Questions tagged [j-r-r-tolkien]
Questions about the works of the English author J.R.R. (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien or his life as a writer. Tolkien is best known for 'The Lord of the Rings', 'The Hobbit', 'The Silmarillion' and the other works making up the Middle-Earth legendarium.
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Who is Father Christmas's "Green Brother"?
In Tolkien's Letters From Father Christmas, Father Christmas occasionally mentions having a "green brother." For example, from the 1930 letter:
Well my dears there is lots more I should ...
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What does Tolkien mean by "eating tea" in Letters from Father Christmas?
I was just rereading Letters from Father Christmas by Tolkien and noticed this odd phrase from the second 1930 letter, which recounts one of the Great North Polar Bear's many misadventures. Here, he ...
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Who are "they" in "They took me [Gandalf] and they set me alone on the pinnacle of Orthanc"?
In Chapter II of Book II of The Lord of the Rings, "The Council of Elrond," Gandalf recounts his meeting with Saruman at Orthanc and his subsequent captivity there. He recounts his long ...
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Why did Gandalf remember Saruman's name but not his own in "The White Rider"?
In Chapter V, "The White Rider", from Book III of The Lord of the Rings, when Gandalf reunites with Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas in Fangorn after dying and being brought back to life with ...
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Where do the words "AWAKE! FEAR! FIRE! FOES! AWAKE!" come from in The Lord of the Rings, chapter "A Knife in the Dark"?
I couldn't think of a better way to phrase this question, my apologies. In the chapter "A Knife in the Dark" from The Fellowship of the Ring, black riders (Nazgul) enter Buckland, thinking (...
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Is Tauriel in any of Tolkien's actual writings?
If you've seen the Hobbit movies, you know that Tauriel, a lady-elf from Mirkwood, features heavily from the dwarves' capture in Mirkwood onward, helping them escape orcs on the River Running, ...
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Approximately how long do Tolkien's orcs live?
I began to wonder how long Tolkien's orcs live when rereading about the Battle of the Five Armies, in which the orc Bolg, Azog's son, fought against Thorin. In Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings, it ...
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Is there any real sense in which Gandalf and Radagast are cousins?
I was just rereading The Hobbit and noticed this statement that Gandalf makes to Beorn in chapter 7:
"I have heard of you, if you have not heard of me; but perhaps you have heard of my good ...
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Is there any connection between the names "Elbereth" in The Lord of the Rings and "Ilbereth" in Letters From Father Christmas?
It took me multiple times reading/listening to both The Lord of the Rings and Letters from Father Christmas, both of course by J. R. R. Tolkien, to notice the similarity between nearly identical ...
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What does it mean that the "blood of Westernesse" runs nearly true in Denethor and Faramir but not in Boromir?
I was just rereading Lord of the Rings and ran across a strange Gandalf quote near the beginning of Return of the King that I'm not sure how to explain. Shortly after Denethor questions (grills, more ...
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In what American magazine was Tolkien's "Smith of Wootton Major" first published?
I am learning about some literature scholars' criticisms of Tolkien. When reading Stimpson's "J. R. R. Tolkien", I came across the following passage, on page 21:
Tolkien's own fiction, a ...
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Was the Hobbit inspired by Karl Immerman's Merlin?
I am reading an encyclopedia about mythology and literature entitled "Companion to Literary Myths, Heroes, and Archetypes" (Ed. Brunel P, trans. by Allaston W, Hayward J, Selous T; Routledge ...
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Did Tolkien invent Bilbo saving the Dwarves but forgetting about himself?
Bear with me a moment. I was watching the James Bond parody "Our Man Flint" (1966) starring James Coburn. At the end, he puts all of his female companions into steel barrels and sends them ...
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What is the population of the Shire?
In The Lord of the Rings, the Shire is essentially a provincial backwater within Middle-earth, where the people (hobbits) largely get on with their own very local business and remain blissfully ...
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Evidence that meeting the T.C.B.S. society resulted in 'a strong dedication to writing poetry' for Tolkien?
The section of the Wikipedia article about J. R. R. Tolkien that discusses the author's youth contains the following paragraph (emphasis mine):
In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, ...
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