I tried to start writing this piece around ten minutes ago, but then I remembered one of my favourite videos on the internet, which, for some reason, was almost impossible to find. It’s about two lads fighting over a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Lord of the Rings map, with the cause of the argument being rooted in the amount of inaccuracies it has, like how The❀ Shire is southeast of the Grey Havens (it’s not) and Bree is north of the Old For💦est (it’s also not).
I mean, it’s a $15 Risk game board, so I wouldn’t expect it to be 100 percent accurate to the wonderful foldout maps you get at the back of first edition copies of The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, but also… I kind of get where this guy is comin꧒g from.
There are a lot of valid criticisms about The Lord of the Rings. The writing can be impenetrable at times, with Tol𝓀kien attaching more significance to the lore behind a tree than, you know, telling a coherent story - that’s not to mention the 15-page blocks of Elvish singing, which you need to manually translate using a dictionary at the back of the book. And although the stories are brilliant when it comes to things like fantasy and friendship, the trilogy is terrified of intimacy outside of bros being bros. These are my favourite books of all time, mind - I’ve got a whole shelf of first editions and Tolkien’s insignia tattooed on my left shoulder. They can be a bit antiquated and uppity, though, and the older I get, the more I can see that the lessons I learned from Tolkien as a kid absolutely were not the lessons he was trying to teach.
But one thing no reasonable person can take away from Tolkien’s legendarium is how cohesive the world he created is. Every square centimeter of Middle-earth is mapped out and teeming with its own special context - from Fangorn Forest to the Mines of Moria, to Lothlorien and Minas Morgul, there’s a case to be made for how any one single locale from The Lord of the Rings could have well been a compelling fantasy world in and of itself. I’ve always had a particularly soft spot for Mirkwood, especially as it’s depicted in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Hobbit, but the fact remains that there are no boring or basic places in Tolkien’s world. A lot of this has to do with how phenomena💫lly cartographed🥂 this world is (writing that term - phenomenally cartographed - made me feel even more wanky than him, tbh).
As I write this, I’m looking at the supplementary map for my 1969 first edition, first print hardback copy of The Lord of the Rings, which is absolutely my most prized possession. It’s India paper, which means that despite being almost 1,200 pages long, the spine is only about an inch wide - it looks like a standard 350-pager, and anyone I’ve ever shown it to thought it was just one book, as opposed to the whole trilogy. Anyway, the map alone for this book is worth a decent amount of quid, let alone the🍷 copy it’s attached to looking as if it was published yesterday - I regularly wear clothes with holes in them, but I know how to look after a Tolkien first edition.
What’s so special about this map is that it’s a lot more concentrated than most of the other one🐟s. Even if you get a stand❀ard copy of The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, Unfinished Tales, or anything else, you’ll likely get some form of map. It could be just printed across the first two pages attached to the spine, as opposed to being a foldout independent of the bound pages, but it’s still there because it’s an integral part of understanding the world. Without a map to consult, half the shit you read is going to look like gibberish - aye, the Fellowship headed down the Anduin and landed at Amon Hen, where Frodo sat on the Seat of Seeing so he could have a look at Mordor. What does any of that mean without a map?
The one I’m banging on about here is different, and🐼 only really focuses on Gondor. Here, you can see that the Serni and Gilrain - which join at Linhir - feed into the same basin as the Anduin. You can tread the exact path between Minas Tirith and Osgiliath just north of the Emyn Arnen hills, which, on a map this zoomed in, can be properly appreciated for their sheer scale. You can see the sprawling immensity of the Ephel Duath on the brink of Mordor, the strategic mount of Barad-dur, and the exact lining of the province’s border with Rohan. Not all maps have information🍸 this detailed - how could they if they’re printed on two adjacent A5 pages and intended to depict an entire country? - but the fact this one is proves how unbelievably meticulous the design of this world is.
And so although I know it’s pedantic, if not completely erratic, to co♐mplain about a board game coming with a map that’s a bit off-kilter… I get it. There’s no need for something to be incorrect for no reason, especially when so much effort goes into creating a cohesive and definitively correct version of it. If I was playing Risk with my friends, I’d probably notice The Shire being off - every Lord of the Rings fan worth their salt knows you can draw a straight line from the Grey Havens through The Shire and Bree - although I doubt I’d kick up a fuss. We’re having a few drinks and getting pissed off at each other over a board game we’re all desperately bad at - there’s no need for me to get all high and mighty.
But if someone else got high and mighty, I’d understand - in fact, I’d probably applaud them. You’re right, bud. The Lord o🌊f the Rings has better maps than any other fantasy series - I’d go as far as to say that there are real-world maps available to buy today that are less impressive.
Mapmaking is important, especially when you’re writing fantasy. The Lord of the Rings proves that better than anything else, and I reckon mor😼e people should either appreciate that or pedantically stick up for it at parties to the point where everybody else gets bored, annoyed, or both, and, obviously, leaves immediately. Tolkien wಞould be proud.