The Letter of the Law

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

You just got yourself a convert, sir.

^_^ Of all my daft ideas, this and "Celeg Aithorn is the sword of Manwe" are the ones I like the most.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I'd dearly love to see that.

I did sketch out an all-woman Fellowship a while back along the same lines, though to my shame I had to tap the movies for Ranger Arwen and, of all people, Tauriel. It does showcase both how interesting Tolkien's female characters can be - and how few of them there are. (I suppose I could find a way to replace Tauriel with Ioreth of Minas Tirith, but she might be a bit much...)

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I take my words back. Good catch. (Even though, to be sure, the original verse counted with Círdan, so...) But if Galadriel can be a King, then a "mortal Man doomed to die" can surely be a woman.

Cirdan is a shipwright, Lord, and Master, and Celebrimbor was a Lord. The only King to hold any of the three was Gil-Galad.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

But exactly - that's the one sad counter-argument: if there had been a powerful sorceress or evil conquering warrior Númenorean lady who became a Ringwraith, her unusual qualities would likely have been mentioned somewhere.

...

(I personally somewhat cringe at how much this fits into the trope of "the civilised people have a patriarchal society, whereas it may be perfectly common to have a female chieftain in the 'exotic' societies that are wild and primitively barbaric/wild and free and egalitarian" - depending whether you want to paint this trope positively or negatively, both of which are cringeworthy in my opinion. But let's face it, the setup of Middle-Earth sort of supports this distinction.)

Well... yeah. I think the only purely matriarchal society Tolkien describes is the Haladin under Haleth, who had her own bodyguard of amazons, and she gets pretty heavily highlighted - while also falling firmly into the "wild and primitive" trope.

That said, I believe the amazons only get a single passing mention, buried somewhere in a linguistic essay, so perhaps "they would have been mentioned" isn't necessarily true? A whole lot of women have prophetic/visionary abilities which are never mentioned explicitly, only obliquely shown (Rosie Cotton, for one!); and the one bona fide evil sorceress has her story told solely in a single "primitive" and partly-illegible outline: Queen Beruthiel. It's entirely within reason that Tolkien would have restricted a description of Nazgul #5, the Sorceress of the Last Desert to an utterly unreadable scribble on the back of an envelope.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

...which obviously implies that it was heard again in another age. (And given that the Fourth Age started just a bit over a week later, that's not saying much.)

But of course! The Nine Rings weren't destroyed, just buried under Barad-dur when it fell (along with the Ithil Stone); per "The Dead and the Undead", it's perfectly plausible that the Nazgul would be bound to their Rings even in actual death. Once they were unearthed - which I seem to recall Aragorn had no intention of doing - they could return as genuine wraiths.

Or maybe they just come back for Dagor Dagorath. I mean, Turin's going to, why not Sauron's pet Men?

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Can't say I am familiar with that one. I have only heard about Shadow of Mordor and I decided not to pay much attention to it back then. From a brief glance I am maybe glad that I did so.

Shadow of Mordor is... tolerable if you accept the basic premise of 'Celebrimbor was trapped as a ghost and turned evilish'. Shadow of War - spoilers, I guess? - made Isildur and Helm Hammerhand into Nazgul. I've played the first, but won't touch the second with a bargepole.

hS