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Post by Stormrider on Feb 21, 2011 20:10:04 GMT -6
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 22, 2011 11:05:17 GMT -6
RE Fredegarh's: "I don't remember it being said that the Trolls were corrupted Ents. Just that they were 'made in mockery of the Ents,' i.e. an existing race that was corrupted and transformed to resemble the Ents in size and power. At least, that's how I interpreted it."
Ah, yes, I'll look up the exact wording, but I recall that paragraph did use the term "in mockery of," and I got the same impression, that it meant Morgoth had taken some life-form, not necessarily an actual Ent, and then corrupted it to look like a sort of Ent.
Got it, Two Towers, IV "Treebeard," p. 89 (hardback version), p. 113 (paperback version). Begalad/ Quickbeam is speaking to Merry and Pippin while the tedious business of the Entmoot goes on: "Maybe you have heard of Trolls? They are mighty strong. But Trolls are only counterfeits, made by the Enemy in the Great Darkness, in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves." (emphasis mine)
Hmmm, the exact wording will leave us a bit confused, I fear. It is open to differing interpretations, I think. We know that in the period when Tolkien was writing The Lord of the Rings, that he was going by the rule that Morgoth and Sauron could not create any new lifeforms, but could, as in the case of Elves, "corrupt" already existing creatures, and transform them into Evil beings. In our target quote, Bregalad does not directly say that some Tree-shepherd Ents were taken, corrupted and made into Trolls, but neither does he offer a plausible substitute creature. The final phrase, I think, still leaves the possibility that Tree-shepherd Ents were corrupted to become Trolls, just "as Orcs were of Elves."
But, as we both mention, Fredegarh, neither of us took the passage that way, my first impression was that some other creature had been corrupted to form the Trolls as "counterfeit" Ents. Now I'm not so sure...
But, what other creature than a Tree-shepherd Ent, would be available as the root stock of the Trolls. Here, if we posit that Tolkien was still thinking of humanoid Giants, like those in The Hobbit as having a place in Middle-earth, then they might be good candidates for "corruption" into Trolls. Murky business here. This may be another of Tolkien's "loose ends?"
As you say, Fredegarh, given that the Norse tradition fairy tales sometimes see a connection/ mutual identity between Jotun etten (humanoid giants) and Trolls, Tolkien may indeed have been thinking along the lines of "corrupt humanoid giant" = Troll. But when he altered Treebeard from an evil-minded humanoid giant, into a benevolent Tree-shepheard Ent, JRRT just never got around to dotting all the "tees" here, and has left us in some doubt as to the root stock of the Troll forms.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 22, 2011 11:17:54 GMT -6
Hi, Stormrider! I like your "Legends of the Irish Giants." It does fit in nicely here, in that it gives us a real life basis for the folkloric creatures called Giants. Pituitary gigantism occurs throughout history, and round the world. Given an active imagination, we soon have tales of 50 feet tall men and women...
Another source for Tolkien's Giants in Middle-earth, would also be the Nordic Ice Giants, and Fire Giants (possibly influencing the development of the Balrogs). Giant is cognate with the Graeco Roman Titan, a breed of gods who fought the Olympian deities for control over the universe. This is paralleled in the Norse myths by a similar conflict between the gods, the Aesir, and the various types of Giants.
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Post by Stormrider on Feb 23, 2011 7:03:09 GMT -6
There would be a huge change in the appearance of an Ent to a Troll. Ents are so tree-like and Trolls are more human-like. I can agree that when JRRT changed Treebeard from a Giant to a Tree-sheppard that he must have overlooked he had Treebeard say "Maybe you have heard of Trolls? They are mighty strong. But Trolls are only counterfeits, made by the Enemy in the Great Darkness, in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves." A Troll would be better to have come from a corrupted Giant.
The man in the link and video that I posted above seems very calm and mild mannered. I wonder why Northern Ireland seems to have giant people. I wonder how prevalant it is in other parts of the world. Something to look in to.
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Post by Andorinha on Feb 23, 2011 20:44:15 GMT -6
I went to the follow-up link, "AIP Mutation in Pituitary Adenomas," which traced the "gigantism" back to the 1760s for Northern Ireland. Hmm, could be something in the water? Sounds like it is hereditary, so maybe one family moved to Ireland some time before 1760 and established the gene in that region? Apparently The New England Journal of Medicine thinks it was not a North Ireland environmental problem, but a genetic problem caused by a mutual ancestor way back in history, maybe 1000 years back from 1760 AD, so in 760 AD, wow. Gigantism results when a growth hormone–secreting pituitary adenoma is present before epiphyseal fusion. In 1909, when Harvey Cushing examined the skeleton of an Irish patient who lived from 1761 to 1783,1-3 he noted an enlarged pituitary fossa. We extracted DNA from the patient's teeth and identified a germline mutation in the aryl hydrocarbon–interacting protein gene (AIP). Four contemporary Northern Irish families who presented with gigantism, acromegaly, or prolactinoma have the same mutation and haplotype associated with the mutated gene. Using coalescent theory, we infer that these persons share a common ancestor who lived about 57 to 66 generations earlier. www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1008020So were the Stone-giants in The Hobbit suffering from a genetic disorder? LOL. There is a description of a Tree-shepherd Ent, maybe from Chris Tolkien rather than JRRT himself, that I'll try to find again. The gist of it, as I recall is that the Tree-shepherd Ents were "troll-like" figures 12 to 14 feet tall. If I've got this passage right, can't find it at the moment, and if it was by JRRT, it may show he was thinking along the lines of a Tree-shepherd-Troll connection? I still think in the 1940s as he started LOTR, he had humanoid giants in mind, and from them, trolls could be derived more easily than from tree-stock creatures?
