Talk:Moria (Tolkien)/Archive 1

added header by 87.102.0.6 12:54, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The first sentence is wrong: Dwarrowdelf is not actually another name for Moria, but rather, for the ancient city of the dwarves which was located in the mines of Moria. But Moria included far more than just Dwarrowdelf. Someone should rewrite this appropriately; I'm not sure the best way how. --Tb 01:06 27 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Actually, the index of The Silmarillion says that Dwarrowdelf is a translation of Khazad-dûm amd Hadhodrond. Eric119 01:54, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)

yeah, the name Moria was the new name given to Dwarrowdelf after the Dwarves had left it Ariakas 08:09, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree- Dz

This article's justification is all wrong! I can't read the links to the left to navigate Wiki at all. Could someone adjust this so it reads OK again? Shaybear 03:19, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The article displayed fine for me, but there was some odd table-markup code (table open and right align, but no close) at the top so I removed that. If you are still having trouble info on what browser / version you are using might help. --CBD 10:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much, all fixed now. :] Shaybear 02:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Orphaned sentence?

In the "Second Age" section, there is an orphan sentence fragment: "Narvi's western doors and the original Gates in the east remained the only two known exits from Khazad-dûm," brain 00:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Drawing or photograph

The depiction of the inside of Dwarrowdelf is actually a still shot from The Fellowship of the Ring shortly before Morgoth's Balrog,Flame of Udûn,make his appearance from the the deep places of the world.Sochwa 21:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

corrected caption87.102.0.6 13:26, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Merge

Done the suggested merge of "bridge of khazad dum"

I created a new section "significant geography" - awful name for it - someone please think of a better one. Moria gate is a stub presently - please expand. Are there any one features of moria worth mentioning.?

When I merged I made a few small changes - but didn't rewrite - so please expect that improvements could be made here..

Sorry about all the "cite" tags...87.102.0.6 12:56, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Real-world perspective

This article consists overwhelmingly of a plot summary, which breaches see WP:PLOT. Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)#Real-world_perspective, it should be rewritten from a real-world perspective (which is currently almost entirely absent), so I have tagged it as {{inuniverse}}. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

I had a go at removing a lot, including the excessive single line quotations from the books, as well as most? of the plot from the lord of the rings. Hopefully more of what remains actually concerns moria itself... It may still need work77.86.8.83 (talk) 15:57, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

The article is still very much 'in universe'.77.86.8.83 (talk) 16:00, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Meaning

This article doesn't mention the meaning of the word, either to the Eldar, or Tolkien's development of the word. Since his use of language is the most unique aspect of his work this is a little disappointing. I know I've read somewhere what his real-world inspiration was for this word, but don't have time to research it at the moment. ☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 04:19, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, I was a little hasty. It is there, but not in the first para where it should be. In keeping with the non-encyclopedic tone it appears in the correct narrative order instead. Still something about the development of the word would be good. ☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 04:27, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Troll

Troll-- the references to the Troll in Moria are wrong. The Troll only appears in the film. In the novel, Gandalf speculates that there is "something else, maybe a great cave Troll" in the Chamber after the company has fled the Chamber, but the "something else" is actually the Balrog. It's quite clear in the novel that this was Tolkien's intent, a foreshadowing of the Balrog that was about to appear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 214.13.130.104 (talk) 09:55, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, I have removed the reference to the troll from the chamber section. Carl Sixsmith (talk) 17:30, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Whether or not Gandalf could be mistaken about what he was seeing, please remember the scaled arm and leg that made their way into their room by something driving the door inward. Refer to the book. Boromir hacked at it with his sword but succeeded only in notching his blade; Frodo successfully stabbed the foot with Sting. Surely Frodo did not stab the Balrog. The Balrog later laid a hand upon the iron ring of the door and performed a counter- spell to open it, as per Gandalf's statements. Ralph Bakshi's version is truer to the book's brute force door opening sequence than Peter Jackson's. 67.101.51.214 (talk) 23:55, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

That's right. The foot belongs to the troll. Gandalf says, "Let us go, before the troll returns".--Jack Upland (talk) 06:35, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Broadbeams

The "Second Age" section introduces the term "broadbeams" in the opening sentence. What does this mean? If this was a name Tolkien gave to the early-age dwarves it should be defined earlier in the article. If we don't want to do that, the term should be removed.John D. Goulden (talk) 20:47, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

When was the name Moria first used?

To quote the current article version; "Khazad-dûm earned its later sobriquet Moria, meaning "Black Chasm" or "Black Pit", from Sindarin mor="black" and iâ="void, abyss, pit", after it was abandoned by the Dwarves following the emergence in its depths of a demonic entity of great power, the Balrog."

