Comments on: Most children: 13 - Samwise Gamgee & Rose Cotton

Most children: 13 - Samwise Gamgee & Rose Cotton

the man of twists and turns — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 01:05:08 -0800

Lord Of The Rings: Statistics (part of LOTRProject)

By: the man of twists and turns

the man of twists and turns — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 01:06:18 -0800

Previously on MetaFilter

By: flippant

flippant — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 01:35:49 -0800

62/100 men are kind of pissed off.

By: hat_eater

hat_eater — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 02:28:33 -0800

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 I wonder if the sketch is somewhere among the unpublished papers.

By: The White Hat

The White Hat — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 05:06:32 -0800

CI bars around LE? Come on. Everyone knows that for a measure such as life expectancy it's more informative to show the IQR.

By: ersatz

ersatz — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 05:39:04 -0800

I think the hobbits are winning.

By: smirkette

smirkette — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 06:57:25 -0800

Damn, I love unadulterated geekery. Anyone know if there's some sort of out-of-the-box application that makes the pretty interactive figures?

By: Atreides

Atreides — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 07:20:06 -0800

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.

By: Chrysostom

Chrysostom — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 08:17:13 -0800

I think it's clear Men are the winners in the long run. Great link, thanks!

By: never used baby shoes

never used baby shoes — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 08:20:54 -0800

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

By: Kadin2048

Kadin2048 — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 08:20:56 -0800

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.

By: Atreides

Atreides — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 08:59:35 -0800

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?

By: ob1quixote

ob1quixote — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 09:28:49 -0800

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.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 10:08:02 -0800

Gandalf nods approvingly of this post.

By: AElfwine Evenstar

AElfwine Evenstar — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 10:35:54 -0800

pure win

By: never used baby shoes

never used baby shoes — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 10:57:50 -0800

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.

By: Atreides

Atreides — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:49:33 -0800

Then again, I've never been stabbed with a Morgul blade. It really itches. A LOT.

By: Chrysostom

Chrysostom — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 12:00:52 -0800

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.

By: wilko

wilko — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:13:40 -0800

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).

By: Chrysostom

Chrysostom — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:31:18 -0800

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.

By: RockyChrysler

RockyChrysler — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 19:26:51 -0800

wasn't the Encyclopedia of Arda sufficient?

By: smirkette

smirkette — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 21:45:10 -0800

"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)

By: Chrysostom

Chrysostom — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 07:40:52 -0800

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.

By: Pallas Athena

Pallas Athena — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:11:33 -0800

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.