Is LOTR 'Round World From the Beginning'?

[Pearly Di]

I totally agree with Alatar.

When I first read LOTR, it was obvious to me that I was reading a story set in our world. An imaginary history from our world, but unmistakeably rooted in our world! That's why I prefer Middle-earth to any other fantasy world I've ever read. I just don't care that much about airy-fairy kingdoms set who-knows-where. I infinitely prefer the vast sense of ROOTEDNESS that Middle-earth has, sourced as it is not only in the legends and mythologies of our own world, but also in the very same rock, earth and soil from which they sprang.

In the Third Age, that's a real Sun and a real Moon. And they're OUR sun and moon! They simply bear the ancient mythical names given to them in the First Age.

The stars the Elves sing to in the woods of the Shire are the constellations we still see: Pleiades and Orion etc. Aren't they?*

Which leads me to the tricky question of Eärendil, the Evening star. Is that the planet Venus Frodo and Bilbo are looking up at when they contemplate the night sky in Rivendell? Or is that light, literally, still, Eärendil in his sky-ship, bearing the Silmaril??????????????????

I mean, if that were still true, in Bilbo and Frodo's time, then that would be Elrond's dad floating about up there!

It's all quite bizarre.

I've certainly always thought that Borgil - the red 'star' Frodo begins to see glowing in the night sky at Rivendell, like the red eye of Sauron - is very obviously Mars, the red planet.

What I think is this: Tolkien is weaving a strong thread between the ancient Third Age and our present time, in not too heavy-handed a way, and I just love that.

* Because this is OUR world, baptised in the language of Myth and Symbol. Which doesn't, incidentally, make Elbereth the Star-Kindler a myth. She is obviously a real person and a real power in the Tolkien universe.

Wow. This is deep.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The Silmarillion is Tolkiens "Epic of Gilgamesh". It was written as a Myth. Yet when he was asked for a sequel to the Hobbit, he wrote a more modern fable using that Mythic background. The world of the Silmarillion is one of Myth, but the world of "Lord of the Rings" is not. The fact that they share characters is an accident after the fact.

I can't accept this at all.

The whole Saga of the Three Jewels and the Rings of Power

I had in my letter made a strong point that the Silmarillion etc and The Lord of the Rings went together, as one long Sega of the Jewels and the Rings, and that I was resolved to treat them as one thing, however they might formally be issued.

That is certainly how I look at it.

sirocco, you do make a good point here:

Tolkien would have become increasingly dissatisfied with what he had produced. How could he not? The stories were incomplete, chaotic and inconsistent. Tolkien, the inveterate perfectionist and seeker of consistency, who wrote and re-wrote virtually every sentence in LOTR, a work far less dear to him than the Silmarillion myths, would have come to feel that he had let himself down.

Once it became clear that LOTR was a major success, the publishers of course switched course and pressed him for the Silmarillion, but he was never able to complete it to his satisfaction. It may well be that had A & U acceded to his demands in the first place of publishing the whole Saga of the Jewels and the Rings together that the result might have been that we never saw any of it.



Nonetheless, I continue to believe that Tolkien never would have abandoned the basic structure of that Saga. scirocco (and anyone else), I still have not heard a satisfactory explanation for what would have been done about the Two Trees had the mythology been converted to one with "the Sun and the Moon from the beginning"? I can certainly say that the proposed solution in Myth's Transformed (Text II) does not at all work for me. And Gandalf, of course, refers to the Two Trees in talking to Pippin about the palantír:

Even now my heart desires to test my will upon it, to see it I could not wrench it from him and turn it where I would -- to look across the wide seas of water and of time to Tirion the Fair, and perceive the unimaginable hand and mind of Fëanor at their work, while both the White Tree and the Golden were in flower!

[Sassafras]

Repeating myself here Both the Two Trees and the Silmarils would have been rendered superfluous had the sun and moon been present from the creation. Without the Light of the Trees there is no need for Fëanor to have some shadow of foreknowledge of the doom that drew near; and he pondered how the light of the Trees, the glory of the Blessed Realm, might be preserved imperishable .... and without the Silmarils there would have been no Doom of the Noldor.........and no exodus of the Elves back into Middle-earth. In short, the story would, of necessity, have been very different and, I dare say, unrecognizable.

Tolkien had to keep the myths as first written: too much depends upon the flat earth.

I can certainly say that the proposed solution in Myth's Transformed (Text II)

What is this?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

You'll have to read the text. It's too much for me to summarize. Suffice it to say that he attempts to fit a square peg in a round hole.

