I still don't see it happening; the Tolkiens hate this kind of stuff. But the money might be a deciding factor. Interesting article, nonetheless. Even if they spelled Rivendell wrong.

Yeah, Dwarfs and Rivendale... one can hardly contain the excitement.

Well, to be fair, Dwarfs is sort of correct. Technically. But come on...dwarves.

I'm afraid they may actually have said "dwarfs" in the movie....

[quote=""Olorin""]I'm afraid they may actually have said "dwarfs" in the movie....[/quote]

I caught that. Wasn't it Bilbo who said it? I just chalked it up to hobbits being non-worldly and thus using the incorrect term, so I let it pass.

I don't recall who said it. While your non-worldly e xp lanation is appealing, I don't know if it would hold water. "Dwarves" would be the only term ever used in Middle-earth, at least in the Common Tongue, so it's not like Bilbo (or whoever) would erroneously use the wrong variant. Still, it could be that Bilbo is hard of hearing and mispronounces a lot of words (I have a friend or two like that), or it was merely a slip of the tongue.

I'm a bit aggravated at the moment. A few years ago (well, in 2007), a book called The History of the Hobbit was published, as a 2-volume box set. It was similar in nature to Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle-earth series, although it was written by John Rateliff, not CJRT. (CJRT feels The Hobbit to be only incidental to the legendarium proper and thus elected to allow this project to be farmed out to someone else).

I put the book on my Amazon wishlist and never got around to getting it, as it was always $60–75 dollars. As I am not the hugest Hobbit fan, that was always a little too pricey to me. Thus, it sat on my wishlist, and neither I nor anyone else ever bought it for me.

Since the movie came out, I decided to get the book. However, as fate would have it, it has apparently gone out of print and is now only available used. (I don't like buying used books online as you're never quite sure of the condition till you get it.) Then I learned that a revised, one-volume edtion was published in October 2011. I debated about that for a few weeks. I don't typically care for these one-volume editions of big books (it's over 800 pages) as they are unwieldy to hold and read. I finally decided, ok, whatever, I'll get that version.

It's out of print too!

I'm really surprised. I would never have thought something like this would go out of print so quickly.

Honestly, I would have read it only once anyway, and I was going to get it mostly as I am an incurable completist for things like this. I guess instead I will get the annotated edition of The Hobbit. It apparently contains a longer version of The Quest of Erebor, originally published in Unfinished Tales, and I am intrigued by that.

I think I will also get The Art of The Hobbit, which is a collection of Tolkien's original art for the book. I have two previous editions of Tolkien art, Pictures by JRR Tolkien and JRR Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator, but this Hobbit art book contains illustrations not included in the two previous volumes, plus illustrations previously published only in black and white.

I first saw that 2 vol set in a pic Fin posted of his collection.
I never even knew that work existed. His is the paperback version.
This was maybe a year ago or a little more.
After that I did a little sleuthing and found the the hardcover version.
I wanted the edition published in the UK, because I like the British spellings of "colour" and "centre" (I'm somewhat of an Anglophile)

And I found that too, brand new (w/ cool dust coves), but for the life of me I can't recall where.
I may have ordered it through Amazon UK, but Im inclined to think I did not because the shipping costs would have stopped me.
I will have to look around at my back orders and old receipts and VISA statements.
I'm pretty sure I paid a reasonable (read: acceptable) price for it, but it wasn't a steal, I know that.

Olorin, check on Alibris.com. The descriptions are very accurate in my e xp erience.
And it does list new books as well is used. Look for the UK sellers.
And here's the great thing about Alibris....shipping is only $4 no matter wherein the world it comes from.
Apparently they can do that by cost-averaging on the shipping for everything they sell.

Glad you remembered I own those, Deimos! I think mine's actually hardcover, it's been ages since I cracked the covers though so I can't honestly remember. I think they're hardcover though. The Hobbit is my favorite book, so I bought them when the box set was for sale at Borders Books back before they went under. I know the feeling though, Olorin. There are some Middle-Earth books that have been in my Amazon list for about four years that are now significantly more e xp ensive.

Perhaps you should buy them while you still can....

I had the BluRay of Zodiac on my wish list for quite a while. It was always too e xp ensive...I think $30 is too high for a single movie, even if it is one of my favorite movies of the last 10 years (at least, when I already have the DVD and can slum with that). Last year I was checking to see if they'd ever lowered the price, and it was no longer available.

