01-28-2007, 04:21 AM | #21 | ||||||||
Elven Warrior
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[QUOTE]Were i you, i would re-read your opening position:{/QUOTE] Please do reread my opening position. Its in message 11, a response to Sam who asks if the reference might be to the Nazgul. My response says "not at that stage, I don't think." Quote:
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01-29-2007, 06:45 PM | #22 | ||
Elf Lord
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oh, i've read enough, thanks... Alfie at Edington heh? I'll expect a half decent sally in the Spring then! Quote:
Wisdom? We'll see- when you sally forth out of your muddy position to cross your sword with BB's rapier. best, BB Last edited by Butterbeer : 01-29-2007 at 06:47 PM. |
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02-04-2007, 11:04 PM | #23 |
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I completely disagree with the thought that they may be Nazgul, and you have been talking about it for some time. Not trying to be rude, but what evidence do you have to back up your theory? I merely think that they were monsters, whether they were created by Sauron is questionable.
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02-05-2007, 12:34 PM | #24 | |
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Uruk-hai, or the journey to there. |
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02-12-2007, 11:28 AM | #25 |
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i don't think anyone has mentioned the balrog yet. dwarves from strange, distant places could easily have meant moria, and aside from durin's bane, which is only a cryptic reference itself, the balrog was certainly nameless. when the fellowship encountered it, only gandalf knew what it was. i understand that there most likely would have been no dwarves at all from balin's expedition left in moria at the time, but certainly dwarves from other places would have known about durin's bane, and the expedition, and considered the possibility that it was stirred again.
Last edited by carlrodd : 02-12-2007 at 11:39 AM. |
02-20-2007, 05:10 AM | #26 |
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I am not saying that I have hard evidence to back up my theory. I merely think that LOTR does not happen to be an allegory, and that if I had written it, I probably would not have been referring to the Nazgul. Tolkien has so many creatures in Middle Earth, he must have some that are evil that are not the Nazgul, right?
(Not expecting you to agree, it's fine if you don't.) |
02-28-2007, 12:46 PM | #27 | |
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Which one in your opinion will fit the description better?
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Uruk-hai, or the journey to there. Last edited by Olmer : 02-28-2007 at 10:10 PM. |
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02-28-2007, 12:52 PM | #28 | |
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"THE EAGLES ARE COMING, THE EAGLES ARE COMING......AND A MOTH!!!!!" |
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02-28-2007, 01:49 PM | #29 | ||
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So what nameless (to the dwarves) creatures worse than trolls recently appeared in the Wide World? Dragons? - dragons were not unnamed esp. to Dwarves and the last big dragon - Smaug- was killed about 70 years ago. The Barlog? It appeared in TA 1980 - a LO-ONG time ago and was seen again during the war of orcs and Dwarves. No news really. AND Dwarves called it something - Durin's Bane. The Watcher in the Water - maybe. But then why is it referred to in plural? Fell Beasts? Hardly. It seems few have seen them before the very end of 3018-begginnning of 3019. And were they really worse than trolls? So even from this POV the nazgul who sat quietly in Minas Morgul for 1000 years and then since 2951 started to be seen again were definitely a possibility. |
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02-28-2007, 06:02 PM | #30 |
Elf Lord
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the snowdrops are coming up, the days are getting longer ... still hiding out Forkbeard?
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03-01-2007, 05:14 PM | #31 | |||||
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On the other hand, Gandalf tells us that Mirkwood was full of "dreadful tales" (tales of dread) of Gollum, who sneaks into windows and eats babies in their cribs. That's certainly worse than orcs and trolls and would be news dwarves would pick up on the road. There are certainly horrible spiders and other evils things in Mirkwood and other places, and I'd say those are worse than orcs and trolls (one can fight those, spiders and such are not just horrible, they prey on the psyche too); wolves of the sort the Fellowship are fell and in many ways worse than orcs....I'd rather be in an orcs hands and cruelly treated than in a wolf's maw any day. |
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03-01-2007, 05:33 PM | #32 | |
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03-01-2007, 05:40 PM | #33 | |
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03-03-2007, 01:01 PM | #34 | ||||||||||
Lady of the Ulairi
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It looks like East of Anduin the nazgul were no big rarity. One thing they didn't do -before 3018 - cross the Anduin. All this was covered before both by Olmer and myself. Quote:
Everything said in LOTR leads us to think that Barlogs were generally believed long extinct. Quote:
And how could it be that "Celeborn and Galadriel DO NOT KNOW THAT THE BALROG IS ACTIVE again", while some Dwarves from far away countries would know it???? Quote:
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I have 2 quotes to back this up: Quote:
Also there is a more direct evidence from Tolkien Reader's Companion p.262-3 Quote:
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How could this info find its way into Gondor or Rivendell chronicles (Tale of Years) if NO ONE AT ALL saw them?? There was not a single nazgul who wrote his "Memoires" after the War of the Ring, was there now? Quote:
