
Christopher Tolkien has died - deadmetheny
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/16/jrr-tolkiens-son-christopher-dies-aged-95
======
scop
RIP Christopher Tolkien. His labors have given the world a great gift.

And, given the subject, I just have to drop what I believe to be one of the
greatest lines of literature:

Elrond: “The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength
nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak
with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move
the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes
of the great are elsewhere.”

~~~
gordon_freeman
Wow! these lines encourage me to read the LotR books. Thanks for sharing.

~~~
jfk13
There are so many wonderful lines to be found...

"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in
us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in
the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to
till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."

~~~
scop
The Shadow of the Past,The Fellowship of the Ring. [Frodo expresses his
disgust for Gollum to Gandalf having just learned that Gollum likely informed
Sauron that the ring is with Bilbo in the Shire]

[Frodo] “What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that bile creature, when he had
the chance!”

[Gandalf] “Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to
strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he
took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began
his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.”

“I am sorry,” said Frodo. “But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for
Gollum” “

You have not seen him,” Gandalf broke in.

“No, and I don’t want to,” said Frodo. “I can’t understand you. Do you mean to
say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible
deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves
death.”

“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that
die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal
out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not
much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of
it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he
has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that
comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.“

~~~
jfk13
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that
is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time
that is given us."

~~~
silvester23
It's no secret many parts of LotR are influenced by Tolkien's experiences in
WW1, but in these lines it seems especially evident.

~~~
arethuza
There is a letter Tolkien wrote to a fan where he says:

 _" My ‘Sam Gamgee’ is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the
privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognized as so far superior
to myself."_

[https://johngarth.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/sam-gamgee-and-
to...](https://johngarth.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/sam-gamgee-and-tolkiens-
batmen/)

------
martinpw
A long time ago I was working at an observatory searching for new asteroids.
For cloudy nights, they had a large library of paperbacks and I read LOTR
twice through. Because of this, when I got to name a newly discovered
asteroid, I wanted to call it Tolkien. I wrote to the publisher and got a
wonderful short letter back from Rayner Unwin, who talked to Christopher
Tolkien about it - here is the letter:

[https://imgur.com/a/XDGwOl6](https://imgur.com/a/XDGwOl6)?

~~~
skunkworker
That's an awesome first-hand story, and made me read up on 2675 just now.

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_bxg1
For those who don't know, Christopher Tolkien played a key role of editing and
compiling his father's drafts and notes into several complete books published
after his death, including _The Silmarillion_ , _The Children of Hurin_ , and
_Unfinished Tales_. Basically everything that came after _The Lord of the
Rings_.

~~~
jfengel
Indeed: while practically everything in _The Silmarillion_ was his father's
words, it did not appear until after JRR Tolkien's death. Only his father's
name appears on it, but Christopher's editing was absolutely essential. It
represents neither Tolkien's last thoughts nor his best writing, but the ones
that Christopher felt were most consistent with the published _Lord of the
Rings_.

Christopher doesn't get enough credit for the monumental task of piecing
something vaguely coherent from Tolkien's numerous drafts. He basically
devoted his life to understanding his father's work. And that is effort should
be appreciated: Tolkien was one of the most creative literary thinkers of the
past century, and having so much insight into his process is almost unique
among authors.

~~~
ska
As I understand it a lot of the heavy lifting on that (the Silmarillion) was
done by a young Guy Gavriel Kay. But neither of them have been very
forthcoming about the collaboration.

~~~
Andrex
Christopher has also publicly expressed regret at how quickly he assembled the
published Silmarillion, I wonder if that's related.

~~~
einpoklum
Was he thinking about a re-edited edition of The Silmarillion? With
significant changes?

~~~
mcguire
My understanding is that _The Silmarilion_ was originally conceived as wrapped
in Bilbo's Translations ftom the Elvish*. Christopher Tolkien said that he
regretted not having that in the published version.

But there was never any talk of a new edition.

