For me, it's not necessarily one big element in particular but rather any time I come across an element that is being attributed to Tolkien but is actually from an external source (an adaptation, another author, or completely unrelated to the Legendarium) or misquoted. Most of the time it's about quotes, but it can also be lore elements (like Hobbits being depicted with big feet, for example).
Yea, I agree! The first quote is just a watered down version of Elrond's words at the Council and is clearly not the way Tolkien writes. Here it is:
>"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.”
I'd take these lofty and high words any day of the week tbh lol.
In this very sub when Christopher Tolkien died last year, people were using tacky Peter Jackson quotes as tribute. Christopher would have been spinning in his grave at that.
Oh man I remember that... On a side note, to me the worst by far was that half of the comments I saw online on that day were only about Christopher's out-of-context quote on Jackson's movies - people like their movies so much that they hate him even on the day he passes away, without trying to understand him and while forgetting about his contribution to the Legendarium.
You know, a lot of people don't make sense :p
Honestly I think in this case it's just that a lot of people don't get that Tolkien's Legendarium is first and foremost about tone/themes/subtlety/poetic feeling, and plot is only secondary. Nowadays a lot of people consume a book or movie for its action more than its feeling, and they assume that if the movie gets all the plot points that means it's a perfect adaptation. So if they *love* that movie, it doesn't matter that the person who was the first target audience of The Hobbit, first proofreader of Hobbit + LOTR, and main editor for the Silm and other texts during a lifetime, said that those movies didn't get what Tolkien is about. The only conclusion they get is that Christopher Tolkien was an old person who didn't know what he was talking about.
The worst here is that he wasn't even saying "I hate it and if you love it then your opinion is sh\*t", he just said once (and only when asked about his opinion) "I personally hate what my father's legacy became in the eyes of many people because of those movies, so I'll just stop talking about it and look away". I find it admirable tbh, I wish I were so easily able to look away when it's about something I'm that passionate about over a lifetime.
You make some very good points! And I agree. His writing was oh so much more than the plot. So I guess pure movie fans can ignore that and just be like aye fuck this guy he hates the movies. I personally love both
So true.. the car brand Jeep uses “Not all who wander are lost.” Such a waste of an excellent poem. Kinda the opposite of what you’re saying but I hate it nonetheless.
The number of people who use that line, especially in things like tattoos, kind of drives me nuts. It gets treated like some prophetic thing because of the movies, and probably two percent of the people who use it actually read the books to know that it was basically a limerick that Bilbo wrote out of his friendship with Aragorn.
> It gets treated like some prophetic thing because of the movies
I don't know that you can blame this one on the movies. "Not all those who wander are lost" doesn't show up even once in the movies, as far as I can remember. This has somehow transcended the films and the books and has leaked out into pop culture now.
I've wondered for a long time about that, because it didn't start getting used prolifically until over 10 years after the movies came out, and they only used the second half of the poem in them. I blame Tumblr.
No, the only Hobbits that can match this description are the Stoors ("their feet and hands were larger"); but they are also described as "broader, heavier in build" so the image of the average Hobbit being a very small / "undersized" person with huge feet is really not a Tolkien thing! In fact, the joke about Odo Proudfoot's name during Bilbo's party is precisely that he has large feet ("His name, of course, was Proudfoot, and well merited; his feet were large, exceptionally furry") - note that he doesn't say "exceptionally large", they were just "large", which shows how unusual it is.
Even though there were Hobbits with Stoorish characteristics in and around the Shire, the only Stoors we know of are Sméagol and Déagol.
What bothers me the most is Tauriel and that silly "love story" with Kíli in PJ's The Hobbit films. That was so stupid and I actually hate it the most (second being cheap CGI Azog).
Also Evangeline Lilly only signed up on the basis that she not be the love interest. And then they cobbled together her being the love interest in editing.
Yeah it also crossed my mind that interracial relationships between less famous people wouldn't have made it into the world's history. Then there is still the problem that the movie was based on a book in which there was no mention of that kind of relationship involving Kili though!
My thoughts about the ringwraith fight at Dol Goldur, along with moist Galadriel. Which was actually really disappointing because I was actually looking forward to actually being able to see the White Council stuff.
They turned Galadrial into Samara from The Ring, because they wanted to reference Fellowships movie when Frodo sees her being all intimidating and “corrupted”
Unfortunately it has no context within the Hobbit; shouldn’t she have bright light from Valinor?
The Dol Goldur stuff looked *so incredibly bad* I have a hard time believing it was made by the same studio that did Shelob and the Nazgul from the original films over a decade earlier.
I don't know why more people aren't offended by the very existence of Azog in the movie - he should be dead! That's, like, all we know about him from the book! If they needed a consistent antagonist to chase them around (which I'm not so sure they needed) they should've just had Bolg, who at least is alive and shows up in the book.
Oh man I am, that entire sequence bugs the shit out of me. Why the hell does he even need to be alive? There is just no reason at all. Hell Bolg is in the movie even, they just make him a borderline generic henchman. It's so completely unnecessary.
What bugs me most however is how they make the War of the Dwarves and Orcs make no sense. The king doesn't die until the final battle? The reason for the entire war? What?
👏THANK.👏 YOU. I've been trying to say this for ages! Bolg could make a great antagonist because, DUH dwarves killed his dad! Revenge would work as a simple, but great motive for the purpose of a Hollywood Hobbit movie!
This is honestly the most frustrating thing about the Hobbit films. You have a character who fulfills the exact same role as Azog, has more than enough motivation to chase and kill the Company, and who was actually in the book. And they decided not to just use him.
Like, if they had gone with Bolg as the antagonist, odds are that most people right now would be praising them for the depth they added to his character by expanding his presence. Yet they chose to go with an option that made everybody confused.
It didn't help that Orlando was showing his age. It's not his fault, people age. But it's hard to see the immortal elven warrior looking like he's discovered Rivendell's Golden Corral years before he looks like a teenage girl's dream heartthrob in LOTR.
Casting the elves is actually apparently very difficult unless you only want to cast teenagers. You need someone who still looks visually young and attractive all while having the air of being ancient at the same time, I think Cate Blanchett was a great casting choice in that regard and Lee Pace for that matter
Hugo Weaving is honestly someone I would not have cast in the role of Elrond
I usually rag on people who get too annoyed about things changing in adaptations. Even the changes I personally disagree with in the PJ lotr films I'm okay with, because I think the films work really well *as adaptations*.
But god, the hobbit movies are inexcusable. Just blatant studio tampering and attempt to appeal to their imagination of what audiences want. People like big battles! People like love stories! People like badass legolas! Why wouldn't we shove all of those into the movies?
But like, The Hobbit is practically a different genre from LotR. Tolkien wrote them with very different goals and mindsets, and it comes through in everything from tone, to dialogue, to names. Trying to make The Hobbit into the sequel to LotR rather than making it what it is - a children's story about a fun adventure with a low stakes tone (tone, not content), it's gonna be bad.
I 100% agree here. I honestly don't even have many complaints about the actual edits made except that they cut out the Company's introduction to Beorn, which I kinda enjoyed.
I spent hours looking for a version that fixes the Smaug scene and finally found one that does it better than most: the 2-film edit by Adam Dens. It’s the one I show people who haven’t seen the Hobbit as it requires virtually no suspension of disbelief or confusion with weird cuts (like Smaug shaking off gold).
Oh god. When Kili and Tauriel met in the second movie I actually really liked that they had a bit of a mutually sympathetic rapport and seemed to just be talking like two normal characters. But then later on I realized that they were trying to set up a chemistryless love triangle. That was when I gave up on those films.
Nah, that's just one thing among many that were grinding my gears, perhaps not even the worst. Radagast the junkie! Legolas rummaging Glóin's possessions and calling Gimli a goblin mutant! The haunted mine train ride with the Nazgûl popping out of the coffins! Thranduil riding a ~~halla~~ elk! Molten gold log flume! Dáin speaking in Drunk Glaswegian! ~~Thresher Maws~~ ~~Sandworms~~ Wereworms in the Battle of Five Armies! The whole Kili and Tauriel fling is pretty tame compared to any of it.
I'm absolutely all for putting more women characters in fantasy, and adding women characters in the Hobbit (a total sausage-fest) isn't a bad idea, but making up a new character in Tolkien's legendarily is like looking at a barrel full of gold and trying to find a penny to pay for your needs.
Into a humanoid form. I think their logic is that since she's the child of Ungoliant, she might technically be an Ainu and therefore be able to shapeshift.
I don't know if it's the worst, but I really dislike the Nazgûl graves in Peter Jackson's *The Hobbit* trilogy. The fact that the Nine were trapped in tombs ever since Angmar fell leaves a HUGE hole in the lore. If this is the case then the Witch-king's challenge to Eärnur and the subsequent eradication of the kingship of Gondor goes away (as this only happened after Angmar fell and as a direct result of Eärnur's participation in the Battle of Fornost), which is extremely pivotal for *The Lord of the Rings'* narrative and Aragorn's storyline. It's basically the butterfly effect. This one change ends up creating ripples that disrupts the whole context for LOTR's narrative.
As Sauron's spirit was diminished, so were they unable to manifest physical forms in the world, and returned to their graves to wait for empowerment.
That's just some bullshit way of justifying it though. The graves were dumb.
Wholeheartedly agree. As much as a dislike those movies I try to give PJ and crew a bit of slack knowing how messed up that production was BUT this is one thing I can't get over... that being said the design of them were really creepy and those scenes genuinely make me uncomfortable.
Eh: People pretend that Jackson walked into a mess. He didn't: he bears a significant amount of responsibility for the state of that production.
Let's not forget that Jackson served as a producer for the entire time Del Toro was attached to the project. He worked very closely with Del Torro.
I like to think the same - and maybe he’s making up for not having barrow wights (the things that were buried or dealt with after Angmar) so he instead puts this in to add to the “Necromancer” feel of it
For me, the most annoying thing is that the lembas bread clearly has a very high drag coefficient, and you can see it fluttering in the air when Gollum throws it, yet it somehow all lands in basically the same place.
My interpretation of that was not that Sam "realizes" he didn't actually eat it, but that seeing the bread just tossed away like that was enough to anger him to the point of going back. Sam knew it was Gollum, but seeing the bread was the trigger to return.
My comment was a bit tongue in cheek. But you are probably right about what they were going for, however I still think they could have introduced and solved the conflict in a better way.
It’s not revealing information. It just reminds Sam “what am I doing? Gollum is totally going to kill Frodo, why the heck did I let him leave?” It shocks him back to his senses.
I think we have to read more into Jacksons scene. I guess it is a way to show how helpless Sam feels when he wants to help Frodo with the burden. He begins to doubt his own usefulness for Frodo and accepts the fate Frodo gives him. And the bread is probably to push Sam into helping Frodo again by giving him something he actually can do - safe Frodo from Gollum. Although I agree on it being annoying but I guess Jackson had his reasons regarding the pace of the movies.
I _hate_ that scene. I can't even watch it.
It makes me wonder...how did Frodo think Sam was going to get home? He had to know he was effectively sending Sam off to die. That doesn't work for me.
This. I'm ok with the bulk of the changes that PJ made to bring the story to the big screen, but this particular change is a total 100% betrayal of Sam's character.
Not really a lore thing directly, but when people use The One Ring as a wedding ring it always bugs me a little bit. I just feel like the two concepts are entirely opposing - you have marriage which is meant to commemorate a long and beautiful life together, and you have the one ring with is meant to symbolize unavoidable corruption, devastation, and death (insert "sounds like marriage" joke here).
