[MLD-Grounds-Keeper-Willie]

Now that I finally read all the replies, I can reply myself.

First of all, the original question was- Do we live in middle-earth?

My answer- no.

We don't live in ME because it never existed, or at least I think it never existed. To me, ME is just made up by tolkien. I think that tolkien based it upon the middle-ages, and I think that he loved the middle ages. He might have loved the MA so much that he decided to recreate it with a different name; hence, middle-earth. I think that tolkien liked how the middle-ages were, he just wanted to have his own, with his own stroies and events and history. The more he added to it, the more complex it became and in turn, the more realistic it seemed . Middle-earth could just be the middle-ages edited to his liking. Now, you might say, 'well there were no wizards or hobbits in the middle-ages,' right, but tolkien also created middle-earth to be a fantasy also, and not fully realistic. By doing that, it makes middle-earth belong more to tolkien; it makes it his own middle-ages. Also by making middle-earth more of a fantasy, it makes middle-earth, to me, look older and more legendary and more mythical.

I don't think that ME existed a long time ago. Why? Because if it did, how would tolkien have known it did, and if he somehow knew that it existed, how would he have known its full history and everything that happened?

That quote, 'history became legend, legend became myth and things that should not have been forgotten were,' refers in context of ME only and to the ring and the history of the ring when it was lost. It does not hve anything to do with us forgetting about ME. Tolkien created ME because he wanted to. I think that he liked to create worlds and in a way play God. ME never was so it could not
have been forgotton. However I may be wrong. If you believe in the theory of the Big Bang, you could say that ME was on earth before it exploded and started over.

And also, if you say ME was forgotton, I think that it is more like MA was forgotton. The middle-ages was such an amazing period of time and people just forgot about it. Tolkien brought it back in his own vision through his books, in middle-earth.

Some of you say that ME might be like our world, with England as the shire and North America as Valinor. I say yes only in a ceartain way. ME is not in geographic relation to our earth. I think that ME represented mainly Europe during the MA and that in a way England could be seen as the shire. However, it may not be so and in comparrison to places in ME, Europe might look really mixed up.

Enough of that...Gorothlammothiel, you said something about pu's and different dimensions. I like the essay- its good and its interesting. The point about the de ja vu's is really catchy. However, I disagree with you.

Your take on a 4th dimension, time, would allow for us to have a pu. I disagree. I think that time is not a dimension because it is only one way where as the third dimension allows for two ways- up or down/ back or forth/ left or right. Time only goes one way- forward. The 12th century world could not co-exist w/this present world because of time. The 12th century had to end in order for the world to get to the 21st century. However, I may be wrong. I don't know. ME may have existed after all. You can't prove that something is not there. That has always bothered me.

I think that ME did not exist like a world we live in. It was never real and never official. Therefore we can not live in it and no one could have. But I believe that it is a place that you can go. When you read the books, you enter an illusion and escape from reality. That is why I love Middle-Earth.


Thanks for listening.

[ February 03, 2003: Message edited by: MLD-Grounds-Keeper-Willie ]