At last, is the Big Battle of Helm's Deep Lore-Breaking?

[staveisle]

You should probably stop making this kind of thing up. It's not helping you make whatever point it is you are trying to make.

It works for politicians.

I started trying to figure out where all that exchange factored into the 'Helm's Deep Lore Break?' discussion but gave up. Normally this ends with the forum mod closing the thread. For me, whomever stops responding to the other first is the winner, because after having gone on this long, winning a 'point' doesn't stop the other from posting or conceding the point, and the points are so far away from the original topic that it's hard to give points to either. The advice given to Nixon about Vietnam was most appropos here: Declare victory and go home.

[daveamongus]

I'm not so sure it's the characters themselves that have exceptional powers (I mean, it's still just a regular arrow and a regular stab) but their fate that is exceptional. A lot of such events have always reminded me of the Iliad and its treatment of both prophecy/fate and aristeia: the "prophecy" of the Witch-King's death, Bard being helped by the thrush (especially seeing birds as messengers/avatars of Manwë in other works), the death of Theoden being another textbook example, etc.

Basically it's more of a narrative staple of western epic than something to take literally.

And that, I think, is part of what I find so frustrating about the lore-lawyering, and part of what I've tried to get at; the text of LOTR is not intended to be, and never was intended to be, a "photorealistic" factual account, unambiguously and exhaustively correct in all particulars. I find reading history, in some ways, just as fascinating and exciting as reading an epic fantasy like this, because all I can see are the gaps, big and small, for fascinating, exciting stories. And while I don't expect everyone to share that particular joy, I find it really frustrating that others can't stand to let a person have that engagement, and have to draw arbitrary lines all over the place. It's maddening.

But yeah, I recognize that it's fate/prophecy/legend. To go back to the Troy analogy I made before, it's like the Achilles thing. If there was an Achilles, he was probably just a really good warrior, an ancient Macedonian Wyatt Earp who had somehow made it through battle after battle without a scratch, until some guy happened to defeat him outside of Troy by getting him in the eponymous tendon.

[ColorSpecs]

You should probably stop making this kind of thing up. It's not helping you make whatever point it is you are trying to make.

What are you talking about? He said it:

I do this because your words, to me, are like orcs in the Pelennor.

Look, obviously we're at this point now because you people have lost your argument. The objective now for you is to troll and flame to get this thread closed as quickly as possible. Nothing new there. I'm sure the powers that be will come to your collective rescue in due time. However, if you're going to continue to attack me because you can't impeach what I've had to say, then at least try not to make yourselves look bad in the process, would ya?

[Runesi_EU]

What? I caught the dude in a very obvious lie

No you didn't, you just made an incorrect assumption based on my characters levels.

Back on topic.

Whilst us being at the Hornbug as Dwarves, Hobbits, Elves is probably unlikely if not obviously incorrect based on the text I still don't believe session play (or something like it) offers a better alternative, especially from an entertainment point of view. I think a stretch of the lore in this instance (and in some previous instances, dwarves in Moria for example) actually make for a better game.

[BackAgainAndThere]

I think a stretch of the lore in this instance (and in some previous instances, dwarves in Moria for example) actually make for a better game.

No S$@%, that's why the root of this argument is pretty pointless. It appears some people don't want an MMORPG but prefer to have a guided virtual retelling of every word of the books in which this game is based on.

Want a true LotR experience? Go read the books.

Want a little bit more of a theatrical experience? Listen to the audiobook (Robert Inglis does a very nice job narrating).

Want to quickly get your Middle Earth fix for the day and relax? Watch the movies.

[Radhruin_EU]

Well, the narrator obviously forgot to mention about the hero that -during the war of the ring and the chase of Sauron's Ring- killed 2 dragons (one of them ressurected by a vicious wight and a Nazgul which you also killed), killed thousands of Orcs, helped Aragorn reforge his blade by killing a huge turtle in Evendim, killed the Witch King and a few of the other 9, killed dozens of giants, and humongous spiders (possibly spawns of Ungoliant), and helped hundreds of people by doing thousands of quests in Middle-Earth.
Tolkien failed to mention all those deeds (most among them being mighty). Therefore corroding the very core of your game. But not mine.
For some reason you won't accept this. Instead you will only go mad at Dwarves battling among Rohirrim at Helm's Deep (after of course they aided hundreds of them and becoming more known among them).

This is a fallacy. Oh no, you can't complain about {gameplay feature} unless you always complain about {all this other stuff} too! The fact that in the past, people (me included) have commented extensively on all that OTT stuff you mention seems to somehow get ignored. If we did talk about that as well, you'd probably be complaining about digging up old arguments instead. So no, I'm not going to play that sort of game. We're discussing one particular topic.

Besides which, mentioning all that OTT stuff reinforces the point that the typical player-character is portrayed as a super-hero and hence it's just not sensible for anyone to suggest that this paragon of valour is going to rock up to Helm's Deep, not do anything of note and not get noticed. The gameplay is bound to involve insanely overblown heroics just like it has before, since by now that's a well-established pattern.