However, the West-gate inscription reads; "Ennyn Durin aran Moria. Pedo mellon a minno" and "The Durin, king of Khazad-dûm, named on West-gate is most likely to have been Durin II."

Is this an "unexplained mystery"? (no obvious source to reconcile that apparent contradiction, anyhow). Harami2000 (talk) 17:21, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was no consensus to merge. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:00, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

---

I propose to merge Misty Mountains into Moria (Middle-earth). I think that the content in the Misty Mountains article can easily be explained in the context of Moria (Middle-earth), and the Moria (Middle-earth) article is of a reasonable size that the merging of Misty Mountains will not cause any problems as far as article size is concerned.

• Nominator's Comment Proposing this on behalf of esteemed Middle-earth aficionado Chiswick Chap as I really have no knowledge of this. It seems like this article may meet WP:GNG, but the question becomes whether it's (a) too CRUFTy for the encyclopedia and (b) WP:PAGEDECIDE also applies. So, to support merge or oppose merge, that is the question before you.

Looping Hoggie, Tonymec, and SMcCandlish into the discussion per their involvement in one or more related recent RfDs that have closed. Doug Mehus T·C 19:18, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Merge. Well, the article is about a fictional mountain range. Its role is as scenery and a place for rough weather, forcing the hobbits and party in both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to go into orc-caverns or abandoned dwarf-tunnels where a lot of things happen. The article may look as if it has a lot of citations, but most are by Tolkien himself; those by Fonstad and Foster basically just regurgitate Tolkien; Carpenter is just editing Tolkien's letters. Other than that, the article mentions in a few words that the mountains may have been inspired by, er, mountains in the Skírnismál, and that JRRT went walking in the Alps where he saw, er, mountains with mist and rocks and snow. Some astronomers and Led Zeppelin have named stuff after them. And that's about it. I think it would make a decent short section in Moria (Middle-earth), and people can redirect to there. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:37, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Selective Merge per Chiswick Chap. There's just not enough coverage to justify a 17k article. It's a very important place in-universe, but frankly, nothing that's actually real seems to pay a whole of lot of scholarly attention to these Misty Mountains. Moria (Middle-earth) most likely passes GNG, and since Moria is part of the Misty Mountains, it would be fully appropriate to cover the Misty Mountains in a section of that article. Hog Farm (talk) 21:31, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Oppose Merge The crossing of the Misty Mountains plays a significant part in the plots of both The Hobbit and LOTR, Moria isn't mentioned at all in the former. If we really can't bear to have separate articles for them, maybe merge Moria into Misty Mountains - since Moria is just part of the Misty Mountains rather than vice versa. Otherwise it's like merging Himalayas into Everest. Chuntuk (talk) 17:33, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Moria is certainly independently notable with at least 30 reliable secondary sources. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:33, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

But are the Misty Mountains independently notable?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:34, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

No, the critics and scholars really haven't paid them any attention. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:02, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

• Skeptical. This is the reverse of the sort of merge we would normally do, since Moria is a tiny subset of the Misty Mountains range. It would be kind of like merging Rocky Mountains into Denver. I think it might be more appropriate to merge Misty Mountains into a general Geography of Middle-earth article, as a section. We don't have that. Middle-earth#Geography (the present redirect target of Geography of Middle-earth) isn't set up that way, but is extremely general and divided up by fiction age (to account for cataclysms that vastly changed the geography, etc.). If we had Geography of Middle-earth, done right, then a whole bunch of iffy stand-alone articles could merge to it. Misty Mountains is a poor redirect to another region article, since the entire nature of it is as a divider between regions and it's a bit of a region in its own right. So, I think what I'm suggesting is to start Geography of Middle-earth with the content of Misty Mountains (more or less) as a section and see what else can be put in there. I have no issue with the idea that some of the material in Misty Mountains should really be in Moria (Middle-earth), though per WP:SUMMARY a brief overview of Moria, with {{Main}}, would be expected in the Misty Mountains material. PS: It's okay for Middle-earth#Geography to take the tactic it does; the purpose there is more "cosmological". A Geography of Middle-earth page would be a WP:SAL, by contrast.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:34, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

  SMcCandlish, see my talk page! I suggested the same thing vis-à-vis Geography of Middle-earth article (currently a redirect, so no history to preserve). This would allow us to keep the WP:FANCRUFT on fictional locations to a minimum because we could reduce if editors try and add too much detail and say, "option consensus to split this section into a standalone Middle-earth geography article." Doug Mehus T·C 00:40, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

