The Hall of Fire

3. The big one: Èowyn vs. Witch-king Èowyn: I will kill you if you touch him! Witch-king: Do not come between the Nazgûl and his prey. Witch-king: Fool... No man can kill me... die now... Èowyn: I am no man! I don't rememer the films much, so it's almost like I'm seeing these for the first time. It...

Regarding the latter, Kane observes that “Tom Shippey cites [one passage] as an example of Tolkien’s genius for creating compelling images. Yet, as we have seen, Thingol’s death in the dark recesses of Menegroth was completely an invention of the editors” (216). Though Kane is circumspect enough, p...

Once I joined TORC, however, I made the mistake of taking the word of certain people about the TORN community, which was a shame. I vaguely gather that the hostility went both ways, though I've never been sure how each side characterized the other. I was late in discovering online Tolkiena (in Dece...

Oh! That's a great point. I never thought of it, but it's true -- Frodo was armed with the same kind of knife from the barrow that Merry had. No wonder WiKi was nervous -- assuming he figured out what the knife was . But of course the readers, or the hobbits, don't find out about that until much la...

N.E.B., I hardly think those examples are similar to PJ's use of Dwarf-humour, either. Thorin is self-important to a fault; he would certainly never lower himself to the level that Gimli does in the films. At least that is how I see it. Oh, sorry, wasn't following the conversation closely enough, a...

The Dwarves in general, yes, but I can't think of any instances in which Thorin himself does [provide comic relief]... Can you point to any? From "An Unexpected Party": This was Thorin’s style. He was an important dwarf. If he had been allowed, he would probably have gone on like this unt...

Let The Hobbit be The Hobbit!

*gasp* --can't... breathe-- *passes out*

This was written after LOTR was published (but before the second edition). It's possible that it wasn't Tolkien's intention at the time he wrote this that it was the Riders that attacked the Inn, but he certainly concluded that it was afterwards. And there really isn't any reason to believe that he...

That confirms that the depiction of the Valar in the two illustrations ... is definitely accurate. Well, that depends: are they accurate depictions of the scenes as described only in those particular texts? If Tolkien couldn't be bothered to be clear when writing those particular passages that the ...

Coincidentally, it is because of Voronwë's book (then in MS. form) that I happen to have trancscribed (and saved in my e-mail) the pages where the following nearly identical notes appear: The fanar of the Great Valar were said, by the Elves who had dwelt in Valinor , usually to have had a stature gr...

Tolkien did say in a late interview (altho he had denied it elsewhere) that the beginning and end dates of the Quest, December 25 and March 25, were quite deliberate... He said it in Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings as well, assuming the following excerpt, posted online, is accurate: Lithe [an...

yovargas wrote:

Primula Baggins wrote:And of course at the time Tolkien was writing, either name would have sounded fine.

Was the term not coined until later?

It dates to the 1850s: << Etymology >>
However, I think the abbreviation is more recent.

Woo and hoo! Mine arrived this morning as I left for work, but I had to leave it, waiting for me just inside the front door. Congratulations, Voronwë! On p. 216, it says "as renown a Tolkien scholar as Shippey", when it ought to be "renowned". Ah, well that one is a particular sh...

I think PJ's excuse was something along those lines, too... just sat through about 15 mins of DVD commentary and PJ does indeed say that it's all about making Pelennor different from Helm's Deep. In Tolkien's commentary on the Zimmerman film treatment of LOTR, he argued that the two battles might b...

and for heaven's sake, Frodo does not "offer the Ring" to the Nazgûl The fact that there is still doubt in people's mind about this tells me that part was a cinematic miscue. His intentions should have been clearer. Now this would be the point when someone replies, "Please! Do the fi...

Am I correct in remembering that [ A Man Escaped ] it is not in any way meant to be an adaptation of LOTR ? Yes. For all I know, Bresson had never heard of Tolkien or LOTR -- at least in 1956; he died in 1999 and was making films into the early 1980s. But A Man Escaped (French title: Un condamné à ...

N.E.B., I'm sure you've posted this... but I'd love to see your top ten list. I'd be willing to wager that a good number of them I haven't even heard of , but I'm pretty sure they would be worth checking out. I think this is the list you're remembering: 1. Pather Panchali (India 1955, d. Satyajit R...

Blech. Well, it's a damn sight better than Titanic ! While I thought Titanic was only the third-best of the five Best Picture nominees for 1997, I do prefer it to RotK , slightly. But I'd guess that most of the respondents in the recent poll hadn't seen most of the films they were voting against. I...

The rules of operation require a supermajority to end a filibuster. I have no problem with that. My problem is with the practice of allowing bills to be blocked without a filibuster, thereby requiring a supermajority to pass anything that a minority of 41 Senators objects to... There is a broader i...

Primula Baggins wrote:"Paregoric."
<raps everyone on the knuckles with her thimble>

Alas, pare Goric. I knew him, Horatio.