NickNorthStar | 26 Mar 2016 1:31 p.m. PST |
This is one for Tolkien fanatics. I'm just re-reading the Lothlorien part of Lord of the Rings, and I've been struck by what an idiot Celeborn is. LOL. Never mind him 'flying off the handle' at the news there was a Balrog in Moria and blaming Gimli, saying 'I'd have never let you in here if I knew 100 years ago there was a Balrog in Moria' (dick) Never mind him not eating with his guests until the day they leave, apologising at the last minute. That doesn't cut it, Pal. No, it's his 'wise' advice on what direction the Fellowship should go. He says when they get off the boats at the Falls of Rauros, if they get off on the west bank, don't go into Fangorn Forest. What?! Fangorn is 150 miles north-west of the Falls of Rauros. That'd be a major if they ended up there FCOL. Worse still, he gives an Elven Gaffer Gamgee style 'there's queer folk down there' warning. Who, Treebeard? Treebeard the Elfophile? Why does Celeborn not know who is in Fangorn? Fangorn is 50 miles south of Lorien. Does Celeborn have a phobia about going South. His people are travelling north to Rivendell all the time, 200 miles? But none of them go south? Yet he knows Treebeard, as shown when they meet at the end of the book, so why's he ignored him for thousands of years. Plus, never mind Fangorn, if the Fellowship set off that way they'd be going to Isengard, somewhere the party has been avoiding the whole book. Why didn't Aragorn say 'never mind your scarey wood story, Saruman is that way, you didn't think to mention that instead?' All in all, he comes across as a right idiot. Unlike his wife, who is mighty. |
nevinsrip | 26 Mar 2016 1:37 p.m. PST |
Thanks for straightening that out. |
John Treadaway | 26 Mar 2016 1:55 p.m. PST |
Galadriel very much wears the trousers in that relationship but that's what happens when a good Noldor marries beneath herself…. John T |
Mister Tibbles | 26 Mar 2016 2:16 p.m. PST |
What?! Lord of the Rings novels has plot holes!? No way! Lol BTW I'm glad Jackson made some of the changes he did. This is one of them. |
Peachy rex | 26 Mar 2016 4:37 p.m. PST |
He was probably still miffed at almost being named "Teleporno." (Or perhaps miffed at not being named that? You never can tell with Elves.) |
Ivan DBA | 26 Mar 2016 5:46 p.m. PST |
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John Treadaway | 26 Mar 2016 11:26 p.m. PST |
I'm glad Jackson made some of the changes he did That's fighting talk… John T |
Patrick R | 27 Mar 2016 3:54 a.m. PST |
Some elves did specialize in talking down to everyone as if they were severely retarded children. Celeborn probably made the same mistake Saruman did and discounted the ents, remembering the season-long "cup of tea and a chat" he must have had one or two ages earlier with Treebeard and figured that the Fellowship shouldn't be made to endure such torture and would be stuck with the ents for weeks or months until they finally got round to saying "Hello" properly, let alone be tempted to discuss current matters. To the dwarves, Durin's Bane was a monster who killed one of their greatest kings and drove them out of one of the richest kingdoms. To the elves it reminded them of their long war against Morgoth and how those silly dwarves managed to lose not one but several kingdoms to Balrogs, dragons and orcs. Awakening Durin's Bane and risking the chance that it would break free or even get its hands on the One Ring and join forces with Sauron would probably get anyone a little twitchy and make them say less than pleasant things. |
Timbo W | 27 Mar 2016 6:07 a.m. PST |
Maybe cleverly planned beforehand in a good cop bad cop, or dumb elf smart elf way? Celeborn was was probably smart enough to do what he was told by his missus ;-) |
RavenscraftCybernetics | 27 Mar 2016 7:36 a.m. PST |
Celeborn was getting feeble. This is why the elves were leaving Middle Earth. |
Winston Smith | 27 Mar 2016 7:51 a.m. PST |
Nowhere in the entire canon is it suggested that elves are all that smart. Prettier, yes. Whole lot of elvish civil wars were started for no sane reason that I could see. They're like humans, only worse. |
Parzival | 27 Mar 2016 12:49 p.m. PST |
Galadriel just likes dumb in a man. (That joke reference was for the OFM.) |
John Treadaway | 27 Mar 2016 1:00 p.m. PST |
