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elise the great posted:I mean I kinda understand, my parents divorced over the nature of Istari, but I’ve maintained close friendships with people who actually LIKED the Hobbit movies. It’s not like they voted for Trump. Wow, I have to admit, at first I thought you were joking with this post.
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Apr 12, 2018 17:35
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Nodosaur posted:When a book enters the public consciousness there’s gonna be variations. There’s going to be reinterpretation. There’s going to be different visions and a whole lot of crap. That’s how, for better or worse, stories grow and evolve into new stories. I admire Christopher Tolkien’s adherence to his father’s vision as far as it gets those works that came out after his death insofar as they allow those works to be realized as he would have published them, but these aren’t sacred texts. They deserve the same capacity for reimagination as anything else. every day we stray further from Eru's light
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Apr 12, 2018 17:41
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Welp that's quite a story 
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Apr 12, 2018 17:43
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elise the great posted:But she’s still sore about Gandalf. This owns
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Apr 12, 2018 18:51
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Nodosaur posted:I dunno man, disowning your son because he supported a critically acclaimed movie trilogy makes me question his priorities. Like if it were over the fact that the deal with New Line was pretty one sided and that the estate wasn’t receiving enough benefit from it, it’d be one thing, but everything I’ve read indicates it was over Simon supporting Jackson’s vision of the film, not the financial side of things. I dunno, that story's from Simon's viewpoint, and in the context of him publishing a novel about a man preferring his mistress over his teenage son, so it seems like there was a lot more family drama going on than just HOW DARE YOU SUPPORT JACKSON'S REWRITE OF FARAMIR'S CHARACTER GET THEE GONE AND NEVER DARKEN MY DOORSTEP AGAIN, and quite possibly on both sides. elise: 
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Apr 12, 2018 23:09
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Nodosaur posted:When a book enters the public consciousness there’s gonna be variations. There’s going to be reinterpretation. There’s going to be different visions and a whole lot of crap. That’s how, for better or worse, stories grow and evolve into new stories. I admire Christopher Tolkien’s adherence to his father’s vision as far as it gets those works that came out after his death insofar as they allow those works to be realized as he would have published them, but these aren’t sacred texts. They deserve the same capacity for reimagination as anything else. It's something of a tangent but one of the things that I've found encouraging about the increasing attention to representation in films/books/games/comics/erotic watercolors is that it has moved popular discourse somewhat more towards the actual examination and appreciation of the work itself, as opposed to what I suppose you'd call tactical analysis; or, to use the LOTR version of this, "why didn't they call the Eagles?"
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Apr 13, 2018 08:54
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I just assumed they’d be shot down or zapped by the big giant eye or something.
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Apr 13, 2018 11:26
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Nodosaur posted:I just assumed they’d be shot down or zapped by the big giant eye or something. It's because Sauron has an air force. The Nazgul ride those big winged lizard things.
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Apr 13, 2018 16:22
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Bongo Bill posted:It's because Sauron has an air force. The Nazgul ride those big winged lizard things. Also the eagles don’t like carrying people indefinitely. Gwaihir bitches about flying Gandalf from Orthanc to Meduseld, which is not really very far. Also the approach to the Cracks of Doom is probably usually defended, nobody could have gotten close to them if not for the fact that Sauron was mobilizing all his forces to the Morannon. Also even if they had found some very patient eagles and gotten past everyone and someone had carried the Ring to the fire, they still couldn’t have destroyed it willingly, as we are actually shown in the book. Frodo didn’t fail to destroy the ring because he had to walk across Mordor first and was just feeling really lovely and if he’d be air lifted to his goal everything would have been okay, he failed because you can’t just make yourself destroy the One Ring. This is why Tolkien repeatedly bangs on about how even though Gollum was a horrible rear end in a top hat, it was not just a good thing but the Will of Literal God that Bilbo didn’t kill him in The Hobbit. It was all a part of a providential plan to get the Ring to accidentally commit suicide basically. The eagles question is a good meme but not a rewarding line of argument, because the further you follow it back the more it starts to look like, “hey, why’d this God fella create evil, anyway?”
