This week we bring you two stories from the minds of Jay Lake and Ken Scholes: “The Starship Mechanic” and “Looking for Truth in a Wild Blue Yonder.” You can see the story of how these stories happened on this post by Shannon Page.
Promo: Night Light Stories podcast
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Theme music is “Clockworks” by Beatnik Turtle, used with permission. Visit TheSongOfTheDay.com for more of their music. Podcast copyright 2010, Tor.com. Story copyright 2010, Ken Scholes and Jay Lake. Narrated by the authors. Produced by Mur Lafferty.
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I really love this series. There is so much depth in so many characters
Gandalf facing the Balrog at the Bridge: “%#$%, I _should_ have brought Glorfindel.”
“for [he] knew that a flood would come down”
The flood was commanded by Elrond, who has not been to Valinor yet. So I’m not sure that there’s any intercession with the divine involved in that.
Ironically–and if I had more space I would’ve mentioned this in the article–Glorfindel was part of the Fellowship in the very beginning, but Tolkien almost immediately took him out! Then it became Gandalf and like 5 hobbits, if you can imagine that…
Luckily for me I am used to language like ‘diapered with celandine’ thanks to Walter Scott and E.R. Eddison.
When in one of The Hobbit movies we see the Eagles leave the expedition on top of a really high rock in the middle of a plain, my sister said, “So that’s why the Eagles didn’t fly the ring to Mordor: they’re kind of jerks.”
Very cool essay, thanks for it.
Jeff Daniel’s line in The Martian – “If we are going to have a secret project called “Elrond”, then I want my code name to be ‘Glorfindel'” makes much more sense after reading the above article. Teddy is clearly a Tolkien super-fan and understands in an instant the important background role played by the big G leading up to Elrond’s Council. He wants to play the same type of big behind the scene role in Mark’s rescue. Brilliant.
Wow, this is awesome. I must admit I never paid too much attention to Glorfindel. As for his exclusion from the movie, I do understand it – it definitely is cutting out a lot of thematic awesomeness, but it’s the kind of thing that in a movie would have required a lot more setup, and movies, I think, need a litlte more economy of storytelling than a book.
That said, this is sooooooo good :) Do you think Tolkien would have been familiar with the shamanic connections – my knowledge is mostly in our shared Catholcisim which doesn’t quite have the same concept of ‘shamans’ (although some of the symbolism/concepts exists in other ways). But, I know he was also interested in a lot of Norse/northern mythologies, so I’m wondering if that same type of symbolism exists there.
That said, I really love your symbolism of the eagles and what it represents in terms of spiritual transformation (ecstacy and agony reminds me very much of Bernini’s statue of The Ecstacy of St. Teresa), and how they are only sent once the soul is at its limit – which is in line with, I think, Tolkien’s ideas on grace and his words about the ending of LotR where Frodo gives everything he can and it’s still not enough (but it still works out).
@@.-@: elrond is descended from earendil amd elwing, thus he is by nature divine, having a maia for a great–grandma.