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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9828129" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Agreed.This also somewhat parallels the language used to reference the sun in one of the riddles in The Hobbit's famous riddle game.  Though in that one the sky and the earth are faces.Bilbo:An eye in a blue faceSaw an eye in a green face."That eye is like to this eye"Said the first eye,"But in low place,Not in high place."[The sun]In the ancient Irish conception of the elements/parts of the world (which closely parallels the Norse creation story of what parts of Ymir were used by Odin and his brothers to make the world), the various parts of the world all correspond to parts of a person, including the sun to the face and outward aspect.I always inferred that it's part of the Ring having unnaturally extended his life through evil magic; that his body is sufficiently physically altered by the taint of the Dark Lord's magic that elven work (which, remembering Galadriel's talk of magic, likely is a kind of magic/enchantment of its own) is inimical to him.  Just as the touch of the elven rope stung him, the elven foodstuffs are foul to him.Yes on all of this.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Not just give the named thing power, but if it's powerful, draw its attention.There's a folkloric precedent with naming the devil, or specific named demons.  I seem to recall seeing this in some old D&D rules, where certain of the archdevils or demons had a chance of appearing, or at least of cursing the speaker, if their names were spoken aloud.  I think Gary used this concept with Tharizdun too.We see similar in British and Irish folklore, with people, for example, referring to the fae/faeries as The Fair Folk, or The Good Neighbors, or The Gentry, or The Good Folk, often somewhat euphemistically because it's both an attempt to avoid drawing their attention at all and to avoid drawing their ill-will by using complimentary honorifics.And of course the same trope was used by Rowling with Voldemort being He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.Giving legendary or important things appellations and titles like Isildur's Bane is also just an old tradition. Nowadays we mostly retain it just for cities?  The Big Apple aka Gotham, The Windy City/The Second City, The Big Smoke, The City of Love...  Legendary things and people having alternate names is also handy when you're telling their stories, so you don't have to just keep repeating the same name over and over.</blockquote>

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