u/Kodama_Keeper

Frodo and Sam are having dinner with Faramir, and Sam points out that none of Faramir's tales concern the Elves. Sam loves Elves, right? Faramir goes on to say that is because Elves and Men are estranged from each other. And of course if you know the history of the so called Last Alliance between Elves and Men, this should come as no surprise to you.

The thing is, this is Gondor, the most powerful kingdom left in Middle-earth at the time. Yet few knew about Rivendell. Even Boromir and Faramir, the closest thing to royalty that Gondor has, sons of the de facto leader don't know of it. They have to go to their daddy Denethor to explain Imlandris to them. And just up the river, close to their northern border is Lothlorien, which the Gondorians and Rohirrim thinks is ruled by a witch. Once again, they are the most powerful kingdom, yet they have no contact with kingdoms, nations and are potential allies against Sauron.

Yet in the northeast, there is now a kingdom of Men called Dale, and what seems to be a sort of republic called Lake-town. Right next door is a kingdom of Dwarves by the name of Erebor. Off to the east is apparently some other kingdom of Dorwinion. All of them trade and are apparently on good terms with a kingdom of Silvan Elves, the Wood-elves, ruled by Thranduil, a Sindar Elf. They don't live together, obviously, but they live in close proximity. When Smaug destroys Lake-town, Thranduil send relief and saves hundreds, possibly thousands of lives of Men. Even if you discount the idea of helping your business partners in time of need, that was a great act of kindness.

With the exception of Erebor, all these communities seem to be on the primitive side, relative to Gondor, Rivendell and Lothlorien.

Rivendell has been trying to hide ever since the Second Age, so that could be a reason to keep it a secret. Lothlorien seems to be a experiencing a self-imposed exile from everyone but other Elves, and does nothing to discourage it's reputation as a witch haven.

What do you think of this contradiction? The most sophisticated of Elves and Men staying apart, and yet this more simplistic area to the northeast has Elves, Men and Dwarves getting along at least tolerably well?

As always, great thoughts welcomed.

Tolkien wrote his world with the following elements.

A flat earth that was made round only to keep Men out of places they oughtn't go.

The stars painted on the sky.

The last fruits of two holy trees that lit the world become the sun and moon,

The brightest star is a jewel strapped to the brow of a half Elf who has a ship that sails across the heavens on a regular journey every single night.

I get the feeling that he was writing the mythology of Middle-earth. That is, the mythology that the inhabitants of Middle-earth grew up with. Like with the ancient Greeks, and Helios pulling the sun across the sky in his chariot.

Remember that for Bilbo, who supposedly translated a lot of this from what he heard from the Elves, all this took place from around 3,000 to 7,000 years ago. Those ancient Greek legends are only around 2,600 years old. And what legends do we have older than that? Maybe you heard that the story of Noah and his ark is a telling of an actual event, a flood of the Mesopotamian valley. That is, the whole world could not flood, but if you were stuck in the valley during a flood of the two rivers, you might very well tell the tail as such.

Bilbo, might consider what he learned from the Elves as sacred truth, because they were immortal. But that doesn't necessarily make their accounts more than poetic but wild exaggerations and explanations for things they didn't understand. Bilbo might not have even believed it all, but translated and wrote it down anyways.

So I'm just putting this out there. Could Tolkien have written the First and Second Ages as the mythology of Middle-earth, and in the Third Age the inhabitants of Middle-earth know it but don't believe it?

And no, I don't have any proof of this, Not a letter or a note written on the margin of a piece of scrap paper that JRR wrote on. I have no idea if he ever addressed this.

As always, great thoughts welcomed.

For at least 10 years I've been hearing about how microprocessors were fast approaching a hard limit to their continuous miniaturization. The problem was that an electron traveling down a circuit that was too small to contain it would randomly (quantumly) jump across the walls set to contain it so it could do its work. Then recently I've heard that chip manufactures in the Netherlands, ASML, are using a technique using extreme ultraviolet light to etch chips of extremely small circuits. And American companies are not trying to duplicate the process. But this does bring up the question, is quantum tunneling size still not reached yet, or has it been overcome?

After two years, I finally have a reason to use Paypal again. But for some reason, for which I'm kicking myself, I didn't save the password using the system I use for saving the passwords of all the accounts I have going.

So I got on Paypal, and did the password reset thing. Code was sent to my phone, and I entered it, and got past that step. Great, right? I'm then challenged to put in my credit card number, and it shows me the final 2 digits of a credit card that I used to use a couple years ago, but got hacked (fraudulent charges), and was revoked and replaced by a new card, same company.

