's legendarium, Men live only in the world (Arda), are able to die from it, have souls, and may ultimately go to Heaven, though this is left vague in the Legendarium. The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey notes that in the Middle English source, the South English Legendary from c. 1250, which he presumes Tolkien must have read, Elves appear on Earth and in the Earthly Paradise, leaving a puzzle as to whether they had souls. Since they could not leave the world, the answer was no; but given that they did not disappear completely on death, the answer had to have been yes. In The Silmarillion, Tolkien similarly has the Elves go not to Heaven but to the halfway house of the Halls of Mandos on Valinor. Anthropomorphized animals Wargs, great wolf-like beasts, can attack independently, as they do while the Fellowship of the Ring
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Master of Middle-earth: The Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, alternatively subtitled The Achievement of J.R.R. Tolkien, is a 1972 book of literary criticism of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy writings, written by Paul H. Kocher, and one of the few to be published in Tolkien's lifetime. It focuses especially on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and also covers some of his minor works such as "Leaf by Niggle" and "Smith of Wootton Major". At a time when scholars were largely critical of Tolkien and his prose style, it both praised his writing and, in the absence of either The Silmarillion or Christopher Tolkien's The History of Middle-earth on the process of creation of Tolkien's fiction, it correctly inferred many of his major themes. It was one of the earliest book-length analyses of Tolkien's work, winning Kocher the 1973 Mythopoeic Society's Scholarship in Inkling Studies Award. Context J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was a scholar of English literature, a philologist and medievalist interested in language and poetry from the Middle Ages, especially that of Anglo-Saxon England and Northern Europe. His professional knowledge of Beowulf, telling of a pagan world but with a Christian narrator, helped to shape his fictional world of Middle-earth. His intention to create what has been called "a mythology for England" led him to construct not only stories but a fully-formed world, Middle-earth, with invented languages, peoples, cultures, and history. Among his many influences were his own Roman Catholic faith, and medieval languages and literature. He is best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit (1937), The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), and The Silmarillion (1977), all set in Middle-earth. The early literary reception of The Lord of the Rings was divided between enthusiastic support by figures such as W. H. Auden and C. S. Lewis, and outright rejection by critics such as Edmund Wilson. Paul H. Kocher was a scholar of English literature. The book was published before The Silmarillion appeared to confirm several of Kocher's inferences about the mythical history of Middle-earth. Book Publication history The book was first published in hardback by Houghton Mifflin in the United States in October 1972. The first British edition was brought out by Thames & Hudson in hardback in 1973, with the title Master of Middle-earth: The Achievement of J.R.R. Tolkien. Paperback editions followed: by Penguin Books in 1974, Ballantine Books in 1977, Pimlico in 2002, and Del Rey in 2003. The book has been translated into Dutch, French, German, Italian, Polish, and Swedish. Versions include: —— published in Britain as Master of Middle-Earth: The Achievement of J. R. R. Tolkien. London: Thames and Hudson, 1973. —— reprinted several times, such as in New York: Ballantine Books, 1977; New York: Del Rey, 1982 and 2003; and London: Pimlico, 2002. Translations include: —— French by Jean Markale as Le royaume de la terre du milieu: Les clés de l'oeuvre de J.R.R. Tolkien. Paris: Retz, 1981. —— Italian, Il maestro della Terra
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Glorfindel () is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He is a member of the Noldor, one of the three groups of the Calaquendi or High Elves. The character and his name, which means "blond" or "golden-haired", were among the first created for what would become part of his Middle-earth legendarium in 1916–17, beginning with the initial draft of The Fall of Gondolin. His name indicates his hair as a mark of his distinction, as the Noldor were generally dark-haired. A character of the same name appears in the first book of The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, which takes place in Middle-earth's Third Age. Within the story, he is depicted as a powerful Elf-lord who could withstand the Nazgûl, wraith-like servants of Sauron, and holds his own against some of them single-handedly. Glorfindel and a version of the story of the Fall of Gondolin appear in The Silmarillion, posthumously published in 1977. In later writings, Tolkien explored Glorfindel's backstory in various material relating to the First Age of Middle-earth. He worked out how both characters named Glorfindel could be one and the same, something not evident from the published version of The Lord of the Rings; the question has been debated by scholars. The incremental changes made to Glorfindel's character, most notably the introduction of the theme of reincarnation, as part of the ongoing development of Tolkien's legendarium have been analysed by scholars. In Peter Jackson's 2001 live-action film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Glorfindel's role of rescuing Frodo from the pursuing Nazgûl by lending his horse is given to the elf-woman Arwen. He has also featured in various video games. Development Conception and creation In The Fall of Gondolin, which details the conquest of the Elven city Gondolin by the Dark Lord Morgoth, Tolkien writes that Glorfindel's name "meaneth Goldtress for his hair was golden". It was the first part of The Book of Lost Tales to be written, circa 1916–17, and the story was read aloud by Tolkien to the Exeter College Essay Club in the spring of 1920. The Fall of Gondolin appears in compressed form in The Silmarillion, where the character is called "yellow-haired Glorfindel". According to Tolkien's son, Christopher Tolkien, "this was from the beginning the meaning of his name". An Elf of the same name appears in The Lord of the Rings, written many years after the original draft of The Fall of Gondolin: in The Fellowship of the Ring, he appears to assist the hobbit Frodo Baggins in his attempt to escape the servants of the Dark Lord Sauron, Morgoth's successor. As his ideas changed and evolved over the years, Tolkien wrote about Glorfindel's backstory at various times. In the very first draft of the "Council of Elrond", which was to become The Fellowship of the Ring, the members of the Fellowship were to be Frodo, Gandalf, Trotter (later Strider/Aragorn), Glorfindel, Durin son of Balin (who became Gimli son
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The lives of the characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's world of Middle-earth appear variously to be driven by luck or by fate. This is arranged in such a way that the characters' free will is never compromised; they must rely on their own courage, just like Old English heroes like Beowulf and figures from Norse mythology. The text of The Lord of the Rings, while never Christian on the surface, hints at the working of higher powers, which the cosmology in The Silmarillion presents as the angelic or godlike Valar, who in turn carry out the will of the creator, the one God Eru Ilúvatar. Context J. R. R. Tolkien was an English author and philologist of ancient Germanic languages, specialising in Old English; he spent much of his career as a professor at the University of Oxford. He is best known for his novels about his invented Middle-earth, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and for the posthumously published The Silmarillion which provides a more mythical narrative about earlier ages. A devout Roman Catholic, he described The Lord of the Rings as "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work", rich in Christian symbolism. The cosmology of Middle-earth includes the Valar, who are "angelic powers" or "gods". They are subordinate to the one God, Eru Ilúvatar, who created the world as described in the Ainulindalë. Scholars have noted that the Valar resemble angels in Christianity, but that Tolkien presented them rather more like pagan gods, such as the Æsir in Norse mythology. Higher powers The Episcopal priest and Tolkien scholar Fleming Rutledge writes that in The Lord of the Rings, and especially at moments like the wizard Gandalf's explanation to Frodo in "The Shadow of the Past", there are clear hints of a higher power at work in events in Middle-earth: Rutledge writes that in this way, Tolkien repeatedly hints at a higher power "that controls even the Ring itself, even the maker of the Ring himself [her italics]", and asks who or what that power might be. Her reply is that at the surface level, it means the Valar, "a race of created beings (analogous to the late-biblical angels)". At a deeper level, as both Rutledge and the Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft write, it means "the One", Eru Ilúvatar, or in Christian terms, divine Providence. Luck, courage, and providence The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey discusses the connection between the Valar and "luck" on Middle-earth, writing that as in real life, "People ... do in sober reality recognise a strongly patterning force in the world around them" but that while this may be due to "Providence or the Valar", the force "does not affect free will and cannot be distinguished from the ordinary operations of nature" nor reduce the necessity of "heroic endeavour". He states that this exactly matches the Old English view of luck and personal courage, as Beowulfs "wyrd often spares the man who isn't doomed, as long as his courage holds." In addition, the leapfrogging
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The Nazgûl (from Black Speech , "ring", and , "wraith, spirit"), introduced as Black Riders and also called Ringwraiths, Dark Riders, the Nine Riders, or simply the Nine, are fictional characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. They were nine Men who had succumbed to Sauron's power through wearing Rings of Power, which gave them immortality but reduced them to invisible wraiths, servants bound to the power of the One Ring and completely under Sauron's control. The Lord of the Rings calls them Sauron's "most terrible servants". Their leader, known as the Witch-king of Angmar or the Lord of the Nazgûl, had once been the King of Angmar in the north of Eriador. At the end of the Third Age, their main stronghold was the city of Minas Morgul at the entrance to Sauron's realm, Mordor. They dress entirely in black. In their early forays, they ride on black horses; later they ride flying monsters, which Tolkien described as "pterodactylic". Their main weapon is terror, though in their pursuit of the Ring-bearer Frodo Baggins, their leader uses a Morgul-knife which would reduce its victim to a wraith, and they carry ordinary swords. In his final battle, the Lord of the Nazgûl attacks Éowyn with a mace. The hobbit Merry Brandybuck stabs him with an ancient enchanted Númenórean blade, allowing Éowyn to kill him with her sword. Commentators have written that the Nazgûl serve on the ordinary level of story as dangerous opponents; at the romantic level as the enemies of the heroic protagonists; and finally at the mythic level. The Nazgûl appear in numerous adaptations of Tolkien's writings, including animated and live-action films and computer games. Fictional history Second Age The Nazgûl or Ringwraiths (Quenya plural: Úlairi) first appeared in the Second Age, according to the "Akallabêth" in The Silmarillion. The Dark Lord Sauron gave nine of the Rings of Power to powerful mortal men, including "it is said" three lords of the once-powerful island realm of Númenor, along with kings of countries in Middle-earth. The Silmarillion states in "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" that the rings enslaved their bearers to the power of Sauron's Ring, into which he had put much of his own power. The corrupting effect of the rings extended the bearers' earthly lives far beyond their normal lifespans. The Nazgûl had a sharp sense of smell. The Lord of the Rings states that their sight worked differently, too: "They themselves do not see the world of light as we do, but our shapes cast shadows in their minds, which only the noon sun destroys; and in the dark they perceive many signs and forms that are hidden from us: then they are most to be feared." Their chief weapon was terror; it was so powerful that Sauron faced one disadvantage when using them: they could not easily travel in secret. Tolkien added, in Unfinished Tales, that the terror they spread was greater when they were unclad and invisible; and when they were
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The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game, released by Decipher, Inc. in 2002, is a tabletop role-playing game set in the fictional world of Middle-earth created by J. R. R. Tolkien. The game is set in the years between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, but may be run at any time from the First to Fourth Age and contains many examples of how to do so. Sourcebooks cover the events of The Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson's film trilogy adaptation. The system for LOTR is called CODA, and involves rolling two six-sided dice to resolve actions. The game is the second licensed role-playing game for the setting, the prior game being Middle-earth Role Playing from Iron Crown Enterprises. A third role-playing game set in Middle-earth was published (2011-2019) by Cubicle 7 under the title The One Ring Roleplaying Game, which has since been acquired, revised, and is now published by Free League Publishing, alongside a 5th Edition OGL game titled The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying. Races The character races available in the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game are: Dwarves (Khazad): Short, stocky bearded folk, strong and hardy, able to endure pain, fatigue and suffering better than other races. Upon reaching maturity they appear old in a fashion that belies their hardiness. They often live in subterranean kingdoms, and have a great love of craftworks, especially things made of gold, silver, and mithril. Elves (Eldar): The oldest and wisest of races of Middle-earth, they are immortal, noble, and fair. Their kind have far clearer sight and perception than Men, and they're nimble. They are naturally aware of many things that are hidden from the Younger Children. They are divided into a number of particular kinds, primarily based on their course through Elven history. The Noldor or High Elves are those that heeded the call of the Valar and traveled across the sea, most of them later rebelling and following Fëanor back to Middle-earth in pursuit of the Silmarils. They are wise in Lore and Smithcraft, and created many Rings of Power. The Sindar or Grey Elves are those that heard the call, but stopped and chose to stay in Beleriand. These are the more numerous kind of elf in the Third Age, and have great love of, and talent with, music and song. The Silvan Elves or Wood Elves are those that ceased their journey to the West before crossing the Misty Mountains. During the Third age, they live in woodland realms such as Lothlórien or caverns in the mountains of Mirkwood. They have facility with wilderness skills. Hobbits: The signature race of Tolkien, these diminutive people are a distant relation to men. They are good-natured, hospitable and easy going folk, two to four feet in height with hair covered feet. There are three major strains of Hobbits: Fallohides, taller, slimmer, fairer, and more uncommon than their fellows, they often have more facility with language, song, and craft, and have an unusual adventurous streak.