Is it so far fetched for somebody that helped a whole country to be fighting among those people in their time of need?
No. Not at all. In fact it's most logical to do so. And to even be asked by the king to help.

Is anyone saying it's far-fetched in itself? I don't think so. All that's being said is that the ensuing super-heroics are very likely going to end up being lore-breaking since no such heroics actually went on or they'd have been noticed, talked about, spun into tales. It'd all be a change to the books - again, nothing wrong with that in itself, there's only this inexplicable need some people have to pretend nothing's being changed to accommodate it.

[Cazthelm]

Really? So you've played since April 2007 and yet have only managed to compile one 85 character?

What's so weird about that? I have an account from December 2010 and I leveled my only character from 40 to 85 in the last 2 months...

Not all of use play the same time, some of us don't play in weeks and other people have fun just crafting/housing/exploring/etc.

[whheydt]

What's Eowyn? Or Merry? Merry brought the Witch-King to his knees with a single blow to the "leg" and Eowyn vanquished him with a single stab to the face.

That little incident is easily explainable by considering JRRTs pofessional life.

He's handing you a linguistic solution to a problem he set up.

Glorfindel, who has something of a gift for prophecy, stated that (similarly to the set up for MacBeth, in the play of the same name), 'Not by the hand of man' would the Witch-king be destroyed. Now, older languages, from which English is descended, made a distinction that English has lost.

"Man" in--say--Latin can be translated in two ways. Either it can mean a "man, but not a woman or child" OR a "man, not a non-human (animal)".

Tolkien killed the Witch-king by using a combination of two kinds of "not man", a woman and a Hobbit.

[ColorSpecs]

What's so weird about that? I have an account from December 2010 and I leveled my only character from 40 to 85 in the last 2 months...

Not all of use play the same time, some of us don't play in weeks and other people have fun just crafting/housing/exploring/etc.

Nothing is weird about it. Dude said he was a gamer. I said as a gamer he is more likely to go from game to game where I won't. He said he's been here since 2007 and will be to the end. I looked at his stable of characters, saw 1 85 a couple 65's and some under. If he's been here that long it says most likely that he's prone to long breaks, ostensibly to play other games. Which is exactly what I said to him in the first place that he denied.

[Runesi_EU]

If he's been here that long it says most likely that he's prone to long breaks, ostensibly to play other games. Which is exactly what I said to him in the first place that he denied.

Not quite exactly

I'm not a PC gamer. Unlike you, who will move on to other games very quickly, I will not. I will remain loyal to the IP (and thus "loyal" to Turbine so long as they have it) so that is my primary concern.

But I think we have de-railed this enough now so I am out.

[daveamongus]

That little incident is easily explainable by considering JRRTs pofessional life.

Sorry, I think you missed my point. I'm well aware of the way Tolkien used the prophecy and the gender of Eowyn and the stature of Merry to subvert reader expectations. Very elegant, and nicely done, but not something that's new to me.

My point was, in game, we can only ever kill things well below our notional level with what is effectively a single stab to the face, and I'm wondering what the level differential would have to be before I could one-shot Draigoch or the LT of Dol Guldur. Something far beyond what the level cap will likely ever be, I think. Whatever the writerly etymology of the defeat of the Witch King, in game-world terms, that still puts Eowyn and Merry, as they appear in Pelennor, way, WAY beyond the skill level of our characters. We might drive off a Nazgul, or defeat a Cargul, but it still takes significant coordination of a number of allies, not just us on our own. My argument is that hyperbolic treatment of our feats still doesn't actually put us on a level with, frankly, two of the lesser warriors of the fellowship-and-friends.

As awesome and famous as our PCs are getting... the canonical characters are yet more awesome and powerful. We have not achieved their level yet, if we ever will.

[Taravith]

But yeah, I recognize that it's fate/prophecy/legend. To go back to the Troy analogy I made before, it's like the Achilles thing. If there was an Achilles, he was probably just a really good warrior, an ancient Macedonian Wyatt Earp who had somehow made it through battle after battle without a scratch, until some guy happened to defeat him outside of Troy by getting him in the eponymous tendon.

It's funny because I've been thinking of the relationship between the Iliad and the movie Troy when reading your earlier posts about the Red Book, and I find myself being puzzled at this thread in the same way I was at people who complained the Troy movie didn't feature the gods.

I think a lot of the arguing around "lore-breaking" in both cases stems from misunderstandings about the structure, role and public perception of myth (which is what Tolkien set out to write). The fact that a lot of classical myths have come down to us and are being spread in a rigid written form has given us the impression that myths have one "true" version when they are by nature fluid and allow for several - sometimes even contradictory - accounts.

In that perspective I'd go so far as to argue that the versions of the Middle-Earth myth that we all create with our characters are actually all concurrently valid.

[daveamongus]

It's funny because I've been thinking of the relationship between the Iliad and the movie Troy when reading your earlier posts about the Red Book, and I find myself being puzzled at this thread in the same way I was at people who complained the Troy movie didn't feature the gods.

