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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2022 19:17:04 GMT -5
 Today is the 130th anniversary of the birth of Professor Tolkien, born on Jan 3, 1892. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2022 9:39:24 GMT -5
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jan 7, 2022 0:11:19 GMT -5
There was a really fascinating BBC Tolkien interview from 1962 that the BBC Archives posted on Twitter a few days ago. I've never seen this before and it's a joy to watch. Below is a link to the tweet in question; I think anyone should be able to view it regardless of whether you have a Twitter account or not...
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jan 19, 2022 14:12:01 GMT -5
Certainly an interesting period to set the show, as doing it during the War of the Last Alliance gives you characters and set pieces people will be familiar with but in new situations. I wonder though why they didn't go with Cate Blanchett's opening narration? I suppose to differentiate it from the films...but her delivery was fantastic. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jan 19, 2022 14:53:35 GMT -5
I wonder though why they didn't go with Cate Blanchett's opening narration? I suppose to differentiate it from the films...but her delivery was fantastic. I don't know for sure, but I assumed this narration was by the show's Galadriel Morfydd Clark. That would certainly make sense |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2022 22:29:25 GMT -5
Helm's Deep, Lego style...  -M |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Feb 2, 2022 6:18:22 GMT -5
I've been re-visiting the 1968 BBC radio dramatisation of The Hobbit this week (for the zillionth time) and I was reminded of something that has always bugged me about the structure of the book. It's always been mildly irritating to me that Smaug was killed by Bard the archer of Lake-town and not by Gandalf, the company of Dwarves or Bilbo. Smaug is undoubtedly the book's main villain -- I mean, long before we meet him the dragon's fearsome reputation proceeds him -- and Bilbo is obviously the hero. So you would expect the hero to have a hand in beating the villain. Bard, on the other hand, is just a supporting character that doesn't get introduced until Chapter 10, and even then, his is a relatively minor part. Now, I realise that Bard being a highly skilled archer means that he was uniquely placed to be the one to send an arrow into the vulnerable spot on the dragon's underside and kill him, but it's a pity that Bilbo or the Dwarves couldn't have somehow been directly involved in slaying Smaug as well. Anyone else have a problem with Bard being the one to vanquish Smaug?  |
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Feb 2, 2022 8:09:17 GMT -5
The fact that Bard is the one to kill Smaug is a sign that The Hobbit was always meant to be part of the story of Middle Earth in some fashion. In the entire recorded history of Middle Earth, only men ever kill dragons. Glaurong was killed by Turin Turambar, Ancalagon by Earendil, Scatha by Fram, one of the ancestors of the Rohirrim, and Smaug by Bard. The pattern of the hero not vanquishing the villain is repeated in Lord of the Rings. Frodo doesn't destroy the ring. He fails and succumbs to the ring's temptation, and it is Gollum who destroys the ring by accident, with Frodo playing no part in it being sent into the lava. The movie changed things to give Frodo a more active role in the ring's destruction by fighting with Gollum and knocking him over the ledge.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 2, 2022 8:54:50 GMT -5
I've been re-visiting the 1968 BBC radio dramatisation of The Hobbit this week (for the zillionth time) and I was reminded of something that has always bugged me about the structure of the book. It's always been mildly irritating to me that Smaug was killed by Bard the archer of Lake-town and not by Gandalf, the company of Dwarves or Bilbo. Smaug is undoubtedly the book's main villain -- I mean, long before we meet him the dragon's fearsome reputation proceeds him -- and Bilbo is obviously the hero. So you would expect the hero to have a hand in beating the villain. Bard, on the other hand, is just a supporting character that doesn't get introduced until Chapter 10, and even then, his is a relatively minor part. Now, I realise that Bard being a highly skilled archer means that he was uniquely placed to be the one to send an arrow into the vulnerable spot on the dragon's underside and kill him, but it's a pity that Bilbo or the Dwarves couldn't have somehow been directly involved in slaying Smaug as well. Anyone else have a problem with Bard being the one to vanquish Smaug?
I didn't mind it so much, because while it's indeed dramatically surprising, it also feels a bit more realistic to have a minor character do something very important.