[Alatar]

Sass, Ath, if you read back I've already proposed a solution that neatly solves both problems. However, since none seem to recognise it's validity, I won't repeat it ad nauseum.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Al, are you referring to this comment?

I can only assume that the Silmarillion as completed by Tolkien would have presented the Tale of the Sun and Moon as a Myth of the unenlightened. Thus, we mus assume that the Flat Earth concept could have been treated in a similar fashion.

Or are you referring to your previous comments in the "physical universe" thread?

In any event, I have two questions for you, scirocco and any other proponent of the theory that the tales in the Sil are naught but primitive myths of the unenlightened and that the world of the LOTR was Round from the Beginning.

First question: in that scenerio who exactly is Gandalf (and why does ne look back so fondly on the time when the Two Trees were in flower)?

Second question: how is that Frodo (not to mention the Eldar) is able to get on a ship and sail across the Sea to a land that mortals are unable to get to? In your scenerio, wouldn't he (and they) have to get on a space-ship? I don't think that at all would be consistent with Tolkien's work. After all, it was Lewis that drew the task of writing a story about space travel, not Tolkien's. Tolkien's task was to write a story about time travel (see "The Early History of the Legend" in The Lost Road.

Are we to dismiss the entire legend of The Fall of Númenor as mere ignorant myth? Who then is Aragorn, really? Did his ancestors Elendil and Isildur not really come to the shores of Middle-earth after surviving the Downfall, and the Changing of the World?

No, my friends, I simply can not accept that.

[superwizard]

I see it as Tolkien having conflicting ideas. On the one hand Tolkien wanted Middle Earth to be our world but yet he also could not simply change the two trees to the Sun and the Moon. The whole of The Silmarillion would have needed to be drastically drastically changed if the two trees were taken away. So I guess that at the end Tolkien decided to keep the trees because without them the whole tale of the jewels would be gone.
Also Sam says in The Endless Stairs about Beren and the jewel:

"Why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still!

I think that reinforces the theory that The Lord of the Rings is the same tale as The Silmarillion.
So I personally think that we should continue to assume that the trees were real but that's my opinion...

[MithLuin]

I will not give up the Two Trees, regardless of what anyone has to say about them - not on your life!


In general, I do not like Roger Garland's work (what's with Stonehenge??), so here are some other versions:

http://www.deviantart.com/view/602423/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/840089/
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/22355816/
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/9367381/
http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/graphics/two_trees.jpg



I think this thread, for the first time in my life, has made me understand Fëanor

[Alatar]

I will respond Voronwë, when I have time, but unfortunately the discussion has been split so I'll have to reference both threads in my answer, which makes it more confusing.

[Athrabeth]

The world of the Silmarillion is one of Myth, but the world of "Lord of the Rings" is not. The fact that they share characters is an accident after the fact.

An accident?

The world of Lord of the Rings is one in which "the myth" is still very much "real and present". There is no easy dividing line between what was and what is when immortals walk the earth. When Sam recognizes the living link between the light captured in the phial and the Silmaril that Eärendil bears as a star in the heavens, when he realizes that he and Frodo are "in the same tale still" and that it's still "going on", it seems clear to me that they (and myself as the reader) remain inside the myth.

I do claim that Tolkien intended us to feel that connection, however tenuous, and that Middle-earth, in his mind, was our Earth in another imaginary time and place. A Mythic time.

When I first read LOTR, it was obvious to me that I was reading a story set in our world. An imaginary history from our world, but unmistakeably rooted in our world!

All myth is rooted in "our world". But as soon as one begins to describe the time and place in which a myth is set as "imaginary", then it is no longer "the real world". It becomes a symbolic world that is both comfortably familiar in order for us feel "attached" to it, and exhilaratingly unfamiliar, in order to shake us up a little (or a lot) so that we are forced to look inward (as Campbell says) to discover the real truths that the myth is attempting to reveal.

Ath, of course Middle-earth can't be accurately tied to our history, but that is nonetheless what Tolkien set out to do. To write a Mythic pre-history for England

And Tolkien well understood the connection between history and myth. Dynamic, living myth has little to do with history. It only becomes tied to history when it is no longer believed as being a valid representation of the world, when its symbolic references become lost or misread, when it slips from the realm of being "what is" to that of being "what was". I think that's why LOTR is so heartbreakingly poignant, why it strikes such a chord with so many of us......because it reveals a world that is about to slip from one realm into another.

