Tolkien General Discussion II

[Feanaro Curufinwe]

Achaemenid Empire, although Parsan may be more proper. Your point?

[conon394]

My point is that is certainly not what they called it and that is not a accurate transliteration of what they would have said (The possession's of the Great King would be more correct and describe it better), nor did any Greek ever call Sparta's effective Empire a Peloponnesian league... SO I guess what it really comes down to is if you are comfortable using a Latin word to describe a Persian state why not another equality incorrect but common and easily understood term for an Empire that the classical Romans would certainly not call Roman?

[Feanaro Curufinwe]

The ''Possessions of the Great King"? Never heard of that. Not that I know that much about them. And I use a Latin word to describe it mostly because of the minor issue of not knowing the language they used.

An Empire the classical Romans would certainly not call Roman

And why wouldn't they? It certainly was a legal continuation of the S.P.Q.R and while Latin was not spoken widely, it was used as the language of the administration for centuries.

[Ngugi]

I consider it perfectly fine to be opposed to the term Byzantium Emprie while not bother if other states are mislabled - not because of the fact aspect of what they called themselves or were called at their time, but instead because of why another term is applied.
To claim that the Roman Empire fell 476 is an old Westeuropean selfcentered paradigm aimed at repelling any notion that the Empire without the west could be the real Empire, while the empire state of Rome [as in Rome the state, not the since long insignificant city of Rome] kept on for another 1000 year. I much dislike the term Byzantium Empire because of the mentality behind it being made up and used, not the technicallity of terminology as many times a rebranding can have advantages; and personally prefere to call it the East Roman Empire to avoid a prejudiced approach to the surviving and vital part of the Roman Empire.

However THIS is not the place for this debate, there's a whole section dedicated to History debate on TWC and it may be found here, so please continue there if you find it appealing to go on
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forum...gia-Vetustatis

[knight of meh]

And of course the reason they call it ''Byzantine", still escapes me. Is it because it was founded on the ruins of the completely unrelated earlier colony of Byzantium? That particular city was completely unrelated to Medieval Rome.

it is just a term used by historians to distinguish the Constantinople-centered Roman Empire of the Middle Ages from its earlier classical existence. and it wasn't unrelated Byzantium was renamed Constantinople . and it has precedent Rome the city - roman empire etc.

Edit: sorry Ngugi i was away from this thread since my last post and was going to reply as i went didn't see you had called an end to this

[athanaric]

And "Empire" originally meant command, not realm... so what?

the holy roman empire was a successor to the Frankish empire not roman

Both the Frankish and the HRE owed a lot to the Roman Empire for better or worse, including administration, religion, and much of their language and culture. If the Parthian Empire is to be called a successor to the Persian one, surely the HRE can be called a successor to Rome.

and the reason gondor and the byzantines have a military power as a base is the same ...they are both feudal societies and there is a seemingly evil guy across the river who wants to kick there butt doesn't mean they were related

There are also parallels between Konstantinoupolis and Minas Tirith, and the siege of MT in RotK sounds very similar to what happened at Vienna in 1683 (capital of a large empire gets sieged by vastly superior force of the arch-enemy, and vassals and allies, including widely feared riders from the North, come to the rescue and save the day - after fighting off other enemies in the West, first. Sounds like somebody copied a plot from a history book).

[knight of meh]

Both the Frankish and the HRE owed a lot to the Roman Empire for better or worse, including administration, religion, and much of their language and culture. If the Parthian Empire is to be called a successor to the Persian one, surely the HRE can be called a successor to Rome.
.

for a start the parthian is a successor to the persian because they ruled the same land and many persian officials were recruited

the HRE had it's base in Germanic lands they spoke Germanic, Romanic, Slavic languages mostly not latin
and there administration wasen't the same the HRE had an elected leader and the frankish was a monarchy.
and there leaders were different HRE was german not italian

as to the siege well fact is usually stranger than fiction so it's possible

[Feanaro Curufinwe]

Real Life tends to write some of the best plots.Aside from that, that siege was where the Tolkiens apparently got their name.

[Duke of Metz]

Real Life tends to write some of the best plots.Aside from that, that siege was where the Tolkiens apparently got their name.

Really? I had not heard of that, care to expand on that?

[Tankbustaz]

Hello I have a question, In LoTR movies Faramir is shown to be firing arrows like a human Legolas, this has since been extended into most LoTR games, I however don't recall Faramir playing with bows and arrows in the books, so did I miss something or is that awesome marksmanship shown in movies just some sort of addition in the movies.

