Oath of Feanor

The Oath of Feanor is when the Silmarils get stolen, Feanor swears that he will get them back. He leads his people through a lot of dangers, including an icy pass. A lot if his people die. He ends fighting a battle, and gets mortally wounded. He then passes the oath onto his sons' heads. They spend the rest of the book in a long war, recover the Silmarils, and then the Silmarils drive them mad. Maedhros kills himself and his brother throws one in the sea.

Shelob

In The Return of the King movie, Sam and Frodo part before Shelob's Lair.

In the book, The Two Towers (not in The Return of the King), Sam and Frodo stick together the entire time. They only get split up in Shelob's Lair when Gollum jumps on Sam. That is how Frodo gets wounded by Shelob. Sam fights Gollum off, and then goes and wounds Shelob, then runs when he hears the orcs.

Smaug

Thank you for posting.
I wouldn't mind a link on my blog at all.

In The Hobbit, Smaug, the dragon in the Lonely Mountain, Has a conversation with Bilbo. He has a couple of conversations, and doesn't even care if Bilbo takes his gold. But after talking for a while, Smaug finds out information from Bilbo. He actually gets mad and tries to kill him. Bilbo gets away, back to the dwarves, and they hide. Smaug, in his rage, attacks the lakemen. Their leader is told by a thresh, that Smaug has a weakspot. And he kills Smaug.

Conquest

Felegund (My cousin) allowed me to come on board with this blog. First off here is my personal blog, and for those who fallow my blog, I'll try to make a link on the side for this blog. Anyways back to Lord of the Rings. As was poster earlier The Hobbit movie is being worked on. There are two films coming out. As far as I know the first one is the story of the Hobbit, and the second one bridges the gap between the Hobbit and Fellowship. If that is the case we hope it is quite good to justify this diversion from Tolkien’s cannon. Here are the IMDB links for The Hobbit and the second film as well. We will wait and see. Enjoy.

--Amras Nenharma

PS Lord of the Rings Conquest video game is coming out on Jan 14th and is a LotR based FPS game, made using the engine from Star Wars Battlefront II

Gil-Galad

Gil-Galad is an elven king (Gondolin) who is briefly in the first movie. He is an elven king and warrior who is sung about, but only remembered in the songs. Like a lot of Elven kings, his is a sad story. After his death, the important elves are Galadriel and Elrond.

Rumors

The Hobbit (movie) is scheduled to come out in 2012. They only have a couple of rumored actors. Andy Serkus (Gollum) and Ian McKellen (Gandalf).

Of Gondolin

Gondolin is a hidden city in the mountains, near the Pass of Anach and Dorthonion. It is just above Beleriand (the main country in The Silmarillion). Towards the end of Morgoth's reign, it is discovered, and Morgoth attacks and destroys the city. Tuor, a man, goes to Gondolin during the fall and saves as many of the people as he can. So Gondolin, though a magnificent city, the story ends in a sad way, which is the end of one of the most magnificent cities in the history of Middle Earth.

The Sons of Feanor

The sons of Feanor are as follows:
Maedhros
Maglor
Celegorm
Caranthir
Curufin
Amrod
Amras

These are the elves this entire book is about. The Silmarillion covers more stories, but it is really about the Oath of Feanor, which was an oath saying he would recover the Silmarils.

Middle Earth Names

Just a couple of interesting names and pronunciations.
Maedhros = M-i-thros
Eomer = A-omer
Eowyn = A-o-win
I just wrote this to show how different Tolkien names are pronounced.

Maedhras vs Beren

One major similarity between Maedhros (Feanor's son) and Beren. Maedhros is ignorant and goes out on a parlay, which is actually and ambush. Morgoth captures him, attaches a chain to his wrist, and leaves him hanging over a cliff. A friend hears him singing, and risks his life to rescue him. He can only free him by cutting off his hand. Beren is on a quest to steal a Silmaril from Morgoth. He gets in and takes one, but he meets the largest wolf (who killed Huan). He shows the wolf the Silmaril out of pride, as if saying, "I won, you failed." The wolf bites off Beren's hand, swallowing the Silmaril. Even though their tales are quite different, they both end up with one hand.

Valar

The creators of Middle Earth are the Valar. They are the gods of Middle Earth. They hold council and they judge the people; but when Morgoth takes over Middle Earth, they send in a massive army out of nowhere, and wipe out Morgoth's men. So they saved Middle Earth, but never appear in the Lord of the Rings.

