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... I'm not crazy! It's in Unfinished Tales. Quote:
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The only proper conclusion is that I need to read Unfinished Tales again. |
"One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne. In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."
(Explorable map) There's a lot to speculate on with this update (which may or may not be the last update). Does the labelling of all three Mountains of Moria mean the Dwarven city will play a major role? How significant is the extention of the road through Mirkwood all the way to the Iron Hills? Why have they used Sindarin for both Dimrill Dale and Lake Evendim? The crucial thing, though, is that the cities of Elendil's sons are named Minas Anor and Minas Ithil, placing this map firmly before the fall of the latter to the Nazgul. Of course, their very appearance means that the map must post-date the fall of Numenor, neatly ruling out the war with Eregion as a possibility. More tentatively, the North Road runs to Fornost, with no roads leading to Annuminas; I suspect this means that we're looking at a time after the throne of Arthedain moved east. And... well... there's only really one story between the division of Arnor and the fall of Minas Ithil, so I'm reasonably confident that the map is pointing (for whatever reason) at the Fall of Arnor. Which is something I've wanted for quite some time, but would also make a lot of sense to lead in to an Aragorn series. It establishes why he's not a king (Arvedui) and why he could become one (Earnur). It also sets up the Nazgul as a hereditary enemy, which - especially if the series heads into Rhun - means they can be used as local threats for Aragorn. hS |
Fanfic with a budget and a distributor is still fanfic.
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But I'm still excited. ^_^ hS |
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This is an old stance of mine, going all the way back to the PJ movie announcement. I think for me the sticking point is this: how dependent is my enjoyment of Tolkien's world on the manner in which he presents it? The answer, is highly. The man was such a unique writer in his use of language, in his characterizations, and the overarching world view in the books that deeply resonates with me, that any other "take" on his work always falls short. Quite simply, I don't appreciate or need the efforts of adaptions. Others disagree, obviously. To quote a movie from a book that I do enjoy: Quote:
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One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them, In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
https://i.imgur.com/XrtVIVJ.png Welcome to the Second Age Okay, now can I get excited? ^_^ The use of the 'star' map of Numenor confirms that Amazon have the rights to more than just the old LotR+Hobbit deal, because that map and description only appears in Unfinished Tales. That doesn't necessarily mean they're going full Fall of Numenor (or even, since Ost-in-Edhil appears on this version of the map, full Fall of Eregion), but it means they apparently can do some of that sort of thing. So anyway: aaaaaaaaaaaa. As Inziladun rightly says, whatever they come up with won't match up to Tolkien's own writings, and there's every chance they'll come up drastically short (though the fact that they correctly added the forests of Eriador to the Second Age map, and filled in the East Bight, says they're paying at least some attention), but still, "for those who like that sort of thing..." aaaaaaaaaaa hS |
Odd that the Iron Hills aren't named on any of the maps despite the Dwarf-road being identified as ending at them. If they didn't have an Elvish name for it (not that I think "Khand" is an Elvish name, and we know that "Umbar" definitely isn't, coincidences aside) shouldn't Khazad-dūm be called Hadhodrond?
I notice Harad and Khand have each grown a couple of extra mountain ranges and rivers, presumably so Rhūn doesn't feel like the odd one out. |
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The only time-frame I can think of which would have Numenor AND Minas Anor + Ithil would be if they are doing the Fall of N - Exile -Last Alliance. Which wouldn't actually be a bad story to tell.
It seems to me that they have now released TWO maps: one representing the Second Age pre-Downfall, and the other the post-Downfall late SA, i.e. the Last Alliance period. So I'm thinking Ar-Pharazon to Isildur as the storyline. |
Aha! There are no fewer than FIVE maps! One of them is just geographic features with no names at all, and two (identical) just the names of the geographic features with no political nomenclature, but there are 2 more representing 2 different epochs:
Map 1 reflects the situation before the First War of the Rings: Ost-in-Edhil and Eregion are present, along with Khazad-dum. Numenor is there of course with its three principal cities, and a region in Harad (but not a city) is marked as Umbar Map 2 however is either the earlier Third Age, or the very late Second after the Downfall: now we have all the key sites of the Kingdoms in Exile under their earlier names: Minas Anor, Minas Ithil, Osgiliath, Orthanc, Fornost, Annuminas, Amon Sul. Umbar is now a city. Numenor of course is gone. Interestingly, so also is "Khazad-Dum"- it's now "Moria," which can't work. Khazad-dum only fell to the Balrog and was abandoned to become "Moria" in TA 1981- but the last vestige of Arnor had been destroyed in 1974. Possibly the cartographer takes the position that Elves called the place Moria beginning with the destruction of Hollin. |
I don't know if I want to see a Last Alliance story. That is actually an important piece in ME history character- and theme-wise, and I feel attached enough to it to be very sorry to see it done all wrong.
