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Heithinn Grasida posted:I think that’s a really cynical take, and I’m not sure if it’s just bait. Obviously Gandalf’s goal was to defeat Sauron while preventing as much suffering to the people of Middle-Earth as possible. That was the whole point of sending the Istari. If the primary goal of the Valar had just been Sauron’s defeat, Eonwe would have just come over with a big army and hosed him up. But that would have resulted in a lot more death and destruction than what Gandalf accomplished. You have to remember that the last time the forces of heaven decided to dab on the Dark Lord they blew up half of Middle-Earth. After the shitshow that was the War of Wrath they made the right call in trying to act more low-key against Sauron.
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May 5, 2020 07:45
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Denethor was a privileged man with access to the Internet and a serious case of depression, so it's understandable that many goons would empathize with him. However, I believe a close reading of the books will reveal that Gandalf was a pretty cool guy.
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May 5, 2020 07:55
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Heithinn Grasida posted:I think that’s a really cynical take, and I’m not sure if it’s just bait. Obviously Gandalf’s goal was to defeat Sauron while preventing as much suffering to the people of Middle-Earth as possible. That was the whole point of sending the Istari. If the primary goal of the Valar had just been Sauron’s defeat, Eonwe would have just come over with a big army and hosed him up. But that would have resulted in a lot more death and destruction than what Gandalf accomplished. euphronius posted:Frodo calls him out on it directly galagazombie posted:You have to remember that the last time the forces of heaven decided to dab on the Dark Lord they blew up half of Middle-Earth. After the shitshow that was the War of Wrath they made the right call in trying to act more low-key against Sauron. If the Valar had wanted to, they could have used the Eagles from the beginning, and saved the Middle Earth without much trouble or great wars. The only thing needed to destroy Sauron was to drop the ring in the volcano, which wasn't the case with Morgoth. But that would have tampered with free will.
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May 5, 2020 10:37
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pretty sure that there will have been Reasons that the eagle gambit was unfeasible, even if it's not explicitly laid out in the book
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May 5, 2020 10:47
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Nessus posted:Denethor was a privileged man with access to the Internet and a serious case of depression, so it's understandable that many goons would empathize with him. However, I believe a close reading of the books will reveal that Gandalf was a pretty cool guy. He was a jerk who abused people who weren't immediately useful to him, and had no qualms about casting spells of rousing "fire" on people who were (like Theoden and all his riders RIP). Gandalf doesn't care about hillmen, or orcs, or other oppressed peoples, he aligns with the powerful ruling classes who can gather large armies to fight his enemies. He did occasionally show some signs of conscience but he's mostly thought of as a good person by virtue of fighting for the winning team (in a war the authors fought in, under his command). The movies also soften his characterisation by making him wrong less often. Tolkien's Gandalf thinks going to Moria is a smashing idea.
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May 5, 2020 10:48
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V. Illych L. posted:pretty sure that there will have been Reasons that the eagle gambit was unfeasible, even if it's not explicitly laid out in the book Given that Sauron must have been aware of the result of the Battle of the Five Armies, it seems extremely likely Mordor was heavily defended with some kind of anti-eagle artillery that, like all of Sauron’s artifice, immediately stopped working when he kicked the bucket. sassassin posted:Tolkien's Gandalf thinks going to Moria is a smashing idea. I enjoy your posts in this thread, but I want to point out that he wasn’t wrong. Moria was the only feasible way east out of Eriador. It was almost disastrous, but every other way would have ended in failure.
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May 5, 2020 11:14
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I'm reading the hobbit for the 1st time. Pretty good.
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May 5, 2020 11:56
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The eagles would have been corrupted by the ring before they got to Death Mountain. If they could even hold it. Maybe it would grow to the size to fit in a talon. Who would even give it to them ? It’s not clear Frodo had the capacity to. Bilbo could only give it away to Frodo and that was literally a miracle.
