Lord of the Rings?

[Teekas Dragon]

Thanks Joe for putting a name on that book. I don't know about everyone else but i love to read just about anything i can get my hands on if it's by a good writer. So that gives me another (on my growing list) of books to read. I'll probally finish getting the Wheel of Time books first tho (at least as far as Jordan has gotten). Thanks again man

Later
Jerome

------------------
I am a Ranger. We walk in the dark places no others will enter. We stand on the bridge and no one may pass. We live for the One. We die for the one.

 

[Zarto]

One of the early third season episode had perhaps the most Lord of the rings vibes for me anyway. In that episode Ivanova went down to Epsilon 3 to use Great machine to find First ones.

In that episode i made first connection ever between B5 and LotR.

The Great Machine was clearly Palantir.
Ivanova uses the Palandir and wonders accidentally to Za'ha'dum Where Flaming "eyes" of shadows confront her. That was one of the few episodes i could make any LotR connections with the series. Of course the follow up in Season 4 episode 1 when they go to rescue Sheridan from Za'ha'dum. They meet the eye again and Lyta says "The eye is watching..."
It did felt like The eye was = Sauron in a way.

Don't really understand how people accuse ripping off LotR the setting is way different. So what if there are few nods to different things here and there. It is so difficult to invent brand new story ideas that no one has ever seen before. People are influenced by what they have seen and read and heard and from those basis they great their own stories, mixing things up and greating their own stuff. Everything that is created now days have connection and ties to some other that has created before.

 

[Galahad]

One of the things that always struck me about the Great Machine when it first appeared, was the visual similarity between the chasm components and the machine on the planet in Forbidden Planet. However, they were pretty quick to retract this reference... taking out the huge weights that went up and down; choosing instead to have small pulses of light rndomly shooting up.

The confrontation with the Soldier of Darkness in the Long Dark was a little reminiscent of the Monster's from the Id as well

 

[Truth_Seeker]

I've never read the book "Lord Of The Rings" but I have watched the movies and I think that except for the similarity of the names the two stories are very different.In my opinion every great writer was fascinated or influenced by another great writer.I thing that JMS respects Tolkien and accidentially used a few similar names in B5.

After all John Tolkien was not the first person writing about elves, dwarfs, ork, wizards and magical objects with great power.I post some Wikipedia links about them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ork_%28folklore%29

 

[Triple F]

One of the things that always struck me about the Great Machine when it first appeared, was the visual similarity between the chasm components and the machine on the planet in Forbidden Planet. However, they were pretty quick to retract this reference... taking out the huge weights that went up and down; choosing instead to have small pulses of light rndomly shooting up.

That’s something that had me curious as well. It was an obvious nod by the designer Luc Mayrand, as he says:

Some concepts for the Excalibur took a little layout from the P38 Lightning, also the TU-144 – they did not carry forward. The most obvious nod of all was no doubt the underground shafts in Epsilon 3, “The Great Machine”, very much inspired by the underground world in Forbidden Planet.

Does kind of imply that jms (or someone else) didn’t know about this visual nod, a bit like the Sunhawks to the Liberator in B7 or the Omega’s to the Leonov, and wanted it toned back a bit. The reason why it always had me curious is why remove (or deny) visual nods when there are so many in the narrative. Maybe he thought the others where being a little to liberal with the use of them in his universe.

 

[RW7427]

Wow, this is an old thread!

I don't know if I said this before (I don't remember and I'm too lazy to go back through and look ) but, I don't think that B5 is a rip-off of Lord of the Rings. People can point out similarities, and there might be some, but anything more than that is just people seeing what they want to see and what is not necessarily true.

 

[hypatia]

Question about Lord of the Rings

I'm reviving this old thread because I only have one question. It would be a waste to start a new thread for just one question.

I was watching the International History channel on my cable service, and the show was part 2 of "Books Banned from the Bible". Something caught my ear.

In a 'banned book' called (something like) "Testament of Soloman", a phrase was mentioned that I cannot quote exactly, here, but it was to the effect of "one ring to [something something], one ring to [etc, etc], one ring to [call them forth?] and one ring to [bind them?]".

