Substituted Science

[Kin-strife]

I made this point in a thread about animated nature a long time ago in this forum which I meant to use to start a new topic but never did. So I'm doing it now. Most of the original post is given below.

One thing I've always noted about Tolkien's myth is that it bears the mark of being written in a scientific age. It can't be said that anything can happen in Tolkien's myth in the same way as it can be said for other, more ancient, mythologies. The boundaries of science are eliminated but brand new ones are set in their place. You are very rarely left wondering where something came from; the answer is given to you. The origins of most everything, with the exception of Eru, are given in the books. Or at least the means of deducing the origins are given. I imagine that this attention to detail comes from the scientific time the books were written in. Perhaps it was Tolkien's realisation of this fact that caused him to include Tom Bombadil, the enigma, to salvage what he could of that feeling of boundlessness from the myths that inspired him. I think it is this "substituted science" that is the attraction to a lot of readers. I for one like the utterly fantastic, yet somehow strangely believable world Tolkien provided: a science like depth of explanation without the banality. It doesn't stretch science by creating some extraterrestrial world, which could exist, but I could never visit. It's our world through a sideways perspective. You can go to a nearby forest on a windy day and imagine nature being animated around you, the trees clawing at you in defence in case you should try to chop them down. I think beleivably animated nature is essential to the enjoyment of Tolkien's books, a way to escape from scientific law. Other peoples thoughts on this opinion would be very much appreciated.

[Aldagrim Proudfoot]

I think the key to a fantasy story is explaining things that are different and leaving others alone. I don't quite know what you mean by animated nature, but I agree with you. We need to know the nature of the world, and if it isn't explained, it's like ours.

[Veritas]

What I miss by books like Harry Potter is the way how it COULD exist. No way there could be a world like that.
In the books of Tolkien it is different, and that's what I like about his books. You really can imagine how it could be to walk trough the Shire. I think that Tolkien spend a lot of time thinking about these things.
These backgrounds have made the books other then most fantasy books, in my oppinion, and that is what I like about the books, the way Tolkien lloked further then only the story.

A very interesting topic, I hope you understand my opinion about this object, I don't know really how to explain my words in good English.

[Aldagrim Proudfoot]

That's true Veritas. (If you caught the pun I'm sorry) I'm actually starting to write a fantasy story about a world like ours, except that it has monsters and strange creatrures. (like people really thought existed)

[burrahobbit]

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

[Kalimac]

Thank you, Arthur C. Clarke [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]. It's a good question, Kin-strife, but my guess is pretty mundane - that Tolkien's world is so scientifically believable/consistent is that he was a very good writer and had a depth of intelligence and imagination that not too many of us can come close to. I don't think it had much to do with the age that he lived in (if I understood your question correctly, apologies if I didn't) except insofar as the novel was the form he chose as opposed to a lay poem or epic, which he probably would have told the story in if he'd lived centuries ago.

[burrahobbit]

You're welcome...

What I mean by that quote is that there is no real magic in Middle-earth (except for what Eru and the Ainur do). Every bit of magic done by the Children can be tested and such in a scientific fashion. The rules of the science are slightly different from our own, but that is all. It is probably good to call it "substituted."

[ June 15, 2002: Message edited by: burrahobbit ]

[Birdland]

I see kin-strife's as not referring to the "hard sciences", (I mean, he doesn't give us a breakdown of Elf DNA), but more of the "natural sciences". Tolkien approaches his work as if he were a cultural anthropologist or an archaeologist.

Most fantasy authors will plop a fantastical character down in the book, and assume the readers will just accept, or that they have enough background in the basic archtypes that little background information is needed.
But every Tolkien character is a vast historical and cultural bulwark behind him, defining his actions and beliefs.

And even though Tolkien made these backgrounds out of bits and pieces, they have an air of authenticity because they are all based on real ancient cultures. It has the ring of truth to us because it is OUR truths, handed down to us through the ages.

And of course, few fantasy novels have a companion source book, as LOTR does in the Silmarillion.