Nowhere in the entire canon is it suggested that elves are all that smart. Prettier, yes. Whole lot of elvish civil wars were started for no sane reason that I could see. They're like humans, only worse. Depends what you mean by 'smart'. Learned, skilled, vastly talented… all of those things with knobs on. And… wilfully arrogant for the most part, with a sense of entitlement as sometimes happens with a firstborn child. That dissonance, I think, is the joy (for me, at any rate) of the complexity of Tolkien's eldar. So 'smart' – either positive or negative – is, perhaps, a little simplistic. John T |
Winston Smith | 27 Mar 2016 2:36 p.m. PST |
In D&D terms, high intelligence, low wisdom. |
Cardinal Hawkwood | 27 Mar 2016 3:30 p.m. PST |
what a pleasantly silly thread. |
Winston Smith | 27 Mar 2016 3:43 p.m. PST |
Partial. So you think Kathleen Turner could play Galadriel? |
ochoin | 27 Mar 2016 3:56 p.m. PST |
what a pleasantly silly thread. Indeed. We do all understand Celeborn is a fictional character & his personality & role are honed by the author to forward plot considerations? |
USAFpilot | 27 Mar 2016 5:09 p.m. PST |
Celeborn does not know yet that the one ring has been discovered after all these years and was content to live with the elves in Lothlorien. He was angry that the dwarves, with their greed, had dug too deep and had unearthed this ancient evil which resulted in Gandalf's death (so it seamed) and even though Celeborn is a powerful elf lord, he was no match for a balrog. Although the movies are visually beautiful; the screen play was written by retards for retards. |
USAFpilot | 27 Mar 2016 7:39 p.m. PST |
Ok, I just re-read that section, it's been a few years. Celeborn did know about the ring. He was only momentarily angry with Gimli, then apologized. So Celeborn is not an idiot. He is written exactly as Tolkien intended. Tolkien's language is subtle and beautiful to read. The dialogue in the movies is awful, except the parts they pull directly from the text. The movies need to be remade by a skilled director who understands the subtleness of the work. Peter Jackson's pacing is all wrong and he turned LOTR into an action flick which is not how it reads. Jackson sucks! Rant over. |
IanKHemm | 27 Mar 2016 8:29 p.m. PST |
"Jackson sucks." Okay. That's sorted. Now let's discuss the merits of his treatment of The Hobbit! |
GypsyComet | 28 Mar 2016 6:00 a.m. PST |
"let's discuss the merits of his treatment of The Hobbit!" These should have benefited from the change in narrative frame, but do so only occasionally. |
Winston Smith | 28 Mar 2016 9:54 a.m. PST |
I think that the movie of LOTR was perhaps 90% accurate to the spirit of the book. That's not bad. But The Hobbit trilogy (!!!!!) was a remake of Goonies. |
Hafen von Schlockenberg | 28 Mar 2016 11:07 a.m. PST |
Agree about 90%--but in the other direction. |
NickNorthStar | 28 Mar 2016 12:59 p.m. PST |
I wonder (because I don't know, but I bet it's written down somewhere) if Tolkien draw the maps way after finishing the book, and that Fangorn Forest should have been nearer the Anduin. So a slight stray up the Entwash would have landed the Fellowship in Fangorn. Because he forgot the Celeborn directions advice, Fangorn ended up 150 miles away. I dunno. & I'll forget all about this rant in 2 months. 'Cus GoT is back on the telly! |
Hafen von Schlockenberg | 29 Mar 2016 8:49 a.m. PST |
The maps were present almost from the beginning,initially as rough sketches. His son Christopher did a large map from several of his father's much- amended maps sometime in the forties,IIRC. This while the book was still being written,and it was also changed repeatedly. Christopher pointed out a couple of places where he made errors on the map,and the author altered the text to match them. The published map contained some errors and omissions,corrected by Christopher in a revised map for "Unfinished Tales" in 1980. Christopher's four volume "History of The Lord of the Rings" traces the development of the map. |
CeruLucifus | 29 Mar 2016 11:33 a.m. PST |
