Tuesday 11 March 2014

FMP (BA): Research - J. R. R. Tolkien

For my next quote I wanted to do something along the lines of "Not all those who wander are lost", a quote taken from the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R Tolkien. As you might've seen in my last post, I was worried about trying to cover all of the subjects that take place in the Oxford Literary Festival and how it would tie in with literature and I have found a way...

Because, y'see, "Not all those who wander are lost" is a literary quote and it relates to travel. 

This is what I'm hoping to do for the others; find quotes that are from books and then draw connections to them to the other topics (if I have the time to do more than 4 for the book). It's a win-win situation because I'm sticking to my brief as well as aiming to a wider audience.

What I aim to do first is to research into the Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as The Hobbit, mainly focusing on the important aspects of all of the books and films before sketching some rough compositions. I want to create something inspired by the Supernatural t-shirt that I analysed quite a while back because I found it really clever how they manage to connect everything to do with Sam Winchester in it in a subtle way.

Quick Mind Map

I decided to generate a quick mind map on the knowledge I had so far on Lord of the Rings before I carry out my research. This will enable me to pinpoint any initial ideas that I could later develop after my research.



 The Quote

 "Not all those who wander are lost" is actually only a small section of a quote. The reason why I'm going to keep it this short because if I did the full phrase then it would just be too long to hand letter. Here's the full quote anyway for reference in case I do decide to do the full poem:

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”

I am going to briefly research this quote and write notes just to ensure that I understand the whole quote fully as I do not wish to interpret it 'incorrectly'. As I later on came to realise that it was good I did look into this quote; at first I thought it was about the ring, but it's actually centred around one of the main characters, Aragorn.

At first I wasn't too sure about this so I looked for as many sources as possible that also reaches the this conclusion. I also re-read The Fellowship of the Ring at the chapters where these sources listed their references from just to double-check everything.


The Fellowship of the Ring (Book)

This quote is mainly featured in the first book where Frodo has to identify Aragorn at the Prancing Pony in the village of Bree, as well as when Boromir didn't know who Aragorn was at the Council in Rivendell.
The first part happened on page 170 (on my Kindle) when Gandalf writes the poem to Frodo as a way to identify "Strider" (Aragorn). Here's the conversation Strider and the hobbits had when they were suspicious of him:

" 'I see,' laughed Strider. 'I look foul and feel fair. Is that it? All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost.'
'Did the verses apply to you then?' asked Frodo. 'I could not make out what they were about. But how did you know that they were in Gandalf's letter, if you have never seen it?'
'I did not know,' he answered. 'But I am Aragorn, and those verses go with that name.' He drew out his sword, and they saw that the blade was indeed broken a foot below the hilt. 'Not much use is it, Sam?' said Strider. 'But the time is near when it shall be forged anew.' "

Judging by this little section, it seems that Narsil (the sword of Elendir) was in fact given to Aragorn at a much earlier stage than in the Lord of the Rings films where it was given to him in the second or third film (I cannot remember which).

The poem is cited again much later in the book at the Council in Rivendell, where Frodo quotes it to the rest of the Council to prove that Aragorn is who he says he is (as Boromir didn't believe him even after he placed his broken sword, Narsil, in front of him). [page 247]

" Aragorn smiled at him; then he turned to Boromir again. 'For my part I forgive your doubt,' he said. 'Little do I resemble the figures of Elendil and Isildur as they stand carven in their majesty in the halls of Denethor. I am but the heir of Isildur, not Isildur himself. I have had a hard life and a long; and the leagues that lie between here and Gondor are a small part in the count of my journeys. I have crossed many mountains and many rivers, and trodden many plains, even into the far countries of Rhun and Harad where the stars are strange.
'But my home, such as I have, is in the North. For here the heirs of Valandil have ever dwelt in the long line unbroken from father unto son for many generations. Our days have darkened, and we have dwindled; but ever the Sword has passed to a new keeper. And this I will say to you, Boromir, ere I end. Lonely men are we, Ranges of the wild, hunters - but hunter ever of the servants of the Enemy; for they are found in many places, not in Mordor only.'.... "

He goes on to speak about his role as a Ranger and how he protects the land even though other people regard him as strange folk. Then he gets to the part which really caught my attention:

" 'But now the world is changing once again. A new hour comes. Isildur's Bane [the One Ring] is found. Battle is at hand. The Sword shall be reforged. I will come to Minas Tirith.' "


If we take into account that the quote is about Aragorn then I might be able to briefly analyse each line or stanza.

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;

 We now know that this reflects Aragorn's appearance in that he seemed a bit worn down from his travels as a Ranger, but is in fact Isildur's heir (the king of Gondor). This means that the next line could also be connected to his life as a Ranger.
Just in case you are uncertain of what a Ranger is, they are basically "travellers" who ventured into the wild and guarded some areas of Middle Earth including the Shire. [page 150 & 156]

The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

 In the books it states that Aragorn is actually a lot older than he looks and, if I remember correctly, he was around 70-80 years old at the time where he found Frodo at the Prancing Pony. His bloodline runs straight to the kings of Gondor as well as the Dunedain, the Rangers, who also have connected with the Elves.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;

 This is slightly more tricky but if it is about Aragorn then this line might relate to the fact that the One Ring came out of hiding which meant that Aragorn was able to meet Frodo and also come out of hiding.

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”

This verse is a lot more obvious than the previous lines and definitely relates to Aragorn and his royal lineage. The blade this section speaks of is Narsil, which was the sword that cut off Sauron's finger and 'destroyed' him long before the time that Lord of the Rings take place.


