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webmeister posted:10,000 words of film-bashing I wouldn't mind that.
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Dec 7, 2019 01:31
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Runcible Cat posted:https://www.tor.com/2019/12/04/a-military-historian-breaks-down-the-siege-of-gondor-in-peter-jacksons-the-return-of-the-king/ Its kinda funny how "warning beacons were totally a thing" is treated as some mindblowing factoid.
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Dec 7, 2019 16:46
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Alhazred posted:Its kinda funny how "warning beacons were totally a thing" is treated as some mindblowing factoid. The funny part is I remember back around when the movie came out some discussions about how the beacons were such an unrealistic thing. So yeah, that is something that needed to be said.
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Dec 7, 2019 17:06
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Mahoning posted:The funny part is I remember back around when the movie came out some discussions about how the beacons were such an unrealistic thing. So yeah, that is something that needed to be said. They are unrealistic in the shots where they're all lighting up because you consistently see one beacon from fairly close and it's a pile of logs just a bit taller than a man. Then you can see another beacon lighting up on a mountaintop dozens of miles away and in a few cases you can see its outline against the sky before it burns. The beacons farther away would have to be gigantic to see them like that. But it's in the service of an epic scene so what the hell.
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Dec 7, 2019 18:00
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That scene is Howard Shore just flexing his musical muscles. That whole musical sequence culminating in the little Rohan fanfare after Theoden says “and Rohan will answer” is just awesome.
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Dec 7, 2019 18:22
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Kassad posted:They are unrealistic in the shots where they're all lighting up because you consistently see one beacon from fairly close and it's a pile of logs just a bit taller than a man. Then you can see another beacon lighting up on a mountaintop dozens of miles away and in a few cases you can see its outline against the sky before it burns. The beacons farther away would have to be gigantic to see them like that. that's the sort of quibble that would rightly get one shoved in a locker, though
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Dec 13, 2019 08:39
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V. Illych L. posted:that's the sort of quibble that would rightly get one shoved in a locker, though
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Dec 13, 2019 09:03
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I've been rereading The Lord of the Rings as I usually do in early winter for some reason, and it's still great, but the bit about Kingsfoil in 'The Return of the King' just seems more maddening and ridiculous to me every time I read it. It might be my least favorite part of all the books. (My other, if you want to yell at me, is the song about the Entwives) "no we don't keep that herb, for it has no use that we know about, unless you listen to old poems." poem: "when the king comes use Kingsfoil to heal the black breath dumbass". "But who knows what that means 🤷" The whole scene feels like it's meant to be comic relief ("but not to her sister's house"), but it feels really inappropriate to the mood at that point. Imagined fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Dec 13, 2019 |
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Dec 13, 2019 16:02
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PMush Perfect posted:Look at this thread. Lockers preemptively open as soon as we walk into a room. New thread title?
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Dec 13, 2019 17:40
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Imagined posted:I've been rereading The Lord of the Rings as I usually do in early winter for some reason, and it's still great, but the bit about Kingsfoil in 'The Return of the King' just seems more maddening and ridiculous to me every time I read it. It might be my least favorite part of all the books. (My other, if you want to yell at me, is the song about the Entwives) I always took that as Hobbit bullshit. They love Herblore and long digressions about nonsense.
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Dec 13, 2019 17:51
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It is hobbit poo poo. That part of the scene is told by Pippin. Immediately after that the narrative thread is taken up by Aragorn, the tone shifts hugely (the big discussion about Eowyn’s depression) and Pippin, despite being in the room, isn’t mentioned at all. Then when the topic shifts to Merry it’s suddenly all about Pippin’s point of view and the tone lightens again and Aragorn is joking around.
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Dec 13, 2019 18:21
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Oracle posted:New thread title? I'm for it.
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Dec 13, 2019 18:30
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If you read Tolkien with an eye toward fictional historiography, i.e. the conceit that Tolkien liberally translated a book compiled by Bilbo and Frodo from a variety of sources including some of their own original writing, then there are other things like that to pick up on.
