Most children: 13 - Samwise Gamgee & Rose Cotton

October 23, 2012 1:05 AM

Lord Of The Rings: Statistics (part of LOTRProject)
posted by the man of twists and turns (23 comments total)

Previously on MetaFilter
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:06 AM on October 23, 2012

62/100 men are kind of pissed off.
posted by flippant at 1:35 AM on October 23, 2012

Wow, I expected the English professor to be caught off guard here, but there is no way this curve got to be that smooth by accident. I wonder if the sketch is somewhere among the unpublished papers.
posted by hat_eater at 2:28 AM on October 23, 2012

CI bars around LE? Come on. Everyone knows that for a measure such as life expectancy it's more informative to show the IQR.
posted by The White Hat at 5:06 AM on October 23, 2012 [2 favorites]

I think the hobbits are winning.
posted by ersatz at 5:39 AM on October 23, 2012

Damn, I love unadulterated geekery. Anyone know if there's some sort of out-of-the-box application that makes the pretty interactive figures?
posted by smirkette at 6:57 AM on October 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think the hobbits are winning.

They may have won the war(s), but the Shire was still scoured. We shall always remember the Scouring.
posted by Atreides at 7:20 AM on October 23, 2012

I think it's clear Men are the winners in the long run.

Great link, thanks!
posted by Chrysostom at 8:17 AM on October 23, 2012

Did they really spend that long at Rivendell in LOTR? Guess it's been a long time since I've read the books.
posted by never used baby shoes at 8:20 AM on October 23, 2012

Taken together, the stats create a pretty good argument for including Tolkien in discussions of British declinism in literature, in a way that I had not previous thought of it as.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:20 AM on October 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

Did they really spend that long at Rivendell in LOTR? Guess it's been a long time since I've read the books.

Frodo was under the weather.


Per the division in gender, it made me wonder if Tolkien consciously focused on a majority of men versus women or if it was a subconscious reflection of the majority of history available at the time reflected the same spotlight on the male gender. Was Galadriel his Elizabeth I? Was it even a concern? How does the gender skew against the historic and mythological record of the time?
posted by Atreides at 8:59 AM on October 23, 2012

smirkette: Anyone know if there's some sort of out-of-the-box application that makes the pretty interactive figures?

Looking at the source code, it's all done with jQuery.
posted by ob1quixote at 9:28 AM on October 23, 2012

Gandalf nods approvingly of this post.
posted by homunculus at 10:08 AM on October 23, 2012

pure win
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 10:35 AM on October 23, 2012

Frodo was under the weather.

Yes, but I didn't think he required quite that length of convalescence. Then again, I've never been stabbed with a Morgul blade.
posted by never used baby shoes at 10:57 AM on October 23, 2012

Then again, I've never been stabbed with a Morgul blade.

It really itches.


A LOT.
posted by Atreides at 11:49 AM on October 23, 2012

Aside from Frodo's recuperation, the time is for scouts to try and find the Nazgûl-it would hardly have done to have left with the ring and been immediately captured. A cloak and their horses are found, but no riders.

Out of universe, Tolkien had originally planned on late November as the departure date, but ended up pushing it a month to make it line up with some other plot points.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:00 PM on October 23, 2012

Out of universe, Tolkien had originally planned on late November as the departure date, but ended up pushing it a month to make it line up with some other plot points.

Symbolism more than plot points: the Fellowship departs on Christmas Day (and, the Ring is destroyed on the Feast of the Annunciation).
posted by wilko at 1:13 PM on October 23, 2012

That would seem reasonable, but there is a good deal of evidence against this. Referring to Hammond and Scull's The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, Tolkien's notes show he thought the November date meant too much happened in winter, and additionally, the scouts didn't have enough time. And in an interview, he explicitly denied the Christian connection.

That's not to say that JRRT didn't push the departure to late December for plot reasons, and lined it up with Christmas Day for added oomph. But the initial reasoning seems not to have been symbolism.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:31 PM on October 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

wasn't the Encyclopedia of Arda sufficient?
posted by RockyChrysler at 7:26 PM on October 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.” --Tolkein

I rather suspect any allegorical elements are more a manifestation of the dominant culture he was writing in. (I've always loved this quote)
posted by smirkette at 9:45 PM on October 23, 2012

That quote always struck me as pretty harsh, given it's a not so veiled jab at C.S. Lewis and Narnia.

On the other hand, The Last Battle is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, so fair enough.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:40 AM on October 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Per the division in gender, it made me wonder if Tolkien consciously focused on a majority of men versus women or if it was a subconscious reflection of the majority of history available at the time reflected the same spotlight on the male gender. Was Galadriel his Elizabeth I? Was it even a concern? How does the gender skew against the historic and mythological record of the time?

I think (and this is only my theorising, rather than claiming any authority) that it's more to do with the circles he moved in. Tolkien's school, university and Army days would all have involved socialising mostly with boys and men. He then spent the rest of his working life as an Oxford don, in the days when all Oxford colleges were single-sex. There were women's colleges whose students might have attended Tolkien's lectures, but the only students to enter his room for tutorials would have been male, as well as all his faculty colleagues.

So Tolkien would have been accustomed to a social world comprising mostly men. He was deeply devoted to his wife and daughter, but he also had three sons-- so even his home contained twice as many male as female residents. Given those statistics, his superabundance of male characters is hardly surprising.
posted by Pallas Athena at 4:11 PM on October 25, 2012 [1 favorite]