Things I didn't know
 

<font face="Verdana"><table><TR><TD><FONT SIZE="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Pile o' Bones
Posts: 13</TD><TD></TD></TR></TABLE>
I haven't got any of the HoME books, so these facts are new to me.

...Finrod was originally Ingor and Fingolfin was originally Finrod......
.......Eonwe was originally Manwe and varda's son!

Are there any things like this u know, post em so I can have a look.

I think it was a good Idea for the Valar to have kids but they would have to av a lot to create all the Maia. Who was Sauron originally, a kid of someone????

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<font face="Verdana"><table><TR><TD><FONT SIZE="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Stonehearted Dwarf Smith
Posts: 1113</TD><TD><img src=http://www.hbgk.dk/terning.gif WIDTH=60 HEIGHT=60></TD></TR></TABLE>
Re: Things I didn't know

If Im not wrong the development of the character Sauron we know started in Tevieldo Prince of Cats... any Morgoth did also have a son, this son later developed into Gothmog, lord of balrogs... I suggest you read HoME if you are intersted in these kind of early works of JRRT. Otherwise follow the SILM Canon forum that deals with early contra later myth ...

<marquee>It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes!!! ... Anar kaluva tielyanna!</marquee></p>

Aragorn was originally Trotter, a hobbit with wooden shoes that was actually Pippin who had disappeared many years before (is that included in the HoME books or is that separate? (HoLoTR))

That one was in The Return of the Shadow (HoME) I just finished reading that one.

[img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Prince of Cats?!?!? No wonder Tolkien dropped that idea, what self-respecting cat would acknowledge Sauron as their prince (or anyone else, for that matter)? Where can I find this?

I knew about the Trotter, but not the rest. [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

Isn't amazing how stories can change beyond all recognition from the first draft?

I was wondering if anyone had an opinion on the following,

Mordor as we all know translates to "Dark Land" but I was thinking at work as often happens when bored of various things not work related, Mordor sounds like Mortar like the weapon that fires grenades. Does anyone think Tolkien would make the connection of evil lands with evil weapons?

Or murder,

especially with a Scottish accent

'Thorrs bin a Morrrdorrr'

Indeed, the Old English form of the word 'murder' is 'morðor'.

That's actually two different questions, I think.
1. If you're inquiring whether Tolkien consciously thought of mortars (or murder, for that matter) when he invented the name Mordor, he explicitly denied (somewhere in the Letters, in answer to somebody who had noticed that Sauron was similar to Greek saura 'lizard', as in dinosaur) that this sort of pun* had anything to do with the way his imagination worked.
2. In general - considering that evil in Tolkien's works seems to be intimately linked with 'The Machine', I think yes, of course he would make that connection. We don't see Sauron's forces using cannons or bombs in the battles of the Pelennor and the Morannon, but Saruman's army used something similar to dynamite at Helm's Deep, and in The Hobbit the orcs/goblins are credited with inventing mass destruction devices. Not to forget the winged Nazgûl, whose attacks from above may reflect something of the horror Britain experienced during the air raids of WWII (something Peter Jackson brought out quite well in the films).

*(speaking of puns, next time we play WW together and I'm a wolf, I hope you'll make a tasty Morsel!;))