Nan Dumgorthin - When Tolkien Met Lovecraft
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- Опубліковано 21 січ 2024
- In this video, we talk about Nan Dumgorthin, a place from Tolkien's earlier drafts that felt like something HP Lovecraft would've written.
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Thanks for mentioning Lord Dunsany. Most Tolkien fans dont even know he existed.
My number one favorite author, whom I warmly recommend. Anyone who enjoys Tolkien or Lovecraft (or both) is guaranteed to adore Lord Dunsany's writing.
Can confirm. I found out about Dunsany in college after reading HPL. Only *read* Dunsany after college.
Dunsany is such a joy. I had no idea who he was till Extra Credits did a deep dive into the writers who influenced Lovecraft .
I tell people that Dunsany will put you to sleep, but in the best way. He makes you eager to dream.
Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett is a name supreme in its Britishness.
Nan Dumgorthin seems to have influenced Tolkien's depiction of the Deadmen of Dunaharrow and the Paths of the Dead in LOTR: renegades; lived on a wooded mountain; ghostly figures following the heroes in the story; hidden temples and altars etc.
That's a really good point.
Nameless Gods probably dark spirits that dwells in the void before the music of Eru ever played.
Or maybe they were created when Eru said "Eä", before the Ainur enteted Arda, but after the Ainur were created in the Void.
If they ever made a Silmarillion open-world video game like Skyrim, Nan-Durgothen would be one HELL of a location…
Most developers would ruin it.
Players would complain that existing in Nan-Durgothen is be too difficult, so the developers would reduce the difficulty until the area is stripped of its horror. Only maybe a developer like FromSoft would be willing to do the area justice.
Tolkien was perfectly fine with creating areas that were essentially off-limits to mortals or even elves. What do you think would happen if a mortal somehow managed to survive Nan-Durgothen long enough to approach UnGolant's lair?
My guess is that they'd never even get a chance to see UnGolant, if that's even possible for anything but a Maiar. They'd be stricken numb and consumed long before that ever happened, and no game potion would ever change that. What developer is willing to create an impossible challange in today's world?
@@Uncle_FredBandai Namco?
Welcome to Blackreach
We dont speak about Nan Dumgorthim...
And Nan-Turducken would be one HELL of a roadside restaurant.
This description sounds very Tom Bombadil like but in a dark way.
I agree
I always feel so excited for this kind of content. I wish that Nan Dumgorthin could be reconciliated with Nan Dungortheb somehow. Like what if local folk worshipped the brood of Ungoliant. After all they were huge spiders. Could be considered as deities/demons by some tribes living there.
Exiles from Beren's homeland, perhaps. They attach themselves to the spiders like PNW native-americans used to align themselves with local bear tribes. Keeps the orcs and Easterlings away, like the PNW tribes' bears kept other tribes away.
... at a cost.
Maybe the Nameless Things, Nameless Gods, Ungoliant, Tom Bombadil, and Goldberry are all related. Perhaps Eru created a bunch of spirits at the beginning of Eä, sort of like a pantheon of nature spirits, but weirder and more potentially dangerous than you would expect, and technically older than the Valar.
I love this idea!
That's what I always figured. Tolkien had a tendency to anthropomorphize and personify abstract concepts as cosmic beings. Tom Bombadil was literally Nature itself (while Goldberry might be Time). Ungoliant was the personification of darkness. There might also be personifications of Gravity, Matter, Order, Chaos, etc... Many of the Balrogs that Melkor corrupted were originally fire spirits. This suggests there were also earth, water, and air spirits -- the nameless things that Gandalf encountered.
Arda can't really come into existence without these abstract concepts, so they existed alongside the existence of the world itself, as woven into the music of the Ainur. That means they predate the Valar.
@@Ishkur23 I thought earth, water, air and fire spirits (or Maiar, if you like that name better), were well established in Tolkiens works? I could have sworn Silmarillion mentions a dozen or more by name and specifically that Gandalf was a fire spirit, one of the few that didn't follow Melkor in his rebellion. Would he not have known his own kind if he encountered them?
Bombadil is a male form of Sophia from Proverbs 8:19-36...
