Some people are pre-disposed to heroic deeds; others, not so much so. The world needs all kinds. It is just that there are times for the warrior and those of the romantic. Evolution does not choose sides. Whatever works best is what survives. It would be good for us to know which things those are in our own time, and myths are to help us decide.
If we live in prosperous times and it is thought these are expected to continue, the warrior code isn't very important. Why risk your life to hurt others when you and your descendents will probably live anyway? It would be much better to live and let live; to make love, not war.
If, however, it is expected that terrible times are ahead, that doom is upon us, then those that do not show courage for battle will meet a horrible end.
These are difficult things to know. Most people assume the future is bright for those that share their own dispositions. The lover sees a coming Utopia while the warrior envisions Ragnarok.
Nothing lasts forever. Wars cannot go on indefinitely or no one would survive. Their more pacific neighbors would just take over at some point. And times of peace lead to population growth that eventually depletes most of the resources needed to live. One must fight or die. And so the endless cycle goes on.
There is a very basic concept that I have: nothing can ever truly know itself. This is because to 'know thyself' is to change yourself. So you have to start out all over again. This isn't to say it is a futile gesture. By knowing ourselves we may change ourselves into something much better.
To me this is the basis of myth and mysticism. Since we can never actually have an objective understanding of our own persons and the societies in which we live, as they are a part of us as well, we resort to monsters and magic to try and see.
James the Just wrote:
"And times of peace lead to population growth that eventually depletes most of the resources needed to live. One must fight or die. And so the endless cycle goes on."
That this applies to animal populations is well known, but if it is still the same for humans, then this is a chilling (although perhaps realistic) thought. But even if known or expected problems could be prevented, there will be other, unexpected problems, and so there will be the need for heroes. It is just disheartening when they are needed for self-created problems or catastrophes.
Nothing lasts forever, at any scale, and in particular, no one lasts forever - I think it is to come to terms with one's mortality that we mostly need myths. To know the self, too, but for that, other approaches can be used as well, even scientific ones (and observation of others... not for the unique things of course).
Jaidoprism7 wrote:
"... it depends on whether you are an observer by birth or a hero-born! "
I don't think people are born heroes. They can be born 'war-like', but a warrior and a hero are not the same thing - or, do we need a definition here. One is not born a hero, but becomes a hero when the situation demands (and might not even be exited about his/her heroic deeds). Bilbo may be a good example.
"That this applies to animal populations is well known, but if it is still the same for humans, then this is a chilling (although perhaps realistic) thought."
It is the same for all things that live, not just animal populations. It also applies to plants, fungi, protozoa, and algae. No level of complexity mitigates this in any way. If there are super advanced aliens in outer space they will, too, be subject to the same Malthusian laws. The reason for this is quite simple. Since nothing can last forever, for it to continue on it must reproduce, and do so at a rate greater than needed to just merely sustain the population. If a species, or variety of such, only just tried to get by it would soon be overwhelmed and driven into extinction by those that strove to increase their numbers by as much as possible and by any means necessary.
But, of course, this does not mean that it must be done in a direct manner. Altruism or heroism is an indirect approach to survival. The hero will risk his or her life, or even sacrifice it, to benefit their own. Someone may give up on having a family to feed the poor, for instance.
The hero is praised because the traits needed for it will not reproduce themselves directly and so need some help from those that do.
"Nothing lasts forever, at any scale, and in particular, no one lasts forever - I think it is to come to terms with one's mortality that we mostly need myths."
But living things have found a loophole; they reproduce themselves before they die (hopefully). Thus they are essentially immortal. Almost all the characteristics that can be used to describe you as a person were inherited from others, whether they be genetic or cultural. Those things about you that were not are the very ones that will probably not get passed along anyhow, and are mostly irrelevant.
Those archetypes that you know of and feel are your forebears still alive in us today. The great heroes and demi-gods of the past are often amagalmations of the many people that made us who we are today. Tolkien was so very good at recognizing these and putting them together in story form. This is why we feel as if Aragorn and Frodo really existed; in a sense they actually did.
