User talk:BPK2

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Welcome!

Hello, BPK2, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:30, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Numenor & Atlantis

"per Tolkien himself, Númenór was definitely his version of Atlantis"

I wouldn't be so bold as to say you were wrong, but I was under the impression that Tolkien was stringently opposed to people drawing parallels between his fiction and the 'real' world and as such, assumed this extended to other tales and fables. Though many commentators compare his work to European mythology, I was unaware that he himself did this. Do you perhaps have a link to an online source of information regarding this - I find the idea very interesting. - Hayter 10:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

He wasn't quite as stringent as many people think. While opposing any attempt to make a one-to-one correlation between places in Middle Earth and places in the modern world, he did both explicitly and implicitly state that the areas covered by the trilogy's action and maps was the northwest area of the Old World -- that is, Europe -- and the Shire was of course a spiritual stand-in for England, even if not necessarily identical physically.
Tolkien's Middle Earth setting as a whole was always admitted to be a fictional pre-history of the real world, as noted in the prefatory matter to The Lord of the Rings. As such, Númenór was not merely a parallel to Atlantis, but his version thereof -- or rather, our Atlantis myth was at least implicitly presented as an imperfect memory of Númenór, the "real" Atlantis in his scheme of things.
While the existence of Atlantis in the real world's prehistory is dubious to say the least, its legendary role in that prehistory is well established -- and Númenór plays exactly that same role in Tolkien's fictional version of prehistory. (The role being, of course, that of a high maritime civilization that conquered much of Middle Earth = Europe that afterwards sank beneath the sea, but from which much of later civilization derived).
If Middle Earth is admitted to be an ancient version of our own world, the conclusion that Númenór is intended to be Atlantis is inescapable. Tolkien made this plain both in its corresponding role and in his alternative names for Númenór in the appendices to The Return of the King. I know of no online source for the identification, but if memory serves I believe the issue is addressed more directly in the published volume of his letters and Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle Earth set.
--BPK.


Okay, I've done a quick web search, and now I can provide you some references.
http://greenbooks.theonering.net/quickbeam/files/081503.html
makes much the same argument I have above.
http://fin.go.wifl.at.org/tables/html/numenor.htm
is a good presentation of Tolkien's various versions of the Númenór story.
http://www.merp.com/essays/MichaelMartinez/mmartineznumenortour
cites the smoking gun; Tolkien's actual equation of Númenór with Atlantis.
--BPK, 12/14/05.


Very interesting, thanks for taking the time to look it up for me. I note that TORn calls this alignment with 'reality' unusual for Tolkien so perhaps my supposition was not completely false, but the similarities are obvious (and obviously intended) - Atalantë certainly makes a point.

I should really get my own copy of The Silmarillion and investigate C Tolkien's publications. Thanks again. -Hayter 12:50, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Roger Zelazny

Nice work! Nareek 16:14, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, hope I wasn't stepping on any toes by just going ahead and doing it. BPK 17:17, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
No way--that's the Wikipedia method in action. If anyone doesn't like it, they can always change it back. Be bold! Nareek 19:17, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dilvish the Damned and Dilvish, the Damned

Hello there! When you moved Dilvish the Damned to Dilvish, the Damned, you copied the contents from one page to another. Unfortunately, copying the contents of the page does not copy the history--something required for the GFDL license. MediaWiki, however, provides a move function. An admin deleted Dilvish, the Damned, and I've moved Dilvish the Damned to that location. :-) Jude (talk,contribs,email) 07:55, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction. BPK 07:57, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jane

I recently reverted your piping of links at the Jane disambiguation page - the Manual of Style for disambig pages says to never pipe those links except where necessary, so that it's more transparent to the reader. Happy editing, -- stillnotelf is invisible 13:42, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dejah Thoris

Hi, BPK2! As a fan of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom series from my college days (25+ years ago), having recently decided to "renew my acquaintance" with these books, it was fun to come across your relatively new Dejah Thoris article here on Wikipedia while just doing some casual searching (think of a topic that is of interest to me and see if there's an article on it :) I've added a little to the article in terms of categorization.

It looks like you've done a lot on the Burroughs series'. Keep up the good work. Cheers, Lini 05:50, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lovecraft: A Look...

Thanks for putting in the image and adding the categories...it looks spiffy. Nareek 21:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Glad to oblige. BPK 06:04, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Space War Blues

Hi Brian,

I want to include an excerpt from the book (maybe one paragraph) to illustrate the writing style; this would fall under the fair use laws vis. book reviews, I think, but I don't know how Wikipedia feels about that. Any thoughts? swain 00:33, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, someone quoted Edgar Rice Burrough's initial description of Dejah Thoris for the Barsoom article (two short paragraphs), which no one ever seemed to object to. It's no longer there only because I moved it to the Dejah Thoris article, where it still is. I doubt there would be any objection to a short quote, and if anyone does find it a problem they can always delete it. BPK 06:01, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Right; I just wanted to avoid typing it all in and having that effort thrown out :o) Thanks! swain 15:33, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chronology

Thanks for the help! Nareek 03:09, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

No problem, just fixing some links. BPK 05:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
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