@@SilverionX Yes, Maia are well established. But I'm not talking about Maia, I'm talking about the physical properties of existence itself. All those things need to come into being in order for Arda itself to have any texture.
It all started when Eru himself uttered: "Ea." ("Be"). But without getting too scientific (ie: physics), that "being" has no definition without essential properties like light, dark, up, down, water, air, hot, cold, etc... and Arda could not become Arda without those necessary properties.
Each property has a personification attached (some definitely more than one). But those personifications had no personality or individuality. They're just tools -- created to fulfill a task. Make hot things ignite, for example. Make things fall down, etc....
As Arda was conceived in the Music of the Ainur, so too were the properties of Arda conceived in the Music. But not all the musical conceptions were of Eru's doing, as Melkor introduced discord, and from his interference sprung forth nameless things that cursed and despised the exalted light of the Valar, as per Melkor's desire and design.
So when Melkor forsook his immortal form in the void to descend and become lord of -- and part of -- Arda, his discordian mechanisms were already there, neither waiting for him nor beholden to him. But they were still instruments of his design, and thus found common ground and a mutual enemy.
Strangely, I was thinking just yesterday about how the Watcher in the Water, at the Western gates of Moria, seemed influenced by Lovecraft, complete with tentacles that themselves had pseudopods and which crawled and sought, apparently independently.
The entire mines of moria feels like lovecraft, gandalf even passed literal lovecraftian monsters when fighting the balrog in the books
Something like Nan Dumgorthin but set far to the East would have made a good setting for a 4th Age tale had Tolkien chosen to pursue that. Have the nameless gods actually be the descendants of creatures that Melkor bred in his early days but either escaped or were rejected by Melkor.
This reminds me of George RR Martin and Ashaii by the Shaddow. Sothoryos. Clearly George took his ideas form Lovecraft.
You can always establish conceptual continuity between those locations. As in for instance you cut through swaths of spider demons and their matriarchs but eventually you make it to a forbidden ruin where renegades mummified with spider webs rest in the shrines shrouded with gossamer. I think a shrine of nameless gods infested with monsters makes for a lovely idea.
Alternatively it could be an eldritch shrine of Tom Bombadil
It is possible Tolkien was influenced indirectly as he was stated to have read some of Howard's Conan works and enjoyed them. Howard and Lovecraft were pen pals and Lovecraft elements do show up in Conan stories.
Beren's homeland always did look a lot like REH's Cimmeria to me.
I understand that Tolkien disliked Clark Ashton Smith's work however. My theory is that Tolkien, the Catholic, could not stomach CAS's near-Klan anticlericalism especially in Averoigne.
@@zimriel There was a little bit of bawdy humor and body horror in CAS as well that Tolkien might not have approved of. A lot of CAS worlds were devoid of hope, "Dark Eidolon" "Empire of the necromancers" etc that could have soured him too.
I will say Thasidon seems an awful lot like Morgoth in appearance, but way more charming.
The only time (that we know of) that JRRT read a Conan yarn was in the early '60s. That's WAY too late to 'influence' Tolkien.
@@bluebird3281 Thasaidon DOES bear a marked resemblance to Morgoth, but there doesn't seem to be any way either author could've influenced the other. The timeframes don't match up.
@@SEKreiver I wonder if there is a Lord Dunsany character or some mythological figure that might have influenced them both. Probably just coincidence.
These "nameless gods" are probably just Eru Illúvatar's intrusive thoughts :P
that gives the Call to the Void a whole different spin! 😊
Please talk more about the Lovecraftian elements present in the Legendarium, they are genuinely my favorite bits of lore. Obviously Lovecraft and Tolkien were sorta contemporaries and Tolkien didn't exactly take inspiration from Lovecraft, but as Girl Next Gondor put it, the similarities are insane to really think about. Eldritch, horrific beings that are incredibly evil or even just apathetic like Morgoth, Ungoliant, and the Great Old Ones, unnamed Things hidden deep beneath the earth that are fouler and more ancient than the usual terrors of the land like Squishers and Orcs, even the idea that Aman (I think Aman is the name but I don't remember so feel free to correct me (it's actually Arda I believe)) isn't actually planet Earth, but instead the Solar System. Morgoth and the other Valar having fortresses and strongholds outside of the Solar System just makes me think of Lovecraftian entities coming from other plamets to conquer the Earth.
