TyaMenelaus
New Member
Hello! I listened to The Tolkien Professor many years ago when I was in University and hungry for academic engagement. Recently I've gotten back to Tolkien and his works, and was delighted to find Dr. Olsen still out there doing God's work, now with his Exploring LOTR podcast with its many... many, many, many episodes. I am listening from the beginning, as it only right and proper (though, I must confess, not being a LOTRO player I sometimes skip the field trip), and I found myself with several burning questions/comments for Dr. Olsen, and the Discord directed me here. If these questions are too 'old', as it were, and are better answered by the broader community I'd would beg the mods to please move this post to the appropriate forum. Regardless, these questions are all influenced by the first fifteen episodes, which I know are many years ago now, but they still burn regardless.
1) Why do Hobbits not count is Gandalf among the Big People? Throughout the early chapters of LOTR it is repeatedly stressed that hobbits, Frodo and friends included, have no experience with the Big People (i.e. Men)—they haven't met them, they don't know their ways, they don't have a baseline for them. But Gandalf is a known presence in the Shire. We know that while Gandalf is not as tall as, say, Elrond, he's definitely taller than dwarves and certainly hobbits. The Hobbits know nothing of the Istari, much less the Maiar, and yet never-the-less there seems to be an instinctive understanding that a 'Wizard' is its own distinctive racial category—that is to say that he neither elf nor man, and yet it is not clear why wizards are accorded such a distinctive place, save perhaps that there is some generational memory that this guy has been showing up for a century now and always seems elderly in a way elves are never presented as being, even though it's really just the one guy. This ties to a broader issue I have wherein it seems very strange that there's only five wizards, as they seemed to have an outsized culture presence. Given that Radagast is generally implied to have gone native and just live in a hut with woodland creatures, an the two blues made so little impact in middle-earth that no-one remembers their names, they only two wizards that anyone is likely to have met, and it is only Gandalf who does much in the way of travelling, at least openly. And yet Gildor can say "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger,” as though 'wizards' are a larger category of being one might encounter, instead of just, essentially, one guy, and maybe very occasionally his boss. (Also, I'm not sure I'd even say Gandalf is quick to anger, which makes the phrase even stranger.) When writing LOTR, did Tolkien have a strong sense that there is only five wizards in total, only three of which have any presence (making it a comically tiny order for Saruman to be in charge of?), because otherwise Hobbits and elves alike sure seem to be deeply influenced by the doing and actions of essentially two guys (sorry Radagast).
2) In my reading I always presumed that the Conspiracy dated to the time that Sam was infenestrated into Bad End and told that Frodo would... eventually... be leaving The Shire, at which point he reached out to Frodo's friends, but Dr. Olsen seemed confident that the Conspiracy dates back before that time—that Sam is consciously eavesdropping not just because he is intrigued by the content, but because he is actively gaining into on Frodo's doings, and I am just wondering what the textual underpinning for this idea is: we know that Frodo has long held an idea that he would travel beyond the Shire at some point, but was that really demonstrably obvious before Gandalf made it a necessity?
3) This 'question', more a critique, was the hardest to phrase as I don't want it to come as accusatory, but I would simply put that I would... disagree with Dr. Olsen's assertion that master-servant dialogue would be unknown to modern American readers—at least, it would not be so to all American readers.. Perhaps it is simply easier with this much distance from 2017 to see just how much condescension-based hierarchy is alive and well in America, but there are absolutely portions of the population who are used to code-switching into a particular mode when conversing with nominally-fellow Americans who perceived themselves to be of a different social/economic ran: this exists on both racial and class lines, and American egalitarianism has, I am sorry to argue, always been more of ideal experience by some more than everyone.
If nothing else, what makes the master-servant relationship between Frodo and Sam unalike American experiences is the degree to which the love they bear for one-another is seemingly so genuine and real.
4) I was really pleased when Dr. Olsen dove into a pet-peeve of mine, namely the general inability among adaptations to portray the elves as anything other than ethereal and serene to, quite frankly, the point of superciliousness. This was driven home for me while listening to Andy Serkis' new audiobook recording of LOTR (which I quite like). In the meeting with Gildor, when some elves are described as being akin to children in how silly and merry they are, Gildor still sounds like... well, for lack of a better phrase, a holy-than-thou elvish prat. I've had a long-held belief that I can't imagine Orlando Bloom's Legolas laughing in a way that wouldn't sound robotic and unnatural. Dr. Olsen posits that it is simply human nature that makes our portrayal of elves so... un-merry, which is to say that we emphasize the tragedy and thus presumed tragic-disposition of the elves because we want to make them 'relatable' and we have a hard time squaring their tragedy with their 'tra-la-la-lolly' selves. This became particularly acute in the absolutely joyless elves of the Jackson Hobbit adaptations (no one has ever smiled in the presence of Lee Pace's Thranduil), but I still find it striking that even in the LOTR audiobook, where nothing is cut and all the text is there as published, the direction can still have a talented actor read lines about the elves being silly and goofy and then put NONE of that into the performance. I am reminded by that line from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, "Magic comes very naturally to [fairies], but by human standards they are barely sane”: that's broadly what we should be seeing, but never do. Why is it that we seem so incapable of making elves truly weird: they should be bizarre, they should be exhausting. Are we just stuck with head-in-the-clouds, mystical elves of exceeding dullness? Are we so bound by that need for 'relatability'? Are there any adaptations that come close to getting this right?