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Apr 13, 2018 16:45
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I mean all that's true and makes sense, but someone coming to the argument in bad faith (especially only having seen the movies) will not know or care about extra-textual justifications.
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Apr 13, 2018 16:55
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elise the great posted:my parents divorced over the nature of Istari I'm sorry for what you've gone through but this is the funniest thing i've read all day. Thank you for elaborating.
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Apr 13, 2018 23:08
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skasion posted:Also the eagles don’t like carrying people indefinitely. Gwaihir bitches about flying Gandalf from Orthanc to Meduseld, which is not really very far. Hell the ring corrupts non Hobbits faster than others so the Eagles might have just eaten Frodo and took the ring for themselves. Just being around it would corrupt even them.
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Apr 14, 2018 01:19
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The main character of the books, Sam, would have willingly destroyed the ring.
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Apr 15, 2018 05:53
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:The main character of the books, Sam, would have willingly destroyed the ring. Because Sam wields the truly heroic spirit of the proletariat man. His (as written) subservience to the landed gentry does not change this fact.
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Apr 15, 2018 06:14
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VanSandman posted:Because Sam wields the truly heroic spirit of the proletariat man. His (as written) subservience to the landed gentry does not change this fact.
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Apr 18, 2018 11:34
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His subservience to the gentry (and by extention the gentry itself) is essential to his catholic proletarian virtue, because it mirrors submission to god 
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Apr 18, 2018 12:55
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Now I wish some modern day Diego Rivera would paint an epic mural, "Sam at the Crossroads".
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Apr 18, 2018 16:28
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Akallabeth question, if y'all don't mind. So unless I'm grossly misremembering the timeline, Sauron creates the One Ring, and the others, *before* Ar-Pharazon is even king of Numenor. Doesn't this create a number of serious issues, both internal logic plot-wise, and thematically? -Thematically, it further diminishes the supposed stakes and premise of LoTR. The Last Alliance beat Sauron when he had the Ring, which always sat a little odd with me (it's hard to sell the stakes as 'if the bad guy gets the mcguffin he will be unbeatable!' when the story begins with a reminder that he was literally wearing the mcguffin the last time he got his rear end kicked) and now it turns out that so did Ar-Pharazon. -Plot-wise, where the gently caress was the Ring when Sauron was in Numenor? Why didn't Ar-Pharazon claim it? I mean 'making good decisions based on a clear understanding of the nature of the Enemy and their seductive powers' is clearly now one of his character traits. -And also, plot-wise, assuming Sauron just... left the Ring back in Mordor or wherever while he was off chilling in Numenor, why didn't the Elves back in Middle Earth try to unmake it? They already knew at this point that the Ring and Sauron were Bad News.
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Apr 18, 2018 17:07
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-The Numenorians were way more powerful than anything on middle earth could be in the 3rd age - Sauron surrendered on purpose because he correctly perceived he could corrupt Numenor from the inside and possibly take out Numenor and the West. He was almost 100% correct. - it’s a magic ring, don’t over think it. - elves are 99.9% insular assholes who don’t care about anything other than their own little kingdoms and in the absence of a clear and present danger (or hasty blood oath) do nothing. - JRRT wanted to write an Atlantis story and shoehorned it in the best he could.