I think a lot of the arguing around "lore-breaking" in both cases stems from misunderstandings about the structure, role and public perception of myth (which is what Tolkien set out to write). The fact that a lot of classical myths have come down to us and are being spread in a rigid written form has given us the impression that myths have one "true" version when they are by nature fluid and allow for several - sometimes even contradictory - accounts.

In that perspective I'd go so far as to argue that the versions of the Middle-Earth myth that we all create with our characters are actually all concurrently valid.

I think it's both puzzling and unsurprising, really. Sometimes, in my head, I blame the Enlightenment and scientific revolution (and I use "blame" very loosely), but it altered Western expectations about what is written down and what is omitted, and I think it gets people into a lot of trouble when engaging with myth, legend, history, etc. You could probably even blame the printing press a bit, for mass-producing the written word, such that "definitive" versions can be spread far and wide. And, of course, now this lovely medium. But then, I also think while the internet is helping disseminate "definitive" versions of things, it's also opening up more possibilities for fluid and changing versions of things to be produced as well. Quite a few writers have made their way lately engaging with fairy tales and genre tropes, subverting them, making them into living things without claiming ownership to that version of the fairy tale itself (for instance).

Personally, I'm ready to fully embrace the "concurrently valid" model of the experience in Middle Earth.

[Radhruin_EU]

I knew Marines who were 5'0" and 6'4". Put them in body armor, running and crouching and crawling, among a thousand other Marines? You could not pick out the differences very easily. Much less at night. Again, it remains to be seen how exactly our PCs are going to be integrated into the battle.

Dwarves are supposed about four and a half feet tall and very broad in the chest and shoulder compared to Men. Hobbits are supposed to be about three and a half feet tall, roughly the size of children of about four years old. So let's try to stick with relevant examples, shall we? At least people who can see over the battlements without standing on a box.

I don't recall slaying any dragons single-handedly; nor, actually, doing much of anything single-handedly, as much of a soloer as I tend to need to be. In fact, at several points in the story recently, the NPCs have called out my character's defining strength as being able to get people to work together. They rarely (never?) praise my single-handed skill in battle.

This despite the massive proportion of the game that's soloable nowadays? Not credible.

Just out of curiosity, are you also one of the folks who complains about how so many of our quests are fetch-and-carry and literal and figurative fence-mending?

I may have commented on how the game alternates between ridiculously over-the-top heroics and their exact opposite, yes.

Diverting what resources from Erebor? The Iron Garrison came from Eriador side of Moria and entered through the Hollin Gate. I think they're explicitly said to have come from Ered Luin. Yes/no?

If those Dwarves had nothing better to do then they should have gone to bolster Erebor's defences, not to fool around in Moria, because Dain knew months before the Council of Elrond that Sauron was going to come after Durin's Folk for declining to help him. In such a situation, allowing crazy adventures like going back into Moria would be insane. So unless Dain has no authority whatsoever over his own people, it shouldn't be happening. The home you have comes first, the halls of your ancestors can wait until you don't have the Dark Lord out to get you.

But, you want to get lore monkey? Let's get lore monkey. Now, in a narrative passage, it says that "after the Shadow passed, Celeborn came forth and led the host of Lorien over the Anduin in many boats." But then, in the timeline it says that on March 28, Celeborn crossed the Anduin and the destruction of Dol Guldur began. And by April 6, Celeborn and Tharanduil are meeting "in the midst of the forest." So, if you're correct, that's what... 8, 9 days to cross the river, fight through Southern Mirkwood, tear down Dul Guldur, and then walk halfway to the Lonely Mountain to take tea with Tharanduil? WOW. Mighty impressive. Or... again, invoking the conceit that every word of LOTR is written and compiled after the fact by explicitly named chroniclers, hobbits in fact who did not have personal knowledge of what went on there and were only hearing it, very likely, third-hand... Celeborn sent counter-attacks into Mirkwood, beseiged Dol Guldur, and killed or drove off some top leaders of the orcs there prior to final victory. Celeborn has not crossed the Anduin himself yet, and Dol Guldur has not been destroyed yet. You see it, at best, as splitting hairs, I see it as a neat and elegant way to slide some fun action into the uncertainty and gaps.

Oh here we go, this historicity bollocks again. I think the Elves would have bloody well remembered launching an assault on Dol Guldur! If they'd had the manpower to do any such thing they'd have done it rather sooner. As it was, before Sauron's fall Dol Guldur was simply too strong for them to assault, and they couldn't lay siege to it and properly defend their homes at the same time because they didn't have the manpower. They had the Orcs from Moria and the Misty Mountains to worry about as well, until after Sauron fell. There is no plausible reason to doubt the 'official' version (three assaults on Lorien before Sauron's fall, with the Elves having to remain on the defensive until then).

Tolkien didn't really, himself, have a consistent "take on magic." I find RKs to be fairly credible. The visual effects might be a tad over the top, but I think that there is power in words and runes, beyond simple communication, is a fairly significant theme through LOTR. And here's the thing about Tolkien's accounts of battle: they're often fairly vague. Rather vague, in fact. You can only get from him the basic nature of the battle, very few of the actual specifics.