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Post by Andorinha on Mar 5, 2011 23:09:19 GMT -6
Douglas A. Anderson, in his The Annotated Hobbit, p. 104, note #5, offers the following speculation regarding the Stone-giants: The stone-giants are mentioned only in The Hobbit. It seem probable that they can be interpreted as a type of trool. Both are large and apparently malicious beings,* and in Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien mentions as a type of troll the Stone-trolls of the West-lands, who sp[oke a debased form of Common Speech, and this description certainly applies to Bert, Tom, and William Huggins." *Here, I think Anderson misses the point by classing the Stone-giants as "malicious beings" alongside the trolls. In The Hobbit, it seems the giants can boast a few "decent types" or Gandalf would not suggest approaching such a "decent" giant to get him to block up the goblins' gate. Additionally, if the Stone-giants were trolls, why didn't Tolkien say so? It seems evident to me, that, at least in The Hobbit, JRRT was making a distinction between humanoid giants and the trolls. Wonder if Anderson has an email address, it might be fun to contact him with our data, and see how he reacts? LOL.
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Post by Andorinha on Apr 30, 2011 10:16:23 GMT -6
One more bit where Giants are mentioned regards Beorn having (possibly, Gandalf says) been driven from his original mountain home by the Giants.
"Some say that he is a bear descended from the great and ancient bears of the mountains that lived there before the giants came." (Hobbit p. 118, pap. bk. ver)
This is an interesting statement, even if it is partly conjectural in Gandalf's telling, the giants seem to be a fairly recent addition to this area of the Misty Mountains, but traveling here from whence, and when, and why? It also increases the "threat" aspects of the giants, if they were able to drive Beorn out of his original home?
Gandalf: "I once saw him [Beorn] sitting all alone on the top of the Carrock at night watching the moon sinking towards the Misty Mountains, and I heard him growl in the tongue of bears; 'The day will come when they will perish and I shall go back!' That is why I believe he once came from the mountains himself." (Hobbit, p. 119 pap. bk. ver)
Hmmm, wish Old Tolkien had given us a bit more of Beorn's backstory, LOL, might be a topic for some bit of "fan-fiction" some day -- "How Beorn was driven from the mountains..."
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Post by Stormrider on May 1, 2011 7:10:50 GMT -6
After all the times I've read The Hobbit, those comments just went over my head and I never gave much thought to them when I read them. Beorn is so strong and powerful, I didn't think anything else could force him to do anything he didn't want to do. But if there were clan of giants harassing him, I guess he might up and move so that he wouldn't have to put up with them.
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Post by Fredeghar Wayfarer on Jul 28, 2012 14:14:07 GMT -6
I'm reviving this thread because a Stone-giant appeared in Peter Jackson's latest Hobbit production blog. We see a few seconds of the footage that was shown at San Diego Comic-Con. Check it out at 1:19 of the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTUQi8HBlg4This fascinates me for two reasons. 1. Jackson is using the Stone-giants in the film, despite fan debate about their nature and existence. It seems that in the Middle-earth cinematic universe, giants do exist. 2. Rather than a human-like creature, this Stone-giant appears to be literally made of stone. This raises some interesting questions. What are the Stone-giants in Jackson's version? Are they spirits of the earth come to life? Are they a distant relative of the Stone-trolls with hard, rock-like skin? Or did Jackson just want a dramatic visual and he's leaving the guessing and interpretation to the fans? I also have to wonder if this hazy, shadowy glimpse of the Stone-giants is all we will get in the film. I suppose that might be appropriate given how mysterious the giants are in Tolkien's work.
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Post by Stormrider on Jul 28, 2012 16:44:20 GMT -6
Tolkien did actually call them stone-giants in the "Over Hill and Under Hill" chapter of The Hobbit. The Stone Giant in the video clip is after Bilbo and the Dwarves leave Rivendell and are heading into the Misty Mountains when they encounter the thunder-battle with the Stone Giants hurling rocks at each other for a game and then throwing them down at the trees far below.
I wonder what Tolkien wanted them to be? Were they large sections of the mountains that cracked off during a huge thunderstorm and became the stone-giants? Or maybe not so much cracking off the mountains but more like they emerged from the mountains during storms. Then when the storm subsides they merge back into the mountains.
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