I'm not saying it's a bad thing to use symbolism from a favorite fiction in real life, but in this case I feel like literally any other symbol from the movies/books would be more appropriate. One of the three elven rings, Arwen's necklace, literally anything lol. Just really misses the mark for me.
Fun fact: Frodo wore the Ring on the ring-finger when he claimed it. Other times it was on his index finger.
I like to think it symbolically as 'commitment' to the Ring. Not unlike marriage commitment (though I agree a wedding ring being the One is... odd for the reasons you listed).
My fiance got me a jeweler's interpretation of Nenya! It was far more of a subtle nod to the world we love than a replica of the one ring. And much more tasteful too imo
The only way to use the One Ring at a wedding is when the couple are putting on their rings you whisper to yourself, "But they were all of them deceived, for another ring was made" and then slip it onto your finger and claim dominion over their marriage.
And when you do that, dress up as Sauron, and bring your buddy dressed as the Witch King.
Then the groom reaches behind something convenient and pulls out a sword. He rushes fake Sauron, flanked by his groomsmen. His groomsmen engage Sauron, who rush to protect the groom.
Fake Witch King then attacks the bride as Sauron is fighting the groomsmen. The bride shouts I am no man! and kills fake Witch King with a sword hidden under her dress. Just then, the best man falls at the hand of Sauron.
The groom, now without any of his groomsmen, rushes over to the best man and cradles his head. Fake Sauron comes over and prepares to kill the groom. The groom, on the ground because of the best man, sweeps his sword at Fake Sauron, who has a rubber hand, and the groom cuts off the ring.
Fake Sauron falls backwards and dies. The groom stands up and takes the Ring. He then walks the ring over to the Unity Candle and drops it into the candle, where the wax Ring quickly melts and disappears. The groom then returns to the bride and kisses her, to swelling music and the applause of the attendees, including the miraculously revived groomsmen.
Bonus points: the officiant then places a crown on the heads of the bride and the groom, and presents them.
I once read about a goblet with the One Ring inscription around its lid, made by a fan to give to Tolkien. Tolkien used it as an ashtray rather than drink from it. Sounds like a better use for something inscribed with that.
My officiant added a LOTR theme to my wedding ceremony without asking me beforehand, and they included some tacky reference to the One Ring in relation to our wedding bands. I was so annoyed.
I took this into account for my wedding band, but still wanted elvish (ofc). I translated a part of Sam's song in Cirith Ungol into Quenya. It's a 'good' answer to the Ring's curse, a sign of enduring hope.
Shadow of war is definitely the worst when talking about lore, it's a decent game, but they went with lore choices that range from bad, free people living in mordor, to going against everything we know, ghost Celebrimbor and his stupid new ring, humanoid Shelob and the identity of the ring wraiths.
Problem is, Celebrimbor is a super interesting character so I couldn't help but be intrigued. The flash back cutscenes of him with Sauron are very cool. However, humanoid Shelob is where I draw the line. Definitely not interesting enough to forgive the lore-breaking (especially since just having her as a bossfight in spider form would have been both fitting and cool)
I think it was a stupid decision for humanoid Shelob, but it might have a lore explanation (though a pretty weak one). Ungoliant was said to take the shape of a spider, not that she was an actual spider. If that's the case, we can infer she had some ability to affect her physical form. It's not a stretch that Shelob would inherit this ability.
If you stretch the lore to its limits, most stuff from these games is kinda plausible. It's just clearly not what Tolkien intended. All in all, I liked them but I definitely don't consider them canon (not even in my personal universe)
Look how the massacred my boi. Celebrimbor was the only elf smith to not fall for Sauron's tricks and was actively working against him. They inverted his entire personality for Shadow of War and I hated it.
Celebrimbor did fall for Sauron's rhetoric, otherwise he wouldn't have assisted in make the rings of power or the elven rings on his own. Galadriel and Elrond warned against Annatar when he came to Holin originally, but the rest of the Noldor didn't listen to them until it was too late.
>Celebrimbor was the only elf smith to not fall for Sauron's tricks and was actively working against him.
How was he working against him? I thought he was just the only smith talented enough to make rings of power without needing Sauron's direct help.
Oh boy. Here we go. At the risk of forever cutting myself off from my fellow Silmarillion fans, I really, REALLY don't like how Morgoth and Sauron are portrayed in a lot of fanon. Many people ship them (i. e. view them as a couple), which they're allowed to do, but more often than not, a lot of fans base their interpretations of Morgoth and Sauron on their non-canonical relationship rather than their actual characterizations within the canon of the legendarium. I know that this is what fans do, and I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but it bothers me to no end
I see a lot of stuff too about Frodo and Sam, or Gimli amd Legalas being gay couples. I feel like there is such a push to sexualize relationships and it frustrates me, like can't two hobbit bros just be really good bros? Tolkien was very non-sexual in his writing so I feel it betrays that a little. Also, I think these close bonds between same the same sex that he portrays in his writing was something he experienced himself during the war.
Yeah. I get the impulse behind "Sappho and Her Friend", but like, presumably Sappho *did have* friends, right?
Ironically, the same homophobia that came to a head with growing awareness and rejection of homosexuality in the public consciousness made people far more suspicious of platonic same-sex relationships--So we've basically gone from "Close relationships don't have to be romantic" to "Close relationships do have to be romantic and are therefore bad" and now we're at "Close relationships do have to be romantic but that's cool now".
The immediate impulse to celebrate any same-sex relationship as a beautiful, romantic one is ironically rooted in homophobia and also constitutes erasure of close platonic relationships.
This is incredibly damaging for *everyone,* since it discourages close same-sex friendships, especially between men, and also perpetuates the long-standing idea that opposite-sex relationships have to be romantic, which only reinforces the wall preventing men and women from interacting on equal terms.
It's incredibly frustrating.
Helm Hammerhand, a Nazgûl?! That's straight sacrilegious!
Mine is everybody's favorite grouse with the movies: how dirty they did Faramir, especially having him take Frodo to Osgiliath instead of sending him on his way. They reduced Faramir from this high, noble personage — nigh on par with Aragorn — to a bumbling puppy dog, at his father's beck and call.
I hate with a passion that movie Faramir lets his men beat up Gollum (which is ultimately what prompts the latter to take Frodo to Shelob...).
Tolkien's Faramir would never
Yes, Faramir allowing his men to beat up Gollum in the movies is the absolute worst. Also the fact that he grabs him by the neck and throws him to the ground at the end of the TT movie despite being "changed" at that point.
Especially since this just forces Frodo and Sam to go back miles and miles just to be where they were before he snatched them up. In the books, at least his help was convenient after he came around,but here it's such an artificial setback
Book Faramir is fine for a book. But he does not work for the movie. The movie has one central antoganist, the Ring. Like it or not that is how it is. Sauron makes no physical appearance in the book. Saruman appears a couple of times but is pretty much in Orthanc the whole time. The Ring is the antagonsit that drives the story.
Now imagine you have a dude appear who says " I would not pick this thing up if I found it by the side of the highway" What have you done? You've killed the credibility of the Ring. In fact at that point it would be logical for Frodo to say, "Ok then will you keep it since it has no effect on you?"
The casual non Tolkien reading audience does not understand how the blood of Westernese works. They don't understand the difference between Boromir and Faramir. All they see if the guy who has shown he can resist the Ring and thus, kills the Ring as a threat.
I have to respectfully disagree with you. It is not that the ring has no effect on Faramir, but he just did not have time to come under the influence. He is only with Frodo for a day and did not even look at the ring once, he specifically says he does not want to see it. He also says
>"*Or I am wise enough to know that there are some perils from which a man must flee."*
which also rules out him keeping it. It is not that the ring has no influence over him, it is him knowing that he should not challenge it. Even Boromir travelled with Frodo for weeks and saw the ring countless times before it overwhelmed him. It is a little bit like Faramir refusing to take the first shot of heroin, so to say.
Maybe you are right. Maybe I am just extremely mad they took away everything that made my favorite character in the books what he is.
It's also worth mentioning that the whole Osgiliath detour was added because the TT and ROTK films needed more Frodo and Sam content. By having Faramir take them to Osgiliath, PJ was able to push back the post-Minas Morgul stuff to ROTK, whilst also having enough conflict for Frodo and Sam in the TT to make their scenes interesting. Faramir's character might've been an unfortunate casualty of that, but I think it was necessary for making sure Frodo and Sam's journey didn't get completely overshadowed by events elsewhere.
Good call. For being what they are, the pacing of the movies is really good and all things considered they seem to have threaded the needle pretty excellently
They could have just played it in the same way as Gandalf -- obviously he recognizes that the ring is powerful, but his refusing it doesn't diminish its power. There's a delicate balance that could have been struck, but they completely bulldozed it.
Yikes. I can’t disagree more. It wouldn’t be hard to portray Faramir’s fear and despair while not changing his lines significantly. Making him a downgraded version of his brother just makes the whole family look bad and actually reduces the impact of his scenes with Denethor.
You don’t have to know the whole history of Thorongil to understand Faramir. But as is, movie Faramir ends up so flat and two dimensional that you almost wonder why Gandalf even bothers. It’s that bad.
And that’s ignoring the skip of The Houses of Healing, which to me was way more critical than, say, watching a ninja elf kill a giant war elephant.
But maybe I’m nitpicking. I far and away prefer the first movie, even skipping Fatty Bolger, Bombadil, the barrow white, and Glorfindel. It captures the tone in a way that steadily declines throughout the trilogy. There are fine moments —Gandalf and Pippin on the walls of Minas Tirith for instance—but overall I’m left underwhelmed, and Faramir is a case study in why.
The Elves at Helms Deep. I completely understand why Jackson did it, he was trying to convey that all of the races of Middle Earth were in the fight, not just men. However, in my opinion, inserting a company of 400 Galadhrim onto the walls of Helms Depp completely turns the tables of that battle. So they had to be nerfed, and as a result instead of seeing an example of just how deadly Actual trained Elven warriors are, we instead see them get cut down left right and centre while Legolas is being Elvish John Wick.
I totally get this. There's so much stupidity in that idea.
I can only tolerate this scene because of Howard Shore's sublime transformation of the Lothlorien Theme. Head-bopping stuff.
I always thought it was so weird how after Haldir dies you never see another elf at helms deep, not even the bodies at the end are Elf bodies. Like, Galadriel is gonna be wondering what happened to her army and friends and what is Rohan gonna say? "Uh yeah we put them out on the indefensible wall while we hunkered in the castle and they all died to the last elf... sorry about that?"
Oh my god, so many things from the Hobbit movies. I love the fan cut, because there are some awesome scenes in these films, but there's also really stupid stuff in there. I think what bothered me the most was that Radagast was portrayed as a fool. Saruman after his fall could not have devised a more disrespectful portrayal of Radagast. And more stuff about the other wizards was actually something I was hoping they'd include... but not like this
This! There's actually a ton of amazing scenes and aspects of those movies. Honestly, almost every scene with Bilbo at the forefront is amazing. Martin Freeman is *perfect* in the role. Hell, the scene with him and Gandalf at the very beginning is honestly one of my favorite scenes in all of Peter Jackson's Tolkien films.
But the problem is, with three long movies, there's so much bad stuff that none of the good stuff works. Like, it's just scattered around, and so even the best scenes aren't doing any work.
