Perhaps I will not go to Hell after all.
Apr. 11th, 2003 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynIf only because they'll have an impossible time figuring out how to customize it to my various sins and insanities. Remember this post? Well, my innocent speculation on how to redeem the idea of Tolkien as Middle-Earth wizard from the Mary Sue story in which it was conceived got a little too detailed for my own good. Here, consider this crossposted from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
marysues:
Already gave the matter some thought. It originally involved placing Narnia in the unknown East of Middle-Earth, somewhere past the location of ancient Cuivinen - possibly in the Empty Lands, once they had been found and abandoned by the sailors who were looking for Numenor and Aman after the sinking. The thought I had was that the Elves had the Straight Road into the West that led them to Aman, and that the Narnians were somehow endowed with a similar Straight Road - one that led into the Utter East, to the edge of the old world, where the seas ran sweet. Lord knows the islands encountered in Voyage of the Dawn Treader were fairly redolent of the Enchanted Islands and the Islands of Shadow that lay between Numenor and Valinor. . .
It got a little over-complicated the more I thought about it, and I wound up thinking there was a simpler explanation. Uncle Andrew's rings transported their wearers to the Wood Between the Worlds, where each pond led to a different world. It seemed a bit more logical that Middle-Earth and Narnia should both be worlds accessible through the Wood, since we know that at least one other world - the one that Jadis / the White Witch came from, with the dead city of Charn - was found by human travelers. Alatar and Pallando, therefore, went into the East of Middle-Earth, and when Saruman left, they kept going. My feeling is that they were teaching and being taught by kinds of Men that no one had seen in a very long time, perhaps even Men who had never had dealings with any kinds of elves at all. Perhaps - who knows? Perhaps they came to Cuivinen's old location at last, and there were reminded of the Blessed Realm they had left behind, which they remembered only in a dream. Alatar might have been troubled then, but Pallando was so fascinated by it all that he took up a fistful of the sand from the shores of the Waters of Awakening, sand left over from when the world was new. After that Alatar could not sleep again, because the thoughts of what should have been done, and had not been done, were too strong. Ultimately he resolved to seek out some kind of redemption for abandoning the human realms to Sauron, and opened a portal to our world, one which Pallando followed him through. A little mind-magic and a bit of cultural assimilation later, and you have a pair of English gentlemen scholars. One of whom is still a bit enraptured by philosophy and magic, and has some interesting dust - and one of whom knew that Saruman had a certain interest in powerful artifacts and the crafting thereof...
At the rate I'm going they'll have to add so many punishment elements from disparate mythoi to my custom level of Hell that the damn thing will explode and I'll have to wander the worlds forever as a spirit instead.
marysues:Already gave the matter some thought. It originally involved placing Narnia in the unknown East of Middle-Earth, somewhere past the location of ancient Cuivinen - possibly in the Empty Lands, once they had been found and abandoned by the sailors who were looking for Numenor and Aman after the sinking. The thought I had was that the Elves had the Straight Road into the West that led them to Aman, and that the Narnians were somehow endowed with a similar Straight Road - one that led into the Utter East, to the edge of the old world, where the seas ran sweet. Lord knows the islands encountered in Voyage of the Dawn Treader were fairly redolent of the Enchanted Islands and the Islands of Shadow that lay between Numenor and Valinor. . .
It got a little over-complicated the more I thought about it, and I wound up thinking there was a simpler explanation. Uncle Andrew's rings transported their wearers to the Wood Between the Worlds, where each pond led to a different world. It seemed a bit more logical that Middle-Earth and Narnia should both be worlds accessible through the Wood, since we know that at least one other world - the one that Jadis / the White Witch came from, with the dead city of Charn - was found by human travelers. Alatar and Pallando, therefore, went into the East of Middle-Earth, and when Saruman left, they kept going. My feeling is that they were teaching and being taught by kinds of Men that no one had seen in a very long time, perhaps even Men who had never had dealings with any kinds of elves at all. Perhaps - who knows? Perhaps they came to Cuivinen's old location at last, and there were reminded of the Blessed Realm they had left behind, which they remembered only in a dream. Alatar might have been troubled then, but Pallando was so fascinated by it all that he took up a fistful of the sand from the shores of the Waters of Awakening, sand left over from when the world was new. After that Alatar could not sleep again, because the thoughts of what should have been done, and had not been done, were too strong. Ultimately he resolved to seek out some kind of redemption for abandoning the human realms to Sauron, and opened a portal to our world, one which Pallando followed him through. A little mind-magic and a bit of cultural assimilation later, and you have a pair of English gentlemen scholars. One of whom is still a bit enraptured by philosophy and magic, and has some interesting dust - and one of whom knew that Saruman had a certain interest in powerful artifacts and the crafting thereof...
At the rate I'm going they'll have to add so many punishment elements from disparate mythoi to my custom level of Hell that the damn thing will explode and I'll have to wander the worlds forever as a spirit instead.
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no subject
Date: 2003-04-11 08:38 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-04-11 08:47 pm (UTC)Mind, none of this would have started if I hadn't explained the Ages of Arda *before* the Ages of Sun and Moon to a friend. The Third Age mentioned in LOTR is the third age of Sun and Moon - before that were the ages of Lamps, Trees, Stars, and so on. When I described the Lamps of the Valar and how Melkor upset their posts and marred Arda forever, and then how Aman was lit by the Two Trees, my friend wondered aloud if Tolkien had known Lewis - because of the tree/lamp-post stuff in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and especially The Magician's Nephew.
It kinda snowballed from there.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-14 01:00 am (UTC)So you're saying all (your) Hell will break loose?
-- Lorrie grins, ducks, and runs...
All Your Hel Are Belong To Us.
Date: 2003-04-14 07:15 am (UTC)I'm just going to go on assuming that the first words out of the heavenly gatekeeper's mouth when I die will be 'there's a note on your record'. Exactly what's waiting on the other side of the note, well, it probably involves several pantheons and very large sticks wid nails in.
Re: All Your Hel Are Belong To Us.
Date: 2003-04-14 12:45 pm (UTC)-- Lorrie