Most Tragic Moment?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I think some of us, me especially, are mixing up the words "tragic" and "moving"...

The argument can be made that words mean what the people who use them intend them to mean, Thin, 'cause that's how words change meanings.

Besides, I think several of us have been working with different meanings.

[Aiwendil]

The argument can be made that words mean what the people who use them intend them to mean, Thin, 'cause that's how words change meanings.

Yet if I decide to mean "up" when I say "down", I can hardly complain when I am misunderstood.

The moment that strikes me as most tragic in Tolkien's writing is when Ungoliant sucks the Trees dry of their light. If we're just talking about LotR, I suppose it would be the moment when Gollum almost repents and is then told off by Sam.

Actually, on second thought, the most tragic thing is the fact that Tolkien never wrote a full Tale of Earendil.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

The argument can be made that words mean what the people who use them intend them to mean, Thin, 'cause that's how words change meanings.

"The meaning of a word is in the use of it", said a man named Ludwig Wittgenstein. And at least as it comes to this prohibiting any eternal or transcendent "meanings" that might lurk behind the everyday words we use, I think he was right. But there is the head-banger involved in here too. If the words only mean what we intend them to mean, so how can we intend them to mean something in the first place?

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

This post like Wittgenstein belongs in a philosophical discution, don't you think?

[Aiwendil]

"The meaning of a word is in the use of it", said a man named Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Sure, an older Wittgenstein who had rather lost his philosophical way. The young Wittgenstein said:

A name means an object. The object is its meaning.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

Sure, an older Wittgenstein who had rather lost his philosophical way.

Or who had indeed found it after his premature naivete...

But yes, as Rune said:

This post like Wittgenstein belongs in a philosophical discution, don't you think?

So I'll leave it be.

But the point I tried to make alongside Bethberry was that we seem to speak about lots of somewhat different things here as we discuss "the most tragic part", but that it does not mean we are "mixing things up". Quite on the contrary it seems most natural to me.

If I try to say what was the most tragic part in the books or if I try to say what is the thing that moved me most deeply or which thing gave me that beautiful anguishing feeling of sadness... I'm not able to see who or what could make decisions concerning the definition of these things if not us language users in our communication trying to understand one another.

The tragicness of Turin's life and death are of a different sort than the anguish we're experiencing from reading about the inevitable waning of the elven race. So can we use the same word tragic to cover both instances? Why not? But it requires that we open up the things we mean by tragicness and share our points thus enriching the conceptual world we live in and share with each other...

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Back to the topic. Child added Frodo's departure to the most tragic moments. I do agree with her here somewhat. Frodo's departure does not concern only Sam and the other hobbits, but us readers as well. There is a strong feeling of this world being left to go on with its own (thus combining to the theme of the waning elves) after being guided by powers more enlightened than human minds. But I can see all this also as a challenge and liberation too. From that moment on it's up to us humans what we do and how we do it. So there is the hope and there is the fear. Learning to walk on our own feet... do we stumble or not? But is it tragic then if it carries a hope within it?

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

This post like Wittgenstein belongs in a philosophical discution, don't you think?

Indeed. Tsk, tsk, too much work Noggie. The point is to bring BD to RL not RL to BD.

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One more tragic/sad/moving scene that hasn't been mentioned yet is the fate of Finrod Felagund. First his people abandon him (apart from a few faithful ones) and then Sauron kills him while he defends his friend Beren. A sad fate for one of the greatest of the Eldar (or for anyone else, for that matter).

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Maybe I could make a little sub-poll too (since almost everyone mentions this story):
What in your opinion is the most tragic thing that happens Narn-i-hín-Húrin?

It always grieves me the most what happens to Beleg. Also, the scene where Morwen and Húrin meet at their children's grave is really tragic.

[lathspell]

Well, the most tragic moment...


Frodo's realisation that he has to run for it and has to leave the shire and his friends comes pretty close, I guess.

[MatthewM]

- Boromir's Death

- Frodo's departure to the Grey Havens

- Reading the appendices timeline when the story is over

[alatar]

Frodo leaving these eastern shores and the Shire. He gave so much, and nothing was left for him. For the others (except Boromir), there was life after the Third Age. Not for Frodo. He still carried the Third Age in his head, hand and heart, and only Aman offered the possibility of healing.

[Lalaith]

A quiet Oxford don called Dodgson pre-empted Wittgenstein by several decades, you know...
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.' The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'



As for most tragic moment....the fate of Hurin - who in some versions of the Narn, dies while still in despair. I find that almost unbearable.

[Boromir_bg]

Definately the death of Boromir.

[ArathorofBarahir]

I think Boromir's Death was just the first of many tragic moments in the book. I feel that Treebeard was a wee bit tragic because of there being no more Entwives. I also thought Theoden's death at the hand's of the Witch-King was not only tragic but gut renching. Frodo leaving Middle-Earth was sad for me as well Arwen giving up immortality for the man she loved, that was heart-warming and romantic but was always destined to have a tragic ending.

[Elmo]

My two most tragic moments if when the baby sons of Dior are left out to starve and the end of Numenor - a pointless act of vengeance in which many innocents died made more so when it was perpetrated a a supposedly good character (Don't attack me here its all discussed in the thread Attrocity of the Akallabeth). I think Fingolfin was an idiot who died stupidly and pointlessly.

[ArathorofBarahir]

Boromir's death would have to be one of the most tragic moments of the entire book. I would also rank Theoden's death up there as well.

[Elmo]

I've just read the conversation between Finrod and Andreth, its one of the saddest things I've read in my entire life , if I wasn't so full of masculine insecurity I'd cry my eyes out

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

The point is to bring BD to RL not RL to BD.

What? Bring this looneybin of nightgaunts to RL? I don't think it ready for us yet, Thin.

I'd like to thank Noggie for realising what my point was, that in common usage "tragic" is not limited to just the formal, classical meaning, so it isn't a question of "mixing it up" but of clarifying how we use the word. After all, I myself was making an offhand nod to a particular meaning ....

And anyways, why can't we discuss Wittgenstein? LMP talks about Barfield. Or are we only supposed to talk about writers who agree with Tolkien or who Tolkien agreed with? Maybe his ideas about language aren't the only ones out there.

Originally Posted by Noggie

But is it tragic then if it carries a hope within it?

Well, isn't the end of every tragedy supposed to bring us back out of the horror?

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Well, isn't the end of every tragedy supposed to bring us back out of the horror?

It might depend on the time and the author...

But this also raises the question whether a tragedy should give us the hope or the uplifting with it's content, by somehow suggesting that there still are lives to live for or hope in the horizon (like I see LotR doing it)? Or is it just this katharsis that Aristotle spoke of, where it is the general characteristics of a tragedy to let us experience the strong and frightening feelings in a safe way and thus feel relieved emotinally? So what makes a tragedy: the actual content of it or the reaction it arouses in us?

[Aaron]

But is there hope at the end of LOTR? The Ents will die out, the elves are leaving, Gandalf has exhausted his purpose. It all seems quite nihilistic to me.