Bingo

[Arwen_Evenstar]

I am at present reading the history of Middle earth, The return of Shadow, and i was wondering, for those who have read or are reading them, do you think the book would have been as good with Bingo, Odo, Frodo and Marmaduke, instead of Frodo, Pippin, Sam and Merry? With Gandalf coming across them on the road in the shire instead of a dark rider? What is your opinion on Tolkiens origional manuscripts?
~nat~

[ July 02, 2003: Message edited by: Arwen_Evenstar ]

[Sophia the Thunder Mistress]

I found Return of the Shadow fascinating, but I think that the way things evolved into FOTR was ultimately an improvement.

Bingo was much like Frodo, but he seemed simpler and more like the Bilbo of the Hobbit, if he'd survived into the later parts of the story I think the storyline wouldn't have been able to be quite so dark, because Bingo isn't the type that could have handled what Frodo went through. He was the protagonist of another "there and back again" type story that was never written, and Frodo Baggins suits the story much better. Also, I thought his name Bingo Bolger-Baggins was overly alliterative and clumsy to say. [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] But that's just my aesthetic preferences.

Marmaduke -> Merry was an easy transition, as most of what Marmaduke says and does is similar to what Merry says and does, or at least I didn't find him too much different than the later character.

Odo Took I found dull, and not very interesting. He seemed a bit too clumsy to me.

Frodo Took was like an odd mixture of the later Frodo and Pippin. I really enjoyed this character, because he had the "elf-like" sensitivity of the later Frodo, and the lighthearted youthfulness of Pippin. I thought he was helpful for reading the character of Pippin later as well, because he was more mature, and gives Pip a little more serious cast. Makes you realize the potential in such a character. Of all the original characters, I was least glad to see Frodo Took go.

The transformation that I find most interesting though, is the transformation of the mystery hobbit (who wore shoes! [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] ), Trotter, into the character of Strider who later would be Aragorn. This amazed me, because it seems so out of place to have a hobbit speaking Aragorn's lines nearly word for word.

This is disjointed and rough, I apologize, I'm at work.

Sophia

[ July 02, 2003: Message edited by: Sophia the Thunder Mistress ]

[Lord of Angmar]

Aesthetically speaking, all of Tolkien's earlier names were clumsier and uglier, in my humble opinion. One of the great parts of Tolkien's works is the ability of the names to give you an idea of what the person is like or whether a place is good or bad. For example, Tolkien uses different sounds to make things sound bad... G's and R's, I think, are what he commoly uses for words and thus places that would seem negative: Balrog,Bauglir, Gorthaur, Gorgoroth, Mordor, Gothmog etc. Notice the r's and g's in each word... It is this kind of naming that adds a cohesiveness to Tolkien's world. I think his favorite letters for good words and places are d, n and t... tirion, doriath, dorthonion, gondolin... his names are all perfect for the places they describe, and i noticed in his earlier work that this was not true... the same cohesiveness did not exist. Eressea was Faerie, the Noldor were the Gnomes, Voronwe was Bronweg, etc. My apologies for this rather rambling essay, which I am afraid has lost its point. My point was simply that the names that Tolkien chose and the aesthetically-appealing languages he created add an immense realistic and fantastical quality to the story, something I believe Bingo and Marmaduke couldn't have achieved! [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

[ July 02, 2003: Message edited by: Lord of Angmar ]

[Samwise Gamgee]

Well, I like the characters better the way they ended (now I'm on "treason of Isengard" - fascinating - huh?

I thought one thing was interesting. Tolkien considered having Sam wrestle Gollum in the end and throw gollum and himself into the fire. So Sam-like - but it would have been the death of ME if Tolkien did that. Considering how much I cry at Frodo's "death" I don't know what I would do if sam died. And can you imagine home much psycho-therapy frodo would have to have when he got home!!!!!!!!!!! The poor guy would probably never speak again (provided he didn't just sit there and let himself be killed by the erupting volcano!)

He needed Sam!

[Inderjit Sanghera]

I think that the History of LoTR parts of HoME ar very interetsing for several reasons. They show the general evolution of LoTr, it took MANY manuscripts to perfetc it and many stupid names to get rid of, whilst things like the description of the Balrog and the commentary by C.R.T on the similarities with Aragorn, Gandalf, Gimli and Legolas's entry into Medusled and a scene in Beowulf.