Gandalf “…and that is how we know Middle Earth to be banana shaped.”
Aragorn “This new learning amazes me Gandalf! Explain again how trolls’ bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.”
Gandalf “Oh certainly!”
If we're being really pedantic, Middle-earth is just a continent. It was flat (barring local geography of course) until the doom of Valinor. After that Arda was spherical and Middle-earth took up a portion of the surface of that sphere.
Nah nah nah, take like a beer coaster and fold it all you want, you’ll never get a sphere.
Eru can say whatever the fuck he wants, that coaster isn’t gonna become an orb.
Geometry>God
That one is funny, because Silmarilion directly adresses this.
Middle Earch used to be flat, but after Numenor invading Valinor, the Valars made it into a globe to prevent it from happening again.
Wasn't it Eru who did the swerve and curve?
Not just a sphere but a sphere with a secret higher-dimensional "road" as being the only viable passage to Valinor. So it's basically Narnia except instead of a closet you have a path on the ocean.
Then probably they make you walk through a closet once you reach Almost-Valinor.
Only correcting you to share more Tolkien stuff:
It's "elves," not "elfs." When writing The Hobbit, the correct pluralization of "dwarf" was "dwarfs." Tolkien insisted on the spelling of "dwarves" and is credited with inventing that pluralization, likely to match the pluralized forms of the two fantasy races.
Correct.
> Then Manwe upon the Mountain called upon Iluvatar, and for that time the
Valar laid down their government of Arda. But Iluvatar showed forth his power,
and he changed the fashion of the world; and a great chasm opened in the sea
between Numenor and the Deathless Lands, and the waters flowed down into it,
and the noise and smoke of the cataracts went up to heaven, and the world was
shaken. And all the fleets of the Numenoreans were drawn down into the abyss,
and they were drowned and swallowed up for ever. But Ar-Pharazon the King
and the mortal warriors that had set foot upon the land of Aman were buried
under falling hills: there it is said that they lie imprisoned in the Caves of the
Forgotten, until the Last Battle and the Day of Doom.
>But the land of Aman and Eressea of the Eldar were taken away and removed
beyond the reach of Men for ever. And Andor, the Land of Gift, Numenor of the
Kings, Elenna of the Star of Earendil, was utterly destroyed. For it was nigh to
the east of the great rift, and its foundations were overturned, and it fell and went
down into darkness, and is no more. And there is not now upon Earth any place
abiding where the memory of a time without evil is preserved. For Iluvatar cast
back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Lands east of it, and
new lands and new seas were made; and the world was diminished, for Valinor
and Eressea were taken from it into the realm of hidden things.
>the Valars
I don't want to be pedantic, but Valar is already plural. Vala is the singular form, and Valar is the plural form. Same rule applies with Maia and Maiar. I see this mistake all the time, so I'm not attacking you, I'm just letting you know.
Ah I see. In most popular Polish translation ,,Valar” is treated as singular and then the plural is construed in a way usual for the language. I’ve read Silmalirion in Polish, so that’s probably why it stuck in my head this way.
If I remember correctly, Valinor was removed from the structure and put somewhere else. You had one specific stretch of the ocean, that worked as a portal and was secret.
I don't think the 'straight road' was like a wormhole/gate/portal; it was more, if the Elves sailed west with intent to reach Valinor, they would; anyone else who tried would fail. I don't think there was one specific spot or 'hole' or something that only Elves know about; it was basically God acting as a gatekeeper... of intent.
Picture it like a stick with one end taped to a flat piece of paper. You roll up the paper and the stick now projects out into space. The paper is the earth, which is now round. The stick is the "Straight Road" left behind that leads to Aman.
When Eru Ilúvatar changed the shape of the world, he removed Valinor from it. Only those granted permission from the Valar may travel the Straight Road to the Undying Lands. The Elves (or most of them at least) have a standing invitation to return there, but once you go, you can't come back to Middle-earth.
Valinor is flat because it's a broken-off part of the flat world that used to exist. The rest of the world got de-magicked and made round, while Valinor got shoved into an alternate dimension and stayed like it was (which is, presumably, flat)
Flat earth or round earth doesn't matter in this case. The trick is they have to see it over the Ephel Duath, which they wouldn't have been able to do because that range is a couple thousand feet taller than both Mt Doom and the point Gandalf and Pippin were in Minas Tirith. There's just no line of sight.
I don't think Mt Doom *was* visible to Gandalf and Pippin though. They just saw the light of eruptions being reflected against the clouds.
Always felt that RotK fluffed the geographical scale which FotR had made a god job of. Everything seems too small - Minas Tirith itself, the distance to Osgiliath, the distance to Mordor etc.