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"The Scouring of the Shire" is the penultimate chapter of J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy The Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship hobbits, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin, return home to the Shire to find that it is under the brutal control of ruffians and their leader "Sharkey", revealed to be the Wizard Saruman. The ruffians have despoiled the Shire, cutting down trees and destroying old houses, as well as replacing the old mill with a larger one full of machinery which pollutes the air and the water. The hobbits rouse the Shire to rebellion, lead their fellow hobbits to victory in the Battle of Bywater, and end Saruman's rule. Critics have considered "The Scouring of the Shire" the most important chapter in The Lord of the Rings. Although Tolkien denied that the chapter was an allegory for Britain in the aftermath of World War II, commentators have argued that it can be applied to that period, with clear contemporary political references that include a satire of socialism, echoes of Nazism, allusions to the shortages in postwar Britain, and a strand of environmentalism. According to Tolkien, the idea of such a chapter was planned from the outset as part of the overall formal structure of The Lord of the Rings, though its details were not worked out until much later. The chapter was intended to counterbalance the larger plot, concerning the physical journey to destroy the One Ring, with a moral quest upon the return home, to purify the Shire and to take personal responsibility. Tolkien considered other identities for the wicked Sharkey before settling on Saruman late in his composition process. The chapter, which has been called one of the most famous anticlimaxes in literature, has generally been excluded from film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson's film trilogy maintains two key elements: a burning Shire, glimpsed by Frodo in the crystal ball-like Mirror of Galadriel; and the means of Saruman's death, transposed to Isengard. Fictional history Context The chapter follows all the main action of The Lord of the Rings. The story tells how the One Ring, a ring of power made by the Dark Lord Sauron, lost for many centuries, has reappeared and is in the hands of a hobbit, Frodo Baggins, in the England-like Shire. If Sauron finds the Ring, he will use it to take over the whole of Middle-earth. A Wizard, Gandalf, tells Frodo the history of the ring and persuades him to leave the Shire to destroy the Ring. He is joined by three other hobbits, his friends Sam, Merry, and Pippin. They are pursued by Sauron's Black Riders, but escape to a stronghold of the Elves, Rivendell. There, they learn that it can only be destroyed in the volcano, Mount Doom, where Sauron forged the Ring, in the evil land of Mordor. They are joined by others opposed to Sauron, forming a Fellowship of the Ring, led by Gandalf. They face many perils on the journey, and the Fellowship
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The appearance of mental illness in Middle-earth has been discussed by scholars of literature and by psychiatrists. Middle-earth is the fantasy world created by J. R. R. Tolkien. His novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are both set in Middle-earth, and peopled with realistically-drawn characters who experience life much as people do in the real world. Characters as diverse as Denethor, Théoden, Beorn, Gollum, and Frodo have been seen as exemplifying conditions including paranoia, bipolar depression, schizoid personality disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Tolkien fans have discussed what kind of mental illness Gollum might have on over 1300 websites. A supervised study by medical students stated that Gollum met many of the criteria for schizoid personality disorder. In a celebrated scene, Peter Jackson's 2002 film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers depicts Gollum/Sméagol talking to himself, using the device of shot/reverse shot to switch between the two personalities. Context Middle-earth J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was an English Roman Catholic writer, poet, philologist, and academic, best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, both set in his subcreated world of Middle-earth. Scholarly and psychiatric insights The scholar of English Steve Walker states that Tolkien has rooted every element of Middle-earth naturally, using descriptions of Earthlike weather, landforms, peoples, cultures, flora and fauna. He comments that Other Tolkien scholars and psychiatrists have broadly agreed, suggesting in addition Gollum's schizoid personality disorder and the resemblance of Frodo's increasingly disturbed mental state to post-traumatic stress disorder. The medievalist Alke Haarsma-Wisselink, who had experienced psychotic episodes, remarks that both Bilbo and Thorin in The Hobbit have symptoms of psychosis. The Tolkien scholar James T. Williamson describes how Éowyn responds to her "perceived rejection" by Aragorn with "a madness" seen as her eyes change "from gray to 'on fire'"; other scholars have named Éowyn as suffering from depression. The psychiatrists Landon van Dell and colleagues write that The Lord of the Rings offers useful and "very tangible" lessons for mental health by helping readers to envisage and empathise with the situations of other people. Tolkien's interest in the subject Wartime experience Tolkien's depiction of Frodo's mental suffering may owe something to his own wartime experience. The Tolkien scholar Karyn Milos comments that "recurring pain and intrusive memory, often triggered by significant dates or other reminders of the traumatic event, is a central characteristic of post-traumatic stress." Janet Brennan Croft adds that "Frodo's experience of the war" resembles "modern war in its unrelieved stress". As in the static trenches of the First World War, in which Tolkien had fought, Frodo had to stay in cover on his quest to Mordor, constantly threatened by a watchful enemy he could not see. Jungian psychology The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung coined the term analytical psychology for his approach to the psyche. His theory included archetypes, the collective unconscious, individuation, the Self, and the shadow. Tolkien and his friend C. S. Lewis were members of
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A palantír (; ) is one of several indestructible crystal balls from J. R. R. Tolkien's epic-fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. The word comes from Quenya 'far', and 'watch over'. The palantírs were used for communication and to see events in other parts of Arda, or in the past. The palantírs were made by the Elves of Valinor in the First Age, as told in The Silmarillion. By the time of The Lord of the Rings at the end of the Third Age, a few palantírs remained in existence. They are used in some climactic scenes by major characters: Sauron, Saruman, Denethor the Steward of Gondor, and two members of the Fellowship of the Ring: Aragorn and Pippin. A major theme of palantír usage is that while the stones show real objects or events, those using the stones had to "possess great strength of will and of mind" to direct the stone's gaze to its full capability. The stones were an unreliable guide to action, since what was not shown could be more important than what was selectively presented. A risk lay in the fact that users with sufficient power could choose what to show and what to conceal to other stones: in The Lord of the Rings, a palantír has fallen into the Enemy's hands, making the usefulness of all other existing stones questionable. Commentators such as the Tolkien scholar Paul Kocher note the hand of providence in their usage, while Joseph Pearce compares Sauron's use of the stones to broadcast wartime propaganda. Tom Shippey suggests that the message is that "speculation", looking into any sort of magic mirror (Latin: speculum) or stone to see the future, rather than trusting in providence, leads to error. Fictional artifact Origins In Tolkien's fantasy The Lord of the Rings, the palantírs were made by the Elves of Valinor in the Uttermost West, by the Noldor, apparently by Fëanor himself from silima, "that which shines". The number that he made is not stated, but there were at least eight of them. Seven of the stones given to Amandil of Númenor during the Second Age were saved by his son Elendil; he took them with him to Middle-earth, while at least the Master-stone remained behind. Four were taken to Gondor, while three stayed in Arnor. Originally, the stones of Arnor were at Elostirion in the Tower Hills, Amon Sul (Weathertop), and Annuminas: the Elostirion stone, Elendil's own, looked only Westwards from Middle-earth across the ocean to the Master-stone at the Tower of Avallonë upon Eressëa, an island off Valinor. The stones of Gondor were in Orthanc, Minas Tirith, Osgiliath, and Minas Ithil. By the time of The Lord of the Rings, the stone of Orthanc was in the hands of the wizard Saruman, while the stone of Minas Ithil, (by then Minas Morgul, the city of the Nazgûl), had been taken by the dark lord Sauron. That of Minas Tirith remained in the hands of the Steward of Gondor, Denethor. The stone
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The Lord of the Rings Online: Mordor is the sixth expansion for The Lord of the Rings Online MMORPG, released on July 31, 2017. It raised the game's level cap from 105 to 115 and added a new Plateau of Gorgoroth region in Mordor, which the Free People of Middle-Earth begin to explore following the downfall of Sauron, as well as a new cluster of end-game Instances and a Raid. The release of Mordor expansion coincided with the Ninth and final Book of Volume IV: The Strength of Sauron which depicted the destruction of The One Ring and the following celebration at the Field of Cormallen in Ithilien. To signify the importance of concluding the main story of The Lord of the Rings, the next Epic Story is not called a "Volume" but rather simply "The Black Book of Mordor". Unlike the preceding Epic Quests which were available to free-to-play players or those subscribers who did not purchase previous expansion, the access to the "Black Book of Mordor" requires the purchase of either "Mordor" or the subsequent Minas Morgul expansion. Storyline Chapter 1 - Where the Shadows Lie With the Dark Lord defeated and the Black Gate overthrown, the Free People of Middle-Earth venture into Mordor for the first time in a thousand years. Some are searching for knowledge, some for treasure and some - for vengeance against Sauron's remaining servants. While exploring the former Gondorian fortress of Durthang, the player accidentally releases a fearsome Easterling chieftain among other prisoners. The player chases the Easterling named Ayorzén and after capturing him, delivers him to Gandalf for questioning. Chapter 2 - The Light of Eärendil An unexpected messenger emerges from the Black Land: the Mouth of Sauron survived the downfall of his master and had proclaimed himself Sauron's Heir and The Ruler of Mordor. He asks to treat with King Elessar, who chooses the player as his representative. His tone changed since the battle at the Black Gate, the Mouth of Sauron offers to recognize Aragorn's authority as the King of Gondor and become his subject in exchange for being allowed to rule what remained of Mordor. Though his terms are absolutely rejected, the offer itself betrays his weakness and reveals that Sauron's Heir's dominion over Mordor is far from the total that he boasts. Chapter 3 - The Gúrzyul The interrogation of Ayorzén reveals that Mordor still poses many dangers as the Gúrzyul, powerful servants of Sauron, have unlike the Nazgûl outlasted their master and still present a great threat for the Free Peoples. The player ventures deep into Mordor to find more about the Gúrzyul and learns that they are former mortals whose lives have been unnaturally extended by Sauron, though unlike the Nazgûl they are still tied to their bodies and can be slain. Other than the Mouth of Sauron the known Gúrzyul are Captain of the Pit Ugrukhôr, Urudanî Stonemaiden, and Lhaereth the Stained, Sauron's chief poisoner who was responsible the Great Plague that ravaged Eriador, Rhovanion