[ June 15, 2002: Message edited by: Birdland ]

[Child of the 7th Age]

Isn't it true, though, that later in his life Tolkien had some serious and conflicting questions as to how far the Silmarillion should mirror the known science of our universe? I'm specifically thinking of the fact that Tolkien did some rewriting of the earliest tales in which he rejected the idea of the flat earth origin. He stated that he was thinking of revising all of Arda to bring it more into harmony with modern ideas of the cosmogony.

If I remember corectly, Tolkien showed this new round earth version to a friend and he/she reacted negatively. Then he pulled back from that and decided to keep with the flat earth stories.

This is off the top of my head, so can anyone else remember this more clearly than I?

The origins of most everything, with the exception of Eru, are given in the books.

I can think of one other people who had a hidden, mysterious origin and that was the hobbits. We know about the three branches: Fallohides, Stoors, and Harfoots; (Harfeet??), and we are told they were first seen along the Anduin. But, before that, we know nothing. We do not know their "scientific" origin.

This mysterous origin may be in keeping with Tolkien's desire to portray this people as the unknown and hidden weapon which could then be used against Sauron.

Anyone else have feelings on this?

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[Bêthberry]

Greetings Kin-strife,

If I understand you properly, you are saying that Tolkien includes a kind of natural history in his fiction that is unlike the descriptions of other writers. Things like the climate being consistent with the topography, birds, plants, flora and fauna being identifiable, the geography plausible. Correct?

What might be relevant here is the comment Merry makes about the Old Forest being so much more alive and aware.

*lies back on the soft mosses by the Withywindle and looks up at the stars sparkling through the canopy of trees*

Bethberry

[ June 16, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]

[akhtene]

Well, I understand the word "science" here to mean not any particular branch or studies, but the general approach to describing the world of Middle Earth. Most everything, even magic, has its rules and laws. The reader can learn about the origin of things, the causes and development of events. Kin-strife wrote

Tolkien's myth ... bears the mark of being written in a scientific age.

I understand this as the feature of the readers for whom the books were created. Modern readers are not so easily made believe in magic and wonders. They want some basis, some ground to start thinking and asking questions. For me Tolkien's books combine the best features of a "real life" story with its plausible details and situations, and a myth (or fairy-tale) with its mysteries that anyone is vited to discuss and solve.

[The Silver-shod Muse]

I liked what burrahobbit had to say: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

I don't know if there is any such thing as magic, but I am inclined to disbelieve that there is. The most incomprehensible force is merely a science that man has not yet understood.

Some people like to think of God as an invisible, magic genie that wills things to happen. Who's to say that God is not the highest form of science, the true science of life, the universe, and everything that man has not even begun to delve into? I don't know if this is what Tolkien felt, but that is the impression that his Elves leave on my mind.

As Galadriel said of her mirror, "...this is what your folk would call magic, I believe...", so we might say, if we could, to the common man of centuries ago, and so too might the man of centuries to come say to us.

[Dain]

Yes, but it would be a shame if Galadriel's mirror was nothing more than a television, eh? There are magical things in ME that cannot be explained by science, and those that can be are mostly the dark work of Sauron or Saruman (gunpowder, for example). Good magic (ie elven magic) seems to take the form of "art," and there are quotes from Tolkien about exactly what that means to him, but I don't have them at my fingertips...

[alatar]

I think that the words "plausible" and "consistent" are most apt. The artifacts and knowledge that Tolkien presents to us in his works are, for the most part, both plausible ("I can see that.") and consistent ("It works that way every time.").

Take dragons - they can talk. The two that I've met, Glaurung and Smaug, both can talk and are beguiling. Glaurung seems to be much bigger than Smaug, and so tromps around whereas Smaug soars. Because of his bulkiness, Glaurung has to use bridges (like the one 'ordered' by Turin) to cross rivers. Smaug also wasn't big on swimming. Dragons may not exist in our time, but these examples from this sideways past are plausible and consistent with the reptiles that I see today (okay, gators and crocs like to swim, but...).