Aman is the Undying Lands where the Valar, Maiar, and most Elves lived, a continent originally west of Middle-Earth. Later, when Ilúvatar made the world into a sphere, Aman was removed from the world and new lands were set it its place. Exactly where Aman was removed to is not clear but only the Ainur and Elves leaving Middle-Earth to go to Aman could go there using what Tolkien called "The Straight Path."
@@istari0 Yeah I think I was thinking of Arda, there's too many A names in Lord of the Rings and Elder Scrolls 💀💀💀
Where is the “straight path” mentioned? I have been wondering how the hell elves were sailing across the sea to a place no longer on the world’s surface.
@@jamesgordley5000 It's referred to in a few different places in Tolkien's writings, mostly, I think as the "Straight Road" or "Straight Way". The most prominent and descriptive maybe being at the end of Akallabêth in the Silmarillion, speaking of Elves able to find their way back to the legendary west after the sinking of Númenor. While mortals, in nearly all cases, could at best only circumnavigate a mundane and round world.
@@jamesgordley5000 Tolkien's elves are Flat Earthers, don't worry about it
Those early decades were when writers communicated with each other. Tolkien with C.S. Lewis, Lovecraft with Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E Howard, and too many to list. I have often wondered if Tolkien and Lovecraft ever communicated with each other.
No way. Lovecraft was an atheist.
@@zimriel Well, he did communicate with Machen, who had a Xtian background. Not that it means anything.
If Ungoliant were to be one of the nameless horrors we could imagine both Versions of the tale being true, the Valley being inhabited not only by Ungoliant 's brood but later by Renegade Men that worshipped them as gods AND brought them prey as sacrifice much in the same way Gollum did with Shelob. Also.. First!
Yes perfect time for some spooky stories 😜 2am for me now. Thanks gandalf always for the epic video!
The tunnels under the misty mountains are scarier
Other than what ever deepest depths of Utumno and Angband had there is where I'd consider the closest thing to Hell in middle earth is
Something about Minas Morgul and how its described by Tolkien is bone chilling too@@phoenixmilburn8759
Well, since the other sank beneath the sea...
Thanks for the heads up about the spider pictures
Agreed, that was greatly appreciated.
Idea for Middle Earth Mysteries: All the small things in the Hobbit, which you haven't covered yet. For example the castles "built for evil purpose" Bilbo saw on his way to Rivendell
Probably fortifications left over from the wars of Arthedain, Cardolan, Rhudaur and Angmar.
Makes sense with a competing faction of demi-gods, it would explain why the valar did not have time or strength to meddle in the going ons in Middle Earth at all times, they had other enemies to deal with.
The valar aren’t demigods and there are no other factions of higher divine beings.
@@jarlwilliam9932 Sure there is, Eru is the god, the valar are his creations.
@@FuckGoogle2 sure that doesn’t make the valar demigods. Eru isn’t just the god, he is literally God. As in the Christian God, Eru Illuviatar is simply the elven name of the God of Abraham.
Tolkien says this multiple times in his letters, that would as Tolkien also says make the valar, maia, and elves angels and saints. Not gods or demigods.
@@jarlwilliam9932 Tolkien was a true bigot and a moron.
@@jarlwilliam9932 You're really splitting hairs over the ranks of imaginary beings?
It seems Tolkien transformed this sorcerous men later into the Hill-folk of Angmar. Descriptions are pretty similar
"Gods older than the Valar" wouldn't make sense in the post-Silmarillion world we know and love today, but it could easily have been changed to worshiping Melkor and offering up to him human sacrifice like the Númenóreans did to Sauron, which would have made both the valley and Morgoth even more terrifying.
