Hear that sound of swords clashing, of cries from the battlefield? It can only mean one thing – March Madness is here! Time to decide where your allegiance lies… This year, TheOneRing.net brings you Middle-earth March Madness 2024: Magical Moments.
Our ‘Regions’ are made up of moments where magic occurs, in The Hobbit and in the three parts of The Lord of the Rings. From the reading of moon runes to the secrets of Galadriel’s mirror; from Gandalf’s return in white, to the resurgence of the White Tree – what exactly constitutes magic in Middle-earth? Which beings have magical abilities, and what are the most compelling moments when they use those powers? YOU decide!
TORn’s volunteer staffers have voted and come up with a ‘long list’ of 64 events (16 from each book), which have been seeded based on staff votes. These moments have abbreviated titles on our bracket graphic, due to space limitations; but here’s the complete list in full (listed in their seeding order):
The Hobbit Division
Moon Runes Appear on Thrain’s Map
Bilbo’s Ring Turns Him Invisible
The Last Light of Durin’s Day Reveals the Keyhole
Orcrist and Sting Glow Blue
The Trolls Turn to Stone at Sunrise
The Black Arrow Strikes Home/Takes Down Smaug
Beorn Shape Shifts
Mirkwood Elven Feasts Disappear and Leave Intruders Stunned
The Arkenstone Shines with a Brilliant Inner Light
Beorn Has Highly Hospitable Animals
Mirkwood’s Enchanted River Leads to Bombur’s Long Nap
The Eagles Arrive at the Battle of Five Armies
Smaug is a Good Conversationalist
The White Council Dislodges the Necromancer
Troll William’s Purse Talks
Sentient Spiders React Poorly to Name-Calling
The Fellowship of the Ring Division
Bilbo Vanishes at His Birthday Party
Gandalf Adds Wild Water Horses at the Flood of the Bruinen
Galadriel Has Psychic Mind-Probing Power
Gandalf Puts On a Spectacular Fireworks Show
Durin’s Doors Open at the Right Password
Gandalf Confronts the Balrog with Glamdring and the Flame of Anor
The Mirror of Galadriel Proves Perilous
Boromir’s Horn Echoes Throughout Gondor
Mithril Mail Stops a Cave Troll Spear
Lorien’s Time Flows Differently
Gandalf Is a Moth-Whisperer
The Elven Tonic Miruvor Cures the Cold
Frodo Can See All the Way to Mordor from Amon Hen
Tom Bombadil Does a Parlor Trick with the One Ring
Narsil Is Reforged to Become Anduril
Tom Bombadil Responds to His Rescue Song
Enjoying a glass of Miruvor…
The Two Towers Division
Gandalf the White Returns from the Dead
The Palantir Snares Pippin
Gandalf Heals Theoden from Saruman’s Curse
Elven Cloaks Hide Their Wearers Very Well
Hithlain Rope Comes When It’s Called
Lembas Sustain the Fellowship on Their Quest
Growing Hobbits Drink Ent Draught
Shadowfax Can Run Really Really Fast
Elven Boats Are Unsinkable Even After Rauros
Saruman Upgrades Regular Orcs to Uruk-Hai
Faramir Dreams of Boromir’s Death
The Tower of Orthanc Is Indestructible Even for Ents
Enraged Ents in battle
Don’t Mess with the Huorns
Aragorn Ages Well
The Dead Marshes Have Party Lights
The Return of the King Division
The Witch King Is Destroyed by “No Man”
The Army of the Dead Is Summoned at the Stone of Erech
The Phial of Galadriel Stops Shelob
Athelas Will Cure Whatever Ails You
Turns Out You Can Destroy the One Ring (aka the power of Mount Doom!)
Elven Ships Leave Middle-earth and the Spheres of the World
Gandalf the White Repels the Nazgul During Faramir’s Retreat
The Dark Tower Falls
The Smoke from Orodruin Covers Vast Territory for Days
Aragorn Wields the Palantir to Confront Sauron
The Watchers at Cirith Ungol Warn of Spies in Mordor
Shelob’s Webs Are No Match for Sting
It Turns Out a New White Tree of Gondor Has Been Growing for Years
Rohan Arrives on the Pelennor Fields as the Rooster Crows
Galadriel’s Gift of Soil to Sam Sees the Shire Reborn
The Witch King’s Sword Is on Fire!
