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LOTR:ROTK Questions


Mr Frosty

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A singing leprechan looking guy.  Strange fellow.  With a supposedly hot elf wife.

Not exactly.

Tom Bombadil was most likely a Maia spirit of Nature (one of Yavanna Kementari's people). His wife, Goldberry, was also a Maia...she being the Daughter of the River Withywindle (a water themed Maia).

He was the oldest being still in Middle-Earth (as all others either came after him...or in the case of his boss Yavanna, left for Aman long before).

He had become tied to the land that he protected (the Old Forest being the last of that land). Like Sauron, much of his power that was native to him in his begining had passed into the forest itself.

I could have sworn she was an elf. Oh well. I did always picture Tom as looking a little leprechaun-ish from his description. It was a very long time ago that I read the first part. One of these days I'll read all 3.

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The Scouring of the Shire was filmed, and will be in the EE. It was cut because the movie was thought to be too long, but it was shot anyway. Reports conflict on whether it was filmed and cut in post production, or was filmed to provide material for the EE.

Man the EE is going to be so long.

I can't wait to see it. Whether the Scouring of the Shire is in there or not, there will be a lot of good stuff to see.

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Well... this is what might be in the EE of RotK:

from: http://www.ringbearer.org/modules.php?op=m...=4285&start=630

01. Eomer holding Eowyn - [ROTK trailor].

02. Merry offering allegiance to Theoden at Edoras - [multiple trailors].

03. Faramir/Eowyn marriage/love story - [??].

04. Aragorn looking into Palantir - [AICN report].

07. Mouth of Sauron - [ROTK images].

08. Voice of Saruman - [PJ confessed himself].

09. Houses of Healing - [ROTK image].

10. Sam seeing the star of Earendil in Mordor - [Q&A with PB after FOTR].

11. Corsairs and the taking of the Black Ships - [AICN report].

12. Frodo and Sam marching with Orcs in Mordor - [ROTK image].

13. Gandalf & Witch King confrontation - [ROTK trailor].

14. Aragorn and Gimli killing the "puffy" Orc - [ABC special].

15. Denethor using Palantir or some scene showing a link to this - [TORN digital video].

16. Frodo and Sam at the Cross Roads. - [ROTK images].

17. Legolas and Gimli drinking game at Edoras. [set reports].

18. Faramir informing Denethor that he let Frodo and Sam go. [ROTK photoguide].

19. Aragorn doubting after POTD. Legolas comforts him -[ROTK images].

20. Sam using Phial to pass Watchers at Cririth Ungol - [??]

21. Prologue explaining Fellowship futures. Aragorn on his death bed and Arwens line "Would you leave you people before your time" etc... - [Liv Tyler confirmed]. 

Most of these scenes have a high probablity of being in the EE. Combined with extended scenes from the siege of Minas Tirith, Battle of Pelenor Fields (I'm quite sure Pelenor was cut down) and Battle at the Black Gate, that's probably another hour or more of footage, easily. Again, I highly doubt that we'll be seeing any Scouring of the Shire.

Edited by azrael
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He had become tied to the land that he protected (the Old Forest being the last of that land). Like Sauron, much of his power that was native to him in his begining had passed into the forest itself.

Hmmm... I'd say just the opposite. He wasn't tied to the Middle Earth, at least not nearly as much as the Istari or Sauron had become. That's why the Ring had no power over him.

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I've got a question, how come Gandalf didn't summon all of the Eagles, and just fly with Frodo above the mountain, and drop the ring in in the first movie? I'm sure the wring wraiths would have come after them, but it would have saved many more lives even if it worked. Much less risky than sending two hobbits on their own into Mordor. Am I right?

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I've got a question, how come Gandalf didn't summon all of the Eagles, and just fly with Frodo above the mountain, and drop the ring in in the first movie? I'm sure the wring wraiths would have come after them, but it would have saved many more lives even if it worked. Much less risky than sending two hobbits on their own into Mordor. Am I right?