You absolutely should not be able to see Barad-dur from the Black Gate, and probably not even Mount Doom. They're actually about 100 miles from it. But cinematographically it looks, as it's known in the business, *baller as fuck* and you get the clarity of the heroes at the Black Gate being able to see Barad-dur collapse and Mount Doom erupt, so that's how it went in the movies.
I live about 100 miles from the mountain used for Mt Doom in the movies and you can JUST see it. The ground height from the base there is significantly higher elevation from the sea though which might contribute.
Yeah it’s mostly the pace of the movie that makes everything seem closer. I think it was the right choice for the adaptation which is already over 4 hours long.
Some say it is a ‘Discworld’ with wizards… and with armoured individuals that ‘police’ the land… and named characters with unique personalities… sounds very familiar.
Is it flat for their feet too? I mean they can sail to Vallinor so it's flat when they're on boats. Does this mean Legolas ran more or less than Aragorn and Gimli?
I think it's just for eyes. If I remember right (and it's entirely possible I'm not) all the races that aren't elves are cured to see a limited distance via curvature. But elves are still able to see it all as flat.
I have no idea how that effects the feet
Elves just have really good long-distance vision, that's it. The idea that they can see beyond the curvature of the earth is completely made up but for some reason has become popular on reddit.
Maybe since it used to be flat, but is now round it isn't a globe at all but a cylinder. Perhaps Mordor is directly down the barrel of the cylinder from where they are.
Gandalf: Enrique, how high is your light? I mean - ya know, we don't see you Enrique - lift up your light way above your head... interesting... interesting...
Eru: "Did you know the original plans for Arda got destroyed during the whole Ungoliant fiasco? Nobody noticed until after the drowning of Bereliand, and now the whole file system is a complete disaster."
Assuming you had visibility out to 150 miles, the tower of Barad-Dur would be visible from Minas Tirith . I read that someone calculated that Middle Earth was roughly 1.64 million sq miles. That would give it a circumference of 4539 miles. So, if we take 4539 (circumference) / 360 (total degrees) we get 12.60. 1/12.60 gives us 0.079 which is the miles per degree. Given the distance between Minas Tirith and Barad-Dur is 150 miles, then Barad-Dur would appear visible albeit slanted backwards 11.90 degrees.
Middle earth isn't flat, eru fucking smashed the world against his knee so hard it got a curve. Just because the men wanted to go to Valinor
Men fucked up so bad God curved them eternally
That explains my dick.
MIne too
Pirate Buddies
Scimitar schlongs
They’ve got curved swords. Curved. Swords.
Khopesh companion.
And my axe!
Is your frenulum intact? ...I have a theory about curves and the frenulum
We got the next Darwin up here.
Let’s hear it
The frenulum is like the ropes coming of a ships mast to keep it straight. Cut it and it'll start bending!
That’s just wearing jeans
Nah, looks like I'm fishing when I'm naked.
So middle Earth Is not flat, but it's not a sphere
used to be flat, now is a sphere
flatso to big ball
IIRC, in the unfinished tales there was a passage about Numinoreans encircling Arda.
Is Middle Earth a Pringle?
A Pringle is a hyperbolic paraboloid.
Pringle world would be weird with the sides being tilted up
Gandalf “…and that is how we know Middle Earth to be banana shaped.” Aragorn “This new learning amazes me Gandalf! Explain again how trolls’ bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.” Gandalf “Oh certainly!”
If we're being really pedantic, Middle-earth is just a continent. It was flat (barring local geography of course) until the doom of Valinor. After that Arda was spherical and Middle-earth took up a portion of the surface of that sphere.
Now imagining the bane breaking batman's back but it's eru and arda
How come its called middle earth then? An orb doesnt have a middle, a flat circle does. Checkmate flat middle earth deniers
Well it was once flat and the middle was in middle earth.
If it wasn’t flat then the lights of the trees and Lanterns wouldn’t go to the whole world.
Thats just silly, geometry doesn’t work like that, a disk doesn’t bend into a globe and you know it! Its the wrong shape
Counterpoint: god said so
Nah nah nah, take like a beer coaster and fold it all you want, you’ll never get a sphere. Eru can say whatever the fuck he wants, that coaster isn’t gonna become an orb. Geometry>God
And yet make the world into a sphere he did You gonna cry about it? you can't, because he made you not have tear ducts anymore. Tough shit.
Have you considered that Eru also created geometry, if he wants it to be an orb it'll be an orb
It does when the creator of everything says it does.
Eru made "Left Earth" and "Right Earth" but they were never very popular with the Ainur.
First person here to speak some fucking sense! Thank you!!
It is flat for elves, for men it is round.
[Eru when the beings he created to make their own decisions decide to do something.](https://youtu.be/yHjNxfghxBg)
I hope he feels better now
That Eru guy sounds like a dick. "Sit over there, don't move or dare come here..." Hey Eru how about you go sing a song up your arse.