------
AdmiralAsshat
While primarily an editor for his father's work, he was a scholar in his own
right. He released his own translation of a Norse epic, "The Saga Of King
Heidrek The Wise":

[http://vsnrweb-
publications.org.uk/The%20Saga%20Of%20King%20...](http://vsnrweb-
publications.org.uk/The%20Saga%20Of%20King%20Heidrek%20The%20Wise.pdf)

------
saalweachter
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien_family](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien_family)

That's a nice hearty family tree.

It always makes me a little sad when there's a historical figure I liked and
their family tree just kind of peters out after a bit. May be a bit silly,
since I liked them for their intellectual output or creativity or political
impact.

~~~
Razengan
Same. Like with Nikola Tesla or H. P. Lovecraft, who died more or less
impoverished and were nowhere as cherished in their lifetime as they are now,
and many others like them who only received posthumous appreciated, it's like
they were cheated by fate. It makes me angry at how the world treated people
like them.

~~~
prirun
It's the same for many now-revered classical composers. I think sometimes the
world is just not ready to receive and understand true genius. Their
creativity takes decades to truly appreciate.

------
quentinms
If you find yourself in Paris, the National Library has a great exhibit on JRR
Tolkien [0] until February 16. Christopher Tolkien's work is heavily featured.
It's fully translated in English (for once).

[0] [https://www.bnf.fr/en/agenda/tolkien-journey-middle-
earth](https://www.bnf.fr/en/agenda/tolkien-journey-middle-earth)

------
hyperion2010
I have so many things to say here, but I think that the kernel of it is as
follows.

The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien, and The Fall of Gondolin are a gift,
unlooked for and unexpected. They are the best founding mythology one could
ask for, three Silmarils in the crown of a lifetime sorting through the mind
of his father. We can wish that JRR had lived another lifetime, we are blessed
to have gotten Christopher in his stead. If you have not read the forward to
The Fall of Gondolin it is a timely and poignant reflection. All I can say is
thank you.

~~~
sifar
The verses are so vivid, so poignant. They talk of great deeds, vows (e.g sons
of Feanor),the powers people had, the nobility they showed when faced with
terrible evil.

It makes one really sad for a lost world.

------
vbtemp
What sad terrible news. I finished reading the Silmarillion just last week,
and was impressed by how he turned loosely associated stories and myths into a
single, cohesive narrative that even had full continuity with LoTR. Just this
week again I was marveling that he was still around.

~~~
quadrangle
I don't see a person dying after 95 years of a well-lived productive life as
terrible. That's a pretty pathological view.

Celebrate his life. And maybe read some other things about the many much more
healthy perspectives cultures around the world have developed around death.

Sadness is fine, that's part of processing a loss. But neither this loss nor
the appropriate sadness are terrible things.

~~~
luspr
Why are suffering, illness, and death not terrible things - especially if we
have the happiness of a life well lived as a contrast?

~~~
analbumcover
If you read Tolkien (John, not Christopher) death is a gift given to Men that
even the Valar (essentially the pantheon of Arda) do not understand. It is
certainly not viewed as a negative.

~~~
newsbinator
It doesn't carry much weight when we write how lucky we are to be mortal,
since being immortal has never been a realistic option.

It brings to mind how Iain M. Banks wrote in the Culture series about beings
who chose functional immortality by uploading their consciousness to networked
hardware. One of them still programmed himself to need to pee in the
simulation, because he liked doing it.

Whereas I'd be surprised if any being programmed themselves to die in the
simulation and be wiped away.

But if they did, I'd love to know their reasoning.

~~~
gpderetta
In the Culture, for biological beings, it is considered in bad taste to live
more than a 4-5 centuries. Although effective biological immortality is
possible, at that age most Culture citizen choose to die, while a some upload
themselves or become drones.

I do not remember the books go too much into details about the reason for this
tradition though.

~~~
newsbinator
I don't remember the reasons either: it might be to make space in the sciences
and arts for new ideas and new ways of thinking.

Basically an avoidance of the kind of entrenched dogmas Eric Weinstein has
been podcasting about.

------
bovermyer
Well ____.

I'm going to start reading the Silmarillion again tonight. Maybe this time I
can finish it.