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The author J. R. R. Tolkien uses many proverbs in The Lord of the Rings to create a feeling that the world of Middle-earth is both familiar and solid, and to give a sense of the different cultures of the Hobbits, Men, Elves, and Dwarves who populate it. Scholars have also commented that the proverbs are sometimes used directly to portray characters such as Barliman Butterbur, who never has time to collect his thoughts. Often these proverbs serve to make Tolkien's created world seem at once real and solid, while also remaining somewhat unfamiliar. Further, the proverbs help to convey Tolkien's underlying message about providence; while he keeps his Christianity hidden, readers can see that what appears as luck to the protagonists reflects a higher purpose throughout Tolkien's narrative. Appearances There are many proverbs in The Lord of the Rings; estimates range from 29 to "about 110", depending on the criteria used to distinguish proverbs from other sayings. Some are traditional, some adapted, and many were invented by Tolkien. They are used variously by the free peoples of Middle-earth, namely Hobbits, Men, Elves, and Dwarves, as well as by Wizards and Orcs. In addition, familiar sayings and platitudes form part of the speech of some characters, and the songs of the Hobbits express sentiments that sound like proverbs. Analysis Simple wisdom David Rowe comments on the simple wisdom of many Hobbit proverbs, describing them as "terse, often humorous, and defiantly pragmatic; ... plain Hobbit-sense". He notes that they are often rooted in familiar daily work, as in "You've got to have grist before you can grind" (6.8 "The Scouring of the Shire"), an allusion to the task of milling grain. He observes, too, that Hobbit proverbs have a "gnarled and rather fatalistic" worldview, countered by their delight in "simple pleasures" like food, beer, and pipe-smoking. He cites as an example of this "Frodo's marvellously vivid 'Short cuts make delays, but inns make longer ones'" (1.4 "A Short Cut to Mushrooms"). In Rowe's view, these embody "a living tradition", enabling shared experience to be "fitted to the present moment and the immediate need." Portraying character Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, in The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, state that Tolkien has Barliman Butterbur, the fat bustling landlord of The Prancing Pony inn at Bree, speak in a mass of "commonplace sayings" such as "I'm run off my feet", proverbs like "It never rains but it pours, we say in Bree", and shortly after that "One thing drives out another, so to speak". Katharyn W. Crabbe comments that Barliman's constant stream of common sayings "is perfect as a representation of the conversation of a man who is too busy to concentrate" on anything, suggesting "a kind of semiconscious conversation", so that when he finally admits he forgot to send Gandalf's letter of warning to Frodo, the reader has "a shock of recognition". Injecting humour Esther Clinton, in Proverbium, discusses the playful use of proverbs to inject humour as well
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The impression of depth in The Lord of the Rings is an aesthetic effect deliberately sought by its author, J. R. R. Tolkien. It was intended to give the reader the feeling that the work had "deep roots in the past", and hence that it was attractively authentic. The effect was constructed on at least four factors, namely the enormous scale of The Lord of the Rings and the amount of background detail, including maps and genealogies; the apparently casual and incomplete mentions of this background; multiple inconsistent accounts, as in real history; and writing different texts in varying styles. Scholars have noted some of Tolkien's medieval antecedents in the effect, such as Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Fantasy authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin and J. K. Rowling have to an extent followed Tolkien in using the technique. Effect In an essay, Tolkien praised the 14th-century English chivalric romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for its "deep roots in the past, deeper even than its author was aware". In his opinion, this enabled it to survive even the severe test of being a set text for students; it deserved "close and detailed attention, and after that ... careful consideration, and re-consideration". In an aside, he went on to discuss what that meant: In a letter, Tolkien provided at least part of his own view of the impression of depth in The Lord of the Rings, namely that Tolkien noted further that this effect would be difficult to attain in the legendarium that lay behind The Lord of the Rings, "unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed". He added that "many of the older legends are purely 'mythological', and nearly all are grim and tragic". The scholar of English literature Katarzyna Ferdynus comments that Tom Shippey, a Tolkien scholar, writes that depth is "the one literary quality, to say no more, which most certainly distinguishes Tolkien from his many imitators" in fantasy, and that behind the visible text lay "a coherent, consistent, deeply fascinating world about which he had no time [then] to speak". Precedents This quality of depth, that Tolkien valued highly, he found especially in Beowulf, but also in other works that he admired, such as Virgil's Aeneid, Shakespeare's Macbeth, Sir Orfeo, and Grimms' Fairy Tales. Scholars such as Gergely Nagy have identified other texts well known to Tolkien that provide a strong impression of depth, including Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. Beowulf contains numerous digressions into other stories which have functions other than advancing the story, in Adrien Bonjour's words rendering "the background of the poem extraordinarily alive", and providing contrasts and examples that repeatedly illuminate the key points of the main story. Tolkien stated in The Monsters and the Critics that Beowulf Factors Scholars have identified four factors that help to build the impression of depth: the enormous scale and detail of Tolkien's Middle-earth background the apparently casual and incomplete mentions of this background in
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The Notion Club Papers is an abandoned novel by J. R. R. Tolkien, written in 1945 and published posthumously in Sauron Defeated, the 9th volume of The History of Middle-earth. It is a time travel story, written while The Lord of the Rings was being developed. The Notion Club is a fictionalization of Tolkien's own such club, the Inklings. Tolkien's mechanism for the exploration of time is through lucid dreams. These allow club members to experience events as far back as the destruction of the Atlantis-like island of Númenor, as narrated in The Silmarillion. The unfinished text of The Notion Club Papers runs for some 120 pages in Sauron Defeated, accompanied by 40 pages of Christopher Tolkien's commentary and notes, with examples of the pages hand-written by his father. Context J. R. R. Tolkien was a scholar of English literature, a philologist and a medievalist interested in language and poetry from the Middle Ages, especially that of Anglo-Saxon England and Northern Europe. His professional knowledge of Beowulf, telling of a pagan world but with a Christian narrator, helped to shape his fictional world of Middle-earth. His intention to create what has been called "a mythology for England" led him to construct not only stories but a fully-formed world, Middle-earth, with invented languages, peoples, cultures, and history. Among his many influences were his own Roman Catholic faith, medieval languages and literature, including Norse mythology. He is best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit (1937), The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), and The Silmarillion (1977), all set in Middle-earth. Structure and plot The story revolves around the meetings of an Oxford arts discussion group, the Notion Club. During these meetings, Alwin Arundel Lowdham discusses his lucid dreams about Númenor, a lost civilisation connected with Atlantis and with Tolkien's Middle-earth. Through these dreams, he "discovers" much about the Númenor story and the languages of Middle-earth (notably Quenya, Sindarin, and Adûnaic). While not finished, at the end of the given story it becomes clear Lowdham himself is a reincarnation of sorts of Elendil, leader of the men who escaped the destruction of Númenor. Other members of the Club mention their vivid dreams of other times and places. The Notion Club Papers is elaborately constructed. The main story (the Notion Club, itself the frame of the Númenor story) is set within a frame story. Both are set in the future, after the actual time of writing, 1945. Embedded within the story are Tolkien's versions of European legends: King Sheave, and The Death of St. Brendan, a three-page poem also titled 'Imram'. In the frame story, a Mr. Green finds documents in sacks of waste paper at Oxford in 2012. These documents, the Notion Club Papers of the title, are the incomplete notes of meetings of the Notion Club; these meetings are said to have occurred in the 1980s. The notes, written by one of the participants, include references to events that 'occurred' in the 1970s and 1980s. Green publishes a
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The fictional races and peoples that appear in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth include the seven listed in Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings: Elves, Men, Dwarves, Hobbits, Ents, Orcs and Trolls, as well as spirits such as the Valar and Maiar. Other beings of Middle-earth are of unclear nature such as Tom Bombadil and his wife Goldberry. Ainur The Ainur were angelic spirits created by Eru Ilúvatar at the Beginning. The Ainur who subsequently entered the physical world of Middle-earth were the Valar ("powers"), though that term came to refer primarily to the mightiest among them. Lesser spirits were called the Maiar. Most of the Valar and Maiar withdrew from Middle-earth to the Undying Lands of Valinor, though some of the Maiar assumed mortal forms to help or hinder the peoples of Middle-earth, such as the Istari (Wizards), Melian, Balrogs, and the Dark Lord Sauron. Wizards The wizards of Middle-earth were Maiar: spirits of the same order as the Valar, but lesser in power. Outwardly resembling Men but possessing much greater physical and mental power, they were called Istari (Quenya for "Wise Ones") by the Elves. They were sent by the Valar to assist the people of Middle-earth to contest Sauron. The first three of these five wizards were known in the Mannish tongues of the Lord of the Rings series as Saruman "man of skill" (Rohirric), Gandalf "elf of the staff" (northern Men), and Radagast "tender of beasts" (possibly Westron). Tolkien never provided non-Elvish names for the other two; one tradition gives their names in Valinor as Alatar and Pallando, and another as Morinehtar and Rómestámo in Middle-earth. Each wizard in the series had robes of a characteristic colour: white for Saruman (the chief and the most powerful of the five), grey for Gandalf, brown for Radagast, and sea-blue for the remaining two, known consequently as the Blue Wizards. Gandalf and Saruman play important roles in The Lord of the Rings, while Radagast appears only briefly, innocently helping Saruman to deceive Gandalf, who believes Radagast since he is honest, and fortuitously alerting Gwaihir to rescue Gandalf again. The Blue Wizards do not feature in the story, as they are said to have journeyed far into the east after their arrival in Middle-earth. As the Istari were Maiar, each one served a Vala in some way. Saruman was the servant and helper of Aulë, and so learned much in the art of craftsmanship, mechanics, and metal-working, as was seen in the later Third Age. Gandalf was the servant of Manwë or Varda, but was a lover of the Gardens of Lórien, and so knew much of the hopes and dreams of Men and Elves. Radagast, servant of Yavanna, loved the things of nature, both animals and plants. As each of these Istari learned from their Vala, so they acted in Middle-earth. Balrogs Demonic creatures of fire and shadow, Balrogs were fallen Maiar, loyal to the first Dark Lord, Morgoth. They participated in the wars
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The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy novel by J. R. R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Films The Lord of the Rings (1978 film), an animated film by Ralph Bakshi The Lord of the Rings (film series), a trilogy of films by Peter Jackson (2001–2003) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) Games and toys Lord of the Rings: Game One, a 1985 computer game for multiple platforms Lord of the Rings (board game), a board game by Reiner Knizia Lord of the Rings (Heritage Models), a set of miniatures The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, an RTS game by Electronic Arts The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, its sequel The Lord of the Rings: Conquest, an action video game by Pandemic Studios The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, a card game by Fantasy Flight Games The Lord of the Rings Online, an MMORPG video game by Turbine The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game, a CODA role-playing game by Decipher The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, a tabletop miniature wargame by Games Workshop The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game, a collectible card game by Decipher The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, a role-playing video game by Snowblind Studios The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, an action-adventure game by Daedalic Entertainment J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I (1990 video game), by Interplay J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. II: The Two Towers, a 1992 video game by Interplay J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I (1994 video game), a Super Nintendo video game by Interplay Music Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings, a 1970 album by Swedish rock musician Bo Hansson The Lord of the Rings (soundtrack), the soundtrack for the 1978 Ralph Bakshi film Symphony No. 1 "The Lord of the Rings" (1988), a five-piece set for concert band by Johan de Meij "Lord of the Rings", a song by Blind Guardian from Tales from the Twilight World (1990) Music of The Lord of the Rings film series, the soundtrack for the 2001-2003 Peter Jackson films Radio series The Lord of the Rings (1955 radio series), a BBC radio series The Lord of the Rings (1979 radio series), an American NPR series The Lord of the Rings (1981 radio series), a BBC radio series Television and theater The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, a television series produced by Amazon Studios Lord of the Rings (musical), a live theatrical production People Yuri van Gelder, Dutch gymnast nicknamed "Lord of the Rings" See also Der Herr der Ringe, a 1992 German radio series on SDR and WDR