There are several such instances in Tolkien's works : the black riders not being stopped by Gandalf nor Strider but by Glorfindel (a very minor character in LotR, if not the Silmarillion), the Witch King fairly trouncing Gandalf before falling to Eowyn and Merry, or even Saruman compounding his fall from grace by being stabbed by Wormtongue, by that point a virtual joke. Even the ring being accidentally destroyed by Gollum tripping over his own feet could fit in that list of relatively anticlimactic moments, which in hindsight tell us that a lot of humble individuals have their part to play in portentous events.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Feb 2, 2022 9:08:37 GMT -5
Good points there sunofdarkchild and Roquefort Raider about how the unlikely person vanquishing the villain is a recurring theme in Tolkien's work. I hadn't thought of that, but you're right. I still find it unsatisfying in Bard's case, in a way I don't for the other examples you cite, but you've definitely made me view his slaying of Smaug in a different light. Also, really interesting info about the tradition of men killing dragons in Tolkien's Legendarium, which again I hadn't considered. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Feb 2, 2022 19:20:26 GMT -5
I always liked Bard being the one who took down Smaug because it made the world feel that much larger. The idea that there were players that were big deals just beyond the pages we read and they could intercede and change the path we were on at any time made it that much more exciting.
On top of that, I also like that it makes the narrative less typical, if the dwarfs and Bilbo somehow defeated Smaug on their own it would have been exactly what we expected.
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Post by Calidore on Feb 2, 2022 20:41:44 GMT -5
Also, big picture aside, the dwarves were the warriors; hobbits definitely are not. Clever, unobtrusive Bilbo was thus brought in as a "burglar". Being the one to grab a bow and precision-shoot a dragon out of the air would have been completely out of character for him.
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Post by berkley on Feb 2, 2022 21:19:46 GMT -5
I also think it might be connected to Tolkien's Christianity, a philisophical approach that informed his view of everything, including his fiction. I think Lord of the Rings is in certain respects a non-heroic narrative: the traditional, heroic figure of pagan myth and legend is embodied in Boromir, who Tolkien paints as wrong-headed in almost every way and fails in the end. I think the examples cited above - Bilbo, Frodo, etc - show that in Tolkien's universe, the hero doesn't triumph because of his own innate power or strength or even cleverness, he wins "through the grace of God", e.g. Gollum falling into the flames, the Witch-King killed by a weak woman instead of a great wizard or mighty warrior, etc. Once again, the traditional hero such as Boromir, who relies on strength (his own physical strength) or power (the power of the Ring he wants to make use of), is shown to be inadequate. So yeah, I thnk for Bilbo to kill Smaug, even by trickery od some sort, would probably have gone against Tolkien's way of seeing things.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Feb 3, 2022 8:51:53 GMT -5
Also, big picture aside, the dwarves were the warriors; hobbits definitely are not. Clever, unobtrusive Bilbo was thus brought in as a "burglar". Being the one to grab a bow and precision-shoot a dragon out of the air would have been completely out of character for him. Sure, but that wasn't really what I was saying. Bilbo could've still been involved in Smaug's slaying without being the one to shoot the arrow (which was something that only Bard could've done realistically). It was the way in which Bilbo and/or the Dwarves had absolutely nothing to do with his slaying that I was bemoaning, although I do accept that this is fairly typical of Tolkien's writing, as others have pointed out. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 3, 2022 10:02:59 GMT -5
One thing that bothered me in Peter Jackson's films, and that bothered me even more upon re-reading LotR, is how the great darkness spreading from Mordor before the siege of Gondor (a cloud cover so thick that it looked as if the day didn't rise) was, on the big screen, reduced to a slightly overcast day with the sun rising.
I understand that cinematographically speaking it's better than the dark mess that was the battle of Winterfell, and it probably made for a better movie (so more power to Jackson) but a little more gloom would have felt more accurate (as in The Return of the King animated film).
(Darn, I hadn't looked at that since the '80s... it actually looks pretty good, even if (as I recall) it had a lot of singing).
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