Explanation, anyone?

[Meoshi]

I'm just curious why so many of you believe that ME is supposed to be our world, preceding recorded history. I, personally, believe it was supposed to be altogether different, and that the Elves, Dwarves, Ents,(and unfortunately Orcs) never faded away. Look at the dwarves! Everything's looking up for them at the end of RotK. Most enemies are defeated, Moria is open again, Men and Elves have a greater respect for them, and their population can again rise(albeit slowly) without anyone being killed in battle. I don't see why, with oppurtunity like that, they would "dig deeper and deeper and fade from the memory of Men", as some have said. Now, I'm probably missing something pretty big here- I only have an associate degree in Tolkienology, unlike the Ph.Ds most of you have. I'd just like to hear your evidence for believing what you do about this.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

You should read "The Lost Road, and other writings"

[Lush]

I'm just curious why so many of you believe that ME is supposed to be our world, preceding recorded history.

Well, I always tended to look at Middle Earth as product of fiction myself, but if that's not en vouge anymore, I am not sure as to what I shall do. Have some x-rays done, perhaps? [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

P.S. Welcome to the Downs, congratulations on your demise.

[Luthien_ Tinuviel]

Yes, there's some pretty good evidence in the Histories of Middle Earth, plus the whole "age of men" thing sounds a little familiar...

[Meoshi]

Yes, Men would become the dominant race. But the others wouldn't just die off, or at least wouldn't fade away unnoticed.

[Lush]

Oh, you're talking about it from Tolkien's point of view. I really do need x-rays done. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] Oops.

Well then, in regards to the venerable Elves, are you really asserting that they never faded away? I would have to disagree. Because the author said that they all eventually departed for Valinor, and that was the end of that. Until the world was to be re-made, that is. As for the Dwarves, maybe I am wrong, but I always viewed Tolkien is to have wanted to shroud their fate in a bit of mystery. You can only speculate so much, I suppose. But then again, my reading of Tolkien is woefully incomplete.

[Legolas]

I'm just curious why so many of you believe that ME is supposed to be our world, preceding recorded history.

Eh...because that was Tolkien's concept of it. He said it himself - that we were probably in the Seventh Age, by his estimation.

[MLD-Grounds-Keeper-Willie]

Middle-earth as our world in a literal sense is incorrect. However, it can be seen as our world in different ways as long as it is not literal. Then and only then is it correct. You are never going to find fossils or remains of elves, or orcs or whatever. They never existed in reality. Only in our minds and our hearts.

[Birdland]

You are never going to find fossils or remains of elves, or orcs or whatever. They never existed in reality. Only in our minds and our hearts.

Oh, really? Wellllll, I don't know about that, G-K Willy. The Ohio Valley is covered with ancient mounds, (a.k.a. "barrows"), and supposedly the remains of "giants" have been found in many of them.

Hey! The Numenoreans all moved to Ohio! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Hmmm. I think that the idea of Middle-Earth becoming the world we live in today is probably my least favourite of Tolkien's ideas.

Please don't ask me why because I don't have a good argument at all! I just prefer to think of it as a different world altogether.

[Legolas]

Middle-earth as our world in a literal sense is incorrect.

You might be in the wrong place then. This is a fiction-based board; not reality-based.

[drigel]

This is one of my favorite themes of Tolkien and also of Conan's Robert E Howard. That "...... before the rise of the sons of Aryas there was an age undreamed of...". Recorded history goes back to what, around 5-10 thousand years? What up before that? I have read Tolkiens take on that. Counting years and ages before "recorded history" to me would be a relative thing. I dont think anyone can safely say what happened before "rocorded history". Would anything survive if it were compressed under a 2 mile thick glacier for a few thousand years? Science has come a long way but we are just now scratching the surface. You can use science "for" or "against" the argument for ME. I like the conjecture of what would happen after the 4th - 5th age but "not quite getting the Point" is what is coming to mind... This is the essence of Myth.

On the Elves and dwarves receding as the men were increasing, I can see that happening pretty easily - just ask the Neanderthals.

