"Rings of Power" trailer analysis

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Tar Elenion

Hence a contradiction to LotR and The Hobbit.
(As Amazon only has rights to the Hobbit and LotR, I do wonder if they had to get permission from the Estate to refer to the 'Sun and Moon creation myth', or if the show-runners are ignorant of the fact that the creation of the sun and moon myth is contradicted by LotR and, quite deliberately, The Hobbit.)

So the issue is more that the showrunners are technically using something they don't have rights to? Because it seems like the real problem you're underlining is not that the show is discrepant from the legendarium, but that there are discrepancies in Tolkien's own materials. And frankly, this one I would give to the show - imagine if they followed your scenario, what the reaction would be then. People would be shouting from rooftops that the show has no respect for Tolkien if they never heard about the Trees and how the sun and moon were created. I would much rather they stick to The Sil cosmology and Sun&Moon creation myths. And at the very least Telperion makes a brief cameo in LOTR, so while the creation myth is not there (and, in-world, probably long forgotten by anyone who is not an Elf and perhaps a few very keen scholars of history and Elf lore), the Trees are. Well, one Tree.

[Tar Elenion]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

So the issue is more that the showrunners are technically using something they don't have rights to? Because it seems like the real problem you're underlining is not that the show is discrepant from the legendarium, but that there are discrepancies in Tolkien's own materials. And frankly, this one I would give to the show - imagine if they followed your scenario, what the reaction would be then. People would be shouting from rooftops that the show has no respect for Tolkien if they never heard about the Trees and how the sun and moon were created. I would much rather they stick to The Sil cosmology and Sun&Moon creation myths. And at the very least Telperion makes a brief cameo in LOTR, so while the creation myth is not there (and, in-world, probably long forgotten by anyone who is not an Elf and perhaps a few very keen scholars of history and Elf lore), the Trees are. Well, one Tree.

Correct, the show-runners are using something they don't have the rights to, and I am curious if it is due to ignorance on their part, or if they actually realize it and had to get permission from the Estate.
(Both Telperion and Laurelin are mentioned in LotR, App. A)

I rather doubt that they are that concerned with 'people shouting from the roof-tops', considering all the bending and twisting done.

[Galadriel55]

I rather doubt that they are that concerned with 'people shouting from the roof-tops', considering all the bending and twisting done.

My argument though is that their choice accomplishes less twisting. If you are portraying the FA directly, then do it FA style. Don't make 3rd Age rhymes and riddles into a reality no one will recognize. Of course, we might rather that they did not touch the FA at all. But assuming they do anyways... would you really rather they depicted Valinor without the Two Trees cosmology? In my mind that would have been the much greater evil.

As for rights, wasn't there a clause somewhere that they couldn't contradict published material?

[Tar Elenion]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

My argument though is that their choice accomplishes less twisting. If you are portraying the FA directly, then do it FA style. Don't make 3rd Age rhymes and riddles into a reality no one will recognize. Of course, we might rather that they did not touch the FA at all. But assuming they do anyways... would you really rather they depicted Valinor without the Two Trees cosmology? In my mind that would have been the much greater evil.

Yes. I would rather they depicted the sun and moon in existence at the same time as the Two Trees as per LotR and The Hobbit.

As for rights, wasn't there a clause somewhere that they couldn't contradict published material?

Not having seen the contract, I don't know for sure.
My understanding is that they can, on a case by case basis, get permission to use some items from the posthumously published works (e.g. the Numenor map), as long as it does not contradict what they have the rights to (Hobbit, LotR).

[mhagain]

I'd take issue with the claim that LotR has the Sun coexisting with the Trees; for example on the basis that Gildor's party's song has a reference to Varda's creation of the Stars in "the Sunless year". Unless you can give a reference that establishes otherwise, there seems no reason to suppose that the cosmology of LotR, as presented in the book and the book only, is any different to that of the published Silmarillion.

Nonetheless LotR doesn't include any explicit references to the myth of the Sun and Moon, so far more interesting to me is the fact that the trailer references it. That's information the show is not supposed to have, and must surely be a knowing wink for us to pick up on.

[Tar Elenion]

I did already give references. See my post with the quotes.
Tie that in with Tolkien's deliberate revision of the Hobbit.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Tar Elenion

Yes. I would rather they depicted the sun and moon in existence at the same time as the Two Trees as per LotR and The Hobbit.

This would mean pulling material not just from the Silmarillion, but from HoME texts - the Appendices are crystal clear that the Two Trees "gave light to the land of the Valar", so they would have to use the Dome(s) of Varda to make sense of it, and it/they isn't/aren't in Silm or UT.

Without invoking the idea that the Valar just shoved a giant lid on Valinor because, by golly, they'd had this idea for shiny trees and didn't want to let a ball of flaming gas ruin it, it's perfectly possible to reconcile the LotR and Hobbit texts you reference with the "young Sun" worldview:

- The Hobbit is written in Bilbo's editorial voice, and was written before he read the Elvish tales; Hobbit folk-tales make no mention of the creation of the Sun and Moon. (It is clear that Tolkien was thinking of the Dome of Varda/Melkor's smokes cover the Sun story here, but that doesn't mean it's the only possible interpretation.)

