I wish to add a few footnotes to this venerable and enlightening thread:
Man of the Wold: posted many months back
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Whether these Olog-Hai trolls were significantly different in other ways from other trolls (past or present) or notably similar to one another seems to be unknown, except that they tended to be on the large size even for trolls.
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In the App. F a mention of the Olog-Hai being unusually 'cunning'. and that they were previously unseen, i,e, a new tyoe of troll. It also list a few other attributes that set them apart.
Mauthuk posted:
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just a couple quick questions....see if anyone can help.....if orcs are mockeries of elves/men and trolls are mockeries of ents, then wouldn't trolls be more tree-like? Orcs seem quite mannish (or elvish) also if there is Olog-Hai, what are the trolls cross bred with? If Uruk-Hais are orcs bred with men etc. Just some wonderings
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I think the early tendency for Tolkienists to take Treebeard at his word have been dampned by JRRT's Letters [not sure of the # offhand] wherein he says Treebeard 'was not one of the wise' meaning, I take it, he was not speaking with Authoritative knowledge derived from the Ainur, and that his Troll/Ent parallel may have been 'common wisdom' or speculation, but was not the truth of it. JRRT says this flatly about the elves-->orcs in HoM-E X 'Myths Transformed' sectinon, and then goes on to back -pedal.
We do not know, and JRRT himself seemingly gave up at ever reaching a decisive answer for ORc [and thus by exstension] Troll origins.
As for what was the extra genetic ingredients for the Olog-Hai?
I would speculate either men or Uruk-Hai. probably the latter. But it is only my opinion, and not based on a shred of supprtable text.
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Also in case anyone was wondering where Mr. Underhill's magnum opus is see the articles link at the bottum of every [?] forum page, or go to the
www.Barrowdowns.com page and find the link.
I believe it is called 'Olog-Hai fidelity'.
As a final note, I apologize to Underhill for missing this [along w/ so many other greath threads] as I had my nose firmly buried in the Silm project/Forum at the time.
I would have encouraged him abit, by siding with his reading of the evidence.
An awesome thread overall, and may all 'youngins' take note at the civility, scholarship, persistence and vigour!
Amazing what lurks neath nearly every line in the texts... [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]
ps - as far as I know we are still in the dark as to the contents of the unpublished section of the Nirnaeth which CJRT [and Underhill] refer to. It may or may not contain a first age reference to Trolls.
If I understand all of this aright, I think Mr. Underhill has forever earned a place in the realm of Barrow-Downs scholarship with his research to show
we, as of yet have no first or second age writings by JRRT that mention Trolls. Yes they are mentioned as having existed earlier in App. F, but we only see them in a dubious Silmarillion passage. My personal guess is that the Troll insertion is a result of a note or slip of paper with something like 'Trolls slain by hurin in Nirnaeth' or somesuch.
I give CJRT the benefit of the doubt that he would not create something whole cloth unless the need was truly there, as in the case of the Ruin of Doriath. However it would of course be nice to have some dare I use the word - 'closure'.
[ July 26, 2003: Message edited by: lindil ]