Both the Two Trees and the Silmarils would have been rendered superfluous had the sun and moon been present from the creation. Without the Light of the Trees there is no need for Fëanor to have some shadow of foreknowledge of the doom that drew near; and he pondered how the light of the Trees, the glory of the Blessed Realm, might be preserved imperishable .... and without the Silmarils there would have been no Doom of the Noldor.........and no exodus of the Elves back into Middle-earth. In short, the story would, of necessity, have been very different and, I dare say, unrecognizable.

Tolkien had to keep the myths as first written: too much depends upon the flat earth.

Absolutely, Sass! When I read "Myths Transformed", I get very cranky.
I always feel..........disappointed somehow that Tolkien would even consider sacrificing the stunning beauty and symbolic relevance of his great myth for a more scientifically accurate ( ) cosmos. It is such a diminishment.

Sass, Ath, if you read back I've already proposed a solution that neatly solves both problems.

But they're not "problems", Al! The great, overriding theme IMHO of the myth that connects the Sil and LOTR is loss: death and immortality, "embalming" and preserving, fading and renewing, the long defeat, hope without guarantee....all are tied to this central idea. In the "Physical Universe" thread, I attempted to answer your proposal by raising the idea of the axis mundi, and how the symbolic representations of the "blessed center of the world" are progressively lost. I think it's absolutely pivotal to the myth that Valinor remains exactly where it was always located within the cosmos of Eä. It is not moved away from the experiential realm of the world - the world is moved away from it. This, IMO, is fundamental to the whole "mixed myth and legend" feel to LOTR, where the characters (at least those with a measure of true wisdom) recognize the still tangible connection between what was and what is and what will "ever be". It is, I think, the basis of the "Sea longing" that pervades the tale from beginning to end: to be drawn towards the blessed center of the world, to find that place where "heaven and earth" are one.

Voronwë........GREAT post!

superwizard........I just want to say how much I've enjoyed your presence in this, and other, discussions in the Shibboleth. (and I see that we both consider Sam's musings on the stairs of Cirith Ungol as essential to understanding the importance of the "living myth" in the Third Age )

Mith.........

[Alatar]

But they're not "problems", Al! The great, overriding theme IMHO of the myth that connects the Sil and LOTR is loss: death and immortality, "embalming" and preserving, fading and renewing, the long defeat, hope without guarantee....all are tied to this central idea. In the "Physical Universe" thread, I attempted to answer your proposal by raising the idea of the axis mundi, and how the symbolic representations of the "blessed center of the world" are progressively lost. I think it's absolutely pivotal to the myth that Valinor remains exactly where it was always located within the cosmos of Eä. It is not moved away from the experiential realm of the world - the world is moved away from it. This, IMO, is fundamental to whole "mixed myth and legend" feel to LOTR, where the characters (at least those with a measure of true wisdom) recognize the still tangible connection between what was and what is and what will "ever be". It is, I think, the basis of the "Sea longing" that pervades the tale from beginning to end: to be drawn towards the blessed center of the world, to find that place where "heaven and earth" are one.

Sorry Ath, but if your intention there was to go right over my head, congratulations. I haven't a bloody clue what the hell you're talking about and my eyes glaze over just trying to read it. Its posts like this that make me feel too stupid for these discussions, because I don't even understand what to argue against.

I will write a simple, plain description of what I believe would work with eveything written. Nothing lost. I won't get into discussions of Campbell or anyone else. I simply have no interest in swapping citations. What I present are my own opinions, nothing more.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Don't get frustrated, Al. As scirocco said, it's just a matter of different perspectives. I find your opinions very helpful (and very intelligent), even (or dare I say particularly) when they stem from a very different perspective then my own. If we all had the same perspectives, the discussions would get very boring, very quickly.

[superwizard]

I see The Silmarillion compared to The Lord of the Rings similar to Camelot compared to present England. I don't know if that assumption is correct or even acceptabe but I like it because it lets me keep the 'flat world' theory and see Middle Earth as our world.

[Pearly Di]

I see The Silmarillion compared to The Lord of the Rings similar to Camelot compared to present England. I don't know if that assumption is correct or even acceptabe but I like it because it lets me keep the 'flat world' theory and see Middle Earth as our world.

Works for me!

Alatar ... I don't always understand the Silmarillion debates here either, a lot of it does go over my head. I haven't analysed Sil to the depth that some here so clearly have.

But I do find Athrabeth's posts very beautiful.

I don't have to understand them in order to appreciate the beauty in them.

Which is really like my attitude to Sil. It's too much for me. I can't remember half the stuff that happens in that book. Sil is so dense, so complex, so ... overwhelming. All I know is, my imagination and my heart are fired on a deep level by its majestic, awesome visions.

Mithluin, beautiful Two Trees art there.