- Durin: there was no stain on the Moon because there was no Moon. The "light of sun and star and moon" is either a later metaphor (like the Winged Sun on Finwe's heraldic device), or an indication that Durin ruled until after the Sunrise.

- Galadriel says "beyond" and means in time.

- Gandalf is explicitly covering a broad timeline in his riddle - he mentions rings, which is the mid-Second Age! Or: he's referring to mountains that are now under the Moon. Or: he's saying that Treebeard and the Ents came to Fangorn after the Moonrise, leaving the lands where iron and hewing and woe were found. (Heck, Woe Was Wrought by Melkor before the land was even solid!) Or even: 'when young was mountain under moon' is a Rohirric idiom not otherwise attested.

And there are references which imply (but again do not state) the Silmarillion cosmology:

- The "stain on the moon" from the Durin rhyme is only ever explained in terms of Tilion and his ship, not a giant orbiting rock.

- There are explicit references to a Man in the Moon throughout Hobbit lore (and indeed a woman in the Sun).

- The "Sunless Years" reference from Gildor's song.

- Tom Bombadil talks of "the young Sun" shining down on battles on the Barrow-Downs.

- Bilbo's song tells of Earendil flying behind the sun; for a Silmaril to be visible at that distance the Sun must be pretty close (or the Silmarils once lit the entirety of Beleriand!).

- Haldir mentions that the light of the Sun is not as it was aforetimes, which actually sounds most like one of the very old legends about the death of Arien. It definitely doesn't make sense with an Old Sun model, unless Haldir is complaining that the sun isn't washed-out and obscured enough. (Perhaps he is English and longing for grey summers?)

And that's only from Fellowship! I'm sure you could find more in the other volumes. This isn't an obvious "the Sun always existed" situation by any means.

hS

[mhagain]

"The sun always existed" was the "destructive idea" that CJRT referenced in a number of places in HoME. It's certainly not as simplistic as saying "the sun always existed, get over it, move on" - and it's incredibly disingenuous to imply so.


If nothing else, consider everything that would need to be rewritten to support it:

• The Myth of the Lamps
• The Sleep of Yavanna
• The Myth of the Trees
• The first reckoning of Time
• The Darkening of Valinor
• The Myth of the Sun and the Moon
• Remind me what's so special about these Silmaril things again, anyway?
• Etc.
• Oh, and the Change of the World at the end of the Second Age; including everything about the Straight Path to Valinor.

And these were never rewritten.


Whichever way you slice it, you're going to need to handwave away something.


So which is easier to handwave away? Some oblique references, some of which came in via subsequent edits or editions, and most of which can be easily explained away? Or the entire first half of the Silmarillion? And so much other important stuff?


Nope, not buying it. Tolkien may have had intentions towards rewriting everything, but the key thing is: he never did. Ultimately all that we're left with is the latest completed cosmology, and, despite some offhand references and subsequent edits, that is the Cosmology.

[Tar Elenion]

Originally Posted by mhagain

"The sun always existed" was the "destructive idea" that CJRT referenced in a number of places in HoME. It's certainly not as simplistic as saying "the sun always existed, get over it, move on" - and it's incredibly disingenuous to imply so.

I did not say that. And it is disingenuous to imply that I did. Is that what you are attempting?

[Galin]

Originally Posted by mhagain

( . . . ) And these were never rewritten.

I argue that Tolkien eventually realized that they didn't have to be, although interestingly, if I recall correctly, he did add a reference to the Dome of Varda to LQ2 -- but again, there's no explicit-ness there (on purpose I would say).

The reference is there to be picked up on, but it doesn't have to hit the reader over the head. I read the "Death of Ambarussa" text (as no one calls it), as a Western Elvish tradition of a pre-existing sun . . .

. . . and I see no reason why it can't stand in the fuller Legendarium alongside the Quenta Silmarillion tradition with its time without a sun, and see no reason why it can't stand alongside the reference to the "Sunless Year" in The Lord of the Rings, or alongside Appendix F (Trolls): "Unlike the older race of the Twilight they could endure the Sun . . ."

Okay, so what exactly is the Twilight here, when not informed by the tradition of The Silmarillion?

Also in my opinion, the "natural default interpretation" of the world and its sun -- when considering everything Tolkien himself published -- is that the world was always round, and the Sun pre-existing -- and all I mean by that is that it's just a natural thing for modern readers to think* without anything explicit to necessarily think otherwise.

Or if I'm wrong, I'll speak for myself at least: I don't think I ever imagined Tolkien's world as "once flat" or "once sunless" until the constructed Silmarillion was published.

Or maybe I'm just too thick headed


_______

*I note A Guide To Middle-Earth by Robert Foster, the edition published before the constructed Silmarillion was published:


Twilight: "Figurative name for the Undying Lands, derived from their darkened state after the Rebellions of Morgoth and the Noldor.

Twilight: "A period early in the First Age of Middle-earth, perhaps the domination of Morgoth."


But in Foster's revised, post-Silmarillion Guide, the two entries for Twilight are quite different of course!

