Small nerd gripe. Maia is the singular form of Maiar. "I am a Maia," or "I am one of the Maiar" get you there
Maia who?
This is fun because Maija is a very common name for women in Finland. Not this generation particularly but it's like the Finnish equivalent of Mary or something to the generation that was born around 30's-40's. For some reason it was exploding in popularity from the the 1900's (as in the oughts, not the century) to 1930 in Finland. And seeing how Tolkien definitely took influence from Finnish, I wonder if there might be an actual connection.
edit I changed the example name from Jennifer to Mary as I realised "Mary Poppins" is translated as "Maija Poppanen" in Finnish
For some reason it was exploding in popularity from the the 1900’s (as in the oughts, not the century) to 1930 in Finland.
It's because everyone wanted to associate their kids with the English Queen Mary. Idk why. My Italian grandparents named all their kids after English royalty too.
"Well I read in a book that I was there. I can't actually remember more than a few hundred years back."
Ashildr from Doctor Who was brilliant.
I'm wondering now, how our little brains would adapt to living like for thousands of years. Would we really start forgetting things that are waaaay back?
I've already forgotten most of my childhood and I'm only around 30. So I'd assume, yes.
You would forget most everything. Even big events would become fuzzy. Do you remember what you had for lunch on this date when you were 5?
"The Man from Earth"
Such a gem of a movie
Yes and no, probably. You will remember important bits and will reconstruct/imagine other things just like you do now. Even with our short lifes not all the things you "remember" actually happened.
I SEEN IT!!
Doesn't matter. While that amazon shitshow tells a different story, Gandalf (as Radagast and Saruman) only arrived in the third age, long after the War of the Last Alliance. Gandalf might be infinitely older than Elrond yet wasn't there.
The second age ended with the ending of the war of the last alliance, so Gandalf did arrive later, but not "long after"
I assume you forgot a "not" after the "but". I just looked it up though, Gandalf left Valinor for Middle Earth around 1000 T.A. I don't know about you, but I'd consider that "long after" the War of the Last Alliance.
Hey Gandalf, fuck off. Were you literally there 3,000 years ago? Or are you just going "You're younger than me, so you know fuckall"?
Fuckin boomer
Gandalf: I was there in spirit!
Am I wrong or do the wizards not remember their lives before they were sent to middle earth?
I don't think the original books ever told anything about it.
Iirc the books themselves didn't say, but Tolkien's letters say something to the effect of the Istari only having vague memories of their time as Maia, with the exception of things that they were explicitly meant to remember, e.g. Olórin's memories of being sent back after his physical death while fighting Durin's Bane.
They know that they are, in our parlance, embodied angels or minor gods, but they don't remember a ton of where they came from
Do the balrogs have the same memory issues?
That's a very good question, and one that I don't know the answer to. I would guess no, as the point of the Istari losing their memories was to make them more like the people they were sent to save; it's not something about being embodied that made them lose their bodyless memories, it was part of their mission. The balrogs had no such mission
I mean, sure he was alive. But he wasn't physically there.
Christian Earth: 6000 years old
Middle Earth: 30,000 years old
Middle Earth wins again
Is Middle-earth juxtaposed between Top-earth and Bottom-earth or Right-earth and Left-earth?
The serious answer is it's juxtaposed with East and West. West being the Undying Lands of Valinor, and East being the much less well-explored Land of the Sun.
So there were five godlike beings sent to fight Sauron. Only one of them did his job.
I need to reword it.
You are the big cool powerful god. One of your servants, a minor much less powerful god does bad things to the world. So you send five your other servants just as powerful as the bad one to deal with him.
A lot of time passes. Three of those spend their time chilling. One joins the bad one. The last one turns out too weak. Who solves the problem? Four hobbits.
You really should reconsider your politics after that.
Isn’t much of the power of the Maiar in diplomacy and setting events in motion? Gandalf was as much of an interloper and manipulator as he was anything else, and his hiring Bilbo as a thief was the penultimate piece of his mission, as inadvertent as I’m not entirely sure it was. Right? No, really, I’m kinda asking, I don’t know for sure.
Maiar is the plural
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