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Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Plato to MacDonald to Chesterton, Tolkien and the Boys in the Pub.
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Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby A#minor » January 5th, 2006, 7:23 pm

"My brain and this world don't fit each other, and there's an end of it!" - G.K. Chesterton
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re: Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby Zies » January 5th, 2006, 9:15 pm

"You know not of what lurks in the shadows."-Zies

"Hold your ground,hold your ground! Sons of Gondor, of Rohan may brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that may take the heart from me. The day may come when the courage of men falls, but today is not this day. The day when the age of men comes crashing down in an hour of wolves and shields, but today is not this day. This day we fight!. For all you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand men of west!"-Aragorn
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re: Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby A#minor » January 5th, 2006, 9:18 pm

Perhaps you're right. But it seems like it would take them less time, since they are hurrying. But of course, they aren't going by the road, so they have to blaze a trail through the woods, so it might still take more time.
Oh, well, who cares? :p
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re: Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby Leslie » January 5th, 2006, 11:03 pm

It might have been halfway as the crow flies, but if memory serves, they had to take a circuitous route to get from Weathertop to Rivendell, because of deep ravines and such. Aragorn knew when they left Bree that they would have to avoid the Nazgul, so he would have factored that into his calculations from the beginning.
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re: Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby A#minor » January 5th, 2006, 11:42 pm

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re: Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby Glorfindel of Gondolin » January 6th, 2006, 12:27 am

Then said Littleheart son of Bronweg: "Alas for Gondolin."
And no one in the Room of Logs spake or moved for a great while.
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re: Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby Adam Linton » January 6th, 2006, 1:44 am

Then, also, is the fairly complicated matter of passage of time in Lothlorien. Is time the same in there as it is on the outside? Note Sam's confusion after leaving, noticing the phase of the moon cycle. I don't know if Tolkien ever completely resolves this. The noted Tolkien scholar, Verlyn Flieger, engages with this issue substantially in her A Question of Time: J.R.R. Tolkien's Road to Faerie, but I don't know if she fully settles the question either.
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re: Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby ilja » January 6th, 2006, 5:21 pm

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re: Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby russcannon » January 11th, 2006, 12:38 pm

Here is a mystery I spotted a few years ago:

How to account for Smeagol's knowledge that the Hobbits' ascent of Mount Doom represented a threat to the Precious.

Within the narrative at the time he attacks Frodo and Sam on Orodruin, Smeagol had not...

-been told they were going to destroy the ring,
-overheard (again within the narrative) that they were going to destroy the ring,
-been told that that particular mountain was dangerous to the ring,
-heard the lore of the ring.

I think this is something that Tolkien just forgot about. In order to maintain the cohesion of the narrative, each of us must supply the missing information in our own favorite way. Some might say that Smeagol just knew instinctively of the danger, but this is too vague for me. I need something more concrete. Others have suggested to me that the ring "cried out for help", but they would then have to account for why the Witch King did not know the "specific power" that he perceived in his valley. If the ring possessed the power to communicate so clearly and explicitly, it should have done so there. But we have elsewhere in the narrative that the ring had to be put on by its bearer before it could be anything more than a vague sense of a brooding power. My solution is much more mundane: Smeagol simply overheard Frodo tell Faramir about the Quest.

Peter Jackson solved the problem by having Frodo just tell Smeagol himself.
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Russ

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re: Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby A#minor » January 11th, 2006, 2:51 pm

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re: Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby Erekose » January 12th, 2006, 12:46 am

Call yourself a dog???? I've seen better hair on a lavatory brush!!!
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re: Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby Glorfindel of Gondolin » January 13th, 2006, 1:15 am

A heretic? Don't degrade yourself, Erekose. You are the heretic :).
Then said Littleheart son of Bronweg: "Alas for Gondolin."
And no one in the Room of Logs spake or moved for a great while.
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Re: re: Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby russcannon » January 13th, 2006, 11:35 am

Regards,
Russ

Plausible as these explanations may sound, they ignore economics, among other things.--Thomas Sowell
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Re: re: Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby russcannon » January 13th, 2006, 11:43 am

Regards,
Russ

Plausible as these explanations may sound, they ignore economics, among other things.--Thomas Sowell
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re: Contradictions and Mysteries in LOTR

Postby jo » February 6th, 2006, 7:18 pm

Aragorn says that it would take him 12 days on his own feet from Weathertop to Rivendell with or without Frodo. So yes, i suppose it's a small mistake, though whether on the part of the author or the character I don't know ;)
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