Middle -earth timing methods were similar to those in the real world. Characters The Lord of the Rings And The Hobbit measured the positions of celestial bodies and the change of seasons. From county to Gondor, concepts like days, months and years were relatively consistent, even if they were described using different terms. However, Jrr Tolkien Silmarillion explained that this was not always the case. The sun and the moon were created canonically by the divine minds known as Valar, and they were not the first attempt to light the world. They were preceded by the two brilliant trees of Valinor, which were themselves preceded by giant towers called the two lamps. Before the existence of the sun, the valaire and the elves measured time in the Valian years, which were longer than the solar years. But how long? As revealed by the notes of Ring of MorgothTolkien struggled to find a satisfactory answer to this question.

According to Tolkien’s first writings on the subject, a Valian year was equal to 9.582 solar years. He used this measure during the construction of the chronology of the land land in the 1930s and 1940s. However, like the first volume of The Lord of the Rings Recurified, Tolkien began to have doubts about its previous world construction. He estimated that certain events, such as the breed of the elves spreading on the land of the middle, occurred too quickly. This led him to increase the duration of a Valian year to 144 solar years, a number chosen to correspond to the number of elves who first woke up in the midfielder. Although the concept of Valian Years has never appeared in The Lord of the RingsThe novel mentioned that the elves measured time in periods of 144 solar years, which they called they have. Although this may seem to be a detail of the traditions without consequences at the beginning, the changing length of a Valiche year had major ramifications for the stories of characters which were alive before the creation of the sun, including Galadriel.

Tolkien’s Retcon would have made the oldest characters of the Lord of the rings even older

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Longer Valian years have returned the land of the environment and some of its older inhabitants. Galadriel, for example, was born during the years of trees, in particular the year when 1362. Using the old definition of a Valian year, it would have been 1,322 years old when the sun is created. Combined with the 7,050 years that have passed between this event and the arrival of the scholarship in Lothlórien, she would have been 8,372 years old The Lord of the Rings. However, if a Valian year was rather equal to 144 solar years, Galadriel would have been a breathtaking 26,897 years when she met Frodon Baggins and her companions.

Galadriel was not even The Lord of the Rings“The oldest elf, so other characters would have been even more affected by this change in chronology. The extension of the Valian years would make the world’s clothes even more understandable and increase the tragedy of elven deaths. This would also increase the age gap between certain characters. Elrond was born in the first age of Middle -earth, during the years of the sun, so the duration of the Valian years would not affect his age. At the original duration of a Valian year, Galadriel was less than 2,000 years older than him, but by the new duration, it was its elder over 20,000 years.

The Lord of the Rings has been written with shorter years in mind

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It is difficult to determine the cannon in Tolkien’s work because he made adjustments to his stories until the very end of his life. The more recent writings generally replace those which have preceded, but when it comes to measuring the years of Valian, most fans use 9.582 solar years instead of 144. The reason is that the duration of retcon of a year Valian would break the official chronology, which was written before Tolkien changes his mind. Elves tended to do things more slowly than humans, but even again, the longer Valian years would stretch certain events to a ridiculous degree. For example, this would mean that hundreds of years were needed to browse eternal land on the land of the middle, even if the subsequent characters could travel between continents in a few years or less.

Tolkien could have solved this problem and similar problems by rewriting parts of the calendar to accommodate longer Valian years, but he has never done it, so the revised Valian Year finally hurts than good The Lord of the Rings“Continuity. It is preferable to consider a solar year Valian Year 9,582, as originally provided for Tolkien. Tolkien was a notorious perfectionist, so he often tried to repair things that didn’t need to be repaired. Given the mythological tone of the first history of the land of the middle, it does not break the immersion of readers if some events occur more quickly than they would do it. However, it is fascinating for modern fans to see how the author plans to modify the history of the land of the environment and to reflect on the consequences of such a simple but significant change.

First movie

The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring

Movie

The Hobbit: the battle of the five armies

Last TV show

The Lord of the Rings The Rings of Power