[Mormegil]

I just tought it would be nice for the artists to know what kind of historical style will the civilisations in TLA have (weapons and armor, clothing,etc) So here's the list, correct me if I'm wrong:

Noldor: I'd say greek, with the feathers on the helmets and stuff, but with chain-mail.(by the way nolofinwe you did awesome concept art for these)

Sindar: I used to imagine them very celtic with lots of gold and jewels and animal motifs.

FA Edain: Germanic.

Numenoreans: Something between the carolingians and the romans, with a tiny bit of plate armor over the chain-mail.

Gondorians: Like the numenoreans but more advanced and more plate armor.

Dwarves: Very germanic and anglo-saxon like.

Orcs: Dark clothing, chain-mail.

Easterlings of rhun: turk-like, but with more armor.

Variags: early-russian type, with chain-mail and helmets and axes.

Haradrim: Moorish for the near haradrim, and african for the far haradrim.

[Drashkurz]

My goodness, this is going to sound very nasty without a soothing tone of voice available, but here goes...

That all makes sense, but remember that the decision is ultimately up to the artist.

--------
Anyway, as this thread is entitled 'Civilizations', I think I'll ask a question. What are the 'Noegyth Nibîn' when they're at home?

[Mormegil]

I know, that was kinda dumb. It was just how I imagined these civilisations in fact.

[Curufinwe]

(

Well, the decision is not really up to the artist ... it is the team who gives the artist the guidelines for a concept and the artists recreates what the Designers have thought of ... so, the artist has to be very talented, but he is not doing a concept out of pure imagination. There is background ....

Now, I don't understand your question, Drashkurz ...

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What are the 'Noegyth Nibîn' when they're at home?

can you tell us more?

[Drashkurz]

No, I can't tell you more. I want to know myself! Have a look at the civilizations page. They're an independant civ.

[Sirindu]

The Noegyth Nibin were a branch of Dwarves, sometimes called the "petty-dwarves". Remember Mim and his hill; Amon Rudh? He was one of the petty dwarves. The last in fact, I believe.

[Curufinwe]

(

Drashkurz ... I know what the Noegyth Nibîn were ....
I just didn't understand your question
I didn't understand what you meant by "what are they when they're at home" ... why this "when they're at home" ...????

[Black Knight]

Don't get Adam started on the plate armour!

[av_nefardec]

This is a decision that is up to the design team in cooperation with artists, based closely on Tolkien's writing.

[Mithrandil]

Indeed, you can't say that the Noldor are for exemple Greek, you just can't compare. Tolkien made his own world, and even if TLA takes all the descriptions, and forms it to what the designers think is best for the representation of Tolkiens world, we could always still be far off Tolkiens own view of the peoples. The problem is that we can't really ask him for his opinions, because he joined the other people outside of the circles of Arda, and his son, Christopher, may not have the same view as his father. On top of that, we won't be able to get to Christopher very easy...

[Drashkurz]

Curufinwe, on Mar 8 2005, 08:29 PM, said:

I just didn't understand your question
I didn't understand what you meant by "what are they when they're at home" ... why this "when they're at home" ...????

Ah. It's an idiom, and doesn't really mean anything. Sorry, I know that English is a fiendishly complicated language to learn (I have trouble sometimes and it's my mother tongue).

So it's those little half-pints. Heh, they'd probably be more of a hindrance than a help - they all seemed to die out pretty fast.

[Curufinwe]

(

Well, although I can say English is my second monther tongue, I didn't get that one ... anyway, maybe I speak English and not American
thanks for the reply by the way ...

[Drashkurz]

Curufinwe, on Mar 9 2005, 08:19 PM, said:

anyway, maybe I speak English and not American

Same here.

Anyway, here are some on-topic thoughts of mine. It's all down to the artists and designers, naturally, but it's not 'the Numenoreans have Roman armour', it's 'the Numenorean armour may have been part-Roman influenced with some Celtic twists and more detail depicting the Dunedain love of the sea'. In some places the originality might be more than others - with the Haradrim, for example, Tolkien never gave us their typical garb but they seem to be based on Arabs or other people from the Middle East and north Africa. Thus we can assume that Far Harad represents the southern parts of Africa, and so should be more similiar to Zulus, and work from there. Comparing Arda to Earth only works so far, because the Dwarves seem to be part-Celtic in their designs and lifestyle but they live mostly where Ukraine and Russia would be.

[av_nefardec]

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Comparing Arda to Earth only works so far, because the Dwarves seem to be part-Celtic in their designs and lifestyle but they live mostly where Ukraine and Russia would be.

