Hobbiton Anachronisms, or, Were the Hobbits ahead of their Time? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

**The Saucepan Man** · 01-24-2003, 06:18 PM

Seeming anachronisms are not the preserve of The Hobbit. There is a great thread on modern day references in JRRT's works here.

Personally, I think that most of the items discussed on this thread (clocks, football, potatoes etc) can be explained by the fact that the world described by JRRT is a different world from ours. It is not set in any particular time of our (recorded) history. So, it was perfectly open to JRRT to include whatever items he chose in his tales, even if they might seem slightly anachronistic.

The one that sticks out is the description (in A Long-Expected Party) of Gandalf's firework-dragon passing like "an express train". If there were such things as trains in ME, you would expect that people would build and use them. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

LePetitChoux, your addition of "elephant" is, I think, an entirely valid one. We are presented in LotR with Oliphaunts, which seem very different from elephants as we know them. Perhaps this could be explained as a matter of translation (oliphaunt translates to elephant). Or possibly there was more than one elephantine species on ME?

[ January 24, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ]

01-24-2003, 06:18 PM	#3
The Saucepan Man Corpus Cacophonous Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: A green and pleasant land Posts: 8,390	Seeming anachronisms are not the preserve of The Hobbit. There is a great thread on modern day references in JRRT's works here. Personally, I think that most of the items discussed on this thread (clocks, football, potatoes etc) can be explained by the fact that the world described by JRRT is a different world from ours. It is not set in any particular time of our (recorded) history. So, it was perfectly open to JRRT to include whatever items he chose in his tales, even if they might seem slightly anachronistic. The one that sticks out is the description (in A Long-Expected Party) of Gandalf's firework-dragon passing like "an express train". If there were such things as trains in ME, you would expect that people would build and use them. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] LePetitChoux, your addition of "elephant" is, I think, an entirely valid one. We are presented in LotR with Oliphaunts, which seem very different from elephants as we know them. Perhaps this could be explained as a matter of translation (oliphaunt translates to elephant). Or possibly there was more than one elephantine species on ME? [ January 24, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ] __________________ Do you mind? I'm busy doing the fishstick. It's a very delicate state of mind!