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Dec 13, 2019 18:38
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Good points all, I rarely think of it from that perspective. With most writers I'd probably suggest that was being too generous, or an ex post facto defense, but with Tolkien I can believe he really did that intentionally.
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Dec 13, 2019 18:42
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Tolkien's Middle-Earth: Hobbit poo poo
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Dec 13, 2019 19:07
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my bony fealty posted:Tolkien's Middle-Earth: Hobbit poo poo
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Dec 13, 2019 19:20
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A couple of things I thought about during this reread: - Aragorn mentions several times how he's a Numenorean of "line unblended", but who is his mom? All the Numenoreans mentioned in the book are men, and rangers who don't have any settlement of their own seemingly. Where is this enclave of Numenorean women so large it could sustain their numbers through the ages without ever once interbreeding with outsiders? - The walls of Minas Tirith are made of the same indestructible workmanship as Isengard, but the gate still has to be made of normal stuff. This, to me, implies that the front door of Isengard would also be made of plain material. So why couldn't the Ents just break that down? Or Gimli smash it with an axe and drag Saruman out? Imagined fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Dec 14, 2019 |
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Dec 14, 2019 04:57
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Imagined posted:A couple of things I thought about during this reread: On the second, even if it's a weak point it still needs to be actually broken down. The Ents were raging on Saruman's stuff in general, and Gimli probably couldn't take it down with his axe, given that the Minas Tirith gate took like... a magic battering ram.
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Dec 14, 2019 05:09
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PMush Perfect posted:Look at this thread. Lockers preemptively open as soon as we walk into a room. "Ha ha, I like it in here!" I insist, my laughter echoing loudly in my ears
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Dec 14, 2019 08:59
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Imagined posted:I've been rereading The Lord of the Rings as I usually do in early winter for some reason, and it's still great, but the bit about Kingsfoil in 'The Return of the King' just seems more maddening and ridiculous to me every time I read it. It might be my least favorite part of all the books. (My other, if you want to yell at me, is the song about the Entwives) I also don’t like that scene, or the subsequent parts where Aragorn heals people. I agree the tone doesn’t really work, whether it’s hobbit poo poo or not. However, I would need to check, but do the healers in Gondor actually know about the black breath? It’s described, but not named, if I recall, until either Aragorn or Gandalf names what’s happening to people as a result of the presence of the Nazgul. The Nazgul only showed up again very recently after a very, very long time, so it’s possible that knowledge of what they do exactly has been lost, as has anything but old rhymes about how to cure it. The healer maybe wouldn’t associate what’s happening to people now with “the black breath” and also probably was too busy to know that maybe the king had come back. The healers in Gondor can cure pretty much anything but lethal injury or age, so they can be forgiven for not paying much attention to old folk remedies.
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Dec 14, 2019 09:17
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Imagined posted:A couple of things I thought about during this reread: Numenoreans are like dwarves.
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Dec 14, 2019 13:27
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Imagined posted:- Aragorn mentions several times how he's a Numenorean of "line unblended", but who is his mom? All the Numenoreans mentioned in the book are men, and rangers who don't have any settlement of their own seemingly. Where is this enclave of Numenorean women so large it could sustain their numbers through the ages without ever once interbreeding with outsiders? The Dunedain of the north are “rangers” in the sense of being nomads. The womenfolk are probably busy living out of carts somewhere in Eriador while Aragorn and all the men are busy down south. Tolkien obviously doesn’t discuss this, but I assume there’s a lot of Romani-style cousin marriage going on and not too much exogamy. Aragorn’s mother was Gilraen: there’s a bit about her in Appendix A. It’s specifically stated that she was also descended from the line of chieftains.
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Dec 14, 2019 13:49
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TBH all that stuff about high and middle and wild and race mixing and "blended with lesser men" and how being "tall and fair" is kingly and being "sallow", "swarthy" or "squint eyed" is lesser or even orc-like is pretty icky anyway but Tolkien isn't as bad as his contemporaries. I have to remember this was a man born into the height of the British Empire. I'm sure I'm not breaking any new ground in this thread by bringing that up though.