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Samwise Gamgee (, usually called Sam) is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. A hobbit, Samwise is the chief supporting character of The Lord of the Rings, serving as the loyal companion (in effect: "manservant") of the protagonist Frodo Baggins. Sam is a member of the Fellowship of the Ring, the group of nine charged with destroying the One Ring to prevent the Dark Lord Sauron from taking over the world. Sam was Frodo's gardener. He was drawn into Frodo's adventure while eavesdropping on a private conversation Frodo was having with the wizard Gandalf. Sam was Frodo's steadfast companion and servant, portrayed as both physically strong for his size and emotionally strong, often supporting Frodo through difficult parts of the journey and at times carrying Frodo when he was too weak to go on. Sam served as Ring-bearer for a short time when Frodo was captured by orcs; his emotional strength was again demonstrated when he willingly gave the Ring back to Frodo. Following the War of the Ring, Sam returned to the Shire and his role as gardener, helping to replant the trees which had been destroyed while he was away. He was elected Mayor of the Shire for seven consecutive terms. The name Gamgee derives from a local name for cotton wool, from a surgical dressing invented by Sampson Gamgee; hence Sam's girlfriend Rosie is from the Cotton family. Scholars have remarked the symbolism in Sam's story, which carries echoes of Christianity; for instance, his carrying of Frodo is reminiscent of Simon of Cyrene's carrying of Christ's cross. Tolkien considered Sam a hero of the story. Psychologists have seen Sam's quest as a psychological journey of love. Tolkien's biographers have noted the resemblance of Sam's relationship with Frodo to that of military servants to British Army officers in the First World War. Fictional biography As told in The Lord of the Rings, Samwise Gamgee was Frodo Baggins's gardener, having inherited the position from his father, Hamfast "Gaffer" Gamgee, who was Bilbo Baggins's gardener. As "punishment" for eavesdropping on Gandalf's conversation with Frodo regarding the One Ring, Sam was made Frodo's first companion on his journey to Rivendell. They were joined by Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took, Frodo's cousins, travelling together to Rivendell. At the Council of Elrond there, Sam joined the Fellowship of the Ring. In the elvish land of Lothlórien, Galadriel gives Sam a small box of earth from her garden. When the Fellowship split up at the Falls of Rauros, Sam insisted on accompanying Frodo. Sam protected and cared for Frodo, who was growing weaker under the Ring's influence, as they moved through the dangerous lands toward Mordor. Sam distrusted Gollum, who became their guide into Mordor, leading them through the Dead Marshes. His suspicions were proven right when Gollum betrayed them to the giant spider Shelob. When Shelob stung Frodo, Sam drove her off. When a band of orcs approached, Sam was forced to leave the apparently dead Frodo and take the
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The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game is a non-collectible customizable card game produced by Fantasy Flight Games. As part of the Living Card Game (LCG) genre, it is a cooperative and strategic card game set in Middle-earth, a fantasy world featured in literary works by J. R. R. Tolkien, including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Its digital adaptation, titled The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game, is published by Asmodee Digital for cross-platform play on Microsoft Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, being the "first ever digital LCG". Mechanics Like other card games in Fantasy Flight's "Living Card Game" line, it has deck construction and regularly released expansions similar to a collectible card game, but without the randomized card distribution. The game may be played either solitaire or with a group. Up to 2 players can play the game with a single core set, and up to 4 players can play with an additional core set. Unlike most card games of this type, this game is a cooperative game; the players are not opponents, but work together against an "encounter deck" which represents the forces of Sauron and produces the obstacles that the players have to conquer. Each player has their own cards: their heroes (up to 3) which start in play, and a deck of at least 50 cards, composed of Allies, Attachments (such as weapons, armor, and other items), and Events. Although the core set comes with pre-constructed decks, deck construction is a major aspect of the game, and many players build their own decks, utilising cards from the various expansions. Community The Lord of the Rings Living Card Game has an active following, with multiple podcasts and blogs dedicated to discussing gameplay, strategy, deck-building, and news, as well as providing custom content. Podcasts include Cardboard of the Rings, The Grey Company, and The Mouth of Sauron. Blogs include Tales From the Cards, Hall of Beorn, Master of Lore, Dor Cuarthol, and Vision of the Palantir. Expansions There are several types of expansion to this game. Each Deluxe Expansion (and the core set) contain 3 quests and begins a new cycle, which usually shares a mechanical or story-driven theme. These releases are supplemented by 6 Adventure Packs for a total of 9 quests per cycle. The Hero and Campaign Expansions combine a cycle's Deluxe Expansion and its related Adventure packs (i.e. The Lost Realm expansion and the six Angmar Awakened packs) into two products, while also adding campaign cards. The Saga Expansions follow the story of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, with the initial time-frame for the game the 17 years between Bilbo leaving The Shire and Frodo following him. The latter introduced a mode of play called Campaign mode allowing for some degree of permanence between the quests telling the story. Players can earn powerful "Boon" cards, which can be used in the following quests, as well as "Burden" cards which make future quests more
The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game
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The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien is a selection of the philologist and fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien's letters. It was published in 1981, edited by Tolkien's biographer Humphrey Carpenter, who was assisted by Christopher Tolkien. The selection, from a large mass of materials, contains 354 letters. These were written between October 1914, when Tolkien was an undergraduate at Oxford, and 29 August 1973, four days before his death. The letters are of interest both for what they show of Tolkien's life and for his interpretations of his Middle-earth writings. Contents The book has a 3-page introduction by its editor, Humphrey Carpenter. He notes that an "enormous quantity of material [had] to be omitted, and that only passages of particular interest could be included." Among the omissions is "the very large body of letters" written between 1913 and 1918 to Edith Bratt, the woman who became his wife. Carpenter notes that few letters from the period between 1918 and 1937 survive, and those "unfortunately" say nothing about the writing of The Silmarillion or of The Hobbit. The body of the 1981 edition consists of extracts from 354 of J. R. R. Tolkien's many letters. The first, dated October 1914, is to Bratt, when Tolkien was an undergraduate at Oxford. The last, dated 29 August 1973, is to Priscilla Tolkien, his youngest child, four days before his death. The letters are accompanied by detailed notes, and by an index compiled by the Tolkien scholars Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond. The letters can be roughly divided into four categories: Personal letters to Tolkien's wife Edith, his son Christopher Tolkien, and his other children Letters about Tolkien's career as a professor of Anglo-Saxon Letters to his publishers at Allen & Unwin Letters about Tolkien's Middle-earth writings Letters 29 and 30 show that a German translation of The Hobbit was being negotiated in 1938. The German firm enquired whether Tolkien was of Arisch (Aryan) origin. Tolkien was infuriated by the racist implications of this, and wrote two drafts of possible replies for his publisher to choose. Having fought in the First World War, Tolkien wrote many letters during the Second World War to his son Christopher, including his reaction to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, in which he calls the bombmakers of the Manhattan Project "lunatic" and "Babel builders". In 1951, Tolkien hoped that Collins would publish both The Lord of the Rings and a selection from his legendarium, including material that his son Christopher later edited to form The Silmarillion. To help persuade them that the two were "interdependent and indivisible", Tolkien sent a long letter (#131) to Milton Waldman of Collins, outlining the foundations and ambitions of his writings, and giving a potted history of the whole story from the creation, through the First, Second and Third Ages, and finishing with a reference to The Hobbit and a lengthy outline of The Lord of the Rings. The Tolkien scholar Colin Duriez describes the 10,000-word letter as "one of the
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In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fiction, Man and Men denote humans, whether male or female, in contrast to Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and other humanoid races. Men are described as the second or younger people, created after the Elves, and differing from them in being mortal. Along with Ents and Dwarves, these are the "free peoples" of Middle-earth, differing from the enslaved peoples such as Orcs. Tolkien uses the Men of Middle-earth, interacting with immortal Elves, to explore a variety of themes in The Lord of the Rings, especially death and immortality. This appears throughout, but is the central theme of an appendix, "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen". Where the Hobbits stand for simple, earthbound, comfort-loving people, Men are far more varied, from petty villains and slow-witted publicans to the gentle warrior Faramir and the genuinely heroic Aragorn; Tolkien had wanted to create a heroic romance suitable for the modern age. Scholars have identified real-world analogues for each of the varied races of Men, whether from medieval times or classical antiquity. The weakness of Men, The Lord of the Rings asserts, is the desire for power; the One Ring promises enormous power, but is both evil and addictive. Tolkien uses the two Men in the Fellowship created to destroy the Ring, Aragorn and the warrior Boromir, to show the effects of opposite reactions to that temptation. It becomes clear that, except for Men, all the peoples of Middle-earth are dwindling and fading: the Elves are leaving, and the Ents are childless. By the Fourth Age, Middle-earth is peopled with Men, and indeed Tolkien intended it to represent the real world in the distant past. Commentators have questioned Tolkien's attitude to race, given that good peoples are white and live in the West, while enemies may be dark and live in the East and South. However, others note that Tolkien was strongly anti-racist in real life. In the fiction Creation The race of Men in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world, in his books The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, is the second race of beings, the "younger children", created by the One God, Ilúvatar. Because they awoke in the First Age at the start of the Years of the Sun, long after the Elves, the Elves called them the "afterborn", or in Quenya the Atani, the "Second People". Like Elves, Men first awoke in the East of Middle-earth, spreading all over the continent and developing a variety of cultures and ethnicities. Unlike Tolkien's Elves, Men are mortal; when they die, they depart to a world unknown even to the godlike Valar. Free peoples Men are one of the four "free peoples" in the list-poem spoken by the Ent Treebeard; the others being Elves, Dwarves, and Ents. Hobbits, not included on that list, were a branch of the lineage of Men. Hobbits were not known to the Ents, but on meeting Merry and Pippin, Treebeard at once worked that people into the list. The concept of