~~~
wiredfool
Here's a quick version: The Silmarillion in 1000 words.
[http://lotrspoofs.net/parodies-and-more/the-silmarillion-
in-...](http://lotrspoofs.net/parodies-and-more/the-silmarillion-
in-1000-words/)

One of the gems of the early net.

~~~
ReidZB
I'll also recommend Evan Palmer's Ainulindalë comic:
[https://www.evanpalmercomics.com/ainulindale](https://www.evanpalmercomics.com/ainulindale)

~~~
AprilArcus
Thanks for sharing; I hadn't seen this before and I loved it. The link to the
mentioned podcast conversation with the artist was broken; I tracked it down
and wanted to share:
[https://overcast.fm/+EIubFP3G8](https://overcast.fm/+EIubFP3G8)

------
twodave
Last year, I finished reading The Lord of the Rings to my girls. Before that I
read them The Hobbit. It took about three years to finish it all, but it was a
great for them as an opportunity to learn about a variety of topics (language
arts in general primarily, but especially vocabulary). The experience was also
good to me because, while I'm typically prone to skim through less interesting
passages, it forced me to read every word.

I adopted voices for the different characters to keep them interested, and to
give them something to look forward to, I would not let them watch the movies
until we finished reading the corresponding volume of the series. We had so
much fun with this!

I'm extremely thankful for Christopher's work because the movies (which were
released when I was a teenager) were my first introduction to his father's
work.

~~~
brianwawok
What ages did you do? Were they able to keep up with the story OK at those
ages?

~~~
flatiron
My daughter is about to turn 6 and I think that the hobbit would be too much
for her. I too would like to hear what age he started and if they had any
resistance at first. My big problem now is the only Barbie book they had at
the library was in Italian and google translate makes me seem like I’m having
a stroke when I read it to her but she loves it anyway.

~~~
edgarvaldes
I started reading The Hobbit to my son (5 years old). We read half a chapter
every night, or even less before he falls sleep. He loves it, and asks me to
read to him when I almost forgot to do so. He asks A LOT of questions about
new words and differences with the movies (he is a big fan of them). Our pace
is quite slow, but it is a great time together.

~~~
scandinavegan
I read the Hobbit to my daughter when she was 4 and to my son when he was 6,
both closer to 5 and 7. I aimed for 10 pages a night of a pocket edition we
have, which meant 25-30 nights or so.

My daughter got really scared with the giant spiders in the forest and wanted
to quit, but I managed to convince her to go on. She was happy we did because
everything turned out fine in the end. She was bored by the battle at the end
of the book, but we got through it.

It's hard to know how much of the story my son understood. I usually reminded
him what happened last time every time we started ("They were walking through
the forest, remember?" or "Last time, they just reached the mountain!"). The
individual parts are easy enough to understand, I think.

They both loved the riddle game with Gollum, and it sparked (or fed) an
interest in riddles in both. It's an excellent book when you want to take the
step up from children's books.

------
z3t4
The commercialization screwed it for me too. I remember that at the time the
first movie was released, the web was scorched of fan material. Fans where
threatened and insane amount of fan arts where removed and replaced by
commercialized material, especially cartography.

------
agumonkey
I just read that he was quite critical of Jackson's adaptation. I'm not a huge
fan of the franchise (not too critical either since it's not the easiest
adaptation to make) and I'd love to read if Christopher made detailed comments
on what he felt was wrong. Le Monde (french newspaper) interviewed him but he
only said one line "they turned it into an action movie for teenagers".. I'd
hope he had more to say elsewhere :)

Or maybe I should just read the silmarillion

~~~
mikro2nd
And now Amazon or somebody is going to make some sort of LoTR prequel TV
series!? Travesty, I say! Sheer, naked greed.

~~~
flyinghamster
Yuck. I've refused to see any of the LoTR movies, so this looks like another
thing I'll refuse to watch.

