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[Jetrel]

For example, with elves, he tried to take a look at what mankind would be like if we had the things we so often dream of: immortality, perfection of form, freedom from disease, a close connection with the spirit world, etc.

Out of interest, do you have any sources that say that Tokien said this was his intent with the Elves, or is this just your interpretation?

David

No I don't actually. I think he may have had more than one purpose with them, but I'm pretty damn sure that what I suggested was one of them. It's a question of whether the inherent similarity between any faerie people and humanity merits a connection. He made the elves so deliberately tangible and human-like, and made some of the humans (the numenoreans) no so unlike them, that I think this was an important point.

It's not open for debate that the humans in the story wanted the lives that the elves were living - that is a fact. The entire story about the fall of numenor was entirely this - man thinking he could become immortal by entering the undying lands, and then being forbidden from doing so.

This unfulfillable wish was a central theme to his story, over and over again - that humanity wants something that we could never (in this story) have.


I would not be surprised at all to find such a statement on his part, but I'm not enough of a tolkien geek to read books about the books. Reading the Silmarillion was quite enough for me, thank you.

[Dave]

Out of interest, do you have any sources that say that Tokien said this was his intent with the Elves, or is this just your interpretation?

David

No I don't actually. I think he may have had more than one purpose with them, but I'm pretty damn sure that what I suggested was one of them.

IMO Tolkien's purpose with the Elves was the same as for the other races in Middle Earth: to have a backdrop against which an interesting mythological-style story could be told.

Tolkien said that he detested allegory. That though many have searched for them, there is no symbolism in his books.

Personally, I believe him, although many seem not to. I think his stories are simply that: stories, with no deeper meanings lurking beneath.

David

[Elvish_Pillager]

IMO Tolkien's purpose with the Elves was the same as for the other races in Middle Earth: to have a backdrop against which an interesting mythological-style story could be told.

Tolkien said that he detested allegory. That though many have searched for them, there is no symbolism in his books.

Personally, I believe him, although many seem not to. I think his stories are simply that: stories, with no deeper meanings lurking beneath.

David

Yes. Tolkien invented a world and told its stories. He rarely mentioned the unique advantage of humans, probably because he was more interested in the story than in philosophy.

Ungoliant, for instance. Many have said that Morgoth is analogous to Satan. Yet there is no great evil that even Satan is afraid of.

Enough! Let's get back on topic!

[turin]

tolkien never said his stories didn't have meaning, he just said they weren't allegories. they can, as he said, have 'applicability', meaning while they are just stories, they can have meaning in the same way allegories do...

and obviously morgoth is satan, with some changes. fall from heaven, most powerful angel/vala turns evil, yadda yadda yadda. Tolkien was creating his own mythological world, but it borrowed heavily from catholicism. Morgoth is ME's devil.

Anyway, this is just kind of offtopic, so it might be good for a mod to move it to there.

[Elvish_Pillager]

and obviously morgoth is satan, with some changes. fall from heaven, most powerful angel/vala turns evil, yadda yadda yadda. Tolkien was creating his own mythological world, but it borrowed heavily from catholicism. Morgoth is ME's devil.

It also (maybe? it seems to) borrows heavily from Norse mythology. A god who is all-knowing and rarely acts, two birds that bring news to the king of the Valar, a bad guy who gets bound over and over, and throughout the story irreversible actions. Perhaps Morgoth is ME's Satan/Loki.

[turin]

and obviously morgoth is satan, with some changes. fall from heaven, most powerful angel/vala turns evil, yadda yadda yadda. Tolkien was creating his own mythological world, but it borrowed heavily from catholicism. Morgoth is ME's devil.

It also (maybe? it seems to) borrows heavily from Norse mythology. A god who is all-knowing and rarely acts, two birds that bring news to the king of the Valar, a bad guy who gets bound over and over, and throughout the story irreversible actions. Perhaps Morgoth is ME's Satan/Loki.

it borrows from norse mythology and germanic mythology. I think thats where most of the characters come from.

Morgoth would be Loki, i guess, but he doesn't seem like a trickster to me. Too evil.

[Elvish_Pillager]

Morgoth would be Loki, i guess, but he doesn't seem like a trickster to me. Too evil.

Well, he does trick people. He certainly is somewhat like Loki, although is very unlike him in other ways. Ungoliant is also somewhat like Loki, in different ways. Loki is actually more evil than some people think. He's not just a trickster.

Again, let's move this to Off Topic.

[turin]

what exactly don't you like about the plot? Anyway, I think drakes will be a little better when they are all done. Also, since you're so much better at WML than I am (Captured speaks for itself), then can you proofread the WML?

Well, you have the drakes running away from the wesnothians for the whole thing, they're not getting any stronger, and suddenly they find the capital, defeat the whole wesnoth army, and set up a new government. It makes no sense.

I don't even see why wesnothians would have drakes on plantations anyway. What were they growing? Plantations are relatively recent... not before 1400, anyway, and wesnoth doesn't use anything that is from before then.

PLus, i think all races in fantasy should have at least some relation to humans. elves, dwarves, humans and orcs are all similar in build. Drakes and lizardmen aren't anything like them, so i dislike both of those races.

[catpys]

Turin, do you mean bipedal, stereoscopic vision, opposable thumbs, relatively large brains? If so this makes sense, and we did have two distinct races of hominid on earth at the same time (homo sapiens and the neanderthals). Was cromagnon in there too? Forgetting all my university anthropology classes... yet I remember the pub well. I can see monster races running amok, but not overthrowing governments or even structured fealties.

