The Istari were susceptible to mortal pitfalls.

In message
<news:20080326193734.2BB4.1.NOFFLE@dthierbach.news.arcor.de>
Dirk Thierbach <dthierbach RemoveThis @usenet.arcornews.de> spoke these staves:
>
> Troels Forchhammer <Troels RemoveThis @thisisfake.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> The idea is that Tolkien, when he began his work on the
>> mythology, at some point had a need for a 'continual supply of
>> enemies' as Shippey describes it.
>
> And that's what I don't believe. I can never wrap my head around
> the historical development of all the texts (isn't there somewhere
> a summary of HoME in that respect?), but from what I've seen how
> Tolkien works, I rather think he started out with concrete
> "stories", in which the "Goblin-tradition" played a much bigger
> role than some "need for enemies".

I don't think that is at all likely. The mythology was, in the
earliest stages, nowhere as considered and planned as it became
later. Originally things more or less just 'happened along'.

When Tolkien first introduced goblins into his stories, he did it
because he needed an kind of enemy cannon-fodder his heroes could
fight, and he chose the goblins specifically because they belonged to
the same broad fairy-story tradition from which he was drawing so
many of his elements (along with Finnish and Norse mythology).
However, the story-telling need came first, and then the solution was
found in story-external tradition.

>> Having already brought in some elements from the goblin
>> tradition, he embraced it also for this purpose, gradually
>> developing this, Melkor's infantry, to the Orcs we know,
>
> But that is quite different from what you wrote before:

Actually I would say that it is exactly the same.

>: [Shippey] suggests that the Orcs, story-externally, originated as
>: simply a ready supply of enemies for the wars, and that many of
>: the later problems surrounding their story-internal origin spring
>: from their fairly unconsidered original inclusion in the
>: mythology.
>
> If you now agree they didn't *originate* as a "enemy-supply", but
> rather *developed* into it (or, as I would rephrase, Tolkien made
> a connection between the "hordes" of Goblins in the tradition and
> the needs for servants of Melkor), then everything's fine.

No. The first inclusion of goblins as 'monsters' against whom the
early protagonists (Túrin, Beren and Tuor) could fight was simply for
that purpose -- that they could have some enemies to kill. This is
long before the first idea of the Ainulindalë and the whole
creational and philosophical background of the mythology. Tolkien
wasn't nearly as deliberate when he wrote the very first texts as he
became, and there is no suggestion that he had other plans with the
goblins when he first introduced them as Melko's monstrous infantry
than simply for them to be that.

> But note then that the second part of the argumentation above is
> also changed: The problems spring from their "unconsidered"
> inclusion as a "traditional" motive (and that's how nearly all
> inconsistencies in Tolkien's works started), and not because of
> the need for some story-telling device.

Same thing, actually. They were included without considering how they
fit into the sub-created world simply because they were needed as a
story-telling device, but their specific form, and the words used for
them, was derived from story-external fairy-tale traditions. I don't
know about 'nearly all inconsistencies', but the matter of the Orcs
and the question of evil is certainly not the only problem Tolkien
created for himself because he included some traditional fairy-tale
element without giving first working out how they fit into his sub-
creation. The speaking purse of the troll in /The Hobbit/ is another
example -- it doesn't really fit very well in Middle-earth, but now
it is stuck there simply because Tolkien didn't stop to consider
whether it belonged[#].

Tolkien /did/ do this -- included traditional fairy-tale elements
when he needed a story-telling device and without first considering
how they belonged. Actually there's a lot of evidence suggesting that
he often got carried off by the story and had to back-trace and
create a background for what he had written. Another example is
names. Though he would, ideally and when working to plan, carefully
create the meaning, then create the original Elvish stem and the
derived words in Quenya and Sindarin, before he chose the version to
use, this was rarely the case when he was actually writing. Then he
would just write on, use a name that sounded right, and then later go
back and invent an appropriate meaning and etymology for the name.

[#] I am not convinced that he was, when he wrote about the speaking
purse, intending the influence between Middle-earth and /The Hobbit/
to go both ways. Meaning that I am sure that he was completely aware
that his Hobbit story was taking place in a world that either was the
same as, or was heavily influenced by, his Middle-earth, but I am not
sure that he intended the Hobbit story to influence back on Middle-
earth -- he may have intended to make a copy of Middle-earth and put
the Hobbit story in that world, and then have his Middle-earth
setting be free of any influence from the /Hobbit/.

>> At some point, /after/ he had used them as simple cannon-fodder,
>> he started wondering from whence they came
>
> Again, I think that's not the point. Story-externally, he knew
> they came from fairy-tale tradition. Like elves and dwarves.

And I must insist that that is not the point

I am fully aware that they were, story-externally, lifted more or
less directly out of a fairy-tale tradition. The point is that it was
done without any consideration of how the came to be in his own sub-
creation, simply because he needed them in the story.

> But story-internally, he had made up a creation myth for elves
> and dwarves

No.

The creation myth came later, just as the framing story of Eriol and
the Cottage of Lost Play came later.

First he created a few of the stories -- 'The Tale of Turambar' first
of all, IIRC, and then the 'Tale of Tinúviel' and 'The Fall of
Gondolin' (I'm not sure which of these came first). Goblins and orcs
are introduced already in these stories, and there they are nothing
by some kind of monstrous enemy infantry.

> (which was new, and didn't have anything to do with the
> tradition), and he had to somehow fit the Orcs into this.

But all that was post-facto. Long before he come to the point of
having to fit the Goblins/Orcs into some sort of world-order, he had
already introduced them into the world and firmly ensconced them in
his mythology because he needed them as enemies. They could no longer
be excised, and /therefore/ he had to somehow fit them in.

> So he didn't really "wonder" in that sense, he had to
> consolidate the stories he already had with the framework he
> invented for it. Which should expressed his religious beliefs
> -- and hence the problem.

Precisely. The point I've been making has been about how they entered
into the stories before he began to invent the framework. Once he
started on the framework he also changed the 'rules' by which he had
to abide when sub-creating.

I forget exactly what was the original point It was certainly
not to 'prove' anything regarding the problem of evil, but more
likely it was meant as a tangential comment -- to illustrate how
Tolkien at times created problems for himself when he dug too deep
into the story-internal 'hows' and 'whys'.

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.

"It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent
whatsoever," he said. "Have you thought of going into
teaching?"
- /Mort/ (Terry Pratchett)

"Stan Brown" <the_stan_brown.TakeThisOut@fastmail.fm> skrev i meddelelsen
news:MPG.2253f6abfa7133098b576@news.individual.net...

> Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:21:16 +0100 from Raven
> <jon.lennart.beck.its.my.name.TakeThisOut@mail.its.in.danmark>:

>> Were the Professor alive and participating on these newsgroups he
>> could have corrected me, since he must be the ultimate authority
>> among Men on his own subcreation

> But the difficulty is that he has given several explanations, and
> they contradict each other.

Which is why, early in my somewhat bloated post, I suggested that we make
up our own minds based on what he published in his lifetime.

Jon Lennart Beck.