Not so vague as to fail to make it absolutely clear that they're overwhelmingly conventional in their violence rather than magical. Unlike typical sword-and-sorcery stuff (i.e. most fantasy CRPGs and MMORPGs) there is no mention of people wandering around in robes hurling battle-magic about. So you're trying it on, there, it's just not credible. The RK's been torn to shreds lore-wise countless times over the years so if still you find them credible then all that does is cast grave doubt on how well you know the material.

So, here's a challenge, if you want to be a lore monkey about what happened in Tolkien's battles: show me mention of a crossbow. (Then you can go on to greater heights and you can show mention of recurve bows, longbows, and for your crowning achievement, explicit mention of a trebuchet.) Then we can talk about how one thing or another might make such a spectacular difference in a battle so as to earn historical mention, and one or another be a significant leap in how we understand the level of technology available at the end of the 3rd Age. As a special bonus hint to what I'm getting at, I'll leave this here: Agincourt.

Tolkien doesn't mention crossbows because the setting is early medieval in inspiration (rather than the usual High Medieval or Renaissance stuff), and at that time crossbows weren't in use in Western Europe. And the trebuchets are being used by Sauron's lot, with the implication that this is a technology which the good guys are lacking (since the stuff being hurled goes 'marvellously high' as if they hadn't seen that before). I don't see the relevance to talking about who's doing the fighting, especially when heroes get a lot of attention.

Within the lore itself

, LOTR is written by the hobbits about their friends. If you can demonstrate how any member of the fellowship must have been aware of the existence AND defeat of Draigoch, I'll concede your point. But this is not 2013, and my character wasn't whipping out his iPhone so he could tweet: "0wnz0red Draigoch!! http://twitpic.com/blahblah" so my buddy Aragorn could reply "@daveamongus LOL! You go, bro!" You can't complain about the travel time restrictions, then lay out the expectation that medieval communication is so good that everyone knows everything of note that happens everywhere in Middle Earth as soon as it happens, no matter how few witness it.

Based on stuff they were told after the war as well as stuff they'd seen themselves, as in finding out from the Elves what had happened to Dol Guldur, or finding out from the Dwarves what had happened re the Battle of Dale and the subsequent siege of Erebor. It is NOT just an account of what the hobbits did.

A dragon is hardly something which would escape attention. People talked about such things, e.g. Fram's slaying of Scatha the Worm, up in the Northlands way back when. A dragon appearing where Draigoch does at that time would have been way too big a deal for there not to be a tale because it was unheard-of for a dragon to be in such a place. If you're trying to pull some nonsense about "oh, it's just another dragon, happens all the time, no big deal" then you can forget it. Dragons and dragon-slayers are the very stuff of legend.

Actually, as Sapience said, they're aware where they're bending the lore, so I don't think they're pretending anything. I'm taking the contrary position to yours because I find your view a depressingly narrow view of the lore.

Nah, you're just trying to use that as a defence against people who know it better than you do, by trying to pretend it doesn't matter whenever it's convenient.

Other than the hobbits, can you name one character in LOTR who performs deeds of note who is not of royal lineage?

Boromir
Faramir
Denethor
Beregond
Imrahil
Erkenbrand

...and those are just the ones who spring to mind. I might also add that there were three non-royal Dwarves (Bifur, Bofur and Bombur) among Thorin's companions on the Quest of Erebor.

[ColorSpecs]

It's funny because I've been thinking of the relationship between the Iliad and the movie Troy when reading your earlier posts about the Red Book, and I find myself being puzzled at this thread in the same way I was at people who complained the Troy movie didn't feature the gods.

Isn't it also funny though, that the film you choose in defense of your position is considered a flop.

Well, to be generous, it did make money internationally, but between reviews, awards and domestic gross it failed expectations in all three categories.

[Taravith]

Isn't it also funny though, that the film you choose in defense of your position is considered a flop.

Given that I wasn't defending any position in a discussion that had nothing to do with box-office success... er, okay?

You could probably even blame the printing press a bit, for mass-producing the written word, such that "definitive" versions can be spread far and wide. And, of course, now this lovely medium. But then, I also think while the internet is helping disseminate "definitive" versions of things, it's also opening up more possibilities for fluid and changing versions of things to be produced as well.

That would be the perfect time for an expert on intertextuality to intervene

In any case it's certain that the transition from an oral tradition to a written one must have had much wider repercussions that just a formal change - like how we think about authors and their relevance to the text (or lack thereof ) as seen in this thread as well.

You're also making an interesting parallel with new forms of narration popularized by the internet. Off the top of my head, I'd mention fanfiction and written RP (maybe even LPs and ARRs - I'm pushing it a bit) as creative endeavours that link back to that "freedom" of the text - and god knows ink has been spilled as to the legitimacy and even legal issues around those!

