Ozmoot 2024 – Day 3 – Afternoon

Arda Measured with Jackson Mitchell-Bolton

  • The Geocosmology of the Tolkien Legendarium
  • General – Cosmology of Arda
  • Overview
  • 1st and Much of 2nd age
    • Flat and Enclosed
    • Late 2nd Age
    • Changes to being a sphere
    • Valanor separated from the rest of the world
    • What the earth is now
  • What did Tolkien show us about the World?
  • 5 maps in Ambarkanta
  • Map 5 – Need to find out the scale
    • Start with main Lord of Rings map which has scale
    • Astronomy has a distance ladder
  • The First Map of the Lord of the rings
    • Extends much further especially to the North
    • Has some differences with Final Map though
    • Fitted with Published map over the First Map
    • Created Smallest, Largest and Best matches
    • 3 possible lengths of 300 miles. Length of “red line” is 400 +-7 miles.
  • The 2nd Silmirilion Map
    • Looking at features around the Blue Mountains
    • Able to get a size of Balariand
  • But the Gulf shows up on map 5 so can go direct
    • So Using map 5 the equator is 13, 15 or 17 times the reference distance.
    • Girdle of arda is 13.3 +2.5/-2.2 times the reference length
    • Length of Girdle is 6120 -+1000 miles
    • about 0.77x the size of the earth ( +0.14/-0.11 )
  • Compare to the Atlas of middle Earth.
    • 6400 falls in his estimates
  • Ambarkana Diagram III – The worth made round
    • The straight path is a little bit wobbly
    • But actual distance is only about 1% different
    • Estimated size of Ardar is about half of present day earth
  • This would imply greater there have been significant changes to the world some time between the books and the present day
Diagram III
Map 5

Oaths and Promises: A Path Through Darkness and Uncertainty with Stephen Vrettos

  • Oaths are used to obtain certainty
  • The Oath of Feanor
    • He cannot offer them safety in middle earth
    • Rallys the greater path to follow him
  • The Oath of Eorl, The Oath of Ciriom
    • Came to rescue of Gondor
    • Swore friendship with each other
    • Came to each other’s aid over the years
  • Smeagol’s promise
    • Serve the Master of the Precious
  • Why are Oaths so effective?
    • Certainty on how people will act
    • Certainty how other kingdoms will act
  • Oaths have the ability to propel their own fulfillment
    • Language in the Silmirilion – “The Oath drives them”
  • Iluvatar will enforce the Oaths are fulfilled
    • None can see how to get out of Oath of Feanor
    • Isildur’s Curse. How did a mortal man have the ability to bind the Oathbreakers beyond their deaths?
    • Seems unlikely he could do this himself even if he had magic. Even Valar could not make men immortal
    • Power of curse probably came from Iluvatar
    • Smeagol’s Oath – Frodo has no power, enforcement must have come from Iluvatar
    • Lots of discussion on this, hard to summarise
Share