the lord of the rings - Did Tolkien deliberately place the Battle of the Pelennor Fields on the Ides of March?

I just realized that the Battle of the Pelennor Fields (aka the Battle of Minas Tirith) occurs on March 15th, or the infamous "Ides of March". The Ides of March was originally nothing more than a day on which several religious observances in Ancient Rome occurred, but it is now famous primarily as the day on which Julius Caesar was assassinated. Shakespeare later coined the famous phrase "Beware the Ides of March" in his play Julius Caesar.

I am wondering whether the date of the battle was mere coincidence (I tend to doubt it) or intentional, and if the latter, whether Tolkien ever revealed the reason he chose to make the battle occur on this date. It could be as simple as "It is a date people commonly associate with bad stuff happening", but I certainly hope he had a better reason than that.

Did he ever comment on this topic?

Answer

I found the answer in The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion. No, it was not intentional. Tolkien realized, while he was writing, that Aragorn's ride to the Hornburg took place over too little time, and decided to move the Battle of the Pelennor Fields back a day to give him more time - the battle was originally scheduled for March 14.

enter image description here Text shown is from The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion by Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull, p. xlv

Transcript:

Occasionally a new idea came to Tolkien, or one thread of the story required more time than he had first thought, requiring other threads to be adjusted to that they would come together at the right time; for instance, in remarking to himself on moving the Battle of the Pelennor Fields from 14 to 15 March, he wrote:

But more time is needed for Aragorn. Fellowship could be broken sooner giving 2 days (5) [i.e. presumably 5 days instead of 3] to F[rodo and] S[am] in Emyn Muil and moving Hornburg ride back 2 days. But this would all throw out of hear in rest [of] story. Best would be to make Pelennor later.

Comments

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...

Blog

Search This Blog