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PotbellyHairyfoot
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Post The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 02, 2007 04:32
In what kind of world does this story take place?
Can you see any parallels between this world and any time or place from our own past?
cirdaneth
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 03, 2007 08:10
In what kind of world does this story take place?

It’s a very unspoiled world, rich in natural resources and suited to tribal, hunter/gatherer people. Presumably, there is a certain amount of agriculture too, but maybe that came later. There is also some mining and working of metals by all races. The cultures of men, elves and dwarves are based on strict codes of loyalty, sworn service, and eye-for-an-eye retribution. This is at odds with their need to unite against their common enemy, Morgoth. Everybody seems to be picking the scabs off old wounds.

Can you see any parallels between this world and any time or place from our own past?

It seems to me like Northern Europe immediately before the Romans arrived. Plenty going on. Some technology. Lots of beautiful artefacts, but poor communications and no good roads. It’s like Lemminkainen and Erik Bloodaxe get to sing Wagner’s Ring by candle-light. Love it!
Ilandir
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 03, 2007 07:48
In what kind of world does this story take place?
Spot on, on what cirdaneth said.

Can you see any parallels between this world and any time or place from our own past?
In my opinion, I think it's more like Northern Europe after the Romans. Not the fall of Rome and the lawless barbarian states that swept across the continent; but the age of a new type of development. The settling of the Saxons in Britain (referring to a new study that has been carried out - revealing that the Saxons might not have been a ruthless race attacking villages - but rather, they were a people that found empty lands on the eastern coasts of England and built their own settlements). It is a period of new development after the fall of the Roman Empire; a new beginning.

[Edited on 4/7/2007 by Ilandir]
neowyn
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 04, 2007 04:25
Also, what I see about the world at that particular time is how fragile it is, it's changing, it's at war, all the kingdoms and places that had been there for a long time are being taken over by evil forces and the races are becoming suspicious about others. It's actually a very sad environment because everything seems to be falling apart but, at the same time, you can see a sort of "spirt" that you know will remain and, by the time the world rebuilds after being broken apart by Morgoth, it will carry on most of its characteristics.

The elvish presence also gives this world a much more "nature centered" atmosphere.
Arawn
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 05, 2007 04:40
It is basically the beginning. History in the making so to speak. It's also the time where the elves still have some kind of contact with the valar. They are feeling their way into this world and shaping it for the time to come. It is also a different world from what we know in LotR, we can't relate to it in any way, because there are different names and places.

I could also imagine it as the time of the first settlers in America. All different nationalities, different cultures, some coming later than others and therefore contesting with those, who have already lived there for some time.
PotbellyHairyfoot
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 05, 2007 09:03
At the start of the story I'm reminded of The period in WWII known as the Phoney War, although it lasts a lot longer here than it did in our Age (15 years versus about 8 months).
Ther was a sudden Blitzkrieg, Germany took Poland, and then everyone sat on their lines waiting. Ithe First Age there was a sudden attck, and Morgoth took the North , and then everyone sat on their borders waiting
[I'm using WWII as I feel we'll find other parallels with that war ( and maybe WWI) as we read on.]
cirdaneth
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 05, 2007 09:36
Interesting comparison, PB. A period of 'sabre-rattling' before the balloon goes up (dig those mixed metaphors!)
Arawn
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 09, 2007 01:39
I guess you could compare it to WWI, too, where we had those so-called trench wars and where Tolkien also fought. I seem to recall that the Children of Hurin was one of the oldest stories (correct me if I'm wrong!!) and it might be that Tolkien wanted to "talk" about that war. Other than that I definitely agree with PB about the sitting and the waiting until one day someone suddenly does something which triggers everything.
sindarinelvish
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 09, 2007 11:27
As I read the intro and first chapter, I also got a real feeling of the very first part of Braveheart. Great separation between peoples/tribes but a common enemy. Kind of that mud and wattle hovel feeling even for the "nobles'. Scrabbling your living out of the earth and going without during those seasons where the weather didn't cooperate. It's been a month or two so really need to go back and re-read.:dizzy:

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AinarielPalantir
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 12, 2007 07:05
It's an evil world full of fear and doubt. There's one big enemy making a shadow over the whole world, and on top of that all the different races, people and families live apart from each other with not so warm relationships. I get a feeling that everybody in this world seem to be kind of waiting for something; some hiding and some fighting while waiting for it.
Makil
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 12, 2007 12:58
I've allways seen parallels in the subgegation of northern Europe by Emperial Rome ,and later Constintime's, and Charlmange's Rome and TCOH/Middle Earth time period.
I see the Celtic, and Germatic people as nature loving (Worshhiping)Who respect and depend on the forest/nature for food , hunting and shelter.The original tree huggers. Sounds pretty Elvin to me.
I see the invading Romans as a well organized war machine, under a single ruler,and a single purpose .mechanized ,determined to destroy or conquer anyone who dosen't agree with them. And then exploit any survivors. Even cut down the Sacred Oak(The Party Tree?) Sounds pretty Morgoth/Sauronish to me.
BTW Ask some American Indian If he sees any parallels ,you might be surprized at who he sees as the Orcs.
Figwit
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 15, 2007 09:22
I get a feeling that everybody in this world seem to be kind of waiting for something; some hiding and some fighting while waiting for it.


