h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

'(although Tolkien was never very specific about how this happened or gave any examples of Elves who had done so).'

Glorfindel would be one He died slaying a Balrog at the fall of Gondolin yet later appears as the elf whose horse Frodo rides to Rivendell whilst pursued by the Nazgul.
(Yes, really, the film changed if folks - the 'She-elf' has a much more subtle role in the book.

Anyway, apparently all elven names are unique in Tolkein's world so this must be an example.

Also on an opposing front - the fire that went into Feanor from his mother was so much that it killed her spirit never to return if I recall correctly. So Miriel, Feanor's mother is one whose spirit did not survive.


Fine article by the way - I'm a proper Tolkein fanatic so please excuse my pedantry

The Glorfindel issue is debatable. Tolkien in separate writings said both that the two Glorfindels were different people, and also that they were the same guy reincarnated. So he doesn't seem to have fully made up his mind there.

Miriel's spirit left her and went to the Halls of Mandos, even though her body continued to live lying on the grass in Lorien?

Yes I might be half remembering about Miriel. I appreciate that we're debating unfinished (and so ultimately undecided) stuff - as I'm sure you're aware, the Silmarillion was never actually finished by JRR himself.
I've read as much of Christopher Tolkien's more expansive histories detailing what Tolkien actually wrote as I could be bothered to - it gets a bit too umm, research like at times, and the histories were always constantly changing as he went along.
The timelines for the Silmarillion certainly don't bear up to analysis very well at all. I suspect he'd never have finished it all had he lived to 150.

Yes, you're right about Tolkien never finishing the Silmarillion. I have dipped into Chris Tolkien's 12-volume history of the making of Middle Earth and there was far too much of it. Better to keep it to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.

Although, the tale of the Mariner King of Numenor and his estranged wife in Unfinished Tales was good, although unfinished. It was a tantalising glimpse of an otherwise unknown period.

I've tried working my way through Unfinished Tales and History of Middle Earth. 'History' can be a bit of a slog at times... no, it can be a hard slog for quite a lot of the time, but it's worth the effort, at least for one read-through and the satisfaction of having done and learned some new things about Tolkien's writing.

Thank Eru for places like Half-Price Books. I couldn't afford to buy all 12 volumes plus the other books at full whack. I'm still a few volumes short of the full set.

Oh there is some damn good stuff in the histories. I particularly remember in the first one there was a complete telling of the Fall of Gondolin that he wrote in about 1920. That was excellent. Too many footnotes and such though at times. I gave up when it got to the conceptualisation of Numenor as there was some unfinished novel that I just couldn't get to grips with. (Book 7 ish think)

I would definitely recommend reading the new book that Christopher Tolkien released recently - The Children of Hurin. Of course, you'll already know the story really but it's nice to see it expanded and completed and unlike the Silmarillion is completely self contained and internally consistent.

I found the Unfinished tales frustrating, particularly the story of Tuor - it ended just as it was getting going and I was just drooling over the prospect of a nice full description of Gondolin - except that's just where it finished

I have Children of Hurin, but I haven't delved into it yet. Maybe that'll be my next bedtime book.

The thing about buying from used book shops is that you never know quite what's going to be there so you won't necessarily get all of a series at once or in the right order, and I want to read 'History of' in sequence. But it's a great way to get good-as-new hardbacks

I've read Children of Hurin, but most of it was in Unfinished Tales. That was the most Irish of all the Tolkien stories. There's always an amazing warrior who comes to a bad end.

My first instinct on reading this was to suggest Glorfindel as a reincarnated elf, even though I know his history is muddied. But it just fits so well.

(and, as an aside I was very disappointed that he wasn't in the Peter Jackson films)

I loved the Children of Hurin - it seemed to be the most complete of the tales that weren't in LoTR. I was going to re-read the Silmarillion over the summer but got sidetracked. this entry has rekindled my desire for that.

It's a shame that the Tolkien family won't allow license for any of the stuff in the Silmarillion.

Turin and the Dragon, Beren and Luthien in particular would make great films.

The stories are all so tragic too - it would be good to show that not all fantasy stories have hero gets girl and triumph of good endings.

It's an age ago that I read Unfinished Tales, I have almost no memory of the story of Hurin in that.

I think the story of Beren and Luthian would make a fantastic film, or even a series along the lines of GoT (there is so much scope for back story and other peripheral stuff)

On the other hand, I can understand their reluctance to give out a licence for that given the legal wrangles they've had over the LoTR films.

We'll have to wait until 2044, then, when it all becomes public domain.

I guess I won't be seeing it then A pity, because all the Elder Days stories would make great films, although I think Sho and I have had a conversation about how the LotR films have taken away the mental images we had of Middle Earth and the characters by reading the books, and that's the biggest reason I didn't go to see The Hobbit.

I can still remember "my" Gandalf - very thin and much scruffier than Sir Ian McKellen.

I've managed over the past couple of years to get back my mental images but I've kept a few of Peter Jackson's.

For example I can't abide his Rivendell - but I do like his Aragorn and Boromir. His Gimli is ok and nowadays Legolas is a kind of amalgamation of what I had before and the Bloomster.

Where our ideas really did converge though, to a quite surprising level, was in Eómer and Theoden King. Which was cool.

And I will be eternally grateful that I didn't have to have Tom Bombadill in there. I can't ever get over those yellow boots.

>And I will be eternally grateful that I didn't have to have Tom Bombadill in there. I can't ever get over those yellow boots.<

And the never ending songs! Nevertheless, it would have been nice to have the Barrow Downs scenes worked in somehow.

It's hard to see how the hobbits could have defeated Old Man Willow without Tom Bombadil, but the Barrow Downs scene could easily have been rewritten so that he didn't feature.

As it was, Frodo attacked the wight using the sword, then called on Tom who finished off the job. Instead, Frodo could have finished the wight himself, dragged the others out of the mound, and then they'd have woken up when the sun reached them. The ponies wouldn't have gone far, and would still be eating grass nearby.

Or they could have been rescued by say, Arwen... not difficult to shoehorn here even more into the plot.

Tom Bombadil would have been pretty annoying, true, and it would have been interesting to see who they decided to cast for the character, but I'd rather that he'd have been in the film than not because I dislike film-makers messing around with books like that, and yes, it did also mean losing the barrow wights.

Apart from anything else it would have introduced to the film the same kind of interest about the fact the ring had no power over him as the book did, which is why I don't think he was a Maia. So were Gandalf and Saruman, but one was afraid of what might happen if he succumbed to its temptation, while the other one actively sought it with the intention of becoming its master (which would never happen because it was bound to Sauron, who was also a Maia). Bombadil had no such desires and the ring had no effect when he put it on.

Bombadil fascinates me as an enigmatic and largely unexplained character. I just wish he wasn't such a bloody Pollyana.