Why would you suggest the Nameless Things aren't canon? "Valar" is just a title given to the Ainur that travelled into Arda after they sang reality into existence. Nameless Things are probably accidental creations that came into being from the music made by Melkor & are native to Arda hence them being "older" than the Valar. They could also be things that came into existence when Melkor's music caused the others to stop singing, being the manifestation of missing notes in a song.
I think I can name one thing older than the Valar: Tom Bombadil. Haha
I always had it as headcanon that Ungoliant was something like a Great Old One, or potentially a spawn of Shub-Niggurath. The GOO´s seem to be attracted to young planets, after all.
In Nan Dungorthin where nameless gods.... sounds to me Tolkien might have conversed with Arthur Machen.
Amazing video!!!!! ❤❤❤
I love that final little thought .. Agreed, do not mix shrines and sacrifice!
I find these horror and mystery stuff in LOTR really cool and interesting.
I wish and wonder if Tolkien lived longer to tell more stories. Would we have known more of this horror stuff and nameless things.
Always so cool to hear stuuf like this
4:32: "older than Morgoth and the Valar" is definitely debatable, since Arda was created after the Ainulindale, in which Melkor and the other Ainur participated. The only way they to make statements like that consistent is if you consider events outside of Arda as being in a timeless eternity and therefore not counting somehow. The Nameless (and Tom Bombadil, who specifically states he was "here before the Dark Lord came from outside") were in Arda before Melkor and the Valar entered, so they could be considered "older" in that sense.
The whole "time not existing outside Arda" is how those statements are usually interpreted.
I always liked to think that Arda is the remnant of some older project of Eru he never spoke off. He than just paved it over and instructed his newest creation, the Ainur, to built the world of the Ainulindale on this pavement. Some of the old creatures survived this, like Bombadil, Ungoliant, and the nameless ones. The letter remained after they have been buried deep at the foundations of the earth.
Very interesting concept. I think that the idea of the spider filled valley somehow fits in more with the general mood of the LotR saga and the "feel" of Middle Earth in general, BUT personally, I have much more of a soft spot for "ancient occult horrors", especially in such an already rich and detailed universe. It makes you question HOW ancient these entities must be when so little is actually known about them in a wold where a noble's lineage can be traced back for millenia.
I definitely prefer the spiders. Considering what the spiders are, in Tolkien, that's pretty terrifying.
"Nahn düm-GOR-thinn".
Not only did I enjoy but I Did find it interesting!
My Headcannon is that Nan Dumgorthin is a real place that exists somewhere in the Dark Lands, possibly also inhabited by giant spiders and outlaws (like some sort of Proto-Australia).
I hope you do some more videos on Dunsany's work.
Well, THIS is a cross-over episode I never expected ^^
Makes a lot of sense though.
I for one am glad that Tolkien decided to not go that route. I'm a huge fan of Lovecraftian styles, but it's good that we have other great works of fantasy not influenced by the concept.
Tolkien peeked through the warp and saw the Drukhari
This place reminds me sharply of Minas Morgul...could it be that Minas Morgul was filled with altars of human sacrifice and sorcery? What horrors lay inside that could drive a man insane?
Sorcery and driving others into insanity is without a doubt true but as for sacrifices I imagine it more like a place of torment. Orcs speak themselves about the possibility of Nazgûl torturing them and Witch King makes the mention of slaying and enslaving Eowyn within the Houses of Lamentation ( I don’t know what the fuck that even means but whatever ) it would be a place meddling with the practices of unseen and necromancy
@@oguzhanenescetin5702 first of all, I really like your username, I agree, Minas Morgul is even called the City of Torments in the Silmarillion, and later the orcs mention the Nazgul leaving them all cold on the "other side", Minas Morgul would be a place that I would not like to enter...
@@anti-liberalismo Well thanks most gets confused by that name lol.
@@oguzhanenescetin5702 gigachad Turkic nomad
Consider the likelihood that Barad-dûr, as Sauron's stronghold, was worse. Probably worse than any other place had been other than Utumno and Angband.
Would love to see a video about Taur-Im-Duinath. I think that place is full of ents.
