Resurrecting some old questions

[wellinghall]

Read the opening pages of The Hobbit. Do Hobbits have beards?
Now read the prologue of The Lord of the Rings. Do Hobbits have beards?

How tall are Elves? How tall are Dwarves?
How easily could a Dwarf use a sword made for an elf?

How does the bow of Lorien compare to the bows of Mirkwood?
How easily could an Elf used to the bows of Mirkwood suddenly switch to using the bow of Lorien?

Read The Council of Elrond. How many steps does Orthanc have?
Now read Flotsam and Jetsam. How tall is Orthanc?
So, how high is each stair?

Bonus question 1: which other tower in fantasy fiction does this make you think of?
Bonus question 2: which is the flotsam in this chapter, and which is the jetsam?

Comments

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, it's too late in the evening for this one!

Well I thought hobbits were beardless but then hobbits aren't my 'specialist subject'!

How tall are Elves? Do you mean in feet and inches or relative to Men, in which case I guess that depends on the race of Men and the Age [and which volume of HOME you look in!]

How tall are dwarfs? Umm, shorter than Men, taller than hobbits?

The sword question is interesting. It would be good to know precisely how come Telchar made a sword that ended up being just right for a seven foot tall man!

Well the Lorien bows were longer and stronger but being strung with a single strand of hair doesn't sound very strong to me! As to using it, no idea.

Orthanc, I think had 28 steps, but how tall? Can't remember, so can't work out the height of the steps.

Can't do the bonus questions either. Oh dear, time for bed, I think!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Hobbits in the Marish may have downy chins, but as 'The Hobbit' doesn't cover that area of the Shire, Bilbo isn't from that area, and none of the Fellowship are either, it's surely not much of a generalisation to say they don't have them.

Elves: tall
Dwarves: short (Who cares about the numbers? Not me! )
How do you know that the Elves don't have a particular form of swordplay that uses shortish blades (relative to height), or the Dwarves, one that uses unusually long blades? And the blades are made of a weird metal - maybe it's not as heavy as steel, or has other properties that make this easier? After all, we know the Ring can shrink and swell. A sword that detects goblins and glows in the dark: being suitable for users of different heights is not the oddest thing about it, surely!

Bows: I think they were of different sizes & materials. But Legolas is how old? And he's got how much experience? And he's an Elf prince, so one assumes, a fast learner with a lot of training and excellent reflexes. And he has a month in Lorien, and for all we know he spends 9 hours a day practicing during that time. I assume we're supposed to be seeing an unlikelihood here, but I'm not getting it. I assume the elfhair is prepared in some special way, like the water in Galadriel's mirror, and the fabric of her cloaks.

Can't remember, but in Council of Elrond we're getting Gandalf's take, and in Flotsam & Jetsam, Merry and Pippin's. Possibly they are counting different steps? And anyway, who cares!

1) I think you may mean the tower at the XXXX university - is it Bugerup? The one that's got an inconsistent inside and outside.

2) Flotsam: presumably the floating food (and frankly, ick to eating food that was floating in floodwater!) Jetsam: the stone, cos it was thrown out deliberately?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Question of the day: how was the sewage system for Orthanc organised? And, do orc turds float...?