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Oracle posted:Counterpoint: Percy Jackson, which is pretty mediocre. Steals from Harry Potter.
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Dec 17, 2014 16:25
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Greek and Roman mythology out the wazoo!
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Dec 17, 2014 16:42
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UoI posted:I was a little wrong about where I left off but I picked up the book today (finally!) and read more of chapter two with the conversation about Bilbo and Gollum's past between Frodo and Gandalf. I didn't learn much more than I already knew but it did finally clarify for me that it was the ring that made Gollum start with the throat noises and body changes. I was confused from the movies and thought that it was his family or tribe that did that because he said they cursed him in the prologue of RotK but I wasn't certain. So that's nice. Ahhh, good progress  The movies do leave the origins of that tick ambiguous I agree.
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Dec 17, 2014 17:01
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HIJK posted:Ahhh, good progresssssssssssss
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Dec 17, 2014 17:13
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:There is a formula for determining the quality of any given fantasy work: GRR Martin defies your formula; he steals from rauncy harlequin novels, norse sagas and dragonkin fanfics.
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Dec 17, 2014 18:09
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HIJK posted:Ahhh, good progress It's also one of those things that doesn't translate to actual live performance very well. Serkis interpreted it as a kind of hacking cough. Brother Theodore made it out like a weird muttering nonsense word he liked to say to himself when nobody was around. Peter Woodthorpe just said "gollum" as fruitily as possible, I guess making the best of it. I could never figure out from years of reading and re-reading the text exactly what Tolkien had in his mind when he came up with it. The best I could figure, he invented "Gollum" as a name first and then back-justified it as being derived from a noise he made, but then he never really tried to explain how the noise itself made sense as described (if he "gurgled in his throat" surely it would have been transliterated as something else, like "glglggllgl", and in any case why would he start making that noise out of all the noises to choose from?).
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Dec 17, 2014 19:02
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GyverMac posted:GRR Martin defies your formula; he steals from rauncy harlequin novels, norse sagas and dragonkin fanfics. Wasn't he vastly inspired by the French historical novel Les Rois Maudits (The Accursed Kings)? At least that's what I hear over here, and what this article suggests.
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Dec 17, 2014 19:30
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Data Graham posted:It's also one of those things that doesn't translate to actual live performance very well. Serkis interpreted it as a kind of hacking cough. Brother Theodore made it out like a weird muttering nonsense word he liked to say to himself when nobody was around. Peter Woodthorpe just said "gollum" as fruitily as possible, I guess making the best of it. I could never figure out from years of reading and re-reading the text exactly what Tolkien had in his mind when he came up with it. The best I could figure, he invented "Gollum" as a name first and then back-justified it as being derived from a noise he made, but then he never really tried to explain how the noise itself made sense as described (if he "gurgled in his throat" surely it would have been transliterated as something else, like "glglggllgl", and in any case why would he start making that noise out of all the noises to choose from?). Well, Tolkien actually did a personal reading of the Riddles in the Dark chapter, which apparently states it's a swallowing noise. Anyway, if you want to hear (literally) from the original source, there you go (he's actually a good reader too).
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Dec 18, 2014 05:17
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Still doesn't make a huge amount of sense. I don't get why a naturally-occurring swallowing noise would involve bilabials. If that's how he wants to describe it, fine, but it still sounds to me like he just liked the name and came up with the noise thing as a post-hoc justification.
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Dec 18, 2014 05:26
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Data Graham posted:Still doesn't make a huge amount of sense. I don't get why a naturally-occurring swallowing noise would involve bilabials. If that's how he wants to describe it, fine, but it still sounds to me like he just liked the name and came up with the noise thing as a post-hoc justification. Didn't Tolkien once give a super stirring reading of Beowulf out of nowhere in one of his classes.
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Dec 18, 2014 05:36
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Just read that Frodo is fifty-years-old. Trying to imagine a fifty-year-old Elija Woods. 
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Dec 18, 2014 06:01
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I was inwardly amused when people started referring to pre-teen kids as "tweens".