Beren's crossing is one of the most harrowing passages
@ 3:37, If the totality of Arda was encompassed in the Music of the Ainur, then the Nameless Things were manifestations of the evil in Melkor, made so by his participation in the Music , at the absolute fullness of his power. No wonder they were so enduring
it's an area i find fascinating and wished there was more about it
Nan Dungortheb makes sense for lore reasons in more than one way. If Men only awoke at the rising of the Sun, then there's not much time for them to reach Beleriand, splinter into cults and inhabit the valley in time for Beren to pass through.
The Pits of Utumno are right up there too
You should do a video on what happens if Numenor doesn’t sink? What if Ar Pharazon just turns back? Do they serve under Sauron and conquer Middle Earth or do they break free and destroy him?
The Valar would probably seal Numenor into another pocket dimension like they did with the Undying lands. If not, Numenor would obviously rule ME until the ending of the world like what Galadriel says about Sauron in the Third Age.
One headcanon i read was that the Nameless Things, Ungoliant, and the Watcher in the Water are all products of the versions of Ainulindale where Melkor first introduced his disharmonious themes, while Tom Bombadil is a result of Eru's response to Melkor's chaos. Somehow these 'early draft' melodies made its way into Arda and have remained as inexplicable personifications, all creations of Eru but not a single one designed by the Valar. Now how Goldberry fits into this is unclear, but Tolkien did write of fairies and mermaids in his early Legendarium before replacing them entirely with Maiar (Melian and Uinen were fays under different names before becoming Maiar in the Silmarilion). Goldberry could be such a fairy creature. Now i want more Tolkien adaptations based on his unfinished drafts lol
The Nameless Things seems like such a Lovecraftian thing, like Tolkien was giving a cheeky nod to his work.
It's interesting to see how much Tolkien's legendarium evolved over the course of his life. Makes you wonder how much of his unpublished/unfinished work would have actually made into to canon, if he had actually tried to novelize it.
This was really cool. And if you have two more videos I find cool I'll subscribe.... that's my rule and I stick to it....any suggestions to similar videos?
I think maybe he was also influenced by Hope Hodgson; not with proof, but there’s a lot of parallels of The Night Land and this side of Tolkien’s legendarium.
can you do a video on civilizations that lie south of Harad or east of Rhun?
What if Beren took the athor 2 silmarils from morgoth
What if Sauron killed isildur
If im not mistaken Tolkien described Ungoliant as from the outer darkness, that also sounds Lovecraftian to me.
There is a book I’ve been listening to called “Throne of Bones,” and this land and its inhabitants remind me of the ghouls that exist in that work.
Anyone else know what I’m talking about?
I used to own Book of Lost tales and the lays of beleriand. As the years rolled on they seem to have joined Melkor in the Void. I suppose he needed some reading material. Lol. I have somehow ended up with two first edition hardbacks of the Silmarillion. I remember buying one with some pocket money way way back when. But the other? Who knows.
Anyway, the old Lovecraft version just doesnt work in what we are presented with in the Silmarillion. As an aside on a recent re-read of the Silmarilion i was struck at how Melian and Ungoliant are mirror images/opposites. I wonder if that was in any way intentional. Both are Maia (ungoliant HAS to be a maia), but take on physical form and enter Arda. Melian shines with the light of ther Two trees, Ungoliant is the eater of that light and a massive source of darkness. Both inhabit a realm guarded by magical shadows and both have a legendary daughter. Shelob and luthien. Both just sort of leave the story, their part done with no real dramatic exit. Melian presumably sets off to Valinar to put the kettle on and wait for Thingol to get out of Mandos and give him an ear bashing for being such a dumbass. Ungoliant? Might have got a bit hungry....
There are many differneces of course, but some very similar themes. So, has anyone ever seen Melian and Ungoliant in the same room? lol.
Dude really made a 6:33 giant enemy spider!! Ne ne ne ne ne …
Maybe Lord Dunsany... LOL you said it as I typed ;)
The silmarillion is metal af actually.
Absolutely bangin name for a black metal band
Would spiders still live in Ered Gorgoroth in the third age?
In terms of the overall world, turning it into a valley if soiders was the better, as you say, cohesive change.
But in terms of the location itself, a forrest with of dark god worshipping cult is WAY more interesting.
