Talk:Beorn/Archive 1

Untitled
Who on earth put that Beorn is the greatest "characer" in any book/movie ever made? I can't see it in the article edit, something is up with this.

Just noticed that too, was going to take it out but it's not edit now it's just not showing up kinda odd.

I have removed "He is by far the coolest character in LOTR." not only because it is an opinion but also because Beorn is not in 'The Lord of The Rings' but 'The Hobbit'! - Bjorn the Beorning.

Diet
An IP has changed "Beorn lived on bread, honey and clotted cream." to "Beorn lived on simple British country diet of bread, honey and clotted cream. " I don't see this as an improvement, do you disagree? Greswik (talk) 17:42, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Dead?
The article says he was dead by the WoR. Well, Robert Foster's Guide to Middle-earth, nor the Encyclopedia of Arda, nor, as far as I can see, the appendices of LOTR state this. Where does this come from? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.89.3.106 (talk) 02:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

WOTR
Does WOTR mean war of the ring????

Beorn as a non-LOTR character
I have added a brief section where it's stated that Beorn did not appear in LOTR - he is AFAIK erased even from the chronologies. I have linked this to the section of The Hobbit where the differences between the two books is discussed. Beorn - and even more so his animals, who are intelligent enough to serve dinners - are more of fairytale characters, though I don't say that straightaway (that could be OR). The Beornings, who were briefly mentioned in LOTR, seem to have been a northern people of the same time as Rohirrim; and to those historical Mirkwood kingdoms that used to be allied to Gondor, mentioned in the appendices. These people seem to be the LOTR counterpart to Beorn. Sponsianus (talk) 14:52, 22 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The Beornings are the mannish people Beorn ruled in his later days, in fact a northern folk related to the First House of the Edain (Unfinished Tales). That Beorn is not mentioned in the Appendices is probably just due to his relative non-importance for the greater schemes. The Battle of Five Armies is mentioned in the chronologies but isn't further detailed there. De728631 (talk) 18:40, 22 May 2010 (UTC)


 * You are right about the Beornings, but they are not at all like Beorn as he appears in The Hobbit: Beorn lived, as the sole humanoid, with several animals of almost human intelligence, and had supernatural powers. In the second to last chapter of Bilbo, there is a brief section about how Beorn invited humans to his dominions, and became an important chieftain (over men, presumably). I suppose this section is a "bridge" between the LOTR Beornings and Beorn himself (was this section in the first edition, before LOTR was written, or added to adapt The Hobbit better to LOTR?) The chronicles in the appendices to LOTR go into quite some detail about the kings of Bard's dynasty and other The Hobbit-related events, but Beorn is not mentioned once. His powers in The Hobbit were immense, but he is very unlike the humans in LOTR and its appendices. There is even a section about how the kings of Gondor intermarried with the kings of Mirkwood states, who are described as relatives of Rohirrim - brave but essentially non-magical. And Unfinished Tales are just that - unfinished. Tolkien never managed to create a coherent universe of all his many ideas. My personal view is that Tolkien introduced Tom Bombadill as the 'nature spirit' in LOTR, and that made Beorn redundant. Golf isn't in LOTR either, even though one of Peregrin Took's ancestors once created that game by beheading a troll with a club. But Peregrin didn't think of that when he himself killed a troll chieftain outside Mordor. Sponsianus (talk) 16:49, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It was the unfortunate Golfimbul, an orc, rather who lost his head, hence the name of the game ;) And I agree with you that Beorn does not fit into the category of LOTR humans. Even in The Hobbit it was made clear that he was extraordinary. Still, his name was retained for LOTR in the term for his followers, the Beornings. But as with most of Tolkien's material there is plenty of room for speculations. It would be very interesting though to see if this "bridge" idea can be found in secondary texts. With a proper sourcing this would make a great addition to our article. De728631 (talk) 17:29, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Weird, the Swedish translation says that Golfimbul was a "troll" king of Mount Gram, not goblin (vaette). Either this is an error, or another case of The Hobbit/LOTR standardisation, where the trolls of Mount Gram (a mountain not in LOTR) were equalled with the orc raid against The Shire. I sometimes react against Wikipedia having too much of an "internal" perspective. Wikipedia should, IMHO, not replicate fan concerns about 'canon' and such things for Tolkien and other fictional universes, trying to present theories that reconcile contradictions within these universes. In Tolkien's case, things become even more complicated as caches of unpublished material have been posthumously assembled by his son Christopher. While Christopher certainly has the legal right to present his father's material, it is dubious whether his selective editing of J.R.R:s notebooks - for instance when compiling The Silmarillion - makes these passages any more 'legitimate'. But I digress. Sponsianus (talk) 19:05, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
 * In Swedish, "troll" is often used as a catch-all terms for all kinds of nasty mythological creatures; trolls, goblins, ogres etc. It's difficult to draw direct equivalents between mythological creatures from different traditions, but "vätte" might be better translated as "wights". 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:17, 14 July 2010 (UTC)