------
TheDesolate0
At only 95! So young for an Elf.

------
kaesar14
Interesting to see the low opinion in which he held the movies, considering
the revered place in American cinema the trilogy holds. Considering the
astounding length and detail with which they were adapted, what more could he
have possibly hoped for? What other adaptions have done more to hold true to
such a complicated and intricate fantasy universe, especially in the early
2000's and earlier? Many adaptions since, inspired by LOTR, have failed to
hold to their source material with such honor and gravity (GoT, etc.).

~~~
scop
I have a love/hate relationship with the movies. While the trilogy brought to
life Middle-Earth to a degree I never thought imaginable, there were some
elements that just fell incredibly flat.

If I had to pin it on one thing, it was that Peter Jackson and team were
extremely good at portraying evil in all of its ugliness but failed to portray
"goodness" with equal skill (which admittedly is not an easy thing to do!).
While the honest goodness of the Hobbits was wonderful, the portrayals of
"good" characters such as Aragorn and Galadriel fell very flat. This is not to
blame on the actors at all as I thought Viggo did an awesome job; but the
screenplay needlessly muddled the character.

Also, where was the damn poetry?

~~~
ryanmercer
What kills me the most about the movies, especially the Hobbit ones, is the
CGI. I watched 2 of the 3 Hobbit films this past fall and the CGI is so
jarring and dated. Worse, it's heavily used and just ruins the experience for
me.

For example, when they're going down the river and being pursued from the
shore... come on, nearly everything in that scene is CGI and screams "we were
hoping to make a theme park ride, here's the trailer!", honestly I could have
lived without that scene entirely.

I did not watch any of them when they first came out though, perhaps they were
better at the time but watching them now they almost feel The 10th Kingdom
quality.

~~~
goda90
The Hobbit movies were a travesty. But The Lord Of The Rings movies made
excellent use of miniature models, full size sets, make-up and costumes, and
great locations. They come from a period where CGI was much more limited, and
the artists behind it weren't trying to do everything with it. When you use
CGI for everything, like in The Hobbit movies, you lose connection with
reality and it is jarring no matter how detailed it is.

~~~
throwawayhhakdl
Smaug in particular is rendered as a different creature across two movies.
Shrug.

(Wyrm vs dragon)

------
StarlaAtNight
I read that as Christopher Walken has died

------
fsckboy
on hacker news, we STEM lords (of ring 0?) like to examine both sides of every
issue, right guys? Guys?

I'm sure he was a nice man, and I'm sure you've all derived a lot of pleasure
from time spent with his work, much like so many engineers over the years have
spent so much time and earned so much of their livings from FORTRAN and COBOL.
Because, it must be said, FORTRAN and COBOL are to Computer Science as Lord of
the Rings is to English Literature.

So I hope this man rests in blissful peace as earnestly as I could wish it of
any good man. But let me go even further and say, if it turns out that if
after we pass instead of sleep we are instead subjected to involuntary cage-
fighting in our area of expertise, I earnestly hope that this nice man is not
put in the cage with the recently departed literary critic and scholar Harold
Bloom, may he also rest in peace having left us a cultural hole that's more
than 6 feet in every dimension, but not as big as the "new ones" he and his
friends tore in Lord of the Rings.

[and lest you think I'm just being snarky, there's plenty of trash genre porn
that I enjoy, I just don't exalt it. Quick quiz: who was the only credible
protagonist in Lord of the Rings? answer after the jump]

~~~
vlunkr
You know he didn't write Lord of the Rings, right? You're either really
reaching for a way to be contrarian or your whole knowledge of the series is
just borrowed opinions from critics.

~~~
fsckboy
or I actually have taste in literature, and just because you enjoy something
doesn't mean you know all there is to know about it? Huge numbers of people
love McDonalds and "better" fast food burgers like Five Guys or In-and-Out.
It's not "contrarian" or "borrowed opinion" to be one of the smaller number of
people who have higher standards than that.