Perhaps he should have transfered that cult to a place in the Misty Mountains where they had a tunnel that lead to the dark chasm in Moria.
If Ungoliant was from the Void and these "nameless gods" could have been misremembered accounts of her. Or she spread information on other things that she knew about.
Lol what game did he use for the video?
Are thoses nameless gods still a thing or did Tolkien abandon the idea ?
I think it was an evolution. Neither best or worst since both places are equally terrifying.
What about the Lovecraft story that feels written by Tolkien? I feel that The Strange High House in the Mist is super underrated.
Meanwhile, I find it curious that Beren, who is an Elf, not a Man, in the Book of Lost Tears, went through this forest of evil Men in that book.
Did JRRT actually jettison the idea that Ungoliant came from the Void? As I understood, the later versions of the legendarium simply leave it unknown what Ungolian's origins were.
Personally, I *really* like the idea that there is an ancient prehistory created by the Music older than the Valar's physical presence in Eä!
As best I can tell, he did dump that idea. I just figure she was one of the Ainur, one who also turned to evil but decided she did not want to have Melkor as her overlord.
The Chaos is not part of the Music. The Cantor up front should have told you.
It was never set in stone that she was from the Void. Tolkien pretty much says that all things come from Eru Illuviatar, even the song of crestion that the Ainur sang was devised by Eru with the exception of Melkor’s discord.
Ungoliant is called a maia in the Silmarillion and her origin is guess at in the lost tales as whether she was a maia or a void spirit but considering Tolkien very much wanted his books to be compatible with Christian theology and straight up calls Eru Illuviatar the Christian God multiple times then it’s a safer bet that Ungoliant was simply an Angel who followed Satan into rebellion, er I mean Morgoth into rebellion.
JRR Tolkien sure was very considerate in preserving the integrity of his world's history and he properly would not like to validate the theology of some derange in worldy culture which if he did validate them it may compromise the sanctity of his world's design. A quality good attribute of his which is admirable and sets a good example.
I think it's good that the wicked entities who were worshipped in Nan Dumgorthin before the arrival of the giant demonic spiders were not as old as the wicked men who revered them claimed they were. Which does make sense as evil loves to decieve, obscure, misdirect, and lead people astray as Morgoth did with all sorts of lies.
They can still be a faction of horrific lawless beings no doubt but still a impotent evil no matter how hard they try to glorify themselves as being greater then Valar, Melkor, and Eru Iluvatar. Whether they are the Nameless Things or not they are not all powerful.
So that kind of modern fancy narrative with cosmic horror isn't something Jrr Tolkien would want to entertain or validate in his world. They can still be hellish scary even without that whole universal absolute lovecraft nihilism cosmic horror vibe if you make them just right still retaining a ancient nightmarish horror to them. The same can be done for Nan Dumgorthin as well.
I'm sure Utumno's varies desecrated monsters and evil spirits were pretty horrific.
Exactly. Evil cannot create, only corrupt; and by extension it lies, and lies a lot.
@@SockieTheSockPuppet
You got that right. This is the most important fundamental spiritual part that purely seperates JRR Tolkien from whole popular modern narratives which is a cultural tread these days. Evil is not all powerful and that in the end it is not the creator nor does it absolutely rule creation. Much unlike the apathetic, detached, nihilistic, and indifferent cosmic horror writing styles.
JRR Tolkien's follows a more Biblical kind of standard and foundation for his world's creation. Evil is not omnipotent. Even in the worse situations and conditions in the Bible like when the nephilim in the book of First Enoch were at the peak of their lawlessness they couldn't break this fundamental principle which still stood true no matter how hard they tried and claimed they were gods in their doctrines of lies. They could never create anything. Only marr, defile, and desecrate. But never create which is often their lie which demons do. Which in the end they all failed before the creator.
I think you should do a lovecraft channel
Since The Valar and Morgoth were both around before middle earth, how could the nameless "gods" be older?
Sacrifice is never a good word. Never willingly give anything in exchange for lesser value.