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The term Middle-earth canon, also called Tolkien's canon, is used for the published writings of J. R. R. Tolkien regarding Middle-earth as a whole. The term is also used in Tolkien fandom to promote, discuss and debate the idea of a consistent fictional canon within a given subset of Tolkien's writings. The terms have been used by reviewers, publishers, scholars, authors and critics such as John Garth, Tom Shippey, Jane Chance and others to describe the published writings of J. R. R. Tolkien on Middle-earth as a whole. Other writers look to the entire body of work of the author as a "Tolkien canon", rather than a subset defined by the fictional "Middle-earth" setting. Tolkien's works The works on Middle-earth published by Tolkien during his lifetime include The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, and The Road Goes Ever On. After Tolkien's death his son Christopher published The Silmarillion with many textual changes to knit several mostly unfinished manuscripts together as a coherent narrative. Further posthumous publications (with text more closely following Tolkien's original) include Unfinished Tales, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Bilbo's Last Song, The Children of Húrin, Beren and Luthien and The Fall of Gondolin. Christopher Tolkien also published the 12-volume History of Middle-earth, containing many texts, drafts, and notes by Tolkien (both early and late), together with Christopher's own extensive notes placing these in context. Further works authorized by the Tolkien Estate include The History of The Hobbit in two volumes by John D. Rateliff and The Annotated Hobbit by Douglas A. Anderson, both with notes and early drafts by Tolkien. Linguistic material by Tolkien concerning Middle-earth has also been published with the permission of the Estate in two periodical publications. The Qenya and Gnomish Lexicons, in full, appear in Parma Eldalamberon Numbers 11–16; other mostly self-contained fragments, notes, and poems appear in various issues of Vinyar Tengwar. All of this material together constitutes a collection which, much like real-world histories and mythologies, contains numerous points of obscurity, omission, or apparent contradiction. The Hobbit Although Tolkien said that The Hobbit was conceived separately from his mythological stories, early drafts show that it was set in that world, referring explicitly to characters and places which appeared in his Book of Lost Tales which would later become The Silmarillion. The Necromancer was originally Thû, the precursor of Sauron; Thorin's grandfather was imprisoned in the same dungeons that held Beren and Lúthien; the Elven king was Thingol and his land Menegroth. When he revised The Hobbit to bring the story of the finding of the Ring in line with The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien retained the original version as the tale Bilbo told to justify his acquisition of the Ring. The Lord of the Rings The Lord of the Rings picks up the story of The Hobbit some sixty years later, with some of the same locations and characters. Tolkien now explicitly linked the story to the Silmarillion tales, but placed it
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The War of the Ring was Games Workshop's annual summer campaign for 2005. The campaign was named after the eponymous War of the Ring in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and was the first to feature The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game as its wargaming system. The campaign allowed registered participants to play miniature wargames using special "regional rules" for any one of thirteen regions of Middle-earth, and to submit the results to the campaign website. The results were then added up on the website, contributing to the overall result of the campaign. The campaign was launched on 1 June 2005 and lasted 14 weeks (or 92 days). There were 3007 registered participants, and 27239 games were submitted. Although based in the United Kingdom, the campaign was open to all countries and was promoted in Games Workshop hobby centres worldwide. The campaign also received coverage in the monthly magazine White Dwarf and the fortnightly Battle Games in Middle-earth, and Games Workshop released the special "Gimli on Dead Uruk-hai" miniature to promote the event. Campaign Structure The campaign system was designed by Mathew Ward. Based on the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, the only two sides were "Good" and "Evil", who contested thirteen regions set in Middle-earth: Eriador, Angmar, Iron Hills, Mirkwood, Misty Mountains, Dunland & Isengard, Lothlórien & Fangorn, Rohan, Rhûn, Gondor, Mordor, Harad and the Fellowship Path. Each day, registered participants could submit the results of a tabletop battle-game played using special "regional rules" for any one of these regions. The website's "War Room" was updated each weekday at 10:00 GMT, and showed where each side was leading. At the end of each week, the wins would be tallied and "Victory Points" would be awarded to each side to determine who was winning over all. There was also an internet forum for each side on the website, where participants could discuss strategies for swinging the regions in their side's favour. These were moderated by Steve Hammatt, who was at the time forum moderator on the main Games Workshop website. Hammatt assisted the running of the campaign both by making announcements and answering player's questions, and by passing on player feedback to the campaign organisers. There were also two "player created strategy groups" formed mid-campaign, the Alliance of Light and the Dark Council, who received particular mention and thanks from Games Workshop in White Dwarf. Games Workshop also introduced the "Wrath of Umbar" Roadshow, with custom-built corsair models and gaming boards being brought to various cities in the United Kingdom. Progress of the campaign The campaign started with what was later called "a solid series of victories for Good", insofar as Harad was the only region to remain under Evil control at the end of the first week. It was worried that the campaign was going to be a walkover, but the Evil side clawed their way back and took many of Good's most strongly held regions. Rohan, a "seemingly impregnable" stronghold
The War of the Ring online campaign
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Celebrimbor () is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. His name means "silver fist" or "hand of silver" in Tolkien's invented language of Sindarin. In Tolkien's stories, Celebrimbor was an elven-smith who was manipulated into forging the Rings of Power by the Dark Lord Sauron, in fair disguise and named Annatar ("Lord of Gifts"). Sauron then secretly made the One Ring to gain control over all the other Rings and dominate Middle-earth, setting in motion the events of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien, as a professional philologist, had been asked to translate an inscription at the temple of Nodens at Lydney Park (Gloucester). There was a curse upon a ring; the place was named "Dwarf's Hill"; and he traced Nodens to an Irish hero whose name meant "silver hand". This may have inspired him to create Celebrimbor and other elements of The Lord of the Rings. Celebrimbor appears in the 2014 video game Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its 2017 sequel, where he is voiced by Alastair Duncan. In the 2022 television show The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, he is played by Charles Edwards. Middle-earth narrative Celebrimbor was the son of Curufin, fifth son of Fëanor and Nerdanel, and Fëanor's only known grandchild. Fëanor was the most skilful craftsman of the First Age, forging the three Silmarils to capture some of the light of the Two Trees of Valinor. It is not stated where or when Celebrimbor was born. During the Second Age, Celebrimbor lived in the Elvish realm of Eregion and founded a brotherhood of jewel-smiths. Dwarf-friend From the early days of Eregion, Celebrimbor fostered the relationship with Khazad-dûm (Moria), the neighbouring Dwarf-kingdom. He became friends with Narvi, a great Dwarf-craftsman, and together they made the West-gate of Khazad-dûm. Celebrimbor's special contribution was the inscriptions on the gateway. Ring-maker Later, someone naming himself Annatar arrived in Eregion. He appeared to be an Elf, and claimed he has been sent by the Valar to share his wisdom and skills in ring-craft and jewelry for the benefit of all Middle-earth; but in fact he was the Dark Lord Sauron in disguise. Annatar provided valuable and seemingly benevolent guidance and instruction to Celebrimbor and the smiths of Eregion, and they began making the Rings of Power for the rulers of Middle-earth—seven for the Dwarf-lords and nine for Men. Secretly, without Sauron's knowledge, Celebrimbor also forged three Rings for the Elves, the greatest and fairest of the Rings of Power. The three Rings were thus free of Sauron's corrupting influence. At the same time, Sauron secretly forged a ring: the One Ring which would enable him to rule Middle-earth. Later Sauron reassumed his role as the Dark Lord and placed the One Ring on his finger, claiming dominion over all the Rings of Power and their bearers. Before this, Celebrimbor believed Sauron to be what he had claimed to be, but realising the truth he and the Elves of Eregion defied Sauron by withholding the
Celebrimbor
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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is an American fantasy television series developed by J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay for the streaming service Amazon Prime Video. Based on J. R. R. Tolkien's history of Middle-earth, primarily material from the appendices of the novel The Lord of the Rings, the series is set thousands of years before the novel and depicts the major events of Middle-earth's Second Age. It is produced by Amazon Studios in association with New Line Cinema. The series features a large ensemble cast portraying characters from Tolkien's writings as well as original creations for the series. The following list is divided based on the different cultures of Middle-earth, and then ordered per first appearance within the series. Elves Galadriel (portrayed by Morfydd Clark):An Elven warrior who believes evil is returning to Middle-earth. The series shows the character's journey from a warrior to the "elder stateswoman" that she is portrayed as in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The showrunners based her initial depiction in the series on a letter in which Tolkien described a young Galadriel as being of "Amazon disposition". Clark said her fluency in Welsh made it easier to learn Galadriel's Elvish lines. Amelie Child-Villiers portrays a young Galadriel. Finrod (portrayed by Will Fletcher):Galadriel's brother who died hunting Sauron. Thondir (portrayed by Fabian McCallum ):An Elf hunting for Sauron with Galadriel. Rían (portrayed by Kip Chapman):An Elf hunting for Sauron with Galadriel. Elrond (portrayed by Robert Aramayo):A half-Elven architect and politician. Aramayo was interested in exploring the pressure that Elrond faces living up to the legacy of his father, Eärendil, as well as the fact that Elrond chose to be immortal unlike his brother Elros, whom Elrond had to watch grow old and die. Elrond goes from being optimistic and eager to world-weary and closed-off throughout the series. Gil-galad (portrayed by Benjamin Walker):The High King of the Elves who rules from the realm of Lindon. The character is mentioned in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings in a poem called "The Fall of Gil-galad", and Walker said the series would expand on that. He highlighted the character's "odd gift of foresight. He's prescient, and he's ahead of the curve. He can kind of feel the pulse of evil rising." Arondir (portrayed by Ismael Cruz Córdova):A Silvan Elf with a forbidden love for the human healer Bronwyn, similar to Tolkien's love stories about Beren and Lúthien and Aragorn and Arwen. Médhor (portrayed by Augustus Prew):An Elf serving with Arondir. Revion (portrayed by Simon Merrells):The Elven Watchwarden of the Southlands. Celebrimbor (portrayed by Charles Edwards):The Elven smith who forges the Rings of Power, he is a "brilliant artisan" known throughout Middle-earth who is friends with the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm. Dwarves Durin IV (portrayed by Owain Arthur):The prince of the Dwarven city of Khazad-dûm. It took three hours to apply Arthur's Dwarven prosthetics each day. Disa (portrayed by Sophia Nomvete):Durin IV's wife and princess of the Dwarven city of Khazad-dûm. Disa and the other
List of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power characters
