Talk:List of weapons and armour in Middle-earth

Use of sources

Parts of this article are cited to Joseph Piela's "Arms and Armor" in The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia (pp. 26-27), which is a Reliable Source, within reason (the quality of some articles in the book has rightly been criticised by scholars).

However, much of the text cited to Piela goes beyond his argument. His first paragraph does say that the "model for the arms and armor" was established in Tolkien's "The Fall of Gondolin" (begun 1916), and that the model included "mail, helms, vambraces and greaves, shields, swords, bows, axes, spears, and bills", which Piela does characterise as having "much the same flavor of armor and weapons of the Dark Ages or Ancient period, most notably derived from such writings as Beowulf and the Norse Epics". Piela writes that Tolkien kept to this model "consistently". After that he writes about mail (and scale armor), hooped helms, and long swords held in one hand (and a shield in the other) though he grants that two-handed swords were used but "not nearly as common". He does not discuss the specific terms "longsword" or "greatsword" so it would be WP:OR to talk of those without another suitably authoritative Tolkien scholar to cite.

I've removed some recent edits which appeared to move outside these limits. Happy to discuss, but the article must be solidly based on the sources it cites, per WP:V, one of the pillars of Wikipedia. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:43, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Asado: This issue appears to be continuing. An edit mentioning and linking "Longsword" has been inserted in a paragraph that was already cited to Chris Smith's 2003 "The Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare". This is not in any way a scholarly source, but it is reliable as far as it goes on the weaponry of the Peter Jackson films. The problem is that a) no page numbers were given for any of the Smith 2003 citations; and b) Smith does not seem to talk about Longswords at all that I could find on scanning the book, though I may have missed it; nor does he discuss resemblances of Jackson trilogy weaponry to Classical Era or Medieval weaponry, again that I could find, though I'd be very happy to be proven wrong with an actual page reference. Perhaps the citation is to a different book? I've added Woosnam-Savage's very interesting 2011 account of "The Matériel of Middle-earth", but he doesn't compare the weapons to historical ones either. I've added half-a-dozen specific page refs to Smith 2003 (so we're moving forward) but the Longsword and Medieval mentions seem to be untraceable at the moment; if they're to be in the article then they need to be cited to an exact page, in a book or article that actually discusses them. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:43, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Merge from Named weapons in Middle-earth

I don't see significant differences between these two articles. Well, the other one (Good Article even) is just about some weapons. But I don't think we need to separate articles. Even the discussion above notes that the existence of Joseph Piela's "Arms and Armor" in The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia article, which is about both topics. I think one article about Tolkien's weapons and armour will be enough for us too. @Chiswick Chap, what do you think? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:13, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. You'll not be surprised to hear that I oppose the merge. Here's why, or to put it another way, here is why I wrote the "Named weapons" article separately in the first place.

1) The two articles are very different. One is a fan-based list article, enumerating items alphabetically; the other, a scholarship-based text article, discussing principles. Further, the one lists weapons both named and unnamed; the other has a narrower focus.

This one, Middle-earth weapons and armour, should probably be named (moved to) "List of Middle-earth weapons and armour" as the article consists almost wholly of a list of the types of weapon or armour, for unnamed items, followed by an alphabetical list of the individual named weapons (and one helmet) mentioned in the writings. Apart from its list-structure, the content, especially of the list items (despite my efforts), is very largely primary (Tolkien, with some Jackson) and descriptive, "Weapon XYZ is...", as is characteristic of a list in, ahem, a fan-centric area.

The other, Named weapons in Middle-earth, should probably be named Naming of weapons in Middle-earth, as the article is a scholarly analysis of how and why Tolkien chose to give names to certain weapons. Its sources are mainly secondary, citing Tolkien scholars and medievalists. The article discusses one weapon, Narsil / Andúril, in detail – much more detail than is given or would be appropriate in the list article – alongside a discussion of the Medieval analogues of Tolkien's naming of weapons. In other words, the article is about the principle of naming, the history of naming, Tolkien's approach to naming, and the parallels between his approach and the historically-recorded instances of naming. It does not attempt to list anything.

2) It is normal for Wikipedia list articles to be accompanied by a text article that defines its component. Thus, a "List of 19th century motor cars" could rightly be accompanied by a separate text article on the "Early motor car" with a discussion of the car's historical origins as a carriage without horses, the development of Rudolf Diesel's engine, and so on. That article would then contain a "further" or "main" link to the List article, and vice versa. It may be helpful for editors unfamiliar with list articles to note that they are supposed to have a brief introduction defining their scope and (if available) linking to and summarizing the text / non-list article that describes the type of item that is being listed. Conversely, text articles are not totally forbidden from including lists, but it is certainly discouraged when it impedes readability, and whenever the list becomes at all long, it is common practice to split the list out into a separate article so that the basic definition, history, and analysis can be read as a unit, with one or two examples, leaving the list available via a link for those interested in the individual details. In other words, not only is there no objection to having a {text, list} pair of articles, it is actually often desirable.

In this case, the text article relates only to a part of the list article, as if we had an article "List of 19th century self-driven vehicles" (including trucks and steamrollers as well as cars). Here, the merging of the "Early motor car" article into the list would make even less sense, as it would unbalance the list's coverage of heavy and light vehicles with a sudden diversion into the history and so forth of the car. Well, the merging of the historical, scholarly analysis of the naming of weapons into the second half of the list of Middle-earth weapons and armour would make no more sense than that. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:20, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly with @Chiswick Chap. The two articles are completely different beasts, keep them seperate and moving the other article to Naming of as Chiswick suggests. I'm not a massive fan of "Middle-earth" being in the title, as it's a bit fan-crufty but there isn't really a better term (Tolkien's Legendarium is even worse) GimliDotNet (talk) 15:46, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, renaming this one to something including the word "List" would clarify the issue greatly. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 00:12, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, let's do that then. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:53, 10 January 2023 (UTC)