Split Personality?

[alatar]

Originally Posted by davem

Hurin killing 70 trolls seems at first sight 'fantastic' but it is not logically impossible, or, given his reputation, even 'possible but unlikely'. Is it more likely that a chronicler just made it up?

Again, who recorded the event? If our answer is 'Tolkien,' I argue no further. But in the heat of battle things can become confused, and some men count each enemy head twice, or something.

It seems to me that if someone was just making up the number they would have gone for a smaller one (to make it more 'acceptable' why not 7?) or a much larger one (to emphasise Hurin's victory - why not 100?). The examples you cite are either logically impossible, or at the very least infinitely improbable.

That's not evidential. What you or I believe to be what people would or would not do would be great discussion (of course ), but add not one jot to the stack of evidence. Seventy to me sounds immediately suspicious as it's too 'round' of a number...not 68, 69 but 70? There's that magic number (at least in my culture) 7 again. Was 70 chosen to make some mythic point that escapes more causal readers like myself?

I'm not. I just got caught up in this one. I can only think that anyone who doesn't, or can't, believe that Hurin killed 70 trolls is going to have a major problem with about 100% of the Legendarium. If you hold Hurin's killing of the Trolls may have been made up, or seriously exagerated, then you put the same question-mark over every single event in the stories - maybe Glorfindel didn't kill the Balrog on his own, maybe Turin didn't take down Glauring single-handedly.......

Back to one of the origin points is that Tolkien's work rarely makes me think that Hurin could have done otherwise, and that's why it works. To me, what you state does happen, and I'm not using pretzel logic in that that maybe Hurin could have shone the last glint of sunlight off of his huge dwarven axe and turned the seventy to stone, and their heads fell off, and so technically he does behead them with an axe.

When in Arda, I'm a believer.

And just a thought: I find Legolas's count at Helm's Deep actually low.

[davem]

Originally Posted by alatar

. Seventy to me sounds immediately suspicious as it's too 'round' of a number...not 68, 69 but 70? There's that magic number (at least in my culture) 7 again. Was 70 chosen to make some mythic point that escapes more causal readers like myself?

I'd be more inclined to put the round number down to it being something like a 'Company' of Trolls sent out specifically to capture Hurin, rather than a bunch of Trolls who just got together & decided to take him on. It seems they were obeying specific orders - to capture him. Hence, one assumes that witnesses would only have to see a Company of Trolls assaulting Hurin to know that there were 70 of them. One would only then have to see them all piled up to know he had slain 70 of them. Anything else, it seems to me, calls the exact number into question, & it may well have been a tale that 'grew in the telling', & the reality that he actually killed 27 of them - or 7.

[Lalwendë]

Well, this thread having a pop culture bent, I have some pop culture evidence for some matters at hand.

1. According to American Pie 2, there is this rule that guys have where if anyone asks how many girls they have 'romanced', they must multiply the number by three. Thus if they have 'known' three girls then they must up the number to nine. In the case of Hurin he probably slaughtered approx 23 trolls but the rules state he must multiply this by three.

Incidentally the reverse rule is true for girls...

2. According to an experiment undertaken by one Johnny Knoxville, it is impossible to live once set on fire, beyond about eight seconds as you inhale the fumes and so...you die. I suspect that many people watching the films will also have seen Mr Knoxville's experiment and will have known just how wrong Denethor's run was, and this is probably why the cinema was rocking with laughter at that point.

I happen to think PJ threw that scene in as a reference to his old humorous gore fests. There are no lawnmowers in Middle-earth but a flaming Steward was just as funny.

3. Alan Moore was quite happy to sell film rights to his books and then having nothing more to do with them, until a lawsuit over The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Now he is not so carefree.

[Sauron the White]

from Lalwende

According to an experiment undertaken by one Johnny Knoxville, it is impossible to live once set on fire, beyond about eight seconds as you inhale the fumes and so...you die. I suspect that many people watching the films will also have seen Mr Knoxville's experiment and will have known just how wrong Denethor's run was, and this is probably why the cinema was rocking with laughter at that point.

You must hang out in very weird communities. I saw ROTK eleven times in the theaters and not once was the cinema rocking with laughter at that point. Not once. I only hope the Johnny whatever reference was in jest and not serious. To consider that third rate celebrity an authority on anything would be a real stretch.

from Bethberry

My willing suspension of sub-created belief while watching RotK in the cinema was continuously interrupted by five girls two rows down from me whose sole enjoyment was to experience the disruption of said belief and to laugh uproariously at the ridiculousness of it all.

I think those same five girls disrupt lots of movies that are not kissing the collective behinds of the high school set. I truly support the death penalty for people that do that in a theater. No trial. No jury. A sniper next to the upper area of the screen who drill them with a bullet. An usher then hangs a sign around the offending corpse "I TALKED". It would be a good thing.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

from Lalwende



You must hang out in very weird communities. I saw ROTK eleven times in the theaters and not once was the cinema rocking with laughter at that point. Not once. I only hope the Johnny whatever reference was in jest and not serious. To consider that third rate celebrity an authority on anything would be a real stretch.

I am of course pulling your chain

Not about the cinema laughing at Denethor though. Someone even yelled "Woo-hoo!" as he went over the edge.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I guess so, since both Wellington and Angmar are places and not individuals. Still, when you use Wellington as a personal name (meaning any one of the line of dukes, I assume), you're using a place name that was derived from a surname of the individual, which is a bit different than using Angmar as a personal name for the Witch-King, since Angmar means, according to the article I just linked "iron home."

It happened to be the case that Wellington's title was derived from his personal name (Wellesley), but by no means always, especially with older titles which referred specifically to a shire or manor; it was certainly common enough (just read your Shakespeare) to refer to the nobility by fief alone, as Norfolk, York, Albany, etc etc etc, which were entirely unrelated of course to the surnames Brandon or Plantagenet or de la Pole or Howard.

[alatar]

Sorry that this post is about Denethor's plunge and not Gollum, but I've already posted about running Dwarves in that thread, and seems that this thread is more about Denethor...

Faramir, having greeted his new King and having gotten plans started for marrying his wild shieldmaiden friend from the North, turns his thoughts backwards a bit, to those days just before the Battle of the Pellenor "Dad, you were a crazy ole coot sometimes, and had the table manners of an orc chieftain, but still I loved you."

Faramir walked the lower level of the city to the spot where poor old dad had met his abrupt end. Although the city was being repaired, still, some stains remained from those dark days. At one dark stain Faramir knelt down and set a round red tomato on the paving stones, marred and blackened from the war.

"Excuse me? Captain Faramir, can I help you?" A guard had walked up, checking on his lord.

"I'm fine. Just paying homage to my dear father, the late Denethor, the Soaring Steward." The guard looked a bit perplexed, then, being caught up mayhap in the jubilation of the Fourth Age, decided to speak further.

"Uh...Captain Faramir? Your father, sir, actually landed over there. I saw it myself with my very own eyes, thinking it some new devilry from Mordor. I think that on this particular spot a brave soldier met his demise by one of those Battle Trolls. Squished with a mace, he was."

...

PJ robs us, however briefly, of any chance of a scene where Faramir briefly laments the loss of his father. No glimpse down Rath Dínen, no blackened and burned room - and I'm not even going to mention the palantir - no tomb.

It's all Gandalf's fault as he had to cover up the scene where he assaulted the lord of the city. No body, no crime.