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Rick Porras is an American producer, notably co-producing The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended Stanford University, graduating in 1988 with a degree in history. He had a cameo appearance with Peter Jackson and other crew members in the special extended edition of The Return of the King as a Corsair pirate. Filmography Producer Contact (1997): Associate producer The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001): Co-producer The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002): Co-producer The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003): Co-producer Cártel, El (2006): Executive producer Miscellaneous crew Death Becomes Her (1992): Production associate The Public Eye (1992): assistant to Robert Zemeckis Forrest Gump (1994): Archival Research Coordinator No Fate But What We Make: 'Terminator 2' and the Rise of Digital Effects (2003): Special thanks Big Dreams Little Tokyo (2006): Special thanks Production manager Forrest Gump (1992): Post-production supervisor The Frighteners (1996): Post-production supervisor Second unit director The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001): Additional second-unit director The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) Actor The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) - Gollums Stand-in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) - Eldacar (uncredited) King Kong (2005) - Gunner #2 External links American film producers Living people Year of birth missing (living people)
Rick Porras
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Hollywood movies refers to the cinema of United States of America. The Hollywood cinema industry plays an important role among the world movie making studios. It is the third largest film market in the world. Hollywood movies in the 21st century are sometimes called "New Hollywood". Starting from the 2000s, American movies began to earn more fans and contributed to the box office. Science fiction, fantasy films, and animated movies have been globally impacting the movie industry. Research shows that compared to 20th century, the value of the movies approximately doubled. International advertising had a crucial role in making "New Hollywood" bigger, compared to 20th century. Most of the movies` box office numbers are increased by overseas viewers. Academy Award for Best Picture The Academy Awards is also considered the most prestigious award within American cinema. In the current century, As of 2018 the academy has given 17 best picture awards to drama movies and 1 to Chicago (2002 film) which is musical and crime film. Among the winners, the highest-grossing movie is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with 1.12 billion dollars worldwide. Adventure genre Adventure movies is the number 1 genre for earning the money. "Avatar" still stands in the first place since 2009, with its 2.8 billion US dollars in box office, is the world's highest-grossing film of all time. 72.7% of the numbers come from foreign gross and 27.3% is domestic gross. The rights are owned by "Fox Filmed Entertainment" and it was directed by James Cameron. It cost 237 million dollars to make the movie and it took 10 years to make. The movie won 88 awards and 3 of them were Academy Awards that included Best Achievement in Cinematography, Best Achievement in Visual Effects and Best Achievement in Art Direction. It is "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" standing in the second, the same genre. The movie is the highest-grossing movie in the saga, created by George Lucas and directed by J. J. Abrams. The Force Awakens is the 7th episode out of 9 since 1977 and the first of the last trilogy since 2015. The film series is currently owned by "LucasFilm, Ltd." and "The Walt Disney Company". The movie won 62 awards (5 Academy Awards). The cost of making it 253 million dollars. The gross was about 2 billion dollars worldwide: 45.3% was domestic and 53.7% was international. Talking about Academy Awards in adventure genre, British-American The Lord of the Rings (film series) were created by J. R. R. Tolkien. It received 17 Oscars in total: 4 for "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", 2 for "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" and 11 for "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King". The whole series` cost was 281 million dollars, and the box office numbers were about 2.9 billion dollars. J. K. Rowling`s British-American Wizarding World movies are considered the 3rd highest earning series with 8.537 billion dollars (The Highest-grossing
Hollywood cinema in 21st century
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J. R. R. Tolkien's narrative interlacing in The Lord of the Rings, also called by the French term entrelacement, is an unusual and complex narrative structure, known from medieval literature, that enables him to achieve a variety of literary effects. These include maintaining suspense, keeping the reader uncertain of what will happen and even of what is happening to other characters at the same time in the story; creating surprise and an ongoing feeling of bewilderment and disorientation. More subtly, the leapfrogging of the timeline in The Lord of the Rings by the different story threads allows Tolkien to make hidden connections that can only be grasped retrospectively, as the reader realises on reflection that certain events happened at the same time, and that these connections imply a contest of good and evil powers. Interlacing and interconnections presented Peter Jackson with a complex challenge in translating the book to a narrative suitable for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Scholars have noted that he used techniques such as intercutting, visual doubling, and voice-over to produce comparable emotional and thematic effects. Medieval entrelacement Interlace, known in the Middle Ages as entrelacement, was a narrative device developed in Medieval literature, especially in France. Rather than seeking to make a story as clear as possible with a main plot and subsidiary storylines as in a modern novel, the interlaced medieval tale aimed to reflect the confusing flow of events that people perceive in the world. The Tolkien scholar Richard C. West gives as example the 13th century Queste del Saint Graal, where the holy grail is just one goal, while the knights Bors, Galahad, Gawain, and Lancelot all pursue their own adventures, for readers to compare and contrast. Outside France, a form of interlace is seen in Ovid's Metamorphoses from ancient Rome, in the Old English epic poem Beowulf (on which Tolkien was an expert, as in his lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics"), and in the English poet Edmund Spenser's 1590 Faerie Queene. The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey comments that there is "a minor mystery" about Tolkien's use of this French Medieval literary device, as he favoured "northern" literature - Old English if possible, Old Norse otherwise - over French or later Italian epics like Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, which he notes was the model for Spenser's The Faerie Queene. The mystery stems from the fact that Tolkien hated Spenser's writing, and is recorded as saying that he hadn't read Ariosto "and wouldn't have liked him if I had". All the same, Shippey writes, Tolkien had read French interlaced romances when working on his edition of Sir Gawain; and his use of the technique is far more tightly structured than the Medieval romances. Narrative structure Applying the medieval technique The early reviewer William Blissett wrote in 1959, just a few years after the book was published, that The Lord of the Rings, given its medieval theme and structure, was "perhaps the last literary masterpiece of the Middle Ages." West comments
Interlacing in The Lord of the Rings
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The 6th Golden Satellite Awards were given on January 19, 2002, at the St. Regis Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Special achievement awards Mary Pickford Award (for outstanding contribution to the entertainment industry) – Karl Malden Special Achievement Award (for outstanding devotion & commitment in promoting the best of Israeli films through Israel Film Festival in the United States) – Meir Fenigstein Outstanding New Talent – Dakota Fanning / Rupert Grint Motion picture winners and nominees Best Actor – Drama Brian Cox – L.I.E. Russell Crowe – A Beautiful Mind Guy Pearce – Memento Sean Penn – I Am Sam Billy Bob Thornton – Monster's Ball Denzel Washington – Training Day Best Actor – Musical or Comedy Ewan McGregor – Moulin Rouge! Colin Firth – Bridget Jones's Diary Gene Hackman –The Royal Tenenbaums John Cameron Mitchell – Hedwig and the Angry Inch Ben Stiller – Zoolander Chris Tucker – Rush Hour 2 Best Actress – Drama Sissy Spacek – In the Bedroom Halle Berry – Monster's Ball Cate Blanchett – Charlotte Gray Judi Dench – Iris Nicole Kidman – The Others Tilda Swinton – The Deep End Best Actress – Musical or Comedy Nicole Kidman – Moulin Rouge! Thora Birch – Ghost World Audrey Tautou – Amélie (La fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain) Sigourney Weaver – Heartbreakers Reese Witherspoon – Legally Blonde Renée Zellweger – Bridget Jones's Diary Best Animated or Mixed Media Film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius Monsters, Inc. Shrek Best Art Direction Moulin Rouge! Gosford Park Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring The Others Best Cinematography The Man Who Wasn't There – Roger Deakins Hearts in Atlantis The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Moulin Rouge! Pearl Harbor Best Costume Design Moulin Rouge! – Catherine Martin and Angus Strathie The Affair of the Necklace From Hell The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Planet of the Apes Best Director Baz Luhrmann – Moulin Rouge! Jonathan Glazer – Sexy Beast John Cameron Mitchell – Hedwig and the Angry Inch Christopher Nolan – Memento Scott McGehee and David Siegel – The Deep End Best Documentary Film In Cane for Life (A Vida em Cana) Calle 54 My Voyage to Italy (Il mio viaggio in Italia) Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures Best Editing The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – John Gilbert Amélie (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain) A Beautiful Mind Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Moulin Rouge! Best Film – Drama In the Bedroom The Deep End Memento The Others Sexy Beast Best Film – Musical or Comedy Moulin Rouge! Bridget Jones's Diary Gosford Park Hedwig and the Angry Inch The Royal Tenenbaums Best Foreign Language Film No Man's Land, Bosnia-Herzegovina Amélie (Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain), France Baran, Iran Beijing Bicycle (Shiqi sui de dan che), China/France/Taiwan Our Lady of the Assassins
6th Golden Satellite Awards
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5th Online Film Critics Society Awards January 2, 2002 Best Film: Memento Mulholland Drive The 5th Online Film Critics Society Awards, honoring the best in filmmaking in 2001, were given on 2 January 2002. Top 10 films Memento (tied for 1st place with Mulholland Drive) Mulholland Drive (tied for 1st place with Memento) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Ghost World In the Bedroom Moulin Rouge! The Man Who Wasn't There Shrek Gosford Park (tied for 9th place with The Royal Tenenbaums) The Royal Tenenbaums (tied for 9th place with Gosford Park) Winners and nominees Best Picture Memento Mulholland Drive Ghost World In the Bedroom The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Best Director David Lynch – Mulholland Drive Joel Coen – The Man Who Wasn't There Todd Field – In the Bedroom Peter Jackson – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Baz Luhrmann – Moulin Rouge! Christopher Nolan – Memento Best Actor Billy Bob Thornton – The Man Who Wasn't There Russell Crowe – A Beautiful Mind Guy Pearce – Memento Denzel Washington – Training Day Tom Wilkinson – In the Bedroom Best Actress Naomi Watts – Mulholland Drive Thora Birch – Ghost World Nicole Kidman – The Others Sissy Spacek – In the Bedroom Tilda Swinton – The Deep End Best Supporting Actor Steve Buscemi – Ghost World Ben Kingsley – Sexy Beast Jude Law – A.I. Artificial Intelligence Ian McKellen – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Tony Shalhoub – The Man Who Wasn't There Best Supporting Actress Jennifer Connelly – A Beautiful Mind Scarlett Johansson – Ghost World Helen Mirren – Gosford Park Maggie Smith – Gosford Park Marisa Tomei – In the Bedroom Best Original Screenplay Mulholland Drive – David Lynch The Others – Alejandro AmenábarGosford Park – Julian Fellowes The Man Who Wasn't There – Joel and Ethan Coen The Royal Tenenbaums – Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson Best Adapted ScreenplayMemento – Christopher NolanA.I. Artificial Intelligence – Steven Spielberg Ghost World – Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwigoff In the Bedroom – Todd Field and Rob Festinger The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson Best Foreign Language FilmAmélie Fat Girl In the Mood for Love No Man's Land With a Friend Like Harry... Best Documentary Startup.com Down from the Mountain The Endurance The Gleaners and I Keep the River on Your Right: A Modern Cannibal Tale Best Animated Feature Shrek Atlantis: The Lost Empire Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within Monsters, Inc. Waking Life Best Cinematography The Man Who Wasn't There – Roger DeakinsA.I. Artificial Intelligence – Janusz Kamiński The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – Andrew Lesnie Moulin Rouge! – Donald McAlpine Mulholland Drive – Peter Deming Best EnsembleGosford Park Ghost World The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Ocean's Eleven The Royal Tenenbaums Best Original Score Mulholland Drive – Angelo BadalamentiA.I.
