20 Things You Didn't Know About The Lord Of The Rings
4. Aragorn Started Off As A Hobbit With Orthopedic Problems
As befitting one of the most important characters in the work, Aragorn went through a variety of changes before he became the rugged Ranger-turned-King we know and love. Starting off life as a Hobbit, then an Elf, then finally a Man, his importance to the story as Isildurs heir wasnt realized until much later on. In the beginning, his pseudonym was not Strider as we know it, but rather Trotter, which was acceptable for he was then: a peculiar hobbit with wooden shoes, which were later revealed to be concealing some kind of unnamed torture done to him by the Dark Lord while searching for Gollum Tolkien also mentions in a margin note that it would be revealed that Trotter had wooden feet. This, we can be grateful, wasnt expanded upon further than that. Interestingly, the first possible identity for Trotter was that of Peregrin Boffin (not to be confused with the Took of the same name), Bilbos long-lost nephew. But after he became Aragorn named and fleshed out with many more revisions his nickname was inexplicably, but fittingly, revised to be Strider.
3. The Languages Came Before The Story
It isnt exactly a cognitive leap to think that Tolkien, a professional philologist, used his skills after deciding to write a fantasy novel to flesh out the world by attributing unique and complex languages to some of Middle-earths races. That, as it turns out, is not the order in which it happened. Rather, Tolkien, a huge lover of languages and language-making, wrote the history of Middle-earth as a background story for the various languages he had already created, some of which include the Elvish tongues of Sindarin and Quenya influenced by Welsh and Finnish the Black Speech of Sauron, and the dwarves Khuzdul. Tolkien himself has said, The invention of languages is the foundation. The stories were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse. To me a name comes first and the story follows. Since then, the study of Tolkiens languages, primarily Elvish dialects, have been studied by casual fans and serious scholars alike some who take the rules very seriously, and some of us who would just like to know how to say Go kiss an Orc in Sindarin (its mibo orch; youre welcome).
Canadian student. Spends probably an unhealthy amount of time enthusing over musicals, unpopular TV shows, and Harry Potter. Main life goal: to become fluent in Elvish.
