Tolkien related video's.

10 minutes on a single sentence! Pretty ballsy. Though he did a good job latching onto one incident in Morgoth's Ring.

The interviewer rather grates on me. I think it's because he asks questions in a way that infers he's making assumptions about the answer before he asks the question.

Tolkien's comments on memory are fascinating, I'm sort of surprised non of this made it into the books.

Interesting comment that the hobbits as representing the english are made small to reflect the small reach of their imagination.

Taking this in 10-15 minute bites.

One penetrating question was whether if he really was creating a world would it be feudal.  Tolkien firmly embraced feudalism - because it keeps things simple and ordered if the lines of power are clearly defined.  I've read that this longing for kings was a particularly Roman Catholic trait, but I'm not sure why it would be, unless the continuous line of spiritual succession represented by the Catholic church is the model.  No other modern institutions compare to it, despite the fact that the Pope is selected by election rather than bloodline.

{{ I found the interviewer annoying as well, often Tolkien would take an answer into interesting territory, but rather than letting him,or folowing where the conversation naturally leads, he cuts in to get back to his prescribed questions. }}

The Complete Travels of Galadriel:

That's one mix and match version, I guess, very subjectively glued together (with a bit of pronunciation stumbling).

For anyone trying to trace Galadriel's footsteps, the Second Age is the most problematic I think, but just for one example here: the above video has Galadriel and Celeborn moving to Dol Amroth at one point in the Second Age . . . but that's from a text in which Amroth is their son . . . which idea was rejected (and he is not their son in this video, in any case), and there's no mention of them going there in any subsequent texts, arguably because Amroth as their son was rejected!

Anyway. Just my opinion on that much.

{{ I thought much the same watching it- its was sort of cobbled together from varying at odds texts. My understanding is that Tolkien kept making changes to Galdriels life story but never sadly got it finished, so there is no definite version, just competing ones. }}

One good note for the Galadriel video above: her ban is there, and thus her participation as a chief actor in the rebellion . . . there's only so much that Tolkien himself published about Galadriel, but this much is key for me with regard to weeding out the "unstained" Galadriel (and Telerin Celeborn) Tolkien was musing about late in life.

So, huzzah to that, for example.

{{ Is her ban not mentioned in LotR's, or in appendices? Otherwise her speech to Frodo doesnt make a lot of sense. }}

Her special ban is not mentioned specifically in those texts Petty, but later in the 1960s in The Road Goes Ever On
(and in a letter written roughly at the same time).

After The Lord of the Rings was published but before The Road Goes Ever On, Tolkien wrote that Galadriel did not return West (at the end of the First Age) "for love of Celeborn (and probably with some pride of her own, for she had been one of those eager to venture there [Middle-earth]". And in a late text written after RGEO, where Galadriel is still part of the rebellion, JRRT wrote "she refused the pardon of the Valar" and remained in Middle-earth.

These examples are from Unfinished Tales (the second one being repeated in The Peoples of Middle-Earth)

Maybe more folks read UT than RGEO, but RGEO is the author-published version. I should note that in LOTR, after Galadriel rejects the One she says: "I pass the text . . . I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel"
. . . but RGEO is very clear on the matter of Galadriel's ban, delving into her lament Namárie, no matter how one interprets this statement from LOTR (also author-published, of course).

Some time ago I had a discussion over at TORN with someone who claimed that RGEO wasn't canon due to it being the author's thoughts about his work.

Needless to say I disagreed. I say RGEO is again Tolkien as translator, just as in Appendix F for example. Tolkien as author can be found in the second edition Foreword, which is why I prefer the first edition Foreword.

And now I'm starting to drift . . .

{{ Thanks for the clarification Elthir- I must have got the impresison about the ban from UT then as Ive never read RGEO. }}

L

Nice note about how the Ents drove off the orcs from Rohan while the riders were at Minas Tirith.

But the best part was this map that combines middle earth with Beleriand. Often tried to imagine it but have never seen it before.

I've never understood why the maps of Middle Earth don't contain Belegost or Nogrod. Shouldn't they be either side of the Gulf of Luhn just up the coast from the Grey Havens?

I know they didn't fair well after the end if the first age, but I am sure I have read that they were still there and repopulated later on.

Given they were key Dwarves cities, I am surprised they didn't make it on a map.

You only hear of Dwarves in the Ered Luin, but those dwellings are spoken of rather dismissively. Thorin didn't seem to think much of them. It's a definite gap in history.