Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

February 22, 2011

LOTR Timeline Graph

Filed under: Graphs,Visualization — Patrick Durusau @ 1:33 pm

LOTR Timeline Graph

Interesting take on visualizing the time line in the Lord of the Rings.

Based on the entertaining but fairly flat movie time lines you will find at XKCD.

A much more subtle work could be based on the books. 😉

Not that movie time lines have to be flat, but there is only so much that be be done in the usual movie length presentation.

For LOTR enthusiasts:

  1. What other time lines or perspectives would you add?
  2. How would you represent deceptions concerning gender?
  3. What of Denethor’s “wrestling” with Sauron? How would you represent that?
  4. How would you deal with cross-overs between time lines, such as time as experienced by the Ents versus others?
  5. Your suggested issues/problems…

2 Comments

  1. I always thought a perceptive based time line on how the different races view events might be helpful. The Ents for instance view events in a much different way than men or even Elves. This is stressed in the books but not so much in the movies. How would the perspective of Gandalf be different from that of hobbits. It would be like comparing the perceptive of a 400 year old tortoise to a mayfly.

    Comment by Edward Iglesias — February 23, 2011 @ 9:29 am

  2. @Edward – Easier perhaps in literature because the author, sometimes, gives a hint of what a different time perspective would be like.

    The one piece of advice I have heard for dealing with immortals is to never run. 😉 Only non-immortals are concerned with time.

    I don’t have the time to pursue it but what does the concern of deities in the Ancient Near East with sacrifices on particular occasions say about their view of time? Or at least the view of time projected onto them?

    Would make an interesting study (and topic map) to investigate divine views of time over the historical record.

    Comment by Patrick Durusau — February 23, 2011 @ 4:25 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

Powered by WordPress