[littlemanpoet]

Way to catch 'em, Birdland. Elves come from Nordic and Celtic myth. Who's to say that they're not based on something real that we choose not to accept as real anymore?

[drigel]

Anyone ever read Carl Sagan's "The Dragons of Eden"? If you can muddle through the 70's ciche, you can pull down a decent explanation of why so many primitive cultures have myths pertaining to dragons or winged worms/serpents. Good stuff

[img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]

[HCIsland]

I don't think you have to go beyond the text of LoTR to get that sense that this is supposed to be an ancient history of our world. This is especially conveyed in the Prologue and the "On Translation" section of the appendix where Tolkien goes through some effort to create the illusion of this being a translated version of an ancient text. Like many of you, I find this concept pretty neat.

H.C.

[Lush]

Yes, H.C., du hast recht. It was Tolkien's aim to present his work as a sort of "found" ancient text. He succeeded, and that's what makes up a whole lot of the books' charm.

At the same time, I am not quite sure as to what we are discussing on this thread.

Dwarves? Well, they did fade, that's what the author said.

Whether or not Elves are/were real?...Not going to touch that one for now.

Whether or not Tolkien wanted to present Middle Earth as a completely removed sphere of existence, or, indeed, what occured before recorded history? I would argue for the latter, stressing again that I personally view this as a work of fiction, if that's even an issue.

*Confused*

[Meoshi]

I must have missed something. Where is it said that the Dwarves faded?

[the guy who be short]

tolkien himself says that me is based on europe. he says that the elves depart across the sea, and the age of men comes when the war against sauron is won. legolas says to gimli "the deeds of men will outlast us".
so the elves went west across the sea.
the ents couldnt find the entwives, had no children, died out.
the orcs perished when sauron died.
of the dwarves it is not known. my opinion is that fewer and fewer were interested in marriage until they died out.
as for the hobbits, they lived on. in the hobbit tolkien says that they are still alive today
whoops, forgot the eagles. maybe they stopped speaking and went back to being dumb animals?
and the trolls...when sauron died they probably died too.
so thats all the species.

[Meoshi]

I think their proplems with their women led to their low population rate, but it wouldn't kill them off. Especially with no one dying in wars anymore. You wouldn't have women refusing to marry because their one true love had been slain.

[Meoshi]

The dwarves, I mean.

[The Saucepan Man]

I must say that I have always liked the idea (or should I say fiction) of Middle Earth and the deeds that occurred there being part our own world's history. It sets the stories in a context for the reader. Yet again, I find myself in total agreement with Lush:

It was Tolkien's aim to present his work as a sort of "found" ancient text. He succeeded, and that's what makes up a whole lot of the books' charm.

That it was JRRT's intention to present his works in this way is, as others have said, apparent from his own writings. It is consistent with his intention to create a mythology for England.

And the idea is established in the reader's mind from the outset. Most readers first introduction to Tolkien is, I should imagine, by way of The Hobbit. And the story proper commences, on the third page of the first chapter, with:

By some curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green, and the hobbits were still numerous and prosperous ...

And the prologue to LotR continues this idea:

Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous formerly than they are today ... Even in ancient days they were, as a rule, shy of 'the Big Folk' as they call us, and now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find ...

Those days, the Third Age of Middle-Earth, are now long past, and the shape of all lands has been changed ...

So, right at the outset, JRRT establishes in the reader's mind that these are tales from our past. And it is probably for this reason that I accept it as "part of the story". I feel drawn into the story because it is presented as part of my "history".

As to why the races are no longer around today, I think that this has just about been covered above. The Elves all either went West to the Undying Lands (which are no longer accessible), or they simply "faded away". The quotes above make it clear that Hobbits are still with us, although less numerous and difficult to see. To carry on the fiction, they would account for tales of "little people", Leprechauns and the like.

As for Dwarves, perhaps they did all die out, as has been suggested. Or perhaps they too are still with us, but hidden away. Perhaps, deep in the Alps or the Himalayas, there is a fortress of the magnificence of Khaza-Dum ... [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[drigel]

I'd like to think that there are some dark woods somewhere out there that a human wary elf could hide in.