Tolkien addresses almost all of your points. Re-read what Celeborn actually said and compare to the map. He was giving directions for Boromir who needed to get to Minas Tirith. The river Anduin went south almost directly there, but there were natural terrain features in the way: "stony vales amid high moors" (on the map this region appears as mountains hills), a big waterfall, then swamps. He advised to leave Anduin before the waterfall and go west around the hilly region then south, but then they would encounter another river to cross, the Entwash that is tributary to Anduin. Turning east back towards Anduin would take them into the swamps, so instead he suggested going west/north up this Entwash to find a ford, but the Entwash originates in Fangorn Forest, so he told them if they got that far to go no further. Also Celeborn and Boromir start to discuss exactly why to avoid Fangorn Forest. Boromir is a little dismissive of "old wives tales", so rather than waste wisdom on deaf ears, Celeborn concludes with a warning not to dismiss old tales lightly. And later Merry and Pippin ask Treebeard about this very subject, who responds that Celeborn advised them correctly, because there are patches of forest where trees have bad hearts, although he also adds Celeborn doesn't travel much any more and his advice is a little out of date. Funny an Ent saying an Elf is out of touch! (Page numbers from my edition, yours may vary) The Fellowship of the Ring p389-390: … Celeborn spoke to them again of their journey, and lifting his hand he pointed south to the woods beyond the Tongue. ‘As you go down the water,' he said, ‘you will find that the trees will fail, and you will come to a barren country. There the River flows in stony vales amid high moors, until at last after many leagues it … falls then with a great noise and smoke over the cataracts of Rauros down into the Nindalf, the Wetwang as it is called in your tongue. That is a wide region of sluggish fen where the stream becomes tortuous and much divided. There the Entwash flows in by many mouths from the Forest of Fangorn in the west … ‘Boromir, and any that go with him seeking Minas Tirith, will do well to leave the Great River above Rauros and cross the Entwash before it finds the marshes. Yet they should not go too far up that stream, nor risk becoming entangled in the Forest of Fangorn. That is a strange land, and is now little known. But Boromir and Aragorn doubtless do not need this warning.' ‘Indeed we have heard of Fangorn in Minas Tirith,' said Boromir. ‘But what I have heard seems to me for the most part old wives' tales …' ‘Then I need say no more,' said Celeborn. ‘But do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.' The Two Towers p70: At last Pippin ventured to speak again. ‘Please, Treebeard,' he said, ‘could I ask you something? Why did Celeborn warn us against your forest? He told us not to risk getting entangled in it.' ‘Hmm, did he now?' rumbled Treebeard. ‘And I might have said much the same, if you had been going the other way. Do not risk getting entangled in the woods of … Lothlorien … it is a queer place, and not for just anyone to venture in. I am surprised that you ever got out, but much more surprised that you ever got in: that has not happened to strangers for many a year. It is a queer land. ‘And so is this. Folk have come to grief here. Aye, they have, to grief … ‘They are falling rather behind the world in there, I guess,' he said. ‘Neither this country, nor anything else outside the Golden Wood, is what it was when Celeborn was young … Most of the trees are just trees, of course; but many are half awake. Some are quite wide awake, and a few are, well, ah, well getting Entish. That is going on all the time. ‘When that happens to a tree, you find that some have bad hearts … there are some trees in the valleys under the mountains, sound as a bell, and bad right through. That sort of thing seems to spread. There used to be some very dangerous parts in this country. There are still some very black patches.' '… there are hollow dales in this land where the Darkness has never been lifted, and the trees are older than I am. … we do what we can. We keep off strangers and the foolhardy; and we train and we teach, we walk and we weed. Here is link to a map for review:
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Timbo W | 31 Mar 2016 5:33 p.m. PST |
Celeborn had better defend 'old wives tales' to the hilt if he knows what's good for him ;-) |
darthfozzywig | 01 May 2016 2:13 p.m. PST |
We do all understand Celeborn is a fictional character & his personality & role are honed by the author to forward plot considerations? Next you'll be saying wargaming is simply playing with toy soldiers! |