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May 5, 2020 12:15
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Heithinn Grasida posted:I enjoy your posts in this thread, but I want to point out that he wasn’t wrong. Moria was the only feasible way east out of Eriador. It was almost disastrous, but every other way would have ended in failure. It's a stretch to claim there would have been no chance of success by other routes, or that Gandalf literally dying due to his mistake wasn't a failure. God had to intervene and give him another go to try to rescue the situation, which still failed, and required another last minute push from God. That Eagles are scared of longbows is dialogue in The Hobbit. They're not invincible. Mordor has its own airforce of indeterminate size.
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May 5, 2020 13:17
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Don’t know if frodo claiming the ring at Mt Doom was a failure as Gollum was exactly where he needed to be. Maybe.
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May 5, 2020 13:52
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sassassin posted:It's a stretch to claim there would have been no chance of success by other routes, or that Gandalf literally dying due to his mistake wasn't a failure. God had to intervene and give him another go to try to rescue the situation, which still failed, and required another last minute push from God. The actual answer, once the ring had been found, would have been to load up Bilbo, Gandalf, and some elves on Eagles and just blast into Mordor as fast as possible and huck the ring into the volcano, cutting off Bilbos finger/hand to do it if need be. But I always assumed the basic answer was that the Eagles just said "nah gently caress you, not gonna die for your stupid war." Which is inconsistent as they are happy to meddle otherwise. Yeah a few might die but many hundreds of thousands of other lives get lost as a result of the war so that's not really a great defense when they eventually show up anyway. I mean it comes down to the fact that the eagles were kind of a bad choice to include for this very reason, Tolkien was hardly perfect and made tons of mistakes so I've always just logged that as one of them.
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May 5, 2020 14:34
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euphronius posted:Don’t know if frodo claiming the ring at Mt Doom was a failure as Gollum was exactly where he needed to be. Maybe. That was God having to produce a hail mary because Gandalf wasn't there with Frodo to "inspire" him to spike the ball.
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May 5, 2020 14:36
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They should've just gone with Boromir's idea to launch Frodo and the Ring into the volcano with a catapult imo.
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May 5, 2020 14:42
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Eighties ZomCom posted:They should've just gone with Boromir's idea to launch Frodo and the Ring into the volcano with a catapult imo. This. They could have thrown it over Sauron’s defenses
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May 5, 2020 14:50
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WoodrowSkillson posted:The actual answer, once the ring had been found, would have been to load up Bilbo, Gandalf, and some elves on Eagles and just blast into Mordor as fast as possible and huck the ring into the volcano, cutting off Bilbos finger/hand to do it if need be. But I always assumed the basic answer was that the Eagles just said "nah gently caress you, not gonna die for your stupid war." Which is inconsistent as they are happy to meddle otherwise. Yeah a few might die but many hundreds of thousands of other lives get lost as a result of the war so that's not really a great defense when they eventually show up anyway. When you start reading a text around what you perceive to be an author's mistakes you come up with strange readings. The eagles are not the only group who refuse to commit utterly to Gandalf's crazy scheme, and the war in general. The Fellowship has token representation from a small number of allied forces, but most Men, Elves, Dwarfs and Miscellaneous stay at home until the war is on their doorstep. No one is putting themselves on the line en mass to save "hundreds of thousands of other lives" until they're directly threatened (and sometimes even then a magic spell is required). Only the survivors of Minas Tirith march on the Black Gate. The Eagles, being eagles, are especially safe and secure where they are. Individuals are happy to meddle and do favours, but that's not inconsistent at all. Every other group of people is the same. If they had tried to fly the ring to Mount Doom they would have failed. It's not a big open top cartoon volcano you can drop something into, the forge is in the heart of a mountain. Mordor is full of troops. They would be seen coming.
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May 5, 2020 14:55
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If you think about it, a V2 is really just a Ring-powered catapult.
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May 5, 2020 14:55
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I don’t know if it is simple to assume they’d even carry the ring bearer without being corrupted. Sam did it but he’s “special”
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May 5, 2020 14:55
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euphronius posted:I don’t know if it is simple to assume they’d even carry the ring bearer without being corrupted. Sam did it but he’s “special” You're not supposed to call them "special" any more afaik.
