The Defenders of Gondolin were Insular Upper-Class Snobs.

[Hauldren Collider]

I have no idea what this thread is about, and I am one nerdy son of a *****.

QFT

[BeBMan]

They produced a few nice artifacts, but the entire society was crap. The very essence of the age was about ignorance and violence.

Fun fact: the high point of witch hunting, and the most devastating religious wars were in early modern times, not in the middle ages. "Ignorance and violence" btw could go for lotsa periods before and after those. However, to sum up several centuries in such way usually indicates superficial knowledge influenced by popular myth.

edit: bah wording

[Elok]

Yeah, a lot of popular conceptions about the middle ages were basically made up by later authors--like the ridiculous idea that they thought the world was flat.

[Tupac Shakur]

Yes, but that was at the hands of the Orcs.

No, it wasn't. You clearly haven't read "The Scouring of the Shire." There's not a single orc in the entire chapter.

[Tupac Shakur]

To be fair to Turgon, he was told to do what he did by a diety. You could blame it on the water god (name escapes me right now), not Turgon.

Wrong. Ulmo sent Tuor to Gondolin to tell Turgon to abandon the city. Turgon didn't listen and got what was coming for him.

[Gibsie]

No, it wasn't. You clearly haven't read "The Scouring of the Shire." There's not a single orc in the entire chapter.

Yeah, they were just ruffians or some shiat like that. He must be confusing the Scouring with the vision that one of the hobbits (was it skids or mudflap?) has in the movie version.

[Felch]

Wrong. Ulmo sent Tuor to Gondolin to tell Turgon to abandon the city. Turgon didn't listen and got what was coming for him.

I've got Unfinished Tales, which has "Of Tuor And His Coming To Gondolin," but not "The Fall of Gondolin." Do you know what collection has that? I've heard that there's a more in depth account than the short one in the Silmarillion.

[Dr Strangelove]

No, it wasn't. You clearly haven't read "The Scouring of the Shire." There's not a single orc in the entire chapter.

Yeah, OK, they were orc fellow travelers.

[Tupac Shakur]

Yeah, OK, they were orc fellow travelers.

You complained that Tolkien didn't show hobbits being oppressed by men, when Tolkien in fact wrote any entire chapter about Frodo and Co. coming back to the Shire to find the hobbits being oppressed by men. You were wrong and would look like less of an idiot if you would just admit it and move on.

I've got Unfinished Tales, which has "Of Tuor And His Coming To Gondolin," but not "The Fall of Gondolin." Do you know what collection has that? I've heard that there's a more in depth account than the short one in the Silmarillion.

The Book of Lost Tales 2 has "The Fall of Gondolin." Keep in mind that this was one of the first things Tolkien ever wrote in the Middle-Earth universe and that he didn't finish the updated version ("Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin" in Unfinished Tales) before his death, so some of the names and details are different than the Silmarillion version.

[Dr Strangelove]

You complained that Tolkien didn't show hobbits being oppressed by men, when Tolkien in fact wrote any entire chapter about Frodo and Co. coming back to the Shire to find the hobbits being oppressed by men. You were wrong and would look like less of an idiot if you would just admit it and move on.

I meant that he should have shown the Hobbit's being oppressed by men before the return of Sauron. As I explained in my last Jan. 6 post on this thread the Lord of the Rings trilogy is really an analogy about the evils of industrialism and modernism and how people were really better off before. I think we all know that's a crock.

[Elok]

Wha? It's not an analogy of any sort. It's simply a meditation on medieval Germanic themes of loss and fading--themes which were popular during those times, and thus far from any sort of idea that Those Were The Days. The Rohirrim poem "where is the horse and the rider" is partly cribbed from a poem called The Wanderer, about a former nobleman who lost his lord and reflects bitterly on the fleeting nature of the joys of his life. Most Old English poetry has similar themes of insecurity and uncertainty in the midst of a dark world--which is only natural, given the nature of the time. Have you read Beowulf, or Deor?

See also Bede's description of mortal life: a bird buffeted about by a thunderstorm flies into a mead hall during a feast by way of an open window. It flies the length of the hall, where it is warm and bright, for a few moments before going out the other window into the storm. Such, Bede said, was the nature of this life. By focusing narrowly on The Scouring and the industrial characteristics of Saruman's empire, you've managed to cleanly miss the point.

[Elok]

http://www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=get&type=text&id=Wdr

Where is the horse gone? Where the rider?
Where the giver of treasure?
Where are the seats at the feast?
Where are the revels in the hall?
Alas for the bright cup!
Alas for the mailed warrior!
Alas for the splendour of the prince!
How that time has passed away,
dark under the cover of night,
as if it had never been!

[Tupac Shakur]

"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence." - J.R.R. Tolkien

[Aeson]

He may have disliked it, but that didn't stop him from delving into it.

[Felch]

Well his dislike certainly didn't stop ***** from misinterpreting his work.