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12-22-2004, 12:45 PM | #1 | |
Wight
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: somewhere between the sacred , silence and sweet .
Posts: 169
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Tolkien's letter #180
Quote:
Your explanations are very welcome. NOTE : This is very urgent for a great cause ! -Ophelia-
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12-22-2004, 12:58 PM | #2 |
Haunting Spirit
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It is just a comment of Tolkien, which means, that all things in LotR save the cats of Beruthiel and the names of the Blue Wizards (he surely means their names in Middle-earth), have a background-story elsewhere. LotR is an extract out of his created world. He included many many details, which are not explained in LotR but in other writings and he thinks that only these two things are missed.
Hope that helps.
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12-22-2004, 01:04 PM | #3 |
Wight
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: somewhere between the sacred , silence and sweet .
Posts: 169
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I thank you thousand times for your reply , it really really helps . Very much !
But this doesn't mean I care not for any more thoughts . Do pleace share any other thoughts . It helps more ! -Ophelia-
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12-22-2004, 01:09 PM | #4 |
Pilgrim Soul
Join Date: May 2004
Location: watching the wonga-wonga birds circle...
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What I think it means is that APART from these instances, the characters in LOTR refer to things that were already part of the wider creation of Middle Earth - for example Gil Galad , Beren and Luthien, Earendil already existed (in the unpublished Silmarillion) as did Gondolin when Tolkien referred to it in the Hobbit. Tolkien had been working on Middle Earth for decades before he started the LOTR and the characters that know some of the history of Middle Earth refer to it . However when Aragorn refers to the cats of Queen Beruthiel and Saruman (Gandalf ?) to Five wizards it is the rare occasion when the character "knows" something that the author doesn't. They are referring to things that Tolkien hasn't already fitted into his creation. Tolkien later did write up a history for the Cats and the Wizards. Not sure if that makes sense but really it is a question of order. He made the story to fit the reference rather than making a reference to a story he had already written.
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12-22-2004, 01:23 PM | #5 |
Wight
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: somewhere between the sacred , silence and sweet .
Posts: 169
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A very good answer . I already had a thought of that but not as clear .
Thank you too . -Ophelia-
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12-22-2004, 04:17 PM | #6 |
Deadnight Chanter
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And even those two occurrences later grew their own stories - I assume, Tolkien feeling uneasy about there being no background to them. So, the Queen Berúthiel bacame the proud (and a bit cruel) Lady of 9 black cats, who spied upon her subjects, and a white one, who spied upon the black ones, eventually loathed by her own husband and put aboard the ship with her cats to set sail nobody knew where. Blue wizards were named Alatar and Pallando
Both stories, if my memory does not fail me, to be found in Unfinished Tales, the colleciton of, well, unfinished, and well, tales published by Christopher Tolkien in 1980 cheers
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Egroeg Ihkhsal - Would you believe in the love at first sight? - Yes I'm certain that it happens all the time! Last edited by HerenIstarion; 12-23-2004 at 02:16 AM. Reason: my mistake, Alatar with one l, not two. Thanks, SpM :) |
12-22-2004, 08:19 PM | #7 |
Corpus Cacophonous
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: A green and pleasant land
Posts: 8,390
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Allez les Bleus!
I am pretty sure that Queen Beruthial isn't in Unfinished Tales, as I have never read of her.
And Alatar and Pallando hardly get much of a backstory. Pretty much all we learn about them is that they were friends, the one asking that the other accompany him, that nothing is known for certain as to their fate, but that they probably failed their mission and possibly started up Sauron-worshipping cults in the east. Poor guys! Hardly much of a legacy. Personally, I prefer to think of them as having succesfully raised a rebellion against Sauron in the east, thus limiting the number of Variags/Easterlings available to him in the War of the Ring. Although I am aware that this doesn't square with Gandalf having been the only one of the Istari who succeeded.
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12-23-2004, 02:00 AM | #8 | |||
Haunting Spirit
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Quote:
I would like the fact, that the Blue Wizards are the reason for this long time of peace. But the point of time, when the attacking of the peoples of the east (Wainriders, Balchoth...) starts, signifies for me, that this was point of time of their failure. :-( @Saucepan: Here is the quote of Queen Beruthiel from UT, The Istari, Footnote 7: Quote:
Quote:
Interesting is, that the 7 in the text refer to the footnote, which included the story of Queen Beruthiel and our letter #180. You could imply, that this allude to the fact, that the story of Queen Beruthiel was written after he had written the letter. So, my post backups the post of HerenIstarion. ;-)
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12-23-2004, 11:09 AM | #9 | |
Stormdancer of Doom
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Quote:
(Or maybe they became cave-dwelling cannibals.)
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