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May 5, 2020 15:05
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Eighties ZomCom posted:They should've just gone with Boromir's idea to launch Frodo and the Ring into the volcano with a catapult imo. someone pls post the gif
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May 5, 2020 15:07
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skasion posted:This. They could have thrown it over Sauron’s defenses Y'all are thinking in the wrong direction. Dig a 300-mile tunnel from the walls of Minas Tirith straight to the roots of Mount Doom and come up from the bottom. Better yet, dig three tunnels to be safe, just in case the Uruk-hai find one. Maybe give them code names, too--Tom, Bert, and Bill, maybe. In fact, you might want to consult Treebeard and his folk, since they have much deep knowledge of roots digging deep in the earth. Sauron will never expect The Great Entscape
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May 5, 2020 15:07
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sassassin posted:When you start reading a text around what you perceive to be an author's mistakes you come up with strange readings. Ok, then they could have tied up Bilbo/Frodo, and an Eagle could have landed before the entry of the heart of the volcano with a Rhosgobel rabbit, who would have dropped the ringbearer in.
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May 5, 2020 15:12
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And if the rabbits weren't canonical, a mearas could have been used. Gandalf could clearly command his one. And make deals with Eagles.
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May 5, 2020 15:15
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sassassin posted:When you start reading a text around what you perceive to be an author's mistakes you come up with strange readings. No one else marches on the black gate as there is no one else available to march, as the war is in the north as well tying up the dwarves, elves, and men there. The eagles show up during the battle at the black gate, when its way, way, way, more dangerous than showing up at midnight on a tuesday. So that kinda fucks with the logic. yes its not a big cartoon volcano, the point is you can fly in, and even if some people see you, you deal with what few dudes can actually climb a mountain in the short amount of time they have to react, and do the deed, and run. The nazgul explicitly were not all there at the time, and its not like sauron just kept dudes hanging out in mt doom for no reason all the time so any orcs or whatnot would have to climb all the way up there. Yes its risky, but far less risky than the plan they go with, which was to walk all the way there, and then wing it once they got to mordor and somehow sneak all the way to mt doom. even just having the eagles fly them to the outskirts in the east of mordor would make more sense. The central problem is that to anyones reading or watching the story, the Fellowship had access to air transport and decide to walk all the way from rivendell to mordor, for no reason that is actually explained to the reader. We all have to try and conjecture the reasoning based off Tolkien's later writings and such, its not actually explained why the Eagles are willing to get murked during the battle at the black gate but not give everyone a lift either to mt doom itself or at least nearby. Absent the eagles, the plan makes perfect sense given the situation, that's my point where its a mistake. euphronius posted:I don’t know if it is simple to assume they’d even carry the ring bearer without being corrupted. Sam did it but he’s “special” Can't be any more risky than having 8 other people spend months within close proximity of the Ring, including one of the most dangerous people to be tempted by it in gandalf, as well as the true king of gondor and a prince from the woodland realm.
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May 5, 2020 15:18
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sassassin posted:When you start reading a text around what you perceive to be an author's mistakes you come up with strange readings. The eagles are also traditionally loyal to Manwe, so they ought to have been up for it, but I'll also point out that Sauron is basically radar. Carrying a literal piece of him through the sky in a flock of eagles would probably catch his attention, especially without the assault on Minas Tirith and later the march on the Black Gate to distract him. Also if you go straight from Rivendell to Mount Doom, well, isn't that about when the Nazgul are at home picking up their flying mounts after Bruinen? And like you said, before the march on the Black Gate, Mordor was full of orcs; if there were some archers close enough to run up the mountain when Sauron saw the eagles coming, it could have been all over. (Of course by the third age, the eagles of Middle Earth may be pretty far declined from the days of Thorondor. There seems to be friendship between the contemporary eagles and Gandalf, a maia of Manwe, but is it because they're pals with the same Vala or just because Gandalf is a cool dude?)