A final note on the "myth plurality" thing, and without spoiling another ongoing thread, it's interesting to see that Christopher Tolkien took both routes: he edited a "definitive" version of myth in the Silmarillion, then published extra books to present the different versions of single events. It's also interesting to see that by definition several versions coexisting is necessarily "unfinished" work - would JRR Tolkien have agreed with this label, I wonder.

As a semi-related note, I propose an even more far-fetched theory: can we consider the narratives created by our characters through Turbine's settings as a form of collaborative fanfiction? (and are all myth narratives basically fanfiction?)

[ColorSpecs]

Given that I wasn't defending any position in a discussion that had nothing to do with box-office success... er, okay?

Er, no?

Did I just say box office? You wanted to use this example as one where a successful adaption can be done without being faithful to its lore. I just found it amusingly ironic that your example actually was considered a failure as defined by diverse metrics.

[daveamongus]

If those Dwarves had nothing better to do then they should have gone to bolster Erebor's defences, not to fool around in Moria, because Dain knew months before the Council of Elrond that Sauron was going to come after Durin's Folk for declining to help him. In such a situation, allowing crazy adventures like going back into Moria would be insane. So unless Dain has no authority whatsoever over his own people, it shouldn't be happening. The home you have comes first, the halls of your ancestors can wait until you don't have the Dark Lord out to get you.

So... are your criticizing Dain's decision? Or Turbine for suggesting he made it? It's perfectly valid for fictional characters to make bad decisions. Heck, the dwarves make all kinds of bad decisions in their effort to reopen Moria in the first place. And I get that you're suggesting that Turbine makes Dain make a decision you don't think he would have made... but that's what they get for their literal creative license, the one they paid actual money for. They get to decide that a character, who has no persona otherwise described, makes that decision to divert dwarves to Moria.

Oh here we go, this historicity bollocks again. I think the Elves would have bloody well remembered launching an assault on Dol Guldur! If they'd had the manpower to do any such thing they'd have done it rather sooner. As it was, before Sauron's fall Dol Guldur was simply too strong for them to assault, and they couldn't lay siege to it and properly defend their homes at the same time because they didn't have the manpower. They had the Orcs from Moria and the Misty Mountains to worry about as well, until after Sauron fell. There is no plausible reason to doubt the 'official' version (three assaults on Lorien before Sauron's fall, with the Elves having to remain on the defensive until then).

The official version says that Celeborn crossed the Anduin on March 28, and that the destruction of Dol Guldur began the same day. This says to me that the elves of Mirkwood were in a position to cast down the fortress by the time Celeborn crossed the river. Otherwise, that's a heck of a long ride, and to start destroying the fortress at the end of it? Amazing. And then by April 6, he's up in the middle of Mirkwood to chat with Tharanduil and divying up the forest between the two of them and the Beornings. Sorry, this just doesn't hold water. I get that you could infer that that's what it says... but it's just not feasible. The likely answer is, the chronicler was glossing over details to nail down basic key events.

Look, in the historicity argument there's 3 steps. First is, word getting to relevant subjects of the chronicle. Second is, those subjects relating or remembering to relate everything to the chronicler. Third is, the chronicler choosing what to preserve and what to ignore. Three places where details and sidelights are almost certain to get lost.

So, first, imagine the scene: King Elessar sits on his throne and a minstrel comes to play to him and relates the slaying of Draigoch. "Wow," says Elessar later, "another dragon was slain, while we were floating down the Anduin? I had no idea Draigoch was still around... Pity, Bilbo would have loved to hear that story." Or second, Gimli and Legolas are pushing off in their boat, "Legolas my lad, it's a shame I'll never see Daveamongusa again, now that we're headed to the undying lands." "Who?" "You remember, tall human lass, red hair... we saw her at the Hornburg." "Oh yes, I remember, very accomplished. Pity, Bilbo would have liked to hear of her adventures. I wonder what ever became of her?" Or, third, sitting around Imladris: "Now that we're all here," says Bilbo, "tell me everything you know about the War of the Ring. I must write it all down." "All?" Merry says, laughing a little. "Oh my... we could fill volumes, volumes and volumes! Tell him, Lord Elrond!" "So much has happened, indeed, and I fear your hand may tire in the writing of it all." "Very well, very well, just the highlights. What all happened with you lot while I was here dozing?"

And then, fast forward five years and Frodo is assembling it all: "Hmmm. I'm certain the Lorien elves did not cross the Anduin until after Sauron fell. But Bilbo's notes put the first elves crossing in February. That can't be right... Probably more poetic if they don't start in until after Sauron falls anyway." And so on.

Tolkien doesn't mention crossbows because the setting is early medieval in inspiration (rather than the usual High Medieval or Renaissance stuff), and at that time crossbows weren't in use in Western Europe. And the trebuchets are being used by Sauron's lot, with the implication that this is a technology which the good guys are lacking (since the stuff being hurled goes 'marvellously high' as if they hadn't seen that before). I don't see the relevance to talking about who's doing the fighting, especially when heroes get a lot of attention.

