From: C R Culver <CRCulver@aol.com>
Subject: (urth) The Monsters of Urth
Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 22:39:47 EDT

Mantis said:
<You were trying to remember the name of the beast whose mouth is a cave--the
name is "Uroboros" (II, ch. 27).>

To which Dan Parmenter responded:
<Just how many evil giants are there swimming around anyway?  Erebus and Abaia
seem to function like Sauron in LotR, often mentioned but never actually
portrayed.  An entire underwater civilization is hinted at but not directly
depicted at any length.>

The monsters we hear about are Erebus, Abaia, Uroborous, and Scylla (the last
mentioned, I believe, only once). I used to believe that the monsters, besides
Abaia perhaps, did not really exist, but rather were creations of the
laypeople to explain the encroaching ice. But, the last few volumes seem to
imply that an underwater civilisation is actually present.
Your comparison to Sauron is interesting. Sauron was actually portrayed in
_The Return of the King_ as the weak shadow that came from Barad-dur after the
destruction of the Ring, and also as the terrible Eye in that little orb that
you could see far away places in, but I guess those don't really count. In
_Unfinished Tales_ and The Silmarillion, Sauron is a little bit more
noticable.

Christopher R. Culver <crculver@aol.com>
http://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html

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