I can rewatch it to check exactly, if I get a reply to this. The programme is saved on my DVR recorder. But my question is this: isn't that exactly verbatim a line used in "Lord of the Rings"?

Soloman, in the book, is using this incantation to call up satan, I believe. This is one of the reasons it is believed the book was banned. But they do (in regards to another part of the 'banned book') mention a tie-in to an existing "in the bible" quote of Jesus', when he was raising Lazarus from the dead. He refers to Soloman. It was pointed out that this 'banned book' might explain why that is so: that Soloman was known to be a sorcerer and has his own tale about raising a young man from the dead. So this book may actually have tie-ins that are hard to ignore and dismiss.

Anyhow, that whole raising of the dead has nothing to do with my question. So I'll just stop here. Does anyone remember/know what the exact quote was in Lord of the Rings, as far as "one ring to bind them" might go? If so, I'd appreciate your making a note of it here.

In advance, thanks.

 

[Recoil]

The Lord of the Rings quote is:

"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them. One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them"

Even if its not exact, its pretty damn close. To the point that is probably where he got the inspiration for the line, or flat out took it.

 

[hypatia]

Thanks, Recoil, that's it word-for-word basically. But, upon listening to what was actually said it's a bit confusing as to whether the person speaking meant these words the exact words from that testament, or if he's just quoting Tolkien.

What the man being interviewed actually said was:

"... and there is also a lot of 'Tolkien-ish' imagery here. 'One ring of power. One ring to rule them all. One ring to find them. One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness, bind them.' "

Is he referring to the supposed words of Soloman, or the known words of Tolkein here? If it were the quote from the Testament of Soloman, would it rhyme so neatly, and have such a convenient meter, in modern English?

Anyway, this tells you something about Tolkien: he was at least in small part a bible history scholar. Again, this is from one of the supposed removed or lost portions of the bible. So he couldn't have just heard it stated in church one day.

 

[KoshFan]

Tolkien was both a devout Catholic and an expert on ancient languages -- although he usually stayed closer to the northern languages. (The language of Rohan is Anglo-Saxon, without a single alteration, and Elvish has Finnish roots.) Nor was he above lifting completely from ancient sources: the name Gandalf and most of the dwarvish names we get in the books are lifted straight from old Norse and Germanic sagas. In fact, stumbling across the name Gandalf gave Tolkien the idea of a wizard named that, since the name means "wand elf." Nor is Bilbo a name he invented.

Of course, his grand idea was to create an ancient legend, so tying it in with real-world languages made sense; he wanted a story that ancient peoples would have understood.

It wouldn't surprise me, therefore, if the quotation is pretty melodious in its first language, and Tolkien came up with the translation to match the poetic rhythm in the original.

 

[hypatia]

Indeed. But I wonder what a literal translation of the original would be.

And don't get me wrong, everyone, I'm not putting down Tolkien in any way. It's more amazement that he used such an obscure and mostly-unknown source for a very key aspect of his series. I mean, how many people have ever heard of this lost book, or in fact even know that what has been put into the bible and left out has changed over time.

I certainly didn't, the thought never occured to me until I was told. Now, years later, I"ve found the series on this subject to be amazingly interesting. If I were a writer I'd happily lift characters, names, quotes, whatever I like from it. I mean, just how cool is a major biblical figure summoning demons (and controlling them) to build Jerusalem? :devil::evil:

 

[KoshFan]

Indeed. But I wonder what a literal translation of the original would be.

Much, much less cool.

I mean, just how cool is a major biblical figure summoning demons (and controlling them) to build Jerusalem? :devil::evil:

Oh, yeah, Solomon was quite the guy by all accounts. He still features prominently in Middle Eastern mythology, I'm told. And FYI, the "demons" would be djinni (singular djinn) in Arabic... or, in other words, a genie in a bottle.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

Oh, my God! Barbara Eden built Jerusalem!

 

[hypatia]

Oh, yeah, Solomon was quite the guy by all accounts. He still features prominently in Middle Eastern mythology, I'm told. And FYI, the "demons" would be djinni (singular djinn) in Arabic... or, in other words, a genie in a bottle.