Right, so, what you're saying is that it's critically important to reference the vague combat accounts of dwarves when railing against Rune-Keepers, but you're not nearly so concerned about crossbows (of the First Age!) or really anything else. It's just the things that other people specifically like and find enjoyable to play, within the context of this as a game, and as a class with distinct gameplay. Everything else can be as out of place as you like, just so long as it doesn't affect your enjoyment of the game. Like travel times! Teleportation! Time Travel! Hobbits leaving the Shire! Etc.!

You have a line in the sand. Fine. Embrace it. Stop setting yourself up as an arbiter of Too Much.

Based on stuff they were told after the war as well as stuff they'd seen themselves, as in finding out from the Elves what had happened to Dol Guldur, or finding out from the Dwarves what had happened re the Battle of Dale and the subsequent siege of Erebor. It is NOT just an account of what the hobbits did.

No, but the narrative is very clearly focused on the actions of a handful of people and the events immediately surrounding and affecting them. Everything else is summarized which reasonably offers room for interpretation and fuzziness.

A dragon is hardly something which would escape attention. People talked about such things, e.g. Fram's slaying of Scatha the Worm, up in the Northlands way back when. A dragon appearing where Draigoch does at that time would have been way too big a deal for there not to be a tale because it was unheard-of for a dragon to be in such a place. If you're trying to pull some nonsense about "oh, it's just another dragon, happens all the time, no big deal" then you can forget it. Dragons and dragon-slayers are the very stuff of legend.

Cool, okay. So. Then, it should be reasonable to assume that we know the names of all the dragons ever slain, and the names of their slayers? Do you have a list somewhere? I'd like to read it. I bet it's legendary.

Nah, you're just trying to use that as a defence against people who know it better than you do, by trying to pretend it doesn't matter whenever it's convenient.

More like, I'm poking at lore-lawyers who don't understand the function of legend or history in determining the actuality of events, and have set themselves up as arbiters of what's enough and too much. I'm expressing my supreme annoyance at people who are determined to look down their nose at the fun of others.

Boromir
Faramir
Denethor
Beregond
Imrahil
Erkenbrand

...and those are just the ones who spring to mind. I might also add that there were three non-royal Dwarves (Bifur, Bofur and Bombur) among Thorin's companions on the Quest of Erebor.

Okay, but eliminate Boromir, Faramir, Denethor, Imrahil, and Erkenbrand if I expand the criteria to "noble." (The Stewards were nobility in effect, if no other way.)

So... then you have Beregond. One guy. (The same one I was thinking of, incidentally.) One, non-noble guy.

Is your character noble? Did any non-noble soldiers or warriors acquit themselves well on the field of battle? None of them performed heroically? How is it we don't know their names?

Or could it be that, with very few and limited exceptions, Tolkien, like most people writing these sorts of legends, is mostly concerned about the kings and queens and nobility, the people "of name and title" who performed heroically. It's about their doings. It's not saying that no one else performed mighty deeds, but those people, after the war, tried to go back to their lives and made no other impression on the world after those deeds were complete (probably--Daveamongusa is looking forward to settling down and having some redheaded kids with a nice lad from Dale, but maybe others will keep adventuring). At any rate... commoners don't get mentioned. Not because they weren't heroic, but because they were common. Fact of life, fact of this genre, whether you're talking heroic fantasy, epic fantasy, or legend and myth.

Anyway. If you don't want to accept that there's room for serious heroism, there's not much more that can be said. But thanks for a good argument.

[Taravith]

You wanted to use this example as one where a successful adaption can be done without being faithful to its lore.

You haven't even read the posts, have you?

But I'll indulge you, if only because I think it's a cool topic to be discussing. To pinpoint what is truthful to the myth (the "lore"), one must define what it is and what it sets out to do in the first place.

So I was using this example to illustrate how the way you choose to interpret the nature of a myth can alter your perceptions of what is lore-breaking.

Some people think myth is just fictionalized accounts of historical events. That entails that 1) there's a "true" version of events and that 2) the fictionalized account is neither exhaustive nor entirely truthful. In my example, to the Iliad corresponds Troy, that tried to imagine the "real" event that spawned the myth. I related that to daveamongus's idea that the Red Book could be seen as the fictionalized account of the "true" story in which our characters can, maybe, exist.

But that's not the whole story because myth never really concerns itself with having one true version of anything, and there are many other ways to interpret myth, what it is and what it does and why.

Fun ensued.

[secondstar]

Dwarves are supposed about four and a half feet tall and very broad in the chest and shoulder compared to Men. Hobbits are supposed to be about three and a half feet tall, roughly the size of children of about four years old. So let's try to stick with relevant examples, shall we? At least people who can see over the battlements without standing on a box.

Such a missed opportunity here, if only Turbine had extended character scaling a bit further. Instead of just scaling a level 10 character to level 95, also scale up dwarves and hobbits to six feet tall or so, and give the dwarf shoulders and chest a little slimming. Probably a temporary deferred radiation side effect from those elfstones carried earlier in the epic (Dori apparently swallowed one of those so I wonder what ended up happening to him). Not forgetting elves here but they could just be forced to wear a hat.

