[ Daily Tolkien / Lord Of The Rings ] Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the wargs of fandom!

Suite 101 ^ | December 18, 2002 | Michael Martinez

[HairOfTheDog]

Isildur was not exactly a slouch. I imagine that Elrond would have had quite a fight on his hands to take it from the King of the Dunedain by force.

The real reason, of course, that Elrond did not take the ring from Isildur, is that Tolkien didn't want him to. He wanted to write a longer story.

But throwing that aside, as we can ;~D, I have speculated about the how the fact that Elrond was a ring bearer, the keeper of one of the three elven rings, would impact his ability to take and destroy the One.

On the surface, it would give him power. What kind of power, I am not sure of. I can look that up if others don't know.

But would it also make him unable to act against the One? - or the wielder of it? Tolkien didn't broadcast the fact that Elrond and Gandalf both bore those rings, but what would be your instinct be on how it would change the confrontation between the two?

[BradyLS]

True enough, but Arwen replacing Glorfindel was something that did not happen in the books, and it worked.

That is an example of where "that happened, but not quite like that." Glorfindel was replaced by Arwen. I can handle that.

Granted, the Aragorn "death" was a total change, but it was used to work in material from the Arwen relationship, which is in the books.

Yes, that material is in the books, and I'm glad to see it. But Aragorn's absence had consequences to the story. Now Legolas, Gimli, Theoden, and Eowyn have to spend time remarking on his absence (which didn't happen in the books) and going over the issues of doubt and rekindling one another's hope (that didn't happen in the books, either. At least, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas had great faith, having seen Gandalf returned to them.) Aragorn could have dreamed about Arwen anytime he slept between Edoras and Helm's Deep. Even on the eve of battle. That's an example of "That didn't happen. At all." And that is much harder for me to accept.

And the warg attack was something that could have happened in the books, but been ommitted for editing reasons.

Well, a Warg attack did happen in the books. To the Fellowship on the way to Moria. That could have been placed in the DVD. I didn't mind seeing it as a part of Tolkien's story per se, but it did eat up time and served only to set up the disruptive and questionable necessity of the Dream Sequence.

Likewise, the trip to Osgiliath was not in the books, but it works in material and dialogue that were in the books, and ties it together thematically with what is going on in Gondor, which the viewer would otherwise be unaware of.

But you missed another disruption: Sauron knows where the Ring is and who has it. It will take some new tale-telling (re-writing Tolkien's story) to make him believe that Aragorn has it (or will have it)

I suspect that PJ's changes will make a lot more sense once we have seen ROTK and can judge the series of movies as a whole.

But Tolkien already handled all those issues. Peter didn't have to change or invent parts of the story to account for those things. I don't deny that Jackson will create a rousing Return of the King. But it's no longer Tolkien's story that we'll be enjoying in 2003. It'll be Jackson's own conclusion to Tolkien's story.

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

Did Elrond even have his ring at that point? I believe it was Gil-galad's, so he would have inherited it from the dead Elven King. When this took place I do not know. I have no idea what effect having a ring of power would have. Gandalf and Galadriel had rings of power too, and they both refused to take the One Ring. In fact Gandalf only touches the One Ring before he knows what it is; once he knows what it is, he won't risk touching it at all. That probably says all that needs to be said on that topic.

[HairOfTheDog]

When I brought this up once before, we determined that Elrond would have had his ring at the time Isildur took the One, and JenB can probably tell you how we know that! I am not the historian in the group.

[JenB]

It's not said when Elrond recieved Gil-galad's Ring. I doubt he would have stripped it from his dead king's still-warm hand. Even if he had he would not yet have know what the rings could do.

I think Gandalf and Galadriel's refusal to touch the Ring was not because of their own rings but just because it was the Ring. If you like I'll go into more detail in a bit but I have to run an errand.

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

But you missed another disruption: Sauron knows where the Ring is and who has it. It will take some new tale-telling (re-writing Tolkien's story) to make him believe that Aragorn has it (or will have it)

This changes nothing at all. So, Sauron "knows" the ring is in Gondor, and he assumes that someone powerful will step forward and seize the ring and try to use it against Sauron. And then Aragorn announces himself to Sauron via the Palantir, confirming Sauron's worst fears, and causing him to unleash his armies before he was fully ready.

How has PJ's changes effected any of this? Not at all, except in the books, Sauron is guessing, whereas in the movie, we see a visual representation of how Sauron comes to think that the ring really has arrived safely in Gondor (he would not expect the ringbearer to head immediately for Mordor, let alone that the Gondorians would let him go). So it works out the same as in the book, in spite of the changes.

PJ's changes aren't ones I would have made, probably, but I think they will work out just fine once ROTK is in theaters. Some people just need to chill out and enjoy the movie. I trust PJ's movie making instincts more than I trust the abilities of the Tolkien purists to produce workable cinema. PJ's changes are not my changes, but then I know squat about making films.

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

No need to go into details; it jibes with what I remember. As I recall there was a long seige before Sauron was killed, lasting years, and Gil-galad was killed some time during siege? or maybe I am thinking of someone else. And anyway, I was not saying that having one of the great rings would have made a difference, only that the others who refused the One also had great rings of power.

[HairOfTheDog]

What I wondered was whether Elrond's ring made him powerless against whoever wielded the One...

You know.... One ring to rule them all... and all that.

[Argh]

Christopher Tolkien repudiated The Silmarillion? I thought he just repudiated the Elvish genealogy, or just part of that.

[JenB]

No, his ring had its own power and was uncorrupted because Sauron had neither touched nor seen the Elven rings. The One Ring would dominate the other rings, but probably not render them powerless. Otherwise Gil-galad would not have been able to stand against Sauron.

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

In order for the One Ring to do that, Elrond would have had to kept his ring on (instead of hiding it as was done when the elves were aware of what Sauron had done when he first created the One Ring), and whoever had the One Ring would have had to have had the knowledge, will, and the ability to control and dominate the One Ring, and to therefore make it his own. In other words, one would have had to have an awful lot of power to do this, something an ordinary mortal human or hobbit would not have.