Tolkien himself covered this angle in the Appendices and his letters, albeit it's not explained any more directly in the text of LotR itself than it is in the films, but anyway:

-the Eagles are emissaries of the Valar, the Lords of Arda (effectively, archangels or demigods), who rule from their thrones in Valinor, the Undying Lands. They are specifically the servants, the eyes and ears, of Manwe the Elder King (who is sort of the earthly viceroy of Eru Illuvatar, or God) - so any time the Eagles intervene, it is essentially an act of divine intervention. No (middle) earthly power can command the eagles - they appear unhoped for in the darkest hours as a manifestation of divine grace. As to why Manwe chose to lend a hand in the particular circumstances he did (rescuing Gandalf from Isengard and Moria, embattling the Nazgul at the Black Gate and rescuing Frodo and Sam), well, you'd have to ask Illuvatar....

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Also, the plot to destroy the Ring was a complete surprise to Sauron. He never expected that anyone would even think of doing that. Flying in on an eagle would have destroyed the surpise and Sauron would send the Nine and just about everything else he had to stop it and get the Ring back. And, likely he would succeed.

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Plus there'd be no story. :rolleyes:

No way, they'd be flying over the mountain and Sauron would come out and see Gandalf and be all like "WE MUST KUNG-FU FIGHT!!!" and they could do like a 30 min fight sequence off of that, all while Frodo and Gollum fight with lightsabers in the bowels of Mt. Doom.

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Tolkien himself covered this angle in the Appendices and his letters, albeit it's not explained any more directly in the text of LotR itself than it is in the films, but anyway:

Thanks, haven't read the books, so from watching the movies, it seemed that Gandalf could summon the eagles. Once when he was on the tower, he sent that bug off, and an eagle rescued him, then when Frodo and Sam where about to die, Gandalf flys in to save the day. Too bad they couldn't explain a lot of that sort of thing in the movies.

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you know the two towers very well! you must have seen it at least 7 times , you should be very proud of yourself, go treat yourself to another viewing! oh and you may have noticed , boromir is my favourite character.

Actually....no. Ive seen it a total of 3 times. I know the book (and Ive got the Games Workshop miniatures...which revealed the name Sharku....Orc indeed. That was an epithet ascribed to Saruman by his Orc soldiers....its means "Old Man"). I despised the movie....the Extended Edition saved it somewhat....but barely.

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Iluvatar doesn't answer questions, even for the Valar (though Silmarillion hints that Manwe can "consult" with him or something like that).

Manwe controls the giant eagles (to be differentiated from normal eagles), which are indeed his eyes and ears in Middle Earth. The Valar weren't willing to contest Sauron force-on-force and they likewise prohibited the Istari, who were sent to inspire the peoples and creatures of Middle Earth to resist Sauron. Olorin the Maia (known as Gandalf in the west of Middle-Earth) didn't have any powers over the Eagles... even in the movies that little bug-butterfly-moth thing usually appeared surprising to him.

Question 1 was answered pretty well. Sauron tied up his essence into the Ring. Note that there is no destruction for spirits that Iluvatar created. But Sauron would lose all ability to interact on Arda. Even Melkor/Morgoth was only pushed "outside."

Question 2? Gray Havens are the port. Even the Elves don't live in Aman or Valinor, but in Eressea which is close-by. Eressea is where Elrond and the Ring-Bearers were going. No, by going there Frodo and Bilbo woudln 't gain the longer life of the Eldar... they'd die in their time, according to their species, but far more blissfully than anywhere on Middle Earth... even in the Shire.

3? In the book, Mordor's armies lost alot of motivation when the Ringwraiths suddenly streaked off towards Mordor (chasing vainly after the finally discovered Frodo and the Ring - but they neglected to inform their troops). The book says many were bound by spell or threat of malice... "The Power that drove them on and filled them with hate and fury was wavering, its will was removed from them.' Then the Black Gate collapses and a great cloud is seen rising over Mordor (from the ruin of Barad-Dur and/or the explosion of Mount Doom)... what would u do? Stay and fight? Or cover your butt? :)

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  • 3 years later...

What a bunch of cheats recruiting ghosts to fight for the humans, thats just totally unfair for the bad guys since ghost can't die.

QUESTIONS.

Is middle earth a continent?,

Where are the other races of people, chinese, black.....?

How come there are humans helping the bad guys?, when the bad guys want to annihilate all mankind

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Where are the other races of people, chinese, black.....?

