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Old 10-19-2000, 08:53 AM   #77
Mister Underhill
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/redeye.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: Who knows their trolls?

Hey Kittle, the Troll Thread is back!
<blockquote>Quote:<hr> &quot;It's alive! It's alive!&quot;<hr></blockquote>
I'm curious about your post, though... so are you saying that the trolls in daylight action (or implied daylight travel) in LotR are Olog-hai? I could swear your article posited the same argument that Mithadan is defending now -- that there were several varieties of trolls, some of which were &quot;naturally&quot; sun-resistant. P.S. -- working on that article as quickly as time and access to resources allows. I've brought more ammo to the table on the Húrin argument...

Mithadan, you're right that we may never be able to authoritatively solve this one. Undoubtedly that's the reason there are over seventy (!) posts in the thread. And it's true that the letter only implies and does not state clearly. But if reading it one way (several varieties of trolls, only one of them sun-sensitive) conflicts with other sources -- the Appendix F ref, Aragorn's statement, even the Hobbit troll scene where it says &quot;...trolls, as you probably know, must be underground before dawn, or they go back to the stuff of the mountains they are made of, and never move again.&quot; -- and reading it another (&quot;other sorts of trolls and &quot;different origins&quot;, as references to Olog-hai&quot does not, shouldn't the reading which doesn't conflict be the preferred one?

In Volume XII, CT says that studying the papers, it was clear to him that his father was aware that there would be need of Appendices years ahead of time. I don't have the exact quote here in front of me, because I don't have the book. It seems clear he worked on them for years at least, though granted, there's quite a bit of wide-ranging material in them. But just the fact that he decided to include a behind the scenes reference to Sauron going to the trouble of breeding (conditionally) sun-resistant trolls seems to imply that there were not naturally occuring sun-resistors.

And if we're going to use length of time worked upon as an index of accuracy... how long did it take him to dash off that letter? A day? An afternoon?

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