What are giants? - Page 2

Varda-Me · 02-17-2002, 02:54 AM

It has been sooooo long since I read The Hobbit (my first fantasy book, way back in high school), but it's interesting to me that the giant scene you described sounds very much like the one from the Chronicles of Narnia - I forget which volume it is, exactly, but I think it's The Silver Chair. The children have to pass in front of a mountainous range which turns out to be giants tossing boulders at each other. I believe Tolkien and Lewis were good friends.

markedel · 02-17-2002, 06:34 AM

Tolkien turned Lewis into a devout Catholic

emplynx · 02-17-2002, 09:55 AM

I also remember that part of the Silver Chair where the giants threw rocks at each other.

Tolkien and Lewis were close friends. They both taught at Oxford, and the were both part of a writing club called the Inklings (Just a few guys who met at a pub.) Tolkien did infact help Lewis make the final decisions to become a Christian, though Tolkien didn't agree with many of Lewis's Christian beliefs.

Kwijibo · 02-19-2002, 04:40 PM

I think, just like vampires and neekerbreekers, the giants were real things.

Perhaps Tolkien mentioned them to try and give the reader and idea of how Middle-Earth could support a wide variety of animals and creatures and how not all of them had to have a big part of the make-up of the world, just like our own world. For example, gnats are hardly important to the welfare of the world, but the Earth still wants supports them.

This is just my theory, and so probably a load of tripe!

Bregalad · 02-20-2002, 12:46 AM

Kwijibo, I agree with you, I think they were real things, and your theory works as well as any I've thought of. Perhaps they only appear in the Hobbit because Tolkien didn't think they were interesting enough for his adult books. Or maybe, like many of Middle-earths creatures in the third age, there just weren't very many of them left, and that's the only place they lived. But whatever the reason, I think they were real, Tolkien writes that Bilbo SEES them, not that he hears them or imagines them, or that Gandalf tells him a story about them.

Quote:

When he peeped out in the lightning flashes, he saw that across the valley the stone giants were out, and were hurling rocks at one another for a game...

Kwijibo · 02-20-2002, 10:43 AM

U know how these giants r throwing rocks at each other for a game?

Do u think they r trying to play volley-ball?

Do gnats play volley-ball?

Anyway, I'm certain that the giants were real and I stand by my previous post Bregalad's too.

02-17-2002, 06:34 AM	#22
markedel 'Sober' Mullet Frosh Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Queen's Posts: 1,245	Tolkien turned Lewis into a devout Catholic __________________ "Earnur was a man like his father in valour, but not in wisdom"

02-19-2002, 04:40 PM	#24
Kwijibo Elven Warrior Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Lothlorien (actually Wales, but let's not talk about that) Posts: 117	I think, just like vampires and neekerbreekers, the giants were real things. Perhaps Tolkien mentioned them to try and give the reader and idea of how Middle-Earth could support a wide variety of animals and creatures and how not all of them had to have a big part of the make-up of the world, just like our own world. For example, gnats are hardly important to the welfare of the world, but the Earth still wants supports them. This is just my theory, and so probably a load of tripe! __________________ 'So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All you can decide is what to do with the time that is given to you,' - Gandalf the Grey 'I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down' - In memory of Graham Chapman 'Rubin sits like Buddah in a 10 foot cell, An innocent man in a living hell,' - From 'Hurricane' by Bob Dylan, the only innocent Hurricane protest song, written stressing the innocence of Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, a black, middle-weight boxer imprisoned for 19 for a triple murder which he did not commit. Last edited by Kwijibo : 02-19-2002 at 04:48 PM.

02-20-2002, 10:43 AM	#26
Kwijibo Elven Warrior Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Lothlorien (actually Wales, but let's not talk about that) Posts: 117	U know how these giants r throwing rocks at each other for a game? Do u think they r trying to play volley-ball? Do gnats play volley-ball? Anyway, I'm certain that the giants were real and I stand by my previous post Bregalad's too. __________________ 'So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All you can decide is what to do with the time that is given to you,' - Gandalf the Grey 'I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down' - In memory of Graham Chapman 'Rubin sits like Buddah in a 10 foot cell, An innocent man in a living hell,' - From 'Hurricane' by Bob Dylan, the only innocent Hurricane protest song, written stressing the innocence of Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter, a black, middle-weight boxer imprisoned for 19 for a triple murder which he did not commit.

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02-17-2002, 02:54 AM	#21
Varda-Me Hobbit Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 40	It has been sooooo long since I read The Hobbit (my first fantasy book, way back in high school), but it's interesting to me that the giant scene you described sounds very much like the one from the Chronicles of Narnia - I forget which volume it is, exactly, but I think it's The Silver Chair. The children have to pass in front of a mountainous range which turns out to be giants tossing boulders at each other. I believe Tolkien and Lewis were good friends.

02-17-2002, 09:55 AM	#23
emplynx Self-Appointed Lord of the Free Peoples of the General Messages Join Date: Nov 2001 Posts: 1,214	I also remember that part of the Silver Chair where the giants threw rocks at each other. Tolkien and Lewis were close friends. They both taught at Oxford, and the were both part of a writing club called the Inklings (Just a few guys who met at a pub.) Tolkien did infact help Lewis make the final decisions to become a Christian, though Tolkien didn't agree with many of Lewis's Christian beliefs.