Your minds eye

[samwise of the shire]

How do you picture places, events, and characters in LOTR? It'll be fun to see what others think of the events and all that in LOTR. And if it comes to it we forget what we think our characters look like after the movies come out we can look here and remember how we thought everything looked like. Have fun!
Sam

[ringbearer]

this is "kind of" tough to describe. I usually "see" them the way Tolkien describes them. One of my favorite descriptive parts of LOTR is the Withywindle valley. There is a Pink Floyd song called "Grantchester Meadows" that I always think of while reading this part. Here are some lyrics...

In the lazy water meadow...I lay me down.
All around me, golden sunflakes...settle on the ground.

and later...

See the splashing of the kingfisher flashing through the water.
And a river of green, is sliding, unseen, beneath the trees.
Laughing, as it passes, through the endless summer
Making for the sea.

[IronParrot]

Well, it's hard to describe my "vision" of Tolkien in words. That would be a lingual paraphrase of a visual paraphrase of a lingual description of Tolkien's visual imagination. Maybe if I get out Photoshop, and...

Admittedly, every time I read LOTR I miss a lot of details. There are probably still many I have yet to catch. I think another re-reading is in order.

[Ñólendil]

ringbearer, I agree about those lyrics, what jewels! They curiously seem to be describing the Withywindle valley, esp. around the hoary Old Man Willow himself. A kingfisher verily figures in one of the Old Forest poems in Adventures of Tom Bombadil, from which comes the blue feather in Tom's hat, seen in the Lord of the Rings.

[samwise of the shire]

but I think it describes the Brandywine meandering through Tookland more than the Withywindel.I picture The Brandywine to be big and slow but teeming with fish and life on the banks,a perfect place to swim on a hot summer day or a place to swim at dusk with the stars peeping out between the willow leaves and a late dinner being spread out on the green banks under one of the trees,but the Withywindel is a shallow clear stream where the clear water laughs over the stones like some type of spring Zephyr, a merry little creek but full of subtle ancientness surrounded by ominious trees that lean over it like hoary old men over a child who was found creeping in their gardens.
Sam

[Renille]

I can never picture Lothlorien in my mind, but the Barrow Downs are easy, as is the old forest. Those I picture as very dark, overgrown, and foggy.

Moria is a fun one in my head, too. I see it in light of haunted house; very elaborate, once fine and elegant, a masterpiece. But now it is cold, evil, and sinister.

[ragnor]

sometimes the picture in ones mind of a special place is infinite in grace and beauty: thats fantasy. but when you see a place by the eyes of vision that beauty may never be measured up to that minds eye view. it becomes finite and structured not free flowing and open ended. the fun is in the reading and imagining isn't it? i'll see the movies but the ideas of what everyone and everyplace are in my mind already is more comforting, after all first thoughts are the most precious and often times leave the most indelible impression.

[ringbearer]

I think it's kinda' neat that everytime I read LOTR (or any book for that matter) that I picture the things the same way each time.
It's almost like going "back" to places that you cherish!

[Snowdog]

I have worked hard to keep my mind's images of the Lord of the Rings in this post-movie era. So far I have been rather successful for that which I had imagined while reading the books are pretty well burned into my mind. The ship with Aragorn standing on the bow, sword drawn and the banner the breeze and the sails full ...

Here's to the Mind's eye!

[Dreran the Green]

It's hard for me to picture places in general, but I always have an idea about what a particular character or scene will look like. For example, I can see in absolute clarity Eowyn's battle with the Nazgul, and also Theoden's death. Well, actually I have the whole Battle of Pellanor fields thought out in my mind

[Anglorfin]

Originally posted by ringbearer
I think it's kinda' neat that everytime I read LOTR (or any book for that matter) that I picture the things the same way each time.
It's almost like going "back" to places that you cherish!

I know what you mean. And everytime I reread the book the landscape becomes a little more solid as I am able to pick up more details and integrate them into my visual picture, correcting what I need to. For some reason I've always had trouble visualizing Rivendell. My favorite visualization comes from the Hobbit, where the Company lands in Esgaroth and then later take a boat to the far shore near the Lonely Mountain. I've always pictured Bilbo staring West at the sunset as it silhouetted the Lonely Mountain.

[Starr Polish]

Even though I'm a movie to book fan (only for FOTR, I have since read the entire trilogy), I have different minds eye pictures for the characters. I've always had trouble imagining places, though Bag End looks much the way I imagined it when I read the Hobbit in seventh grade.

In my mind's eye, Frodo has gray eyes, NOT blue.

[Celebréiel]

Eh, yeah, I think it would be harder to describe the places rather than the people how you pictured them. I have a much clearer vision of what I thought the people would look like rather than the places. For a couple places I didnt even picture a real solid place...but something foggy and kinda mystical, like for Lothlorien. So it would be harder to describe it, let alone draw it.
But yeah, things stay the same every time I re-read it, I know what you mean. It comforting going to someplace youve been before.

