Movie Vs. Books endings

So I know we have talked a lot about this, but I wanted to go into it a little bit more. Last class we talked about how books tend to have more wrap up at the end, like Tolkien, he ties up all the lose ends to his book, telling us what happense to all his charcters after the quest is complete. Obviously, the movie does not do that as much, taking away some of the end material, such as the scourging of the Shire. And while we all like to complain about that, I do think it was a smart part for the movies. With a book, it is easy to see how much is left, and we can alwasy go back to a specific page and pick it up from there. With books, you are spending a lot more time in them, so you want to know everything that happens. But it is really different with movies. Basically, you only have the audience for 2-3 hours (yes I know that LotR movies are longer, but humor my point) and they are only devoting that amount of time, so they want to see the resoultion at the end of it. When you have a visual story that keeps going after the climax, the audience rapidly loses interest, which is something that can happen in both film and plays. By making the decision to not keep going, I think the movies are doing a good job of keeping the audience in mind.
Movies overall, tend to be a bit more accessable to people, people dont really want to devote too much time to reading books now (this is a broad statement). It is a lot easier to sit down and watch a movie and learn the story than it is to read +1000 pages of a book. However, because the movies hit all the big plot points and does so fairly well, it sparks interest in the story, and would direct more people to then go and read the books. Its a good starting point, especially when considering how overwhelming the books might be at a glace. I know we all like to talk about what the movies did wrong and how they should be better, but not everyone is taking a class on Tolkien and movies are an easier way to consume media.

The real treasure was the friends we made along the way

When looking at LotR, its easy to pick out the friendships throughout the story. The unyielding friendship of Frodo and Sam, the unexpected one between Legolas and Gimli and others all show the varieties of friendships Tolkien writes about. He makes characters both with strong ties to those they are familar with and those outside of their own race. In the case of Frodo and Sam, I feel as though thier friendship is a very deep and importaint one. In a way it represents where one comes from and the importance of one's roots. It is the familiarity of home.
Legolas and Gimil's friendship, on the other hand, is more about overcoming old feuds to forge a bond. Given that Tolkien lived through both world wars, I think it is safe to say he say the importance of both friendships with those from the same place as you, but also those that are different from you. LotR has a very strong theme of unity and by using different races as an example, Tolkien is showing the power of unity and how importaint it is to see things from someone else's view.

Short Blog this Week from Me

So starting to write this, I am not sure what to write this blog about in all honsety. I've seen people talking about Tolkien and Covid-19, posts about Sir Gawain, and a few other things. We talked at the end of our last in person class that this was like the breaking of the fellowship. It interesting that it happened in that way, each one of us having to go to a differnt place, but we are still able to talk and communicate with each other. In that way, I hope that no one gives up hope in this. Even if the fellowship split, they still completed the task and the quest was successful. Even if our own quest does not continue the way we thought it would, we must still have the strength to continue, because in the end, the quest will be successful.

Tolkien Forshadowing

As we have brought up many times in class, Tolkien loves his foreshadowing. We saw it many times in the Hobbit and are now seeing it in Lord of the Rings. Whats interesting about Tolkien is how small and subtle his forshadowing is. I'm sure we have all read a book or had someone tell us a story where the forshadowing was laid on way too thick and the ending is not at all a suprise. However, Tolkien does his very diffferently from this. Nothing is too small of a detail to be left unnoted, there are no accidents in the stories. From the hobbits greed shown in the mushrooms, even if unconventional, to Frodo's suprise at giving up the ring so easily to Tom Bombadil, Tolkien sews the seeds early for what the Ring will become to Frodo and his attachment to it. In addition to this, Tolkien shows the weariness to come, with each stage of the journey almost reflecting back to the last, yet each time they are able to overcome the hardships (except Boromir).

Beowulf Freewrite

“But let us return to the dragon.”
 When Tolkien was writing this, people were mainly focused on the historical aspects of Beowulf
from the items in it to the places. But that's not really what Beowulf is about.

For anyone who has read the poem, the monsters in it are numerous and each is their own thing.
It seems almost impossible now to read this poem and not focus on the monsters.
When we return to the dragon, we are returning to the roots of the story.
The dragon is a common theme we see today, both in current works and in historical works,
as seen here. In a way it is like coming back to the heart of the story, not getting
too focused on minor details but rather seeing what the author wants us to see. 

What is also interesting about this is that Tolkien returns to the dragon a lot in his stories.
Smaug is a very large part of the hobbit, and the whole story is, in a way, about returning to the dragon,
or at least the place which the dragon resides.
As we move onto LotR, there is a significant lack of dragons. The main villain is not a dragon,
but rather an evil deity which is then defeated. But in Tolkien’s extended lore, he does return to the idea
of the dragon. While I am not able to list any names off the top of my head, there are several dragons in
Middle Earth and each play different roles. So while there may not be dragons everywhere, Tolkien
still takes the idea of “let us return to the dragon” seriously, as shown in his works. 

(edit: will fix format more, sorry all)

Tolkien Inspiration

During the group disscusion, Bilbo taking the cup was brought up, as well as the parallels that has to Beowulf. It is very classic dragon for what we know today: a thief steals a very small amount of treasure, one cup, something that would seem insignificant to us and yet the dragon notices and stirs, ending with it reaping terror on innocents. I find it very interesting that the two are so closely related. At the beginning of the semester, we read that paper about insipration and how it is importaint to not focus on it, as we may not know what that inspiration is. However, I think that sometimes, we should look at what an author references. While I do not think a reader should go comparing the two, it is interesting to know what influences people and how they turn it into their own thing. The way Bilbo fights the dragon in riddles is very different than how Beowulf fight the dragon with his sword, but seeing the way different people create a story is rather inspireing I think.

Natural vs. Unnatural

I found this class discution very interesting. Seeing how different people saw different things as natural vs. unnatural was suprising. For this exercise, I chose the eagles as natural and the goblins as unatural.
The eagles in this story, while not natural for our world, act as a focus of nature itself in this story. They are good, but not in the way that many races of Middle Earth are good. They do not muster up an army to fight aginst evil things, but they oppose evil when they encouter it. In this way, they act more as nature itself, uncaring about the outside world, but an unwavering force that stands against the unnatural. The eagles do not have a stake in the gold and treasure of the Lonely Mountain, but their opposition of the unnatural puts them against the enemies of the dwarves at that point in the story.

The goblins, on the flip side of this, are unnatural. Tolkien talks about how they "make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones." (pg 73) He goes on to talk about how they invent things like wheels and engins and explosions. As Dr. Donovan menitioned in class, Tolkien grew up in a town over run with the Industrial Revolution. For him, the blance between natural and unnatural was very much thrown off. Growing up in town surrounded by these things, and then makeing it a staple description for an evil race in his world clearly demonstraits how Tolkien felt about such things. His goblins, while natural to his world, act in a way that is against nature, making them unnatural things.

Rosie Cotton, pleased to meet you!

Hello,
My name is Rosie Cotton, daughter of Tolman Cotton and Lily Brown. Like many hobbit women, I am named after a flower, as you can see in both my mother's name and the names of a few of my daughters: Rose-lass, Daisy, and Primrose. Speaking of children, I also have a record 13 of them, many of whom were named after the hobbit heros. I am actually married to one of those heros, Samwise.
We were married in the spring of the year 3020 of the third age. While I might be married to an adventurer, I myself am not one, having only had one trip to Gondor, which is quite enough for me!

I am sort of familar with my namesake. I knew beforehand that she was the eventual wife of Sam, but nothing else besides that. However, I like haveing a more minor character, because I feel like there is always something more to learn, especially when it comes to Tolkin's characters.