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Does Barliman Have a Beard? And Other Important Fannish Issues - Page 6

© Michael Martinez

The absence of denial is often trotted out as sure proof of anything that isn't found in the books being the absolute truth about Tolkien's world, or at least as evidence that it was highly probably a part of that world. I often point out that such logic forces one to conclude that Aragorn and the boys were secretly packing some heat, like Uzi sub-machine guns. After all, Tolkien doesn't say they weren't carrying such weapons. Heck, why should Hama have believed those funny-looking metal things strapped across their backs were dangerous? He was just a doorward. He was more concerned about Gandalf's staff (no one apparently told him that Gandalf killed a Balrog without the staff). Those blasted, pesky staves keep coming up, too. How important is a wizard's staff to the wizard? Gandalf apparently doesn't mind using his as a match. One would think he'd have to replace his woodwork every few years or so. But if that's the case the staff can't be very important. On the other hand, Gandalf breaks Saruman's staff when he casts Saruman out of the order of the Istari. Does that mean that Saruman's power is bound up in the staff? If it weren't for the fact that Gandalf breaks a huge stone bridge with his staff (destroying the staff along with the bridge) and then fights an 11-day battle with a Balrog, most everyone (perhaps even me) would be convinced the staves actually carry some sort of "wizard power". Maybe they came out of the the Istari Acme Company boxes with the label, "Wizard energy not included". Maybe Wile E. Coyote should get himself one of those staves (there are, btw, road runners in Middle-earth -- Tolkien didn't say there weren't any, and Middle-earth is the entire world, after all). Of course, absence of denial isn't always the final authority on Tolkien's world. Sometimes credible authors like David Day and Karen Fonstad are used to prove points. Well, Day's books are almost universally reviled by people who have been on the Internet for any length of time, but Fonstad comes up every now and then as the end-all, be-all authority on Tolkien's geography. Never mind the fact she places Rhosgobel in two locations, shaves 100 miles off the width of Eriador, shrinks the kingdom of Dale to almost nothing (it reminds me of Lotharingia -- a kingdom most people have probably never heard of) and moves it west, sticks Nogrod and Belegost south of the Gulf of Lune, adds the city of Kortirion to Tol Eressea (quick, how many of you know which English city is really Kortirion?), makes Numenor too large, places Numenor too far east and north, shows the wrong migration paths for the Edain and Swathy Men into Beleriand, leaves Minas Morgul off two maps, and then puts Minas Morgul in the wrong place (with the wrong landscape),....

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