[Angadan]

Such a missed opportunity here, if only Turbine had extended character scaling a bit further. Instead of just scaling a level 10 character to level 95, also scale up dwarves and hobbits to six feet tall or so, and give the dwarf shoulders and chest a little slimming. Probably a temporary deferred radiation side effect from those elfstones carried earlier in the epic (Dori apparently swallowed one of those so I wonder what ended up happening to him). Not forgetting elves here but they could just be forced to wear a hat.

lol, very nicely turned.

[ColorSpecs]

So I was using this example to illustrate how the way you choose to interpret the nature of a myth can alter your perceptions of what is lore-breaking.

Ya? Lets look back:

It's funny because I've been thinking of the relationship between the Iliad and the movie Troy when reading your earlier posts about the Red Book, and I find myself being puzzled at this thread in the same way I was at people who complained the Troy movie didn't feature the gods.

In this passage you seem to be saying to me, and I'll paraphrase so you get the gist of how I read it, that you found it funny, those of us complaining about the lore the same way those who complained about the movie Troy. In the Red Book it leaves open the opportunity for wild adaption like we saw in Troy, and it worked out well there.

Except it didn't work out well.

What you and Dave seem to want to do is redefine lore-breaking in defense of Turbine, but that doesn't make any sense either because Sapience fully admits to it being lore breaking and see's no need for a defense, much less a redefinition. The argument is strictly on the merits of breaking the lore (in text, spirit, tone, intent). Not whether it was broken in the first place.

So, I guess it was either the bad example I found humorous at its failure, or invalid. Your choice.

[daveamongus]

That would be the perfect time for an expert on intertextuality to intervene

Oh, intertextuality. Where aren't you?

In any case it's certain that the transition from an oral tradition to a written one must have had much wider repercussions that just a formal change - like how we think about authors and their relevance to the text (or lack thereof ) as seen in this thread as well.

You're also making an interesting parallel with new forms of narration popularized by the internet. Off the top of my head, I'd mention fanfiction and written RP (maybe even LPs and ARRs - I'm pushing it a bit) as creative endeavours that link back to that "freedom" of the text - and god knows ink has been spilled as to the legitimacy and even legal issues around those!

Oh, certainly, I could go off in that direction all day. Personally, I don't believe fanfiction is its own separate entity, but part of a continuum of engagement with existing text and created work. I mean, one of the dirty little secrets that's really not so secret is that genre is rife with fanfiction, just a lot of it has the "serial numbers filed off" as I like to say. But even those that aren't explicitly "Star Trek, but with Commodore Thames G. Burke" sort of things, most genre fiction exists in conversation with what came before it; sometimes a direct homage or challenge to previous works, or simply taking earlier works as a foundational point and building from them into more rich or detailed explorations of similar ideas, themes, and situations.

A final note on the "myth plurality" thing, and without spoiling another ongoing thread, it's interesting to see that Christopher Tolkien took both routes: he edited a "definitive" version of myth in the Silmarillion, then published extra books to present the different versions of single events. It's also interesting to see that by definition several versions coexisting is necessarily "unfinished" work - would JRR Tolkien have agreed with this label, I wonder.

That is kind of funny, but legally he's entitled, I guess. I wonder if any purists were up in arms over The Children of Hurin or they gave it a pass as springing from some Tolkien or another. Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have been at work on a similar enterprise, expanding the background of the Dune novels, I see.

As a semi-related note, I propose an even more far-fetched theory: can we consider the narratives created by our characters through Turbine's settings as a form of collaborative fanfiction? (and are all myth narratives basically fanfiction?)

I honestly don't find it far-fetched at all; I think the only thing mildly controversial about the idea is that "fanfiction" has acquired serious emotional baggage over the years, so people who might otherwise be open to the ideas presented, may well recoil when the term is applied. Otherwise, though? I think the exact same impulse is at work, essentially.

[Witch0King]

Is your character noble?

I'd say yes if you mean noble by deeds and behaviour, turbine has made the character theirs, not yours. Your character is a goody-good-good without a single bad bone in him because thats how turbine made him. you dont got a choice about your character rather than appearance. something that annoy me to this day. If you mean noble by heritage I'd say no.

[Radhruin_EU]

So... are your criticizing Dain's decision? Or Turbine for suggesting he made it? It's perfectly valid for fictional characters to make bad decisions. Heck, the dwarves make all kinds of bad decisions in their effort to reopen Moria in the first place. And I get that you're suggesting that Turbine makes Dain make a decision you don't think he would have made... but that's what they get for their literal creative license, the one they paid actual money for. They get to decide that a character, who has no persona otherwise described, makes that decision to divert dwarves to Moria.

Turbine, of course, for making up such a contrived story. It's not the only thing that's wrong with it - the timing is just oh so convenient (Balrog dies, Dwarves go for it as if they'd been waiting for a signal).

Are you now trying to contend that Turbine's storytelling is beyond reproach?