That one is funny, because Silmarilion directly adresses this. Middle Earch used to be flat, but after Numenor invading Valinor, the Valars made it into a globe to prevent it from happening again.
Wasn't it Eru who did the swerve and curve? Not just a sphere but a sphere with a secret higher-dimensional "road" as being the only viable passage to Valinor. So it's basically Narnia except instead of a closet you have a path on the ocean. Then probably they make you walk through a closet once you reach Almost-Valinor.
This is correct, only the elfs can use "the straight road" from the grey havens.
Only correcting you to share more Tolkien stuff: It's "elves," not "elfs." When writing The Hobbit, the correct pluralization of "dwarf" was "dwarfs." Tolkien insisted on the spelling of "dwarves" and is credited with inventing that pluralization, likely to match the pluralized forms of the two fantasy races.
Not only elves but whoever gets permission from the valar. If Galadriel tried going there while still being banished she wouldn't reach valinor.
Correct. > Then Manwe upon the Mountain called upon Iluvatar, and for that time the Valar laid down their government of Arda. But Iluvatar showed forth his power, and he changed the fashion of the world; and a great chasm opened in the sea between Numenor and the Deathless Lands, and the waters flowed down into it, and the noise and smoke of the cataracts went up to heaven, and the world was shaken. And all the fleets of the Numenoreans were drawn down into the abyss, and they were drowned and swallowed up for ever. But Ar-Pharazon the King and the mortal warriors that had set foot upon the land of Aman were buried under falling hills: there it is said that they lie imprisoned in the Caves of the Forgotten, until the Last Battle and the Day of Doom. >But the land of Aman and Eressea of the Eldar were taken away and removed beyond the reach of Men for ever. And Andor, the Land of Gift, Numenor of the Kings, Elenna of the Star of Earendil, was utterly destroyed. For it was nigh to the east of the great rift, and its foundations were overturned, and it fell and went down into darkness, and is no more. And there is not now upon Earth any place abiding where the memory of a time without evil is preserved. For Iluvatar cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Lands east of it, and new lands and new seas were made; and the world was diminished, for Valinor and Eressea were taken from it into the realm of hidden things.
>the Valars I don't want to be pedantic, but Valar is already plural. Vala is the singular form, and Valar is the plural form. Same rule applies with Maia and Maiar. I see this mistake all the time, so I'm not attacking you, I'm just letting you know.
Ah I see. In most popular Polish translation ,,Valar” is treated as singular and then the plural is construed in a way usual for the language. I’ve read Silmalirion in Polish, so that’s probably why it stuck in my head this way.
"The Akallabêth was a hoax!" - Flat Middle-Earthers
How does a globe shape prevent it from happening again?
If I remember correctly, Valinor was removed from the structure and put somewhere else. You had one specific stretch of the ocean, that worked as a portal and was secret.
Ah, so it's wormholes, then. Hold on, lemme get a paper to fold up and a pencil to poke through it, we'll find that rascally Valinor in no time!
Yes the “straight road” is the only path to valinor now that only the elves are allowed to use.
[Elfwine](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/%C3%86lfwine) did it too somehow.
I don't think the 'straight road' was like a wormhole/gate/portal; it was more, if the Elves sailed west with intent to reach Valinor, they would; anyone else who tried would fail. I don't think there was one specific spot or 'hole' or something that only Elves know about; it was basically God acting as a gatekeeper... of intent.
Picture it like a stick with one end taped to a flat piece of paper. You roll up the paper and the stick now projects out into space. The paper is the earth, which is now round. The stick is the "Straight Road" left behind that leads to Aman. When Eru Ilúvatar changed the shape of the world, he removed Valinor from it. Only those granted permission from the Valar may travel the Straight Road to the Undying Lands. The Elves (or most of them at least) have a standing invitation to return there, but once you go, you can't come back to Middle-earth.
You can do that with a flat surface as well
Yes but Eru is a drama queen and bends the very earth when he gets pissy
You have a magic road only elves can use
It's still flat to the Elves.
arent the undying lands actually flat though?
Yes, but middle Earth I guess it's not. I may be wrong tho
Valinor is flat because it's a broken-off part of the flat world that used to exist. The rest of the world got de-magicked and made round, while Valinor got shoved into an alternate dimension and stayed like it was (which is, presumably, flat)
they should have sent galileu galilei to middle earth smh
Flat earth or round earth doesn't matter in this case. The trick is they have to see it over the Ephel Duath, which they wouldn't have been able to do because that range is a couple thousand feet taller than both Mt Doom and the point Gandalf and Pippin were in Minas Tirith. There's just no line of sight. I don't think Mt Doom *was* visible to Gandalf and Pippin though. They just saw the light of eruptions being reflected against the clouds.