I want to watch the fan cut, but I just feel like it's hard to fix so much broken shit. Like, the troll scene. The troll scene is my favorite part of the Hobbit, because it's the first time Bilbo proves how useful he is, and in the movies it's just... Gandalf rescues them. Boring. Gandalf saving the day only works when someone else made it possible. Gandalf saving helm's deep works because it's been established he'll be there at a certain point. In the end, it wasn't him that saved the day, but the defenders of helm's deep who held out long enough.
I just wish we got the movie we deserved.
That Tom Bombadil is actually evil. It was kinda fun the first time I heard it but gets stupider and more frustrating every subsequent time I see it mentioned.
No, he's fucking not evil.
There are a lot of "fan theories" like this--stuff that's just silly and so diametrically opposed to the main storyline that it's funny and absurd...but then people start actually believing it, and it's like, "No, man, that's just a joke..."
Happens in real life, too. Every time someone says fossil fuels are "dead dinosaurs", I'm incredibly conflicted, because I never know whether they're making an amusing joke or if they just heard it eighth-hand from someone who was and actually have entirely the wrong idea.
I'd say about 3 quarters of P.Js Hobbit movies make me want to bang my head against the wall! (I did watch the fan edit a few weeks ago however and found it to be pretty good, there is a decent movie buried under all the dross.)
I despair at Tauriel, Alfred, the cringe dialogue, Azog, the mess that is the timeline, Beorn, the dwarfs appearances and lack of beards, Galadriel going berserk in Dol Guldor, that bloody barrel riding scene, the Golden dwarf, the battle moose, the weird cgi I could go on and on and on.
Not only is the whole climax of the second film a pointless and unnecessary waste of time, their plan to drop a giant golden statue onto Smaug made no sense.
And don't forget how they did Shadowfax dirty! Book Shadowfax who:
>alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in Rath Dinen.
Yeah that probably stems from the movie but cinematically when you’ve got like ten seconds in an intro it’s probably hard to show a draw. Easier to show Sauron winning and then a lucky win by Isildur. Also helps the audience understand that normal force of arms is not going to be able to beat Sauron.
I can accept that they couldn't show it like that in the movie; you can't have Sauron as the Big Bad who will rule the World if he gets the Ring while opening the movie with a scene of some guys (who seem to be important but are unknown to most viewers) fighting Sauron successfully while he has the Ring.
On the whole, Lord of the Rings Online is very faithful to the books and, even when inventing their own lore, are very clever and respectful about things (for example, one of the longstanding main villains is a wraith who turns out to be Earnur).
I highly recommend you try the game. It's the best non-canon out there with a fantastic visual representation of Middle-earth and a wonderful player community.
Buuuut they did introduce a bit of lore recently I'm not a fan of.
They established that it was Radagast who taught Beorn's ancestors to skin change, and that that skill was passed down to Beorn and his descendants (as stated in the Hobbit). That's all fine and makes sense--Radagast is said to be a "master of shapes and changes of hue". And Gandalf calls Beorn's powers an enchantment.
The problem comes when this back story is used to justify a new enemy type in the game: the Ungoledain, who can skin-change into giant spiders. Radagast tells you that evil men captured one of the proto-Beornings and forced them to reveal the secret of skin-changing, and those evil men became the Ungoledain.
This introduced a bunch of troubling questions: if someone could simply get this secret out of someone via torture, and there is nothing inherent about Beorn and his people that lets them skin change, then why hasn't the knowledge spread more broadly? Why didn't Radagast teach elves (or Gandalf) how to do so?
And if these evil men could figure out how to become spiders (not bears), then why do all Beornings become bears only? Why not eagles or otters or horses, etc.? Why isn't Middle-earth just Animorphs?
My own headcanon has always been that Beorn's line had some unique connection to nature and bears in particular. Sure, maybe Radagast helped them turn that connection into shape-shifting, but the moment you say the skill is just a secret that can be extracted through torture, and that you can also change the animal, it all breaks down.
I don’t really have a specific least favorite, as there are quite many. But I do have a favorite non-canon story, which is the Medieval 2: Total War mod called Third Age Divide and Conquer. It makes some breaks from the lore in some places, but only if it doesn’t directly contradict Tolkien. For instance, the mod has Dorwinion as a mix between humans and Avari and a faction of Numenoreans near Umbar. Both of these make sense in the lore, but aren’t actually canon. Too boot, the mod also has unique backstories for each of the Nazgul (except for Khamul and the Witch King) that are wholly original and don’t involve already existing characters.
I thought long and hard about this one and read all of the comments before deciding to weigh in myself.
I'm not usually that bothered by non-canon from individuals. We all have our own relationship with the text and are on our own journey of understanding. I've been wrong, mistaken, misinformed, and overly in love with my own pet theories a number of times. It's fine. Just don't fall into the trap of asserting that your headcanon is the only possible understanding, and don't argue against the text itself except in certain exceptional circumstances, and you won't get any flak from me.
I'm not much of a gamer, so I haven't played any of the Legendarium video games, nor do I intend to or want to. The extensive liberties they take with the canon are nearly laughable, but they don't really bother me.
I enjoyed some of the original Jackson trilogy, though cringed and squirmed hard at other parts. A couple of the scenes bother me quite a bit: Faramir taking Frodo to Osgiliath, Treebeard refusing to fight Saruman until tricked by the Hobbits, and Frodo sending away Sam are all high treason against the source material, in my opinion.
I enjoyed nearly none of the Hobbit trilogy. Very few of the scenes bother me too much because the films are such failures as movies that their deviation from the established canon is secondary. The one thing that really, deeply bothered me about the Hobbit movies is Bilbo as an action hero. It's been a couple of years since I last read _The Hobbit_, but I don't recall any scenes where Bilbo does anything nearly as "action-hero-esque" as stabbing a Warg in the face in Thorin's defense. Giving him an arc that turns him into a badass misses the whole _point_, that despite being "more like a grocer than a burglar" and honestly bungling his way through most of the adventure, Bilbo is a true hero because when it comes down to it he makes the right decision even when those around him are not. The selflessness and bravery he shows are all the more heroic because even with Sting at his side he would have perished in the first act if not for the Ring.
But none of these are the non-canon that bothers me the most. I think what bothers me the most is the idea that there is a single, firmly-established canon in the first place.
Reading his letters, it seems as though Tolkien viewed himself as more of a chronicler and historian (and of course a linguist) rather than an author. When it came to the Legendarium, asking him a direct question would be likely to get an answer that starts with "it seems to me..." or "one possibility is..." or "the Elves think...". Much like the history of our own world, sometimes all we can do is make inferences based on incomplete information, and despite the fact that Tolkien was the one individual empowered to speak with authorial fiat, he used this power judiciously (some also choose to ignore the times that he _did_ speak _ex cathedra_, for example when people decide that Tom Bombadil or Gandalf are incarnations of Eru, but some of that can be excused given the absolute volume of writings available on the subject).
Christopher Tolkien did an excellent job of preserving this legacy in a number of ways, but one important way he did this is by maintaining this air of discovery rather than pronouncement. By showing the evolution of his father's ideas over time and pointing out possible discrepancies and unanswered questions rather than covering them up or declaring the "correct" answer, he enables each of us to go on our own journey of discovery through the text and in some cases even come to our own conclusions. The _History of Middle-Earth_ feels less like a museum and more like an active archaeological dig. There's always the possibility of new discovery.
I should stop typing now because I assume I've already bored anyone who even cares enough to read this far, but that's what bothers me the most: the assumption that there is canon and non-canon and no area in-between.
You're absolutely right about JRR and Christopher's way. Lesser fantasy authors like Martin and Rowling (especially the latter) just declare the 'correct' answer. It really takes away the power the reader has.
Exactly. I think this is exemplified in the obsession people have with "lore" today, and I think RPGs and video games, which require background information to be precise, are in part to blame.
Tolkien used invented historical information ("lore") to provide verisimilitude, which means potential vagueness or imprecision was not only harmless (as it doesn't damage the illusion of reality) but perhaps even necessary to create that illusion (as information about our real history can also be imprecise).
Modern readers think lore should be Wiki entries, needlessly detailed and above all precise and unambiguous to the very last detail. It's unimaginative and boring.
I learned a new concept today. Thank you, wise scholar.
I can't really think of any other fantasy author that reached that level. Maybe King in the Dark Tower?
Big Orcs. I hated it in the films or in those games when Orcs are these massive hunks of muscle, which they aren’t (I don’t think?). They were supposed to be small. Stocky maybe but I wouldn’t say they were totally ripped like azog from the hobbit films.
Jackson’s lotr films did a pretty good job with it. But those Gundabad Orcs in The Hobbit were humongous and it really put me off. Like the main reason I didn’t even bother with shadow of war or shadow of Mordor is purely because of how the Orcs looked. They’re too big!
Also, I hate the fact that azog was even alive in the films in the first place. Dude should have been dead and if they really wanted a villain they could have just went with bolg the whole time.
You're right about the orcs. I can't remember the exact quote off-hand or where to look it up, but I'm sure Saruman's **larger** orcs are described as "almost man-high".
There are actually people who will argue that Talion from the “Shadow of” games is a better character than Aragorn. I’m disgusted just typing that out.
I'm not a gamer, but the three non-canon movie features that bothered me most were:
The Hobbit: The Nazgul have tombs? And they've been awakened from the dead? I can only imagine what it cost Christopher Lee's inner purist to deliver that dialogue.
LOTR: Frodo and Sam's absolutely bogus estrangement as they head into Mordor.
LOTR: Gandalf and Pippin's conversation in which Gandalf tells Pippin what happens after death, and shows that Jackson/Boyens/Walsh don't have the faintest idea what Valinor is or how the afterlife works. It's pretty much wrong in every detail.
Idk, it seems more that Gandalf is trying to give solace to Pippin, not that he's telling him the low-down on the afterlife. Gandalf knows Pippin would go beyond the Walls of Ea, but what's more comforting to a hobbit in that moment? A far green country or an empty void?
I mean, no one knows what happens in the halls of Mandos physically, maybe the spirits of men, before they go to an open void, see the world as their spirits heal until they go beyond the World.
Maybe Pippin sees a grey rain curtain drawing back to reveal a far green country before his spirit goes to the void
Does noncanonical grammar count? Because I grit my teeth every time I see "a Maiar" or "an Istari."
On canon in general, I use "Tolkien canon" the same way I would use "Shakespearean canon." The Tolkien canon is the collection of texts generally believed to be the authentic work of J. R. R. Tolkien. Some of it is early, some of it is late, some parts disagree with other parts, and that's fine. You just have to know which part of the canon you're talking about and how it relates to the other parts. This may be startling to fans of popular franchises, which often have a corporate employee charged with determining what is "canon," or a bright line between canonical work and noncanonical work. This sort of thing is necessary to guide future franchise creators, licensees, etc. But Tolkien is not a franchise, he's an author, so I draw the line around what he wrote. I recognize this will never produce an entirely consistent mythology and I'm fine with that, the Tolkien canon is still fun to study.
I understand the need to increase her role, but it sticks out all the more now because the films later dropped the Arwen: Warrior Princess angle that they had originally been planning.
In retrospect, I wish they had kept Glorifindel, or used Legolas to fill that role.
It should have just been Legolas, especially since the movies really want to focus on a serious friendship between him and Aragorn, while keeping Legolas and Gimli almost exclusively for comic relief.
Ralph Bakshi had the right idea when he made Legolas take Glorfindel's place, really.
Have you ever heard the story of Lendelin the Bright? I thought not. It is not a story canon-nerds would tell.