Online Film Critics Society Awards 2001
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The Round World Version is an alternative creation myth to the version of J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium as it appears in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. In that version, the Earth was created flat and was changed to round as a cataclysmic event during the Second Age in order to prevent direct access by Men to Valinor, home of the immortals. In the Round World Version, the Earth is created spherical from the beginning. Tolkien abandoned the Round World Version before completion of The Lord of the Rings but later regretted this decision. He felt that postulating an ancient flat world detracted from the believability of his writings. He planned a new round world version, but only got as far as an outline. He continued to redraft his published works to make them compatible with a round world version for most of the rest of his life. His son Christopher, editing The Silmarillion which he published after Tolkien's death, considered adjusting the text to comply with Tolkien's wish to return to the Round World Version, but decided against it, not least because the story of the submerging of Númenor relies intrinsically on the Flat World cosmology. History Tolkien gives the fullest account of the creation myth in the Ainulindalë ("Music of the Ainur"). He wrote the original version in the 1930s, calling it the "Flat World Version" or later the "Old Flat World Version" after he had created a new flat world version. In 1946 he wrote the "Round World Version", intending this to be the published version. Tolkien sent both the "Old Flat World Version" and the "Round World Version" to Katharine Farrer (mystery novelist and wife of the theologian Austin Farrer) for review in 1948. Farrer replied to him in October strongly supporting the Flat World Version – "The hope of Heaven is the only thing which makes modern astronomy tolerable..." Farrer seems to have influenced Tolkien to abandon the Round World Version, which he did before completing The Lord of the Rings, or even starting its last volume, The Return of the King. Tolkien created a new manuscript from a heavily edited Old Flat World Version. He then produced a final polished version with illuminated capitals. No version of the Ainulindalë was published during Tolkien's lifetime, but a heavily edited version later formed the first chapter of the 1977 The Silmarillion edited by Tolkien's son Christopher. The earliest version (not named Ainulindalë) was published in 1983 in The Book of Lost Tales volume 1. The Old Flat World Version was included in the 1987 The Lost Road and Other Writings. Both the Round World Version and the New Flat World Version were included in the 1993 Morgoth's Ring. The latter is a more faithful reproduction of Tolkien's manuscript than the version in The Silmarillion. Tolkien also wrote a Round World Version of the Akallabêth ("The Downfall of Númenor"), possibly in 1948 to match the Ainulindalë Round World Version. This is an Atlantis-like story of the
Round World version of Tolkien's legendarium
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Scholars and critics have identified many themes of The Lord of the Rings, a major fantasy novel by J. R. R. Tolkien, including a reversed quest, the struggle of good and evil, death and immortality, fate and free will, the danger of power, and various aspects of Christianity such as the presence of three Christ figures, for prophet, priest, and king, as well as elements like hope and redemptive suffering. There is also a strong thread throughout the work of language, its sound, and its relationship to peoples and places, along with moralisation from descriptions of landscape. Out of these, Tolkien stated that the central theme is death and immortality. In addition, some modern commentators have criticised Tolkien for supposed failings in The Lord of the Rings, such as not including significant women, not being relevant to city-dwellers, not overtly showing any religion, and for racism, though others have defended Tolkien against all these charges. Reversed quest The Tolkien critic Richard C. West writes that the story of The Lord of the Rings is basically simple: the hobbit Frodo Baggins's quest is to take the Dark Lord Sauron's Ring to Mount Doom and destroy it. He calls the quest "primary", along with the war against Sauron. The critic David M. Miller agrees that the quest is the "most important narrative device" in the book, but adds that it is reversed from the conventional structure: the hero is not seeking a treasure, but is hoping to destroy one. He notes that from Sauron's point of view, the tale is indeed a quest, and his evil Black Riders replace the traditional "errant knights seeking the holy of holies", while the Fellowship keeping the Ring from him cannot use it: thus there are multiple reversals. The Tolkien critic Tom Shippey concurs that it is "an anti-quest", a story of renunciation. He writes that Tolkien had lived through two world wars, the "routine bombardment" of civilians, the use of famine for political gain, concentration camps and genocide, and the development and use of chemical and nuclear weapons. Shippey states that the book raises the question of whether, if the ability of humans to produce that kind of evil could somehow be destroyed, even at the cost of sacrificing something, this would be worth doing. Antitheses "No careful reader of Tolkien's fiction can fail to be aware of the polarities that give it form and fiction," writes Verlyn Flieger. Tolkien's extensive use of duality and parallelism, contrast and opposition is found throughout the novel, in pairings such as hope and despair, knowledge and enlightenment, death and immortality, fate and free will, good and evil. Death and immortality Tolkien stated in his Letters that the core theme of The Lord of the Rings is death and the human desire to escape it: He commented further: An appendix tells The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, in which the immortal elf Arwen chooses mortality so that she can marry the mortal man Aragorn. After more than two hundred
Themes of The Lord of the Rings
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"The Shadow of the Past" is the second chapter of J. R. R. Tolkien's bestselling fantasy work, The Lord of the Rings, which was published in 1954–1955. Tolkien called it "the crucial chapter"; the Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey labelled it "the vital chapter". This is because it represents both the moment that Tolkien devised the central plot of the book, and the point in the story where the protagonist, Frodo Baggins, and the reader realise that there will be a quest to destroy the Ring. A sketch of it was among the first parts of the book to be written, early in 1938; later that year, it was one of three chapters of the book that he drafted. In 1944, he returned to the chapter, adding descriptions of Gollum, the Ring, and the hunt for Gollum. The chapter changes the book's tone from the first chapter's light-hearted hobbit partying, and introduces major themes of the book. These include a sense of the depth of time behind unfolding events, the power of the Ring, and the inter-related questions of providence, free will, and predestination. Peter Jackson, in his Lord of the Rings film trilogy, splits up Gandalf's description of the Ring's history to Frodo and compresses other parts of his talk. History Context The philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien had been working on his legendarium, the complex narratives that became The Silmarillion, for some 20 years, and had in 1937 published the well-received children's book The Hobbit. His publishers, George Allen & Unwin, asked him for a follow-up book. Over the Christmas of 1937, Tolkien began to write, without a clear idea where the story would lead, or indeed whether the audience would be children or adults. The first chapter set out in a style much like that of The Hobbit, with a story of Bilbo Baggins's speech at his birthday party. As he stated, the tale "grew in the telling", becoming the epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings, which was published in 1954–55. Further Hobbit-style adventures Tolkien's biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, writes that at the end of 1937, Tolkien wrote the first chapter of The Lord of the Rings, "A Long-Expected Party", but "had as yet no clear idea of what the new story was going to be about". A sketch of "The Shadow of the Past" soon followed; it was among the first parts of the book to be written, early in 1938. The scholar Christina Scull notes that Tolkien's words, "I wrote and tore up and rewrote most of it a good many times", applies as much to the start of The Lord of the Rings as to the section of book 4 to which he applied it. By beginning the work with a "long-expected" party, he was consciously echoing the "unexpected party" that began The Hobbit. She suggests that he was clearly planning that the hero – whether Bilbo, or in draft variants his son or his adopted young cousin Bingo –
The Shadow of the Past
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Brownies are the section in the Girl Guides (or in the United States, Girl Scouts) organization for girls aged seven years old to ten years old. Exact age limits are slightly different in each organization. History Brownies, originally called Rosebuds, were first organized by Lord Baden-Powell in 1914, to complete the range of age groups for girls in Scouting. They were first run as the youngest group in the Guide Association by Agnes Baden-Powell, Lord Baden-Powell's younger sister. In 1918 his wife, Lady Olave Baden-Powell, took over the responsibility for the Girl Guides and thus for Brownies. Originally the girls were called Rosebuds, but were renamed by Lord Baden-Powell after the girls had complained that they did not like their name. Their name comes from the story "The Brownies" by Juliana Horatia Ewing, written in 1870. In the story two children, Tommy and Betty, learn that children can be helpful brownies instead of being lazy boggarts. In November 2022, the Girl Guides in Canada announced by January 2023 they would rename this section of Guides, as it was deemed to be "a barrier to racialized girls and women" and to be more inclusive. In January 2023, the name Brownies was changed to Embers. Italian history In Italy, the term was maintained and also extended to boys, coexisting with Wolf Cubs. United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, Brownies were originally called Rosebuds. Rosebuds was started in 1914 and was originally for girls aged 8–11. Rosebuds was renamed to Brownies in 1915. In 1937 Princess Margaret became the first royal Brownie. Brownies is the second youngest section of Girlguiding in the UK, catering for girls aged 7–10. A group of Brownies who meet together is called a unit. Brownies work in small groups called sixes: each six is named after either fairies or woodland creatures. A six is led by a Sixer and has a Second who acts as deputy. The Brownie programme is called the Brownie Adventure. It is split into 3 parts: you, community, world. Brownies work towards interest badges, there are 57. These can be done in meetings with the unit or at home or in clubs such as swimming. Brownies can also work towards their Adventure badges. These are gained over a period of time and require girls to complete many different activities, such as going on an adventure, taking part in an activity with another unit and earning an interest badge. There are a few Brownie songs that some packs sing at the beginning of the meeting: Come let us make a Brownie ring, a Brownie Ring a Brownie Ring Come let us make a Brownie Ring, we hear our Brown Owl Calling. Under the Brownie bridge we go, bridge we go, bridge we go Under the Brownie bridge we go, because we are the..... (name of six is entered) This is usually sung as each six skips under the brownie bridge and into the circle. It is often followed by the next song: We're Brownie Guides,
Brownies (Scouting)
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Lord Humongous is a professional wrestling character also known as a "gimmick" that was originally introduced in Memphis' Continental Wrestling Association (CWA) in 1984. The character was based on a gang leader called "the Humungus" or at times "Lord Humungus" from the 1981 movie Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. The original Lord Humongous was portrayed by Mike Stark, who was tall and physically impressive like the character in the movie. Since Lord Humongous always wears a Hockey mask it allowed promoters to replace the man under the mask without having to publicly acknowledge that it was someone else playing the part. The character became a recurring gimmick in the CWA but was also used in other promotions after the CWA closed. The character has been played by a number of wrestlers including Jeff Van Camp Sr., Sid Vicious, Barry Buchanan and Sid's son Gunnar Eudy. Scott Hall wrestled as Lord Humongous in PWF out of Florida in 1989. John King wrestled as Lord Humongous in 1985 Texas All Star Wrestling along with Mad Maxx John Richmond aka Eli the Eliminator managed by Slick. Character history The character was introduced as Manager Jimmy Hart's latest "Monster heel" (wrestling term for someone who portrays the "bad guys" in the ring) to challengethe Continental Wrestling Association's (CWA) dominant face (someone who plays the "good guy" in the ring) Jerry "the King" Lawler. The original Lord Humongous was portrayed by Mike Stark, chosen for his impressive physique. Based on the character "the Humungus" from Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior movie Lord Humongous would always wear a Hockey mask that would cover his entire face as well as ring gear that resembled the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max 2. Stark only played Lord Humongous for the first couple of months of 1984 before he was replaced by Jeff Van Camp under the mask without the CWA revealing that it was a different man playing the part. Lord Humongous (Jeff Van Camp Sr.) was introduced to the public with an official music video “War Machine” by KISS and became a theme song when entering the ring. Later on CWA would reuse the Lord Humongous ring character some young wrestlers who had a very muscular physique. One such wrestler was Sid Eudy who played Lord Humongous in 1987. He would later move on to work for both World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) under various names including "Sid Vicious" "Sid Justice" and "Sycho Sid." Sid would go on to win the WWF Championship and WCW World Heavyweight championship belts. In the 1990s rookie Barry Buchanan would play the part of Lord Humongous before moving on to working for the WWF as Bull Buchanan. In 2009 Sid's son Gunnar Eudy, a rookie with an impressive physique, played the same part his father did 22 years earlier as he competed as Lord Humongous. John Gavin has played the role of Lord Humongous off and on since 1984 while John Bass also played the
