July 30, 2019

4. A Series of Small Wounds.

1 hour 10 minutes

Jared, Oriana and Ned discuss Ned’s choice of topic: “ Aldarion and Erendis:

The Mariner’s Wife.” An incomplete effort written in the 1960s and edited by

Christopher Tolkien for 1980’s Unfinished Tales, “Aldarion and Erendis” is

possibly the most unique story in Tolkien’s Middle-earth legendarium: a

serious and ultimately sad domestic drama about a failed marriage, mixed with

the origins of world-changing events. Why is it notable the Númenoreans

initially work with wood and not stone? How does the fact that there are

protagonists and antagonists but ultimately no heroes shape the story’s

impact? And above all else, where to start with that astonishing monologue

from Erendis to her daughter, one of Tolkien’s most powerful pieces of

writing?

Show Notes.

Oriana’s piece about

Peter Thiel and Palantir. As you can see, the title’s a little rude.

(Deservedly.) Subscribe to her

newsletter!

Yeah, it’s warm. We

don’t need to belabor the long-term obvious, do we?

The article that broke the news of J. A. Bayona’s

hiring as initial series director for

Amazon’s TV series. Review his IMDB

page at your leisure; here’s a 2018

interview where he talks about his

film career in general, available as both podcast and transcript.

Some local New Zealand articles confirming Amazon’s filming in the

country

as well as the local impact in

Auckland,

where filming will be based.

Initial casting news did break literally the day

after we recorded! We’ll have more on this next episode.

The NZ ‘Hobbit law’ is very much a sore point

still. For

further background, we recommend Lindsey Ellis’s three-part

series on Jackson’s adaptation,

but especially the third

episode.

The initial news about Amazon’s collaboration with Leyou on an MMO Lord of

the Rings game,

and what it supposedly does and doesn’t involve. (The art that Jared was

distinctly unimpressed with

is from an older game, at least.)

There’s plenty out there on Númenor in general—here’s the Tolkien Gateway

summary. (And if you like,

here’s their summary of “Aldarion and

Erendis”

itself.)

A possible comparative example to Erendis’s monologue to Ancalimë, one that

Tolkien would be familiar with by default, would be the Wife of Bath’s

Tale as written by Geoffrey Chaucer—a male author giving a female

character an actual sense of agency as well as voicing not so subtle protest

against a societal structure set up for the benefit of men. Specifically,

consider the famous ‘who painted the lion’ sequence, as this essay

discusses.

Once again, Revolutionary

Road. It really does make

sense as another comparison point.

To give you an idea of what a Reddit relationship post can be like, here’s a

thing.

We all love Ursula K. Le Guin, because she

was that great. See the film on August 2nd on

PBS if you can.

Plenty of examples of laws of succession and whether women could hold thrones

over time. A famous European one: the Salic Law of

Succession.

Grimdark is something you really can

have too much of.

Religion in Middle-earth—and its overt absence as is generally

understood—really is its own discussion topic. Tolkien, who was clear about

his work’s Christian and Catholic elements, had his own thoughts on the

matter.

The ‘George R. R. Martin wonders about Aragorn’s tax

policy’ query came up in a 2014 interview with the author.

The sentiment from Tolkien about how his readers wanted more information than

he could provide appears in Letter 187 in The Letters of J. R. R.

Tolkien. The specific

passage in full: “Musicians want tunes, and musical notation; archaeologists

want ceramics and metallurgy. Botanists want a more accurate description of

the mallorn, of elanor, niphredil, alfirin, mallos, and symbelmynë; and

historians want more details about the social and political structure of

Gondor; general enquirers want information about the Wainriders, the Harad,

Dwarvish origins, the Dead Men, the Beornings, and the missing two wizards

(out of five). It will be a big volume, even if I attend only to the things

revealed to my limited understanding!”

There’s a fair amount of attention to plants and trees in Númenor in these

specific writings, especially in the introductory “A Description of Númenor.”

A striking fan/botanical creation of recent years which looks into that and

much more from the legendarium is the Flora of Middle-earth book by Walter and Graham Judd.

The Great Gatsby is out

there. But don’t forget Kate Beaton’s

riff on it.

The Stone of Erech is an intriguingly

strange artifact.

Carl Sagan had the gift of public

presentation and high-end research chops in balance. An amazing combination

still.

We’re sure Mary Matalin and James

Carville

love each other and all.

Support By-The-Bywater on Patreon and

hang out with us in a members-only Slack (with a dedicated #tolk-talk

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By Jared Pechaček, Oriana Scwindt, and Ned Raggett

4.8

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