Imagined fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Dec 14, 2019 |
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Dec 14, 2019 17:51
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Tolkien made me insecure about the fairness of my brow
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Dec 15, 2019 00:43
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Shibawanko posted:Tolkien made me insecure about the fairness of my brow New thread title, surely.
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Dec 15, 2019 01:47
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Tolkien also gives mixed messages about that because the Numenoreans who were obsessed with racial purity really hosed things up in Gondor and were obviously the bad guys, while those who were willing to intermarry were clearly right. On the other hand, he makes a big deal of Numenoreans being diminished because of blending with “lesser men” and Aragorn and Imrahil being special because they are from “race unmingled”. I think overall the idea is that mixing of the races is good in concept, but for people with “high destiny” or whatever it’s better to marry within the race. In other words, it’s fine for my friend’s daughter to marry an Italian, but God forbid any of my kids do, and while white people in the newspaper might marry black people, it would be horrifying and shocking if anyone I know actually did. My Grandfather was a leftist academic in the South in the 50’s who did minor, but noteworthy work in civil rights, but I’m sure you could have heard similar things (though not as bad) from him from time to time. That said, there’s no two ways about it, Tolkien was racist. His racism was more complex and not nearly as bad as most people think, but it’s absolutely there and he shouldn’t be given a pass for it. He was from a time where he could have known better. He obviously struggled to improve his views on race, but not hard enough. If we enjoy his works, we have to enjoy them in spite of that.
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Dec 15, 2019 02:07
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Heithinn Grasida posted:Tolkien also gives mixed messages about that because the Numenoreans who were obsessed with racial purity really hosed things up in Gondor and were obviously the bad guys, while those who were willing to intermarry were clearly right. On the other hand, he makes a big deal of Numenoreans being diminished because of blending with “lesser men” and Aragorn and Imrahil being special because they are from “race unmingled”. It's not race-mixing in itself that's bad, it's race-mixing with lesser races that's bad in Middle Earth. Both Aragorn and Imrahil had elf blood in them which made them better than other men. And the Tooks might have had some elf blood too, and they were a noble house. Tolkien definitely had a racial hierarchy in his works.
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Dec 15, 2019 02:32
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The pure blood that distinguishes Aragorn is itself a hybrid line: the ancestress whom he worships, herself mixed-race, was despised in her time by her family for pursuing a man who was mortal and therefore beneath her. Aragorn also very much doesn’t marry within his race. Also most people miss this and I can understand why, but the diminishment of the Numenoreans in Middle-earth was unambiguously not caused by racial mixing. It was caused by the fact that they hosed up their shot at living in god-given earthly paradise. Appendix A posted:After the return of Eldacar the blood of the kingly house and other houses of the Dúnedain became more mingled with that of lesser Men. For many of the great had been slain in the Kin-strife; while Eldacar showed favour to the Northmen, by whose help he had regained the crown, and the people of Gondor were replenished by great numbers that came from Rhovanion.
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Dec 15, 2019 02:32
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ChubbyChecker posted:It's not race-mixing in itself that's bad, it's race-mixing with lesser races that's bad in Middle Earth. Both Aragorn and Imrahil had elf blood in them which made them better than other men. And the Tooks might have had some elf blood too, and they were a noble house. Tolkien definitely had a racial hierarchy in his works. Where are you getting that the Tooks might be a bit Elvish? It makes sense but I don't remember a hint of that anywhere.
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Dec 15, 2019 02:39
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VanSandman posted:Where are you getting that the Tooks might be a bit Elvish? It makes sense but I don't remember a hint of that anywhere. It’s in the first chapter of The Hobbit — local gossip is that one of the Tooks had a fairy wife. “That was, of course, absurd”, says the narrator.
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Dec 15, 2019 02:43
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ChubbyChecker posted:It's not race-mixing in itself that's bad, it's race-mixing with lesser races that's bad in Middle Earth. Both Aragorn and Imrahil had elf blood in them which made them better than other men. And the Tooks might have had some elf blood too, and they were a noble house. Numenoreans are definitely the “highest” race of men and there are several passages where it’s described as good that they mixed or were willing to mix with “lesser” (though still white, obviously) races. Faramir says that at one point, and of course married Eowyn. There’s also a big thing in the appendices about racial purity assholes loving things up in Gondor, if I recall. Mixing with elves is generally so rare that it’s a matter of legend and high destiny or whatever and any time elves did marry with mortal heroes it was explicitly good.