Oh, that is such a good description of how it feels to me!
Makil
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 18, 2007 09:02
I see the world of Brethill , and Middle Earth in general, as a pretty hopeless ,dark, bleak, place at this time..
The Men and Elves had lost the big battle. Few fighting men survived
The surviving Elves were hold up in their strongholds.
Mankind's years of prosperity, and plenty ,where you were treated like Royalty were over.
The land was under the thumb of your longtime enemy the Easterling invaders . Your neighbors were being enslaved or killed .
The invaders were brutal, and could do anything to you they wanted, you had no say. Your future was not in your hands.
This is the world Hurin's children will grow up in
As someone mentioned movie Braveheart , where William Wallace grew up in just such a place.
But in CoH like Braveheart there was allways the spirit of resistance.
PotbellyHairyfoot
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 19, 2007 07:08
It's great seeing the parallels that everyone finds. I was so stuck on what i saqw that i never considered others.
At the start of this story we see one last chance at victory, if only all the forces aligned against Melkor would work together, but as with so many other conflicts over the ages, they are troubled by internal conflicts and just can't quite all work together.
XKingElessarX
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: July 21, 2007 01:21
It's a world on the brink of change, whether it be for better or worse. Though at the time, it seems to be for worse.
olorinlorien
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Post RE: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: March 28, 2009 09:08
Parts of the Silmarillion have an Icelandic Sagas feel to it. Sure, it's NoEuro, and I would say pre-Roman, or maybe post-Roman Dark Ages Europe. But definitely not much agriculture.

As I've said in another thread about Elves, there is magic in the land, but not a whole lot; a strict count of physics-bending phenomena would be very low, relatively speaking. But as I've said in a book I wrote, the past is very malleable in that there can't really be a clear Euclidean path back in time, causality or no. In quantum physics there can literally be a past where the chair you're sitting in didn't get there, even though you're sitting in it now--at least on the sub-atomic level. For me, that means legend is free to be legend and not subject to strict rules of causality, as in "King Arthur really existed and really did all that stuff, or he didn't and the stories are all just made up." No, to me the past has no such "what really happened," even though causality does seem to be inviolate. This means that Tolkien's writings "resonate" more than mere 20th century fictional books. But that will be another thread.

So I'd say I can't really do a logical mapping of here and now to then and there. I got the germ of this idea from Romanian historian Mircea Eliade. If you check out his Wikipedia page you'll see some amazing talk about these issues. Basically, we have become totally non-legend oriented and therefore stuck in analyzing everything in terms of historical causality, whereas aboriginal people see myth, especially creation and "early times" myths as real and everything else as just dead-time(space). So the aboriginal sees reality as some form of living out (or reconnecting through ceremony) the sacred myths.

Personally, I remember being in Germany back in 1975, stationed deep in the Bavarian Forest near the Czech border. I'd been in wild setting in homeland America, but that place was much deeper somehow. Somehow I could imagine myself becoming what might be termed a "ward of the woods," i.e., all normal daily routine overthrown and the spirit of the land taking me on whatever path wherever. I also had just gotten Genesis' "Trespass" album, which has a very haunting song "White Mountain" on it which is very Saga-ish. The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has this "and then the land took over" in spades... Enough for now!
Nrogara
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Post Re: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: May 19, 2012 03:59
Others have mentioned that this world was "waiting", and I like what they had to say about it. I saw it as dying, as if the people are caught in a landslide and trying to fight back up the hill, gaining ground for awhile but then loosing in the end... a struggle worth singing about but a tragedy at the same time. They clung to hope when there really was none. Morgoth was just waiting for them to crumble; he could have whipped them all out as he did with Nargothrond but he knew they would fall so he just waited for them. He had no weakness as Sauron did in the ring. It is like the fall of Rome, as I think some have mentioned, because there was nothing they could really do. They could hold on to small parts of their world for a short amount of time, but mostly they just had to watch it fall.
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Grizzwald
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Post Re: The World of Hurin and his children.
on: February 01, 2013 11:45
It's a dark world on the brink of overthrow. During the time of the elves.
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