Regarding Trolls

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Thalion of Bree
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Regarding Trolls

Post by Thalion of Bree »

Here’s a question: the trolls in the Hobbit are noticeably different from the trolls in Lord of the Rings, right? Obviously, the main reason for this is that Professor Tolkien wrote the Hobbit as a fairy tale for his son, and that Lord of the Rings was something of an expansion on the themes laid out there. But is there an in-world reason that we know of for the seeming drop trollish in intelligence between the two? Is there a drop in intelligence mentioned, or is it just that the Orcs were given more lines?
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Udwin
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Re: Regarding Trolls

Post by Udwin »

They're different kinds of trolls. In the big picture, there actually seems to be an Increase in trollish intelligence between the two periods - at least for the explicitly Evil ones (Bill Huggins et al, while certainly malicious, are still just free agents at the time)

In his 1960 post-LR revision of the The Hobbit, after the introduction of the three trolls, Tolkien added the passage, "That is the way of trolls of their* sort. Great greedy slow-witted brutes. There are other kinds, more cunning and dangerous; but Tom and Bert and Bill were quite dangerous enough."
(Originally "their sort" was "that sort") In a 1954 letter, Tolkien described the trolls appearing in TH specifically as 'Stone-trolls' (Letters 153), whereas the 'other kinds' mentioned would include the cave-troll in Moria and Sauron's Olog-hai, of whom rumours appear to have reached the Shire in LR I:2: "Trolls were abroad, no longer dull-witted, but cunning and armed with dreadful weapons."
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redhandfilms
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Re: Regarding Trolls

Post by redhandfilms »

I sort of assumed it was how their raised. That the Hobbit's trolls were essentially wild trolls doing whatever they liked. Later, the trolls in Lord of the Rings, were raised as beasts of war. Part of a cruel army, beating and twisting their natural malice, dumbing them down until they're just a rampaging beast.
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Eofor
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Re: Regarding Trolls

Post by Eofor »

You know I'm something of a troll expert myself....
Udwin wrote: Mon Dec 19, 2022 1:51 pm They're different kinds of trolls. In the big picture, there actually seems to be an Increase in trollish intelligence between the two periods - at least for the explicitly Evil ones (Bill Huggins et al, while certainly malicious, are
Came in to basically say this and share the passage directly from Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings
Trolls. Troll has been used to translate the Sindarin - Torog. In their beginning far back in the twilight of the Elder Days, these were creatures of dull and lumpish nature and had no more language than beasts. But Sauron had made use of them, teaching them what little they could learn, and increasing their wits with wickedness. Trolls therefore took such language as they could master from the Orcs; and in the Westlands the Stone-trolls spoke a debased form of the Common Speech.

But at the end of the Third Age a troll-race not before seen appeared in southern Mirkwood and in the mountain borders of Mordor. Olog-hai they were called in the Black Speech. That Sauron bred them none doubted, though from what stock was not known. Some held that they were not Trolls but giant Orcs; but the Olog-hai were in fashion of body and mind quite unlike even the largest of Orc-kind, whom they far surpassed in size and power. Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race, strong, agile, fierce and cunning, but harder than stone. Unlike the older race of the Twilight they could endure the Sun, so long as the will of Sauron held sway over them. They spoke little, and the only tongue that they knew was the Black Speech of Barad-dûr.
Certainly that rings true with my findings as well. Heimir and I were hiding out down near the East Bight after a drinking incident involving a mattock and the villagers of Bereths holding insisted that a troll had attacked during the day when the men were tending the field.
We tracked it of course, the trail was already three days old and lead us away south and west but we had to abandon the hunt as it grew near to evil places. Worrying times for all if the tale bears true.
But the white fury of the Northmen burned the hotter, and more skilled was their knighthood with long spears and bitter. Fewer were they but they clove through the Southrons like a fire-bolt in a forest.
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