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Talk:Middle-earth

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Carcharoth (talk | contribs) at 00:32, 31 August 2006 (→Article title - []?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Purpose of the section "The World"

I do not see why we must have the section The world in the article. I think the section should be deleted / merged into other sections. It has not been changed much since it was created in July 2004 and therefore it does not fit to the concept of the rest of the article anymore. It seems to deal with two different topics which do not really fit to the title:

The first paragraph of the section describes the relation of the geography of Middle-earth to that of today's world, which would rather belong into the section geography. Anyhow I think the relation is presented wrongly. The article says that "Gondor might lie in the Mediterranean Italy and Greece" whereas the article Arda states that Tolkien said Minas Tirith corresponded to Vienna (In the map used in this article the distance between the Shire and Minas Tirith is approximately 900 miles, which equals the distance between England and Vienna)

The other three paragraphs deal with the writings of Tolkien. I think this part should be put into the section Books which lacks of prose text anyway.

I would like to delete the first pargraph and merge the rest into the section Books --Galadh 07:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

More game adaptations

The Middle-Earth version of Risk is out, and there is also a card game version that could be added under adaptations section. PeregrineV 20:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

This article's featured status is being reviewed

This article's featured status is being reviewed. See link at top of page, reproduced here: Misplaced Pages:Featured_article_review/Middle-earth. Carcharoth 09:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Adding references

I am now in the process of adding references to this article. Please bear with me for the next few hours as I tidy up after myself. Carcharoth 12:53, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

External links

I removed a link to the Ardalambion website from the external links of this article because such a link is more appropriate at Languages of Arda (to which Languages of Middle-earth redirects), which is linked from the languages section of this article. Carcharoth 18:01, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought about that when I re-added it. I just saw how much work you're doing, and thought it was an accidental deletion : )
Great job, btw : ) - Jc37 18:11, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Images of maps

Concern was raised at Misplaced Pages:Featured article review/Middle-earth about the images used in this article. I've removed two speculative maps (probably based on descriptions in the texts, or on the early maps that were published in HoME): Image:Aman Valinor.jpg and Image:arda.png. I then put the three remaining 'main' maps in a gallery section of a "Maps" section. This section is intended to have discussion about the maps, and hopefully provide "fair use" justification for using these map images in the article, or even scans of the maps from the books. If a detailed enough discussion arose, the other two images above could be added back in.

  • A scan of the map from The Hobbit would be nice.
  • Should the map image still be used at the top to illustrate the article?
  • Can someone move the images on Commons (likely to be deleted soon) over to Misplaced Pages?

Do people think this will this alleviate the concerns about image use in this article? Carcharoth 02:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Article title - Middle-earth (Tolkien)?

following up on a comment by Tony, copied here from Misplaced Pages:Featured_article_review/Middle-earth

I've edited the opening thus, ahem ...

WAS: Middle-earth is a term used by the author J. R. R. Tolkien to refer to the geographical setting of many of the tales of his legendarium,....

IS: Middle-earth is the geographical setting of many of the tales of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium,....

- Tony 02:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that edit. If you read the history of the etymology of the word, you will see that your phrasing of the opening sentence is an over-simplification. Simply saying that Middle-earth is a geographical setting for Tolkien's tales ignores the other uses of the word. The word middle-earth existed before Tolkien, and appears in Shakespeare among other places. In fact, the better way to phrase this is probably to say that 'Middle-earth' (upper-case 'M') is the place, and that it is named for the concept of 'middle-earth' (lower-case 'm'), namely, a middle-place amid the encircling seas, and between the cold of the North and the fires of the South, and between Heaven above and Hell below - ie. the abiding place of men (as seen in mythological and classical worldviews - see both Norse mythology and the Greek concept of oikoumene) as opposed to the unseen or far-away worlds of spirits and Gods. Possibly there is a case for having the article at Middle-earth (Tolkien), with Middle-earth redirecting there (as it is the overwhelming thing most people will want when they type in "Middle-earth" on any searches). There would also need to be a hatnote pointing people to Middle-earth (disambiguation) for the other meanings of the term. Carcharoth 20:24, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I think it's not quite correct to say that Tolkien named his setting "for the concept", but that he intended it to have exactly its historical meaning. Having said that, the phrase had pretty much fallen out of modern English and is preserved mainly in other Germanic languages as Midgard or something similar, which in consequence already has a distinctively named article. That is, someone wanting to know about the general idea of Middle-earth is likely to search for Midgard, while someone looking up the Tolkien use is going to search on Middle-earth. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Please feel free to edit the opening sentence. I just want to move away from the opening sentence implying that that Middle-earth was a name Tolkien invented. The exact phrasing is difficult to pin down. Carcharoth 00:32, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
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