"Since nothing can last forever, for it to continue on it must reproduce, and do so at a rate greater than needed to just merely sustain the population. "
Yes if there is a competing population (animal/plant/other kingdoms). Taking your example of advanced aliens, who are they competing with? There may or may not be a competitor necessarily.
"The hero is praised because the traits needed for it will not reproduce themselves directly and so need some help from those that do."
If the altruists benefit their own (related ones), their traits have a good chance to survive - assuming you meant that 'the traits will not reproduce themselves' because they would be lost with their carrier. (We are not talking of heroes in the animal/plant/other kingdoms, are we?)
"But living things have found a loophole; they reproduce themselves before they die (hopefully). Thus they are essentially immortal. "
Not as individuals. Species too are not immortal although they "live" longer. The information coded in the DNA (not the DNA itself) is closer to immortal but it is not immutable. This is not the sort of mortality/immortality that was brought up though. The ability to have children doesn't make mortality a non-issue (talking of humans). Nor would cloning, not even if the memory could be transferred. One still has to die, and has to accept the idea somehow.
"Those things about you that were not [inherited] are the very ones that will probably not get passed along anyhow, and are mostly irrelevant."
They may or may not depending on their kind. There would have been no evolution (and perhaps no development of the society) if those unique "things" had not been passed along once in a while.
"This is why we feel as if Aragorn and Frodo really existed; in a sense they actually did. "
Aragorn as an archetype yes, Frodo not sure, he is not typical at all (but a hero of course).
"Yes if there is a competing population (animal/plant/other kingdoms). Taking your example of advanced aliens, who are they competing with? There may or may not be a competitor necessarily."
There is always a competitor. Unless there is only one sort of alien and the aliens themselves are all identical clones with no chance of mutating and all share the same exact culture and beliefs, there shall be differences. No matter how small these differences are, if they provide a selective advantage they shall become a larger part of the gene/meme pool. Evolution always occurs. There is no way of getting around it.
"(We are not talking of heroes in the animal/plant/other kingdoms, are we?)"
There is no reason to suppose they don't have the equivalent. A bee will sacrifice itself when stinging an enemy of the hive.
"Not as individuals. Species too are not immortal although they "live" longer. The information coded in the DNA (not the DNA itself) is closer to immortal but it is not immutable. This is not the sort of mortality/immortality that was brought up though."
What sort was?
"The ability to have children doesn't make mortality a non-issue (talking of humans)."
It may allow mortality to be overcome. This is the lesson of many myths, where physical immortality is given up for the ability to have children. Why would Eve eat from the tree of knowledge? So she could have 'knowledge' with Adam. Why do you think that Arwen gave up an eternal paradise in the West for her love of Aragorn?
"One still has to die, and has to accept the idea somehow."
Only if one has given up the will to live. When a people are dying despair may set in. They may fall into mindless pleasure seeking, saying, "Eat, drink, and be merry; for tomorrow we die."
The line between Woden and Adam is not historic, merely a choice of one of several possibilities found in contradictory and discrepant sources. In short, almost certainly invention by ancient authors, as most commentators believe.
Now if Tolkien could be shown to have approved it, then we would have something. But the only place I find him commenting on any of these names is in Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary. There, on page 150, he calls Scyld, whom you call Sceldwa, "fictitious". On page 147 Tolkien writes about Beowulf son of Scyld:
I do not think that either of the Beowulfs are historical. The first certainly not -- a mere step in a fictitious genealogy preceding the first historical name Healfdene; nothing more is known of him, and his only function is to hand on the realm.
In the Anglo-Saxon genealogy that you are here following, Woden appears as a distant descendant of Sceldwa/Scyld whereas Snorri Sturlason's Edda makes Sceldwa/Scyld a direct son of Woden/Ošin. Also, commentaries of Snorri that I have read make his Yngvi son of Ošin identical with the god Frey. Yngvi-Frey appears as a son of Ošinin some versions of the Skįldskaparmįl, a section of Snorri's Edda. A Faroese ballad recorded in 1840 names Ošin's son as Veraldur, this Veraldur being understood as another name of Frö, that is of Frey. The identification in later versions of this new genealogy of Yngvi father of Njöršr with Yngvi son of Ošin is at least doubtful.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 855, versions B and C, explains that Sceaf was born in Noah's ark, interpreting Sceaf as a non-Biblical son of Noah, and then continuing with the ancestry of Noah as found in Genesis. Snorri's Edda instead lists Sceaf's ancestors as a number of names that seem to be connectable to the god Thor, and then the god Thor himself, who Snorri makes to be a grandson of King Priam of Troy. Neither account seems to most to be historically likely.
