The White Council

Re: Somewhat Discouraging news for me concerning the films

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : : I would be retching in the aisles at the merest hint of a : : : wimple, cod-piece or large expanses of plate armour.

: : Bring a buckett;-) No, I would not find some plate armour (like : : 1150- 1250 European/latin east) out of place, especially not : : with the Kniggeties of Dol Amroth, they deserve some fluttering : : of banners and panache- I myself see them a lot like the : : militant orders supplemented by local lords (note, not a word : : on feudalism).

: Not being an armorer, I cannot be sure, but I think it's supposed to be easier (for us, at least) to make plate armor in great quanitity than chain mail. I believe Mel Gibson's Scottish movie used some sort of knitted shirts to represent the chain mail.

being the resident ?expert? on modern chainmail (I wear one on occasion), I can safely say that they are very cheap indeed. A mere chain shirt, which superfiscially looks like the ones worn by soldiers from roman legionaires to renaissance infantry, costs about $300-350, including shipping from the US to here. That is not much, however, a close look will reveal that they are not riveted like real ones and it is up to one's own conscience whether you want to buy chainmail made from Indian child labour or illegal Mexicans- I do not. A chainmail contains at least 25.000 rings and if you buy them in finished form, you can assemble it using 60- 150 hours. If you make the rings yourself from welding wires- you can count on at least double the time, not to mention making the wires in the ancient way... To a Viking chieftain, a chain shirt represented at least half a years labour by a skilled craftsman doing nothing else- very few were around. The Romans, of course, mass-produced them in something resembling industries, but they too went over to the easier version of plate armour they used from around A.D. 100, the chainmail never wholly disappeared from their armies though.

: Anyway, since the armor is looking realistic by all accounts I've heard, and since at least one SCA armorer is allegedly involved in the process, I think we can expect to see SOME plate, but I also suspect Jackson knows about the chain shirts and would probably prefer to depict them wherever possible.

: I am just guessing, you understand.