Lord of the Rings TV series gets multi-season order at Amazon

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

As someone with minimal knowledge of medieval warfare and weaponry, could I ask you to elaborate on why the armour galls you so much?

Tolkien's world is clearly set in the age of mail- everyone wears it, including the most advanced smiths in the world, the Dwarves.

From this I would have to conclude that Middle-earth, just as it had not invented gunpowder, had not invented the metallurgy needed to produce iron ingots bigger than a bloomery yield- about 2 - 2.5 lbs (.8-1.2 kg). Enough for a sword or an axe-head, but not anything more. Note how early-medieval helmets like Sutton Hoo are made of multiple pieces riveted together?

Our ancestors didn't start to wear plate armor until the second half of the 14th century not because they were stupid, or that no-one though of it, but because it wasn't possible until they could produce iron ingots big enough to make breastplates et cetera out of. Even at the end of the Third Age, Middle-earth wasn't there yet.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

As someone with minimal knowledge of medieval warfare and weaponry, could I ask you to elaborate on why the armour galls you so much?

Chain mail is the only thing Tolkien ever mentioned directly. No plate ever. Never. The Dwarves were still manufacturing chain well into the 3rd Age (their specialty, such as Frodo's mithril corselet).

Since I don't feel like typing copious descriptive passages, our buddy Michael Martinez at middle-earth.xenite.org has a quite all-encompassing overview of Tolkien's armorial preferences:

https://middle-earth.xenite.org/how-...ndorian-armor/

The only thing Mr. Martinez neglects to mention is far earlier descriptions of armor v. chain by Tolkien in the story of Eöl the Dark Elf (although I'm quite sure he was not of African descent, but merely saturnine) and his invention of the meteoric metal galvorn:

...as hard as the steel of the Dwarves, but so malleable that he could make it thin and supple; and yet it remained resistant to all blades and darts. He named it galvorn, for it was black and shining like jet, and he was clad in it whenever he went abroad.

The description leaves room for conjecture.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

The only possible counter-evidence, or at least the one snippet which has been thus proffered, is the "polished vambrace" with which Imrahil discovers that Eowyn is still alive.

That said, there was a considerable period during the Age of Mail when men would augment a hauberk with bits of solid plate, usually at the elbows (couters) and knees (poleyns). And since the mail-wearing Rohirrim especially valued "coats of bright rings out of the Southlands" (meaning Gondor); since Pippin's Citadel Guard armor was mail, and Denethor wore mail under his robes, it appears that Gondor just as Rohan wore mail (in fact, if Gondor made plate, surely the Rohirrim would have been eager to import it; for that matter, if the smelting technology existed in Gondor the Rohirrim and the Dwarves would have swiftly adopted it).

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Worser and worser


Amazon’s Rings of Power Script & Audition Videos - See What They’re Doing to Tolkien!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlHYvpL4KwY

[Tar Elenion]

In addition to Imrahil's "bright-burnished vambrace that was upon his arm", there is this:
"'Alas! My axe is notched: the forty-second had an iron collar on his neck. How is it with you?'"
and:
"He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face downward, green arrow-feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered, his corslet of overlapping brazen plates was rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood. His brown hand still clutched the hilt of a broken sword."
So, scale armour (and a possibly a plate armour collar).
(Various mentions such as "metal wrought like fishes' mail and shining like water in the moon", "robed to the middle in mail like the scales of blue and silver fishes" also bring to mind scale armour).

There is also this from Fall of Gondolin:
"Now this great work was finished to their mind, and folk were the busier about the
quarrying of metals and the forging of all manner of swords and axes, spears and bills, and the fashioning of coats of mail, byrnies and hauberks, greaves and vambraces, helms and shields."
Greaves as well as vambraces.
Thus some indication of ancillary pieces of plate armour, as well as scale or lamellar armour.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

It strikes me that Amazon's marketing department (and its paid shills like theonering.net) have adopted a very interesting strategy: insult the fanbase and call them names. Innovative, certainly.

[Tar Elenion]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

It strikes me that Amazon's marketing department (and its paid shills like theonering.net) have adopted a very interesting strategy: insult the fanbase and call them names. Innovative, certainly.