As for the dwarves vanashing: Wives with beards

ouch

[Meoshi]

Yeah, go to a certain cliffside in Russia and say "mellon". You're in for a big surprise. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Ack! I'm a bit late for all of these interesting topics...

[alatar]

As silly at it seems coming from a skeptic, I too see Tolkien's work as a semi-plausible history of our world. Sure, I know that none of it truly existed, but for my everyday life, pretending that Tolkien recorded the events of a few thousand years ago has no impact on my daily life.

And so what happened to all of those interesting races that once live here? Well, those that haven't fled or weren't lost still live amongst us; some hidden and others hidden in plain sight. Ever play the game looking at people passing by, wondering if they are part-dwarf, part-hobbit, part-elf? Have the hobbits, elves and dwarves intermarried so that we now carry their genes within all of us?

Ever stare into a forest, hoping to catch one of the trees moving in the still air?

And trolls and orcs? Think that they now live on some remote island with computers, sending spam and cheating at online games.

[Morthoron]

I saw an Orc at the shopping mall the other day; at least, he had every appearance of being Orkish. Where I live, most Orkish types inhabit trailer parks and strictly wear t-shirts with pithy sayings (it must be a societal norm).

[MatthewM]

Originally Posted by Legolas

Eh...because that was Tolkien's concept of it. He said it himself - that we were probably in the Seventh Age, by his estimation.

Exactly. Tolkien himself said it.

[alatar]

Not that this is definitive, but maybe some food for thought. How many races do we have, and where did they come from/go?

• Humans and elves - We have Aragorn's line somewhere in this world, and its origin is well-documented.

• Humans and hobbits - Surely we can find some among us that fit the description, and as hobbits are kin to humans, don't see this as too improbable.

• Humans and dwarves - The Variags seem to me to fit the description of such a cross.

• Humans and orcs - Though Peter Jackson sprouted his Uruks from mud, the Uruk-hai and Southerners could be Saruman's cross between orcs and humans, and so this seems to be likely.

So with this, we could see that the races could be still amongst our DNA.

Also:

• Dwarves and hobbits- Could the petty dwarves be from such a mixture?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by alatar

Dwarves and hobbits- Could the petty dwarves be from such a mixture?

Ummm...Dwarbbits? Naugbits? Half-bits? Cheezits?

[Feanathiel]

Like many here have said, it was by Tolkien's own admission that he desired Middle Earth to be considered a 'lost' history...thereby giving England it's own mythology much like the Finnish Kalevala, which was a major influence in his writing.

I can't remember where the quote is from (I think maybe Tolkien and the Invention of Myth by Jane Chance) but I recall that Tolkien once wrote a letter in which he stated that he felt England did not have any stories of its own, at least not of the quality he sought...stories that truly belonged to England and were not rooted in other cultures and lands (i.e. Beowulf, which is rooted in Scandinavian mythology and written by Anglo-Saxon settlers in England who were likely still in contact with with their Germanic kinsmen in Scandinavia and Northern Germany. So while it is considered an English classic, Beowulf is not rooted with the land of England at it's heart). Tolkien desired a mythology with England at its heart, so he set about creating his own.
I wrote a paper on this in university, which is why I remember that quote, but not the specific source.

As for all the discussion on whether Middle Earth is really supposed to be our world in a literal sense...it seems to be a sort of yes and no answer. Yes, Tolkien wanted it to be a mythology for England with the land he loved at its heart (a pre-industrial England, where railroads and factories did not ruin the landscape. Tolkien despised the industrialization of England, and didn't even have a car for the majority of his life. Think about his depiction of the Scouring of the Shire).
But at the same time no, it is not literally our world in the way that we imagine literal today, with scientific proof etc. No, just like Beowulf is clearly set in modern day Norway and Denmark, that hardly means that dragons and fiercesome monsters lived in those areas when Beowulf was written.