Josephus in his History of the Jews, chapter 2, identifies a Biblical character Dara or Darda with the legendary founder of Troy, Dardanos or Dardanus. No commentator I have read accepts Josephus on this, except for believers in British Israelitism who wish to identify the lost tribes of Israel with modern Britons, both descendants of the ancient Britons (the Welsh) and the English. I've never read anything that suggests that Tolkien accepted any British Israelite beliefs. The more common medieval genealogies follow classical tradition in which Dardanos/Dardanus is son of Zeus/Jupiter, son of Kronos/Saturn, son of Ouranos/Caelus, these gods to be identified as ancient kings. I doubt that Tolkien believed that either. Ouranos/Caelus is attached to Biblical genealogy as a son of Javan, son of Japheth, son of Noah, Javan being accepted as the ancestor of the Greek people.
Nor do I do not accept that Aragorn is to be identified with the Biblical Adam. Their stories have nothing in common. To begin with, Tolkien imagined his version of the Garden of Eden story to have occurred early in the First Age, much much earlier than the time when Aragorn lived.
Any fan fiction or commentary on Tolkien's writings ought to be based on Tolkien's own thoughts when these can be discerned. I have read nothing by Tolkien that suggests he would have in any sense believed any of the genealogies on which this modern genealogy is based. Putting fragments from untrustworthy and discrepant sources together into one account does not indicate that account must be truer than an account built from other sources. I reject this as a true genealogy of mankind. And, lacking any evidence that Tolkien believed any of these accounts as literally true, I reject any attempt to use such accounts to interpret Tolkien. To identify Aragorn with Adam only because Tolkien placed the downfall of Barad-dūr 6,000 years before his own time is ludicrous, especially as Tolkien was not a Biblical fundamentalist.
In letter 192 Tolkien writes in part:
It has not, of course, the same kind of historicity as the NT, which are virtually contemporary documents, while Genesis is separated by we do not know how many sad exiled generations from the Fall, but certainly there was an Eden on this very unhappy earth.
Tolkien, at least when he wrote this, believed that there was truth in the Eden story but did not know "how many said exiled generations" had passed since the Fall and feels that the historicity of the Genesis account is not so great as that of the Gospels. In the book Morgoth's Ring in the chapter "Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth" Tolkien presents his own version of the Eden story which he places much earlier than Ussher did.
In the 19th century the Roman Catholic Christian Charles Josias dated creation to 20,000 BCE. Baptist missionary Tarleton Perry Crawford at the end of the 19th century dated creation to 12,500 BCE. In general by the beginning of the 20th century geological ages were generally accepted. In this environment Ussher's chronology no longer makes any sense. In The Lord of the Rings Tolkien looked uncounted ages into the past in his account of the origin of the Nazgūl steeds. In Morgoth's Ring in "Myths Transformed" we see that Tolkien had accepted, possibly before completing The Lord of the Rings, that his fictional chronology and his concept of moon and sun as transformed flower and fruit must be taken as inaccurate Mannish legend.
Trying to connect this to garbled inconsistent real world legends I find an abominable interpretation of Tolkien.
-- Edited by Jallan on Monday 2nd of March 2015 06:42:47 AM
-- Edited by Jallan on Monday 2nd of March 2015 06:47:20 AM
-- Edited by Jallan on Monday 2nd of March 2015 04:22:27 PM
Hello James the Just, since this is not a Tolkien Topic Persé, I have moved your thread to the "Utterly Miscellaneous" Forum. Thanks for your input on genealogy.
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Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo! Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow! Tom Bom, Jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!