All shall love me an... or I will disparage you!
Even back in the heyday of the varied Tolkien forums, I considered TORN a trash site.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Back in the Jackson-movie years, I thought it gave too much of the game away that TORN's onsite paid ads were almost all from WETA Workshop and other PJ/New Line-connected enterprises.

But now the site has no advertising at all- which raises very interesting questions about where their funding is coming from (even beyond accepting an all-expense-paid junket to London and Oxford combined with an exclusive private preview and meet-and-greet: an offer of Rings of Power from the Lord of Gifts which I am afraid other, better people like Corey Olsen also stooped to accept)

[Tar Elenion]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

an offer of Rings of Power from the Lord of Gifts which I am afraid other, better people like Corey Olsen also stooped to accept)

'It's like some bizarre fan fascination. Tolkien never says female dwarves have beards.'

[William Cloud Hicklin]

[Tar Elenion]

Did you catch his latest episode of Other Minds and Hands (#10) where he gets all excited about the "Harfoots" and how maybe they could be further east in Rhun and migrate west and become Gollum's people in the lands around the Anduin?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Errrrr- Smeagol was a Stoor.

[Tar Elenion]

What I thought immediately upon hearing that...
Unfortunately he has comments turned off on his videos.

I had been making time to respond* in some of his 'live chats' but missed this one.

* In #6 he doubled down on his beards claim, with a 'Tolkien stated dwarf women don't have beards' and I was able to (repeatedly) demand the quote, while his 'students' were jumping in defending him, trying to change the subject and the usual bullwub.
Olsen himself did not respond, but in #8 he seems to have tentatively walked back his absolute assertions by, sort of, acknowledging it to be his opinion.
I will be interested to see, if it comes up again, whether he continue with that or goes back to the 'Tolkien said'...

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Turning off comments is always a pregnant indication.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Morfydd Clark (Galadriel):
"Rings of Power is more of a message to the patriarchy, and the old cultural guard. A message that says we are no longer going to play fiddle to a white man's vision. This uses elements of Tolkien and his story, but focuses on a sociopolitical statement of power and unity."

Discuss.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Morfydd Clark (Galadriel):
"Rings of Power is more of a message to the patriarchy, and the old cultural guard. A message that says we are no longer going to play fiddle to a white man's vision. This uses elements of Tolkien and his story, but focuses on a sociopolitical statement of power and unity."

Discuss.

Sounds very close to Erendis' comments on Numenorean men to her daughter, found in Unifinished Tales. Also very appropriate for the woman playing Galadriel, whose Valinor plotline in particular goes "men who think they can have whatever they want SUCK". (Mostly Uncle Feanor, admittedly.) And strong shades of Eowyn, too, with her speech about how the men think it's their right to go off and fight, secure in the knowledge that the women will just wait and die if they fail.

I don’t think the white man in the quote is Tolkien; the Numenor story in particularly is deeply critical of the colonising, "civilised" Numenoreans. I think it's a statement that, in a part of the story Tolkien wrote very little about (and particularly, very little that they seem to be allowed to use!), they're rejecting the idea that Other Minds And Hands must always be white, Anglo-Saxon men's hands.

hS

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Some context, from Amazon Studios' 'Inclusion Policy':

'To reduce invisibility in entertainment, and where the story allows, we aim to include one character from each of the following categories for speaking roles of any size, and at minimum 50% of the total of these should be women: (1) lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or gender non-conforming / non-binary; (2) person with a disability; and (3) three regionally underrepresented racial/ethnic/cultural groups (e.g. in the US, three of the following: Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Middle Eastern/North African, or Asian / Pacific Islander or Multi-Racial). A single character can fulfill one or more of these identities.'

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Some context, from Amazon Studios' 'Inclusion Policy':

Not a great Inclusion Policy, if I'm honest; they could technically fulfill it by having a black lesbian in a wheelchair say "hi!". But that's what you expect from Amazon.

