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From: djb@rayssd.UUCP (Douglas J. Bonn)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Middle Earth (Tolkien) Questions
Message-ID: <1182@rayssd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-Oct-85 12:12:56 EDT
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Posted: Thu Oct 24 12:12:56 1985
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Theses are some questions that might be suitable for discussion on the net. 
I assume that anyone who tries to answer these have a very good knowledge
of "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings" Trilogy (LotR), and "The
Silmarillion". There are probably no hard-and-fast answers to these
questions, but I am interested in hearing educated speculation.

Question #1:
Why did the Council of Elrond not seize upon the resistance of the race of
dwarves to the Ring? In other words, should not Gimli, Gloin's son, have
been chosen as Ringbearer? He could not have been turned into a wraith.
That is stated explicitly in the text (forgive me for not quoting the
location in LotR).  I already know that the "burden" could not be laid upon
someone's shoulders, but it seems to me that JRRT overlooked this possibility.
What would have happened had Gimli been the Ringbearer?

Question #2:
I used to ask readers of LotR this trivia question: "Which of the Rings of
Power still existed in Middle Earth after the Sailing of the Keepers?"
My answer was the chief of the Nine Rings, that of the Witchking of Angmar.
Though powerless after the One had been destroyed, I assumed that it had
been found on the Pelennor Fields during the clean-up, and preserved as
an heirloom in Gondor, or in some museum somewhere. (I always wondered what
would have happened if Merry had picked it up during the Battle.) I assumed
that each of the Nazgul wore his(/her?) ring since becoming enslaved to it.
I assumed wrongly. JRRT makes it clear that (in the Silmarillion, I think,
perhaps the Akalabeth) Sauron held all the Nine and the three of the Seven
that survived.  Fine (I guess--though I liked my way better), but answer
me this one JRRT: Why did Sauron not use the Nine (and even the Seven)
to enslave more powerful men: why not have an army of Nazguls? Why only Nine?
As Frodo and Gollum could have been turned into wraiths by the One Ring,
why could the Nine not have multiple "victims"?

Question #3:
Sauron went to great trouble in the middle of the Third Age to recover
all of the Seven that survived. Why? What use were they to him? It didn't 
seem that he used them at all. [My own answer is this: he didn't want some
other character like Radagast or Saruman to come across one. Sure, the
DWARVES couldn't use them, but Saruman? Who knows what he could do? Comments?
Does this sound reasonable?]

Question #4:
How did Denethor keep from spilling the proverbial gruel to Sauron via
palantir about the Quest of "the witless halfling"? He knew of the Quest and
its mission before Faramir was wounded, and he used the palantir while he
was wounded. [My answer: He had other things to think about. But it sounds
fishy to me.]

Question #5:
Does anyone know the tales of the other six of the Seven Rings of Power?
One can piece together a sketchy history of the Ring of Durin, but what of
the others? It says that four of the Seven were consumed by dragon flames.
[Besides Smaug and Scatha, no dragons are mentioned in the Third Age, aside
from a stray comment in the Tale of Years (Appendix B of "Return of the
King") that "dragons begin multiplying again" or something like that.]

Question #7:
Does the Mythopoeic Society still exist? Does anyone know its present
address? I have the old one, which was:

		Mythopoeic Society 
		PO Box 4671
		Whittier, CA 213-384-9420

If anyone knows if this is still correct, please mail or post. This is a 
group that studies the lore in the books of JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and
Charles Williams.

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|  Douglas J. Bonn   {allegra,linus,raybed2,ccice5,brunix}!rayssd!rayssde!djb |
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	"Its an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and all's well
	 as ends better!"
				Gaffer Gamgee