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Apr 18, 2018 17:12
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:-Plot-wise, where the gently caress was the Ring when Sauron was in Numenor? Why didn't Ar-Pharazon claim it? I mean 'making good decisions based on a clear understanding of the nature of the Enemy and their seductive powers' is clearly now one of his character traits. Presumably, the Ring protected itself in the same way we see it doing in the Third Age -- corrupted whoever found it, and hopped from bearer to bearer in an attempt to find its way back to Sauron. This is probably why Gandalf predicts that the Ring would simply find its way back to Sauron even if they tossed it into the deeps of the sea -- that may have already been tried! But yeah this is a better plot hole than the Eagles. edit: I'm wrong, TOlkien addressed this in Letter 211: quote:"Sauron's personal 'surrender' was voluntary and cunning: he got free transport to Numenor! He naturally had the One Ring, and so very soon dominated the minds and wills of most of the Numenoreans." And "Though reduced to 'a spirit of hatred borne on a dark wind', I do not think one need boggle at this spirit carrying of the One Ring, upon which his power of dominating minds largely depended." So Sauron took the ring with him, but retained enough power after the fall of Numenor to carry the ring back with him to ME. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Apr 18, 2018 |
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Apr 18, 2018 17:18
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:Akallabeth question, if y'all don't mind. You are not misremembering. Precise dating is a bit iffy because as with much of the Second Age, Tolkien changed his mind about the details several times, but it is safe to say that the Ring was forged 1500-2000 years before the fall of Numenor. quote:-Thematically, it further diminishes the supposed stakes and premise of LoTR. The Last Alliance beat Sauron when he had the Ring, which always sat a little odd with me (it's hard to sell the stakes as 'if the bad guy gets the mcguffin he will be unbeatable!' when the story begins with a reminder that he was literally wearing the mcguffin the last time he got his rear end kicked) and now it turns out that so did Ar-Pharazon. Sauron is going to be unbeatable if he gets the ring back in LotR not because he was ALWAYS unbeatable with the ring, but because the opposition to him is far, far weaker now than it was then. Elendil’s two realms have dwindled to a single rump state and the kingdom of the Noldor in Middle-earth no longer exists. Ar-Pharazon’s Numenor needs must be vastly stronger military force than Elendil’s kingdoms and probably Gil-galad’s kingdom as well, and in at least some of the material is presented as a significantly technologically advanced state possessing ironclad battleships (in The Lost Road, even airships!) and powerful steel projectile weapons. So I don’t find it hard to believe that such a state could convince Sauron’s slaves of the futility of military resistance and Sauron himself that a different strategy was needed: for all his desire to enact an industrialized rule over Middle-earth, he does not seem to possess a comparable level of technological development even thousands of years later. quote:-Plot-wise, where the gently caress was the Ring when Sauron was in Numenor? Why didn't Ar-Pharazon claim it? I mean 'making good decisions based on a clear understanding of the nature of the Enemy and their seductive powers' is clearly now one of his character traits. Sauron has the ring in Númenor, and Pharazôn doesn’t know about it. Because LotR spends so much time on the Ring itself, readers tend to assume that everyone always knew about it, but this definitely was not the case. The bearers of the elven rings would have known of it, but Pharazôn surely was not in contact with them. Tolkien says in Letter 211 (in which he answers pretty much exactly your question) that the elves tried to conceal the existence of rings at all: understandably since the whole business was at least partially their fault. Disaster of the Gladden Fields says that the only men who knew Isildur had taken the One after the downfall of Sauron were Isildur and his eldest son. By the time of LOTR the fact that Sauron had had a Ring was news in Gondor. The common man, and certainly the common orc, don’t seem to have known at any point that the One even existed. One could say that the elves did try to unmake the ring once they got the chance, by joining with Elendil to attack Mordor while Sauron was still trying to recover from the downfall of Númenor. They were a bit slow about it, but that’s elves for you: they can swear an oath abjuring paradise to kill everyone who keeps their trinkets from them between now and the end of the world, but they’ll still take 600 years to even fail at it.
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Apr 18, 2018 17:44
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:-Thematically, it further diminishes the supposed stakes and premise of LoTR. The Last Alliance beat Sauron when he had the Ring, which always sat a little odd with me (it's hard to sell the stakes as 'if the bad guy gets the mcguffin he will be unbeatable!' when the story begins with a reminder that he was literally wearing the mcguffin the last time he got his rear end kicked) and now it turns out that so did Ar-Pharazon. The Numenoreans defeated Sauron straight up under Ar-Pharazon because as of that time, they were the most powerful nation on the planet. Tolkien mentions that their technology and magical crafting surpassed the elves of the same period. Sauron's only hope was treachery, and Ar-Pharazon walks right into it. The Last Alliance was the remnants of Numenor, along with the largest Elven army fielded since the battles in Beleriand. That was also able to beat Sauron, though only after a WWI scale conflict that devastated the populations of the free peoples and permanently reduced the influence of the elves in Middle Earth. The reason Sauron regaining the Ring is such a big deal is in the late 3rd age, there is nothing left in Middle Earth that could stop Sauron, short of another invasion by the Valar. That is not going to happen since last time they sunk half a continent. Sauron had mostly regained his power as it stood, and regaining the ring would elevate him to a level that his remaining opponents could not challenge.