Quenya

When I first read The Hobbit when I was a child I tried to translate the moon runes on Thorin's map, and this got me really interested in the languages of Middle Earth. The most interesting one I found was Quenya, the archaic Elvish language, and while I was looking at the full quote above I found a website that actually listed a translation here.

Taken from [here]

I thought this might be quite useful to add to my research because if I did do my mainly typography-based, then I could produce a second version with just the Quenya on it. This would then allow me to create more pages for my book as well as creating a page specifically aimed at those who are interested in J.R.R.Tolkien's work.

This led me to try and find some glimpses at the sort of writing they featured in the books and the films so that I could produce something similar for my design to create that authentic, Middle-Earth theme. Looking at the Quenya translation above it seems that their typography might be more cursive or perhaps reflect the old way of writing with a variation of thick and thin strokes. 
I was beginning to struggle over what kind of typeface that it resembles so I talked to one of my colleagues and they mentioned that it reminded them of celtic/uncial writing, so I looked it up and realised that it did look a lot like it! This is because celtic letters are quite wide yet short, which is exactly what the type in LOTR looks like. 

Left, celtic/uncial writing, right, "No admittance" sign in Hobbiton

The characteristics of the celtic writing example shown above are therefore:
  • Short x-height in relation to the width of the characters
  • Small different between the x-height and the cap height
  • Large bowls
  • Small descenders and ascenders
  • Variation of thick and thin strokes - although not a high contrast
  • Very "curvy" letterforms
  • The uppercase "S" looks very strange and not like an S at all! The same goes for a 
When I typed in "Lord of the Rings writing" I came across a website which has a list of fonts that resemble the ones used in the books/films. I'm just going to leave it [here] just in case I can't hand-letter it myself. 


Main Aspects

The books are quite lengthy which means that there are many main characters, so instead I'll whittle the list down to those that only appear in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, where this quote is present. This is because I would like to produce a design that has strong connections with the story and so I could include the characters and some objects that appear in them quite frequently.

Main Characters
The hobbits - Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin "Pippin" Took and Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck
Legolas
Gimli
Gandalf the Grey/White
Aragorn II, son of Arathorn
Boromir

Other Characters
Arwen
Elrond
Saruman
Sauron
The Orcs
Galadriel
The Eagles
Ring-Wraiths
Gollum
Tom Bombadil
Treebeard
Riders of Rohan - Theoden, Eomer etc
Eowyn
Faramir
Bilbo Baggins
Grima (Wormtongue)

Main Objects
The One Ring
Gandalf's staff
Hand of Saruman
Ring of Barahir
Elendir's broken sword
The White Tree of Gondor
Eye of Sauron

Aragorn
Now that it has been confirmed that the poem is in fact about Aragorn, I shall look closely at what has happened in his life during these books/films. I've already listed the main objects in LOTR but the ones that closely link in with Aragorn are: the ring of Barahir, Elendil's broken sword, the White Tree of Gondor, and the Evenstar, the necklace that Arwen gave to him in the Two Towers (film). As I might be illustrating some of the important notes in Aragorn's life I produced a mind map of all of these objects.


Image sources: [1&2] [3] [4] [5] [6]


Scenery in the LOTR (Lord of the Rings) Films

 What I found fascinating about the films were the special effects and the scenery, and because I'm not too sure what I'll be including within my illustration I thought it would be a good idea to generate a mood board of all of the key locations in the films.


Image sources: The Shire [1], Mordor [2], Minas Tirith [3], Edoras (Rohan) [4], Rivendell [5], Isengard [6]


Concept Illustrator - John Howe http://www.john-howe.com/

I thought I'd include a special section for John Howe because his work has influenced me in many ways; it increased my love for Lord of the Rings as well as being the person who actually got me interested in illustration.

He worked closely with Peter Jackson to illustrate some concept sketches for the films, and when I flicked through his portfolio it seems that he did some illustrations for the books as well. Here are some of his paintings to serve as inspiration.



Reflective Learning - Summary

Now that I know that the quote is in fact about Aragorn and his role of being a Ranger before being crowned King I think I shall centre my focus on him. I am glad that I had carried out this brief research because otherwise I would've focused on constructing a design about the story of Lord of the Rings in general and not what the poem is actually about.

I tried to keep this research as relevant as possible to Aragorn but I feel that I have gone off tangent in some places, especially when it comes to looking at all of the other characters in Lord of the Rings as well as painting by John Howe. I am unsure that I'll actually use these parts in my design but nevertheless, they are inspirational, and who knows I might use them in the end!
To avoid doing this in future I shall make sure that I research the quote first before going off and researching things that I might not actually need. 

My next step is to possibly watch the films although if I can't watch all of them then I'll at least watch the first one where Aragorn meets Frodo for the first time, mainly focusing on the elements surrounding him such as Narsil and his attire. 
 N.B. All of these references were notes taken from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I also looked at some websites to back it up. 

 References: the Lord of the Rings trilogy (mainly the Fellowship of the Ring); Goodreads.com, [link], 10 March 2014;  Wikipedia, [link], 10 March 2014; Quenya101.com, [link], 10 March 2014; lord-of-the-rings.org [link] 10 March 2014.
Learning Outcomes:
[4] Developed research skills in the area of contemporary professional practice.
[5] Developed skills of independent study, resource utilisation, problem-solving and decision-taking.
[8] Developed their ability to scan and organise data, abstract meaning from information and communicate knowledge in a variety of formats.
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