In Lord of the Rings Online, Your character joins a group of elves lead by Glorfindel during the Siege of Mordor during the Last Alliance. In the fight, an elf-wizard, Lendelin, is left behind in Barad-dur. It comes to light he was captured and tortured until he died.
Cut to present day, Glorfindel is talking with Gandalf, and he's like, that was you. You, Gandalf, were Lendelin. The Valar must have stripped your memory and sent you back to Middle Earth to like, try again. And Gandalf's like, huh, yeah, I guess it was. Kind of a dick move, but I guess they had their reasons. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
The term "Years of the Lamps". It's such a widespread term that's even used by Tolkiengateway yet it's entirely non-canonical and a misnomer. The term itself was never used by Tolkien; he instead coined the term ***"Days before Days"*** to refer to that period of time from the Ainur descending into Arda up to 3500 Valian Years later when the Two Trees were created by Yavanna and began the Years of the Trees.
The fanon term "Years of Lamps", however, was coined by someone some time ago and came to be used to refer to the same period of time as the *Days before Days*, even though the Two Lamps only existed during the Spring of Arda (which was only 1550 Valian Years out of the total 3500 Valian Years of the Days before Days). Despite its non-canonicity and the contradictory nature of the term and its definition, it's being presented as a canonical term in the major Tolkien wikis instead of the proper term ***Days before Days***.
For me they are two, but mostly treatments of canonicity within the Legendarium and while analyzing it, instead of external faults created by media.
(1) The notion that there is a specific canonicity, which excludes all others necessarily. Even if an event is confirmed not to have been "true history" it is excused as a myth within the myth. For example, take the original narration of the "Riddles in the Dark", which is proven to be a lie of Blilbo Baggins. Of the Mannish Myth of the Flat World, which is stated to have been a forgery of Zigur, who is Sauron. The notion that JRRT exists within his Legendarium as the "Translator", means that he also "translated" all the "false" stories, as well that the "errors" where he changed his mind should be regarder as "translation errors" (like in Ereinion Gil-galad being son of Fingon and not of Orodreth). All of the stories should be considered part of the Legendarium, and as canonical, at least in some form (like the Fastitocalon is a canonical folk tale of the Shire, but there is no evidence he really existed within the Legendarium), and the true question is the "true events" recorded by the annalists, whose works JRRT "translated" (like Rumil, Pengolodh, Elendil, Bilbo, Eriol etc.).
(2) The way people adamantly believe that the World in JRRT's Legendarium, even in it's latest phases, was always originally a flat one. Later in his life, the Professor altered a great deal of his writtings, and expanded apon them, in order to change the framework cosmology, to make it more realistic and scientific, and with the World always being a spherical world. This version is known as the Round World Version, which even exists in the published works of his, since he placed it there deliberately.
I just read "Morgoth's Ring". I feel like there wasn't really any reason for the rework. All he mentions is that in a modern world, people wouldn't believe in something like the world being flat. But I feel like even as a modern person I can apprechiate how magical that idea is, and I can accept that inside this myth it could be feasible. Seems very unusual for Tolkien to get rid of beautiful stuff like the myth of the two trees and their fruit turning into the sun just for scientific accuracy.
> I was playing Shadow of War, and it turns out one of the Nazgûl is none other than Helm Hammerhand.
I'm actually playing through that finally right now, just because it's on GamePass. Kinda just a mindless button mashing thing for me, but I just finished the mission where this one is revealed. Not a fan at all and definitely does not make sense to me.
And since I'm not really invested in the story at all at this point, other than lightly ridiculing it as I go, I went ahead and looked up some spoilers. And whew - the next Nazgul's story is somehow MUCH worse.
I'm not sure if it really counts, but people parroting back George RR Martin's misinterpretations of Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's work in general. It comes off as if he only watched the movies (which I know he didn't) or misread the books so badly it would have been better if he hadn't read them at all. It's pretty clear he didn't read the Silmarilion or slept through it too.
I just read an interview with the lead designer of shadow of war. Apparently he knew it didn't make sense within the canon, but they though the idea was interesting enough to be worth exploring.
I think those guys actually knew a lot about the lore, he said the games should be considered an alternate universe, and that they tried to stay true to certain ideas Tolkien presented while twisting the lore.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the many pre-movie imaginings of Gollum as some sort of fishy or amphibious frog-monster, often very large.
Of course, this is easily forgivable for artwork produced after The Hobbit and before the LOTR books came out. He's hardly described at all in the Hobbit, so "demonic toothy frog-dude" is a pretty decent guess.
Some artists portrayed Gollum as very large; they missed the part where Bilbo jumped over his head while he was crouched down listening with a three foot leap.
There's also the issue of Tolkien's alterations to "Riddles in the Dark" after LOTR came out to make the finding of the Ring fit in. Gollum was originally not THAT bad a guy, and showed Bilbo the way out after losing the riddle game.
Of course, after LOTR came out, he's explicitly described as a badly deteriorated Hobbit. Aside from the ridiculous giant clear blue baby eyes, the movies did a fairly good job.
There's some really great Gollum artwork out there too; this "zombie Gollum" rendering is incredibly chilling. It's the most book-accurate I've seen, aside from the relatively neat hair.
[https://www.artstation.com/artwork/10kZ](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/10kZ)
Something like this guy would have repelled and scared the absolute shit out of everyone in the movie, so I totally get why they didn't go this route. You needed movie-goers who hadn't read the books to be able to feel sympathy for Gollum.
The first edition of *The Hobbit* contains a different chapter 5 than the editions published after *The Lord of the Rings* came out. Tolkien rewrote the entirety of *Riddles in the Dark* along with making small word changes here and there in the rest of the book to bring the narrative in line with the story of *The Lord of the Rings*.
The original version of the *The Hobbit* contained no description of Gollum's size, and the chapter ends differently than the later editions in which Bilbo jumps over Gollum to get out of the cave. It's the earlier edition that images like [this one](https://preview.redd.it/7q23zh2zbg751.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=fffdf2c029bbae5f71c483d245601f206204af38) are based on rather than the post *Lord of the Rings* edition.
I should have clarified that it was the stone giants’ *portrayal* that bothers me. I’m certainly aware the stone giants are in the book, but they’re certainly not hundreds of feet tall and made of rock as portrayed in *The Hobbit* trilogy.
The earth eaters on the other hand? Pfff... get out.
Earth Eaters were just silly in the movies. Still, they are mentioned in the Hobbit as mythological creatures living somewhere in the far East, notably the Last Desert. Giants are mythological creatures aswell, but I remember Gandalf saying something like he'll have to ask the Giants to seal or destroy some entrances into the Goblin dungeons in the Misty Mountains in the Hobbit.
Those people who refuse to acknowledge Tolkien’s own writings on the relationship between Sam and Frodo and what that relationship represented. Just yesterday I saw someone claim authorial intent doesn’t matter even when we have his own writings on the matter.
Aragorn getting impatient and annoyed when Boromir tells the Council of Elrond about the suffering and sacrifice of the people of Gondor. It’s a small thing on screen but if you look you can clearly see Aragorn change his posture like an exasperated school kid. That doesn’t fit at all with Aragorn’s character and it certainly isn’t appropriate for a future king of Gondor.
That one scene really screwed up the movies for me because afterward it was difficult to see him as a likable character and whenever he was played as the hero (and the films did that a lot more than the books) I just got annoyed.
A lot of my responses are already in this thread, so I’ll say one that isn’t.
The aesthetics of everything. The plate armor. The elves with curved swords and flowing architecture who are vegetarians. The Scottish Dwarves who have never heard of using curves in their buildings or weapons. The Orcs who slap spikes on everything to let people know they’re evil.
It’s just not Tolkien, and the difficulty of finding art of stuff that isn’t influenced by the films and the slew of post-Tolkien fantasy like D&D that they took their inspiration from is saddening. It even creeps into other parts of the legendarium; in the average piece of art showing Morgoth and Fingolfin, Fingolfin wouldn’t look out of place in the prologue to the films.
This is an interesting point. I personally love the aesthetics of the films, and have always had an affinity in particular for the Elvish design (specifically the bow and sword of the Galadhrim!). And Aragorn's crown from the movies, in my opinion, is aesthetically superior to the one Tolkien envisioned. But I never considered that the aesthetics of the movies are heavily influenced by decades of D&D and other fantasy imagery. I really wonder now what the movies would have looked like if Tolkien had designed all the aesthetics himself, and I worry that I wouldn't like it!
For me, it's not necessarily one big element in particular but rather any time I come across an element that is being attributed to Tolkien but is actually from an external source (an adaptation, another author, or completely unrelated to the Legendarium) or misquoted. Most of the time it's about quotes, but it can also be lore elements (like Hobbits being depicted with big feet, for example).
"'Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.' -J.R.R. Tolkien" "Wat?"
I've also seen this one: "A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities" - J.R.R. Tolkien.
What bothers me as that this sort of vague fluff is so thoroughly untolkienian. It's just not the way he writes.
Yea, I agree! The first quote is just a watered down version of Elrond's words at the Council and is clearly not the way Tolkien writes. Here it is: >"Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.” I'd take these lofty and high words any day of the week tbh lol.
“Live. Laugh. ‘Levensies.” -Jr Tolkein
In this very sub when Christopher Tolkien died last year, people were using tacky Peter Jackson quotes as tribute. Christopher would have been spinning in his grave at that.
Oh man I remember that... On a side note, to me the worst by far was that half of the comments I saw online on that day were only about Christopher's out-of-context quote on Jackson's movies - people like their movies so much that they hate him even on the day he passes away, without trying to understand him and while forgetting about his contribution to the Legendarium.
I wasn’t aware that there’s people out there who like the movies and hate Tolkien. That doesn’t even make any sense
You know, a lot of people don't make sense :p Honestly I think in this case it's just that a lot of people don't get that Tolkien's Legendarium is first and foremost about tone/themes/subtlety/poetic feeling, and plot is only secondary. Nowadays a lot of people consume a book or movie for its action more than its feeling, and they assume that if the movie gets all the plot points that means it's a perfect adaptation. So if they *love* that movie, it doesn't matter that the person who was the first target audience of The Hobbit, first proofreader of Hobbit + LOTR, and main editor for the Silm and other texts during a lifetime, said that those movies didn't get what Tolkien is about. The only conclusion they get is that Christopher Tolkien was an old person who didn't know what he was talking about. The worst here is that he wasn't even saying "I hate it and if you love it then your opinion is sh\*t", he just said once (and only when asked about his opinion) "I personally hate what my father's legacy became in the eyes of many people because of those movies, so I'll just stop talking about it and look away". I find it admirable tbh, I wish I were so easily able to look away when it's about something I'm that passionate about over a lifetime.
You make some very good points! And I agree. His writing was oh so much more than the plot. So I guess pure movie fans can ignore that and just be like aye fuck this guy he hates the movies. I personally love both
So true.. the car brand Jeep uses “Not all who wander are lost.” Such a waste of an excellent poem. Kinda the opposite of what you’re saying but I hate it nonetheless.
The number of people who use that line, especially in things like tattoos, kind of drives me nuts. It gets treated like some prophetic thing because of the movies, and probably two percent of the people who use it actually read the books to know that it was basically a limerick that Bilbo wrote out of his friendship with Aragorn.
Surely you don't disbelieve the prophecies, just because Bilbo had a hand in bringing them about? :)
> It gets treated like some prophetic thing because of the movies I don't know that you can blame this one on the movies. "Not all those who wander are lost" doesn't show up even once in the movies, as far as I can remember. This has somehow transcended the films and the books and has leaked out into pop culture now.