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Apr 18, 2018 17:46
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The Last Alliance was basically everyone of note left in the West laying seige to Mordor for like a decade. It's not as if they just slid up in there and clowned him in an afternoon. And if Sauron were to get the Ring back there would be no comprable force to oppose him.
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Apr 18, 2018 17:49
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sunday at work posted:The Last Alliance was basically everyone of note left in the West laying seige to Mordor for like a decade. It's not as if they just slid up in there and clowned him in an afternoon. And if Sauron were to get the Ring back there would be no comprable force to oppose him. According to the Tale of Years, it took 110 years from the foundation of Arnor and Gondor to the formation of the LA, a year for them to get to Rivendell (from Lindon/Annuminas I guess), three years from Rivendell to the Dagorlad and the siege of Mordor, and then seven years of siege before they won. And at the cost of Elvish power in Middle-earth being permanently crippled and Númenorean power significantly weakened.
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Apr 18, 2018 17:55
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I'm reading Beren and Luthien now after just discovering it existed (the story is by no means new to me, I read the Silmarillion and the entire HoME years ago, but it's the first time in a while). One thing I'm having a bit of trouble with in the poetry version is following the meter on certain lines. Whenever a sentence ends mid-line my brain just loses the meter and I have to read the line another two or three times to get it back. Is this just Tolkien being worse at poetry than he is at prose, or is this normal for this meter?
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Apr 20, 2018 03:13
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Idk about your specific problem but your post did get me to reread the Lay of Leithian and I just have to laugh at how Thu clowns on Beren, Felagund & co. quote:“Come, tell me true, O Morgoth’s thralls, Smooth one, you fuckin chumps.
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Apr 20, 2018 16:28
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Omg Tolkien pulled the old “steganography by spelling it backwards” maneuver That’s seems beneath him somehow
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Apr 20, 2018 16:32
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Well, you have to remember that’s unpublished in his lifetime. He even uses an initialism in the draft material for the chaining of Melko in the Lost Tales. Even Chris as editor is like “for real tho?”
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Apr 20, 2018 16:39
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skasion posted:Idk about your specific problem but your post did get me to reread the Lay of Leithian and I just have to laugh at how Thu clowns on Beren, Felagund & co. Thu is such fun in this. "Cold is with Sauron's wraiths to bed!" It really makes me regret we only get him at a distance in LotR; the closest we get to him having a good gloat is second-hand through Pippin.
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Apr 20, 2018 16:46
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Runcible Cat posted:Thu is such fun in this. "Cold is with Sauron's wraiths to bed!" Yeah he’s so god drat evil. His blasphemous oath to Morgoth right after this bit is one of my favorite bits of JRRT poetry I think. If I were Chris I would have excerpted the whole section for the Silmarillion and not just Finrod’s spell. It’s no surprise to me that after this Tolkien decided to make the Necromancer the prime villain of everything he ever published.
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Apr 20, 2018 17:06
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The best character in the story is Huan though no question I also kinda liked Tevildo prince of cats even if Thu is better
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Apr 20, 2018 17:31
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skasion posted:Yeah he’s so god drat evil. His blasphemous oath to Morgoth right after this bit is one of my favorite bits of JRRT poetry I think. If I were Chris I would have excerpted the whole section for the Silmarillion and not just Finrod’s spell. It’s no surprise to me that after this Tolkien decided to make the Necromancer the prime villain of everything he ever published. This one? quote:Whom do ye serve, Light or Mirk?
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Apr 20, 2018 19:48
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"Bend your brows" is top goddamn tier
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Apr 20, 2018 20:33
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Does anyone know of a retailer that sells ebook versions of all 12 volumes of the history of middle earth? I'm hoping it's just my poor search skills.
