Better Titles

[Elfhelm]

The book titles were made up by Houghton Mifflin, as I recall, and JRRT didn't like them. Of course, they made three movies instead of six so naturally they used those less-than-perfect titles.

Anyone want to have fun making up better titles?

The Two Towers is the most obvious bad title because it's misleading, but I think Return of the King is also less than perfect because the focus of the last two books (I mean numbers 5 and 6) is the destruction of the One Ring. Obviously, British fantasy fans love to hope that Arthur will return, but for me that is one more misleading element in the title. At most, Return of the King could be a chapter title.

I'm taking a shot at the new movie. What if they realized it and named it differently? What might it have been called? How about:

The Destruction of the Ring
Assault on Mount Doom
Saruman's Revenge (OK this was a title suggested by a co-worker for Book 6, not for the movie which has no scouring).
Samwise Gamgee, Hero!

hehehe... anyone else?

[Anglorfin]

I disagree with you. I think the titles that were given for the books fit for the most part. That is, with the exception of The Two Towers. But yes, the movies skewed the meaning of some titles or maybe caused some deeper symbolism to be lost. They did manage to make it clear though which of the many towers were being referred to in the TTT. I am not so sure that RotK's title will fit so nicely tho. We'll just have to wait and see.

[Elfhelm]

OK, that's cool.

But what I'm saying is, the title implies that Aragorn's ascending the throne is the whole point, when it's really just a secondary plot element next to the destruction of the One Ring.

[Bacchus]

I like the HOME titles for Volumes II and III:
The Treason of Isengard (More applicable of course to Book 3 than Book 4)
and
The War of the Ring

I think FOTR is aptly named

[Bacchus]

Perhaps we could name all six Books:
1. The Shadow of the Past
2. The Fellowship of the Ring
3. The Treason of Isengard
4. The Choices of Master Samwise
5. The War of the Ring
6. Sauron Defeated

[Tuor of Gondolin]

FYI:

JRRT didn't like "Return of the King" because he thought it would give away too much of the plot and preferred "The War of the Ring." And he rather liked "The Two Towers."

The fellowship of the Ring will do, I think; and fits well with the fact that the last chapter of the Volume is the breaking of the Fellowship. The Two Towers gets as near as possible to finding a title to cover the widely divergent Books 3 and 4; and can be left ambiguous- it might refer to Isengard and Barad-dur, or to Minas Tirith and B; or Isengard and Cirith Ungol. On reflection I prefer for Vol. III the War of the Ring, since it gets in the Ring again; and also is more non-committal, and gives less hint about the turn of the story: the chapter titles have been chosen to give away as little as possible in advance. But I am not set in my choice.

So, since he wasn't all that obsessed with the three sub-titles, for the second movie, a title like The Struggle for Rohan would seem apt, since that gets the lion's share of the movie. For movie III I also like "The War of the Ring" (has a classical/mythological sound to it). Movie I title is fine as is.

[gdl96]

Originally posted by Bacchus
6. Sauron Defeated

Gives a bit too much away, don't ya think? :p

[jellyfishannah]

They may be misleading but that's how we all have known them all this time.

You know what a 'friend' of mine said when I told her I got free tickets to see "The Two Towers"? She said "Oh. Is that a movie about the towers that were blown up on 9/11?"
HA HA HA! I wanted to die. These hicks...seriously. She didn't know what LotR was. They don't know literature. They don't know philosophy. They can't make good enough grades to play on a school team at a sport that they kick butt at. Granted. But they don't even know media?! They don't know about movies and music that the news is yelling at them every day? What do these people do? I wonder if they even know what Nintendo Gamecube is...;):p

[hectorberlioz]

well, i dont care if tolkien liked em or not. too late to change the titles now...:D
but Bacchus did have some good thoughts above, except maybe for the last book...;)