Family Trees

Okay, this is kinda crazy, Galadriel is Celebrian's mother, and Elrond is Celebrian's husband, which makes Elrond Galadriel's son in law. In other words, Galadriel is Arwen's Grandma.

From Ungoliant to Shelob (A History of Giant Spiders)

Ungoliant is the first spider you meet in the entire Middle Earth series. She is working under Melchor, but after destroying town and devouring anything she sees. She finishes her job for him, and wants a reward, but Melchor is afraid of her, but he reluctantly holds takes a Silmaril in his hand, but she eats it, and it drives her mad (I don't remember how he gets it back :/). Then there are the smaller spiders in The Hobbit. They are not as terrifying to read about, but to a hobbit and 13 dwarves, several of those spiders are quite frightening. They capture the heroes, but they miss Bilbo. He frees his companions and holds off the spiders with Sting. The last spider is Shelob, the terror at Cirith Ungol (the pass). She is not quite as big as Ungoliant, but almost as scary (definatly for Sam and Frodo). She guards the pass into Mordor and kills all who try to enter Mordor. Frodo gets captured, so Sam comes in to save him. He uses Sting to stab her belly. What happens after that, no one knows. We know Shelob was wounded, and we know she lived, but there is no other history about her.

The Real World

An interesting connection between Middle Earth and Earth is the fact that J.R.R Tolkien gave only the bad peoples of Middle Earth machines because he hated tanks when he was in World War One. He loosely based (in my opinion) Sauron and Morgoth on Hitler, I say this because of the worldview that these two have.

Huan

Huan is a dog from the Silmarillion, who can only be killed by the biggest wolf to ever live. He also gets to talk three times in his life. So he understands what people say, and he has amazing senses (i.e. smell, sight, etc.). He is Beren and Luthien's companion. He goes with them on their adventures, and his life ends after fighting a wolf fed by Morgoth himself, not just fed with food, but he is fed with malace and the like. The two have a tremendous battle, but Huan ends up dying, because it was the biggest wolf who ever lived. He uses his last time talking while he is dying. His story may not be a happy story, but it is a story of love and loyalty.

Movie Mess Ups

In the Two Towers there are a couple of somewhat obvious mistakes.
1) Pippin and Merry get captured by Uruks, and the Uruks get attacked by Eomers men. During the battle, the hobbits escape, and during the escape, Pippin almost gets stepped on by a horse. He is laying on his back, and the horse rears up, and Pippin's tied hands, are magically untied, next time you see him, they are tied again.
2) When Aaragorn and company first meet Eomer, they have a long chat, and then Eomer leaves. But when Eomer gets on his horse, his sword falls out of the scabbard, he then ignores the missing sword and rides off.

Glamdring

Another mess up in the movies is Gandalf's sword, Glamdring, doesn't glow. In the book it is just like sting, it glows blue when orcs are near, but in the movies they didn't have it glow, and that was what made the sword so special.

Stuff

The sons of Feanor from the Silmarillion, are the ones who are after Melchor (aka. Morgoth) because he stole the Silmarils, the brightest jewels in Middle Earth, they were made by Feanor, and his sons want them back, so they can hold the worlds light, and so it will get back in the right hands. Beren, a man, steals one, and it ends up with a king, the other drives Maedhros to his death, and the death of the Silmaril, and the other, his brother throws another in the ocean, and so in time they all get lost, and their legend lived on, but never are the Silmarils found, or even seen by another man or elf or dwarf again.

Differences

A couple of differences in the book to movie transfer, in the movie the orcs blow up the wall at Helm's Deep through the culvert. In the book, the sneak in through the culvert and there are no explosives. Another thing is at Minis Tirith, Denethor sits back and doesn't want help, and nobody comes until the attack, but in the book, a couple of princess come to help him, and he orders the beacons lit, Pippin doesn't do it.

Fellowship

In the book, Fellowship of the Ring, They are going down the Anduin on the elven boats, when they (Legolas) spot a flying object, and decide it is to big for an eagle, Legolas shoots it, and it leaves. This was actually the Nazgul on his flying steed, but the fellowship didn't know that.

Finrod Felegund

My favorite character in the Silmarillion is Finrod Felegund, he is a powerful king, who ends up fighting Melchor hand to hand. He gets killed in doing so, but he also chops of Melchor's foot, and cripples him for life.

Haldir

In the Silmarillion, an elf named Haldir dies, as a rule the elves don't use the same name twice, but there is a Haldir in the Lord of the Rings books. It is just an interesting fact, and it may have been a mess up by J.R.R Tolkien, or Christopher Tolkien.