Similarities between Tolkien and Lovecraft go beyond their mutual influence by Lord Dunsany. They both lived at a time when knowledge of the universe was rapidly expanding. Being born two years apart, they were both teenagers when Einstein produced the Special Theory of Relativity, and in their 20s when Planck discovered quantum physics. They were in their 30s when we realized that there wasn't just one galaxy in the universe, but a vast number. Etc.
So cosmic horror infiltrated Arda, no pun intended, as well as formed the basis for Lovecraft's works. Parallels can easily be drawn between Ungoliant and the Elder Gods, the "vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars.” Tolkien is never really clear on her origins, suggesting in later writings that she may be a corrupted Maia but never explicitly confirming it as in the case of the Balrogs.
And the realms of Ea are vast beyond the thought of Elves and Men, full of wheels of fire and other mysteries.
And yet, Tolkien was so arrogant to deny that and to dislike every other authors, expecially Dunsanny.
You say that Gandalf encountered the Nameless Things under Moria...did he though?
I was under the impression that he knows they exist and the tunnels he and the balrog fought through were made by them, but I didn't think he actually encountered them face-to-face
We're not 100% sure. He says "Far, far below the deepest delving of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he. Now I have walked there, but I will bring no report to darken the light of day." Which kind of implies he saw them but also not. Its vague and hard to say.
I guess that depends on whether or not you think the Watcher-in-the-Water was a Nameless Thing.
@@Hero_Of_Old To me it sounds like he saw them, but openly refuses to talk about them because just knowing what lies beneath is an infohazard. Given Gandalf is trying to bring hope to the races of man and unite them so that they can end the threat of Sauron, distracting them with tales of horrors that aren't their problem would be counterproductive.
Also, I wonder how much inspiration Tolkien took from the Norse myth of Níðhǫggr when writing that passage, since Nidhogg the dragon (who devours the corpses of murderers and oathbreakers in the underworld) is often also depicted gnawing on the roots of Yggdrasil (the world tree) despite that never being mentioned in the Eddas.
Tolkien never said that Elu was alone in the darkness of the void, ONLY that he is the creator of middle earth...what's to say dark brethren of the void didn't happen upon their fellow "brother's" creation my chance.
"The dark forest valley filled with demon worshiping renegade men became a shadowy valley filled with terrifying spiders"
Why not both? A valley of spider-demon worshipping renegades and terrifying spiders. There's already mention that Gollum worshiped Shelob for a time in Return of the King.
Algormancy!
Sounds like Hyboria to me.
3:18 to 4:33
5:46 cc
I find both interesting but also disturbing that maybe there are Nameless horrors in Middle Earth that are arguable worse than Morgoth.
You know, I never considered a pre Valar existance in Middle Earth. Interesting!
It's rather hard to have a Lovecraftian location in a book with mostly an omnitient storyteller. Now, put something like this into the Lord of the Rings, and characters could just not know what the hell this is. Oh wait, the professor literally did that two and a half times around Moria
Damn, finally something cool in LOTR
almost sounded like Nan Dumgorthin was a concept for a different story that never came to be, so Tolkien fixed it up to fit the Middle Earth Lore.
Huh?, The creation of the Ainur by Eru predates Arda, so even if creatures might has "become" as Arda came to be, the Ainur would still predate that as they sung the creation of Arda in Ainulindalë, before finally Eru Illuvatar ushered Arda into being with exclaiming "Eä"
if there was junk in there to traumatize beren thats enough for me
Oh you mean metaphorically
I swear, so much culture, magic and people were lost with the fall of Beleriand, Middle Earth is infact post apocalyptic.
But it actually is far more post-apocalyptic than many people are willing to admit. Numenor destroyed, elven kingdoms in ashes, dwarven realms a shade of their former glory, large swatches of land nothing more than wastelands, bandits on roads. Middle-earth in the 3rd Age is a world living on the ruins of far greater civilisations.
Disagree w/ closing sentiment re sacrifice in a shrine. As would Tolkien - and for the same reason.
Ave Verum Corpus!
Cool video, tho.👍
Certainly, if Nan Dumgorthin was included, Morgoth would have turned its inhabitants' worship to him.