This one has a happy ending though. Warner just struck a deal to distribute a lot of Paramount's back catalog, including Zodiac. I'm now going to get it straight from Warner for $10. From what I've seen from other people online, it's the original Paramount BD with a Warner sticker slapped over the Paramount logo. So, Paramount had a stash of these they just weren't bothering to sell. Go figure.

I thought I'd just write this in here instead of dragging the Hobbit thread off topic again. I'm about half way through the Fellowship of the Ring. I'm really enjoying it. PJ and crew have had to cut a lot of the material out though and I can see why and it makes sense, at least so far

I wish they didn't skip over the old daggers from the Barrow White tomb. I started picturing what they were like in my head when I read that part of the book. It would have been nice to see what Weta could have come up with for those. The ones strider gives them are quite boring

I picked up the Silmarillion today so I have that to read after I've finished with the Lord of the Rings.

Yep, PJ had an unenviable task to trim that book into three movies. Long movies, mind you, but movies nonetheless, with runtime guidelines that specifically state that audience attention spans rarely last past the three-hour mark. Quite a feat.

I often lament what we did not get to see, and though many readers don't like the Tom Bombadil interlude, it is often because they completely miss the point of his meaning to the story. That aside, I regret that we missed out on so much of the four hobbits' adventures from the Shire to Rivendell. For them, it is truly an epic journey, and we get only the slightest little hint of it in the movies. Sadly, they could have done the entire first movie just on that journey alone. As it is, you pretty much blink your eyes and they're in Bree. Yet in the books we have:

- The Nazgul attack on Woody End and Fatty Bolger, whom I like to call the Fifth Beatle
- The Old Forest and Old Man Willow
- Tom and Goldberry
- The Barrow Downs and Wights (not Barrow White, Lindir... were you listening to Barry White when you wrote that? )
- The Daggers of Westernesse - very significant for Merry later and his role against the Witch-king - something PJ just didn't seem to get at all

Read on, my friend and you will see how much more the books have to offer. Wait until you meet Glorfindel and not Arwen at the Ford of Bruinen.

[quote=""Valkrist""]
- The Nazgul attack on Woody End and Fatty Bolger, whom I like to call the Fifth Beatle[/quote]

Too funny, LOL!

[quote=""Valkrist""]
- The Daggers of Westernesse - very significant for Merry later and his role against the Witch-king - something PJ just didn't seem to get at all :rolleye[/quote]
Yes! Such a pivotal role, I really want to talk about that. From watching the films and even hearing about the books, one might assume Glorfindel's prophecy about a man not killing the WK was because ONLY a woman could ever do it. I've even heard people arguing that, had Gandalf and the WK had that showdown at Minas Tirith that looked like was going to go down before the Rohirrim arrived (ignoring that ridiculous scene in the extended film version), Gandalf might not have been able to do anything against him, not because of the WK necessarily being stronger, but because of that prophecy. Like it was some mystical plot armor... And PJ decided to go with that version, that the WK knew as long as he stayed away from females, he'd be invulnerable...ick.

And it just wasn't the case!

Merry's dagger was specifically made for Ringwraith-fighting, forged during a war with Angmar which Men eventually lost. Had enchantments on it including those for the Doom of Mordor. When Merry stabbed the wraith, anyone afterwards could've finished it off. Eowyn happened to already been fighting it, so a stab to the head, dead. Prophecy fulfilled, a significant thing not because the WK was invincible to all but a woman, but because he fell to an une xp ected duo.

Merry totally deserved more credit in the films.

Ahhhhhhhhh... It feels good to write that stuff out.

Interesting take on the prophecy, Jaman. I agree 100% with PJ's dropped ball and Merry's missed character opportunity, but I disagree a bit on your interpretation of the prophecy itself.

To paraphrase, Glorfindel stated that the Witch-king's Doom was a long ways off, and that by no hand of man would he fall.

