A 4 minute summary-ish thing of the mythology

[Othko97]

Note that the creator of said video has said that this is practically nothing compared to the actual volume of content of the Silmarillion.

Generally I think this video is pretty good, definitely ideal for people who are just into the films or are looking to read the books and packs a good portion of lore into 4 minutes.

Anyway, thoughts?

[Lady Grey]

'SarOman?'

It's a fair introduction, but there's so much more D:

[Jubal]

That's a pretty good compact starting point, I'd say. 

[Cuddly Khan]

Wow, just in that I learned so much!

[Jubal]

This is maybe the sort of thing we should get on our YT channel...

[Othko97]

Something informative in this manner would certainly be useful.

[Clockwork]

Does anyone invent anything new over the entirety of middle earth? I was trying to think of something.

[Jubal]

Off the top of my head, a few examples:

• Anything made of mithril - that only turns up from the second age onwards
• I'm pretty sure there's a mention that chainmail was invented in Belegost at some point in the first age
• Saruman is our only known user of explosives and mills that do things other than grind grain
• Lots of individual items that have special functions - the Rings of Power and the Palantiri are both second age inventions
• Bullroarer Took apparently invented golf

[Clockwork]

Thanks Jub! I was really looking for something more.... I dunno, erm... Technological-advancement-ey or comfort-ey type things. The bomb was good, as was golf Like someone inventing the Levi Jeans for Mid Earth or an elven coffee maker which just makes skinny lattes or an orcish dental plan or beard salon for dwarves. It just seems like in five Ages (however long those things are) not much really changes (geography and culture aside).

[Jubal]

Pipe weed would be a good example there, also umbrellas - the main trouble is that things like textile manufacture and food production are in the list of "Tolkien couldn't give a flying armadillo about this". Which is true of much historical source material as well - as historians, a good deal of our material culture evidence is archaeological, which doesn't work so well for Middle Earth...

I guess the other point to note is that for much of human history there have been relatively few big leaps in technology available to ordinary people - if you exclude the elves and dunedain and so on and just timeline the technological advancement of ordinary humans in Middle Earth (which you actually don't need to, because I did it myself :p ), the rate of advancement doesn't work out as different as I expected before doing so.

[Clockwork]

Nice one, thanks mate! It was just a sort of odd thought that popped into my head but couldn't quite shake it or find a decent answer online but this has done it.

[Jubal]

No problem!
This is the sort of thing I spend too much time thinking about.

If you want to read the timeline I did, it's in this issue of Anor: http://tolkien.soc.ucam.org/Anor_44

[Clockwork]

Awesome, I'll take a look at those after I get back

[Son of the King]

This is maybe the sort of thing we should get on our YT channel...

That seems like a good idea to me, I quite liked this video.

[Lady Grey]

^ Ditto. This sort of thing would be really good for our channel