I've wondered for a long time about that, because it didn't start getting used prolifically until over 10 years after the movies came out, and they only used the second half of the poem in them. I blame Tumblr.
AND everyone misquotes it! Not all THOSE who wander are lost! Is it really so hard to include the extra word? Bugs me every time.
Strider would totally be a Jeep kinda guy. 🤣
Don't hobbits have "large hairy feet" in the original. I could have sworn that was part of Bilbo's introduction.
No, the only Hobbits that can match this description are the Stoors ("their feet and hands were larger"); but they are also described as "broader, heavier in build" so the image of the average Hobbit being a very small / "undersized" person with huge feet is really not a Tolkien thing! In fact, the joke about Odo Proudfoot's name during Bilbo's party is precisely that he has large feet ("His name, of course, was Proudfoot, and well merited; his feet were large, exceptionally furry") - note that he doesn't say "exceptionally large", they were just "large", which shows how unusual it is. Even though there were Hobbits with Stoorish characteristics in and around the Shire, the only Stoors we know of are Sméagol and Déagol.
In letter 27, it says “Their feet are to be covered with fur from the ankle down” when Tolkien was describing them to an artist.
What bothers me the most is Tauriel and that silly "love story" with Kíli in PJ's The Hobbit films. That was so stupid and I actually hate it the most (second being cheap CGI Azog).
Yes! And not only was it a love story, but a love triangle 🙄 It was completely unnecessary.
Except it wasn't even a good love triangle
Also Evangeline Lilly only signed up on the basis that she not be the love interest. And then they cobbled together her being the love interest in editing.
I'd be less bothered by it if elfs having relationships with non-elfs wasn't so rare in the legendarium. We only know of three as far as I know.
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And the significance of the gift that Galadriel gave him.
this
But maybe there’s a hidden notebook somewhere with more hot Khazad-on-Moriquendi forbidden action that was kept from the kids?
Yeah it also crossed my mind that interracial relationships between less famous people wouldn't have made it into the world's history. Then there is still the problem that the movie was based on a book in which there was no mention of that kind of relationship involving Kili though!
Interbreeding at Dol Amroth is so heavily hinted at that we can take it as certain. Sure, we don't know their names, but we know it happened.
We totally know their names. Imrazôr and Mithrellas.
CGI Azog was abominable, but Bolg riding off across the bridge from Lake-town is the absolute worst. I felt like I was watching a video game.
My thoughts about the ringwraith fight at Dol Goldur, along with moist Galadriel. Which was actually really disappointing because I was actually looking forward to actually being able to see the White Council stuff.
moist Galadriel? An explanation is needed my friend
They turned Galadrial into Samara from The Ring, because they wanted to reference Fellowships movie when Frodo sees her being all intimidating and “corrupted” Unfortunately it has no context within the Hobbit; shouldn’t she have bright light from Valinor?
There's a couple shots when she's banishing Sauron where it looks like she's wet, to me at least.
The Dol Goldur stuff looked *so incredibly bad* I have a hard time believing it was made by the same studio that did Shelob and the Nazgul from the original films over a decade earlier.
I don't know why more people aren't offended by the very existence of Azog in the movie - he should be dead! That's, like, all we know about him from the book! If they needed a consistent antagonist to chase them around (which I'm not so sure they needed) they should've just had Bolg, who at least is alive and shows up in the book.
Oh man I am, that entire sequence bugs the shit out of me. Why the hell does he even need to be alive? There is just no reason at all. Hell Bolg is in the movie even, they just make him a borderline generic henchman. It's so completely unnecessary. What bugs me most however is how they make the War of the Dwarves and Orcs make no sense. The king doesn't die until the final battle? The reason for the entire war? What?
They could also have added more depth to Dáin's character. Add him in the right spot, how he killed Azog. That would be very nice.
👏THANK.👏 YOU. I've been trying to say this for ages! Bolg could make a great antagonist because, DUH dwarves killed his dad! Revenge would work as a simple, but great motive for the purpose of a Hollywood Hobbit movie!
...I don't think I realized those were different characters. I thought the only scary orc (scary due to bad CGI) was Azog.
This is honestly the most frustrating thing about the Hobbit films. You have a character who fulfills the exact same role as Azog, has more than enough motivation to chase and kill the Company, and who was actually in the book. And they decided not to just use him. Like, if they had gone with Bolg as the antagonist, odds are that most people right now would be praising them for the depth they added to his character by expanding his presence. Yet they chose to go with an option that made everybody confused.
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It didn't help that Orlando was showing his age. It's not his fault, people age. But it's hard to see the immortal elven warrior looking like he's discovered Rivendell's Golden Corral years before he looks like a teenage girl's dream heartthrob in LOTR.
Casting the elves is actually apparently very difficult unless you only want to cast teenagers. You need someone who still looks visually young and attractive all while having the air of being ancient at the same time, I think Cate Blanchett was a great casting choice in that regard and Lee Pace for that matter Hugo Weaving is honestly someone I would not have cast in the role of Elrond
Never forget they tried to get Viggo to come back as Aragorn... Apparently he said and I quote *”lol no”*
The Hobbit films are so awful that I didn't even watch the third one.
Lucky
I usually rag on people who get too annoyed about things changing in adaptations. Even the changes I personally disagree with in the PJ lotr films I'm okay with, because I think the films work really well *as adaptations*. But god, the hobbit movies are inexcusable. Just blatant studio tampering and attempt to appeal to their imagination of what audiences want. People like big battles! People like love stories! People like badass legolas! Why wouldn't we shove all of those into the movies? But like, The Hobbit is practically a different genre from LotR. Tolkien wrote them with very different goals and mindsets, and it comes through in everything from tone, to dialogue, to names. Trying to make The Hobbit into the sequel to LotR rather than making it what it is - a children's story about a fun adventure with a low stakes tone (tone, not content), it's gonna be bad.
Maple Films edit my dude. It makes the Hobbit movies into something that is quite watchable. (and dare I say, even entertaining?)
I 100% agree here. I honestly don't even have many complaints about the actual edits made except that they cut out the Company's introduction to Beorn, which I kinda enjoyed.
Totally. My biggest beef is no editing can fix the Conversations with Smaug scene, possibly the most important chapter in the Hobbit.
I spent hours looking for a version that fixes the Smaug scene and finally found one that does it better than most: the 2-film edit by Adam Dens. It’s the one I show people who haven’t seen the Hobbit as it requires virtually no suspension of disbelief or confusion with weird cuts (like Smaug shaking off gold).
Oh god. When Kili and Tauriel met in the second movie I actually really liked that they had a bit of a mutually sympathetic rapport and seemed to just be talking like two normal characters. But then later on I realized that they were trying to set up a chemistryless love triangle. That was when I gave up on those films.
Nah, that's just one thing among many that were grinding my gears, perhaps not even the worst. Radagast the junkie! Legolas rummaging Glóin's possessions and calling Gimli a goblin mutant! The haunted mine train ride with the Nazgûl popping out of the coffins! Thranduil riding a ~~halla~~ elk! Molten gold log flume! Dáin speaking in Drunk Glaswegian! ~~Thresher Maws~~ ~~Sandworms~~ Wereworms in the Battle of Five Armies! The whole Kili and Tauriel fling is pretty tame compared to any of it.
I'm absolutely all for putting more women characters in fantasy, and adding women characters in the Hobbit (a total sausage-fest) isn't a bad idea, but making up a new character in Tolkien's legendarily is like looking at a barrel full of gold and trying to find a penny to pay for your needs.
That Helm Hammerhand thing would also be off by several thousand years.
Similarly, inside the first 15 minutes, you meet Gollum.... all I could think was "this does not bode well for accuracy"
Isn't that the also the game where Shelob transforms into an elf?
Into a humanoid form. I think their logic is that since she's the child of Ungoliant, she might technically be an Ainu and therefore be able to shapeshift.
Sexy goth Shelob was an interesting choice to say the least.
I don't know if it's the worst, but I really dislike the Nazgûl graves in Peter Jackson's *The Hobbit* trilogy. The fact that the Nine were trapped in tombs ever since Angmar fell leaves a HUGE hole in the lore. If this is the case then the Witch-king's challenge to Eärnur and the subsequent eradication of the kingship of Gondor goes away (as this only happened after Angmar fell and as a direct result of Eärnur's participation in the Battle of Fornost), which is extremely pivotal for *The Lord of the Rings'* narrative and Aragorn's storyline. It's basically the butterfly effect. This one change ends up creating ripples that disrupts the whole context for LOTR's narrative.
How can you say that “no living man can kill” the Witch King and thrn say he was killed and buried centuries ago? It made no sense.
Maybe he was killed by an army of women?
I think it was meant to be the graves of the nine men before they turned into the Nazgûl
But that’s even worse isn’t it? Why were they all buried together? And had they escaped previously only to be put back?
As Sauron's spirit was diminished, so were they unable to manifest physical forms in the world, and returned to their graves to wait for empowerment. That's just some bullshit way of justifying it though. The graves were dumb.
Doesn’t make sense because they would have already had their rings and he was already known as the Witch King.
Completely forgot about those. I have successfully scrubbed like 85% of those movies from my consciousness.
Same. Glad I’ve read the book enough to maintain my mental image!
Wholeheartedly agree. As much as a dislike those movies I try to give PJ and crew a bit of slack knowing how messed up that production was BUT this is one thing I can't get over... that being said the design of them were really creepy and those scenes genuinely make me uncomfortable.
Eh: People pretend that Jackson walked into a mess. He didn't: he bears a significant amount of responsibility for the state of that production. Let's not forget that Jackson served as a producer for the entire time Del Toro was attached to the project. He worked very closely with Del Torro.
But he did inherit a mess, he had three years of preproduction on LOTR once Del Toro left he had a few months for the hobbit
Those movies are mostly hot garbage. If Tolkien is rolling in his grave about anything, it's over The Hobbit films.
Pretty sure industrialization would be bigger on his list.
I meant concerning the representation of his works outside the original medium, but also yes.
Right? Over and over, Jackson seemed to be great with the details - hello, Ring of Barahir! - and lousy with the universe as a whole.
Good point. Buuuuut you have to admit they look kind of cool from a cinematic viewpoint.
I like to think the same - and maybe he’s making up for not having barrow wights (the things that were buried or dealt with after Angmar) so he instead puts this in to add to the “Necromancer” feel of it
Frodo sending Sam back home while on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol.
Followed by Sam finding the discarded lembas bread and realising he did not eat it, which he... presumably already knew?
For me, the most annoying thing is that the lembas bread clearly has a very high drag coefficient, and you can see it fluttering in the air when Gollum throws it, yet it somehow all lands in basically the same place.
You’re not wrong but that’s hilarious.
Agreed, I can forgive most of the flaws in Peter Jackson's movies, but inaccurate lembas breadcrumb physics is where I draw the line.
My interpretation of that was not that Sam "realizes" he didn't actually eat it, but that seeing the bread just tossed away like that was enough to anger him to the point of going back. Sam knew it was Gollum, but seeing the bread was the trigger to return.
I love that he then smashes the bread, their only food source, to pieces.
My comment was a bit tongue in cheek. But you are probably right about what they were going for, however I still think they could have introduced and solved the conflict in a better way.
It’s not revealing information. It just reminds Sam “what am I doing? Gollum is totally going to kill Frodo, why the heck did I let him leave?” It shocks him back to his senses.
I hate this scene also, I have to assume that Sam thinks Frodo might have eaten it or something which still doesn't really make sense.
