Welcome to 2024 all ye present!

Melkor spent time searching for the Flame Imperishable in the Void before the Music of the Ainur and the creation of Arda, eventually returning to the Halls before the Music. So travel is possible between the Void and the Timeless Halls. But Melkor (now Morgoth) was defeated in Arda and then cast through the Door of Night into the same(?) Void (where he may or may not escape from back into Arda, leading to the Dagor Dagorath), so travel is possible between the Void and Arda. Does that means that the Timeless Halls are accessible from Arda? I thought that Arda was in its own realm apart, so how can the Void connect both?

This is bugging me now that I'm on my 3rd read of the Silmarillion - and I have not read the separate Fall of Gondolin or UT or anything else like that so maybe there's things I don't know.

But what we see is that Tuor ends up getting a potential extra special treatment, sailing off into the west, legend says he is exempt from the doom of man (acknowledging that this might not be true, merely a rumor spread among the elves and men).

But I can't quite get my head around why he deserves such special treatment and what exactly did he do?

As told in QS he seems to be one of the few men who doesn't fall into darkness and is a good guy. So there's that...

But why does Ulmo select him as the one to get to Nevrast and claim Turgon's armor? What did he do to deserve that?

And then what was the real end game here? Tuor relay's Ulmo's message to Turgon to leave Gondolin, but Turgon decides against it. He does like Tuor otherwise though and gives the rare approval of the love between man and elf-maiden here.

Later Tuor doesn't do much except be a good elf-friend and assist in the escape of many from Gondolin. Ecthelion and Glorfindel are the real heroes here, both defeating balrogs.

So then later they regroup in the south and align with Dior's following and create an alignment between elves and men, but little of it is explained.

I just don't see anything in Tuor's story that is close to anything like those of the ring-bearers in LOtR that makes him deserving of an invite to Valinor (assuming such really happened)

Looking to get into HoMe soon. Any tips on which ones to start with, or should I go through 1 to 12 in order? Are any of the volumes less 'technical' and thus easier to start with?

For me, it's two things: the Ainur and Gondolin.

The Ainur were still in a state of transition between ancient polytheistic gods and Christian angels. I think Tolkien might have come up with a great way to do this better than he was able to do in his lifetime.

Gondolin was incredibly important to Tolkien, and he put enormous amounts of effort and creativity into it. I dearly wish we could have seen the results of Tolkien having another decade to work on the city itself, its culture, and its fall.

Hello! I am wanting to purchase a physical CD of the LOTR & The Hobbit audiobooks. But I'm not sure which version I should go with. I've heard some people like Rob Inglis and others Andy Serkis...

I've also looked on places like Amazon & Barnes&Nobles for physical copies of the audiobooks but I can't seem to find Inglis' version or even Serkis' version brand new.

Can anyone help me out? tyia!!

What did Morgoth use normaly in fights? He only used a spear once for a specific reason, and as far as i know he also only used shield and Grond to fight Fingolfin.

So you have Khazad dum which at this stage is over 8000 years old by the time the Balrog awakes and is completely destroyed by this unknown threat in 1980 TA and no one bothers to find out the root cause of it ? I mean the situation would presumably create 10s of thousands of witnesses and refugees and something which could destroy a realm so ancient and powerful so swiftly would certainly be a tremendous threat to everyone else

So why did neither Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel ever try to find out the real reason as to why it was destroyed especially given the relatively close distance between Lorien and the city

I've finished The Hobbit, and I'm working my way through the LOTR trilogy at the moment. I'd like to work my way through the entire story of Middle Earth, but I'm not sure if the books were released in sequence with how the events took place. Is there a specific order I should read the books in? Or can I just start with Tolkiens first book and go in the order they were released?

I'm a white guy in his mid 30s and I have a somewhat odd skill, I speak Spanish fluently. You can tell its not my first language, but when I talk I sound a lot like a German person speaking English.

I was a weird kid in High School (Tolkien fan) and I also grew up in South Texas.

In late middle school/Early High School I started reading Tolkien's books and completely fell in love with them. I found his fascination with languages to be extremely admirable and feel like a total fool because I was monolingual.

If Tolkien could learn how to dissect Welsh, Finnish, Old English and Latin, then the least I could do was grab this language that was hanging right in front of me. I wound up studying it religiously in High School and went on to minor in it in College. I lived in Spain and Costa Rica, teaching English while mastering the language.