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Apr 20, 2018 20:38
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Ynglaur posted:Does anyone know of a retailer that sells ebook versions of all 12 volumes of the history of middle earth? I'm hoping it's just my poor search skills. No, as far as I’m aware only the two halves of BOLT were ever made officially available as etexts.
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Apr 20, 2018 20:40
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Can someone who remembers HoME better tell me whether Sauron was always Thu, or if the connection was only made later? Second age Sauron has the same shapeshifting, but doesn't have the connections to wolves and bats. Personally, extrapolating from second and third age Sauron and guessing what he'd have been up to in the first age without reference to what we actually know, I'd have expected him to be Morgoth's engineer or smith, not one of his battle captains. It would have been cool if Sauron had been the one who designed Grond, or maybe even forged the crown that held the silmarils.
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Apr 20, 2018 20:43
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Bongo Bill posted:This one? I can't read that without hearing TEAM ROCKET BLASTING OFF AGAIN! at the end. And now none of you can either.
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Apr 20, 2018 21:12
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cheetah7071 posted:Can someone who remembers HoME better tell me whether Sauron was always Thu, or if the connection was only made later? Second age Sauron has the same shapeshifting, but doesn't have the connections to wolves and bats. Personally, extrapolating from second and third age Sauron and guessing what he'd have been up to in the first age without reference to what we actually know, I'd have expected him to be Morgoth's engineer or smith, not one of his battle captains. It would have been cool if Sauron had been the one who designed Grond, or maybe even forged the crown that held the silmarils. Thu predates Sauron significantly. In Gilfanon’s Tale (BOLT era) he’s a fay/wizard who is somehow involved with the coming of Men, and doesn’t have anything to do with Beren/Luthien story where the role he would later fill is taken by Tevildo instead. Gilfanon’s Tale is quite incomplete so who knows where Thu was going at this point. By the time of Lay of Leithian though, Tevildo has been lost. This is in keeping with the generally less primitive and etiological quality of the legendarium at this time vs the time of BOLT: the whole point of Tevildo is to provide a mythical explanation for why cats and dogs don’t get along, which is hardly the way that Tolkien was thinking of the elvish myths now that he was trying to get them published. Thu has many of the characteristics of Sauron (his fiery, magical eyes especially jump out at you in retrospect, but there’s even a reference to how he will in future enslave men with dark temples, which I can only take as the link between the BOLT character of Thu and his eventual involvement in the Lost Road/Akallabeth.) The Necromancer of The Hobbit is based on the character of Thu, and in drafts of The Hobbit they were quite explicitly identified, to the point where Bladorthin (=Gandalf) tells the company that Beren and Tinuviel have recently broken the Necromancer’s power for the time being. But the name Sauron was not yet used — I believe that this did not come into being until LOTR itself. After LOTR is done Tolkien goes back and (incompletely) reworks the Lay of Leithian to incorporate the development of Sauron’s character into the role of Thu. Tolkien doesn’t have to do much, but he does give Sauron a still more prominent role than Thu (he ensnares Gorlim to destroy Barahir’s band, where before Morgoth himself did this). I don’t think Thu/Sauron is ever really portrayed as a warrior though. His record in personal combat is pretty poor tbh. He is a wizard lord who sits in his tower and commands slaves, and that’s about all he has going on at any time. The biggest innovation to the character of Thu/Necromancer that LOTR makes is probably his creativity, his desire to make magical artifacts.
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Apr 20, 2018 21:12
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I more meant, when the Akallabeth and LotR were first being written, was the Sauron that appeared there always supposed to be the same as Thu? It sounds like the answer is no for second-age Sauron, but yes for third-age Sauron (who then got equated when work on LotR began?)
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Apr 20, 2018 21:15
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skasion posted:No, as far as I’m aware only the two halves of BOLT were ever made officially available as etexts. Darn. Maybe I'll splurge on the full set for my birthday or something. 
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Apr 20, 2018 21:18
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