Gollum might have generated some dreadful tales - but would the far-away Dwarves passing by be so very impressed? Horrible spiders - I don't think they were fresh news - I think they lived in Mirkwood ever since Sauron took shape in Dol Guldur. All the travelers through Mirkwood must have been wary of them for ages. Last edited by Gordis : 03-03-2007 at 01:03 PM. |
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03-03-2007, 06:10 PM | #35 | |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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03-07-2007, 01:48 AM | #36 | ||||||||||||||||
Elven Warrior
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[QUOTE}Instead, at a loss for better arguments, you turned to discussing fonts I used in my posts. What will be next? Finding fault with my paragraphing?[/Quote] Anyone who reads that single comment in a long post and a) dismisses the rest of the post to focus on a single comment and b) thinks that the comment was about fonts needs some significant assistance with basic reading comprehension. Let me help you out: the point I made is that your conclusion that only Dain and his counselors know the contents of the messenger's embassy. That is certainly a valid reading, but not the only valid reading, and certainly there is no evidence to support it either way. Shouting it at us doesn't make it a valid conclusion. As I said at the time: "There's nothing in the book that would indicate this,". BTW, before we go further, there is a slight chronology problem as well. Gloin tells the Council of Elrond that "about a year ago..." the messenger came from Mordor. This would be Oct. 3017, a year before the council in Oct. 3018. But the problem there is that according to the Tale of Years and UT's The Hunt for the Ring Sauron didn't capture Gollum until sometime in the first half of 3017,(UT: Gollum was captured in Mordor in the year 3017) and so didn't know of the Ring's existence for certain, that Biblo Baggins a hobbit and had been to the Lonely Mountain in the company of dwarves. All that information was learned from Gollum or after Gollum's capture. It was in June 3017 that the 9 were sent out in search of the Ring. If the messenger to Dain and Bard is a Nazgul as seems likely from the description, then a Nazgul on horseback needs time to travel from Mordor to the Lonely Mtn and back and then be available to go with the W-K in June. So say Gollum was captured in January, the Nazgul would take 3-4 weeks to travel north, 3-4 to get back. So at the earliest the messenger can have reached Dain say in mid-Feb and at the latest in mid-May. Gloin is reporting to the council on Oct. 25. In no way can it be "about a year ago". Either Gloin is exaggerating or wrong, or UT and the Tale of Years is wrong. Quote:
As for the "messenger", there is no evidence in the text that he was "constantly circulating" and none that "he could have had other appointments as well". If you want to rewrite Tolkien, I can't stop you, but I'd prefer to discuss the actual text rather than your speculations about the activities of messengers we're not told about. Quote:
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When we first meet Strider we're told that after he tells the hobbits of the horror of the 9 that he sat in the chair in some "distant memory". At the Council of Elrond Aragorn tells us that if one walks as he has to the Black Gate perils he will have. We need not look any further than Mordor's borders to discover where Aragorn encountered the 9 or some of them anyway. Quote:
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As for what is "generally believed" about balrogs being extinct, um, in case you hadn't noted there Gordis, there's a big one in the middle of Book II of the Lord of the Rings....apparently their belief was wrong? Just a thought.... Quote:
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03-23-2007, 11:16 AM | #37 |
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I think the author was referring to certain creatures that hadn't yet GOT a name, but were known and named later on.
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03-23-2007, 02:30 PM | #38 |
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Peter-20's comment prompted me to add to my comments here too. In thinking about this further I would note 2 passages that have not been brought up heretofore.
The first is at the Council of Elrond where Aragorn reports that the Rangers guard the Shire/Bree from creatures that would freeze Barliman's blood. This might refer to the Nazgul, but I doubt it since the Rangers have been guarding the Shire/Bree for some years, and not from the Nazgul--and I take Aragorn's words to refer to a longer period of guarding than just the recent Nazgul activity in the area. Further, he speaks of the Rangers' guarding as successfully guarding the area for the peace of mind of Barliman and others, and the Rangers clearly failed when it came to the Nazgul. More importantly though is a seldom noted passage in Book VI, Homeward Bound. This is LONG after the Nazgul and Sauron have been removed as a threat in Middle Earth and certainly are nowhere in the area. Barliman reports to Gandalf and the hobbits: "For there's worse than robbers about. Wolves were howling round the fences last winter. And there dark shapes in the woods, dreadful things that it makes the blood run cold to think of." Are these things "worse than orcs"? Well, I don't know of any orc who is described as making the blood run cold. And it can't be the Nazgul, they're not around anymore. It seems to me that if we read these two passages plus the vague threat of things worse than orcs and trolls that Frodo hears about from strange dwarves from far off countries, we see that are things in Middle Earth not associated with Nazgul or Sauron that are nonetheless evil and frightening. Thus, we need not assume, and have no evidence for, that the news Frodo hears is referring to the 9. |
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