Thread: A Question about J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth etc.

Now that me, Hinarei and some others are publishing some details of our works on Molmol, Pararakelse and Yanimebi, I would like to map how many like-minded people there are around.

Please answer all of the following questions, if you would answer "yes" to at least one of them.

1. Have you ever read through all or most of the appendices at the end of "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien?

2. If yes, did this happen when you were

a) 12 years old or younger,
b) between ages 13 and 18, or
c) 19 or older?

3. Have you read through similar materials in (or based on) other works of fantasy or science fiction, such as "Helliconia" by Brian Aldiss (or such as Star Wars -- Attack of the Clones: The Illustrated Companion)? Please specify.

4. If you are into role-playing games, are you interested in their universe descriptions, beyond finding out about details you could use in your campaigns? Please mention examples.

1. Yes, actually they were the only part I read to completion, I still haven't read the entire LOTR trilogy but I liked learning about its fictional world.

2. b

3. I can't think of any examples but I'm sure I have. Pretty much every book I read that has one I expect.

4. Like tabletop stuff? I've never really played them sorry!

As for question nr. 4, interpret it as you like. I have almost exclusively played tabletop RPGs. The early-nineties computer RPGs did not impress me much, but I would assume some things have changed since. (Visual) MMORPGs have become technically possible, for instance... If an RPG of any type has rich fictional-world material, why not take it into account?

Despite being mentioned already by the OP, my answers:

1. Yerp. Some of it was hard going at the time, but revisits have cleared up a few points. I remember the work that fascinated me most was his hammering out of a new language (Telerin, Sindarin...) Languages have always intrigued me. The way they work in LOTR (especially when you can see the work someone's put into them, rather than haphazardly had them built up over thousands of years by people who don't know any better) is quite astonishing.

2. b, 13-18. I first read The Hobbit when I was 9, then tried Lord of the Rings when I was 11. Hard going, so re-read it when I was in secondary school, 15 or so, I think. Got Silmarillion out of the way in college, about 17

3 & 4. Not really gone deep into any other worlds, to be honest. Other themes I know as deeply as LOTR include Love Hina and possibly Star Wars, with a smidge of Star Trek. I'm quite into reading through that sort of thing though. Often more interesting behind the scenes than in the feature

1) In a word, yes

2) both b and c. For a long time, I had a personal "canon" of works that I re-read about once a year. The Lord of the Rings was one of these, including all of the appendices, as well as this fabulous copy of "The Annotated Hobbit" the local library had, and I hope still has. It's been a while.

3) Hmm, I have a technical manual from the original Star Trek series, and at one time owned a companion book to The Legend of Zelda. And going WAY back, I used to subscribe to "Bantha Tracks", George Lucas' companion newsletter for his work on both Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

4) Hrm, kind of a slant answer to this. I'm very interested in world creation. I started making up my own stories a long time ago -- still have a lot of hand drawn maps of my own fantasy continents lying around. No doubt so many of us who grew up with Tolkien did the same thing. For me, this kind of thing stuck, and never went away. When I write a story, I still totally immerse myself in that setting. When I was working on a romance novella set in feudal Japan, I spent a great deal of time looking into historical details of costume, language and naming conventions -- things like that. Lately, I've been working on a science fiction piece, so right now it's all technology, speculative papers, other "cannon" works, things like that. It probably makes me sound like a hopeless geek, but personally, I love doing this. My interests are varied, and the research gives me a chance to indulge them a bit.

Ammaranth

I used the appendices to find out the futures of characters and history of races that I was particularly interested in, but reading through the whole thing would be a bit excessive for me

1. Not entirely. I read a good deal of the wikipedia articles on Middle Earth and the history of Middle Earth. I was...procrastinating one night and thought it was interesting. I don't have the books with me, so it was the best thing I could do.

2. c - 19 or older. I was 21.

3. Nothing on this scale, no. I've read various forms of science fiction, the closest would be Harry Potter.

4. No.

Oh yeh, the other questions...

2. When I was 13-16, maybe? It took me ages to read the book. Slow reader.

3 and 4. Pretty much no.

Slow reader? I don't think that's all there is to it. Some of the book is very hard going. Of course, the disjointed composition of Silmarillion means each stage of Tolkien's books is tougher than the previous one. Once I'd finished Silmarillion, I thought "oh. So now what? Surely there must be more!", so I read the appendices to LOTR and got much more out of it

I was so tired after reading LotR that I couldn't imagine reading any more. I decided to put it off, and ended up never getting round to the Silmarillion or anything else. Maybe I will do at some point.

Yeh, it acted more like playing a game. Just can't sleep after it.

Especially Helm's Deep. That was like reading treacle.

crikes, yes o_O I applaud the man's rich prose and full environment-building process, but that's why it was previously considered unfilmable. To film every page of the book (succinctly or otherwise) would have taken well over a week of reel

Originally Posted by hinarei

To film every page of the book (succinctly or otherwise) would have taken well over a week of reel

A friend of mine has the extended DVD version. At the movies, especially "The Fellowship of the Ring" was truly enjoyable at the best moments, somehow bearable at the worst. The DVDs, however, have convinced me that Jackson should not have filmed the trilogy.

I wonder if I will live long enough to enjoy a long, high-quality (and high-budget) TV series in the spirit I want to see.

***

My answers:

1. Yes, I have. I must admit having some difficulty with his descriptions of the tengwar script and some related linguistic issues, though.

2. a) 12 years old or younger. I think I was nine or eight when I finished the whole story for the first time. I may have skipped some of the most complicated appendices at the time. On the other hand, I recall asking my father to get me photocopies of a number of pages from appendix F I, "The Languages and Peoples of the Third Age". Those I read over and over again.

3. To be honest, I cannot remember. I do not know if such brief texts as the Newspeak appendix to "Nineteen Eighty-Four" should count. I love skimming through that kind of stuff, but usually only read large parts with thought and skip some. For example, I have several companion volumes of West End Games' 1987 "Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game", but I doubt having ever read every single page of even one of them. Wikipedia-scale descriptions of alternate universes? Eat them for snacks.

4. Definitely. I already mentioned my SWRPG. Just to give an example, it has always bugged me that mundane equipment, such as autochefs and glow rods, are barely described, while a companion could provide extensive comparisons between essentially similar blaster pistol models by different manufacturers.