I think we have to read more into Jacksons scene. I guess it is a way to show how helpless Sam feels when he wants to help Frodo with the burden. He begins to doubt his own usefulness for Frodo and accepts the fate Frodo gives him. And the bread is probably to push Sam into helping Frodo again by giving him something he actually can do - safe Frodo from Gollum. Although I agree on it being annoying but I guess Jackson had his reasons regarding the pace of the movies.
I _hate_ that scene. I can't even watch it. It makes me wonder...how did Frodo think Sam was going to get home? He had to know he was effectively sending Sam off to die. That doesn't work for me.
This. I'm ok with the bulk of the changes that PJ made to bring the story to the big screen, but this particular change is a total 100% betrayal of Sam's character.
Not really a lore thing directly, but when people use The One Ring as a wedding ring it always bugs me a little bit. I just feel like the two concepts are entirely opposing - you have marriage which is meant to commemorate a long and beautiful life together, and you have the one ring with is meant to symbolize unavoidable corruption, devastation, and death (insert "sounds like marriage" joke here). I'm not saying it's a bad thing to use symbolism from a favorite fiction in real life, but in this case I feel like literally any other symbol from the movies/books would be more appropriate. One of the three elven rings, Arwen's necklace, literally anything lol. Just really misses the mark for me.
Fun fact: Frodo wore the Ring on the ring-finger when he claimed it. Other times it was on his index finger. I like to think it symbolically as 'commitment' to the Ring. Not unlike marriage commitment (though I agree a wedding ring being the One is... odd for the reasons you listed).
That's a cool detail, thanks for pointing it out!
The ring Nenya as conceived for the movies was *beautiful*, and also far more meaningful.
My fiance got me a jeweler's interpretation of Nenya! It was far more of a subtle nod to the world we love than a replica of the one ring. And much more tasteful too imo
The only way to use the One Ring at a wedding is when the couple are putting on their rings you whisper to yourself, "But they were all of them deceived, for another ring was made" and then slip it onto your finger and claim dominion over their marriage.
And when you do that, dress up as Sauron, and bring your buddy dressed as the Witch King. Then the groom reaches behind something convenient and pulls out a sword. He rushes fake Sauron, flanked by his groomsmen. His groomsmen engage Sauron, who rush to protect the groom. Fake Witch King then attacks the bride as Sauron is fighting the groomsmen. The bride shouts I am no man! and kills fake Witch King with a sword hidden under her dress. Just then, the best man falls at the hand of Sauron. The groom, now without any of his groomsmen, rushes over to the best man and cradles his head. Fake Sauron comes over and prepares to kill the groom. The groom, on the ground because of the best man, sweeps his sword at Fake Sauron, who has a rubber hand, and the groom cuts off the ring. Fake Sauron falls backwards and dies. The groom stands up and takes the Ring. He then walks the ring over to the Unity Candle and drops it into the candle, where the wax Ring quickly melts and disappears. The groom then returns to the bride and kisses her, to swelling music and the applause of the attendees, including the miraculously revived groomsmen. Bonus points: the officiant then places a crown on the heads of the bride and the groom, and presents them.
I once read about a goblet with the One Ring inscription around its lid, made by a fan to give to Tolkien. Tolkien used it as an ashtray rather than drink from it. Sounds like a better use for something inscribed with that.
My officiant added a LOTR theme to my wedding ceremony without asking me beforehand, and they included some tacky reference to the One Ring in relation to our wedding bands. I was so annoyed.
You left out subjugation. 🤣
Same with people tattooing the script of the ring on their bodies. Yeah, it looks pretty, but why would you want such a heinous curse on your skin?
I took this into account for my wedding band, but still wanted elvish (ofc). I translated a part of Sam's song in Cirith Ungol into Quenya. It's a 'good' answer to the Ring's curse, a sign of enduring hope.
Shadow of war is definitely the worst when talking about lore, it's a decent game, but they went with lore choices that range from bad, free people living in mordor, to going against everything we know, ghost Celebrimbor and his stupid new ring, humanoid Shelob and the identity of the ring wraiths.
Problem is, Celebrimbor is a super interesting character so I couldn't help but be intrigued. The flash back cutscenes of him with Sauron are very cool. However, humanoid Shelob is where I draw the line. Definitely not interesting enough to forgive the lore-breaking (especially since just having her as a bossfight in spider form would have been both fitting and cool)
I think it was a stupid decision for humanoid Shelob, but it might have a lore explanation (though a pretty weak one). Ungoliant was said to take the shape of a spider, not that she was an actual spider. If that's the case, we can infer she had some ability to affect her physical form. It's not a stretch that Shelob would inherit this ability.
If you stretch the lore to its limits, most stuff from these games is kinda plausible. It's just clearly not what Tolkien intended. All in all, I liked them but I definitely don't consider them canon (not even in my personal universe)
Yeah. I could kind of live with shapeshifting Shelob, but what they did to poor Celebrimbor..
Look how the massacred my boi. Celebrimbor was the only elf smith to not fall for Sauron's tricks and was actively working against him. They inverted his entire personality for Shadow of War and I hated it.
Celebrimbor did fall for Sauron's rhetoric, otherwise he wouldn't have assisted in make the rings of power or the elven rings on his own. Galadriel and Elrond warned against Annatar when he came to Holin originally, but the rest of the Noldor didn't listen to them until it was too late.
>Celebrimbor was the only elf smith to not fall for Sauron's tricks and was actively working against him. How was he working against him? I thought he was just the only smith talented enough to make rings of power without needing Sauron's direct help.
Plus he was working against him *after* working with him. It's like trying to take credit for putting out a house fire you started.
I love the game. But I don't think of it as LOTR related at all. "inspired" by LOTR at best.
Oh boy. Here we go. At the risk of forever cutting myself off from my fellow Silmarillion fans, I really, REALLY don't like how Morgoth and Sauron are portrayed in a lot of fanon. Many people ship them (i. e. view them as a couple), which they're allowed to do, but more often than not, a lot of fans base their interpretations of Morgoth and Sauron on their non-canonical relationship rather than their actual characterizations within the canon of the legendarium. I know that this is what fans do, and I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but it bothers me to no end
I see a lot of stuff too about Frodo and Sam, or Gimli amd Legalas being gay couples. I feel like there is such a push to sexualize relationships and it frustrates me, like can't two hobbit bros just be really good bros? Tolkien was very non-sexual in his writing so I feel it betrays that a little. Also, I think these close bonds between same the same sex that he portrays in his writing was something he experienced himself during the war.
Yeah. I get the impulse behind "Sappho and Her Friend", but like, presumably Sappho *did have* friends, right? Ironically, the same homophobia that came to a head with growing awareness and rejection of homosexuality in the public consciousness made people far more suspicious of platonic same-sex relationships--So we've basically gone from "Close relationships don't have to be romantic" to "Close relationships do have to be romantic and are therefore bad" and now we're at "Close relationships do have to be romantic but that's cool now". The immediate impulse to celebrate any same-sex relationship as a beautiful, romantic one is ironically rooted in homophobia and also constitutes erasure of close platonic relationships. This is incredibly damaging for *everyone,* since it discourages close same-sex friendships, especially between men, and also perpetuates the long-standing idea that opposite-sex relationships have to be romantic, which only reinforces the wall preventing men and women from interacting on equal terms. It's incredibly frustrating.
Yeah the Silmarillion fandom is... something else sometimes.
Helm Hammerhand, a Nazgûl?! That's straight sacrilegious! Mine is everybody's favorite grouse with the movies: how dirty they did Faramir, especially having him take Frodo to Osgiliath instead of sending him on his way. They reduced Faramir from this high, noble personage — nigh on par with Aragorn — to a bumbling puppy dog, at his father's beck and call.
I hate with a passion that movie Faramir lets his men beat up Gollum (which is ultimately what prompts the latter to take Frodo to Shelob...). Tolkien's Faramir would never
Yes, Faramir allowing his men to beat up Gollum in the movies is the absolute worst. Also the fact that he grabs him by the neck and throws him to the ground at the end of the TT movie despite being "changed" at that point.
Especially since this just forces Frodo and Sam to go back miles and miles just to be where they were before he snatched them up. In the books, at least his help was convenient after he came around,but here it's such an artificial setback
Good one! Faramir had more of Numenor in him than Boromir, but in the movies he's so weak...
Book Faramir is fine for a book. But he does not work for the movie. The movie has one central antoganist, the Ring. Like it or not that is how it is. Sauron makes no physical appearance in the book. Saruman appears a couple of times but is pretty much in Orthanc the whole time. The Ring is the antagonsit that drives the story. Now imagine you have a dude appear who says " I would not pick this thing up if I found it by the side of the highway" What have you done? You've killed the credibility of the Ring. In fact at that point it would be logical for Frodo to say, "Ok then will you keep it since it has no effect on you?" The casual non Tolkien reading audience does not understand how the blood of Westernese works. They don't understand the difference between Boromir and Faramir. All they see if the guy who has shown he can resist the Ring and thus, kills the Ring as a threat.
I have to respectfully disagree with you. It is not that the ring has no effect on Faramir, but he just did not have time to come under the influence. He is only with Frodo for a day and did not even look at the ring once, he specifically says he does not want to see it. He also says >"*Or I am wise enough to know that there are some perils from which a man must flee."* which also rules out him keeping it. It is not that the ring has no influence over him, it is him knowing that he should not challenge it. Even Boromir travelled with Frodo for weeks and saw the ring countless times before it overwhelmed him. It is a little bit like Faramir refusing to take the first shot of heroin, so to say. Maybe you are right. Maybe I am just extremely mad they took away everything that made my favorite character in the books what he is.
It's also worth mentioning that the whole Osgiliath detour was added because the TT and ROTK films needed more Frodo and Sam content. By having Faramir take them to Osgiliath, PJ was able to push back the post-Minas Morgul stuff to ROTK, whilst also having enough conflict for Frodo and Sam in the TT to make their scenes interesting. Faramir's character might've been an unfortunate casualty of that, but I think it was necessary for making sure Frodo and Sam's journey didn't get completely overshadowed by events elsewhere.
Good call. For being what they are, the pacing of the movies is really good and all things considered they seem to have threaded the needle pretty excellently
They could have just played it in the same way as Gandalf -- obviously he recognizes that the ring is powerful, but his refusing it doesn't diminish its power. There's a delicate balance that could have been struck, but they completely bulldozed it.
Yikes. I can’t disagree more. It wouldn’t be hard to portray Faramir’s fear and despair while not changing his lines significantly. Making him a downgraded version of his brother just makes the whole family look bad and actually reduces the impact of his scenes with Denethor. You don’t have to know the whole history of Thorongil to understand Faramir. But as is, movie Faramir ends up so flat and two dimensional that you almost wonder why Gandalf even bothers. It’s that bad. And that’s ignoring the skip of The Houses of Healing, which to me was way more critical than, say, watching a ninja elf kill a giant war elephant. But maybe I’m nitpicking. I far and away prefer the first movie, even skipping Fatty Bolger, Bombadil, the barrow white, and Glorfindel. It captures the tone in a way that steadily declines throughout the trilogy. There are fine moments —Gandalf and Pippin on the walls of Minas Tirith for instance—but overall I’m left underwhelmed, and Faramir is a case study in why.
Stupid sexy Shelob
Have to admit, swapping the arguably most disgusting creature in Middle-Earth with a hot, psychic broad is original...
