drowsnake
New Member
Hi all,
I'm a first time poster, but I've been listening for about a year and I'm coming close to catching up (although I've joined a few recent live classes anyway).
I’ve just finished Session 156: The Final Narrative and Professor Olsen's name for that session has left me wondering: why are there so many narratives? I mean the actual prose narratives that some of the council members give that read like excerpts from a book, like Gloin quoting exact dialogue between Dain and Sauron’s messenger, or Bilbo recounting every riddle between him and Gollum. But Gandalf is the worst of them all!
Who in their right mind, when delivering urgent news of the betrayal of a close and powerful ally, takes the time to include lines like this:
From an audience standpoint, I really enjoy these glimpses into the lives of characters outside the main narrative of the story and I understand that they convey information that's import for us to learn, but in-universe, it seems to me a very inefficient way to run a meeting deciding the fate of Middle-earth. Is it possible that the Council of Elrond really did proceed efficiently and Frodo added on to these passages after the fact? Post-Mount Doom, could he have asked Gandalf and the others to flesh out the story for the benefit of his future audience? After all, good stories deserve a little embellishment.
I'm a first time poster, but I've been listening for about a year and I'm coming close to catching up (although I've joined a few recent live classes anyway).
I’ve just finished Session 156: The Final Narrative and Professor Olsen's name for that session has left me wondering: why are there so many narratives? I mean the actual prose narratives that some of the council members give that read like excerpts from a book, like Gloin quoting exact dialogue between Dain and Sauron’s messenger, or Bilbo recounting every riddle between him and Gollum. But Gandalf is the worst of them all!
Who in their right mind, when delivering urgent news of the betrayal of a close and powerful ally, takes the time to include lines like this:
'"I will do that," [Radagast] said, and rode off as if the Nine were after him.'
Who at the Council of Elrond cares how fast Radagast rode off? Or what the exact words he spoke were? I know this specific line will end up explaining how Gandalf was rescued from his imprisonment, but why does he need to mention that at all before coming to the main point of his story? Why does he not cut to the chase and simply say "Hey everyone, Saruman has betrayed us. He imprisoned me and he’s after the Ring" and then list important details as needed? Why does he feel the need to relay this information in a narrative fashion, including the building and releasing of tension, as though he were reading from a novel?From an audience standpoint, I really enjoy these glimpses into the lives of characters outside the main narrative of the story and I understand that they convey information that's import for us to learn, but in-universe, it seems to me a very inefficient way to run a meeting deciding the fate of Middle-earth. Is it possible that the Council of Elrond really did proceed efficiently and Frodo added on to these passages after the fact? Post-Mount Doom, could he have asked Gandalf and the others to flesh out the story for the benefit of his future audience? After all, good stories deserve a little embellishment.