  I'd prefer to see us move Misty Mountains, White Mountains (Middle-earth), or Moria (Middle-earth) to Geography of Middle-earth over the existing redirect; no reason that redirect creator should get article creation credit. ;-) Doug Mehus T·C 00:42, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose:
  • If a merge were to be done, IMHO it would be Moria into Misty Mountains rather than the reverse, because Moria is only a small extent of the Misty Mountains, and things like (e.g.) the High Pass (near Rivendell) or Methedras (the last peak before the Gap of Rohan), both of which are part of the Misty Mountains, have nothing whatsoever to do with Moria.
  • Rearranging content between both articles is possible depending on which POV (geographical vs. historical) is deemed more relevant in which article, see below.
  • Unlike the tunnels where Bilbo met Gollum in The Hobbit, the realm of Moria and its immediate neighbourhoods both East and West are described in enough detail, and there are enough events happening there in the second part of The Fellowship of the Ring, that IMHO it deserves its own article, albeit with its geography summarized as a section of the Misty Mountains article, headed by a line, Main article: Moria or similar. Its history (i.e. what actually happened in Moria) has IMHO little place in the Misty Mountains article, which is, or should be, mostly about geography — maybe with a single sentence at High Pass saying Bilbo & Co. passed here both ways in The Hobbit, and one at Moria saying that, after trying the Redhorn Pass and finding it blocked by snow, the Fellowship attempted, and barely succeeded (at the cost of being separated from Gandalf) to cross the Misty Mountains by going through Moria. Moving that history to the Lord of the Rings article would IMHO run the risk of losing much of what I'd call The Rise and Fall of Khazad-Dûm as summarized by Tolkien in the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings and IIRC also narrated somewhere in the Silmarillion collection of stories.
  • About merging all three of Misty Mountains, White Mountains (Middle-earth) and Moria (Middle-earth) into Middle-earth#Geography, please don't: IMHO it would either make the Middle-earth article unduly lengthy, or remove interesting encyclopædic content lest it make the article unduly lengthy. IMHO Middle-earth#Geography could do with a map, or maybe three maps, one for each Age, plus possibly a short description of the main features (including those described in the Quenta Silmarillion and destroyed thereafter); IMHO the detailed descriptions can be left as (a reasonably small number of) separate articles.
  • — Tonymec (talk) 09:03, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Well I certainly agree that merging Moria (Middle-earth) into anything would be absurd. The topic is easily notable independently, as anybody can verify from the article's list of sources, something not true of the mountain-ranges.

Comparing the fictional mountain-ranges to real ones (which are clearly notable without further ado) is deeply mistaken (a category error, like ranking types of chalk with computer programs): a real range is a real place in the world, whereas a fictional range is a bit of imagined detail within a fictional work, acting as fictional backdrop for some fictional characters and action. Moria's notability depends not on the number of miles of tunnel but on its importance as perceived by critics in terms of symbolism, relationship to older mythology, religious implications and so on, of which it has plenty. None of that is true of any of the mountain ranges. But a merge to Geography of Middle-earth would work too, happy to support that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:14, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap : Geography of Middle-earth is at the moment a redirect to a section of the Middle-earth article. Do you mean the redirect should be replaced with a full-fledged article, and that a line {{Main|Geography of Middle-earth}} should be added near the top of the #Geography section in the Middle-earth article? Maybe it should, at that; let's see what its sections could be:

• Aman (which is not part of Middle-earth proper but some knowledge of which is needed to understand the stories set in or before the First Age)
• (First Age) Beleriand (between Ered Luin on the East and Belegaer on the West);
• (Second Age) Númenor;
• (Third Age and beginning of Fourth) the territory covered in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as described in the original Lord of the Rings map going (NW to SE) from Ered Luin to Mordor, including the northern and southern parts that were cut away in most editions. This IMHO makes one whole but I think subsections would be in order:
  • NW: from the Grey Havens to Rivendell and the High Pass, including the Shire, the Old Forest, Bree, etc., and whatever lies North of that; its southern reaches should IMHO include Longbottom but not Sarn Ford;
  • NE: from the High Pass to the Lonely Mountain and the lake Esgaroth, including Beorn's house and Mirkwood/Greenwood; I suppose Dol Guldur belongs here as something located “in the southernmost parts of Mirkwood”; probably also Rhûn (for whatever it is worth, as very little is said about it);
  • SE: Lórien, Fangorn, the wastelands south of Mirkwood, Gondor, Mordor, Rohan, the stretch of land south of the Ered Nimrais (White Mountains); also Harad, or what little is known about it;
  • SW: only sparsely inhabited, from the Gap of Rohan to the borders of the Southfarthing, including Sarn Ford (where IIRC Boromir lost his horse on the way to Rivendell); I guess Moria belongs here (to flesh it up) rather than in the SE part (which is already close to overflowing without it). I suppose Eregion belongs here too, though it was laid waste at (IIUC) the end of the Second Age.
• Maps, if any, should be based on the ones in JRR Tolkien's works but not violate his copyright; this might be a hard task considering that the various maps I can find here and there on WP look either readable but full of imprecisions, or copies of the original ones but so small and blurry (for fear of breaking copyrights, I suppose) that they are illegible.

