Notions that dispel a lot of the romantic ideas in Middle-Earth

[doug*platypus]

So, maybe the Rohirrim and the Gondorian guards also did while on duty?

Request denied! You hold it in, soldier!! Presumably someone would come and relieve a guard for say five minutes every three hours, so that they could.. well, relieve themselves. Guard duty is just one of the reasons we never see Knights of the Citadel drinking Powerade.

But the point is, Tolkien wasn't interested in the day-to-day basics of life.

Ah-ha, Lush, but he was! References to bathing, singing and smoking tend to drive many readers of the books insane. But Knight of Gondor has seemingly trodden into what Tolkien left out of the books entirely... poop. Great thread, Knight.

I would suggest that for someone of his age, and at the time, it would have been completely inappropriate to mention any bodily functions in the Lord of the Rings, or any other of his works. This doesn't mean that Middle-Earth is some idealised world where these aren't necessary. In my opinion, nothing is really lost by not specifically mentioning every time Gimli passes wind (or I'm sure the book would stretch out to 1500 pages at least). I can't think of any passages in the book that made me think "That's impossible. How did they go to the toilet if they were doing that all day?" But I would be very interested if there were such places that you have recognised.

Tolkien left it up to us to fill in the blanks in each character's time. As for the blokes in armour, wouldn't a codpiece be easily removed? There must be a medieval type person out there who can shed light on this.