# Ents?



## celebdraug (Feb 9, 2004)

Are the Ents animals ot plants?


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## Sarah (Feb 9, 2004)

I'd say plants, because they started as trees.


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## Bombadillo (Feb 9, 2004)

ents are plant, this comes from the fact that trees can grow entish and ents can become treeish.


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## Inderjit S (Feb 9, 2004)

Ents are Trees. Ents were created to protect the trees, plants etc. of Middle-Earth.

Treebeard was described as looking slightly like a Man, and Ents have things (i.e toes and eyes) that most 'trees' do not. There were varying kinds of Ents as Merry and Pippin note when the Ents enter the moot.

Sam' cousin claims to have seen a walking tree whilst hunting in northern Shire. Of course when this was written 'Ents' had no as of yet come into existence. (HoME 6) It could be that the thing Sam's cousin saw was something like the 'tree-men' mentioned in 'The Tale of Eärendil' (BoLT 2.)

The trees in the Old Forest seem to be Huorn-esque beings. Some of them remember times when they were lords. Of course Old Man Willow held hegemony over the trees of the forest. Aragorn states that Elrond claimed the 'Old Forest' and 'Fangorn' were the last two remains of a great forest that stretched across Eriador but was destroyed by excessive Númenórean felling and the war of Sauron and the Elves,


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## Lantarion (Feb 9, 2004)

I'm not sure what I would classify Onodrim as.. They are trees, in the physical sense of the word, but being inahbited by Ainuric spirits I think they do transcend the qualities of a simple tree. 
Yes I have always believed that the trees of the Old Forest (at least most of them) were Huorns; Old Man Willow was simply the largest and least Huorn-esque, and was able to control the others. If I had to guess another reason for his control over them, I'd suggest that a Barrow-Wight or some spirit-creature from Angmar once possessed the tree or fled there, which would explain Old Man Willow's agressive and 'evil' nature. 

And Inde,r I don't know what 'tree-men' are yet, but I would think that it was one which Sam's cousin saw; Huorns would not, presumably, be able to move very fast at all, unless provoked like in their famed March on Isengard.  And there were reportedly no Ents anywhere but in Fangorn, so there 'tree-men' seem the most plausible explanation for it.
That, or his cousin was drunk as a skunk.


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## Éomond (Feb 10, 2004)

I alwasy thought of Ents and Hurons as a division, or "sub-catagory" or trees, like Numenoreans would be a division or "sub-catagory" of Men. I dunno, that's my take.


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## Inderjit S (Feb 14, 2004)

There were even some trees that were 'older' then Treebeard, as says to Merry and Pippin. 

The Ents are the 'sheperds' of the trees; Hurons included.


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## Aldanil (Feb 15, 2004)

*(At Least) Two Ways of Looking at an Elm Tree*



Lantarion said:


> I don't know what 'tree-men' are yet, but I would think that it was one which Sam's cousin saw; Huorns would not, presumably, be able to move very fast at all, unless provoked like in their famed March on Isengard. And there were reportedly no Ents anywhere but in Fangorn, so these 'tree-men' seem the most plausible explanation for it.
> 
> That, or his cousin was drunk as a skunk.




"But what about these Tree-men, these *giants*, as you might call them?" is the question that Sam asks Ted Sandyman in _The Green Dragon_ on an April evening of SR 1418. As the Old English word for "giant" is *ent*, I think it quite likely that Tolkien the eminent professor of Anglo-Saxon EITHER planted the hidden seed of the Tree-shepherds here, very early on in the story OR in that peculiarly linguistic/forensic fashion in which his sub-creative imagination so often proceeded, only afterwards "discovered" the origins of the Onodrim in this passing inquiry of Master Gamgee. As for there being reportedly Ents nowhere but in Fangorn, recall the last words of Treebeard to Pippin and Merry, asking for any news they may hear in their home of the Entwives.

In potentially compelling confirmation of Lantarion's *second* hypothesis, however, it's also worth remembering that Samwise's credulous cousin Hal, who claims to have seen someone "as big as an elm tree" walking with seven-yard strides on the North Moors, bears the full name of Halfast; one of the very few buried jokes that I've ever uncovered, in this wonderful book I have loved for so long which is steeped so deeply in mortal sadness. Halfast = half-assed; get it?


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## Lantarion (Feb 15, 2004)

Aldanil said:


> Halfast = half-assed; get it?



LOL excellent observation.. Perhaps not quite linguistically accurate, but youmay be at least partially right. What does the Old English word _hal_ mean? I know _sam_ means 'half'..


Aldanil said:


> "But what about these Tree-men, these giants, as you might call them?" is the question that Sam asks Ted Sandyman in The Green Dragon on an April evening of SR 1418. As the Old English word for "giant" is ent, I think it quite likely that Tolkien the eminent professor of Anglo-Saxon EITHER planted the hidden seed of the Tree-shepherds here, very early on in the story OR in that peculiarly linguistic/forensic fashion in which his sub-creative imagination so often proceeded, only afterwards "discovered" the origins of the Onodrim in this passing inquiry of Master Gamgee. As for there being reportedly Ents nowhere but in Fangorn, recall the last words of Treebeard to Pippin and Merry, asking for any news they may hear in their home of the Entwives.


