Talk:The Return of the King

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This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

The Return of the King has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: January 16, 2025. (Reviewed version).

This article was nominated for deletion on 27 January 2020. The result of the discussion was keep.

This article was nominated for merging with The Scouring of the Shire on 20 December 2019. The result of the discussion (permanent link) was not merged.

This article was selected as the article for improvement on 9 September 2013 for a period of one week.

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Archives

1

Use of the Ring to Destroy the Gate of Minas Tirith

Can I ask where it's stated that the Witch-King uses the power of his ring to destroy the gate? It's not in the Lord of the Rings itself so I think it requires a citation. GimliDotNet (talk) 20:49, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Reworded: magical power is certainly used, as the ram Grond is bound about with spells. But whether it's from the Ring is another matter. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:55, 6 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Excessive plot/contents detail

From time to time, editors seek to extend the summaries in this and the other The Lord of the Rings book articles. The novel is obviously much loved, and the many fans of book and film naturally wish to see the articles providing the sort of coverage that they might find in a dedicated Tolkien encyclopedia or fansite.

However, Wikipedia is not such a site, and it deprecates extensive summaries. The existing summaries have been carefully constructed to cover the central narrative, starting with one short sentence per chapter: and the result was already to create rather detailed summaries. These have been polished over the years, and in the main they have reached rather stable form, though of course definite errors can always be fixed. What we can't have is constantly growing length.

The same applies in this volume to the Appendices, which are extremely long and detailed, and of great interest to fans and scholars. Wikipedia again can't begin to reproduce the full content of these extensive sections of the novel, though I daresay that Appendices to The Lord of the Rings would make a fine and scholarly article if properly researched and cited. For the current article, the coverage is necessarily brief, and limited to the key facts. That does mean that many details have to be omitted; again, there are plenty of large books and websites that cover exactly that kind of material in loving detail, which we are obliged to refrain from including.

To give just one example, "Reveals that Sam and Rosie had thirteen children and that Pippin and Merry also respectively married; Pippin's son Faramir married Sam's daughter Goldilocks." is in my view inappropriate for this article in both style ("Reveals" is journalese, not encyclopedic; the article is written in British English sentences) and in content (these are minor details, not central to the narrative). Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:08, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the details recently added are minor and ought not to be included. The violate the intent and guidelines of WP:SUMMARY and WP:PLOT. Strebe (talk) 19:51, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

Passed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Return of the King/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 09:51, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Prhartcom (talk · contribs) 01:05, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good to be here again; I am happy to review this article. Prhartcom (talk) 01:05, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 03:17, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Review

References and Sources. A good collection of sources.

I am not understanding ref no. 1 Between the Covers, something about basketball. And why have a reference in the Infobox.

The Archive to Internet Book List is having that same link problem again. I'll have another look at it.

Appendices section is good. It is good when it also takes the point of view of the Tolkien reader, rather than just reporting about Tolkien.

The prose outside the plot thankfully explains the purpose of the main quest, for those unfamiliar with the book whilst reading the article.

"The Tale of Years" section. My; the prose here stretches the acceptable-sentence-length-while-maintaining-proper-grammar here, ;-) but pulls it off with no issues.

"Languages and Peoples" section. "It sorts out names" "which Tolkien pretended" is good.

Reception section. Written well, with a reviewer's admiring comment followed by a critical one followed by an admiring one again.

Of "The Scouring of the Shire" section. Important section. Written so clearly. With good phrases ("satire of socialism, echoes of Nazism"). And what a good closing sentence that really strikes a chord.

Th original diagram is good. Compelling. I assume it is an accurate depiction of, not only the Birns article, but apparently also the general consensus. Interesting; as a reader, this is enjoyable to read in the article.

The lede section perfectly summarizes the article.

The plot contents is fine. Your rule works well.

It certainly is a pleasure to read an article that was a grammatically correct experience with prose that is well-written clear to the end.

A verifiable article, I believe. And broad in its coverage, I believe. Neutral, stable, illustrated.

I've not ever reviewed an article with pretty much no problems. Maybe just that one point above. Nice work. This is a good article. Prhartcom (talk) 03:34, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks! Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.