Silmilarities in the nazgul

[T.J. Johnson]

I don't know if anyone has caught/discussed this. Perhaps it is a
little humor from tolkien, that their are 9 nazgul and 9 supreme court
justices. There is 1 nazgul who is sort of the overbearer of the
others such as there is in the supreme court justices. Is this a
little humor analagy from tolkien suggesting that the supreme justices
are corrupted such as the nazgul werE?

- Just my two cents

[Larry Swain]

Post by T.J. Johnson
I don't know if anyone has caught/discussed this. Perhaps it is a
little humor from tolkien, that their are 9 nazgul and 9 supreme court
justices. There is 1 nazgul who is sort of the overbearer of the
others such as there is in the supreme court justices. Is this a
little humor analagy from tolkien suggesting that the supreme justices
are corrupted such as the nazgul werE?
- Just my two cents

No. For one thing, Tolkien was an Englishman and an Oxford
professor--why would he care a whit about the US Supreme Court?
For another, If one wants to find parallels to old, frightening
men dressed all in black whose speech is hardly intelligible,
one need look no further to than to the high table at college.

[The American]

Post by T.J. Johnson
I don't know if anyone has caught/discussed this. Perhaps it is a
little humor from tolkien, that their are 9 nazgul and 9 supreme court
justices. There is 1 nazgul who is sort of the overbearer of the
others such as there is in the supreme court justices. Is this a
little humor analagy from tolkien suggesting that the supreme justices
are corrupted such as the nazgul werE?

You are very much correct!
Unfortunately for you it was already discussed in the Chapter of the Week
LOTR Bk2 Ch2 The Council of Elrond (PART 1 - Introduction) thread.

Here's the link:
http://tinyurl.com/27hj2

Check it out.

T.A.

[Larry Swain]

Post by The American

Post by T.J. Johnson
I don't know if anyone has caught/discussed this. Perhaps it is a
little humor from tolkien, that their are 9 nazgul and 9 supreme court
justices. There is 1 nazgul who is sort of the overbearer of the
others such as there is in the supreme court justices. Is this a
little humor analagy from tolkien suggesting that the supreme justices
are corrupted such as the nazgul werE?

You are very much correct!
Unfortunately for you it was already discussed in the Chapter of the Week
LOTR Bk2 Ch2 The Council of Elrond (PART 1 - Introduction) thread.
http://tinyurl.com/27hj2
Check it out.
T.A.

T.A.,
COuld you be more specific? I did a search on the thread for
keywords and found no discussion on it. And I've done a Google
search on the topic through the Tolkien topics, and still can't
find it. So could you point me to where this discussion takes
place and why people would think that the 9 Nazgul are modeled
on the US Supreme Court?

[the softrat]

On Sun, 04 Jul 2004 14:04:32 -0500, Larry Swain

Post by Larry Swain
T.A.,
COuld you be more specific? I did a search on the thread for
keywords and found no discussion on it. And I've done a Google
search on the topic through the Tolkien topics, and still can't
find it. So could you point me to where this discussion takes
place and why people would think that the 9 Nazgul are modeled
on the US Supreme Court?

He's a legend 'in his own mind'!

Notice that 'nazgul' and 'supreme court' BOTH contain a 'u'!!!!

In ALL words!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


the softrat
"Honi soit qui mal y pense."
mailto:***@pobox.com
--
"Let them fight that battle in peace." -- Allan Lamport
(deceased), former mayor of Toronto.

[Martin Farrent]

Post by the softrat
Notice that 'nazgul' and 'supreme court' BOTH contain a 'u'!!!!
In ALL words!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also note the vagueness. Tolkien never bothered to name most of the
Nazgul. And he never named *any* Supreme Court judge. Coincidence? Hardly!

Best ;-)

Martin

[Flame of the West]

Post by Martin Farrent

Post by the softrat
Notice that 'nazgul' and 'supreme court' BOTH contain a 'u'!!!!
In ALL words!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also note the vagueness. Tolkien never bothered to name most of the
Nazgul. And he never named *any* Supreme Court judge. Coincidence? Hardly!

Very insightful of you both. The clincher, of course,
is the fact he NEVER denied ANYWHERE in his writings
or Letters that the Nazgul represented the U.S. Supreme
Court. In his youth he wanted to create a mythology for
England, but by the time he was writing LotR, he had
abandoned that idea and was instead writing a mythology
for the United States. This is not gainsaid anywhere
in his writings, so it must be the truth! (Letter 180
is, of course, irrelevant!) Feel free to contradict
me with a Real Citation if you can!