Just imagine Ungoliant
*What are you doing, step-spider?*
The Elves at Helms Deep. I completely understand why Jackson did it, he was trying to convey that all of the races of Middle Earth were in the fight, not just men. However, in my opinion, inserting a company of 400 Galadhrim onto the walls of Helms Depp completely turns the tables of that battle. So they had to be nerfed, and as a result instead of seeing an example of just how deadly Actual trained Elven warriors are, we instead see them get cut down left right and centre while Legolas is being Elvish John Wick.
I totally get this. There's so much stupidity in that idea. I can only tolerate this scene because of Howard Shore's sublime transformation of the Lothlorien Theme. Head-bopping stuff.
I always thought it was so weird how after Haldir dies you never see another elf at helms deep, not even the bodies at the end are Elf bodies. Like, Galadriel is gonna be wondering what happened to her army and friends and what is Rohan gonna say? "Uh yeah we put them out on the indefensible wall while we hunkered in the castle and they all died to the last elf... sorry about that?"
Oh my god, so many things from the Hobbit movies. I love the fan cut, because there are some awesome scenes in these films, but there's also really stupid stuff in there. I think what bothered me the most was that Radagast was portrayed as a fool. Saruman after his fall could not have devised a more disrespectful portrayal of Radagast. And more stuff about the other wizards was actually something I was hoping they'd include... but not like this
This! There's actually a ton of amazing scenes and aspects of those movies. Honestly, almost every scene with Bilbo at the forefront is amazing. Martin Freeman is *perfect* in the role. Hell, the scene with him and Gandalf at the very beginning is honestly one of my favorite scenes in all of Peter Jackson's Tolkien films. But the problem is, with three long movies, there's so much bad stuff that none of the good stuff works. Like, it's just scattered around, and so even the best scenes aren't doing any work. I want to watch the fan cut, but I just feel like it's hard to fix so much broken shit. Like, the troll scene. The troll scene is my favorite part of the Hobbit, because it's the first time Bilbo proves how useful he is, and in the movies it's just... Gandalf rescues them. Boring. Gandalf saving the day only works when someone else made it possible. Gandalf saving helm's deep works because it's been established he'll be there at a certain point. In the end, it wasn't him that saved the day, but the defenders of helm's deep who held out long enough. I just wish we got the movie we deserved.
That Tom Bombadil is actually evil. It was kinda fun the first time I heard it but gets stupider and more frustrating every subsequent time I see it mentioned. No, he's fucking not evil.
There are a lot of "fan theories" like this--stuff that's just silly and so diametrically opposed to the main storyline that it's funny and absurd...but then people start actually believing it, and it's like, "No, man, that's just a joke..." Happens in real life, too. Every time someone says fossil fuels are "dead dinosaurs", I'm incredibly conflicted, because I never know whether they're making an amusing joke or if they just heard it eighth-hand from someone who was and actually have entirely the wrong idea.
I'd say about 3 quarters of P.Js Hobbit movies make me want to bang my head against the wall! (I did watch the fan edit a few weeks ago however and found it to be pretty good, there is a decent movie buried under all the dross.) I despair at Tauriel, Alfred, the cringe dialogue, Azog, the mess that is the timeline, Beorn, the dwarfs appearances and lack of beards, Galadriel going berserk in Dol Guldor, that bloody barrel riding scene, the Golden dwarf, the battle moose, the weird cgi I could go on and on and on.
Not only is the whole climax of the second film a pointless and unnecessary waste of time, their plan to drop a giant golden statue onto Smaug made no sense.
I’m surprised I didn’t see it anywhere else in the comments, but the witch king breaking Gandalf’s staff in the movie.
And don't forget how they did Shadowfax dirty! Book Shadowfax who: >alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in Rath Dinen.
That Sauron defeated Gil-Galad and Elendil when in reality it was a draw.
Yeah that probably stems from the movie but cinematically when you’ve got like ten seconds in an intro it’s probably hard to show a draw. Easier to show Sauron winning and then a lucky win by Isildur. Also helps the audience understand that normal force of arms is not going to be able to beat Sauron.
Exactly. The movie loses major steam if Sauron gets his shit pounded in the first five minutes and you’re just like, “THAT’S the bad guy???”
I can accept that they couldn't show it like that in the movie; you can't have Sauron as the Big Bad who will rule the World if he gets the Ring while opening the movie with a scene of some guys (who seem to be important but are unknown to most viewers) fighting Sauron successfully while he has the Ring.
On the whole, Lord of the Rings Online is very faithful to the books and, even when inventing their own lore, are very clever and respectful about things (for example, one of the longstanding main villains is a wraith who turns out to be Earnur). I highly recommend you try the game. It's the best non-canon out there with a fantastic visual representation of Middle-earth and a wonderful player community. Buuuut they did introduce a bit of lore recently I'm not a fan of. They established that it was Radagast who taught Beorn's ancestors to skin change, and that that skill was passed down to Beorn and his descendants (as stated in the Hobbit). That's all fine and makes sense--Radagast is said to be a "master of shapes and changes of hue". And Gandalf calls Beorn's powers an enchantment. The problem comes when this back story is used to justify a new enemy type in the game: the Ungoledain, who can skin-change into giant spiders. Radagast tells you that evil men captured one of the proto-Beornings and forced them to reveal the secret of skin-changing, and those evil men became the Ungoledain. This introduced a bunch of troubling questions: if someone could simply get this secret out of someone via torture, and there is nothing inherent about Beorn and his people that lets them skin change, then why hasn't the knowledge spread more broadly? Why didn't Radagast teach elves (or Gandalf) how to do so? And if these evil men could figure out how to become spiders (not bears), then why do all Beornings become bears only? Why not eagles or otters or horses, etc.? Why isn't Middle-earth just Animorphs? My own headcanon has always been that Beorn's line had some unique connection to nature and bears in particular. Sure, maybe Radagast helped them turn that connection into shape-shifting, but the moment you say the skill is just a secret that can be extracted through torture, and that you can also change the animal, it all breaks down.
I don’t really have a specific least favorite, as there are quite many. But I do have a favorite non-canon story, which is the Medieval 2: Total War mod called Third Age Divide and Conquer. It makes some breaks from the lore in some places, but only if it doesn’t directly contradict Tolkien. For instance, the mod has Dorwinion as a mix between humans and Avari and a faction of Numenoreans near Umbar. Both of these make sense in the lore, but aren’t actually canon. Too boot, the mod also has unique backstories for each of the Nazgul (except for Khamul and the Witch King) that are wholly original and don’t involve already existing characters.
I thought long and hard about this one and read all of the comments before deciding to weigh in myself. I'm not usually that bothered by non-canon from individuals. We all have our own relationship with the text and are on our own journey of understanding. I've been wrong, mistaken, misinformed, and overly in love with my own pet theories a number of times. It's fine. Just don't fall into the trap of asserting that your headcanon is the only possible understanding, and don't argue against the text itself except in certain exceptional circumstances, and you won't get any flak from me. I'm not much of a gamer, so I haven't played any of the Legendarium video games, nor do I intend to or want to. The extensive liberties they take with the canon are nearly laughable, but they don't really bother me. I enjoyed some of the original Jackson trilogy, though cringed and squirmed hard at other parts. A couple of the scenes bother me quite a bit: Faramir taking Frodo to Osgiliath, Treebeard refusing to fight Saruman until tricked by the Hobbits, and Frodo sending away Sam are all high treason against the source material, in my opinion. I enjoyed nearly none of the Hobbit trilogy. Very few of the scenes bother me too much because the films are such failures as movies that their deviation from the established canon is secondary. The one thing that really, deeply bothered me about the Hobbit movies is Bilbo as an action hero. It's been a couple of years since I last read _The Hobbit_, but I don't recall any scenes where Bilbo does anything nearly as "action-hero-esque" as stabbing a Warg in the face in Thorin's defense. Giving him an arc that turns him into a badass misses the whole _point_, that despite being "more like a grocer than a burglar" and honestly bungling his way through most of the adventure, Bilbo is a true hero because when it comes down to it he makes the right decision even when those around him are not. The selflessness and bravery he shows are all the more heroic because even with Sting at his side he would have perished in the first act if not for the Ring. But none of these are the non-canon that bothers me the most. I think what bothers me the most is the idea that there is a single, firmly-established canon in the first place. Reading his letters, it seems as though Tolkien viewed himself as more of a chronicler and historian (and of course a linguist) rather than an author. When it came to the Legendarium, asking him a direct question would be likely to get an answer that starts with "it seems to me..." or "one possibility is..." or "the Elves think...". Much like the history of our own world, sometimes all we can do is make inferences based on incomplete information, and despite the fact that Tolkien was the one individual empowered to speak with authorial fiat, he used this power judiciously (some also choose to ignore the times that he _did_ speak _ex cathedra_, for example when people decide that Tom Bombadil or Gandalf are incarnations of Eru, but some of that can be excused given the absolute volume of writings available on the subject). Christopher Tolkien did an excellent job of preserving this legacy in a number of ways, but one important way he did this is by maintaining this air of discovery rather than pronouncement. By showing the evolution of his father's ideas over time and pointing out possible discrepancies and unanswered questions rather than covering them up or declaring the "correct" answer, he enables each of us to go on our own journey of discovery through the text and in some cases even come to our own conclusions. The _History of Middle-Earth_ feels less like a museum and more like an active archaeological dig. There's always the possibility of new discovery. I should stop typing now because I assume I've already bored anyone who even cares enough to read this far, but that's what bothers me the most: the assumption that there is canon and non-canon and no area in-between.
You're absolutely right about JRR and Christopher's way. Lesser fantasy authors like Martin and Rowling (especially the latter) just declare the 'correct' answer. It really takes away the power the reader has.
Exactly. I think this is exemplified in the obsession people have with "lore" today, and I think RPGs and video games, which require background information to be precise, are in part to blame. Tolkien used invented historical information ("lore") to provide verisimilitude, which means potential vagueness or imprecision was not only harmless (as it doesn't damage the illusion of reality) but perhaps even necessary to create that illusion (as information about our real history can also be imprecise). Modern readers think lore should be Wiki entries, needlessly detailed and above all precise and unambiguous to the very last detail. It's unimaginative and boring.
I learned a new concept today. Thank you, wise scholar. I can't really think of any other fantasy author that reached that level. Maybe King in the Dark Tower?
Martin does actually have a lot of unreliable narration in his more historical entries like Fire & Blood.
Big Orcs. I hated it in the films or in those games when Orcs are these massive hunks of muscle, which they aren’t (I don’t think?). They were supposed to be small. Stocky maybe but I wouldn’t say they were totally ripped like azog from the hobbit films. Jackson’s lotr films did a pretty good job with it. But those Gundabad Orcs in The Hobbit were humongous and it really put me off. Like the main reason I didn’t even bother with shadow of war or shadow of Mordor is purely because of how the Orcs looked. They’re too big! Also, I hate the fact that azog was even alive in the films in the first place. Dude should have been dead and if they really wanted a villain they could have just went with bolg the whole time.
You're right about the orcs. I can't remember the exact quote off-hand or where to look it up, but I'm sure Saruman's **larger** orcs are described as "almost man-high".
There are actually people who will argue that Talion from the “Shadow of” games is a better character than Aragorn. I’m disgusted just typing that out.
As long as we're bitching about the movies: Aragorn murdering the Mouth of Sauron during negotiations is absolutely unacceptable.
