Lord of the Rings

Also, though Bilbo probably didn't leave the Shire, he spent his years between The Hobbit and the birthday party frequently entertaining folks whom the other Hobbits considered "queer characters" indeed. And Bilbo being such an indefatigable writer, I wouldn't be surprised if he corresponded regularly with Elves at Rivendell.

I imagine he might have gone to Dale for Bard's funeral (which happened some 24 years before we meet him in LOTR) or to pay his respects to Bard in a general sense, given their shared plight during the conquest of Erebor.

So I've been reading about the Húrin Kids, narrated by Christopher Lee.

I heard it was sad. I wasn't expecting to cry, openly weep, once, thrice, till I lost count. It's hard looking at noble brave folk have every attempt to do the right thing go to shit like that.

Edited by Oruka on Jun 16th 2019 at 3:59:04 AM

Yeah, I read that when I was at summer camp once. The ending made me really sad, though I didn't cry. It's just the good guys getting shit on despite all their efforts.

Christopher Lee really sells those "What have you done" and "So much has been lost and nothing can be done" moments. Like when Mîm mentions that there's plenty of extra room in his house, because "so many have gone", and his voice just breaks, and you feel like he's seen generations of miserable dwindling and starving... Or when we find his son, Túrin wants to help, and the offer is shown to be pointless, and he should have made a different choice, but how was he to know?

Generally Chris Lee is a phenomenal actor with a phenomenal voice reading a work he's perfect for and which he loves dearly. It's just a wonderful awful experience.

Edited by Oruka on Jun 17th 2019 at 12:25:02 PM

I didn't know they got Christopher Lee to read Children of Hurin. I might have to listen to that. The book itself is probably the best of the three "Great Tales" books in that it is the most finished, though I liked the other two as well.

Chris Lee is a huge Tolkien nerd and reads LOTR once a year.

Used to.

There's a lot of amazing people that died these past few years...

His audiobooks on Audible are mostly mystery novels by Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Edgar Allan Poe. For a man with such immense theatrical dramatic voice, this seems terribly wasteful.

Ian Mc Kellen does a shitload of Shakespeare. And Chronicles of Ancient Darkness.

Edited by Oruka on Jun 18th 2019 at 9:37:15 AM

Thanks for mentioning that Lee narrates the audiobook; I now have it on hold at the library. The Narn i Hîn Húrin is possibly my least favourite part of the Silmarillion, but having it read by Christopher Lee makes it worthwhile.

So apart from the BBC radio drama adaptation do we have an audiobook of Lord of the Rings? Or of the Hobbit?

There's definitely one on Audible, I gave the sample a go but wasn't thrilled by the narrator.

Ah ok. I might dig deeper then because on Audible I only found the BBC radio drama.

Sorry for doublepost... Back to Clamavi de Profundis and their dwarven songs, I have always loved the way Tolkien portrayed the dwarves as artists and craftsmen, not just builders smiths and miners, also how a whole branch of the Elves were as much into crafts and smithing as the dwarves (the Noldor), so the Elves aren't only about nature and songs either - and both having a lot of history to take pride in. Tolkien only really went very very simplistic with his poetry and songs for the Hobbits, come to think of it, even though that can get deep in its own way too (See I sit beside the fire and think ... that one always gets me teary-eyed).

One of my favorite ideas about Dwarves Tolkien props up (and more or less invented) is the concept that them and the Elves are actually Not So Different when it comes to worship of nature, it's just the Elves are more about the trees and woodland and Dwarves are about the stone and the mountains. I love the little scene where Gimli is in awe at the Glittering Caves of Rohan and Legolas leaps to the assumption he wants to mine and destroy the place, with Gimli angrily pointing out the Dwarves aren't mindless beasts, they care for the stones and ores of the world much more than the Elves do. This causes Legolas to realize he was hasty in his judgement and apologize.

Another good moment of this is Sam pondering about Dwarves having no culture (in a clearly accidental bit of insensitivy on his part) and Gimli responding by singing the Song of Durin (more or less the unofficial anthem of Durin's Folk, it seems). Clamavi's take on the Song of Durin is their magnum opus in my opinion:

Their version really carries the pride and sorrow of the Dwarves and I can totally picture Samwise Gamgee being moved to tears by this version (which he was when Gimli sang it in the book).

It's a shame Gimli is such a focal point to Dwarven culture in LOTR due the relative absence of Dwarven characters in the lore, but he does provide a fascinating look at it. Mîm is the only one I'd rank as of comparable character depth (and he doesn't sing to the best of my recollection which is a shame).

That's one of the nicest things about the Peter Jackson Hobbit adaptation tbh, is the varied look at different dwarven personalities and social classes. Also Dwarf music is amazing.

Yes, the song of Durin scene was exactly what I had in mind, them sitting in the hall several storeys tall. BTW the song mentions Nargothrond which also proves the Not So Different point: elves may prefer to be under the free sky but they made dwellings underground too (not sure if Finrod had dwarven help in building and designing the place but the dwarves were the ones who nicknamed him Felagund if I recall right, out of respect).