How you decide, of course, is up to you. We expect there may be some debate, out of the moments we have chosen, about which are actually ‘magic’. How/what defines such power, and how does it operate in Middle-earth? And for the moments you believe ARE magical – how do you choose your favourite? Will your votes be based on how these moment are described in Tolkien’s writing? Perhaps you have preferences based on childhood memories of Rankin Bass cartoons… Or maybe you’ll just toss a coin! It’s up to you; but however you decide, now is the time to place your votes!
How does it work, you ask? Simple! Click on one of the orange division buttons below. Then click the ‘Vote Now’ option that appears above the divisional bracket. This year, as with last year, you get to vote in each divisional match-up in one convenient and visual interface. Note – you need to click each division to vote in their respective brackets. So let’s get voting!
You have until the end of the day Thursday March 21st to vote in Round One; on Friday 22nd we’ll announce winners and open voting for Round Two! Join us for TORn Tuesday, where we’ll discuss and debate March Madness 2024; let the games begin!
TheOneRing.net will kick off the 2024 Convention season at Wondercon in Anaheim, running from March 29-31, 2024. Our panel, ‘Dispatches from Middle-earth: The War of the Rohirrim’ will be on Easter Sunday at 12:15 pm in room North 200A. You can find our panel description at: https://sched.co/1aznT or if you don’t have tickets yet, you can find those at https://www.comic-con.org/wc/
We have much to talk about with the recent announcement of a new book of Tolkien’s poems and the interviews with the creators of The War of the Rohirrim. We will miss the actual ‘Tolkien Reading Day’ on March 25, but all is not lost, March is officially dubbed National Reading Month to commemorate the birthday of Dr. Seuss. All that is to say ‘expect a little bit of Tolkien’s literature to make an appearance’.
We also would like to invite any Middle-earth-themed cosplayers to attend our panel and the subsequent photo shoot out by the fountain in front of the convention center. If you are unable to attend the panel but think you can make the photo shoot afterwards, it will take place 45 minutes after the end of the panel, or approximately at 2pm.
Publisher HarperCollins is set to release a new Tolkien book, The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien, this September. The three-volume book will gather together much of J.R.R. Tolkien’s published verse, as well as somewhere in the vicinity of 77 (see below for the editors’ explanation about the inherent difficulties of being precise) previously unreleased poems from his archives.
Editors Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond note that it’s a Collected Poems work, not a Complete Poems work, due to “economies of production”. However, the book will still include “most of the verses Tolkien is known to have written, and for most of these, multiple versions which show their evolution.”
There are at least 240 discrete poems, depending on how one distinguishes titles and versions, presented in 195 entries and five appendices.
When possible, we have used manuscripts and typescripts in the Bodleian Library, at Marquette University, and at the University of Leeds.
We have chosen not to include all of the one hundred or so poems contained in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but have made a representative selection – surely, no one who reads the Collected Poems will not already have at least one copy of Tolkien’s two most popular works.
They further explain that “discrete poems” depends on one’s definition.
Some of the poems morph in their evolution so much that one could either count a work as a single entity in a variety of forms, or as a variety of separate poems that are closely related. Hence our vagueness about the number: we didn’t want to overhype it.
There’s a similar issue with counting which poems have been published and which haven’t. The best we can say is that among the poems we include, 77 have not been published before in any form, or only a few lines from them have appeared, e.g. in Carpenter’s biography.
The HarperCollins press release notes that poetry was the first way in which Tolkien expressed himself creatively and through it the seeds of his literary ambition would be sown. The character Eärendil emerged from one of his earliest poems The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star in 1914. And from Eärendil we have world of The Silmarillion, and subsequently The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, each which is enriched with many poems.
Charged, at first, by Christopher Tolkien to review only his early poems, Hammond and Scull soon saw the benefits of examining his entire poetic opus across six decades and showing its evolution with comments in the manner of Christopher’s magisterial History of Middle-earth series.
Collected Poems will provide the stories behind, and analysis of, each poem, as well as revealing the extraordinary amount of work that Tolkien invested in them.
Not long before his death, Hammond and Scull were able to send Christopher Tolkien a portion of the book, which he praised as “remarkable and immensely desirable”.
They state that the 1,500-plus-page book (the numbers listed on Amazon’s description are apparently outdated and not correct) will also include “a long introduction to Tolkien as a poet, a brief chronology of his poetry, and a glossary of archaic, unusual, or unfamiliar words he used in his verse.”
According to Hammond and Scull, there are currently no plans for a deluxe edition; the aim is for an elegant trade release (hardcover). As yet there is no announcement of a U.S. edition. It looks as though like Amazon will carry a (Kindle) e-book as well.
The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien will be released on September 12.
