Trolls vs Giants

[fjw70]

In Tolkien lore are trolls and giants separate things or two names for the same thing?

[Glorelendil]

Separate things.

Giants have not had enough of a presence to date in TOR, imo.

[Rich H]

Giants are bad ass, Trolls are just... well... bad. Or maybe, ass. I dunno.

[fjw70]

Or maybe, ass. I dunno.

That is probably what they smell like at least.

[timb]

"...‘ent’ simply means ‘giant’ in Old English... The Book of Lost Tales had referred to giants as one of the Úvanimor, or monster-folk (BLT I.75), a thoroughly traditional touch on Tolkien’s part; giants have a long, long tradition in folklore of being extremely dangerous if not downright wicked... Ents are one of the five Free Peoples; giants one of those races which may be called the Children of Morgoth... The stone-giants of The Hobbit do not seem to be aware of the presence of the travellers, but then again there’s no indication that they would have behaved any differently had they known; in short, they are portrayed as a perilous but almost impersonal force, rather like the thunder-storm itself... By contrast, a much more traditional view surfaces in the next chapter – when Bilbo is trying to think of the answer to Gollum’s last riddle (‘This thing all things devours’), his mind is filled with ‘all the horrible names of all the giants and ogres he had ever heard told of in tales’ (p. 158). Here we can plainly see the echoes of such traditional tales as ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘Jack the Giant Killer’, with their murderous, man-eating giants...Yet not all giants can be such monsters, for a chapter later Bladorthin casually suggests finding ‘a more or less decent giant’ to block up the goblins’ front gate in the mountain pass. It seems, then, that giants occupy a neutral ground, neither good nor evil as a race but varying from individual to individual. Dangerous, certainly – but as Gandalf points out in speaking of Treebeard, powerful and perilous is not the same thing as evil..."

-- John Rateliff, History of the Hobbit

Info from here - http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Giants

I know there was a lot of debate elsewhere whether giants actually existed, that the ones in the Hobbit were just Bilbo's imagination running wild at the sound of stormy weather whilst high up.

[fjw70]

I have always wondered whether the stone Giants in the hobbit were suppose to be literal or metaphorical. I know they will be real in my version of ME.

[Glorelendil]

"...for a chapter later Bladorthin casually suggests finding ‘a more or less decent giant’ to block up the goblins’ front gate in the mountain pass.

Bizarre typo?

[zedturtle]

Nope, early draft.

[timb]

The early drafts had a lot of unused names and some names used in unexpected places.

With his earlier idea of the whole story of Middle Earth being Earth's (focus on England's) ancient history and it being a tale told to a sailor who went out west, I would guess Tolkien originally did think giants were "real" in the world, I can't see why you would have trolls, goblins, dwarves or dragons and then worry about something like a giant, especially with the heavy influence of Norse mythology. There is mention in that quote above about ogre's too - my memory is vague but didn't we have some ogre in one of the TOR products? And was it troll-kin in the end?

Side story - Tolkien's brother has a book out about ogres which links in with their childhood home of Sarehole and the associated mills.

I kinda like how the Hobbit films portrayed the giants - elemental things, the mountain itself alive and angry - rather than being big humans.

As an aside, D&D has just released a Giant-focused campaign, Storm King's Thunder.

[Glorelendil]

No idea if this conflicts with any canon, but I like to think of giants as lesser Maia servants of one of the Valar (Aulë or Tulkas?) and not particularly concerned with the doings of elves or mortals. Sort of like the Eagles, but across a broader range of "goodness" (for lack of a better word).