Many have argued what those words meant, exactly. Does 'man' mean human? In that case, it could be said that an elf, dwarf, or a hobbit could have fullfilled the prophecy, regardless of gender. This has direct bearing on Merry because by his non-human hand, he provides the opening to weaken the wraith and thus giving Eowyn the opportunity to slay him. Of course, she also states, in defiance of the Witch-king's claim that no man could slay him, that it is no man that stands before him, but Eowyn, Eomund's daughter. Of course, many things went horribly wrong in the movie here: there is no barrow-blade, we only learn of the prophecy in a haphazard way and only half-worded at the last moment by the Witch-king himself, and then PJ has Eowyn deliver that horrible Xena-line.

What if Gandalf had fought him at the gates of Minas Tirith? (again, book version and not that stupid scene in the EE.) Once more, there is room for argument here. Gandalf the White certainly had power to match the King of Angmar, even defeat him, but... though in human form and thus bound by many constraints of the mortal form, Gandalf was not human or a 'man.' Furthermore, Gandalf knew of the prophecy and thus he arguably knew also that he was not the one destined to kill the Lord of the Nazgul. Destroy his form perhaps, and send him back naked and shriveled before Sauron, but not ultimately slain. It was Eowyn's born fate to fulfill that role.

So, I do believe Tolkien meant it to be a gender issue, but that Merry also had a part to play in that fate, the selfsame fate that placed a weapon in his hands that was crafted centuries before to combat the Nazgul and their ilk. Chance played no part in this, and that is the future that Glorfindel saw. They even tried to warn Earnur that his quest was folly because of this prophecy, yet the last king of Gondor still rode off to his folly to kill something he could not.

That's good stuff you mention. I've got all sorts of paradoxical prophecy things swirling around in my mind right now and they're too incoherent to type at the moment, hehe.

The gender issue is a great point. It is important that Eowyn is the one who destroys the Witch-king, and when Tolkien wrote the books the idea of an "action-heroine" was not exactly a common thing. That gives it weight. But now that strong action-hero-type women have become fully accepted, e xp ected really, decades later on the big screen, the significance of Eowyn's fight in the film has been lost on the audience a bit.

Which leaves us stuck with a one-liner that doesn't pack nearly the punch that the original lines did. On that topic, I so much prefer direct Tolkien quotes to ones that are dumbed down for audiences. I'm glad there are so many word-for-word or almost such lines in the films (Faramir pondering the dead Haradrim in TTT, beautiful), but hearing PJ and his Cackling Wenches' modern-sounding lines can be so jarring (If you want him, come and claim him!....ick!)

It's been awfully quiet in here for some time, Lindir... you didn't stop reading the book, did you? I might have to come over there and give you an incentive to continue, if you did.

[quote=""Valkrist""]It's been awfully quiet in here for some time, Lindir... you didn't stop reading the book, did you? I might have to come over there and give you an incentive to continue, if you did. [/quote]

Forgive me O forum master (we need a bowing/worship emote)

I haven't read further. I've been busy dealing with my seizures over the Orcrist quality control issues and now the Radagast staff problems

I do have a free day tomorrow so I'm gonna read some more then. I'm currently up to Many Meetings.

I'll have to find that smiley. I have seen it before, it's called "We're not worthy."

In the meantime, I'll call off the bad men I sent over to your house.

is what you're looking for. There are actually many more smilies than the 15 that show directly to the right of the typing area. There is a link called "more" at the bottom left of that area but unfortunately you have to hover your mouse over it to make it visible. I don't think it used to be that way and I don't know what it is that way now.

There it is! You know, I could have sworn we had that smiley, then went looking for it in the manner you suggested and somehow failed to spot it. It really left me scratching my head and thinking I must've seen it in another forum instead.

So, these are for you, Olorin!

I am the Master of Smilies.

Not really Middle-earth related but I will post it here due to the Tolkien connection. Tomorrow Tolkien's The Fall of Arthur comes out. It's his take on the Arthurian legend. If you're an Arthur buff, like me, this is can't-miss.

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2013/05 ... -may-23rd/

[quote=""Olorin""]Not really Middle-earth related but I will post it here due to the Tolkien connection. Tomorrow Tolkien's The Fall of Arthur comes out. It's his take on the Arthurian legend. If you're an Arthur buff, like me, this is can't-miss.

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2013/05 ... -may-23rd/[/quote]

Thanks for the heads-up on this, Olorin.

Will definitely look for it.

TORN is trying to stir speculation about PJ filming The Silmarillion: http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2013/08 ... marillion/

Beyond that fact that it will never happen as long as the Estate refuses to grant the rights, I'm not sure how I would feel about it being filmed.

