Current Events > Was "I am no man" in the LotR books? (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just occurred to me that holy SHIT people wouldve lost their minds if that scene happened today

GOT DAM ESS JAY DUBBAYOOOS
---

"But no living man am I! You are looking upon a woman. Eowyn am I, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him."
---

PMarth2002 posted...

"But no living man am I! You are looking upon a woman. Eowyn am I, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him."

It was better in the book.
---

Foppe posted...

PMarth2002 posted...

"But no living man am I! You are looking upon a woman. Eowyn am I, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him."

It was better in the book.

can you imagine if she said that long winded monologue in the movie
it would be laughed at for decades
---

And smote him she did. Badass.
---

Turtlebread posted...

Foppe posted...

PMarth2002 posted...

"But no living man am I! You are looking upon a woman. Eowyn am I, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him."

It was better in the book.

can you imagine if she said that long winded monologue in the movie
it would be laughed at for decades

Yeah, I was gonna say, that wouldnt have worked in film.
---

Mr_Biscuit posted...

Turtlebread posted...

Foppe posted...

PMarth2002 posted...

"But no living man am I! You are looking upon a woman. Eowyn am I, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him."

It was better in the book.

can you imagine if she said that long winded monologue in the movie
it would be laughed at for decades

Yeah, I was gonna say, that wouldnt have worked in film.

Definitely not in PJ's films, their tone is completely different from the more archaic, like "retelling of a legend"-type tone used in the books. PJ restyled them into massive Hollywood action adventures.
---

Mr_Biscuit posted...

Just occurred to me that holy SHIT people wouldve lost their minds if that scene happened today

GOT DAM ESS JAY DUBBAYOOOS

Doesn't that scene kind of prove that their idiotic whinging about women in media is unwarranted then?

Yeah it worked then and not now, society changes. Culture shifts.
---

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Mr_Biscuit posted...

Just occurred to me that holy SHIT people wouldve lost their minds if that scene happened today

GOT DAM ESS JAY DUBBAYOOOS

Doesn't that scene kind of prove that their idiotic whinging about women in media is unwarranted then?

my point exactly
---

Mr_Biscuit posted...

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Mr_Biscuit posted...

Just occurred to me that holy SHIT people wouldve lost their minds if that scene happened today

GOT DAM ESS JAY DUBBAYOOOS

Doesn't that scene kind of prove that their idiotic whinging about women in media is unwarranted then?

my point exactly

No. "Their" being the SJWs. My point is, in today's political climate, this scene would feel very unauthentic.
---

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Doesn't that scene kind of prove that their idiotic whinging about women in media is unwarranted then?

How would one scene prove that it's unwarranted to complain that white men are over-represented in the lead roles of movies in Hollywood? Bear in mind, it's one scene in a movie franchise where the cast is all white and the leads are all men.
---

Ilishe posted...

And smote him she did. Badass.

Yeah. For a long time, I thought it was Merry's dagger that killed him (in the books, they say it was enchanted against the Witch-King), but apparently all it did was make him vulnerable, so that Eowyn could finish him off.
---

DiScOrD tHe LuNaTiC posted...

Ilishe posted...

And smote him she did. Badass.

Yeah. For a long time, I thought it was Merry's dagger that killed him (in the books, they say it was enchanted against the Witch-King), but apparently all it did was make him vulnerable, so that Eowyn could finish him off.

Fun fact, the original Swedish translation has Merry kill him, because the translator misread the whole thing. So in Sweden people for decades thought that the prophecy was circumvented because Merry is a Hobbit. Which also made sense, because in the context of Glorfindel's (IIRC) prophecy probably everyone thought he meant the race "Man", rather than the gender.
---

Were there black people?
---

1NfamousACE_2 posted...

Were there black people?

The men fighting for Sauron were described as darker, quite similar to oriental or middle-eastern people.
---

1NfamousACE_2 posted...

Were there black people?

The subtropic regions of Middle Earth.
---

scar the 1 posted...

Fun fact, the original Swedish translation has Merry kill him, because the translator misread the whole thing. So in Sweden people for decades thought that the prophecy was circumvented because Merry is a Hobbit. Which also made sense, because in the context of Glorfindel's (IIRC) prophecy probably everyone thought he meant the race "Man", rather than the gender.

Strictly speaking, both were true: the Witch King was defeated by the combined efforts of two people, neither of which would meet the full literal definition of 'man' in middle earth (a male human)
---

Darkman124 posted...

scar the 1 posted...

Fun fact, the original Swedish translation has Merry kill him, because the translator misread the whole thing. So in Sweden people for decades thought that the prophecy was circumvented because Merry is a Hobbit. Which also made sense, because in the context of Glorfindel's (IIRC) prophecy probably everyone thought he meant the race "Man", rather than the gender.