I think that's quite far off the mark -

Tolkien's dwarves are of Norse Origin, from actual norse mythology. For instance, most dwarven names are from a Norse epic called the Voluspä. In fact, Tolkien repeatedly expressed disdain for the Celts.


Tolkien MAY have had some intention of siting Middle-earth atop our own geography, but the way in which he did this is anything but logical and standardized. Though he seems to have centered the Shire on England, particularly the area where he lived, and there are other correlations geographically, there are more anomalies than anything, and it's dangerous to give everything a one-to-one relationship.

Tolkien, as a philogist, was very much interested in ancient and mythological cultures, but let it be said that these things were mere influences upon a fantasy of his own writing, not of a corresponding alternate reality. One simply can't draw lines connecting the real world and Arda. The designers are very careful not to make things more about the real world than Arda in this regard. We choose to avoid things rather than to try to invent or borrow unnecessary things from history.

Middle-earth is not 'representative' of anything. Tolkien, as he writes about in his letters, had certain attitudes about specific things in various cultures in history. Thus he has chosen to describe some parts of his own cultures in similar ways.

This also has something to do with Tolkien's views on Allegory. To make a purely representative story would have been allegorical. That would be like saying, for instance, 'Hobbits represent a weakened Britain since it is "good" and in the west, and Mordor represents Nazi Germany, since it is"evil" and in the east". Tolkien repeatedly denied such senseless speculation on the part of critics. In his foreward to the second edition of LotR, he addresses this in detail.

Tolkien distinguishes allegory from applicability, by saying that allegory resides in the purported domination of the author, that is if Tolkien had a specific representative quality he wanted to get across (for instance Mordor=Nazi Germany) that would have been allegory. But Tolkien writes applicable stories, stories with familiar archetypes, mythological patterns found in the real world, and occasional historical influences.

What you are doing here is applying Tolkien's writing based on your experience and your knowledge.


With TLA, we try to compare and contrast the experience and knowledge of several people from around the world, to get the most balanced and objective application of Tolkien's writing. And of course, when he explains himself in the Histories of Middle-earth and the Letters, these things have first priority.

[Beren IV]

Elven "magic" (I know that the word 'magic' is not what Tolkien liked to use, but bear with me) is very Celtic, and the Daione Sidhe of Celtic mythology are quite strikingly similar to Tolkien's Elves.

The Dwarves are, as you point out, based on the Norse Dwarves. In fact, they are even more like the Norse Dwarves in the early versions of the legendarium (see the early books of the Making of Middle Earth series); having a Dwarf character be a genuine hero and not an ambiguous maybe-hero-maybe-villain is not something he could have done by the early legendarium. By the time Tolkien envisioned Gimli, or even Thorin, his concept had evolved quite a bit.

The Edain evolve over the course of Tolkien's life as well, the House of Bëor particularly. The House of Bëor start out as Elves in the early versions, and are changed to be Men later on. As Men, the Edain generally have a few characteristics unlike real-world people, including (1) they reach maturity around 30 and live to be ~100, (2) they live in more harmony with nature as do the Elves, and (3) they seem to be more receptive toward morality or at least are instinctively driven to seek the Light of the West. Tolkien's final intent appears for the Edain to be essentially the perfection of humankind from a very religiously oriented standpoint (Tolkien was a Catholic, and became more and more devout as his life went on). The Dúnedain in The Lord of the Rings, however, present a puzzle: the Rohirrim mistake the Grey Company for Elves. Of course, even the Rohirrim seem to have the unusually long (for Humans) life cycle I mentioned earlier.

I agree that Human cultures of historical Earth do not really encompass Tolkien's races very well. Gondor I see as pseudo-Byzantine, Harad as pseudo-Persian, and the peoples of northwestern Middle Earth during the Late Third Age as pseudo-English, but I don't see the earlier civilizations even of Men very closely resembling real-world cultures in a one-to-one way. I think it's intended to be that way - by the end of the Third Age and into the Fourth, the world is becoming something we might recognize as analagous to the world we live in today, so some of the cultures will become familiar. In the First and Second Ages, and even most of the Third, Arda is an alien world.

[av_nefardec]

I mean we all have our conceptions of cultures in ME based on our real world experience, just like the professor had his conception based on some experience.

But I am only weary of making one to one comparisons unless Tolkien himself did it.