After listing all this, I wonder if I haven't been too enthusiastic, which would mean that I have too much material for a single article. Maybe divide it in two (everything that floundered away or was rotated out of mortals' reach until the Fall of Númenor OT1H, and Hobbit / LotR Middle-earth, including Eregion OTOH)? — Tonymec (talk) 19:11, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the detailed thoughts. I'd say we have more or less reached consensus that 1) we aren't merging anything to or from Moria (Middle-earth); and that 2) it will probably be worth doing something about Middle-earth's geography though we haven't yet agreed what that might be. The key point is not what the fictional geography is, but what the critics and scholars have written about Tolkien's geographical thinking. An article recording their analysis would not be a list of (fictional, non-notable) places but a discussion of Tolkien's maps-first approach, which is well-documented. Perhaps that is what the new article should be called. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:32, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose Merge The Misty Mountains are notable on their own and deserve their own article. Led Zeppelin would agree. Moria and the Misty Mountains are two separate things. Just as Tatooine and the Galactic Republic are two separate things. ~ HAL333 01:53, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, it seems clear that there is no consensus for any such merger, so I shall close this now, noting that the mountain range articles should probably become parts of a future "Geography of Middle-earth" article if anyone feels like writing one. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:55, 12 March 2020 (UTC)→

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Moria (Middle-earth)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: JavaHurricane (talk · contribs) 17:03, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

As a fan of J. R. R. Tolkien's wonderful creations, I'd like to GAN-review the article for Moria. -- JavaHurricane 17:03, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks. I hope you will find the article to your liking, though the style must inevitably be neutral rather than enthusiastic! I am able to respond quickly to review comments and am used to working through issues (even on occasion substantial ones) with reviewers. I look forward to your comments. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:07, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap, sorry for the delay! I've been busy lately, but I did go through the article for starters. A few inevitable things here and there, but I hope everything can be fixed. I'll put up my comments shortly. JavaHurricane 09:44, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

I'll fix whatever needs fixed promptly. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:51, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Status

Good Article

Criteria

• Well-written:

• the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct:

• it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

• Verifiable with no original research:

• it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

• reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):

• it contains no original research:

• it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism:

• Broad in its coverage:

• it addresses the main aspects of the topic:

• it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

• Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

• Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

• Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

• media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

• media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

Comments

• Could you add a link to "Balrog" in the lede, separately of Durin's Bane?

Done.

• "Scholars have identified likely sources for Tolkien's Moria: He had studied a Latin inscription [...]" - fix capital after colon.

Done.

• "The West Gate that crashes closed behind the Fellowship recalled the Wandering Rocks of Greek mythology, and Odysseus's passage between the devouring Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis." - mention that it is the critics who opine so.

Done.

• "Its multiple levels of tunnels and halls served, too, as the basis for a variety of computer and board games." - Have served - many such games are still around.

Done.

• "Their genesis lay in the Poetic Edda, with which Tolkien was familiar; the protagonist in the Skírnismál notes that his quest will involve misty mountains, orcs, and giants." - I think that this sentence should be in "Origins" rather than "Geography".

Moved.

• Wikilink to Durin VII in the paragraph above "Architecture" redirects back to Moria.

Removed, like his article.

And that's all I have an issue with. On hold temporarily, but I think we can pass this shortly. -- JavaHurricane 11:10, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

All done to date. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:52, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

That's it, the. Passing as a GA. A very good read, congratulations! -- JavaHurricane 12:20, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Redirects to nowhere

There's a number of redirects targeting to this article that aren't mentioned here. I think some of these are probably best deleted. I naturally lean a bit on the side of deletion with most things anyway, so I would like to get the input of other editors before nominating these at RFD, I don't want to try to delete anything useful. I'm also checking to see if any of these are {{R from merge}} that need to be kept.

• Casarrondo
• Hadhodrond
• Phurunargian
• Hithaiglin
• Hith Aiglin

There's also a number of redirects that got sent to this target while Misty Mountains was briefly a redirect here. Those will need to be retargeted back to the Misty Mountains article. Hog Farm (talk) 21:35, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Good catch! Those all need to go. And Misty moumtains should redirect to Geography of Middle-earth. Chiswick Chap (talk) 00:46, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

"Casarrondo" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Casarrondo. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Hog Farm (talk) 01:54, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

"Mountains of Angmar" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Mountains of Angmar. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 12:09, 12 April 2020 (UTC)