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May 5, 2020 15:19
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‘So it was that when summer waned, there came a night of moon, and Gwaihir the Windlord, swiftest of the Great Eagles, came unlooked-for to Orthanc; and he found me standing on the pinnacle. Then I spoke to him and he bore me away, before Saruman was aware. I was far from Isengard, ere the wolves and orcs issued from the gate to pursue me. ‘“How far can you bear me?” I said to Gwaihir. ‘“Many leagues,” said he, “but not to the ends of the earth. I was sent to bear tidings not burdens.”
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May 5, 2020 15:27
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euphronius posted:‘So it was that when summer waned, there came a night of moon, and Gwaihir the Windlord, swiftest of the Great Eagles, came unlooked-for to Orthanc; and he found me standing on the pinnacle. Then I spoke to him and he bore me away, before Saruman was aware. I was far from Isengard, ere the wolves and orcs issued from the gate to pursue me. ‘“How far can you bear me?” I said to Gwaihir. ‘“Many leagues,” said he, “but not to the ends of the earth. I was sent to bear tidings not burdens.” I really need to get ebook copies of everything so I can be more exact in my references...
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May 5, 2020 15:32
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sassassin posted:That was God having to produce a hail mary because Gandalf wasn't there with Frodo to "inspire" him to spike the ball. Or shove him in, with a regretful sigh. ChubbyChecker posted:someone pls post the gif  GimpInBlack posted:Y'all are thinking in the wrong direction. Dig a 300-mile tunnel from the walls of Minas Tirith straight to the roots of Mount Doom and come up from the bottom. Better yet, dig three tunnels to be safe, just in case the Uruk-hai find one. Maybe give them code names, too--Tom, Bert, and Bill, maybe. In fact, you might want to consult Treebeard and his folk, since they have much deep knowledge of roots digging deep in the earth.  Pham Nuwen posted:(Of course by the third age, the eagles of Middle Earth may be pretty far declined from the days of Thorondor. There seems to be friendship between the contemporary eagles and Gandalf, a maia of Manwe, but is it because they're pals with the same Vala or just because Gandalf is a cool dude?) The Hobbit says they're friends because Gandalf healed Gwaihir when he got shot, so maybe. They got to Mordor pretty drat fast when it came time to extract Frodo and Sam, though, which seems to argue some level of divine intervention.
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May 5, 2020 15:35
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euphronius posted:‘So it was that when summer waned, there came a night of moon, and Gwaihir the Windlord, swiftest of the Great Eagles, came unlooked-for to Orthanc; and he found me standing on the pinnacle. Then I spoke to him and he bore me away, before Saruman was aware. I was far from Isengard, ere the wolves and orcs issued from the gate to pursue me. ‘“How far can you bear me?” I said to Gwaihir. ‘“Many leagues,” said he, “but not to the ends of the earth. I was sent to bear tidings not burdens.” Yes, that's Gwaihir rescuing Gandalf, not the Council or even Manwe himself approaching the eagles and laying out what they could do to literally save all of Middle Earth, even if they just cut like, 2 months out of the planned travel time and dropped them off in the fuckin Emyn Muil. there is a reason there were so many jokes and poo poo about this back when the movies came out, and why it is one of the most things to be talked about in general.
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May 5, 2020 15:40
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As if to his eyes some sudden vision had been given, Gandalf stirred; and he turned, looking back north where the skies were pale and clear. Then he lifted up his hands and cried in a loud voice ringing above the din: The Eagles are coming! And many voices answered crying: The Eagles are coming! The Eagles are coming! The hosts of Mordor looked up and wondered what this sign might mean. Bolded part points to divine intervention again yes Imho
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May 5, 2020 15:41
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Yes, that's Gwaihir rescuing Gandalf, not the Council or even Manwe himself approaching the eagles and laying out what they could do to literally save all of Middle Earth, even if they just cut like, 2 months out of the planned travel time and dropped them off in the fuckin Emyn Muil. there is a reason there were so many jokes and poo poo about this back when the movies came out, and why it is one of the most things to be talked about in general. You are assuming they could carry the Ring and the Ring bearer which is ... I don’t think that could happen
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May 5, 2020 15:44
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sassassin posted:That was God having to produce a hail mary because Gandalf wasn't there with Frodo to "inspire" him to spike the ball. God wasn't "producing" a hail mary. All evil is simply an absence of the good and ultimately serves to exalt God's majesty and glory. Even Melkor's attempt to pervert Eru's music of creation eventually gets woven into creation. Frodo's weakness and Gollum's greed are evil but serve righteous ends, as evil only can.