[turin]

Turin, do you mean bipedal, stereoscopic vision, opposable thumbs, relatively large brains? If so this makes sense, and we did have two distinct races of hominid on earth at the same time (homo sapiens and the neanderthals). Was cromagnon in there too? Forgetting all my university anthropology classes... yet I remember the pub well. I can see monster races running amok, but not overthrowing governments or even structured fealties.

yes, thats basically what i mean...

elves, humans, orcs and dwarves can have that, lizards can't.

lizards also couldn't even live in wesnoth's climate; its not warm enough.

[MadMax]

what exactly don't you like about the plot? Anyway, I think drakes will be a little better when they are all done. Also, since you're so much better at WML than I am (Captured speaks for itself), then can you proofread the WML?

Well, you have the drakes running away from the wesnothians for the whole thing, they're not getting any stronger, and suddenly they find the capital, defeat the whole wesnoth army, and set up a new government. It makes no sense.

I don't even see why wesnothians would have drakes on plantations anyway. What were they growing? Plantations are relatively recent... not before 1400, anyway, and wesnoth doesn't use anything that is from before then.

PLus, i think all races in fantasy should have at least some relation to humans. elves, dwarves, humans and orcs are all similar in build. Drakes and lizardmen aren't anything like them, so i dislike both of those races.

They were growing wheat. Humans would want drakes on plantations because they are stronger and can endure more than humans. The southern part of Wesnoth is warm enough for them. Also they do get stronger when they free the tribe and set up camp on the Isle of Storms. They do not defeat the entire army, just the guard. They set up a government because the Wesnothians make a deal with the drakes. They're not always running, they kill the humans in Rockfall by collapsing the cave.

[turin]

Well, you have the drakes running away from the wesnothians for the whole thing, they're not getting any stronger, and suddenly they find the capital, defeat the whole wesnoth army, and set up a new government. It makes no sense.

I don't even see why wesnothians would have drakes on plantations anyway. What were they growing? Plantations are relatively recent... not before 1400, anyway, and wesnoth doesn't use anything that is from before then.

PLus, i think all races in fantasy should have at least some relation to humans. elves, dwarves, humans and orcs are all similar in build. Drakes and lizardmen aren't anything like them, so i dislike both of those races.

They were growing wheat. Humans would want drakes on plantations because they are stronger and can endure more than humans. The southern part of Wesnoth is warm enough for them. Also they do get stronger when they free the tribe and set up camp on the Isle of Storms. They do not defeat the entire army, just the guard. They set up a government because the Wesnothians make a deal with the drakes. They're not always running, they kill the humans in Rockfall by collapsing the cave.

I don't believe you when you say the southern part of Wesnoth is warm enough for them. Its not.

the wesnothians would never make a deal with the drakes giving them control.

If anything, your plot should be about the drakes trying to get back to their homeland, not trying to take over wesnoth. That would, IMHO, be a lot more logical.

[MadMax]

How about we move this to the Drake Campaign thread?

[Jetrel]

IMO Tolkien's purpose with the Elves was the same as for the other races in Middle Earth: to have a backdrop against which an interesting mythological-style story could be told.

Tolkien said that he detested allegory. That though many have searched for them, there is no symbolism in his books.

Personally, I believe him, although many seem not to. I think his stories are simply that: stories, with no deeper meanings lurking beneath.

Be very careful - there is a great deal of symbolism in tolkiens works, but no allegory. Allegory is not synonymous with symbolism - allegory requires said symbolism to be towards events or people in humanity's past. Nine times out of ten, allegory is political, and the entire purpose of its existence was largely to allow people to indirectly criticize those above them, when direct criticism would result in punishment or unpopularity.


What tolkien meant, and I have seen this explicitly stated before, by him was to make a story with a lot of religious meaning. Tons of it.

What tolkien absolutely did not want, was for people to mistake his work as an allegory for the second world war. He was in the first, and lived right there in europe during the second.


Tolkiens stories have a lot of meaning - what he meant by "no allegory" was that he was trying to abstract them. He wanted to make a story about the very meaningful conflict between good and evil, about mankinds struggles to make the world a better and peaceful place, about other men who mistakely fouled their efforts.


----------------------
Tolkien did not want any of these things to be identified with specific real people or things.

He did not want [censored] like this:
gondor = England
gondor = allied powers
osgiliath = france
mordor = axis powers

or people saying stupid things, like "the ring symbolised tank warfare", or "the ring symbolised charismatic political leadership"

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The ring certainly did symbolise something: "evil" and "power"
No one can contest that statement. The ring was evil, and it gave great power. "through me, it would wield a power too great and terrible to comprehend." "The ring is altogether evil."

The advantage of using a ring was to put the abstract - "evil" - into something concrete.

What tolkien was struggling to do, was to keep it that abstract - to keep his work from being sullied with the events and people in ours.





Tolkien used symbolism, but he used it to refer to abstract ideas, not nazis. He made that statement, because a great many people thought LOTR was like 1984, or Animal Farm, which were allegorical.

In animal farm, nearly every character had an exact parallel in the real world.

Tolkien did not want that to be read into his works. He, in the preface where he described how he detested allegory, gave an example of people comparing his works to the second world war.

THAT is what tolkien meant by allegory; he used that specific term for a very good reason, instead of saying metaphor, or symbolism, which his work had in spades.

[Elvish_Pillager]

The ring certainly did symbolise something: "evil" and "power"
No one can contest that statement.

That is not true.

The ring was evil and the ring was powerful, but given that it never used its true power, that is not what it symbolized. It was and acted as a corruptor, a thing that can do one no good but that one can not give up. Like....an addiction. That is what it symbolized.