When was middle earth created

The One Ring was taken from him by Isildur, but not destroyed. The Third Age saw the rise in power of the realms of Arnor and Gondor, and their decline.

By the time of The Lord of the Rings , Sauron had recovered much of his former strength, and was seeking the One Ring. He discovered that it was in the possession of a Hobbit and sent out the nine Ringwraiths to retrieve it. The Ring-bearer, Frodo Baggins , travelled to Rivendell , where it was decided that the Ring had to be destroyed in the only way possible: casting it into the fires of Mount Doom.

Frodo set out on the quest with eight companions—the Fellowship of the Ring. At the last moment he failed, but with the intervention of the creature Gollum —who was saved by the pity of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins —the Ring was nevertheless destroyed. Frodo with his companion Sam Gamgee were hailed as heroes.

Sauron was destroyed forever and his spirit dissipated. The end of the Third Age marked the end of the dominion of the Elves and the beginning of the dominion of Men.

As the Fourth Age began, many of the Elves who had lingered in Middle-earth left for Valinor, never to return; those who remained behind would "fade" and diminish.

The Dwarves eventually dwindled away as well. The dwarves eventually returned to and resettled Moria. Peace was restored between Gondor and the lands to the south and east.

Eventually, the tales of the earlier Ages became legends, the truth behind them forgotten. Tolkien passed away in All further works were edited by Christopher Tolkien. Only The Silmarillion portrays itself as a finished work — the others are collections of notes and draft versions. The History of Middle-earth series:. Anderson explains that, since the Rings books were published almost fifty years ago, numerous emendations and corrections to grammar, word-choice, and punctuation and repairs to their internal consistency have been made through the various editions; while many such corrections were by Tolkien's own request such as specific and intentional word choices made by Tolkien in his original manuscript, but omitted or 'corrected' in later editions by overly-zealous editors , revisions that would have required rewriting portions of the narrative instead of simple corrections were left unmade to preserve the integrity of the text.

In Letter to Christopher Tolkien , Tolkien set out his policy regarding film adaptations of his works: "Art or Cash". The rights are currently in the hands of Middle-earth Enterprises , which has no relation to the Tolkien Estate , which retains film rights to The Silmarillion and other works. The first adaptation to be shown was The Hobbit in , made by Rankin-Bass studios. This was initially shown on United States television. The following year , a movie entitled The Lord of the Rings was released, produced and directed by Ralph Bakshi ; it was an adaptation of the first half of the story, using rotoscope animation.

Although relatively faithful to the story, it was only a minor commercial success but not entirely well received by critics. However, this did not follow on directly from the end of the Bakshi film. Plans for a live-action version would wait until the late s to be realised. The films were a huge box office and critical success and together won seventeen Oscars at least one in each applicable category for a fictional, English language, live-action feature film, except in the acting categories.

However, in adapting the works to film, changes in the storyline and characters were made, which upset some fans of the books. The Hobbit film series, a live-action adaptation of The Hobbit was also made as a prequel to The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, produced in New Zealand under the direction of Peter Jackson.

The first and second films were released in December and respectively while the third film was released in In , the biopic film Tolkien was released, portraying the experiences of J.

R Tolkien before and during World War I , and how those events inspired the works taking place in Middle-earth. The works of Tolkien have been a major influence on role-playing games along with others such as Robert E. Howard , Fritz Leiber , H.

Lovecraft , and Michael Moorcock. A Middle-earth play-by-mail game was originally run by Game Systems Inc. Simulations Publications created three war games based on Tolkien's work. War of the Ring covered most of the events in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

EA Games has released games for the gaming consoles and the PC platform. Apart from this game, many commercial computer games have been released.

Some of these derived their rights from the Estate, such as The Hobbit — others from the movie and merchandising rights. The University of California, Irvine has an undergraduate housing village called Middle Earth, containing dormitory halls named Hobbiton, Rohan, Isengard, and Mirkwood, among many others.

Articles about Middle-earth by Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? View source. History Talk 3. Do you like this video? Play Sound. Fan Feed 1 Sauron 2 Melkor 3 Gandalf. Universal Conquest Wiki. Lord of the Rings Wiki Featured articles. On the other hand, J. That is not to say that Tolkien was writing allegories for the Book of Genesis — rather, he was obsessed with the epic nature of the Fall of Man and its consequences.

Whereas the Fall of Man is attributed to a simple deception by the Devil, he attributed the Fall of Elvenkind to more complicated deception with far-ranging consequences. However, Middle-earth is really only the stage for the stories that Tolkien wanted to tell.

In that sense it was not his first choice of stage. Rather, The Book of Lost Tales is set in a pseudo-historical England, or concerns peoples who once dwelt there. In a simplistic sense, we can say that Middle-earth first emerged in the early s when Tolkien developed maps that described the world beyond Beleriand. These maps did not include the landscape that was the setting for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , so this early Middle-earth only slightly resembled the Middle-earth of the books.

We cannot really say that even the more detailed landscape of The Hobbit — which was published in — created the Middle-earth we think of today. Like the Beleriandic stories before it, The Hobbit established a large section of landscape that Tolkien would eventually integrate into the realized literary Middle-earth.

