[Ealasaide]

Excellent, excellent insights, Child! But...

My preference is to accord freedom to the writer and not lay down rigid guidelines as to what a Corsair ship should or should not be. If I see it one way and you see it another, so be it....we have only limited information from the author himself.

Firstly, I would like to clarify that I am NOT trying in any way, shape or form to define anything in the absolute - not ships, weddings, weapons, or anything else - for RPG purposes or other readers or what have you. Somehow that seems to be everyone's interpretation of what I am going for here, when really it is the farthest thing from my mind. I believe absolutely in the writer's freedom to express his or her own individual vision within the context of his her own writing. I don't believe that there should be only one way of seeing a sailing ship or a corsair. On that level, what I was curious about was impressions, i.e. what other people see in their minds' eyes, when they read the same passages that I read, not because I wanted to try to impose any kind of guidelines but because of an innocent interest in what other people see.

Secondly, good point that Middle Earth is a diverse place with many different levels of techonology existing side by side, just as in our world. I had considered that as well, which is why the questions of Harad or Woses or Icemen did not come up within my initial comments. I had accepted that much as a given. I was concentrating more on the, for lack of a better term, leading civilizations of The Shire, Rohan, and Gondor. That being said, though, I do not think that we are in disagreement.

As I have said repeatedly, Tolkein's works are works of contemporary fiction that draw upon centuries' worth of history, folklore, and legend. It is one man's vision of a magical place that exists outside of our history. While I did, at first, find myself trying to apply a Western European temporal yardstick to Middle Earth, I abandoned that notion rather quickly. Nonetheless, I still don't find myself departing from the notion that these societies share a common level of technology that ties them together.

For example, if one were trying to apply absolute historical guidelines here, hobbits would be running about with firearms, which were readily available in Edwardian times, while the folks of Gondor and Rohan would still be using swords and arrows. With his interest in technology, Saruman might have automobiles and steamships, while everyone else is still using horses and wagons. Instead, everyone universally rides about on horses, mules, elephants, or what have you. They fight with spears, bows, and swords. Boats are pretty much universally powered by wind and air. That is what I meant by a common level of technology, although I admit in the face of rampant anachronism, it may be impossible to define, based on Tolkein's work, what that level of technology really is aside from non-mechanical.

Even the use of the term non-mechanical gives rise to the argument that the dwarves created wonderfully magical mechanical toys. So, where are we? Back at umbrellas and mantle clocks.

And unstuck in time, by this world's standards, which is perfectly okey-dokey by me.

What I was also interested in on a purely intellectual level, was why it felt anachronistic to write about a ranger with a pocket watch or Denethor carrying an umbrella, when such things do exist in Middle Earth. Think back to the movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy, which illustrated the relative chaos that ensued when such a strange and magical thing as a coke bottle landed among the bushmen. The thing is that I am not talking about bushmen here. The rulers of Gondor repesent the ruling class - eventually - of all of Middle Earth. Why don't the people of Gondor have such things as mantle clocks and umbrellas if they exist in The Shire? Surely they would be considered useful things and not beyond the ken of Gondorian society.

It doesn't matter in the vast scheme of things or even in the vast scheme of gamng, but it is a question that interests me simply as a question.

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Just once, I would like to do an RPG that attempted to write about Middle-earth in the way that Tolkien did: by showing things from outside in, instead of inside out. But that would be extremely difficult to achieve, and I'm not sure I could do it. Just to take the example of Frodo, one would have to expose the character very slowly and tentatively, with tiny hints here and there, instead of the long internal dialogues that I and many others are prone to use.

That does sound like challenge! I am probably as bad as anyone about writing constant and lengthy internal dialogues. It would be a very interesting thing to try.