Weren't the oliphant drivers supposed to be "Middle Earth" equivalents of black people? As for other minority races being in Tolkien's works, don't look too hard for them because the battle for Middle Earth is being waged by the "fair" people of the west, as they try to repel the "dark" forces from the East, if you get my drift...

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Weren't the oliphant drivers supposed to be "Middle Earth" equivalents of black people? As for other minority races being in Tolkien's works, don't look too hard for them because the battle for Middle Earth is being waged by the "fair" people of the west, as they try to repel the "dark" forces from the East, if you get my drift...

The name Haradrim is very derivitive of Harad. A popular name in the Historical Palastinian territories. There are black people referenced in the books. And the Easterlings are your Asiatic people.

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Weren't the oliphant drivers supposed to be "Middle Earth" equivalents of black people? As for other minority races being in Tolkien's works, don't look too hard for them because the battle for Middle Earth is being waged by the "fair" people of the west, as they try to repel the "dark" forces from the East, if you get my drift...

There's some debate about this, but my understanding is that Middle Earth is very specifically Northern Europe and descriptions of the people to the south and east should be taken comparitively. In other words, Mediterranian and Slavic (respectively) would be a better reference for how they look.

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What a bunch of cheats recruiting ghosts to fight for the humans, thats just totally unfair for the bad guys since ghost can't die.

QUESTIONS.

Is middle earth a continent?,

Where are the other races of people, chinese, black.....?

How come there are humans helping the bad guys?, when the bad guys want to annihilate all mankind

Middle Earth is a continent. Specifically Europe in a distant, primieval time.

They aren't really mentioned, because geographically they'd be living far away. Some think the Easterlings and Southrons might refer to men of different races, but there's no direct evidence of this (see my post above).

Some of the humans worshipped Sauron as a god. Many had been enslaved by him. Others were simply mercenaries.

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Middle Earth is a continent. Specifically Europe in a distant, primieval time.

They aren't really mentioned, because geographically they'd be living far away. Some think the Easterlings and Southrons might refer to men of different races, but there's no direct evidence of this (see my post above).

Some of the humans worshipped Sauron as a god. Many had been enslaved by him. Others were simply mercenaries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth

a well written entry into the basis of middle earth and its inhabitants.

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Although i enjoyed the movies a lot, i was a little disappointed in which the movie depicted men possibly of different race/colour joined up with the bad guys. It kind of took away the whole threat to mankind feeling. It felt it was only the people of the west (who happen to be white) were threatened and not the whole of mankind. I'm not trying to be racist or anything, but thats the impression the movies gave me personally, I've not read the books so i don't know if its the same in that.

I say possibly different race/colour but that is just to highlight the fact that mankind consist of these differences and that the bad guys do want to destroy the world of men which should include all, yet there are humans helping them :wacko:

Edited by kung flu
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Although i enjoyed the movies a lot, i was a little disappointed in which the movie depicted men possibly of different race/colour joined up with the bad guys. It kind of took away the whole threat to mankind feeling. It felt it was only the people of the west (who happen to be white) were threatened and not the whole of mankind. I'm not trying to be racist or anything, but thats the impression the movies gave me personally, I've not read the books so i don't know if its the same in that.

I think that we are getting ahead of ourselves. The racial overtones and such that seem evident are in fact not really an issue. Tolkien himself HATED the idea that his stories might be interpreted as ANY sort of metaphor for the real world. He created them (and intended them) to be epic myths. Think Beowulf, the Odyssey, Ring Cycle, etc...

This means that any interpretation of differing races as being evil or good is based solely on their alignment with the Dark lord. If one looks at the extensive history that Tolkien created for his world, it is revealed that there was a war being waged throughout Middle-Earth not just in the locales of the books (and by books I mean the Lord of the Rings) or movie. Many of the races of men who fought with Sauron were in fact enslaved or tricked into alliance. In addition, Sauron was not trying to destroy the world of men, but to enslave it. In effect his war was against all of the free peoples of Middle-Earth, which included many tribes to the south and east...

I hope this helps...

