Footnote to the Aragorn quiz

[inzilbeth]

One of the things Estelcontar and I ended up discussing as a result of this quiz was the question of whether or not Aragorn [or the Dunedain in general] could understand the speech of the beasts and the birds.

We decided that the only refernce to this that we knew of was this one from chapter 9 'At the sign of the Prancing Pony': 

They were taller and darker than the Men of Bree and were believed to have strange powers of sight and hearing, and to understand the languages of  beasts and birds.

We decided that was not the same as saying they COULD understand the languages of the beasts. Then  Estelcontar sent me this passage from Return of the Shadow:

...As the evening deepened Trotter began to tell them tales to keep their minds from fear. He knew much lore concerning wild animals, and claimed to speak some of their languages; and he had strange stories to tell of their lives and little known adventures.... 

So from Trotter's own mouth we find he claimed to have this ability. I wonder what strange tales he had to tell and wouldn't it have been wonderful if we had got to hear them!

Comments

[silivren-tinu.livejournal.com]

There's no right or wrong answer to any of this but it is fun to speculate.

It really is! :)

I wonder if it is likely the Men would share this ability if it's specifically given to a Maia.

That's an interesting aspect. Now that I've been thinking on it for a while, I also believe it might get boring pretty soon if too many people had such an ability - all of the Dunedain in addition to the Maiar and the elves would probably be a bit too many. *g* But I still like the idea that perhaps Aragorn has a certain affinity to at least some animals. It actually makes me wonder if Peter Jackson ever thought about that and if the Brego-Aragorn scenes were inspired by it.

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

Yes, its almost as if it's one of those vague ideas that half sticks in the mind. Of course Shadowfax may well have been the influence there too but they were great scenes all the same and I'm glad there were included.

[estelcontar1.livejournal.com]

It think they most certainly had that in mind. I'm sure PJ and Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens (who apparently was indeed a fan before she got involved in the project) did their lesson, and read the HOME LOTR books. Many of the ideas they hinted at the movies may be found in the four HOME LOTR books. I remember hearing Viggo Mortensen say in one of his live interviews, promoting FOTR, and describing Aragorn that Aragorn could understand the language of the birds and the beasts, and at the time going............"whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat he really did his homework, didn't he?" LOL Since he said he only read the books after getting the role, I'm sure idea came from the script writers.
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