Strictly speaking, both were true: the Witch King was defeated by the combined efforts of two people, neither of which would meet the full literal definition of 'man' in middle earth (a male human)

Well the "prophecy" says "not by the hand of man shall he fall", and it mostly served as a warning to Ernur that he would not be successful in chasing down the Witch-King. Most likely, when he said "no living man may hinder me", it was not even a reference to this prophetic statement, but rather just absolute confidence that no one among the race of Men possessed the necessary power to bring him down.
Technically yeah, no living man did hinder the poor Witch-King.

But the Swedish version was still mistranslated, it had Merry deliver the final blow, which also introduced a weird discontinuity because his blade had just dissipated and he still used it.
---

I always wondered why the included Arwen in the movies so much and made her the badass when that's Eowyn's whole thing. Arwen was originally going to be at Helm's Deep and kicking ass there before that got changed. Yeah she's not in the first movie, but still.

Tolkien's version is more badass and less potentially corny, really. And it's funny he's still called sexist when there's a lot of great female characters who are better than the males in his works.
---

Southernfatman posted...

I always wondered why the included Arwen in the movies so much and made her the badass when that's Eowyn's whole thing. Arwen was originally going to be at Helm's Deep and kicking ass there before that got changed. Yeah she's not in the first movie, but still.

Tolkien's version is more badass and less potentially corny, really. And it's funny he's still called sexist when there's a lot of great female characters who are better than the males in his works.

I don't know who calls him sexist? I know tons of feminists just think his work is really boring because it's all about men doing manly things. But I don't think I heard anyone call it sexist.
---

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Mr_Biscuit posted...

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Mr_Biscuit posted...

Just occurred to me that holy SHIT people wouldve lost their minds if that scene happened today

GOT DAM ESS JAY DUBBAYOOOS

Doesn't that scene kind of prove that their idiotic whinging about women in media is unwarranted then?

my point exactly

No. "Their" being the SJWs. My point is, in today's political climate, this scene would feel very unauthentic.

God youre so depressing

You know damn well you and your ilk would be melting down and boycotting ROTK if it came out today
---

scar the 1 posted...

I don't know who calls him sexist? I know tons of feminists just think his work is really boring because it's all about men doing manly things. But I don't think I heard anyone call it sexist.

It probably does t really happen anymore really once I think about it. You'd hear about it more around when the movies were out. It was more about criticisms of the gender roles/norms throughout his works when they're just based off of traditional roles of various medieval/fantasy works. Certain folk would translate that to thinking the author himself was sexist It's kinda in the same ballpark where people call him racist.
---

Southernfatman posted...

I always wondered why the included Arwen in the movies so much and made her the badass when that's Eowyn's whole thing. Arwen was originally going to be at Helm's Deep and kicking ass there before that got changed. Yeah she's not in the first movie, but still.

Tolkien's version is more badass and less potentially corny, really. And it's funny he's still called sexist when there's a lot of great female characters who are better than the males in his works.

in the first film i thought it was arwen who summoned the river spirits to drive away the nazgul (a change, the books had elrond do it as he wore the ring of air)
---

Darkman124 posted...

in the first film i thought it was arwen who summoned the river spirits to drive away the nazgul (a change, the books had elrond do it as he wore the ring of air)

It was, he's saying owyn wasn't in the first movie.
---

scar the 1 posted...

Darkman124 posted...

in the first film i thought it was arwen who summoned the river spirits to drive away the nazgul (a change, the books had elrond do it as he wore the ring of air)

It was, he's saying owyn wasn't in the first movie.

Oh, I understand now. Was confusing the names.
---

Darkman124 posted...

in the first film i thought it was arwen who summoned the river spirits to drive away the nazgul

It was. She was just a replacement for Glorfindel in the books. I'm fine with that cause introducing him for him to do nothing would be weird. Although G. In the books just gives frodo his horse to ride and it's actually Frodo alone who stands up to the Nazgul at the river, but starts to come to under the witch King's control and starts to come toward them. Then Elrond with Gandalf's assistance (he make the water look like horsemen) causes the river to flood. It's because of Elrond's ring of power that he can do that if I recall.

I just find the movie scene and the original plan for Arwen being in Helms Deep to be weird and takes away from Eowyn, but I guess Jackson thought of that and changed it.

Edit:. Oh I see you got the names mixed up. Nevermind.
---

Southernfatman posted...

It probably does t really happen anymore really once I think about it. You'd hear about it more around when the movies were out. It was more about criticisms of the gender roles/norms throughout his works when they're just based off of traditional roles of various medieval/fantasy works. Certain folk would translate that to thinking the author himself was sexist It's kinda in the same ballpark where people call him racist.