5) Are elves still having children? We know that the elves know that they are in decline: at no point do we encounter any elf who seems to think the trend can be reversed, that Valinor is not inevitable, but it's not easy to judge to what extent this has affected elvish culture and day-to-day life—we just don't spend that much time with elves in LOTR, and I wonder if it is commented on elsewhere. Are elves still forming families and bringing children into a world they know they are leaving? Are there elves in Middle-Earth under a thousand years old? Five hundred? A century? Do any of the elven caravans making their way to the Havens have a babe in arms? Started thinking about this a few days ago and found it enormously sad.
1) Why do Hobbits not count is Gandalf among the Big People? Throughout the early chapters of LOTR it is repeatedly stressed that hobbits, Frodo and friends included, have no experience with the Big People (i.e. Men)—they haven't met them, they don't know their ways, they don't have a baseline for them. But Gandalf is a known presence in the Shire. We know that while Gandalf is not as tall as, say, Elrond, he's definitely taller than dwarves and certainly hobbits. The Hobbits know nothing of the Istari, much less the Maiar, and yet never-the-less there seems to be an instinctive understanding that a 'Wizard' is its own distinctive racial category—that is to say that he neither elf nor man, and yet it is not clear why wizards are accorded such a distinctive place, save perhaps that there is some generational memory that this guy has been showing up for a century now and always seems elderly in a way elves are never presented as being, even though it's really just the one guy. This ties to a broader issue I have wherein it seems very strange that there's only five wizards, as they seemed to have an outsized culture presence. Given that Radagast is generally implied to have gone native and just live in a hut with woodland creatures, an the two blues made so little impact in middle-earth that no-one remembers their names, they only two wizards that anyone is likely to have met, and it is only Gandalf who does much in the way of travelling, at least openly. And yet Gildor can say "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger,” as though 'wizards' are a larger category of being one might encounter, instead of just, essentially, one guy, and maybe very occasionally his boss. (Also, I'm not sure I'd even say Gandalf is quick to anger, which makes the phrase even stranger.) When writing LOTR, did Tolkien have a strong sense that there is only five wizards in total, only three of which have any presence (making it a comically tiny order for Saruman to be in charge of?), because otherwise Hobbits and elves alike sure seem to be deeply influenced by the doing and actions of essentially two guys (sorry Radagast).
2) In my reading I always presumed that the Conspiracy dated to the time that Sam was infenestrated into Bad End and told that Frodo would... eventually... be leaving The Shire, at which point he reached out to Frodo's friends, but Dr. Olsen seemed confident that the Conspiracy dates back before that time—that Sam is consciously eavesdropping not just because he is intrigued by the content, but because he is actively gaining into on Frodo's doings, and I am just wondering what the textual underpinning for this idea is: we know that Frodo has long held an idea that he would travel beyond the Shire at some point, but was that really demonstrably obvious before Gandalf made it a necessity?
3) This 'question', more a critique, was the hardest to phrase as I don't want it to come as accusatory, but I would simply put that I would... disagree with Dr. Olsen's assertion that master-servant dialogue would be unknown to modern American readers—at least, it would not be so to all American readers.. Perhaps it is simply easier with this much distance from 2017 to see just how much condescension-based hierarchy is alive and well in America, but there are absolutely portions of the population who are used to code-switching into a particular mode when conversing with nominally-fellow Americans who perceived themselves to be of a different social/economic ran: this exists on both racial and class lines, and American egalitarianism has, I am sorry to argue, always been more of ideal experience by some more than everyone.
If nothing else, what makes the master-servant relationship between Frodo and Sam unalike American experiences is the degree to which the love they bear for one-another is seemingly so genuine and real.
4) I was really pleased when Dr. Olsen dove into a pet-peeve of mine, namely the general inability among adaptations to portray the elves as anything other than ethereal and serene to, quite frankly, the point of superciliousness. This was driven home for me while listening to Andy Serkis' new audiobook recording of LOTR (which I quite like). In the meeting with Gildor, when some elves are described as being akin to children in how silly and merry they are, Gildor still sounds like... well, for lack of a better phrase, a holy-than-thou elvish prat. I've had a long-held belief that I can't imagine Orlando Bloom's Legolas laughing in a way that wouldn't sound robotic and unnatural. Dr. Olsen posits that it is simply human nature that makes our portrayal of elves so... un-merry, which is to say that we emphasize the tragedy and thus presumed tragic-disposition of the elves because we want to make them 'relatable' and we have a hard time squaring their tragedy with their 'tra-la-la-lolly' selves. This became particularly acute in the absolutely joyless elves of the Jackson Hobbit adaptations (no one has ever smiled in the presence of Lee Pace's Thranduil), but I still find it striking that even in the LOTR audiobook, where nothing is cut and all the text is there as published, the direction can still have a talented actor read lines about the elves being silly and goofy and then put NONE of that into the performance. I am reminded by that line from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, "Magic comes very naturally to [fairies], but by human standards they are barely sane”: that's broadly what we should be seeing, but never do. Why is it that we seem so incapable of making elves truly weird: they should be bizarre, they should be exhausting. Are we just stuck with head-in-the-clouds, mystical elves of exceeding dullness? Are we so bound by that need for 'relatability'? Are there any adaptations that come close to getting this right?
5) Are elves still having children? We know that the elves know that they are in decline: at no point do we encounter any elf who seems to think the trend can be reversed, that Valinor is not inevitable, but it's not easy to judge to what extent this has affected elvish culture and day-to-day life—we just don't spend that much time with elves in LOTR, and I wonder if it is commented on elsewhere. Are elves still forming families and bringing children into a world they know they are leaving? Are there elves in Middle-Earth under a thousand years old? Five hundred? A century? Do any of the elven caravans making their way to the Havens have a babe in arms? Started thinking about this a few days ago and found it enormously sad.