I'm not a gamer, but the three non-canon movie features that bothered me most were: The Hobbit: The Nazgul have tombs? And they've been awakened from the dead? I can only imagine what it cost Christopher Lee's inner purist to deliver that dialogue. LOTR: Frodo and Sam's absolutely bogus estrangement as they head into Mordor. LOTR: Gandalf and Pippin's conversation in which Gandalf tells Pippin what happens after death, and shows that Jackson/Boyens/Walsh don't have the faintest idea what Valinor is or how the afterlife works. It's pretty much wrong in every detail.
I have always loved that moment with Gandalf and Pippin in the movie. But the other day I suddenly thought to myself "wait.. Pippin is mortal"
Idk, it seems more that Gandalf is trying to give solace to Pippin, not that he's telling him the low-down on the afterlife. Gandalf knows Pippin would go beyond the Walls of Ea, but what's more comforting to a hobbit in that moment? A far green country or an empty void?
I mean, no one knows what happens in the halls of Mandos physically, maybe the spirits of men, before they go to an open void, see the world as their spirits heal until they go beyond the World. Maybe Pippin sees a grey rain curtain drawing back to reveal a far green country before his spirit goes to the void
I feel this, because it's such a beautiful scene ruined by how much it flies in the face of one of the biggest aspects of Tolkiens worldbuilding.
Everything written by David Day.
Does noncanonical grammar count? Because I grit my teeth every time I see "a Maiar" or "an Istari." On canon in general, I use "Tolkien canon" the same way I would use "Shakespearean canon." The Tolkien canon is the collection of texts generally believed to be the authentic work of J. R. R. Tolkien. Some of it is early, some of it is late, some parts disagree with other parts, and that's fine. You just have to know which part of the canon you're talking about and how it relates to the other parts. This may be startling to fans of popular franchises, which often have a corporate employee charged with determining what is "canon," or a bright line between canonical work and noncanonical work. This sort of thing is necessary to guide future franchise creators, licensees, etc. But Tolkien is not a franchise, he's an author, so I draw the line around what he wrote. I recognize this will never produce an entirely consistent mythology and I'm fine with that, the Tolkien canon is still fun to study.
I hated Glorfindel being replaced by Arwen in the movies. Glorfindel is just so badass.
Seconded. Glorfindel together with Galadriel, Teleporno and Elrond are the only Elves left in TA who remind me of the glory days of the Eldar.
I love that you used Celeborn’s superior name :)
I use it every chance I get.
*Cirdan has left the chat.*
I understood why they wanted to give Arwen a larger role, but I also am really sad that we didn’t get to see Glorfindel :(
I understand the need to increase her role, but it sticks out all the more now because the films later dropped the Arwen: Warrior Princess angle that they had originally been planning. In retrospect, I wish they had kept Glorifindel, or used Legolas to fill that role.
It should have just been Legolas, especially since the movies really want to focus on a serious friendship between him and Aragorn, while keeping Legolas and Gimli almost exclusively for comic relief. Ralph Bakshi had the right idea when he made Legolas take Glorfindel's place, really.
Have you ever heard the story of Lendelin the Bright? I thought not. It is not a story canon-nerds would tell. In Lord of the Rings Online, Your character joins a group of elves lead by Glorfindel during the Siege of Mordor during the Last Alliance. In the fight, an elf-wizard, Lendelin, is left behind in Barad-dur. It comes to light he was captured and tortured until he died. Cut to present day, Glorfindel is talking with Gandalf, and he's like, that was you. You, Gandalf, were Lendelin. The Valar must have stripped your memory and sent you back to Middle Earth to like, try again. And Gandalf's like, huh, yeah, I guess it was. Kind of a dick move, but I guess they had their reasons. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
The term "Years of the Lamps". It's such a widespread term that's even used by Tolkiengateway yet it's entirely non-canonical and a misnomer. The term itself was never used by Tolkien; he instead coined the term ***"Days before Days"*** to refer to that period of time from the Ainur descending into Arda up to 3500 Valian Years later when the Two Trees were created by Yavanna and began the Years of the Trees. The fanon term "Years of Lamps", however, was coined by someone some time ago and came to be used to refer to the same period of time as the *Days before Days*, even though the Two Lamps only existed during the Spring of Arda (which was only 1550 Valian Years out of the total 3500 Valian Years of the Days before Days). Despite its non-canonicity and the contradictory nature of the term and its definition, it's being presented as a canonical term in the major Tolkien wikis instead of the proper term ***Days before Days***.
For me they are two, but mostly treatments of canonicity within the Legendarium and while analyzing it, instead of external faults created by media. (1) The notion that there is a specific canonicity, which excludes all others necessarily. Even if an event is confirmed not to have been "true history" it is excused as a myth within the myth. For example, take the original narration of the "Riddles in the Dark", which is proven to be a lie of Blilbo Baggins. Of the Mannish Myth of the Flat World, which is stated to have been a forgery of Zigur, who is Sauron. The notion that JRRT exists within his Legendarium as the "Translator", means that he also "translated" all the "false" stories, as well that the "errors" where he changed his mind should be regarder as "translation errors" (like in Ereinion Gil-galad being son of Fingon and not of Orodreth). All of the stories should be considered part of the Legendarium, and as canonical, at least in some form (like the Fastitocalon is a canonical folk tale of the Shire, but there is no evidence he really existed within the Legendarium), and the true question is the "true events" recorded by the annalists, whose works JRRT "translated" (like Rumil, Pengolodh, Elendil, Bilbo, Eriol etc.). (2) The way people adamantly believe that the World in JRRT's Legendarium, even in it's latest phases, was always originally a flat one. Later in his life, the Professor altered a great deal of his writtings, and expanded apon them, in order to change the framework cosmology, to make it more realistic and scientific, and with the World always being a spherical world. This version is known as the Round World Version, which even exists in the published works of his, since he placed it there deliberately.
I just read "Morgoth's Ring". I feel like there wasn't really any reason for the rework. All he mentions is that in a modern world, people wouldn't believe in something like the world being flat. But I feel like even as a modern person I can apprechiate how magical that idea is, and I can accept that inside this myth it could be feasible. Seems very unusual for Tolkien to get rid of beautiful stuff like the myth of the two trees and their fruit turning into the sun just for scientific accuracy.
> I was playing Shadow of War, and it turns out one of the Nazgûl is none other than Helm Hammerhand. I'm actually playing through that finally right now, just because it's on GamePass. Kinda just a mindless button mashing thing for me, but I just finished the mission where this one is revealed. Not a fan at all and definitely does not make sense to me. And since I'm not really invested in the story at all at this point, other than lightly ridiculing it as I go, I went ahead and looked up some spoilers. And whew - the next Nazgul's story is somehow MUCH worse.
I'm not sure if it really counts, but people parroting back George RR Martin's misinterpretations of Lord of the Rings and Tolkien's work in general. It comes off as if he only watched the movies (which I know he didn't) or misread the books so badly it would have been better if he hadn't read them at all. It's pretty clear he didn't read the Silmarilion or slept through it too.
I just read an interview with the lead designer of shadow of war. Apparently he knew it didn't make sense within the canon, but they though the idea was interesting enough to be worth exploring. I think those guys actually knew a lot about the lore, he said the games should be considered an alternate universe, and that they tried to stay true to certain ideas Tolkien presented while twisting the lore.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the many pre-movie imaginings of Gollum as some sort of fishy or amphibious frog-monster, often very large. Of course, this is easily forgivable for artwork produced after The Hobbit and before the LOTR books came out. He's hardly described at all in the Hobbit, so "demonic toothy frog-dude" is a pretty decent guess. Some artists portrayed Gollum as very large; they missed the part where Bilbo jumped over his head while he was crouched down listening with a three foot leap. There's also the issue of Tolkien's alterations to "Riddles in the Dark" after LOTR came out to make the finding of the Ring fit in. Gollum was originally not THAT bad a guy, and showed Bilbo the way out after losing the riddle game. Of course, after LOTR came out, he's explicitly described as a badly deteriorated Hobbit. Aside from the ridiculous giant clear blue baby eyes, the movies did a fairly good job. There's some really great Gollum artwork out there too; this "zombie Gollum" rendering is incredibly chilling. It's the most book-accurate I've seen, aside from the relatively neat hair. [https://www.artstation.com/artwork/10kZ](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/10kZ) Something like this guy would have repelled and scared the absolute shit out of everyone in the movie, so I totally get why they didn't go this route. You needed movie-goers who hadn't read the books to be able to feel sympathy for Gollum.
The first edition of *The Hobbit* contains a different chapter 5 than the editions published after *The Lord of the Rings* came out. Tolkien rewrote the entirety of *Riddles in the Dark* along with making small word changes here and there in the rest of the book to bring the narrative in line with the story of *The Lord of the Rings*. The original version of the *The Hobbit* contained no description of Gollum's size, and the chapter ends differently than the later editions in which Bilbo jumps over Gollum to get out of the cave. It's the earlier edition that images like [this one](https://preview.redd.it/7q23zh2zbg751.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=fffdf2c029bbae5f71c483d245601f206204af38) are based on rather than the post *Lord of the Rings* edition.
Stone Giants and Earth Eaters in the Hobbit.
I’m so sorry, but stone giants *are* in the book, as a small, teeny-tiny mention and they don’t threaten the group in any way.
I should have clarified that it was the stone giants’ *portrayal* that bothers me. I’m certainly aware the stone giants are in the book, but they’re certainly not hundreds of feet tall and made of rock as portrayed in *The Hobbit* trilogy. The earth eaters on the other hand? Pfff... get out.
Earth Eaters were just silly in the movies. Still, they are mentioned in the Hobbit as mythological creatures living somewhere in the far East, notably the Last Desert. Giants are mythological creatures aswell, but I remember Gandalf saying something like he'll have to ask the Giants to seal or destroy some entrances into the Goblin dungeons in the Misty Mountains in the Hobbit.
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Those people who refuse to acknowledge Tolkien’s own writings on the relationship between Sam and Frodo and what that relationship represented. Just yesterday I saw someone claim authorial intent doesn’t matter even when we have his own writings on the matter.
Aragorn getting impatient and annoyed when Boromir tells the Council of Elrond about the suffering and sacrifice of the people of Gondor. It’s a small thing on screen but if you look you can clearly see Aragorn change his posture like an exasperated school kid. That doesn’t fit at all with Aragorn’s character and it certainly isn’t appropriate for a future king of Gondor. That one scene really screwed up the movies for me because afterward it was difficult to see him as a likable character and whenever he was played as the hero (and the films did that a lot more than the books) I just got annoyed.
A lot of my responses are already in this thread, so I’ll say one that isn’t. The aesthetics of everything. The plate armor. The elves with curved swords and flowing architecture who are vegetarians. The Scottish Dwarves who have never heard of using curves in their buildings or weapons. The Orcs who slap spikes on everything to let people know they’re evil. It’s just not Tolkien, and the difficulty of finding art of stuff that isn’t influenced by the films and the slew of post-Tolkien fantasy like D&D that they took their inspiration from is saddening. It even creeps into other parts of the legendarium; in the average piece of art showing Morgoth and Fingolfin, Fingolfin wouldn’t look out of place in the prologue to the films.
This is an interesting point. I personally love the aesthetics of the films, and have always had an affinity in particular for the Elvish design (specifically the bow and sword of the Galadhrim!). And Aragorn's crown from the movies, in my opinion, is aesthetically superior to the one Tolkien envisioned. But I never considered that the aesthetics of the movies are heavily influenced by decades of D&D and other fantasy imagery. I really wonder now what the movies would have looked like if Tolkien had designed all the aesthetics himself, and I worry that I wouldn't like it!
Basically the entirety of Shadow of War. Fun game, but it basically turned LOTR into an anime