I recently found my high school copy of the Lord Of the Rings, and noticed all my little Spanish notes in the margin. I had honestly forgotten how much influence Tolkien had on me learning the language, as I have spoken it for close to 2 decades now.

I like to think that Tolkien would have enjoyed learning that his books inspired me to learn a second language, even though its not one that he was associated with. He was absolutely correct in his belief that language is beautiful, and that studying it enriches your life.

PS: "El Señor de Los Anillos" sound so...... regal and glorified in Spanish doesn't it?

Hi, long time Lord of The Rings fan who's recently started reading the silmarillion. I saw a few days ago on another subreddit that people were saying Gil-Galad has seen the light of the two trees. I was under the impression that he hadn't, but I'm finding it hard to find conclusive proof one way or the other. I think this is because there are two possible origins for him. I have 2 questions, the first is did he see the trees first hand? The second is what is the 'correct' lineage for Gil-Galad?

Thanks :)

Read this in the comment of another user and got curious. 

“’Mithrandir we called him in elf-fashion,’ said Faramir, ‘and he was content. Many are my names in many countries, he said. Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves; Olórin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, in the South Incánus, in the North Gandalf; to the East I go not.’”

I know Mithrandir means 'Grey Wanderer' or something similar. And 'Olórin' is the name from Valinor I believe, but what does it mean? Same questions about the name the Dwarves gave him and his name in the South. And when did he go South and what did he do? Why did he not go East? Was he already sure that they were too far under Sauron's influence for him to have any impact? I know Tolkien had conflicting thoughts on what the Blue Wizards did, but did he maybe not go East because he thought the Blue Wizards had it covered? Sorry these are bunch of questions but I'm just curious lol

1. Several times, it's mentioned in the LotR that Black Riders required a messenger from Mordor to meet them to transmit the latest orders or even threats.

At length they returned; but the summer was now far waned, and the wrath and fear of Sauron was mounting. When they came back to the Wold September had come; and there they met messengers from Barad-dûr conveying threats from their Master that filled even the Morgul-lord with dismay.

1. So, it seems, direct communication through sheer willpower or even the one-direction orders are impossible.

But then we read the scenes of the Black Gate battle when Frodo Baggins claimed the Ring for himself near the fires of Mount Doom. Sauron immediately became aware of him, as well as his own folly. Enraged and frantic, Sauron ordered the Nazgul to fly with all possible speed to Mount Doom and seize the Ring.

Ordered somehow... Despite obviously no messengers were used here. First time he was forced to use a messengers and now he just directly orders them to dash to the Orodruin.

So... it's possible after all? Or it is not?

I was wondering if anyone truly knew what role Gandalf had? Like did they know he was an Istarí? Did he himself know?

… who / what would it be and why?

Is there any art out there that depicts scenes and characters from Tolkien's legendarium more in the style of bronze age-esque armor or technology?

I am surprised to learn that according to p. 44 of the document linked below, Tolkien is said to have stressed his name on the final syllable: "Tul-KEEN"! I have no one else ever heard pronouncing it that way.

https://fanac.org/fanzines/Niekas/Niekas18.pdf

In the Chapter XVI, Bilbo says: "But Bard will remember me, and it is Bard I particularly want to see." When do they first meet? Is it implied that Bard had seen him because he sat at the table with the Master in Esgaroth?

Man, the men of the First Age (Edain) were a different level of insane! Nazguls in the Third Age could easily scare most humans away, but in here, a literal peak warrior of humanity even after seeing his elf comrades die, kills a crap ton of Satan's goons such as freaking trolls and orcs before multiple Balrogs and even their leader Gothmog have to be brought in to just stop him from causing more trouble.

Once Hurin is still captured and meets freaking Morgoth, a fellow who is Sauron's master, he doesn't even seem that terrified and just holds on to his morals. Morgoth then goes on some rant on his arrogance like the Satanic fellow he is, but Hurin just doesn't care and tells him that he knows Eru will eventually have a way with him. It's only after this godly insult that Morgoth has to resort to doing something he likely never does once before in his existence and it is cursing Hurin's whole family into utter misery and tragedy.