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Dec 15, 2019 02:44
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Heithinn Grasida posted:Numenoreans are definitely the “highest” race of men and there are several passages where it’s described as good that they mixed or were willing to mix with “lesser” (though still white, obviously) races. Faramir says that at one point, and of course married Eowyn. There’s also a big thing in the appendices about racial purity assholes loving things up in Gondor, if I recall. The elf dads opposed it. e: Speaking of elf dads, wasn't 'elf' used for male elves only?
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Dec 15, 2019 02:48
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skasion posted:The pure blood that distinguishes Aragorn is itself a hybrid line: the ancestress whom he worships, herself mixed-race, was despised in her time by her family for pursuing a man who was mortal and therefore beneath her. Aragorn also very much doesn’t marry within his race. There are passages where Tolkien attributes “mixing with the blood of lesser men” or something to Numenor’s decline in Middle-Earth. So, yes the ultimate cause is all the hosed up poo poo they did back in Numenor, but a proximate cause is mixing with “lesser races”. I think the idea is that if they didn’t mix, they would have died out entirely, or decayed even further, but intermarriage did lead to a diminished lifespan for Numenoreans in middle earth and the ideal situation would have been for them to remain racially pure back on Numenor. Now if Numenor never fell and a somehow ended up with refugees from Middle-Earth, I expect Tolkien would praise the Numenoreans who intermarried with them, but who knows.
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Dec 15, 2019 02:55
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ChubbyChecker posted:The elf dads opposed it. I’m almost certain female elves are described multiple times as “elves”. And the elf dads in the Silmarilion were clearly painted as wrong and prejudiced for opposing the marriages. The Thingol was the typical racist rear end in a top hat elf and he got killed because of it.
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Dec 15, 2019 02:57
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I hear the calls for a new thread title but the problem is I still love the current title so much I am listening though
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Dec 15, 2019 03:30
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Heithinn Grasida posted:There are passages where Tolkien attributes “mixing with the blood of lesser men” or something to Numenor’s decline in Middle-Earth. So, yes the ultimate cause is all the hosed up poo poo they did back in Numenor, but a proximate cause is mixing with “lesser races”. I think the idea is that if they didn’t mix, they would have died out entirely, or decayed even further, but intermarriage did lead to a diminished lifespan for Numenoreans in middle earth and the ideal situation would have been for them to remain racially pure back on Numenor. The character who blames the decline of the Numenoreans on mixing with lesser races is Elrond, in his big soliloquy at the Council about how everything used to be better back in the day. You can draw your own conclusions as to why that concept would appear in his mouth. Nobody else makes that claim in the book except a faction of power-hungry racists who nearly destroyed Gondor by starting a war about it. The narrative voice emphatically denies this and suggests that the cause is instead that Numenoreans are adapting to living in the real world, broken and hosed-up as it is, instead of a substitute heaven created by the gods as a reward. Numenoreans in the books do think they were and are superior to lesser men, and they certainly have strong ideas about the value of pure blood. But those ideas are going away as the superiority itself is going away. Faramir considers that Gondor and their Rohirric inferiors have met in the middle: he kind of regrets this, but he also accepts it as fact. Aragorn is the last hurrah of the superhuman king before the end of the mythic age, “an image of the splendour of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world”. They’re going to become “lesser men” regardless of what they do or who they breed with.
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Dec 15, 2019 03:32
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I hear the calls for a new thread title but the problem is I still love the current title so much Current thread title is better than the proposal, don't listen to them.
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Dec 15, 2019 03:40
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I hear the calls for a new thread title but the problem is I still love the current title so much The Beorn Ultimatum
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Dec 15, 2019 04:21
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Ghân-buri-Ghân Ross
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Dec 15, 2019 04:22
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Death of a Saruman
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Dec 15, 2019 04:22
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