Solomon cast out "demons" from people who were thought to be possessed. So I gather their idea of "genie" is closer to our idea of "demon". And yes, this particular show used those middle eastern sources to support the validity of (at least some) of the stories in this supposed banned book.

Oh, my God! Barbara Eden built Jerusalem!

It certainly gives one pause, doesn't it? :vulcan:

 

[PillowRock]

If it were the quote from the Testament of Soloman, would it rhyme so neatly, and have such a convenient meter, in modern English?

It wouldn't surprise me, therefore, if the quotation is pretty melodious in its first language, and Tolkien came up with the translation to match the poetic rhythm in the original.

Yeah, well that's translation gets to be a really interesting problem, isn't it ..... when things like rhythm or rhyming pattern are just about as important as the basic meaning of the words.

Well, ...... that and trying to figure out what makes sense for cultural reference metaphors.

I have a CD by Ute Lemper called "Berlin Caberet Songs". All of the songs came from the German caberet and review shows of the Weimar Republic era, and all of them were banned by the Nazis when they came to power. She recorde two complete versions of the CD. Both have all of the same songs and all of the same orchestrations / backing music. What's different is that one is sung all in the original German and the other is all in English translation. That had to have been an extremely "interesting" translation job. In addition to translating the meaning, you have to stay with the rhythm of the music, the rhyming pattern is important, and to top it all offf you've got to maintain the sense of humor including risque double entendres (which tend to *not* line up directly between languages). I've got the English version. Sometimes I think that it would be really interesting to listen to the German version, even though I only know a few words of German. For one thing, there are a few places on the CD where the lyrics drop into French for a word or a short phrase, and I'm curious whether any of the original German songs did that. It's not completely unthinkable, but still .......


Another interesting bit of translation .....
I remember reading a play by Moliere a high school English class. I couldn't even tell you which one it was with any certainty. What did burn into my mind so that I still remember it was the translation. Somebody had managed to translate it so that the English version of the play maintained its couplet rhyming pattern throughout.

 

[KoshFan]

Robert Fagles is now fairly well regareded among translaters of Homer for doing a great job of making the Iliad and Odessy sound like real poetry (and making it fun, as well). He's been criticized for not being quite so accurate... but considering the nature of oral history to begin with, I've never much cared.

 

[hypatia]

Yes, sometimes great liberties have to be taken with the content in order to match all that you have been talking about, both of you. Personally, I'd hate that job (translating). You're bound to piss someone off, no matter which way you lean.

For a magical incantation, it would be like a song. The feel would probably be paramount, as long as the basic meaning were kept. I had a friend in high school who knew enough of German to watch films like "Das Boot" and not have to read much of the subtitles. Once she said, though (about the subtitles) "hey, THAT's not accurate, that's not what he said".

It was the line about vaseline between a virgin's legs I think. That was my first experience with the idea that cultural references may not translate well, so they have to be replaced with something more fitting for that culture, or it won't make sense. :wtf:

 

[KoshFan]

What I loved about the subtitles in Das Boot was when the sub commander made jokes about Churchill in English, the subtitles translated the English right along with the German. Accurately, by the way.

My father's a big fan of Wagner's operas, and we watch Parsifal fairly often; near the end of Act III there's a flubbed translation which my parents both groan over. I still have no idea what the actual line is.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

I watch a lot of films with subtitles. I speak Spanish, and understand a fair amount of Italian. I see lots of poor translations. I think idioms should be translated literally, when they will be understood, to give some of the flavor of the language. Of course, sometimes they wouldn't be understood at all.

I watch a lot of Japanese films, many translated in the 50s - 70s. I don't understand Japanese, but it is often painfully obvious that they just don't bother to translate everything, all the time. One film, title escapes me at the moment, has a very dramatic scene between a man and a woman. It ends with him asking her a question, and she answers. Except, they don't bother to translate her answer...

 

[GaribaldisHair]

One film, title escapes me at the moment, has a very dramatic scene between a man and a woman. It ends with him asking her a question, and she answers. Except, they don't bother to translate her answer...

Maybe she was just telling him to **** off.