I think most authors from that time would be considered both racist and sexist today. As long as a text lives in some way in some canon, it's quite fair - and important - to criticize it and think about how it relates to our current values.
---

The difference is if it was done today she'd be colored and possibly a lesbian.

Also Faramir would be recast into a woman.

np southern, we're on the same page now

scar the 1 posted...

I think most authors from that time would be considered both racist and sexist today. As long as a text lives in some way in some canon, it's quite fair - and important - to criticize it and think about how it relates to our current values.

you ever read faulker?

sound and the fury was hard to read even 10 years ago
---

X-Pac_Heat posted...

The difference is if it was done today she'd be colored and possibly a lesbian.

Also Faramir would be recast into a woman.

It would be weird making her a lesbian considering her love for Aragorn. But I suppose they could make Aragorn a woman and Arwen could be Elladan or Elrohir. And would it do any harm to have the Rohan people be poc?
---

Darkman124 posted...

you ever read faulker?

sound and the fury was hard to read even 10 years ago

No. Should I? I still haven't picked up your last recommendation (A Portrait blablabla by Joyce) but I might soon if I can find it on Audible.
---

scar the 1 posted...

And would it do any harm to have the Rohan people be poc?

Would it do any harm to have things the way they were made?

No.
---

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

scar the 1 posted...

And would it do any harm to have the Rohan people be poc?

Would it do any harm to have things the way they were made?

No.

Some people might disagree, but I'm absolutely fine with neither option doing any harm :)
---

scar the 1 posted...

No. Should I? I still haven't picked up your last recommendation (A Portrait blablabla by Joyce) but I might soon if I can find it on Audible.

read/listen to portrait first

it's like stream of consciousness for beginners

faulkner is much less coherent on purpose

but jesus, where portrait kind of showcases the story of a young man growing up and realizing how sexist he's being, and ultimately resolves to be better, there is no self-realization in the sound and the fury

there's other reasons too that i don't want to spoil but they would not hold up well today either
---

scar the 1 posted...

Some people might disagree, but I'm absolutely fine with neither option doing any harm :)

Okie. Fair enough.

What do you think would be "better", a nation of non-whites or intermingling ie dotting into the armies/background?
With the context different types of elves, dwarfs, orcs, and whathave, couldn't a nation of blacks be seen as otherizing them?

"Well we have these white heroes that receive help from treants, elves, dwarfs . . . and blacks."
lol.
---

scar the 1 posted...

I think most authors from that time would be considered both racist and sexist today. As long as a text lives in some way in some canon, it's quite fair - and important - to criticize it and think about how it relates to our current values.

Oh certainly. I just never found it fair when people called LOTR and other Tolkien works sexist. In a sense, they are, but I don't think it's the author reflecting his own personal views through his work in this case. I could be wrong, but I don't get that vibe from reading the text. I think the story of Beren and Luthien and Eowyn's arc in LOTR show that Tolkien was against gender norms and stereotypes in some fashion at least wouldn't it?

I compare it with the racism label in the fact that even in the text itself it shows the opposite in some way. Sam sees the body of dead enemy man in Two Towersnd reflects that perhaps he wasn't exactly a bad person full of pure evil. Even the good "white" race (as critics called them) fell under Sauron's sway at one point.
---

Neckbeards will complain no matter what. Just look at their outrage towards Mad Max: Fury Road.
---

Turtlebread posted...

Foppe posted...

PMarth2002 posted...

"But no living man am I! You are looking upon a woman. Eowyn am I, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him."

It was better in the book.

can you imagine if she said that long winded monologue in the movie
it would be laughed at for decades

Pretty sure she says it in the animated film and it sounded cool.
---

iPhone_7 posted...

Neckbeards will complain no matter what. Just look at their outrage towards Mad Max: Fury Road.

My only complaint here is that they named the all-female ass-kickers the frickin' Vulvalina, when they should have just gone a step farther and named them the Clitorior Warriors.

Yes, I know they're called 'Vuvalini' instead of 'Vulvalini, it's a joke.
---

X-Pac_Heat posted...

The difference is if it was done today she'd be colored and possibly a lesbian.

Also Faramir would be recast into a woman.

Whooo boy
---

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

What do you think would be "better", a nation of non-whites or intermingling ie dotting into the armies/background?
With the context different types of elves, dwarfs, orcs, and whathave, couldn't a nation of blacks be seen as otherizing them?

In the context of Middle-Earth, it would make more sense for a whole nation to look homogenous. That's how it already is. Makes more sense to just switch one country for another. I don't think it would "otherize" them. They'd still be Men.
---

Southernfatman posted...

