Re: Immortal Orcs

In article <Xns9775CE6F51561T.Forch@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
Troels@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
In message <news:MPG.1e64fa097e6afd71989988@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Tar-Elenion <tar_elenion@xxxxxxxxxxx> enriched us with:

In article <Xns976FD730C85D6T.Forch@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
Troels@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...

In message
<news:MPG.1e591fdc4b904ace989980@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Tar-Elenion <tar_elenion@xxxxxxxxxxx> enriched us with:

The Sun and Moon already existed 'Historically' as opposed to
'Mytholgically'.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, or, rather, at what levels
the 'historically' and 'mythologically' are supposed to be
interpreted, nor to what time you refer (story-internal time, or
the real-world story- construction time).

Story internal History (fact) would have an already extent Sun and
Moon. Story internal Mythology (legend) would have a Sun and Moon
created near the end of the First Age from Flower and Fruit.

That seems to me (more or less) the solution that Christopher Tolkien
puts forth in MR:

[...]. It is remarkable that he never at this time seems to
have felt that what he said in this present note provided a
resolution of the problem that he believed to exist:
What we have in the Silmarillion etc. are traditions
... handed on by Men in Númenor and later in Middle-
earth (Arnor and Gondor); but already far back - from
the first association of the Dúnedain and Elf-friends
with the Eldar in Beleriand - blended and confused with
their own Mannish myths and cosmic ideas.
[MR5 'Myths Transformed' CT's commentary to text I]

Did J.R.R. Tolkien himself suggest at some point to make the
distinction you suggest? That the Flat-World version was a legend
(whether Elvish, Mannish or both) which, whithin Middle-earth, was
historically untrue?

You mean other than various suggestions to that effect in MT?


The transformations he investigated in the texts in this part of MR
are, IIRC, all suggesting rather that the whole mythology is
transformed to a Round World version in which there never was a Flat
World legend.

I read it differently, that the so-called 'Flat World legend' is there,
but is primarily coming from the myths of Men, not that Men would
necessarily have the same knowledge as the high Eldar, see also Letter
325. But I think you are looking externally as to how JRRT might have
written/re-written it. Most of the post LotR writings have at least some
element of the so-called 'Round-Earth version' in them.


I am also curious as to how Tolkien, in a full-blown
Round World version, would have handled the whole matter of Venus vs.
Eärendil in Vingilot with Silmaril on his brow: the ideas sketched in
'Myths Transformed' don't, IMO, seem compatible with the idea of
Eärendil's star.

That said, LotR does read as though this was the case, where
Galadriel is somehow capable of accessing this mythical world when
she created the phial.



--
Tar-Elenion

He is a warrior, and a spirit of wrath. In every
stroke that he deals he sees the Enemy who long
ago did thee this hurt.
.

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