Yeah, Nargothrond was built as a joint Elven-Dwarven venture, with Finrod being aided by the Dwarves of Ered Luin (though the text doesn't specify where they came from and any individual Dwarves), hence them giving the Felagund alias and the fabled Nauglamir necklace. Not to mention, Nargothrond was built on top of the dwellings of the Petty Dwarves (Mím's folk, the ones driven to extinction by the Elves mistaking them for wild animals).

Edited by Gaon on Jun 25th 2019 at 9:06:54 AM

I believe the dwarves also helped Thingol construct Menegroth in Doriath. That's one reason I wish Tolkien had expanded The Wanderings of Hurin into a full Tale of the Nauglamir. The conflict between the Sindar and dwarves is such a tragedy given the close friendship they had for centuries.

Apparently the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost collaborated in the building of Menegroth. The Nogrod Dwarves were the ones who ended up killing Thingol and going to war with Doriath, while the Dwarves of Belegost sat it out and refused to aid the Dwarves of Nogrod.

The Dwarven character who comes up as most mystifying in that is the apparent King Naugladur of the Nogrod Dwarves who led the attack on Doriath. He didn't participate in the betrayal of Thingol, and went to war after two survivors of said betrayal went home and told the Dwarves of Nogrod the Elves had killed them for no reason. It's unclear if Naugladur was just Hot-Blooded and suffered from a Horrible Judge of Character and, misinterpreting the situation, chose to march against Doriath out of righteous vengeance for his kin, if he seized the opportunity out of greed or even if he realized the Dwarves were lying but still chose to march out of a sense of loyalty to his kin over the Elves. He also, rather impressively, fights Beren one-on-one and nearly kills him, and as he is slain, doles out a curse on the treasure that ensures the doom of Doriath in the Second Kinslaying.

Rather cryptic character, overall.

I feel like we know too little about Tolkien's final thoughts on Doriath's downfall to speculate. It's one of the biggest question marks in the entire Legendarium. So much so that Christopher had to essentially write the relevant Silmarillion chapter from scratch. Had he spent more time on it I have a feeling the final version would be very different.

Some of the confusion is the role dwarves played in the Silmarillion as opposed to what they became after The Hobbit. Before The Hobbit dwarves in Tolkien's works were pretty much Scandinavian dwarves - kind of a neutral party in the good vs. evil battle but dangerous to have dealings with because they were greedy and prone to holding grudges. Much like the petty dwarves in Children of Hurin.

After The Hobbit dwarves became more heroic characters and they got their own sympathetic creation story, but he never went back and re-worked some of the latter Silmarillion stuff that featured the earlier, more antagonistic dwarves.

I think he reworked it in some ways but he never fully figured things out. It seems clear that he dropped the idea of Thingol cheating the dwarves out of their payment. However he never did figure out how to contrive a way for Thingol to be slain. Christopher did it by making the dwarves guests that slew him to take the Silmaril. However Tolkien's notes make it sound like Thingol was somehow goaded into leaving Doriath. For what purpose though? To fight the dwarves?

I do like Christopher's scrambled idea of Thingol's death, though. Works fairly well with the narrative.

To me it seems like Mîm and the Petty Dwarves (well, basically just Mîm given the others are gone) underwent their path to Tragic Villain at the same pace the Dwarves in the larger LOTR became more heroic after the Hobbit and LOTR. Azaghál (and his key role in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears) also seems like one of the results of the Dwarven reworking and probably was something Tolkien intended to expand upon.

One of the most noticeable Dwarven absences in the Silmarillion is Durin the Deathless, given he's the major mythical figure of Dwarves and who lived throughout basically the entire First Age and actually pop up a lot more in LOTR than, say, Feanor.

I like the idea of petty-dwarves being related to dwarves in the same way as hobbits are to men.

Although one could also theorize that they were hobbits, or hobbit-ancestors, with hobbits being descended from petty-dwarves who lived east of the Blue Mountains. They're smaller than dwarves, they live in holes - Bar en Nibyn Noeg isn't all that different in concept from the Great Smials of the Took family - and based on the Narn i Hîn Húrin, Mîm seems to have been the only person in Beleriand who was aware of potatoes (a food only mentioned in connection with hobbits in LOTR).

Tolkien says in "Concerning Hobbits" that Hobbits have more in common with men than with elves or dwarves, though.

The general speculation by characters (and by Tolkien himself) is that Hobbits are offshoots of Men who probably came about at some point in the late Second-early Third Ages, but both Tolkien and the characters all make clear there is no clear consensus about their origins, so the concept of them being descended from the Petty Dwarves is valid, if probably outside of what Tolkien intended. I find it a interesting idea, particularly given the aforementioned potato connection.

Hell, it's possible both are true and Hobbits are the result of a long process of Dwarf-Man hybridization that first led to Petty Dwarves and then to Hobbits. The story does skip on explaining how exactly the Petty Dwarves "diminished in stature and build" (in hindsight its a bit bizarre they shrink down for no reason when no other Dwarf clan ever suffers from that predicament), so maybe that's why.

You could prop up a interesting parallel between Mîm and Frodo, since they are both basically diametrical opposites, with Mîm being a bitter and angry old man defined by his inability to forgive while Frodo is a idealistic and kind young man defined by his boundless forgiveness.

In a way this would also make Mîm all the more tragic in that he is on this warpath to avenge his fallen race while being completely ignorant (either by accident or by design) of the offshoot race he could be helping.