GWC Podcast #199

[Casilda]

Who I’d want to be: Aragorn
Who I’d actually be: some random elf lady who reads a lot of books and talks to people but doesn’t really fit in with the whole “main story” violence fighting arc bit.

This was by far my favorite of the three most-excellent LOTR 'casts, as you all might imagine the discussion about what constitutes an appropriate (literary) academic subject is something near and dear to my heart… and I have a bit to say about magical realism (watch for a blog post sometime… anytime… I am dissertation writing, after all) but a short version:

There is indeed a tradition of the valuing of the supernatural, the unexplainable, etc (the magical part) in certain aspects of regional culture. However, in terms of literature, it hasn’t always been well appreciated despite the popularity (both in terms of sales and in terms of literary criticism) of some major titles like Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Cien a~nos de soledad or Isabel Allende’s La casa de los espiritus, to name just two of the most popular. Prior to this there was a history of fantastic fiction (which isn’t magical realism, and many academic critics like to distinguish from “fantasy”) from the likes of writers such as Borges; however, different types of realism, naturalism, regionalism, surrealism, etc have been seen as the “authentic” expression of literature in the continent at different times and by different critics. Today things are still complicated, as there is a lot of criticism by both writers and literary critics about the (mostly foreign) reading public’s expectation of Latin American Literature being exclusively magical realism, despite the fact that the strongest pieces of that literary tendency were written in the 1960s, and that literature from the region has fragmented into many different general tendencies since then. This is leaving out some very problematic questions of the way that literary criticism works within the region, most of which relate to the exclusion or devaluation of works by racial, ethnic, sexual minorities and women.

(and that’s the short version…)

[fastcart]

Who I’d want to be: Aragorn
Who I’d actually be: some random elf lady who reads a lot of books and talks to people but doesn’t really fit in with the whole “main story” violence fighting arc bit.

I can see that. (:

(and that’s the short version…)

Just how long would the long version be? (:

[Fallen_Crusader]

A
A man named Earendil did something critical involving bringing the light of the last Silmaril back to Valinor and at the same time pleading for the rescue of Middle Earth which was in bad bad shape at the hands of Morgoth (Sauron’s boss).
Earendil married Elwing and Elwing was the daughter of Dior who was the daughter of Beren (human) and Luthien (daughter of an Elf father (King Thingol of Doriath) and Maiar mother(Melian).)
(if any of the above are wrong I’ll go back and change later).
Earendil and Elwing gave birth to two sons (twins) Elrong and Elros.
And Elrond and Elros were given a special power of choice --they were allowed to choose whether to exist at Elf or Human. Elrond chose to be an Elf and is therefor immortal. Elros chose to be Human, and he became the 1st King of Nummenor (Nummenor is basically Atlantis). Now, the male line of Elros goes all the way down through the Tar-Palantir of Numemor and his line in turn is the line Kings of of Gondor and Arnor in Middle Earth.
So in this way, believe it or not, Elrond and Aragorn are actually related!!!
Note above that (because of Melian) both Elrond and Arwen have some bit of Maiar in them (Gandalf, Saruman and Sauron are all Maiar), so that’s a pretty damn powerful lineage.

There’s a scene in the books were Denethor uses the Palantir in his high tower in Minas Tirith. And Sauron totally destroys Denethor’s will through the palantir and show’s him the black ships coming to seal the doom of Minas Tirith). The movies chose to leave that out. And even when Aragorn borrows the Palantir to challenge Sauron the movie leads you to beleive it’s the palantir that Gandalf took froim Saruman and not Denethor’s palantir. All that said, it’s clear in tbe books that Denethor is a jerk anyway (palantir or not), so I’m fine with how the movie portrayed him.
.

Just clarifying, Aragorn is using the Palantir of Orthanc (Saruman’s) when he challenges Sauron, at least from the books. He uses it at Helm’s Deep the day after Gandalf basically fires Sauruman from wizarding. Denethor uses the Palatir of Minas Tirith and does see the black fleet, but he carries it with him to his pyre.

Dior was the son of Beren and Luthien, and married Nimloth the fair. If you dig around a little more, Earendil’s father was a man Tuor who married Idril, the daugher of the king of Gondolin.

And when you take the Elrond and Aragorn being related, Aragorn and Arwen are cousins about 40 times removed.

Even though I don’t like Denethor, I do have to support him. He gets the shaft in the movies. He had been a good leader for decades, he was just a little proud in the Gondor he had known. The stewards had ruled Gondor for centuries while there was no king, and it was more than a little surprising to have to deal with the implication of a king returning. Interesting sidenote, it is heavily implied that Aragorn had been Denethor’s rival in Denethor’s youth when Aragorn was wandering around Middle Earth incognito. Denethor didn’t like him at all then either.

Just have to throw out, if you read the books everything we were going on about with the Shire goes out the window. Saruman escapes Orthanc, goes to the Shire and starts trying to industrialize the place. Merry, Pippin, Frodo and Sam get home and have to kick Saruman out all by themselves. Gandalf goes almost all the way with them and basically tells them “You’ve grown up, deal with it.” So Merry becomes leader of one part of the Shire, Pippin another, Sam becomes Mayor, and Frodo gets forgotten by the hobbits. But they do get recognized by the other hobbits.

Setting all this aside, a pretty darn good podcast, and I’m sorry I’m just now catching up with.