But that realized literary Middle-earth would not see publication until Some people therefore suggest that it took J. That is, he continued to niggle — to add more details, to change details, and he constantly tried to improve and expand his vision of Middle-earth right up to the time of his death in It seems easy to find a certain resemblance to the childhood of Tolkien himself, who was orphaned at the same age as Frodo and was raised by Francis Morgan Osborne, a figure for which he had great affection and respect and who inspired many aspects of his life and work.

There, he participated in the brutal battle of the Somme as a communications officer until he suffered from the so-called 'trench fever' and was removed from the front for three months. It was precisely at this time, and having lived the war very closely, when he began writing his 'Book of Lost Tales' that he would end up becoming 'The Silmarilion'.

His experience in the Somme would serve, years later, to shape the War of the Ring and battles such as that of Helm's Deep or Pelennor Fields. In World War I it was customary for men with studies, training or good family to receive high positions within the army while workers and lower classes were mere private soldiers. Tolkien used the brotherhood that arose in the trenches by the soldiers and the fact that each officer was accompanied by an assistant everywhere to create the character of Samwise Gamgee.

This pair of hobbies also has another more symbolic meaning: Frodo represents rationality and logical thinking while Sam is the personification of sentimentality. They complement each other and present a new version of the material world and the world of the ideas of Aristotle and Plato.

When he was 16 years old, Tolkien met the love of his life, Edith Mary Bratt in his oprhanage. Due to the age difference between the two and the fact that Edith Mary was Anglican, Father Francis prohibited John Ronald from having any contact with the young woman until they both came of age. Tolkien respected this ban and as soon as they were of age they got married. The difficulties that Tolkien experienced in his relationship with Edith Mary inspired the creation of Beren and Luthien, a couple composed of a man and an elf that appears in 'The Silmarilion' and whose impossible love would be the basis of the later history of Aragorn and Arwen.

Tolkien used numerous creatures of medieval European mythology to set the mood and shape his world, but there are two that play a great role in and were created by him. The hobbits arose from the imagination of the English writer and their name comes, according to the theory, from the words 'rabbit' and 'hole builder' referring to the hobbit-holes in which they are living. The other creature that, although already part of the fantasy world, was Tolkien's invention is the orc, that evil spawn that makes up the vanguard of the armies of Mordor.

The orcs used to be confused even by Tolkien himself with goblins but in 'The Lord of the Rings' the difference between these completely different races was highlighted. At the beginning of 'The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo and his entourage are in serious trouble when they cross the Old Forest, but are saved by a curious character named Tom Bombadil. In one of the most memorable scenes of the book, Tom shows off his extraordinary powers and is believed to know the history of the world before even that Gandalf.

The character made his first appearance in the poem 'The Adventures of Tom Bombadil' and is based on a Dutch doll belonging to his brother Hilary that John Ronald broke as a child.

A ring, referring to both the form and the object itself, has in almost all cultures and beliefs a deep symbolism that Tolkien knew how to take advantage of. For many people, such as the Egyptians and the Vikings, the rings meant power and victory and were proudly worn by rulers, warriors and wealthy people.

On the other hand, a ring is usually a symbol of commitment and promises, either in Catholic marriage ceremonies or in oath rings typical of Nordic temples. Finally, a ring represents "being and not being", since its own nature and form constitute a circumference of metal or wood and a hole in the centre.

These are two of the best known fantastic races and that post-Tolkien literature has used most often. Both elves and dwarves originally belonged to Norse mythology, being creatures that related to the gods of Asgard and being very present in the legends of the Scandinavian people. Tolkien's dwarves are practically identical to those of the ancient world: a race of strong and skilled creatures that excavated huge cities in the mountains and were famous for their work as blacksmiths or jewellers.

On the other hand, Tolkien's elves went one step beyond the originals on which they were based, making them perfect and pure creatures, closer to the divine than to the human. Tolkien created an entire world from birth to near destruction in the War of the Ring.

The world of Middle-earth was created by Eru Iluvatar, supreme being of the universe similar to the Christian God, who gave rise to all creatures. The dawn of Middle-earth bears many similarities with the origin of the Nordic world and some of its most significant creatures, such as the demon of fire and shadow Balrorg, can find its equivalent in monsters like Surtur, which is gigantic being that carries a flaming sword.

This popular legend is one of the most widespread among the Germanic mythology and Tolkien knew how to capture some of its elements in his work. Even if we dig a little, there are certain similarities between Hagen Snake tongue , who persuaded King Gunter Theoden with poisoned words to get rid of his loyal Sigfrid Eomer servant. It seemed impossible to deal with English literature without mentioning the eternal William Shakespeare.

Interestingly, Tolkien considered that the work 'Macbeth' had two flaws in its argument and he decided to solve it in 'The Lord of the Rings'. In the Shakespearean theatre, the witches prophecy to the Scottish king is that "he will never be defeated until the Great Birnam wood comes to high Dunsinane Hill,'' which happens when the enemy army cuts the trees to simulate that the forest moves, and that "no man born of woman could kill him", which is solved causing McDuff to be born by caesarean section after the death of his mother.

Tolkien corrected the forest scene with the attack of the Ents in Isengard and the solution of the caesarean section with the Witch King of Angmar, who had also said that no man could kill him, but he fell under the sword of Eowyn. John Ronald wanted to give Middle-Earth a complete and full history of different cultures, catastrophes, legends and details.