Tolkien, of course, does all of these in the Silmarillion: Galadriel is distinctly gender-nonconforming, Sador Labadal is noted for both his disability and his loyalty, and there are multiple Swarthy Men (including some who aren't even evil, which I note isn't required under Amazon's policy). In fact, if you count Morwen as gender-nonconforming (she takes what the Hadorians would definitely call a man's role), the tale of Turin has all three of these in spades! (I'm not even going to mention the various male characters who love Turin above everything in the world...)

hS

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Yes; I think strict quotas would produce better television.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

On nomenclature:
This is an area which I thinks provides substantial evidence that this show is not "in good hands" at all, notwithstanding the comments of assorted podcasters whom Amazon lavishly junketed. Look at the names for their "Harfoot" protohobbits. It goes without saying that these names of Shire type would be linguistically impossible in the Second Age.

But it also seems at least as blatant, even if they want to roll with a conscious anachronism, that there is not a thought process involved with sufficient spark to understand even the nature of those names: just chopping and reassembling Brandybuck and Proudfoot- have these nimrods no idea where those names came from and why they are as they are? Was there no knife in the drawer sharp enough to go find a Warwick* telephone directory and pull some Hobbity names from the source?

Oh, yes- what the heck is a woman with the the Welsh name Bronwyn doing in Middle-earth?

*"West Midlands" (i.e. the Birmingham conurbation) wouldn't really work any more

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

On nomenclature:
This is an area which I thinks provides substantial evidence that this show is not "in good hands" at all, notwithstanding the comments of assorted podcasters whom Amazon lavishly junketed. Look at the names for their "Harfoot" protohobbits. It goes without saying that these names of Shire type would be linguistically impossible in the Second Age.

But it also seems at least as blatant, even if they want to roll with a conscious anachronism, that there is not a thought process involved with sufficient spark to understand even the nature of those names: just chopping and reassembling Brandybuck and Proudfoot- have these nimrods no idea where those names came from and why they are as they are? Was there no knife in the drawer sharp enough to go find a Warwick* telephone directory and pull some Hobbity names from the source?

Oh, yes- what the heck is a woman with the the Welsh name Bronwyn doing in Middle-earth?

*"West Midlands" (i.e. the Birmingham conurbation) wouldn't really work any more

I did a post on names in the Vanity Fair thread here and basically agree with you, though their Elvish language words (Arondir, Tirharad, possibly Carinë) are at least plausible.

In recent days the official Twitter account has been attaching more names to the posters. We have Harfoots "Poppy Proudfellow", "Marigold Brandyfoot", "Largo Brandyfoot", "Sadoc Burrows", and a mortal boy associated with Bronwyn named "Theo".

I feel like Theo has been discussed already - it looks like they've just grabbed a random Rohirric sound, just like they apparently did with Bronwyn. Really not fond of that.

The Harfoots are better. Largo is a bit weird to me because a song by that name was one of the first couple I learnt on the keyboard, but none of the forenames stands out as super unlikely (unlike Elanor/Nori). Burrows I think is straight from Tolkien, and Proudfellow fits right in with the English-language Hobbit names. It's kind of a shame their "bad in three different ways" name happens to be the lead Harfoot character.

Given how easy it is to get Hobbit names 'right' (literally just Flower Ruralphrase will do you), I don't think this indicates their name-game has gotten any better.

hS

[Tar Elenion]

The showrunners via the "Tolkien Professor" (OM&H 13), *Galadriel has PTSD. The "Tolkien Professor" says all her brothers (yes, though Amazon seems to be introducing a new brother) and her mother are dead.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Brothers? That's odd- because no matter which version of the Finarfinian genealogy you care to use, not one of them is mentioned in the Appendices, supposedly Amazon's only permitted source.

[Tar Elenion]

Finrod is:
"In Lindon south of the Lune dwelt for a time Celeborn, kinsman of Thingol; his wife was Galadriel, greatest of Elven women. She was sister of Finrod Felagund, Friend-of-Men, once king of Nargothrond, who gave his life to save Beren son of Barahir."
App. B
"Noblest of all was the Lady Galadriel of the royal house of Finarfin and sister of Finrod Felagund, King of Nargothrond"
App. F

I'm not sure whether Olsen was repeating the show-runners justification for *Galadriel having PTSD, or giving his own justification (he came across as very supportive of PTSD *Galadriel). Either way, though, Earwen was not dead, and claiming that she was is troubling, especially for a self-styled "Tolkien Professor".

Amazon has the rights to all of LotR and The Hobbit.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I stand corrected. Still, there is no Appendices warrant for brothers, plural.