Happy Fourth of July from the Shire!


-- FotW

Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-earth.

[the softrat]

Post by Martin Farrent

Post by the softrat
Notice that 'nazgul' and 'supreme court' BOTH contain a 'u'!!!!
In ALL words!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also note the vagueness. Tolkien never bothered to name most of the
Nazgul. And he never named *any* Supreme Court judge. Coincidence? Hardly!
Best ;-)
Martin

Right On!, Brother!!

the softrat
"Honi soit qui mal y pense."
mailto:***@pobox.com
--
How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink? -- Steven
Wright

[The American]

Post by Larry Swain

Post by The American

Post by T.J. Johnson
I don't know if anyone has caught/discussed this. Perhaps it is a
little humor from tolkien, that their are 9 nazgul and 9 supreme court
justices. There is 1 nazgul who is sort of the overbearer of the
others such as there is in the supreme court justices. Is this a
little humor analagy from tolkien suggesting that the supreme justices
are corrupted such as the nazgul werE?

You are very much correct!
Unfortunately for you it was already discussed in the Chapter of the Week
LOTR Bk2 Ch2 The Council of Elrond (PART 1 - Introduction) thread.
http://tinyurl.com/27hj2
Check it out.
T.A.

T.A.,
COuld you be more specific? I did a search on the thread for
keywords and found no discussion on it. And I've done a Google
search on the topic through the Tolkien topics, and still can't
find it. So could you point me to where this discussion takes
place and why people would think that the 9 Nazgul are modeled
on the US Supreme Court?

I just thought you were being silly or needed a more in-depth understanding
of Tolkien and thought that if I tricked you into reading a very insightful
Chapter of the Week post that you might join us all at the table, (so to
speak).
No offense meant.

T.A.

[AC]

On 3 Jul 2004 08:30:11 -0700,

Post by T.J. Johnson
I don't know if anyone has caught/discussed this. Perhaps it is a
little humor from tolkien, that their are 9 nazgul and 9 supreme court
justices. There is 1 nazgul who is sort of the overbearer of the
others such as there is in the supreme court justices. Is this a
little humor analagy from tolkien suggesting that the supreme justices
are corrupted such as the nazgul werE?
- Just my two cents

Why would you think there was any relationship at all? Tolkien was British,
so I doubt that the count of SCOTUS justices would mean a damn thing to him,
nor would he particularly care. Can you think of anything that would have
occured during 1938-1939 in the US legal system that would have been of such
extraordinary import that Tolkien would have felt it important to make the
count of the Ringwraiths nine?

Have you thought of reading the Foreword to LotR to learn about what JRRT
thought of allegory?

[Stan Brown]

Post by AC
On 3 Jul 2004 08:30:11 -0700,

Post by T.J. Johnson
I don't know if anyone has caught/discussed this. Perhaps it is a
little humor from tolkien, that their are 9 nazgul and 9 supreme court
justices. There is 1 nazgul who is sort of the overbearer of the
others such as there is in the supreme court justices. Is this a
little humor analagy from tolkien suggesting that the supreme justices
are corrupted such as the nazgul werE?
- Just my two cents

Why would you think there was any relationship at all? Tolkien was British,
so I doubt that the count of SCOTUS justices would mean a damn thing to him,
nor would he particularly care. Can you think of anything that would have
occured during 1938-1939 in the US legal system

We might as well say there were nine Nazgul because there were nine
planets! Luckily, Pluto had been discovered in 1930; otherwise there
might have been only eight Nazgul!

Seriously, I think T.J. is putting WAY too much weight on
coincidence. Ask yourself if there's any number Tolkien could have
possibly used for which you wouldn't have been able to find some
famous analogy. No, until you get well up into double digits which
would be unsatisfactory dramatically), any number you name will have
lots of echoes both in literature an din the real world.

[Carl032163]

Post by AC
On 3 Jul 2004 08:30:11 -0700,

Post by T.J. Johnson
I don't know if anyone has caught/discussed this. Perhaps it is a
little humor from tolkien, that their are 9 nazgul and 9 supreme court
justices. There is 1 nazgul who is sort of the overbearer of the
others such as there is in the supreme court justices. Is this a
little humor analagy from tolkien suggesting that the supreme justices
are corrupted such as the nazgul werE?
- Just my two cents

Why would you think there was any relationship at all? Tolkien was British,
so I doubt that the count of SCOTUS justices would mean a damn thing to him,
nor would he particularly care. Can you think of anything that would have
occured during 1938-1939 in the US legal system

And if Roosevelt had gone ahead with his threat to add more justices to the
court would there have been more Nazgul in LOTR. And wouldn't that have
required more members for the fellowship (9 riders = 9 walkers).

[Flame of the West]

Post by Carl032163
And if Roosevelt had gone ahead with his threat to add more justices to the
court would there have been more Nazgul in LOTR. And wouldn't that have
required more members for the fellowship (9 riders = 9 walkers).

Yes indeed. Tolkien actually started an alternative script in which
there are fifteen Nazgûl and fifteen Walkers. This is done via a few
changes in the story: Fatty Bolger actually comes along with the
Hobbits (he later becomes an honorary Ent while Merry joins the
Rohirrim and Pippin fights for Gondor), and Tom Bombadil and Goldberry
show up at the Council because they hadn't taken a trip in 35,000 years
and just wanted to get out of the house. Plus they are joined by
Bilbo, Arwen (a warrior-princess who curiously prefigures the movie
Arwen), and one of Elrond's sons (the manuscript has several
crossed-out lines indicating that Tolkien had trouble deciding which
one).

See HoME vol. XIII for details.


-- FotW

Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-earth.

[Flame of the West]

Post by Stan Brown
Seriously, I think T.J. is putting WAY too much weight on
coincidence. Ask yourself if there's any number Tolkien could have
possibly used for which you wouldn't have been able to find some
famous analogy. No, until you get well up into double digits which
would be unsatisfactory dramatically), any number you name will have
lots of echoes both in literature an din the real world.

What is this weird obsession Tolkien has with the number 14?
There are 14 Valar, and 14 is the "lucky number" in The Hobbit.
Could it be he was inspired by Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points"
for ending the war which so shaped his youth?


-- FotW

Reality is for those who cannot cope with Middle-earth.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Post by Flame of the West
What is this weird obsession Tolkien has with the number 14?
There are 14 Valar, and 14 is the "lucky number" in The Hobbit.
Could it be he was inspired by Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points"
for ending the war which so shaped his youth?

Nah. It's just that 14 = 7 x 2
Seven is the real Tolkien number.

Oops. I thought you were being serious... :-)

[Martin Farrent]

Post by Christopher Kreuzer
Nah. It's just that 14 = 7 x 2
Seven is the real Tolkien number.

Wrong again. 2 was Tolkien's lucky number. 7 is everyone else's.

Best ;-)

Martin

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Post by Martin Farrent

Post by Christopher Kreuzer
Nah. It's just that 14 = 7 x 2
Seven is the real Tolkien number.

Wrong again. 2 was Tolkien's lucky number. 7 is everyone else's.

And seven plus two is nine, bring us back to the Nazgul...

Seriously, the number seven is found a lot in Tolkien's works.
Are you serious about the number two?

Christopher

[Martin Farrent]

Post by Christopher Kreuzer
Seriously, the number seven is found a lot in Tolkien's works.
Are you serious about the number two?

No, maybe or yes. JRRT was probably not aware of the fact that he liked
it so much.

Best ;-)

Martin

[the softrat]

On Mon, 5 Jul 2004 02:16:08 -0400, Stan Brown

Post by Stan Brown
Seriously, I think T.J. is putting WAY too much weight on
coincidence.

Of course there is ABSOLUTELY NO PRECEDENT for this kind of behavior
in RABT!!

the softrat
"Honi soit qui mal y pense."
mailto:***@pobox.com
--
"This is all very interesting, and I daresay you already see me
frothing at the mouth in a fit; but no, I am not; I am just
winking happy thoughts into a little tiddle cup." (Nabokov,
Lolita)

[Bruce Tucker]

Post by AC
Can you think of anything that would have
occured during 1938-1939 in the US legal system that would have been of such
extraordinary import that Tolkien would have felt it important to make the
count of the Ringwraiths nine?

Of course! It's well-known that in 1937 Franklin Roosevelt proposed a
controversial plan to expand the Supreme Court so that he could appoint
new justices who would be more amenable to his progressive New Deal
programs, some of which the existing, conservative justices, whom FDR
referred to as "horse and buggy" types, found to be beyond the scope of
the powers granted the federal government by the Constitution.

Now it's also well known than Tolkien was, in addition to being an avid
Court-watcher, a devoted progressive who had high hopes for the future
of the American socio-economic experiment. He obviously meant the Nazgul
to represent the forces of entrenched conservatism on the Supreme Court,
and the similarity in number represents his disapproval of the ultimate
rejection of Roosevelt's plan.

Post by AC
Have you thought of reading the Foreword to LotR to learn about what JRRT
thought of allegory?

What, and miss out on so many entertaining discussions here? ;-)