Upon entering the Golden Hall, Gandalf is challenged once again; this time by Wormtongue, the king’s counsellor who may not exactly have Rohan’s best interests in mind. Gandalf puts the worm in its place (before Gimli can dissect it for smack-talking Galadriel) and then leads Théoden out into the light, to healing and hope for victory against Isengard, without a single exorcism. We watch and learn as Tolkien takes down criticisms of his archaic style, revisit an Old English greeting, and discuss an alternate draft in which Tolkien shipped Éowyn and Aragorn.
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Recommended Reading:
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Two Towers: Being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings (Mariner Books, paperback) “The King of the Golden Hall”, pp. 501-07
Tolkien, J. R. R. (translator) Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary (Mariner Books, paperback)
Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Mariner Books, paperback)
Garth, John. Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth (Mariner Books, hardcover)
Legolas’ far-sight to see Minas Tirith: Is there any textual evidence that Middle Earth is a globe and not a flat Earth? If the travel away from the Shire is a sort of movement backwards in time from post industrial revolution Britain to the middle ages to dark ages then it may make sense to say this part of the world is flat – I would describe Gondor as a sort of vision of the height of the power of post classical Christian kingdoms, but that time period – 500 AD to 1350 AD would be the height of the revisionism away from the Greeks who had an idea that the Earth was a globe, to the theological doctrine that the Earth was a flat plane. Why wouldn’t Minas Tirith exist in a world where the world is flat and a powerful enough vision could see as far as was not obstructed?
There are other times this *may* have happened – What about Frodo and Amon Hen, where if taken literally Sauron could actually see Frodo on the seat, helped by the ring.
Or in the beginning of the books when the Hobbits can possibly see Mordor –
‘But low in the South one star shone red. Every night, as the Moon waned again, it shone brighter and brighter. Frodo could see it from his window, deep in the heavens, burning like a watchful eye that glared above the trees on the brink of the valley.’ – The Ring Goes South
Maybe I could be a Flat-Middle-Earther along side my participation in Balrog-Wingerism.
There is definitive textual evidence that Arda is a globe in the Third Age. It was flat in the First and most of the Second Age, but after the downfall of Númenor, it was made round by Ilúvatar. This is from “Akallabêth” in The Silmarillion:
– “For Ilúvatar cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Lands east of it, and new lands and new seas were made; and the world was diminished, for Valinor and Eressëa were taken from it into the realm of hidden things.”
– “And those that sailed furthest set but a girdle about the Earth and returned weary at last to the place of their beginning; and they said: ‘All roads are now bent.’”
– “Thus in after days, what by the voyages of ships, what by lore and star-craft, the kings of Men knew that the world was indeed made round…”
Prior to that event, I would be right there with you in Flat Arda-ism, but after that literally world-changing event, it is round.