Oh certainly. I just never found it fair when people called LOTR and other Tolkien works sexist. In a sense, they are, but I don't think it's the author reflecting his own personal views through his work in this case. I could be wrong, but I don't get that vibe from reading the text. I think the story of Beren and Luthien and Eowyn's arc in LOTR show that Tolkien was against gender norms and stereotypes in some fashion at least wouldn't it?

I compare it with the racism label in the fact that even in the text itself it shows the opposite in some way. Sam sees the body of dead enemy man in Two Towersnd reflects that perhaps he wasn't exactly a bad person full of pure evil. Even the good "white" race (as critics called them) fell under Sauron's sway at one point.

I agree to an extent. Tolkien did break the norms of the time, but that doesn't necessarily absolve him. His work is still quite male dominated (which of course is not necessarily wrong mind you). I'm sure there's valid as well as bogus criticism.
---

Vagina ex machina
---

That said, it could definitely make more sense for a country like Gondor to feature a more mixed ethnic demographic.
---

Southernfatman posted...

Darkman124 posted...

in the first film i thought it was arwen who summoned the river spirits to drive away the nazgul

It was. She was just a replacement for Glorfindel in the books. I'm fine with that cause introducing him for him to do nothing would be weird. Although G. In the books just gives frodo his horse to ride and it's actually Frodo alone who stands up to the Nazgul at the river, but starts to come to under the witch King's control and starts to come toward them. Then Elrond with Gandalf's assistance (he make the water look like horsemen) causes the river to flood. It's because of Elrond's ring of power that he can do that if I recall.

I just find the movie scene and the original plan for Arwen being in Helms Deep to be weird and takes away from Eowyn, but I guess Jackson thought of that and changed it.

Edit:. Oh I see you got the names mixed up. Nevermind.

I think it wasn't so much the ring (why would the Ring of Air let him control water? That was Galadriel's deal), but his other powers. Gandalf says something like all of Rivendell is under Elrond's control.
---

scar the 1 posted...

DiScOrD tHe LuNaTiC posted...

Ilishe posted...

And smote him she did. Badass.

Yeah. For a long time, I thought it was Merry's dagger that killed him (in the books, they say it was enchanted against the Witch-King), but apparently all it did was make him vulnerable, so that Eowyn could finish him off.

Fun fact, the original Swedish translation has Merry kill him, because the translator misread the whole thing. So in Sweden people for decades thought that the prophecy was circumvented because Merry is a Hobbit. Which also made sense, because in the context of Glorfindel's (IIRC) prophecy probably everyone thought he meant the race "Man", rather than the gender.

i was just about to bring this up.
i was so confused when the movie had her kill the witch king, instead of Merry doing it
---

Darkman124 posted...

in the first film i thought it was arwen who summoned the river spirits to drive away the nazgul (a change, the books had elrond do it as he wore the ring of air)

wasn't it Tom Bombadill in the books?
i'm sure he had something to do with the force of the rivers
---

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

"Well we have these white heroes that receive help from treants, elves, dwarfs . . . and blacks."

I mean, that did happen in the books with Ghan Buri Ghan and the Druedain, although they're more native/pygmy types than strictly 'black'
---

scar the 1 posted...

That said, it could definitely make more sense for a country like Gondor to feature a more mixed ethnic demographic.

they are, and the books at least demonstrate that, but mixed ethnicities aren't the same thing as mixed races
---

DiScOrD tHe LuNaTiC posted...

I think it wasn't so much the ring (why would the Ring of Air let him control water? That was Galadriel's deal), but his other powers. Gandalf says something like all of Rivendell is under Elrond's control.

The powers of the Rings of Power aren't that straight-forward, nor are they very clearly explained. What we do know is that Vilya was the most powerful of the three Rings, and we can infer that Galadriel and Elrond both used their Rings to preserve their surroundings. It's not unlikely that, as part of that preservation, Elrond was able to enchant the river.
Keep in mind that Elvish magic isn't much about casting spells like your typical wizard. It's a lot about craftsmanship and song, so it sounds more likely to me that Elrond's Ring helped him enchant the waters of Bruinen than that he did it himself.

ROBANN_88 posted...

wasn't it Tom Bombadill in the books?
i'm sure he had something to do with the force of the rivers

Tom never ventured outside of the Old Forest, except for his little rescue romp in the Barrow-Downs.

Balrog0 posted...

they are, and the books at least demonstrate that, but mixed ethnicities aren't the same thing as mixed races

Well yeah, I mean to say that Minas Tirith could conceivably be a "multicultural" capital given the fact that Gondor seems to be large enough to have several distinct regions. But you're absolutely right.
---