Is the material worthy? ABSOLUTELY. The Sil could easily be 3-5 tremendous movies. But it would be a big adaptational challenge, I would think.

Should PJ and Co be the ones to do it? I think not. I think he and his writing staff are ill-suited to take on something as serious as the Silmarillion. I can just imagine the Sil, packed with belches and farts.

I think the best venue for a Sil production would be a premium channel series, like Game of Thrones. Even then, there would be some sacrifices. As good as the GoT series is, I hear from fans who have read the books that the show diverges quite a bit, from time to time.

Perhaps the Sil is a work best enjoyed in the theater of the mind....

As much as I would love to see The Sil on the silver screen, I think that it's one of those things where...let me try and describe it...there's just so many things going on at one time, and so many connections that you make between different characters and stories as a reader. It's like reading the Bible, and I know that reference is made all the time but it's very true. You make your own imagery, your own connections across the vast amount of time that is covered, and you come away with your own interpretations, all of which are based upon one another. If that makes any sense. In other words, it's almost too big to be done by one man's interpretations.

That being said, it would work if broken up into segments or mini-stories, if you will. It would just be a massive undertaking and might lose some of its magic if adapted for the common audience.

Go back far enough in this thread and this particular conversation rears its head at least once a year. My thoughts remain the same as ever: miniseries, yes, movie(s), no. I was fully onboard with PJ as a director for this project after LOTR. Watching the serious stumbling and downright mangling of the source material that The Hobbit is proving to be so far makes me want Jackson, Walsh, and Boyens as far away from this project as humanly possible.

At any rate, like Olorin mentioned, it will be a very cold day in hell before the Estate allows that to happen. TORN really loves to whip the fanboys into a frenzy during the slow news weeks.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Bilbo and Frodo!

Yes, let's all hoist a mug in their honor!

Wow, already that time of year again?! Happy Birthday to them indeed!

Here's a pretty clever article from the Onion. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Onion is a newspaper that writes parodies, or stories that are completely made up, just for laughs. Full warning: it reads like a crime scene depiction, so if your delicate sensibilities are easily offended, don't click.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/grisly ... :D efault

[quote=""Olorin""]Here's a pretty clever article from the Onion. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Onion is a newspaper that writes parodies, or stories that are completely made up, just for laughs. Full warning: it reads like a crime scene depiction, so if your delicate sensibilities are easily offended, don't click.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/grisly ... :D efault[/quote]
Sounds like PJ had a relapse, apparently missing his splatter movie days

Yesterday I was looking through the FOTR BD supplements for the concept sketch that one of the artists did of Sauron without any helmet on. It was a very cool sketch...he was very creepy looking, kind of like a mummy without wrapping. I could not find it. I was sure it was in the gallery on FOTR but it was not there. I know I did not imagine seeing this thing. Does anyone else recall it, and where it is?

I watched those supplements a very long time ago but I don't recall seeing that. It would be very cool if it exists though, so if you manage to find it, let me know. I wonder where such s scene would have fit into the prologue. My biggest gripe to this day with that whole sequence will forever be PJ's decision to not film Gil-galad's and Elendil's combat with Sauron, and the former's subsequent immolation from Sauron's great heat. The whole thing was storyboarded and shown in the supplements, but that's it. In the movie, Gil-galad just vanishes into thin air with no e xp lanation of whom he was or where he went. For what we did get of the character, they may as well have deleted him altogether like they did with Anarion. I suppose they had to include him when they showed the three elven rings.

PJ & Co had a great aversion to trying to stuff too many names into viewer's ears all at once, thinking they would overwhelm them. I think that their test was whether the character would be significant later in the story or not, and by that measure only Isildur made the cut. For all the good it did...they wrongly characterize him as a craven coward, instead of a great and noble man who had one moment of weakness when challenged by the terrible power of the Ring.

As to the prologue in general, my recollection is that they were so concerned with overloading people that at one point, they scrapped the idea of the prologue altogether. I distinctly remember McKellen commening, "Our prologue has gone, and I am relieved." I suppose in a prologue-less movie, the relevant bits would simply have been incorporated into the story as they were needed, in much the same way that Tolkien did. Perhaps PJ realized they were getting too close to the book and backed screaming away, and that's why the shorter prologue was added.

