Comment on Going Treeish by TurnerMohan
Comment History
I like that idea of Ents taking different shapes and appearances depending on their location. To follow up on your (very acute) comparison with Trolls it fits with the fact that most Trolls are distinguished by their environment as well : we have Hill-trolls, Stone-trolls, Mountain-trolls, Cave-trolls and the mythical Snow-trolls (though it can be said that we aren't sure that the first four aren't the exact same thing, and we are sure that the first two are the same, it is noticeable also because they relate to mineral or geological elements - I could imagine Rwhile Ents relate to flora according to the Hobbits).
At the same time, and that's not necessary contradictory but it goes in a different direction, Ents are nomadic in nature as is said by Treebeard in is song on Beleriand and by their speed and endurance and ultimately the fact that they are called "sheperds" of the trees (even though their "sheeps" don't move much in human time...). I could imagine them to change more quickly but in a lighter way when they are younger. It should be noted that (some at least) Trolls are nomadic as well : Tom, Bill, & Bert are said to come from the other side of the mountains. It may be related to the fact that they live in caves (at least Cave-trolls and Hill-trolls/Stone-trolls) just like cavemen (from which they might have been created according to Tolkien, I already mentionned Gigantopithecus which is a cousin of orangutan but was thougt to be an hominid in Tolkien's time) and don't build (as Aragorn tells us) like Ent. In this they are both opposed to Entwives who are sedentary. It's another way of differentiating the "wild" aspects of both Ents and Trolls with the more calmer and steadier dimension of Entwives. Or in an other way the opposition between the nomads of Ulfang and the farmers of Bor (like Abel and Caïn).
As an aside your conception of Ents really reminds me of a species I created in Spore (a video game in which you were handling the evolution of a species from a cellular organism to space conquest : great concept but the result was meh). I designed a kind of trollish creature (just like a big humanoïd with elephant legs) with a green skin, a kind of horsish head with antlers and branches, and a blobbish and green body with stripes/camouflage. The concept was that its body was like some kind of moss or some kind of fungus. I didn't know at the time but H. P. Lovecraft came up with a similar idea of a species living on the newly discovered Pluto of which the body was on a different plane of existence (and thus not easilly distinguishable on photos) but was kind of similar to fungus. Anyway my concept was that the matter in which their body was made was supposed to get covered in plants and moss just like your concept of the Ent or some crabs. I don't know if at the time I was thinking of Ents or not. And even though fungus grow on things more than things on them I like that idea of an organism just in between animals and plants like fungus are.
At the same time, and that's not necessary contradictory but it goes in a different direction, Ents are nomadic in nature as is said by Treebeard in is song on Beleriand and by their speed and endurance and ultimately the fact that they are called "sheperds" of the trees (even though their "sheeps" don't move much in human time...). I could imagine them to change more quickly but in a lighter way when they are younger. It should be noted that (some at least) Trolls are nomadic as well : Tom, Bill, & Bert are said to come from the other side of the mountains. It may be related to the fact that they live in caves (at least Cave-trolls and Hill-trolls/Stone-trolls) just like cavemen (from which they might have been created according to Tolkien, I already mentionned Gigantopithecus which is a cousin of orangutan but was thougt to be an hominid in Tolkien's time) and don't build (as Aragorn tells us) like Ent. In this they are both opposed to Entwives who are sedentary. It's another way of differentiating the "wild" aspects of both Ents and Trolls with the more calmer and steadier dimension of Entwives. Or in an other way the opposition between the nomads of Ulfang and the farmers of Bor (like Abel and Caïn).
As an aside your conception of Ents really reminds me of a species I created in Spore (a video game in which you were handling the evolution of a species from a cellular organism to space conquest : great concept but the result was meh). I designed a kind of trollish creature (just like a big humanoïd with elephant legs) with a green skin, a kind of horsish head with antlers and branches, and a blobbish and green body with stripes/camouflage. The concept was that its body was like some kind of moss or some kind of fungus. I didn't know at the time but H. P. Lovecraft came up with a similar idea of a species living on the newly discovered Pluto of which the body was on a different plane of existence (and thus not easilly distinguishable on photos) but was kind of similar to fungus. Anyway my concept was that the matter in which their body was made was supposed to get covered in plants and moss just like your concept of the Ent or some crabs. I don't know if at the time I was thinking of Ents or not. And even though fungus grow on things more than things on them I like that idea of an organism just in between animals and plants like fungus are.