Yes it seems possible that Tolkien might have left us a subtle answer to the riddle he himself put forward.. 
But Aldanil, the fact that Treebeard inquired about the Entwives possibly being in the Shire only means that he didn't know anything of their whereabouts, or if any even remained after Sauron's little cookout.  It can hardly be taken as even a hint of indication that Entwives existed in Eriador at all.


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## Helcaraxë (Feb 16, 2004)

Lanty, are you sure that the Ents are inhabited by Ainuric spirits? It seems to me that they are more tied to the earth than that. And Yavanna does cause their existence. But perhaps she called the spirits to inhabit trees?

~Helcaraxë


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## Lantarion (Feb 17, 2004)

Yes I am certain they are Ainuric spirits (the term _Ainuric_ entails all spiritual beings). Here is a quote:


The Silmarillion said:


> Then Manwë awoke, and he went down to Yavanna upon Ezellohar, and he sat beside her beneath the Two Trees. And Manwë said: 'O Kementári, Eru hath spoken, saying: "Do then any of the Valar suppose that I did not hear all the Song, even the least sound of the least voice? Behold! When the Children awake, then the thought of Yavanna will awake also, and it will summon spirits from afar, and they will go among the _kelvar_ and the _olvar_, and some will dwell therein, and be held in reverence, and their just anger shall be feared. [...]


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## Helcaraxë (Feb 19, 2004)

Yes, I remember that now. But why do they not demostrate the innate "magical" Ainuric powers?


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## Firena (Feb 19, 2004)

Inderjit S said:


> Ents are Trees. Ents were created to protect the trees, plants etc. of Middle-Earth.


But are they really? I mean, according to the book, the Ents are created, bones of the Earth.

Yes, they can become "treeish" if they're lazy, but it's not certain if they're really plants or not. I mean, they can move for one thing! 

But they're most definitely not animals of any type, that's for certain.

OT: [Ugh, my ugly signature, no purdy banners! *sob*]


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## Fechin (Feb 19, 2004)

I'd say they are plants. Well they are plants.


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## meneldor (Feb 19, 2004)

What if one day your underwear started taking to you, started moving around your house, doing your dishes and folding your laundry. When you get home from work you talk about yor day and the stresses in your life. After many years of talking, confided and living with do you really think he wants to hear your just a pair of underwear? Ents are not plants though the might be made of wood, neither would you think your underwear just another pair of breifs though they be made of cotton.


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## Courtney (Feb 20, 2004)

I think that although Ents are no longer trees, and can now talk, walk etc. they are still essentially plants. They are a type of plants, albeit superior plants.

At some point people could not talk, reason, walk on two feet, etc. We became human, but we still remain animals. Superior, yet still animals.

so, yes. I think Ents are plants.


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## Fechin (Feb 20, 2004)

Courtney said:


> I think that although Ents are no longer trees, and can now talk, walk etc. they are still essentially plants. They are a type of plants, albeit superior plants.
> 
> At some point people could not talk, reason, walk on two feet, etc. We became human, but we still remain animals. Superior, yet still animals.
> 
> so, yes. I think Ents are plants.



Very well put that is a perfect explanation.


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## Bucky (Feb 21, 2004)

_What if one day your underwear started taking to you, started moving around your house, doing your dishes and folding your laundry._

I'd say "Thanks for the help, but face me when you talk to me......... Yellow in front; Brown in back!"  

Remember what Treebeard told Merry & Pippin about seeing any Entwives in or near The Shire... "It sounds like the kind of place they would like."

I always thought Halfast (like that half-assed comment) might have saw an Entwive up there on the North Downs myself.
The one problems with that is that 5000 years earlier, the Entwives were already stooped over & Halfast doesn't imply that in his statement.
So, unless the Entwives corrected their posture in the 5000 since Treebeard had last seen Frimbathil, I don't see how Halfast could've seen an Entwive......
Or maybe he just got a glance & not a good look?


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## meneldor (Feb 21, 2004)

Yes, we humans are animals, be it superior ones. We did evolve from animals. But do we have any proof that the ents did. They did not evolve.......... they were created by a god. Created to me sounds that Yavanna had a thought what this creatures purpose, actions and physical appearance should be. Ents did not evolve, therefore you cannot say that they are a superior plant because unless you can quote a line where it states that they were trees before their awakening you cannot call them plants. Yavanna obviously had their physical appearance in mind probably for a number of reasons. I might stand corrected but i dont know if there is a line where it states Ainuric spirits were placed in trees, just that they were created by the magic wand of the Valar, as in POOF, you now have the Shepard of the forests. They look like trees, have physical characteristics of trees BUT are definetly not TREES. Ents did not evolve, so they cannot be a superior class of something, they can become treeish and plantlike when lazy, but they do not need dirt, they do not grow by using the sunlight to create chorophyl. That is what plants do.


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## Bucky (Feb 22, 2004)

_We did evolve from animals. _

On what do you base this statement you are presenting as fact?

Evolution is a _theory_, not a _fact._


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## meneldor (Feb 22, 2004)

Let me rephrase, humans have evolved into a superior species than what we were many, many years ago. That is a fact.


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