As to the Sauron sketch, I know I did not imagine it, so the only thing I can think of is that for whatever reason, it was not ported over to the BDs along with the rest of the gallery material. I still have my DVDs so I will go pop them in and see if I can find them there.

I've already done a google search and come up with nothing.

[quote=""Olorin""]
As to the Sauron sketch, I know I did not imagine it, so the only thing I can think of is that for whatever reason, it was not ported over to the BDs along with the rest of the gallery material. I still have my DVDs so I will go pop them in and see if I can find them there.

I've already done a google search and come up with nothing.[/quote]

I hate when that happens, you KNOW you've seen something, and you are pretty sure you know where, but you CANNOT FIND IT!!!

[quote=""BladeCollector""]you CANNOT FIND IT!!![/quote]

And that seems to be the case for the moment. It was not on the DVD of FOTR, which is reassuring...I wouldn't want to think that some things were not ported to the BD. I've also looked through some of the movie tie-in books, specifically The Art of FOTR, The Art of LOTR, The Making of the Movie Trilogy, and Alan Lee's LOTR Sketchbook. Bupkis.

This is kind of interesting, a diagram comparing the size of Barad-dur to the size of real buildings: http://static3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2 ... /ATLAh.jpg

Yeah, I know PJ had/has a phobia about overwhelming people with details. I see his point, but he can take it to extremes and dumb down things way too much also. I suppose I should be grateful we even got a prologue, but if the EEs were meant to be more of a nod to the fans of the book lore, Gil-galad and Elendil could have been thrown a bigger bone. Rumours abounded at the time that PJ had issues with Mark Ferguson's delivered lines (imagine that: Gil-galad actually had speaking scenes!!!) so they were cut out, but they could have been put back into the EE. We don't even have them as deleted scenes.

[quote=""Valkrist""]Yeah, I know PJ had/has a phobia about overwhelming people with details. I see his point, but he can take it to extremes and dumb down things way too much also. I suppose I should be grateful we even got a prologue, but if the EEs were meant to be more of a nod to the fans of the book lore, Gil-galad and Elendil could have been thrown a bigger bone. Rumours abounded at the time that PJ had issues with Mark Ferguson's delivered lines (imagine that: Gil-galad actually had speaking scenes!!!) so they were cut out, but they could have been put back into the EE. We don't even have them as deleted scenes. [/quote]

If I remember correctly, the reason Ferguson's lines were cut was that his acting sucked. PJ couldn't get a decent delivery out of him, so his part was pared way back, including the loss of all dialog.

If PJ couldn't get a good performance out of someone, with his famous practice of 20-30 takes even with pros like Ian McKellen, you know that guy had to be bad.

Makes you wonder how he got the job in the first place then. He certainly looked the part, so it is possible he made it through the first wave of candidates based on his appearance alone, but they had to have done some readings first before locking down the part, no? They either felt he wouldn't be in the movie long enough so didn't feel it was important enough to do some tests, or he was a friend of friend sort of thing. I still think those deleted scenes would have had some merit. I'm dying to know what he was saying and to whom.

[quote=""Valkrist""]Makes you wonder how he got the job in the first place then. He certainly looked the part, so it is possible he made it through the first wave of candidates based on his appearance alone, but they had to have done some readings first before locking down the part, no? They either felt he wouldn't be in the movie long enough so didn't feel it was important enough to do some tests, or he was a friend of friend sort of thing. I still think those deleted scenes would have had some merit. I'm dying to know what he was saying and to whom.[/quote]

I think he was somebody that PJ knew personally, and PJ didn't realize that he wasn't that great until it was too late. I believe this was covered in the commentary track of FOTR.

Also mentioned there, a believe, is another fact many people don't know. When Elrond led Isildur into Mt. Doom and told him to destroy the ring, when Isildur says "no," it's actually Hugo Weaving's voice. The actor playing Isildur had a high, squeaky voice, or so it was characterized. Similarly, the actor who played Darth Maul in Ep I was overdubbed by someone with a deeper voice, for the same reason.

