/lit/ - Literature

>>2670715
As I recall Tolkien's descriptions of the fell beasts were vaguer than that of the Balrogs.

>>2346848 cont.

Tolkien may write or try to write like an ancient storyteller would tell a story, but in the end, he is not and some more modern references were included in the LotR saga. The development of some of the characters (as you said, Sam and Gollum specially) is actually a step further, something unexpected. Remember that Sam got into this journey for a number of reasons, but all personal ones: his friendship towards Frodo, his desire to see Elves and explore, outside of maybe just some bad luck to get into this story so deeply, when Frodo could have just left without warning him. All those things are characteristics of the reader or what I think Tolkien imagined the reader to be. So in the beggining of this story, let us befriend this character named Frodo and be loyal to the book to the end, let's see what are those wonderful things called elves that we keep hearing about and let's do justice to this coincidence of having this book in our hands. Sam is a special character in that sense, he might not narrate the story, but he is the most "human" of the characters, the one that ressembles the reader the most and he has a personality that suggest us how to read a book. That personality is changed from the inside, rather than from outside events. He is like Watson from Sherlock Holmes, but with a stronger personality

cont.

>>2132679
Tolkien must have had a great deal of fun writing the Book of Mazarbul bit.

Translating scraps of ancient, damaged tomes is what he devoted his life to doing, and he was damn good at it.

I have Tolkien's translation of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" lying around, I really need to get to reading that.

>>1414592
he is not impersonal

he never helps his people on middle earth directly, but the Valar and Maiar per his instructions protect it for him

hell he didn't even create the world directly, really