Recent content by Flammifer

Hi Mallorn Protection Agency. (Are you supplementing or usurping Galadriel and Celeborns' traditional roles?) Congratulations on trying to catch up with the podcast) Your questions about Glorfindel are complicated. They have to do with the 'hroa and frea' concepts around the nature of Elves...

I like your connection of the Watcher, and 'we cannot get out' with the maritime side of WWI. I am not sure that JRRT would have been thinking of this, as his war experience was with the horrors of the trenches rather than the war at sea, and his sympathies might not have tended so much toward...

Hi TThurston, Here is a post from this forum from 2021 which looks at the March 25 date and the Annunciation. I also gave a presentation at New England Moot 2023 on this subject. Double your pleasure! Double your fun! Let’s have double Annunciations? Thread starterFlammifer Start dateSep...

Hi Willormir, I am not sure on what basis you are categorizing Frodo's statements as 'Correct' or 'Debatable'? They were all (in frame) written by Frodo (presumably some time after they occurred), and the only difference between them is that the one you have labelled 'Correct' is in quotes...

Hi Willomir, Yes, there are two possible external influences on Frodo; The Ring and the after effects of partial wraithification by the Nazgul knife. How much either of these is influencing Frodo at any time is often difficult to interpret. I usually think less than many infer. Frodo being...

Hi Willomir, Interesting possible influences shaping JRRT's conceptions. "JRRT does not need to have been influenced by creatures known to current biology, nor by creatures from his favorite myths and legends to imagine the Watcher in the Water." Of course, JRRT often is influenced by both of...

The only HP Lovecraft story which we might assume with some basis that JRRT probably read was, "The Doom that came to Sarnath". This is because we know that he owned an anthology which contained that Lovecraft story (or a portion of it). (Holly Ordway, 'Tolkien's Modern Reading'). He might...

Hi Willowmir, Frodo has never seen starfish, nor squid, nor krakens. He is describing something for which he has no frame of reference. We do not know that the Watcher had 20 arms. In fact, we can observe that it had at least 21. "The arm let go of Frodo, and Sam pulled him away, crying out...

Congratulations on catching up!

I doubt that Frodo was hallucinating in either of these instances. Frodo (as presumed narrator) is looking back on the experience of the Watcher, when he is writing his description. I don't think he is hallucinating when writing this in Bag End. I also don't think that he is reporting any...

Hi Willomir It is certainly possible that JRRT drew some inspiration for the Shards of Narsil from the sword and saga you mentioned. It could also have been inspired by the sword Gram, from the much more widely known Volsunga Saga (and also the lesser known Thidrekssaga). Odin, in disguise...

You might be right Odola, but I tend to agree with Corey that JRRT invented mithril on the spot, when he was writing the passage in 'A Journey in the Dark', in response to Sam's question, "Then what do the dwarves want to come back for?"

I don't think Bilbo runs 'a mile or more along the other side of the river'. I think the whole run is just over a mile. Once Bilbo crosses the bridge at Hobbiton, and runs along the river, he is still running downhill, though not as steeply downhill as from Bag End to the bridge. Rivers tend...

The idea that the coat of mail given to Bilbo was 'mithril' was, of course, ret-conned into the Hobbit. ' When JRRT wrote The Hobbit, he had not yet conceived of 'mithril'. In my edition of The Hobbit, Ballantine Books, First authorized US paperback edition, second printing, September 1965, the...

Hi TThurston, Some thoughts on your question. 1. The text gives the distance Bilbo ran as, "a whole mile or more". I guess this means at least a mile, or slightly more. I would not infer as much as a mile and a half. 2. Bilbo does not tell Dwalin that he got the message at 10:45. He...