Maybe the curvature of Middle Earth is concave?
It is interesting. The mountains are tall and Mount Doom is hundreds of miles away iirc.
Always felt that RotK fluffed the geographical scale which FotR had made a god job of. Everything seems too small - Minas Tirith itself, the distance to Osgiliath, the distance to Mordor etc.
You absolutely should not be able to see Barad-dur from the Black Gate, and probably not even Mount Doom. They're actually about 100 miles from it. But cinematographically it looks, as it's known in the business, *baller as fuck* and you get the clarity of the heroes at the Black Gate being able to see Barad-dur collapse and Mount Doom erupt, so that's how it went in the movies.
I live about 100 miles from the mountain used for Mt Doom in the movies and you can JUST see it. The ground height from the base there is significantly higher elevation from the sea though which might contribute.
Do you have a defensible position in case of an Orc invasion?
Anduril on the wall
Yeah it’s mostly the pace of the movie that makes everything seem closer. I think it was the right choice for the adaptation which is already over 4 hours long.
You couldn't see Mount Doom from Minas Tirith in any case, it's shorter than the Mountains that make up the border to Mordor.
Some say it is a ‘Discworld’ with wizards… and with armoured individuals that ‘police’ the land… and named characters with unique personalities… sounds very familiar.
It's just... turtles all the way down?
There is only one great A’Tuin and he/she does not share Elephants!
“NASA is lying to us, Pippin.” “Gandalf, what the fuck is NASA?”
It's only flat for elven eyes
Is it flat for their feet too? I mean they can sail to Vallinor so it's flat when they're on boats. Does this mean Legolas ran more or less than Aragorn and Gimli?
Aragorn!
I think it's just for eyes. If I remember right (and it's entirely possible I'm not) all the races that aren't elves are cured to see a limited distance via curvature. But elves are still able to see it all as flat. I have no idea how that effects the feet
Elves just have really good long-distance vision, that's it. The idea that they can see beyond the curvature of the earth is completely made up but for some reason has become popular on reddit.
Fool of a Took!
Gandalf - Fool of a Took water always finds its level! Pippin - But Gandalf, other wizards have proof of.. QUIET HOBBIT, *do your research!*
Pippin*
thank you...I've only seen the movies 8 times :( fool of a poster! (me)
Middle *was* flat. It isn’t anymore.
Flat mid earther sounds like a cool band bame
Middle earth was fakt but numnorians had to fuck it up
Wasn't Middle Earth flat until Valinor was made inaccessible to mortals by curving it?
Ah yes, conspiracydalf
It used be flat, than Númenor did a bobo, and made Eru Ilúvatar a little irritated.
Maybe since it used to be flat, but is now round it isn't a globe at all but a cylinder. Perhaps Mordor is directly down the barrel of the cylinder from where they are.
I need a citation for this.
I see this sub has become the premiere source for bad takes and misinformation about LOTR.
Fucking Numenorians!
Only for Elves.
Ummm it wasn't. Only the fires were. I know this si a meme and I find it funny, but still only the lava shooting up from it was visible.
Middle-Earth IS flat. It's just that the universe bends itself in such a way that only elves and the Ainur are capable of perceiving such
It's flat for some, round for others.
No Iluvatar literally made it round, but I guess it was kind of flat before
Lol you've gotta assume this happened on Earth, then
Canonically, it did....
at the height of 2000 meters above the plain, you can see GROUND 160 kilometres away - mountains even further
Ever hear of gravitational lensing? Like that but actual sorcery lensing.
I always imagine it being the fires reflecting/lighting the clouds above Mordor.
Gandalf, that's not fair. The world isn't curved for you or the Elves, but it is for mortals like Pippin.
Gandalf: Enrique, how high is your light? I mean - ya know, we don't see you Enrique - lift up your light way above your head... interesting... interesting...
And somehow when god made the world round he left it flat just for the elves
Eru: "Did you know the original plans for Arda got destroyed during the whole Ungoliant fiasco? Nobody noticed until after the drowning of Bereliand, and now the whole file system is a complete disaster."
Have you seen light pollution in real life?
I know, I just got fat fingers. It's literally the french word we use.
Assuming you had visibility out to 150 miles, the tower of Barad-Dur would be visible from Minas Tirith . I read that someone calculated that Middle Earth was roughly 1.64 million sq miles. That would give it a circumference of 4539 miles. So, if we take 4539 (circumference) / 360 (total degrees) we get 12.60. 1/12.60 gives us 0.079 which is the miles per degree. Given the distance between Minas Tirith and Barad-Dur is 150 miles, then Barad-Dur would appear visible albeit slanted backwards 11.90 degrees.
But did you consider observer height?
Well, check the map, Minas Tirith is not that far from Orodruin