[Child of the 7th Age]

Bear with me...this may be long. Michael Martinez, who is far more knowlegable than I, posted on the Minas Tirith forum and couldn't make head or tail of Teleporno. However, I think I've dredged up enough to convince me he did find something and I don't agree with it (whatever "it" is).

Here is some more information on Teleporno from the Land of Rohan website: here. Both Minas Tirith and Rohan contain a reference to Kansas. (Did anyone say Wizard of Oz? ) For some reason, this particular thread in Rohan is not accessible through the link Ardamir originally provided for us. I found it through google.

The place I'm writing from looks a lot like Lothlorien in the Peter Jackson extended DVD release of the film of FotR. It's a large hill with beautiful trees. It's even got it's own mythical name, Mount Oread. I work for the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. It's about a half-hour drive from downtown Kansas City, Missouri, hometown of jazz hero Charlie Parker.

I received a bachelor's degree in English and Film Studies at KU in 1992. Some of my coursework included study of Old English (a grad class) and fantasy literature. I also read lots of mythology and ancient heroic writing, from Egil's Saga to Beowulf to The Kalevala to the Eddas.

Of Tolkien, I've read
The Hobbit: at least four times, first time at age 10; just reread it over the weekend in about ten hours;

Lord of the Rings: At least six times, first time around age 13, just started it again today;

The Silmarillion: Three times. Finished it in December;

Unfinished Tales: Once, finished it Friday;

Lost Tales, Vol. I: Once, in the mid-eighties in hardback;
Lost Tales, Vol. II: Partially read;
Lays of Beleriand: Partially read;
Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: Once, rereading again.

My first inclination was to assume that this person never found anything about the Entwives and was merely posting to irritate the posters at Minas Tirith. But looking at what we know about his credentials from the post above, his knowlege of sources (though not the greatest, he knew something), and also an anlysis of his other posts, I've come to believe that he thought he'd found something. It wasn't purely a joke.

I have no idea what he found re the Entwives but his posts point consistently to an approach he is taking---both in terms of the Entwives and the few other posts that are on these sites. He thinks that Tolkien uses hidden jokes, conscious allusions to other authors, and bases some of his characters on real people. He actually spells out some of these supposed links not re the Entwives but in other posts he's written re other scenes and characters in Tolkien.

Here's a post from Jan 2003 on Minas Tirith that gives a hint of this.

Aiwrendel is correct according to my reading. And the Shakespeare stuff is clearly present throughout Tolkien (he was 'recording' the lost mythology of England, after all):

Ents = Wood coming to Dunsinane (Macbeth); and
Aragorn = Reluctant king in waiting (King Henry IV Part One) are two that are very obvious. Back when I was a college student studying Shakespeare I noticed many references JRRT made to WS, as well as Chaucer, Mallory, Beowulf, and Milton, to name a few.

The reference of being "born of no woman" is to Julius Ceasar. The reverse, "slain by no man" (sic) is clearly his little joke. Prof Tolkien did have to earn the respect of his Oxford cronies, after all!

We can see from this that Teleporno had a thing about Tolkien making "little jokes" and that these jokes are hidden. In this regard he also seems to be searching for allusions that JRRT made to other authors. This all ties in nicely with what he said on the Minas Tirith thread re the Entwives......references to jokes and hidden things. My inclination then is that Teleporno was following a particular train of thought in all his posts, and, using particular techniques he favored, he did think he'd discovered "something" concerning the Entwives.

Tolkien does not say "here are the Entwives." But he does, I think, make a very deliberate joke.

I decided it is such a pleasant little mystery that to detail it all would be to spoil it for you, sort of like answering a riddle you should figure out yourself.

It also, to me, now means I must reread the books all over yet again (no pain there!) to see how many other hidden things the Professor put in there.

I think his posts on Tom Bombadil are also a key. There's nothing new here in terms of content but Teleporno is insistent that JRRT based many characters on actual people. (We'll see this same suggestion later in the Entwife thread.) See here on a non- entwife reference:

I'm rather new around here, but I've been reading Tolkien for twenty-five years. So when I found this thread I thought I'd drop in my favorite theory about Tom, but Ensa Lucis already said it here in May 2001.

Tom is the author himself. He's in the center of the world, yet removed. He's old both among Tolkien's characters, having been dreamt up by JRRT around 1907 (if memory serves). And JRRT knew that when he died, although his Middle-Earth stories would survive, the world would cease to be revealed since he was it's sole creator. So, Tom and Ronald are both "last as they were first".

Plus, all the "Goldberry is waiting" lines make me think about a busy academic whose hobby was writing, but was yet a devoted husband. Goldberry is Mrs. Tolkien.

I've always guessed that JRRT based many of his characters on actual people, although I've never read of who they might've been. Radagast might be Charles Williams. Whoever Saruman was, Tolkien clearly developed contempt for him!

I do not believe for one minute that Tolkien based his characters on real people and put them as hidden jokes into the text, but that is what Teleporno seems to be hinting at, whether we're talking about Entwives or other characters. Take a look at this reference regarding the Entwives. The Ents are Tolkien's academic friends and the Entwives some sort of suffragists who won't put up with the baloney of cloistered academics. This was posted months afterward on both Rohan and M.T. and is the most explicit statement we have from him concerning the identity of the Entwives.

It's a joke I'm sure some of Tolkien's cronies got, especially his cloistered academic friends parodied (and ennobled) by the Ents. Think of British women in the early 20th century...Suffragists...women who wouldn't put up with foolish, boorish men...

Read The Two Towers and closely note clusters of words.

I can't say anymore and keep the joke secret. It's there. I'm certain.

Where does all this lead? Ahem.....on the basis of the scholarly evidence available, I would say this. The poster Teleporno uses a consistent approach in both the Entwife and non-Entwife threads. Therefore, it is not a total spoof: he thought he found something using the same approach he'd taken on his other posts: hidden jokes, allusions to real people and/or other authors. For some reason, probably because he enjoyed seeing people squirm, he preferred not to spell out his findings.

I, for one, think that his idea of allusions to real people is hokum. His earlier reference to Charles Williams as Radagast is double hokum! Moreover, I simply do not accept his bald analogy that Ents are a parody of Tolkien's academic friends. And since I can't accept his characterization of the Ents, I also can't accept the other half of the equation: his views on the Entwives (whatever or wherever they are)! This gets us into another level of contention. There has been much conversation on this website as to whether Tolkien appreciated or engaged in parody. Teleporno strongly suggest that the Ent/Entwife paradigm is some sort of parody. I, for one, do not believe that.

Am I barking up the wrong tree? (Let's just hope I'm not tugging at an Entwife's skirt!) I am also at a total loss as to those "cluster of words".