I would love to update my credit card info on my Paypal account, but can't get past the step that demands the credit card number that they have on file for me.

Tried getting on the website of my credit card company, but they have no option to show old numbers. And trying to use their online help system ends with an AI generated "Hmmm... I'm not understanding your question" no matter how I phrase it. I'm not going to get that old credit card number so I can enter it into the Paypal reset password system.

Anyone have an idea how I can get past this? Thanks.

Have you ever noticed that in all the Second Age, all the Third Age, the only Maiar we know who are in Middle-earth are Sauron, one or more leftover Balrogs, and then the Istari, the wizards. In the Years of the Trees and the First Age we had Melian visit and fall for Thingol. She left when he got killed. And we know Eonwe and possibly other Maiar were in the Host of the West that defeated Morgoth, then left. But that's it.

Middle-earth only got the wizards because the Valar sent them on a mission, to encourage the free peoples of Middle-earth to fight against Sauron. But even that is suspect. Consider...

Saruman becomes famous and powerful, settles in Isengard, studies, then actually rebels against his mission and tries to become a power.

Radagast never turns traitor, but he seems to have given up on actively doing his duty. He becomes enamored with the birds and the beasts.

The Two Blue, Alatar and Pallando. They land in Middle-earth, then disappear into the East. No clear indication what they did. Speculation that they became powers and cult leaders of their own, actively worked for Sauron, or continued to fight against Sauron in the background.

Gandalf is the only one who stuck true to his mission. But he seems to love Middle-earth and its peoples too. He gets along with Men, Elves, Dwarves, and saves Hobbits from destruction and recruits them for his projects. He's the only one we know who actually returns to the West. And it should be noted that of all the Maiar chosen for the mission, he's the only one who didn't want to go, claiming he feared Sauron.

None of the others refused to go or tried to beg off. None but Gandalf came back. You find no other Maiar in all of Middle-earth save Sauron and the Balrogs, all of them renegades as far as the Valar are concerned.

It's almost as if the Maiar would love to come to Middle-earth, but need special permission from the Valar to do so. And when they do, they for the most part forget about it and enjoy their new found freedom in Middle-earth. This gets me thinking.

Maiar: Man, Valinor is so dull. Nothing is ever happening here, not since Feanor left. This place is just too perfect, too comfortable, and too boring.

Manwe: Always complaining. Why can't you be content, like the Vanyar?

Maiar: The Vanyar? Sitting on your mountain reciting poetry all day? We want action! We're going to Middle-earth.

Manwe: No you're not! You stay out. We don't want you getting into any trouble over there.

Maiar: What trouble? We'll behave.

Manwe: Yeah, right. We can't even keep Osse from tearing up the coastline and sinking ships.

Maiar: Osse's always been a nutcase. You can't judge the rest of us by him.

Manwe: Sauron?

Maiar: Don't blame us for Sauron. You ask Aule about what went wrong with Sauron.

Aule: What, again with Sauron? I told you it was Melkor's fault.

Manwe: Balrogs?

Maiar: Nut cases who love fire? Us apologizing for them is like you apologizing for Melkor. Do you apologize for Melkor, my lord?

Manwe: Watch it! You're asking me for a favor. Remember that.

Manwe: Alright, I'm sorry. That was a cheap shot. But what do we have to do to get out of here?

Manwe: Look, you're not going to Middle-earth without some restrictions in place, and a job to do.

Maiar: What job?

Manwe: Funny you should ask. We want Sauron gone, but we're not going to start another war to make that happen. We want the free peoples of Middle-earth to get rid of him themselves.

Maiar: Tall order, considering Sauron is the strongest among us, he's immortal, and can get thousands of creatures to serve him. And he's got this ring thing...

Manwe: Yes, well, that's where you come in. You'll encourage the people, and help them accomplish this when you can. But no taking over! No kingdoms, no cults, no trying to become a power. And if you die over there, you come back to us and we see how you did. And if you break the deal, then we're not giving you a body back till the end of times. Got it? By the way, what's your name?

Maiar: Curumo, my lord. Aule can vouch for me.

Aule: Yes, I vouch for him. Curumo is a good guy. He'll follow instructions.

So my point is, do Maiar get to visit Middle-earth without permission from the Valar? Their complete absence otherwise suggests they don't. As always, great thoughts welcomed.