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Dec 18, 2014 06:06
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UoI posted:Just read that Frodo is fifty-years-old. Trying to imagine a fifty-year-old Elija Woods. That whole sequence in the film where Gandalf leaves to go study the ring lore takes like 15 years in the book, too.
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Dec 18, 2014 06:27
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computer parts posted:That whole sequence in the film where Gandalf leaves to go study the ring lore takes like 15 years in the book, too. I noticed that, too. Frodo is something along the lines of twenty when Bilbo decides to leave? I'm curious as to how Bilbo is with going so long without the ring when I get to Rivendell (if he's even in Rivendell in this book). Wether it'll be like the movie or if he'll be barely able to walk. No spoilers please!
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Dec 18, 2014 06:52
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UoI posted:I noticed that, too. Frodo is something along the lines of twenty when Bilbo decides to leave? I'm curious as to how Bilbo is with going so long without the ring when I get to Rivendell (if he's even in Rivendell in this book). Wether it'll be like the movie or if he'll be barely able to walk. It's Frodo's 33rd birthday (which the Hobbit equivalent of turning 18. Or maybe 21. Anyway, its a big Coming-of-Age milestone.)
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Dec 18, 2014 07:07
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jivjov posted:It's Frodo's 33rd birthday (which the Hobbit equivalent of turning 18. Or maybe 21. Anyway, its a big Coming-of-Age milestone.) It's definitely his 33rd, because it's Bilbo's 111st, and together they are 144, which is the number of guests at the Party.
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Dec 18, 2014 07:45
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BatteredFeltFedora posted:It's definitely his 33rd, because it's Bilbo's 111st, and together they are 144, which is the number of guests at the Party. Yeah, my parenthetical is comparing it to modern human age milestones.
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Dec 18, 2014 07:46
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jivjov posted:Yeah, my parenthetical is comparing it to modern human age milestones. Yeah, I see that now. Sorry. Bilbo and Frodo are both 50 when their adventures begin. Frodo looks a lot younger though, due to the Ring's stretching him out the way it did Bilbo and Gollum. Edit: the Old Took had lived to 130, and Bilbo would be 128 when Frodo set out. Lemniscate Blue fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 07:49
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What always surprises me is how young the other hobbits are. Pippin wasn't even an adult yet, but even Sam and Merry were only like 36, which is barely adults. The hobbits: one weird middle aged dude and a bunch of teenagers.
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Dec 18, 2014 17:46
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I saw the third Hobbit movie last night, and I just remembered something that's bugged me since I read the novels: So by the end of the Hobbit, Galdalf knows that Bilbo has a magic ring that makes him invisible, right? But he doesn't suspect that it's The Ring until Bilbo has his freakout at the beginning of Fellowship. But there are only 20 great rings identified in the book iirc, and The One Ring is pretty distinct looking from the rest. So were there other, less powerful rings in Middle Earth? Who made them, and when? How many were made? And what issues did these relatively minor magic items have that prompted Galdalf's initial word of caution? SirPhoebos fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 18:56
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In The Shadow of the Past Gandalf says he had suspected it was a lesser prototype ring made by the elves.
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Dec 18, 2014 19:11
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SirPhoebos posted:I saw the third Hobbit movie last night, and I just remembered something that's bugged me since I read the novels:
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Dec 18, 2014 19:14
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SirPhoebos posted:I saw the third Hobbit movie last night, and I just remembered something that's bugged me since I read the novels: Yeah, somewhere in Tolkien's writings he talks about how the Elves made lots of lesser rings while they were learning how to make the big ones. I suspect the issue would have been that to one extent or other all those prototypes may've been influenceable by the One Ring, though of course that wouldn't have been a big deal if the One remained lost.
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Dec 18, 2014 19:15
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Gandalf also trusted Saruman at that time, and Saruman was held in regard as the authority on Sauron and his works. Sarumon was vehemently insisting at that point that the Ring was lost forever at the bottom of the ocean (swept down the river into the ocean when Isildur died ), so that played a large role in Gandalf being slow to put the pieces together.