The official version says that Celeborn crossed the Anduin on March 28, and that the destruction of Dol Guldur began the same day. This says to me that the elves of Mirkwood were in a position to cast down the fortress by the time Celeborn crossed the river. Otherwise, that's a heck of a long ride, and to start destroying the fortress at the end of it? Amazing. And then by April 6, he's up in the middle of Mirkwood to chat with Tharanduil and divying up the forest between the two of them and the Beornings. Sorry, this just doesn't hold water. I get that you could infer that that's what it says... but it's just not feasible. The likely answer is, the chronicler was glossing over details to nail down basic key events.

And you're also trying to second-guess Tolkien to make Turbine's contrivances look better...

Look, in the historicity argument there's 3 steps. First is, word getting to relevant subjects of the chronicle. Second is, those subjects relating or remembering to relate everything to the chronicler. Third is, the chronicler choosing what to preserve and what to ignore. Three places where details and sidelights are almost certain to get lost.

What about the step of hey, is it really likely that the Elves would have forgotten assaulting Dol Guldur? Kind of a big deal, not a mere detail.

Right, so, what you're saying is that it's critically important to reference the vague combat accounts of dwarves when railing against Rune-Keepers, but you're not nearly so concerned about crossbows (of the First Age!) or really anything else. It's just the things that other people specifically like and find enjoyable to play, within the context of this as a game, and as a class with distinct gameplay. Everything else can be as out of place as you like, just so long as it doesn't affect your enjoyment of the game. Like travel times! Teleportation! Time Travel! Hobbits leaving the Shire! Etc.!

The reason there are crossbows (and plate armour) is that the mass audience would carp about them if they weren't there. Just like they'd carp about it if travel times were longer (still less realistic, that's obviously a non-starter), or if there were no swift travel (it's not literally teleportation, it''s a convenience feature), or if there were no playable hobbits. These are all things about which I have commented in the past but I'm not going to dig them up every single damn time.

You have a line in the sand. Fine. Embrace it. Stop setting yourself up as an arbiter of Too Much.

I'm not. I'm just saying that having the player-characters at Helm's Deep will inevitably be lore-breaking if it involves them getting up to their usual over-the-top deeds, because those would be the sort of thing people would definitely remember and tell stories about. The game bloats the role of the player-characters to an excessive degree and that means their involvement is high-profile.

No, but the narrative is very clearly focused on the actions of a handful of people and the events immediately surrounding and affecting them. Everything else is summarized which reasonably offers room for interpretation and fuzziness.

Not so. The outline of what happened elsewhere is clearly spelled out, most particularly in the chronicle of the Great Years in the appendices. Or had you forgotten about that?

Cool, okay. So. Then, it should be reasonable to assume that we know the names of all the dragons ever slain, and the names of their slayers? Do you have a list somewhere? I'd like to read it. I bet it's legendary.

Only you could pretend that killing a dragon is too small a deal to attract attention

More like, I'm poking at lore-lawyers who don't understand the function of legend or history in determining the actuality of events, and have set themselves up as arbiters of what's enough and too much. I'm expressing my supreme annoyance at people who are determined to look down their nose at the fun of others.

More like supreme inability to carry an argument without falling back on making convenient excuses. Dwarves reclaiming Moria, against all reason? Oh, Dain just totally forgot that Sauron had it in for him. Spurious major assault on Dol Guldur? Oh, everyone got that mixed up. Dead dragon? Oh, no big deal, hardly worth mentioning. Outlanders running around at Helm's Deep doing hugely over the top deeds of heroism? Oh, everyone just missed that too.

Okay, but eliminate Boromir, Faramir, Denethor, Imrahil, and Erkenbrand if I expand the criteria to "noble." (The Stewards were nobility in effect, if no other way.)

If you just shift the goalposts after the fact, you mean?

So... then you have Beregond. One guy. (The same one I was thinking of, incidentally.) One, non-noble guy.

Is your character noble? Did any non-noble soldiers or warriors acquit themselves well on the field of battle? None of them performed heroically? How is it we don't know their names?

Because they didn't do the sort of insane heroics that the player-characters do routinely. But Beregond is a good example - what gets him remembered is that he's instrumental in saving Faramir from being burned alive. That sort of thing is all in a day's work for the player-characters though, isn't it? Small beer, almost. That's the point, that the player-characters are always getting up to stuff that would attract attention so suddenly pretending nobody will notice them, this once when it's convenient to your argument, is a joke.

Let's not forget that Turbine haven't ever featured the player-characters as just some ragtag bunch of adventurers, they've had them hobnobbing with major characters from the get-go and doing all manner of unlikely deeds the whole time so they're emphatically not just a bunch of commoner nobodies whom nobody would remember. It would have been a very different game if they'd treated them as being like Beregond, relatively ordinary people rather than overblown superheroes who can deal with pretty much anything. But no, Joe Gamer wants the superheroics so superheroics we must have, and as a result you cannot feasibly argue that such deeds can easily go unnoticed (especially when there are thousands of people around to witness them!).