That's interesting; thanks for the heads up! As berkley observed, we probably must make a difference between physical and mystical aspects of the creatures considered. Glaurung on his own caused as much damage than an army of balrogs, but he was killed by a sword stroke: likewise Smaug who was shot by an arrow. 

Since the balrogs are twisted Maiar, I would expect them to be on par with a Gandalf or a Saruman, who are both formidable in their own way but can be stopped like any mortal if taken unawares. 

As mentioned above, both Ares and Aphrodite were sent packing by Diomedes and Sauron was almost killed by a dog; the absolute power level of an individual is no guarantee of success on the battlefield!

Neil Gaiman will be delivering this year's Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature at Pembroke College, Oxford, on June 12th.



For those in the UK contingent who might be interested, more info including ticket info can be found here

-M

The actor playing Aragorn did look a little like Viggo, I thought. In any case, I really enjoyed that fan-made production a few years ago... and I can almost guarantee that I will still like it better than the new "official" versions when they come out. Not that I try to be contrarian, but The Hobbit trilogy was very underwhelming and what I saw of The Rings of Power was utter dreck. Having WETA on one's side is not enough to make a good Tolkien film!

Shades of the Star Wars franchise...

Shamelessly re-posting this book review from the "All-Purpose Books Notes and Review Thread"...



Beren and Lúthien by J. R. R. Tolkien (edited by Christopher Tolkien).




I'm a big fan of J. R. R. Tolkien's two main works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but I've always struggled with the, frankly, almost completely impenetrable The Silmarillion. An exception to that would be a chapter in The Silmarillion titled "Of Beren and Lúthien", which tells the epic love story of an immortal elven princess and a mortal man who triumph over incredible odds, only for the tale to end in tragedy. This chapter is one of the most readable parts of the book and it was also a story that was particularly close to its author's heart, due to it having been partly inspired by his love for his wife Edith and their own romance.

Unfortunately, this stand-alone, full-length book version of Beren and Lúthien from 2017 isn't quite what I was expecting it to be. I thought it was going to be an attempt on Christopher Tolkien's part to incorporate as much of his father's relevant writings as possible into a cohesive novel-length re-telling. Instead, we have multiple versions of the tale in varying states accompanied by an in-depth analysis of how the story evolved over a span of 50 odd years in the author's life.

While it's certainly interesting to see how the tale of Beren and Lúthien changed over time – and Christopher Tolkien's commentary between the different versions is very readable – I ultimately found this to be a little too scholarly for my tastes. I do have a passing interest in how Tolkien's key works changed and evolved prior to their publications, of course, but to me these early versions of his stories are not the "proper" versions and therefore aren't Middle-earth canon. It's why the multi-volume History of Middle-earth series, which examines the development of Tolkien's fictional realm and its key work, The Lord of the Rings, has never appealed. Furthermore, an awful lot of Beren and Lúthien is taken up with the sprawling poem, The Lay of Leithian, which I found a total slog to get through.

I guess I'm just not terribly interested in the minutia of the evolution of Tolkien's works and would rather enjoy the stories as originally published. That said, I am glad that I read this once because "Of Beren and Lúthien" is one of my favourite Tolkien stories, but this isn't a book that I can imagine myself reading again and, as a result, I'm likely to donate it to a charity shop. Your mileage may vary, of course.

For me, I am fascinated as much by the creative process as I am by the finished product. I love those behind the curtain glimpses of creative folks and their creative endeavors. I'll pour over drafts of Tolkien's stuff, compare unfinished fragments of REH's with how pastiche writers finished them, devour episodes of Inside the Actor's Studios, linger over storyboards for a movie and compare it to the finished movie, TV show or animated projects, read comic scripts and compare them to the finished art of the book, look over back matter in trades that shows the art process from character sketches to page layouts to finished pencils to inks to colors and really dig into the decision making process at each step to figure out the ins and outs of that particular creators mindset vs. a different creator working on similar stuff.

Or even listening to storytellers like Neil Gaiman doing readings/tellings at different venues or different times for different audiences but telling the same story and seeing how it was subtly altered to better suit each audience (much like was done in the classical world when things like the Iliad and the Odyssey were being told (Albert Lord's The Singer of Tales is a fascinating look at the tradition as it survived into the 20th century in the Balkans with the itinerant musicians/storytellers in the pre-war years there). Even listening to things like early demos/rough cuts of songs and how they evolved either in the studio or through live performances, or hearing different takes of songs by the likes of Miles Davis at different points in his career or when playing with different musicians and seeing how songs change, evolve, and inspire different improvisations over the years.

But not everyone enjoys that as much as I do. I'm grateful that kind of material is out there though.

-M

I do enjoy looking at the creative process, just not to the point where it takes over and becomes more important than the actual work. There can be exceptions, of course: sometimes the finished product has been compromised and there might be some earlier variant that<s actually truer to the creator<s intentions or simply one that the reader or listener prefers over the creator<s choice. But those are exceptions, in my experience.

Without trying to do a count I would guess that it happens more with pop music, as it takes less time to listen to a demo than to read an alternate version of a story. Bu I can think of a few literary things I'd like to read - for instance, I'd be very curious to read Dickens's original ending to Great Expectations, which he reportedly changed on the advice of friend and fellow-author Wilkie Collins to make it less downbeat.