Tolkien and maps
Feb. 3rd, 2023 09:35 amA dive into Tolkien and maps. In particular, that Tolkien said in a letter to Naomi Mitchison, that "I wisely started with a map". What could he have meant?
We find out that Tolkien certainly didn't start with a map. As we all know, Tolkien started with the languages. Or with an inspiration for the first line of The Hobbit. Or with having a substantial education in old literature and languages. The maps came later, and started with maps of localities where movement needed to be clear, rather than a map of middle earth.
However, apparently some creators take the quote about starting with a map very seriously, and they shouldn't. The video ends with a rant about not letting world-building distract you from writing, though world-building can be a great hobby in itself. There's a lot about the excuses people make to avoid writing, and I don't know how sound it all is.
There is scholarship about Tolkien and maps. Of course there is. I hadn't realized how vague the maps and geography in The Hobbit are compared to LOTR, and how much doesn't match up. I now imagine the Necromancer from The Hobbit waking up in The Lord of the Rings and saying, "Huh? What?".
Anyway, "the Fiery Mountain [from The Hobbit], whose actual placing seems to be entirely vague", from Christopher Tolkien, who made the finished map for LOTR.
The brings back a bit of my headcanon for the Silmarillion. There's mention of a wingless dragon; A wingless dragon seemed a bit odd to me, but alright, it's a wingless dragon. Later in the story, Morgoth(?) has a battle where a dragon would be helpful, but the dragon can't get there in time. And I had a vision of Tolkien with a map and miniatures (I don't think he actually used miniatures, and I don't know whether a literal map was involved) considering how the dragon could be kept out of the fight. I don't know at what point of writing the story Tolkien came up with the dragon.
The video guy is from a game called Monstrous. I needed to sort out that this isn't related to the graphic novel Monstress, which has fabulously beautiful art though I wasn't that interested in the story.