However, if they go all Game of Thrones on the Numenorian rulers, I could totally buy that. If there was ever a GOT in Tolkien, it's in Numenor. Also, I have very little knowledge and attachment to that era, so a lot of things would be forgiven on my part. I would give a Numenor series a go. |
Interestingly!, while it doesn't say anything about the show as a whole, it's pretty clear that they got a total geek to make the maps. I've noticed that the pre- and post-Downfall maps were not only both hand-drawn, but completely hand-drawn; check out the label for 'Nenuial' for proof that they redid all the labels. That's not the easiest approach to take, and says that somebody cared about these maps they were making.
The other proof that they cared is in all the details the added to the Second Age map, a map which Tolkien never drew. It's not only the forests - the whole coastline has changed. All along the coast of Lindon and what will one day be Gondor, the coast extends a little further out, and there are hills and forests that would be washed away in the Downfall. They also filled in the East Bight in Mirkwood, of course - but look to the south of it. That's what we call the Brown Lands, but back in the Second Age it was the home of the Entwives. I'm not sure I agree with depicting it as a tree-filled valley, as they seem to have done - but the fact that they put it in says a fair bit. As does the de-deltification of Anduin and the expansion of Tolfalas. Quote:
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I was thinking that the use of "naugrim" seemed out of kilter too. Surely at least the Gwaith-i-Mķrdain would have referred to them as the Casari, but I suppose in Sindarin allowances must be made. |
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Well, in terms of place names all I can think of are two from the First Age (Nogrod and Bar-en-Nibin-noeg), with neither of which the Elves were on especially good terms. I reckon the folk of Hollin were more polite (ergo Hadhodrim) |
Returning to Balin's tomb: actually, it fails in a couple of respects (as T himself later acknowledged): first, the primary inscription, like the BoM, is in English, rendered in phonetic cirth (the Khuzdul is at the bottom). The second problem is that, while we know that the Dwarves don't use their secret Khuzdul names even on their tombs, Balin/Fundin aren't their actual "outer names," but translations of their Dalish names into Norse equivalents.
Of course, in reality we know that T didn't develop his fiction of translation until a decade later. |
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The idea that the books were translated from old texts is a separate idea; I don't know how far that one goes, either, but Tolkien's 1937 Hobbit cover mentions it in the runic inscription ('... a years journey by Bilbo Baggins of Hobbiton compiled from his memoirs by J.R.R. Tolkien'). Or do you mean that the latter concept postdates the use of Norse names in the early Hobbit drafts by a decade? I haven't got a very concrete notion of the Hobbit writing timeline, so that could make sense. (All complicated by the fact that The Hobbit was pretty clearly written as a derivative work feeding off the Silmarillion, and only adopted into its timeline when LotR was begun...) hS |
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If they want a GOT political intrigue story-at least partially, the downfall of Numenor would be one of the best periods and places to do it.
You could have conflict between the king's men and the faithful, and of course Sauron-who they could get some attractive really handsome actor to play. Because second age Sauron pre downfall is supposed to be "fair" in essence really good looking and visually appealing. You could have plenty of CGI laden vistas with numenorian ships traveling the world, It's got potential, I remain curious how successfully or not they will pull it off. As for the maps-they added a lot of detail for Rhun but not Harad. Strange. |
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Interesting map, by the way. I didn't realise that Numenor was so far south. It makes sense now why Umbar was so important, and why the survivors sailed up the Anduin river if this map is accurate. Quote:
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At the present rate, the characters will all be interacting remotely via Zoom.
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Actually, recently they were given the green light to resume since New Zealand had a legitimate response in handling a pandemic from the get go:
https://www.looper.com/223679/amazin...-rings-series/ |
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But having looked into it, now I have my doubts. Am I being too clever for myself, and Professor Tolkien actually meant he should have rendered the Northern Mannish in its actual form rather than in Old Norse, and the Khuzdul form was the true name? e.g. As I understand it "Balin" might mean something like "Burning" in Old Norse (i.e. Mannish) — was his true name the Khuzdul for "Burning", or was it something entirely different? I keep re-editing this post because I'm worried I'm not making my point... Anyway it's not on topic for this thread. The success or failure of the Amazon series will derive, I suspect, on how well they are able to market it (whether or not it's true to the source material in tone and language, which it almost certainly won't be). |
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And the English of course should have been actual Westron.
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So I've heard Sauron and Galadriel will be major players which makes sense given its the SA.
Anyway, I'm curious as to what aspects of the S.A., they'll emphasize whether the wars of Eregion or Numenor. |
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:Merisu: ;) :D |
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Oh, c'mon. Real Housewives of Armenelos? Keeping Up with the Curufinians? The possibilities are endless.
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Some more news. I might be wrong to see these as rather encouraging. I did not know though that the Tolkien Estate had some stricter boundaries in place when it comes to the material Amazon will use:
https://www.cbr.com/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-need-know/ https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/p...e-rings-series |
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