James Erwin
James Erwin seems a little embarrassed at how easy it was for him to turn an intriguing historical question into a literary phenomenon and a big money deal with Hollywood.
I thought to myself, “Oh, that sounds like a fun story.†So I just started writing.
I started at noon and I was done by 1pm. I’d expected that maybe a hundred nerds would read it and enjoy it, and that some people would have had a fun lunch hour because of me. Instead, it changed the trajectory of my life. By the time I went home at five it’d had a quarter-of-a-million readers, a week later I had a manager, and a week after that I had a contract with Warner Brothers. They brought me on to write a treatment, and then a screenplay based on that treatment.
A Roman ring, found in a farmer’s field (presumably part of what was once the Roman town Calleva Atrebatum) near Silchester, Hampshire in 1785 in some unknown manner wound up preserved in the library of The Vyne, a stately 16th century home belonging (until 1958, damn Socialism!) to the Chute family.
The ring bears an image of Venus and a Latin inscription. That inscription apparently connects the ring to a Latin curse tablet found by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in an excavation of a temple complex associate with the god Nodens at Lydney Park in Gloucestershire.
The lead curse tablet read:
DEVO NODENTI SILVIANVS ANILVM PERDEDIT DEMEDIAM PARTEM DONAVIT NODENTI INTER QVIBVS NOMEN SENICIANI NOLLIS PETMITTAS SANITATEM DONEC PERFERA VSQVE TEMPLVM DENTIS
For the god Nodens. Silvianus has lost a ring and has donated one-half [its worth] to Nodens. Among those named Senicianus permit no good-health until it is returned to the temple of Nodens.
Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1929 apparently consulted with J.R.R. Tolkien at Oxford about the natural hypothesis that the Silchester ring, with the inscription “SENI???”, might be the very same ring Silvianus had lost.
Tolkien took an interest in the matter, visited the Gloucestershire temple complex several times, and made a point of looking into the etymology of the name of the god Nodens.
It is believed today that it was this real world story of a lost, and very improbably rediscovered, gold ring, bearing an inscription, and weighted with a curse that may very well have been the inspiration of the One Ring featured in The Hobbit which appeared in 1937.
In any event, the Silchester ring is now being put on display by the combined efforts of the Tolkien Society and the National Trust in a newly-established “Ring Room” in The Vyne.
Fantasy author L.B. Gale observes that the death-rate among the good guys would have been considerably higher.
It used to be that Joss Whedon was the go-to-guy when you wanted to complain about authors mercilessly killing off characters, but once (spoiler alert!) Ned Stark’s death became a part of popular culture canon, George R. R. Martin took over that throne.
Adrian Simmons delves deep into Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales to identify Saruman’s actual mission in Middle Earth and then attempts to put the white wizard’s motives, policies, and machinations into proper perspective.
Sarumon didn’t have time to build a big enough army of half-orcs to stand against Sauron, so Plan A is shot all to hell, and he didn’t get his hands on the Ring, so there goes Plan B, and thanks to the remarkable willpower of those scruffy Hobbits, he can’t take refuge under Sauron’s massive cloak (where I feel confident that Sarumon would have convinced himself that he’d affect long-term change from within the organization). His pride– something that is a key part of his very being is stung — so what does he do? Well, he goes and screws with the Hobbits because he can. Because there is no one else for him to take revenge on. In a creepy way he still won’t turn a hand against Men or Elves, and the Ents have already handed him his ass (and, well, Radagast might be a harder opponent than Sarumon’s tough talk implies).
I have no idea what Sarumon is thinking in taking over the Shire, yes he is spiteful, he is vengeful-minded, but again he has totally not turned completely from his path. He doesn’t, as far as I know, do anything to the Hobbits himself, even to Frodo. So what the heck is he doing in the Shire? What is his long-term plan? Plan D, I think, is that the new age is just starting, and that if you give him another century (and what is a century to Sarumon?), he will build a great thing, a great kingdom, the Elves and the Men will have to deal with Sarumon, one way or another.
Back to the firefighter analogy: just as the incompetent firefighter gets himself into trouble and diverts energy and materials away from the fire itself, so does Sarumon.
He refers to Saruman as being like “a bold, but incompetent fireman,” but what he is really getting at is the famous classification of officers, usually attributed to Field Marshal Count von Moltke:
Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!â€
Set in the tenth year of the First Cylon War, the story follows William Adama as a young man, with the call sign “Husker.”
William, being a recent Academy graduate, is assigned to the newest battlestar in the Colonial fleet: the Galactica. He is ordered to escort a young woman, who eventually turns out to have vital information that carries significant importance to certain Cylon secrets. …The routine mission eventually turns dangerous and becomes a pivotal part in their story.