Lord Humongous
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The Wellington Blown Away sign is a landmark of Wellington, New Zealand. Wellywood Wellywood is an informal name for the city of Wellington, New Zealand. The name—a conflation of Wellington and Hollywood—was coined in the 1990s and is a reference to the film production business established in the city by The Lord of the Rings film director Sir Peter Jackson, and Wellington-based special effects companies Weta Workshop and Weta Digital. The businesses operate a number of film-related facilities in the Wellington suburb of Miramar. History In March 2010, the Wellington Airport company announced plans to erect a Hollywood-style sign saying WELLYWOOD on a hillside next to the Miramar cutting. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which owns the original Hollywood sign, threatened legal action over concerns about breach of copyright. After the airport considered a range of alternatives, it was announced in May 2011 that the Wellywood sign would be going ahead. However this was met with enormous criticism, and on 1 June 2011 the airport announced that a panel would be convened to consider alternative sign options. The panel ran a binding public poll on The Dominion Post website with the Wellington Blown Away design being chosen. The sign spells WELLINGTON, with the last letters being "blown" upwards. It was designed by Matt Sellars and Ray McKay from Auckland-based company Saatchi & Saatchi. The sign was erected on 27 July 2012, and cost $80,000. In 2014 the sign was changed twice. The W in the sign was replaced with a red V to spell VELLINGTON, promoting a local vampire comedy movie called What We Do in the Shadows. Later in 2014 the sign was changed to WOWINGTON to promote the World of Wearable Art fashion show. In May 2022 somebody painted the sign in a patchwork of pastel colours and it remained that way for months. In June 2023 the sign was repainted white and the O in the sign was temporarily replaced with a 3.6m diameter football to promote the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup. See also List of Hollywood-inspired nicknames Cinema of New Zealand Park Road Post Weta Digital References External links Welcome to Wellywood Article on the premiere of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Cinema of New Zealand New Zealand slang Wellington City Buildings and structures in Wellington City
Wellington Blown Away sign
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Lejendary Adventure (abbreviated as LA) is a role-playing game created by Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and creator of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D). Publication history Gygax originally devised Lejendary Adventure as a role-playing video game, but he later decided to develop the game as a printed fantasy RPG. Lejendary Adventure products were published by both Hekaforge Productions and Troll Lord Games. Three months after Gygax's death in 2008, his widow Gail withdrew all of the licenses from Troll Lord and also from Hekaforge. The game has been out of print since. Gameplay Like other role-playing games, Lejendary Adventure is played using polyhedral dice, pencils, paper, and sometimes miniatures. Unlike Dungeons & Dragons, Lejendary Adventure has a player character creation system that is skill-based rather than ability based, resulting in even more flexible character creation to allow role-playing of almost any kind of character. Lejendary Adventures still provide Archetypes using "Orders." Orders are guild-like organizations that provide benefits to the characters. Players can also choose to be unordered. Order is determined by the character's first chosen ability. Orders include the Noble, Rogue, and Elementalist. Unordered characters still advance, but they do so without the benefit of a guild. Various races are also available, with different definitions from other RPGs. Races in Lejendary Adventure include Dwarves, Ilves, Wylves (Ilves and Wylves are two of many Fair Alfar, i.e. what are usually called elves in other RPGs), Gnomes, Kobolds, and Veshoge. As for character advancement, instead of levels, Lejendary Adventure characters receive Merits - points that can be used to increase their Abilities or Base Ratings, as well as buy new Abilities. The standard campaign setting is Lejendary Earth, called Learth. Lejendary Adventure products (Some adventures were also compatible with d20): Rule Books: The Lejendary Rules for All Players – Fantasy Role-Playing Game core rulebook, Hekaforge Productions, 1999 The Lejend Master's Lore – Fantasy Role-Playing Game core rulebook, Hekaforge Productions, 2000 The Beasts of Lejend – Fantasy Role-Playing Game core rulebook, Hekaforge Productions, 2000 More Beasts of Legend – Troll Lord Games, 2007 Campaign World Books: Lejendary Earth Gazetteer – World Setting sourcebook Part 1, Hekaforge Productions, 2002 Noble Kings and Dark Lands – LE World Setting Part 2, (Gary Gygax with Chris Clark) Hekaforge Productions, 2003 The Exotic Realms of Hazgar – LE World Setting Part 3, (Gary Gygax with Chris Clark) Hekaforge Productions, 2006 Jewels of the East - possibly never produced Adventure Scenarios: Terekaptra: Lost City of the Utiss – (Chris Clark) Enclave – (Chris Clark), Adventure module editor, Hekaforge Productions, 2000 The Lejendary Road – (Jon Creffield) The Dance of the Fairie Ring – (Jon Creffield) The Mouth of the Marsh – (Jon Creffield) Cavalcade – (Larry D. Hols) included with Lejend Master's Screen The Rock – (Chris Clark) The Hermit (Gary Gygax) – dual-stat d20/LA game adventure module, Troll Lord Games, August 2002 The Lost City of Gaxmoor – (Ernie & Luke Gygax with David Moore) Troll Lord Games, 2002 Hall of Many
Lejendary Adventure
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The translation of The Lord of the Rings into Swedish has been the subject of controversy. The first version, by Åke Ohlmarks, was made in 1959–1961; it was the only one available in Swedish for forty years. Tolkien took issue with Ohlmarks' translation, identifying numerous errors and inconsistencies. In 1967, in response to Ohlmarks' Swedish and Max Schuchart's Dutch translations, Tolkien produced his "Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings"; it discusses how to translate The Lord of the Rings' personal names and place-names, giving multiple examples from Ohlmarks' Swedish of what not to do when translating. Ohlmarks rejected all criticism, stating that he had intentionally created an interpretation of Tolkien, not a straight translation. Swedish commentators took a wider range of positions on Ohlmarks' version: some admired it, while others thought it defective. Ohlmarks' version was superseded in 2005 by Erik Andersson's more direct translation, with Tolkien's embedded poems translated by . Andersson followed Tolkien's instructions on translating names, retaining some such as Vidstige for Strider and Fylke for the Shire, on the grounds that these were well established. The 2005 version attracted great interest in Sweden, and was on the whole well received. Åke Ohlmarks 1959–1961 Åke Ohlmarks (1911–1984) was a philologist and prolific translator, who during his career published Swedish versions of Shakespeare, Dante and the Qur'an. His translation of J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy The Lord of the Rings was the only one available in Swedish for forty years. He ignored complaints and calls for revision from readers, stating in his 1978 book Tolkiens arv ("Tolkien's legacy") that his intention had been to create an interpretation of Tolkien, not a translation. After The Silmarillion was published in 1977, Tolkien's son and literary executor Christopher Tolkien consented to a Swedish translation only on the condition that Ohlmarks have nothing to do with it; the translation was made by Roland Adlerberth. Ohlmarks subsequently published a book called Tolkien and Black Magic. Tolkien's response Tolkien intensely disliked Ohlmarks and his translation of The Lord of the Rings. He disliked Ohlmarks' version even more than Shuchart's 1956–57 Dutch translation, as is evident from a 1957 letter to his publisher Rayner Unwin: Examples singled out by Tolkien in the same letter include: In his 1967 "Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings", produced in response to Ohlmarks' version, Tolkien pointed out numerous other translations that he found dubious. For example, Ohlmarks used Vattnadal "Water-dale" for Rivendell, apparently, Tolkien commented, by way of taking riven for river. The Ent Quickbeam becomes Snabba solstrålen, "Swift Sunbeam", apparently taking beam in the sense of "beam of light" instead of "tree", ignoring the fact that all Ents have names connected with trees. Tolkien stated that Quickbeam was so named because he was a "hasty" Ent; Tolkien advises translating the name to give the sense "quick (lively) tree", noting that both "Quickbeam" and "Quicken" are actual English names for the rowan tree. Ohlmarks sometimes offers multiple translations for names: for
Translation of The Lord of the Rings into Swedish
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"The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers" is the thirteenth episode of the sixth season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 92nd overall episode of the series. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on November 13, 2002. In the episode, the boys dress up and play as characters from The Lord of the Rings film series, with several events and characters substituted into the narrative. They extend their game into a "quest" to return a copy of the film to a local video store. Meanwhile, the adults have accidentally switched the tape with a pornographic film. The episode was written by series co-creator Trey Parker. Both Parker and co-creator Matt Stone have repeatedly referred to it as one of their favorite and strongest episodes of South Park. Plot The episode opens with Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and a disembodied Kenny (sharing Cartman's body) playing "The Lord of the Rings." Stan's parents have rented the movie The Lord of the Rings (specifically, The Fellowship of the Ring), and tell Stan, Kyle & Cartman to bring it to Butters' parents, as they had asked to borrow it. Still caught up in their game, the boys see this assignment as a "quest", and set off on their journey. Stan's parents attempt to watch a pornographic movie, but discover Randy mixed it up with the Lord of the Rings tape, and realize that Butters is now watching it at his house. The two drive to Butters' house, and come across the boys returning home, having already delivered the tape. Stan's father plays into the boys' imagination and sends them on their greatest quest ever: retrieve the tape, but do not look at it as it "holds an evil power." Excited, the boys eagerly comply and set off toward Butters' house. They arrive and take the tape, but not before discovering that Butters, though not realizing the nature of it, has watched the movie and becomes obsessed with it, even wondering aloud, "What's happenin' down there?" (in reference to his groin) before the other boys arrive. Excluded from the game and denied the video, Butters becomes steadily more insane, and remains secluded in the basement, muttering about his "precious" and generally acting like Sméagol/Gollum. At this point the Marshes, who have grown worried that the boys have not returned, show up. Distraught at Butters' behavior, they assume that the boys now have the tape and are watching it. Contacting the other parents, they inform them that the pornographic movie in question is called "Backdoor Sluts 9", considered by many as 'the most hardcore porno ever made' and go on a desperate search to find their missing children and "put it into context." Returning home, the boys run into some sixth graders, who look inside the box and realize what the contents are. Although they try to take the tape, the boys are able to escape and decide to take it to the council
The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers
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"Call Him Lord" is a novelette by the American writer Gordon R. Dickson. It was first published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in May 1966. In the story, the heir to a galactic empire tours a museum-like Earth, accompanied by a bodyguard who is a resident. Through ensuing events and conversations they judge each other. Story summary In the far future, Earth is preserved as it was before there was a galactic empire. In Kentucky, Kyle Arnam, whose ancestors were bodyguards to the Emperor's ancestors "back in the wars of conquest against the aliens", is required to accompany the Emperor's eldest son, who is visiting Earth and traveling incognito. The Prince is callow, arrogant and patronizing, and has little respect for Earth; he says that his tutor "belongs to the school of old men who still think your Earth is something precious and vital"; he is here only to please his father. They ride through the countryside on horses, and find a beer garden. They have refreshments at a table near a dance floor, and the Prince insists that he should dance with the waitress who served them. A busboy, noticing his arrogant behavior, takes hold of his arm; the Prince is scandalized and attacks him. Kyle persuades the Prince to abandon the argument, and they leave. "The only way to keep a race and culture preserved is to keep it alive," Kyle says in the bar of a roadside inn. The Earth is "a living example for the Younger Worlds to check themselves against." The Prince is more interested in the waitress. While Kyle goes out to check the horses, the Prince disappears. When he later finds him, he learns that the Prince has been in the waitress's room. Asked by Kyle why he did it, he says, "You see I've seen through you. I know whose bodyguard you are. You're theirs!" They leave the inn and find a bar at a fishing resort. The Prince says, "I've seen you people, now. You don't outclass us, out on the Younger Worlds.... I can do what I want here, and no one on this planet is good enough to stop me. Watch." He starts to talk to the waitress, interrupting a man nearby; the man throws the Prince's beer in his face. The bartender tells them to go outside to fight. The Prince, aware that the man would win the fight, takes Kyle's gun and backs out of the bar; Kyle follows him. The Prince refuses to give him back the gun. Kyle realizes the Prince, a coward, has failed the test set by the Emperor, and he takes action. Reception "Call Him Lord" was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 1967. It won the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 1967, and was included in Nebula Award Stories Two; in the introduction to the story, the editors wrote: "His Emperor has the ring of a true emperor, and behind him we are aware of
Call Him Lord