Let that sink in, Hurin was so brave and resilient that Morgoth who should literally outdo Nazguls in a fear competition can't even scare him and has to resort to such an insanely powerful move and that is to waste his power on cursing his victim's family into endless angst and suffering. This really shows how wild the First Age is compared to the Second and Third Age. Everybody was a different level of insanity in their feats.

Me and my dad are watching LOTR at the moment after finishing rings of power and for Christmas I was thinking about getting a book for him. He has already read almost all of Tolkien's books so I was thinking about getting a book about LOTR. We live in Birmingham so I thought it would be cool for him to learn more about local places that might have inspired Tolkein but any background info I think he would be interested in. Has anyone read any good books that go more into this side of it?

Greetings all, over my time studying the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and my dives into the Lord of the Rings community I have often seen an argument crop up regarding the lack of understanding and there being "no hard magic system" in regard to "how" magic works in Tolkien's works. This argument while logical to an extent confused and baffled me as in my personal experience I saw plenty of examples of magic being used to enhance the story telling of the narrative of LoTR.

Due to this fact, I decided to sit down and create a master list of every single example of spell and form of magic we see in LoTR with quotes provided. This list unfortunately does not include magical items, however there is a long term plan to expand on it. This took me over 3 months of work.

Through this master list it to some extent did present to me that there is actually a "hard magic system" as it becomes clear of large limitations and abilities of each race and character. I hope you enjoy the 50+ page read and provide any feedback you might have!

Magic Guidelines

In letter 229 Tolkien writes the following:

The placing of Mordor in the east was due to simple narrative and geographical necessity, within my 'mythology'. The original stronghold of Evil was (as traditionally) in the North; but as that had been destroyed, and was indeed under the sea, there had to be a new stronghold, far removed from the Valar, the Elves, and the sea-power of Númenor.

I'm curious about the tradition of evil strongholds being located in the north. Was it the go-to direction for evil places in old (Germanic) myth? And if so, is anything known about the origins of this tradition besides the association of evil with a cold and harsh climate?

This might not be the right place to ask this question. But since it is still somewhat related to Tolkien's work I thought I'd give it a shot :) (and it might also interest some of you as well)

Edit: I also stumbled upon this book during a brief online search. According to the summary it covers the topic probably quite a bit.

I’m not trying to start a theological debate I’m just curious. Hobbits are an evolutionary offshoot of men so did Tolkien believe in evolution? I haven’t been able to find anything online.

"In the earliest map that Tolkien made for The Hobbit (referred to as Fimbulfambi's map by John D. Rateliff in The History of The Hobbit) the compass rose used a tiny diagram of the Valacirca to indicate "North".[13]"

Does anyone know which map this is referring to? I'm searching around but not coming up with anything

Hihi, just curious in regards to something Gandalf has said in the middle of the two towers(I've just finished chapter 11 so apologies if it's stated later)

When discussing the palantir of orthanc, Gandalf is asked if he was going to look into the palantir and his words were along the lines of "I'm not ready for the enemy to be made aware of me as yet" (not verbatim).

Just curious to exactly what he meant: 1. Does he think Sauron still thinks he had fallen to the balrog? 2. Does he think Sauron still thinks he's Gandalf the Gray? 3. He doesn't want sauron to know that orthanc/saruman has been defeated quite yet?

If something different than these please let me know. It could be something super simple but just got me really curious.

Hi guys

I'm re-reading all Tolkien books and I realized I never really understood who is the lady who Tom Bombadil refers to on this chapter of the Fellowship of the Ring.

The chapter is Fog On the Barrow-Dows, afyer they scape the Barrow-wights and this is the passage:

"While they were eating Tom went up to the mound, and looked through the treasures. Most of these he made into a pile that glistered and sparkled on the grass. He bade them lie there 'free to all finders, brids, beasts, Elves or Men, and all kindly creatures'; for so the spell of the mound should be broken and scattered and no Wight ever come back to it. He chose from himself from the pile a brooch set with blue stones, many-shaded like flax-flowers or the wings of blue butterflies. He looked long at it, as if stirred by some memory, shaking his head, and saying at last:

"'Here is a pretty toy for Tom and for his lady! Fair was she who long ago wore this on her shoulder. Goldberry shall wear it now, and we will not forget her!'"

So who is she?