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Dec 18, 2014 19:21
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Levitate posted:Gandalf also trusted Saruman at that time, and Saruman was held in regard as the authority on Sauron and his works. Sarumon was vehemently insisting at that point that the Ring was lost forever at the bottom of the ocean (swept down the river into the ocean when Isildur died ), so that played a large role in Gandalf being slow to put the pieces together. And, of course, Gandalf's love of the halfling's leaf had clearly slowed his mind.
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Dec 18, 2014 19:23
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HIJK posted:In The Shadow of the Past Gandalf says he had suspected it was a lesser prototype ring made by the elves. Adding to this, Gandalf also says that while these lesser rings were cast aside by the smiths once they learned from them, they were still very dangerous to mortals in his opinion. That's why he didn't leave Bilbo alone about it even though he didn't think it was the One.
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Dec 18, 2014 19:24
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There are many magic rings in this world and none of them are to be trifled with.
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Dec 18, 2014 19:29
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Thanks. It's been a long time since I read the books.
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Dec 18, 2014 20:06
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Levitate posted:Gandalf also trusted Saruman at that time, and Saruman was held in regard as the authority on Sauron and his works. Sarumon was vehemently insisting at that point that the Ring was lost forever at the bottom of the ocean (swept down the river into the ocean when Isildur died ), so that played a large role in Gandalf being slow to put the pieces together. I think it's noted somewhere that Saruman searched extensively for the ring after the battle, like off and on for hundreds of years. I suppose that Gandalf and the rest of the wise assumed that with his resources it's probably pretty certain that if it was in or near the river he would have found it. Saruman didn't realize that it had left the river pretty soon after the battle and gone and hid under a mountain range. Murgos fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Dec 18, 2014 |
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Dec 18, 2014 20:19
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Is anyone in middle earth gay?
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Dec 18, 2014 20:52
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Baloogan posted:Is anyone in middle earth gay? You mean besides Frodo and Sam? or Gimli and Legolas? quote:Were There Gay Elves? http://www.ansereg.com/what_tolkien_officially_said_abo.htm
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Dec 18, 2014 20:57
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Another movie-related question-Thorin somehow just knows that Bard killed Smaug. I assume that a line of dialogue got left on the cutting room floor, and it's not something stupid like Thorin having a network of animal friends or something.
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Dec 18, 2014 21:14
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There's not even much evidence for straight people in the Middle Earth.
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Dec 18, 2014 21:15
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Tolkien was very, very very Catholic. Like raised by a priest Catholic. If he could have reasonably swung it I'm pretty sure there would have been no sex at all in Middle Earth.
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Dec 18, 2014 21:16
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Speaking of weird questions, what do you guys think of the theory that Sam might not be white? He's described as having "nut-brown" skin in RotK (and probably elsewhere but I only remember that one), and Tolkien said that the Harfoots, which common consensus seems to think Sam is, had browner skin that other types of hobbits.
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Dec 18, 2014 21:17
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SirPhoebos posted:Another movie-related question-Thorin somehow just knows that Bard killed Smaug. I assume that a line of dialogue got left on the cutting room floor, and it's not something stupid like Thorin having a network of animal friends or something. Hah. Funny you should say that! Well, in the book . . . An elderly talking raven, whose father remembered Thorin's father, comes and flies and tells Thorin. They left Ruarc son of Carc out of the movie? How on earth did they leave anything out at all with that running time?
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Dec 18, 2014 21:21
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I always thought that too. There are lots of hobbits like Sam who have dark skin. I like to take those passages and point them out to people who try to tell me that Tolkien hated brown people. Every person I've shown it to got really mad.
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Dec 18, 2014 21:23
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Heironymous Alloy posted:How on earth did they leave anything out at all with that running time?
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Dec 18, 2014 21:23
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Hah. Funny you should say that! Well, in the book . . . Yeah honestly wtf 3 movies for the hobbit is absurd.
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Dec 18, 2014 21:23
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HIJK posted:I always thought that too. There are lots of hobbits like Sam who have dark skin. I like to take those passages and point them out to people who try to tell me that Tolkien hated brown people. Every person I've shown it to got really mad. Ironically enough, it switched sometime in the Roaring 20s where office work/factory work all day made you pale and sickly while having the free time to lay in the sun and work on your tan meant life of leisure.
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Dec 18, 2014 21:25
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