Edited by Felix
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Although i enjoyed the movies a lot, i was a little disappointed in which the movie depicted men possibly of different race/colour joined up with the bad guys. It kind of took away the whole threat to mankind feeling. It felt it was only the people of the west (who happen to be white) were threatened and not the whole of mankind. I'm not trying to be racist or anything, but thats the impression the movies gave me personally, I've not read the books so i don't know if its the same in that.

I don't see where you get this, the movie makes it quite clear that all the inhabitants of middle earth were at risk, humans and elves and hobbits and dwarves. The movie shows "white" humans as both good and bad with some of the worst humans (those that betrayed their own people for power) as "white."

LOTR is certainly not the SW prequels with their obvious racial stereotypes.

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"Middle Earth" could be used to define the whole world, although it seems to be specifically the lands of mortal folk (not counting Aman, where the Elves go). The main landmass of the story, also known as Endor, is a large, not-ever-finalized-in-shape landmass (there are some maps Tolkien did that show the eastern side better, but it doesn't appear he had ever made one official).

There doesn't really NEED to be other 'races' of men... our races are merely slight, but widescale genetic differences, reinforced by environment and geographic region. Middle-earth could have developed quite differently. Given that it could very well be an analogy for our world (sort of a 'ancient history'), one could associate the various types of men with our real world counterparts, but that might lead to incorrect conclusions. One might assume Easterlings are supposed to be Asians (the movie did to some extent, giving Easterlings fantasy versions of Asian-like armor and weapons) and the Haradrim as Middle Eastern and/or African (again, as the movie did, with bits of Aztec thrown in).

Easterling, though, is a term that encompasses apparently a number of various sub-groups whose only similar defining characteristic is that they hail from the east side of the continent. There's the swarthy, broad-featured folk, to chariot driving Wainriders, to big, brawny guys with beards. It would almost be as if you drew a line starting at the western Russian border down and stating that everyone east of that was an 'Easterling'.

The Haradrim also represent a vast mixture (hence their other name, "Southrons". They are probably more clearly defined as sort of analogous to Middle-Eastern/African people, between their oliphaunts, their scimitars, their 'dark and tall' features, their extensive use of gold in decoration, etc. But Tolkien goes into more detail over what an oliphaunt looks like than all the descriptions of the people themselves combined, so we'll never know for sure.

People like to criticize Tolkien for making the 'non-white' groups 'bad guys', but that's mainly because the stories are told from the POV of the western forces and they win the war. The Haradrim, for example, actually were a noble and decent folk, but it was the Numenoreans (the ancestors of the men of Gondor and Arnor and perhaps (more distantly) the Rohirrim) who came to Endor and in their haughtiness settled down in Endor and started to levy taxes and tribute from the Haradrim, which put them at odds. Sauron, being the opportunist and charmer, basically convinces the Haradrim that they'd be better off siding with him and eventually avenging these slights than forever being second-rate toadies to the pompous Dunedain. Imagine people lording themselves over you and constantly implying through looks and reactions that they are superior to you just because they may have some elven blood running through their veins. You'd side with the first powerful guy who offered to help, whether he came in pretty form or as a big, dark lord. Similarly, the Easterlings, who had beefs with the men of the West as well, were lured by offers of wealth and power. Sauron gets his way and the heads of the factions under him get their little cut... meaningless to Sauron's grand scope, but important to them.... it's much the same way he got his nine ringwraiths. Sauron wanted to enslave, not decimate.

Jeez... sorry for rambling....

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Not that I need to ramble further, but eugimon brings up a good point. Whether or not the Southrons or Easterlings were analogous to Asian/Middle Eastern/African people or not, there WERE many examples of 'white' people working with Sauron, whether you go from the low end of the people who ratted the hobbits in Bree up to the Black Numoreans ('black' as in 'fall into the shadow' rather than any racial features), who were among Sauron's most loyal buddies in their time and most likely made up a number of his ringwraiths and probably the Mouth of Sauron. The movies, due to time restraints and not wanting to confuse people, kept it relatively simple and stayed with the 'white guys/dwarves/elves/hobbits vs. orcs/trolls/Easterling/Haradrim'

Besisdes, we really never know what percentage of Easterlings and Southrons support Sauron. Obviously those in the border lands, but they have a lot of just cause to have bones to pick with Gondor anyway.

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