The ingredients for creating lesser known TLA civilizations:

- Research everthing in the books related
- project known things in logical ways
- research Tolkien's ideas about historical influences
- apply only the minimum amount of things needed to the civiliztion
- creative invention "within the world prescribed" (this is a last resort, but something Tolkien permitted with a movie adaptation in one of his letters, as long as it fit within his Arda.

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Elven "magic" (I know that the word 'magic' is not what Tolkien liked to use, but bear with me) is very Celtic, and the Daione Sidhe of Celtic mythology are quite strikingly similar to Tolkien's Elves.

Quite true, also the entire concept of ages in which various races are more powerful is reminiscent of Celtic cosmology, with the Fir-Bolg, Tuatha de Danaan, etc. In regards to magic Tolkien preferred the terms 'magia' and 'goetia'. He discusses them at length in one of his letters - i'll have to get back to you on the number.

[Mormegil]

Well of course I wasn't saying that they are exactly like those cultures. I just said I tought Tolkien based his cultures on historical civilisatons and that we should do the same for our designs...

[Beren IV]

Allright. Well, in that case, I see the Elves generally as resembling Celts in much of their overall culture and art, but that they normally grow their food in orchards than by grain, and tend to be semi-nomadic therefore (which partially satiates their wanderlust, which the Elves also seem to have quite a lot of). I see the Avari therefore as living similarly to some of the American Indian groups of the Pacific Northwest more than any other Human culture. The Sindar, and ultimately the Noldor, are more civilized, but still prefer an artful style of dwelling - I would think some of the east Asian architecture would be more appropriate for many of the woodland folk. The Noldor I am not sure of - they build with stone, but do they prefer flowing dome-shaped buildings or do they like steeples? I think they are too artful to have box-shaped buildings.

We don't see enough of the Teleri, let alone the Vanyar, to know what kind of architecture they go for. The Vanyar like towers, apparently.

The Edain are puzzling. From what I can tell, the House of Bëor never really settled and never adopted a characteristically "human" way of life (i.e. I don't see them growing grain). Some of the other houses of the Edain were more agricultural, and I see them building moch-Elven style architecture, whatever we decide upon for the Elves. The Númenoreans we know do like domed architecture and grow grain (as well as trees), so I might guess that the House of Hador in particular (and possibly the Noldor by extension) like domed architecture.

Hobbits live like rural British, that much is clear. Other types of Men are as varied as Humans on Earth are, if not moreso (there is a lot more variation among the Second Children in Arda than among humankind on Earth).

Dwarves live underground, of course - internally their architecture is supported by columns, of course, and from what I recall of the descriptions of Moria (I don't have the book handy), the decoration on the columns can be pretty elaborate. I don't have a clear picture of Durin's tower, though, which is the only above-ground Dwarven building I can think of off the top of my head.

Orcs also seem to live largely underground in tunnels that don't really have architecture - they're just hewn out of the rock. They also co-opt the buildings of whatever culture they displace and live in them, fouling them as they do so (or, at least, they use abandoned Gondoran fortresses as their own outposts). This doesn't give much of a description of Angband, though... I suppose I envision it as a giant cathedral-like structure, though of course terrible rather than beautiful. It is really a building for the Ainur that call it home, not for their slaves the Orcs.

Dragons seem to like ruins and caves.

[Caedus]

Beren IV, on Mar 15 2005, 01:30 AM, said:

Dwarves live underground, of course - internally their architecture is supported by columns, of course, and from what I recall of the descriptions of Moria (I don't have the book handy), the decoration on the columns can be pretty elaborate. I don't have a clear picture of Durin's tower, though, which is the only above-ground Dwarven building I can think of off the top of my head.

Maybe it would be better to say that Dwarves lived mostly in mountains that had rich ore deposits. And I say mostly, because of the Petty Dwarves, but then again, they weren't really living in the spot they liked/was their first choice when we read about them.

[Mithrandil]

I would want everybody to stop comparing elves and dwarves to humans.

You simply can't compare them. If you say the elves resemble the celts, then I say I don't see the elves chopping off the heads of their dead enemies and placing them in their houses as sign of victory. Elves are far to noble, far to pure, far to wise to be compared to humans. The Dwarves are just the same. They may tend to have much more human-like characters, being lusty for gold and all, but their pride and courage are things even the humans can't match. You can in some level compare the Atani with a crossing between Gauls, Celts and a bit of Germans (ancient ones), but they live in a world with creatures our world does not know. Therefore, these creatures change them in such a way that we cannot compare them with anyone as well.

The professor did NOT copy our history and altered some things in it, he created a world of his own, and should be recocnized as a creator, not as a changer.