Take Sting. It glows when enemies are near. In another thread I considered how this could be possible, given today's technology. It does not, however, shoot flame - no matter how much that could have been useful to Sam in Cirith Ungol. Peter Jackson didn't even give the hobbit blade additional abilities (unlike Saruman's staff). However the elves made the knife, you learn what it can and cannot do, and to me that makes it more real.

Take hobbit origins. You get some hints regarding where they came from. More research doesn't yield many answers. But you know that they're much like us, and you can use your own meanderings to fill in some plausible histories - whether a new creation by Eru to thwart Sauron, or a subset of humans that, due to genes and environment, became smaller in stature, or a sub-race like the petty dwarves. Whatever, their origins do not seem utterly fantastic - arriving in a conch shell on the beach.

Make sense?

[Eönwë]

Well, Tolkien created the world before the books, didn't he?

Originally Posted by alatar

Take Sting. It glows when enemies are near. In another thread I considered how this could be possible, given today's technology. It does not, however, shoot flame - no matter how much that could have been useful to Sam in Cirith Ungol. Peter Jackson didn't even give the hobbit blade additional abilities (unlike Saruman's staff).

But Gandalf's can (well, he can...)

Anyway, in many cultures, people believed in all sorts of spirits and things, and so, to them, they really existed. Tolkien takes this and utilises it.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Eönwë

Anyway, in many cultures, people believed in all sorts of spirits and things, and so, to them, they really existed. Tolkien takes this and utilises it.

I'm not entirely sure I know what your response means.

Are you saying that Tolkien is using people's need/desire to believe in the fantastic, and also peoples' pseudo-belief in certain mythologies (if *that* makes any sense!)?

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by alatar

I'm not entirely sure I know what your response means.

Are you saying that Tolkien is using people's need/desire to believe in the fantastic, and also peoples' pseudo-belief in certain mythologies (if *that* makes any sense!)?

To tell you the truth, I'm not sure exactly what it means. I had a good reason for posting it at the time though. Hmm...

edit: wait, that was less than an hour ago. What's happening to me? I should log off now before things get out of hand

[Hot, crispy nice hobbit]

I believe that Balrogs have no wings, only wing-like fins for swimming.

Challenge that.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Hot, crispy nice hobbit

I believe that Balrogs have no wings, only wing-like fins for swimming.

Challenge that.

At the risk of turning this into another Balrog Wing Debate... why would a create of shadow and flame be equipped for swimming?





Anyway, to the more pertinent topic, I agree with Alatar that consistency is key to the idea that Tolkien writes as a product of the scientific era. True randomness does not occur in Middle-Earth, and as a particular note of this, I recommend Tolkien's later philological ponderings over the origins of names that had remained static while his concept of the the Elven tongues had shifted dramatically. Tolkien was quite keen to make names like "Glorfindel, Turgon, and Elros"--names with decades long history for him, fit with the post-LotR form and roots of the Elven tongues that had changed considerably. This same attention to detail is what gives the LotR its rich character of historical detail, and is also the source of the sense of overwhelming nerdiness that some people get from Tolkien fans.

[Lush]

"Everything you can imagine is real." - Pablo Picasso.

But there are patterns to the human imagination, and maybe in a thousand years or so, we'll know the true power of it. Or so I think when I re-read Tolkien. For me, it's not just how he sets up the rules and then operates within them, it's also how he also creates this whole notion that there are entire undiscovered corners of human history, and sustains it.

[Hot, crispy nice hobbit]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

At the risk of turning this into another Balrog Wing Debate... why would a create of shadow and flame be equipped for swimming?

But that was the entire point... why would a creature of shadow and flame be able to swim in the first place? (At least, one Balrog was known to swim in LoTR, and is a thing of slime after the dip) The boundaries of science in LoTR are being tested, and no completely satisfactory answer was supplied, or even inferred.

No body is likely to loose any sleep over the tidbit in other fantasy fictions... But in the case of LoTR and the Histories, folks would still gnaw at the remains of Balrog shadow wings/fins in another half century. This testify to the powers of literature over people's perception.