[Lalaith]

I'm pretty bad at visualizing. Mostly I only read without thinking how it could look. that's really sad.

[Bombadillo]

Originally posted by ringbearer
I think it's kinda' neat that everytime I read LOTR (or any book for that matter) that I picture the things the same way each time.
It's almost like going "back" to places that you cherish!

Yeah, I usually do that too. But for some reason when Tolkien talked about Rivendel in the Hobbit, I pictured it as a small valley like among a bunch of hills, with a tiny stream winding through it, and one small two-story little house, the Last Homely House, and then about twenty feet behind that was a forest. Maybe the whole thing was half an acre.

This image was cleared up once Rivendell was described further in the Fellowship. Then I realised how horrible my first impression was. I don't know what i was thinking.

[druss]

each time i read about ME my inner vision changes...there is always a narative or metaphor which adds to my "picture". this is undoubtably down to how i am feeling at the time. fangorn is a case in point sometimes it is a vibrant field of green with a cacophony of woodly sounds...other times almost akin to gimli's vision of oppresion and anger. hopefully this makes sense i guess it could be determined by external events and maybe this is why i love the genre (tolkien in particular). the books seem in some way to mirror all my feelings at any particular time.......
...god that sounds pretentious but sod it its how i feel..

[Ornelírë Mistë]

I imagine Rivendell a collection of houses, gardens, and woodlands on its own cliff in a rock wall that faces another rock wall. In between is water and falls. But Rivendell's cliff has forests and trees. Atop this rock wall are deep, dense, very dark green misty forests. But Rivendell:
Elrond's 'house' is is the largest, and ornately decorated with natural patterns. All other houses, intricately decorated, are connected to it by gardens. Gardens of lilly pools and silver grass and white blossoms. Dogwood trees, evergreens, slenderer trees.
There are some pools and small waterfalls. Some springs obscured. All is interwoven into a true place of beauty, though it does have its obscure places.
The houses blend into the trees in a bit. At the edges of Rivendell there are obscure groves, hallowed by druids, and astoundingly peaceful and beautiful.
Across from the front of Elrond's house is the cliff/cleft/whatever. There are lovely rocks that descend to crashing blue waves beneath. Down the river-cleft is a steep but narrow falls.
Up in the town you can slightly hear the crash of the river.

[katya]

Originally posted by Snowdog
I have worked hard to keep my mind's images of the Lord of the Rings in this post-movie era.

So have I. In fact, I drew some pictures just for that purpose. That was before I learned how to draw! My pictures were horrible. Anyway, some suggestions:

Frodo's awakening in Rivendell. I pictured a very small room for some reason not very elven at all. Kind of empty really. There were some engraved pillars. And a chair for Gandalf.
Lothlorien. I had a dream that was basically set there, but it wasn't lotr related. The trees were big, and shimmery. The thing is, i have carpet on my kitchen floor with leaves, and it always reminds me of lothlorien.
i pictured eowyn almost exactly like she is in the movie (almost) so that should be easy for you to understand!
I pictured the hobbits younger looking than in the movie, especially merry and pippin.
For some reason i pictured everything very small. it's hard to imagine big things. mt. doom is probably only about 2 stories tall. minas tirith is about of the size of the property my school is built on. It basically goes like that in my mind.
There is a weird spider demon that appears in yu yu hakusho briefly somewhere when they are one their way to rescue yukina. try as i might, i could picture nothing other than that for shelob when i was reading those chapters today. it might have something to do with the fact that they show this spider a lot on the little thing before/after commercials. (or they did...) : "You can't be human!" "yep. we just happen to be really tough!" (or something like that. )
so yeah...that's about all i can think of. ("thank god!" they all cry)

[galadriel]

Originally posted by katya
Frodo's awakening in Rivendell. I pictured a very small room for some reason not very elven at all. Kind of empty really. There were some engraved pillars. And a chair for Gandalf.
Lothlorien.

I had the same mental picture! Mostly, I think, because Tolkien describes the room as sparsely furnished and leaves it at that.

When I was very young, I had a terrible time imagining hobbits. All I could picture was small furry things, something like walking hamsters, which was obviously incorrect.

In my mind, Legolas was, of course, dark-haired. (I have a long and convoluted argument about why he should be dark-haired that I won't get into, especially since I kind of like him as a blond.) So were Haldir and his brothers. Yet, for a long time, I for some reason thought of Faramir as blond. Finally, I got it into my head that he had dark hair, and then I pictured him as having much darker hair than in the movie.

Elrond was more typically "elven-fair", but I like Hugo Weaving too much to complain.

Lothlorien was happier looking than in the movie. Shimmery, like you said.

[PippinTook]

I didn't think my image of lotr would change after the movies, but now i can barely remember how i saw the charactars and places before the movie. For one thing, i thought that aragorn was alot older, and that hobbits had short hair, sad to say that i like my vision of middle earth better now. God bless