Interesting. Tolkien enjoyed Howard’s Conan novels but felt they were only amusing diversions: pulp fiction . Howard and Lovecraft never met but were pen pals who greatly admired each other’s work. Tolkien was a bit of a snob at times and positively detested his great friend C S Lewis’ creation Narnia.
Mentioning ancient golden gods would have been annoying for Tolkien to integrate into his history of Middle Earth because of the necessity to define their relationship to the Valar if real, or whether the Valar were the themselves truly gods if the "golden gods" were not, which seems the most likely option to me.
Misguided men in a sinister valley could have been worshipping false gods, completely imaginary that only they and their period of ancient humanity believed in and gave names to, since forgotten, but to have had to explain that, so as to re-enforce that Eru and the Valar and Maiar is the true cosmology of Middle Earth in contrast, would still have involved having to address the question of the status of the Valar.
This Tolkien couldn't do, since as a Catholic he had no intention of promoting a cosmology, even within a work of fiction, that was polytheistic, or even henotheistic like real world Zoroastrianism is. As much as possible he avoids talking about the issue, leaving it to readers to interpret. But the Valar occupy a position in the cosmology, between Eru the Creator and the subordinate immortal Maiar spirits, that gods occupied in the Classical and the northern European pantheons. Tolkien wanted to replicate the achievement of the monk who inscribed the oral tradition of the tale of Beowulf in such a way as the preserve the story while redacting and euphemising the pagan polytheistic references in that tradition, leaving just enough to be suggestive, for those who knew.
That's the sense Tolkien wanted to give the Valar, that they are gone from the world and being forgotten by Men later in the Fourth Age, as they should be, to the extent that in the later Middle Earth which becomes our Iron Age northern Europe, they could distract people from the scriptural revelation and their correct and necessary knowledge of the Holy Trinity.
Lovecraft is kind of ... hysterical. For me, the stories generally don't evoke the horror intended, but rather a sense of absurdity. Edgar Allan Poe is another story though.
I always found Lovecraft's stories quite powerful.
Try the Mountains of Madness. I always liked "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" best of his stories... and Machen's The Great God Pan.
It's subjective after all, i love Lovecraft and i find Tolkien boring and repetitive for example.
Why can't this fit in?
It's Bombadil. HE is the ancient God they're worshiping! I'm just joking, but in all seriousness, some of the stuff they say about Tom DOES sound very Lovecraftian in its own right, and always gave me sketchy vibes about him.
:LD
It was a downgrade. The thing I don't like about the LOTR is that the world is SMALL. There are of course many things left unexplained, but most legends, lore, etc can fit into the framework of valar-elf-human. This is why I prefer the Hobbit - the world of the Hobbit is bigger. For example, wizards in the LOTR are this special class with only five members who these super angelic beings. Wizards in the Hobbit seem to be just regular humans who practise magic. There could be thousands of them, each with their stories and adventures in lands beyond the edge of the map in the Hobbit. In the Hobbit, Bilbo finds a magic ring, and these items seem to be relatively common. In the LOTR, this ring is The Ring, the all-powerful artefact that the whole world is looking for. I'm not explaining myself well. The world of the Hobbit is potentially HUGE. The world of the LOTR is small. Adding even a hint of beings more ancient and more powerful than the valar would have added some mystery to the whole created world.
It's strongly implied that Tom Bombadil is older than Sauron and by extension all the other ainur.
@@anonymous-hz2un I always thought Bombadil was Tolkien himself, an insertion of the author. I think I read that he believed that after his death, his created universe would be in some sense real for him - a sort of heaven. And he wrote Bombadil as a type of avatar that he would essentially BE when he entered his own world.
I definitely prefer the updated version of the forrest.
Unnamed gods just don't feel like Tolkien to me.
namesless old gods is literally a lovecraft line.
i would imagine tolkien would loathe Lovecraft. his work is too dark, too soul shrivilling and heretical for Tolkien.
Tolkien liked hope, and wrote out most of the darkness he drafted, always leaning to a more lighthearted yet biblical edge. Love craft is the death of all that
why do you take lovecraft into this
He did not.
p