[quote=""Valkrist""]Makes you wonder how he got the job in the first place then. He certainly looked the part, so it is possible he made it through the first wave of candidates based on his appearance alone, but they had to have done some readings first before locking down the part, no? They either felt he wouldn't be in the movie long enough so didn't feel it was important enough to do some tests, or he was a friend of friend sort of thing. I still think those deleted scenes would have had some merit. I'm dying to know what he was saying and to whom.[/quote]

You may have seen this already, but I thought it might be worth sharing: http://www.containsmoderateperil.com/gi ... forgotten/

In the video halfway down, Mark Ferguson pokes some fun at himself regarding his deleted scenes. Also sounds like he was prone to fainting?

That was really funny, Nerdanel. Craig Parker makes a great Box-Sauron. I had never heard all this stuff about Ferguson not being able to deliver his lines. Sounds like it wasn't an epic fight scene, anyway, but it still should be in the deleted scenes. That is still one of my biggest gripes with the LotR movies; I know, you don't want to throw too many names at the audience, but would it kill you, Mr. Jackson, to portray some of the greatest heroes of Middle-Earth as such? Gil-Galad got completely cut, and sounds like he wasn't even going to fight it anyway. Elendil got swat like a fly. Isildur was a bumbling coward who, by some stroke of luck, stabbed the correct finger...they all looked pathetic, and in my opinion PJ looked pathetic as a director if that was the best he could come up with. A fifteen second fight scene was too much to ask for? Ten seconds? Something that gives them a little bit of merit? Sigh. Twelve years later and I'm still complaining.

[quote=""Fingolfin""]TIsildur was a bumbling coward who, by some stroke of luck, stabbed the correct finger.[/quote]

He got the correct finger because he got every finger on that hand, a semi-major digression from the book. Of course, that only matters if PJ had every shown Sauron in bodily form, unable to regenerate the ring finger, after that, but all we ever got was the eye.

[quote=""Fingolfin""]Sigh. Twelve years later and I'm still complaining. [/quote]

You find yourself in good company.....

But e xp anding on that a bit, I remember it was back in, maybe 1995 or thereabouts, that I first heard that Miramax was going to produce LOTR with a little-known New Zealand director named Peter Jackson. I felt some nervous anticipation: LOTR was finally going to be filmed in live action, but it would probably suck. As it turned out, it definitely did not suck (except in the eyes of the most hard-core purists), but there are just so many "if only" moments that we still kibbitz about a decade later.

I'm reviving this thread in the hopes that one of the Tolkien e xp erts here can help me out. I was reading some commentary on the Hobbit, and I guess I missed in Tolkien's writings where it was forbidden for the dwarves to openly wear the Seven. (And if this is the case, why only for the Seven, and not the other rings?)

In the films, I'm pretty sure PJ had Thror wearing his ring in every scene, in front of everyone. Is this a fault of PJ and the writing crew, or was Thror really gone at this point? Thanks for the help!

I'm no e xp ert and read all those books long ago, but I don't think I ever read that it was forbidden for the dwarves to wear the seven publicly

I don't recall ever reading that, which isn't to say it's not true, but I do find it unlikely and can't fathom a reason for it, unless some time after Sauron began to exert his influence through the One, the dwarves made that decision. However, that doesn't address the issue of wearing them privately versus publicly. If they knew the rings were corrupting, what difference would it make?

What is the source of that discussion or comments? If it is movie-related, it stands a high chance of being highly fallacious by default.

I finally found it! The original reference to the essay I was reading is located in Appendix A of the Return of the King, the portion concerning Durin's Folk:

"But the possessors of the Ring did not display it or speak of it, and they seldom surrendered it until near death, so that others did not know for certain where it was bestowed."

If this is true, Thror should never have been seen wearing the ring in the films. If I'm interpreting it correctly (and if PJ would have interpreted it correctly), it would make sense that the Dwarves wouldn't have known who had the ring (Thror, Thrain, etc.), because it wouldn't have been commonplace to see it. Does this seem right to you, Val?

I've found some other third-party opinions that make it seems like this should be true for the Seven and the Three, but I'm not sure that's accurate. Maybe they are inferring that from the fact that Gandalf kept the identity of his ring concealed for the most part?

It might seem like semantics, but for me, it matters to know how Tolkien intended something as important as the Rings of Power to be portrayed and used.

The essay I first brought into question is the third in a 3-part series: http://thorinoakenshield.net/2013/12/01 ... the-seven/

The Three were also kept secret by their owners.