[knight of meh]

Real Life tends to write some of the best plots.Aside from that, that siege was where the Tolkiens apparently got their name.

i know it is derived from a german word meaning foolhardy,Tolkien that is, but what does it have to do with the siege , i was under the impression it came from a town in Prussia (2 seconds checking the wikipedia entry for spelling...) called Tolkynen .

Hello I have a question, In LoTR movies Faramir is shown to be firing arrows like a human Legolas, this has since been extended into most LoTR games, I however don't recall Faramir playing with bows and arrows in the books, so did I miss something or is that awesome marksmanship shown in movies just some sort of addition in the movies.

well he did command the rangers so he would have to be able to use a bow and in the movies he wasen't really shooting the long distances legolas was or using the bow as a weapon in hand to hand combat distance

[Feanaro Curufinwe]

I'm not sure about how truthful it is, but I believed it involved the Ottoman standard.

[Ngugi]

Hello I have a question, In LoTR movies Faramir is shown to be firing arrows like a human Legolas, this has since been extended into most LoTR games, I however don't recall Faramir playing with bows and arrows in the books, so did I miss something or is that awesome marksmanship shown in movies just some sort of addition in the movies.

We know he had a sword, and beside that either a spear or a bow;

If [Frodo and Sam] were astonished at what they saw, their captors were even more astonished. Four tall Men stood there. Two had spears in their hands with broad bright heads. Two had great bows, almost of their own height, and great quivers of long green-feathered arrows. All had swords at their sides, and were clad in green and brown of varied hues, as if the better to walk unseen in the glades of Ithilien. Green gauntlets covered their hands, and their faces were hooded and masked with green, except for their eyes, which were very keen and bright.
...
`Nay! Not Elves,' said the fourth, the tallest, and as it appeared the chief among them. `Elves do not walk in Ithilien in these days. And Elves are wondrous fair to look upon, or so 'tis said.'
'Meaning we're not, I take you,' said Sam. `Thank you kindly. And when you've finished discussing us, perhaps you'll say who you are, and why you can't let two tired travellers rest.'
The tall green man laughed grimly. `I am Faramir, Captain of Gondor,' he said. `But there are no travellers in this land: only the servants of the Dark Tower, or of the White.'
- TTT; Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit

Possibly Faramir, who chose two of the four to guard the Hobbits, is one of the two who use a bow as the only detail on the Rangers assult is archery:

Arrows skipped and snapped harmlessly about the triple hide of his [the mûmak's] flanks.
- TTT; Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit

At least we have good reason to conclude that all these 3 weapons where the standard outfit for the Rangers, and therefore weapons we have good reason to belive they were highly skilled in [consideirng their line of work and success];

All were hooded and masked, and had gauntlets on their hands, and were armed like Faramir and his companions.
- TTT; Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit

[StealthFox]

It's also a good way to differentiate Faramir from the broad shouldered, sword smashing brother Boromir.

[PointOfViewGun]

A very detailed article on whether Balrogs have wings and able to fly or not:

Ultimately the texts are ambiguous, and no amount of proclaiming that they must be read a certain way is going to change anyone's mind or alter the fact that many examples can be found of the same phrases and linguistic structures being used in other ways. As such, the best course might well be to respect the possibility of the opposing views and strive to gather as much evidence as possible on every side of the discussion.

[Tankbustaz]

It's also a good way to differentiate Faramir from the broad shouldered, sword smashing brother Boromir.

And yet, the only time Faramir is in combat in the books, he uses a spear/sword

[Ngugi]

Where do you read that?

Eiteher way Faramir in TATW do not fire a single arrow himself, only his Ithilian Ranger unit does, as he's the officer and stand next to them with a sword in his hand.

[Poosticks7]

I always thought it would be reasonable to have a second Ithilien Ranger unit armed with spears. They are certainly armed that way in the books.

Wait - me suggesting a non orcsie unit, what's going on?

Related question - did Tolkien intend the Mumakil to be the size of African Elephants and not the monstrous beasts seen in the films?

[Feanaro Curufinwe]

Surely bigger than African Elephants, and possibly bigger than Mammoths.

[Ngugi]

Related question - did Tolkien intend the Mumakil to be the size of African Elephants and not the monstrous beasts seen in the films?

As Feanaro say

"Fear and wonder, maybe, enlarged him in the hobbit's eyes, but the Mûmak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk, and the like of him does not walk now in Middle-earth; his kin that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth and majesty."
- TTT; Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit