Talk:Architecture in Middle-earth/GA2

GA Review
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Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 12:42, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Will take this one. Expect comments within the next few days. —Kusma (talk) 12:42, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Many thanks! Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:48, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Section by section review
Overall the article is written for people who already know a lot about Middle-Earth. I'm not convinced it needs to be; slightly more context and background in a few places would make it a lot more accessible.


 * Lead: Perhaps try to start with a sentence giving the context (fictional universe by JRRT).
 * Done.


 * J. R. R. Tolkien: The section starts quite abruptly with a specific scholar's explanation of his views on architecture in his work. Perhaps re-title; this really is about JRRT's various imagined architectures and the scholarly view of these, not about the person.
 * I've led into the article more gently and introduced the scholar a bit later. Retitled: The article is organised by the persons envisaging Middle-earth's architecture, starting with Tolkien and going on to Jackson and then Payne/McKay, so I've added 'vision' to indicate the each chapter is about how each saw the architecture.


 * Hobbit-holes: a one-sentence description of what they are (and that hobbit hole means comfort) would again help the non-expert. Think of someone who has only seen Amazon's Rings of Power.
 * Added.


 * You are citing 22 pages of Fonstad, and the same 22 pages as for Honegger? Double check. Do we know whether Tolkien deliberately left room for others or is this just something that happened?
 * Well spotted, the range was accidentally duplicated. Fixed.


 * Can we have a short description of Rivendell and its architecture?
 * Added.


 * Who is John Ruskin and what are his principles of architecture? (Help us poor ignoramuses out by giving us context).
 * Glossed. (At least, not an in-universe problem ;-} )


 * You have a rather selective supply of examples, with nothing from Dwarvish architecture. What about Moria? Dale? Erebor? The Morannon? The Halls of Elvenking Thranduil? (Not to mention Gondolin, Nargothrond or Angband). Tolkien's Numenor could also be mentioned here to contrast it with the Amazon version.
 * These are basically the instances that have captured scholarly imagination. I've added an account of the Dwarvish architecture of Moria, even though there's not much critical commentary on it directly; even less on the other places you mention.


 * Perhaps it's just me, but the Constantinople pic makes me think of Osgiliath (the proper capital of Gondor), not Minas Anor.
 * We can only go with the sources; of course, Osgiliath too was part of Gondor.


 * Peter Jackson: this section seems just about the LoTR film series; what about the Hobbit films?
 * Two detailed scholarly books of essays have been written about the LoTR film interpretations; hardly anything about the Hobbit films. With the first trilogy, Jackson variously shocked, delighted, and interested fans, readers, critics, and Tolkien scholars alike. With the Hobbit trilogy, it seems he didn't get much further than the fans.


 * Is bigatures enough of a real word to be used without quotation marks around it?
 * Quotation marks added.


 * We have the Oscar for Art Direction; would it make sense to mention the people (Alan Lee is one of them, but the connection is not made).
 * I'm not sure we can do this more than the article does already, with the sentences side by side.


 * Payne/McKay: Technically, Numenor isn't in Middle Earth, but I guess we can use "Middle-Earth" to mean Arda in this context. What about Moria?
 * Yes, if "Middle-earth" needs a small gloss as a reminder, "Arda" would need a whole paragraph. But "Middle-earth" is commonly used for all of Tolkien's invented world.


 * Fans: We learn very little about fans here, other than the short bit about Wilkins confessing being a Tolkien nerd in her youth. I am not convinced by this section; much of the content about Minas Tirith could be in the Tolkien section, and the rest is only very tangential about architecture.
 * Cut down and moved the Tolkien part to that section, ditched most of the inspiring-the-fans part (though if that's the function of fictional architecture, maybe that's a pity).

General comments and GA criteria checkbox

 * It is generally well written, although sometimes a bit of context is lacking for the non-experts (see above).
 * Noted, I hope that's fixed (above) now.


 * No major style issues. Except perhaps at the very start of the lead, the fact/fiction distinction works.
 * Noted; added "fictional world" up there.


 * References formatted nicely and from reliable sources. More detailed checks to follow.
 * Noted.


 * There seem to be some omissions (dwarves, Hobbit film series) that make me uneasy on ticking "broad".
 * I've replied on those issues in other items here. Added a section on Dwarves; I do not believe there is really anything much we could reliably source on the architecture of the Hobbit films as such.


 * Images are relevant, licenses are fine and fair use rationales OK.
 * Noted.


 * More detailed source comments: Woodward/Korelis checks out (and I see that they don't say anything about Moria). You could mention that they find Jackson's architecture very European. The citations without page numbers are a bit lazy, but acceptable.
 * Noted. When one cites an article or chapter, it's normal just to cite it as a unit unless it's extremely long (>100 pages, perhaps).


 * Alan Lee's "The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook" could be a useful source? (Hoping he says something about Moria!)
 * He says very little but the drawings are interesting; cited him for both Rivendell and Moria.


 * Wilkins checks out.
 * Noted.


 * Couldn't find anything much about Moria either :( This student thesis only has OR in the Moria section, and no particularly useful other references :( I found this [doi:10.22028/D291-23632 other thesis] (a German PhD thesis in art history) a bit annoying, but at least it does have some Moria-related content. And some Bakshi-related content. I haven't looked too closely whether there is anything useful in sources or just the author's own (probably sometimes flawed) interpretation.
 * Hmm.


 * According to this review Barad-dur and Bag End are due to John Howe.
 * Noted.

Happy with source checks.
 * Super.

Think it's all good now with the extra introductory sentences etc. I accept the lack of content about Bakshi, Jackson's Hobbit and Khazad-dum in The Rings of Power as not decently source-able (the more I look at the thesis I mentioned above, the more I doubt its qualities). The new fair use image of Tolkien's Rivendell is an excellent addition, especially for the contrast to Lee's/Jackson's. Will promote now. —Kusma (talk) 19:23, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
 * And the last missing tick is "focus": the level of detail is appropriate and seems to align with the available sourcing. —Kusma (talk) 19:24, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Will place this in the "Tolkien" category essentially because I am too lazy to start a "Fictional architecture" subcategory, where also Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Les Cités obscures would feel at home (none of them is a GA, though), or something about architecture and its meaning in Lovecraft's work. —Kusma (talk) 19:30, 11 March 2023 (UTC)