[superwizard]

Which is really like my attitude to Sil. It's too much for me. I can't remember half the stuff that happens in that book. Sil is so dense, so complex, so ... overwhelming. All I know is, my imagination and my heart are fired on a deep level by its majestic, awesome visions.

I know what you mean! I have trouble remembering much of The Sil myself. I have analyzed The Lord of the Rings pretty thoroughly but I have trouble with much of The Sil. Still even if I don't remember some of The Sil I still love it

[Alatar]

Ok.

Imagine a World, globed in the abyss. There are no stars, no sun, no moon. The Ainur enter and shape this world to their liking and Melkor destroys and corrupts what they create. In the Continental Mass of what is now Europe they raise the two great Lamps, Illuin and Ormal, to bring light to the world. They are thrown down, pouring out ravaging fire which destroys the shape of the land, giving us jagged coastlines and inland seas. The Valar retreat to a land of their own making, somewhere west of Europe. Not America. There is no America in Tolkiens concept, as there was none in any Mythic tale of Europe. In this land the Valar bring forth the Two Trees and Varda kindles the stars and sets them in the heavens.

Again, Melkor destroys the light of the trees. The Noldor leave the blessed Isle to return to Middle Earth, which is not so distant. Those who are left behind must travel north into the grinding ice to cross. Why? Why should the two continents be joined at the North? Why is the far north Icebound? These are concepts of our Earth. They work better and more consistently with the spherical Earth than the Flat Earth. The Sun and Moon are set to ride the heavens, why not orbiting a spherical earth instead of being brought underground and hastened through the earth for their reappearance in the west? The concept is easier to comprehend and ties closer to our own understanding.

Finally, after the destruction of Beleriand, the Land of Aman is removed from Arda. Not into space, simply to another plane or existance. It can still be reached by one who knows the path, but as they sail, they see the waters fall away beneath them and the shore is before them.

All of this works with the established Mythology. The changes are minor. With respect to Ath, the concept of an Aman-centric world sucking all hope towards it are her own devising and not Tolkiens. Attaching the sea-longing to a desire for Aman is extrapolation in the extreme. I don't doubt that when couched in such delicate prose these concepts are reasonable, but they do not represent an argument against the validity of my suggestion.

Please, without resorting to vague concepts of the "axis mundi", explain to me where this concept could not work with the established works of Tolkien.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I should mention that I just discovered that in text of the latter portion of the second chapter of the Sil, Of Aulë and Yavanna, The which comes from a separate document that "belongs to thelate, or last, period" of Tolkien's work and that CT describes in The War of the Jewels Section IV "Of the Ents and the Eagles" (see WotJ pp. 340-341), the words "and some sang to Eru amid the wind and the rain and the glitter of the Sun" were deleted "on account of the implication that the Sun existed from the beginning of Arda."

So for whatever it is worth, Tolkien was drafting tales at this point with the assumption that the sun existed from the beginning of Arda.

[Edit: Cross-posted with Alatar.]

[Sassafras]

Ath wrote:

I think it's absolutely pivotal to the myth that Valinor remains exactly where it was always located within the cosmos of Eä. It is not moved away from the experiential realm of the world - the world is moved away from it. This, IMO, is fundamental to the whole "mixed myth and legend" feel to LOTR, where the characters (at least those with a measure of true wisdom) recognize the still tangible connection between what was and what is and what will "ever be"

A very salient and intuitive point, Ath that Valinor (as a metaphor for heaven) remains whole and centered and it is the marring of Arda (Morgoth's Ring) along withthe two children who have, by their actions and paths taken, drifted away to such an extent that the seas were bent and the Straight Path thinned. Verlyn Flieger in Splintered Light comes to a similar conclusion ... that the pure Light of Valinor is increasingly diluted and splintered as the ages progress.

Quite unlike Avalon and the old religion which is removed from the circles of our world.

..... and now on to the rest of the posts ....

[Parmamaite]

Myths Transformed is a part of HoME that I choose to ignore, the idea that the Two Trees lighten up Valinor while the Sun and Moon was hidden behind the clouds of Melkor, diminishes the value of the trees and indeed the value of the whole mythology to my mind.

The Earth made round is a powerful image in itself, a part of the Mythology that I would rather not loose, it also explains the Straight Path in an elegant way.

I just think that many of the most important and beautiful parts of Tolkiens Mythology would be diminished or even lost in a Sun-centered Mythology. And frankly, a "Round Earth in the center" is just as problematic to me as a "Flat Earth in the center".

I guess it's a matter of taste more than anything else. And it's interesting to see that other people has a totally different view on things.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Very well said, Parma.