[Tar Elenion]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

This would mean pulling material not just from the Silmarillion, but from HoME texts - the Appendices are crystal clear that the Two Trees "gave light to the land of the Valar", so they would have to use the Dome(s) of Varda to make sense of it, and it/they isn't/aren't in Silm or UT.

No more than pulling materials to invoke the sun and moon not in existence.

Without invoking the idea that the Valar just shoved a giant lid on Valinor because, by golly, they'd had this idea for shiny trees and didn't want to let a ball of flaming gas ruin it, it's perfectly possible to reconcile the LotR and Hobbit texts you reference with the "young Sun" worldview:

- The Hobbit is written in Bilbo's editorial voice, and was written before he read the Elvish tales; Hobbit folk-tales make no mention of the creation of the Sun and Moon. (It is clear that Tolkien was thinking of the Dome of Varda/Melkor's smokes cover the Sun story here, but that doesn't mean it's the only possible interpretation.)

It is clear that Tolkien deliberately revised the passage to have an extant sun and moon.

- Durin: there was no stain on the Moon because there was no Moon. The "light of sun and star and moon" is either a later metaphor (like the Winged Sun on Finwe's heraldic device), or an indication that Durin ruled until after the Sunrise.

Then it would have been 'before' the moon.

- Galadriel says "beyond" and means in time.

In time would be 'before'.

- Gandalf is explicitly covering a broad timeline in his riddle - he mentions rings, which is the mid-Second Age! Or: he's referring to mountains that are now under the Moon. Or: he's saying that Treebeard and the Ents came to Fangorn after the Moonrise, leaving the lands where iron and hewing and woe were found. (Heck, Woe Was Wrought by Melkor before the land was even solid!) Or even: 'when young was mountain under moon' is a Rohirric idiom not otherwise attested.

The semicolon indicates a distinct separation between the two parts of the riddle.

And there are references which imply (but again do not state) the Silmarillion cosmology:

- The "stain on the moon" from the Durin rhyme is only ever explained in terms of Tilion and his ship, not a giant orbiting rock.

- There are explicit references to a Man in the Moon throughout Hobbit lore (and indeed a woman in the Sun).

- The "Sunless Years" reference from Gildor's song.

It is "Sunless Year". Which was when?

- Tom Bombadil talks of "the young Sun" shining down on battles on the Barrow-Downs.

Perhaps the only possible one. The sun young compared to what?

- Bilbo's song tells of Earendil flying behind the sun; for a Silmaril to be visible at that distance the Sun must be pretty close (or the Silmarils once lit the entirety of Beleriand!).

- Haldir mentions that the light of the Sun is not as it was aforetimes, which actually sounds most like one of the very old legends about the death of Arien. It definitely doesn't make sense with an Old Sun model, unless Haldir is complaining that the sun isn't washed-out and obscured enough. (Perhaps he is English and longing for grey summers?)

And that's only from Fellowship! I'm sure you could find more in the other volumes. This isn't an obvious "the Sun always existed" situation by any means.

hS

None of seem these have any relevance to the existence of the sun and moon.

And it all fails on Tolkien's deliberate revision.

[Blind Guardian]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

So the issue is more that the showrunners are technically using something they don't have rights to?

I haven't read this entire thread, but I have a feeling that lawsuits will come out of this show.

I think, visually, the RoP series looks great. I am tentative about the story. In my head, I'm thinking of this entire Amazon series as a giant myth, which makes it a little better and easier to ignore any inconsistencies. I actually enjoy reading different myths when told by different cultures.

You know, I've been trying to get a copy of the Sil as an eBook. I have access to 3 libraries and NONE of them have it. I am 21 on a waiting list in OR, ? in Hawaii (their website is crap and doesn't even tell you what you've requested), and 6 in AZ. I have a physical copy in AZ but I'm in HI right now I just wanna read some Sil again darn it!!

Edit: libgen has the Sil! WAHOO!

[Mithadan]

Good to see you Blind Guardian.

Pretending that RoP is a myth or tale independent of (or unreported by) Tolkien may be an option available to some here. However, the series is using characters, places and a general mythological setting familiar to me. The Hobbit movies almost lost me at the depiction of Radagast, and did lose me in goblin town. Tauriel was simply annoying to me, though perhaps I would have enjoyed her character in a non-Tolkien setting.

Attempting to view RoP as if it were unrelated to or independent of Middle Earth is not an option for me. For this reason, I hope that its quality and faithfulness to at least the spirit of the Legendarium is enough to let me enjoy it. There are gaps in the "history," particularly in the Second Age, broad enough to craft a believable effort to fill in the empty spaces so long as some creditable attempt at consistency is made.

[Galin]

I think Tolkien's recharacterization of The Silmarillion as a mostly Mannish work solved his problem.

The revision to The Hobbit was, in my opinion, done in order to take out an explicit mention of a time before a sun. . . although that said, I think we can add what I'll call the Treebeard Tradition* from The Lord of the Rings, which to my mind, agrees with the Western Elvish traditon of a pre-existing Sun.

*Treebeard's story of the Entwives read in consideration of his chronology regarding both the Great Darkness and his reference to the Elves passing over Sea.