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May 5, 2020 15:53
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May 5, 2020 15:57
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sassassin posted:It's a stretch to claim there would have been no chance of success by other routes, or that Gandalf literally dying due to his mistake wasn't a failure. God had to intervene and give him another go to try to rescue the situation, which still failed, and required another last minute push from God. Well Gandalf was going to have to die some time anyway because even coming back as The White he was barely up to the final steps, and that change from The Grey to The White and what it implies (that active help was coming) was important to JRRT - also it's obvious Tolkien wanted to go to Moria and bring more of the elder days stuff into the story, possibly solely for his own gratification - I forget if it was in a letter or the foreward or what but I remember him saying he'd brought them to Balin's tomb and he had no idea what would come next. The author's whim is always good enough for me, I may not enjoy it but I don't second-guess it.
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May 5, 2020 16:21
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sassassin posted:That was God having to produce a hail mary because Gandalf wasn't there with Frodo to "inspire" him to spike the ball. Oh no. Frodo had sworn, on the ring, that if Gollum ever touched the ring he'd be cast down or whatever, i forget the exact wording. So the ring semi-literally destroyed itself, the power of the ring turning on itself. It's very Catholic. Everything in LotR is very Catholic. Also Gandalf manipulations are A-OK because he's doing it all for Eru.
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May 5, 2020 16:47
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Oh no. Frodo had sworn, on the ring, that if Gollum ever touched the ring he'd be cast down or whatever, i forget the exact wording. So the ring semi-literally destroyed itself, the power of the ring turning on itself. It's very Catholic. Everything in LotR is very Catholic. I've always liked the interpretation that that moment, right there, is why Frodo can't stay. He chose willingly to dominate Gollum using a tool of great evil. He cursed himself.
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May 5, 2020 17:57
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Also Gandalf manipulations are A-OK because he's doing it all for Eru. He believes that, for sure.
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May 5, 2020 18:08
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WoodrowSkillson posted:So that kinda fucks with the logic. yes its not a big cartoon volcano, the point is you can fly in, and even if some people see you, you deal with what few dudes can actually climb a mountain in the short amount of time they have to react, and do the deed, and run. Any scenario makes sense if you dismiss enough of the texts as "a mistake", I suppose.
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May 5, 2020 18:16
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Myron Baloney posted:Well Gandalf was going to have to die some time anyway because even coming back as The White he was barely up to the final steps, and that change from The Grey to The White and what it implies (that active help was coming) was important to JRRT - also it's obvious Tolkien wanted to go to Moria and bring more of the elder days stuff into the story, possibly solely for his own gratification - I forget if it was in a letter or the foreward or what but I remember him saying he'd brought them to Balin's tomb and he had no idea what would come next. The author's whim is always good enough for me, I may not enjoy it but I don't second-guess it. So Gandalf didn't make a mistake because he knew the author wanted him to die to be reborn? It wasn't a mistake to get killed by a Balrog he didn't know was there because the author wanted to talk about Balrogs? An equivalent reading would be that Sauron was no threat because it was important to Tolkien that he be defeated in the end. Maybe you should start second guessing why you're so hung up on the author's intent/whim? You might find there's a story written down somewhere. sassassin fucked around with this message at 18:40 on May 5, 2020 |
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May 5, 2020 18:24
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I don't think Gandalf using people as tools is a cynical take on things, I'm not trying to piss people off, and I think it's explicit, not implicit. Gandalf only wants to defeat Sauron. That's his purpose! I'm not saying he has no feelings for his friends, he's not always super happy about the consequences of his actions but he's always sure about what he's doing. Gandalf is not a D&D wizard, a human who uses magic, he exists to organize various people to fight Sauron. Tolkien made this super clear in his retcon where everything in The Hobbit happened just because Gandalf wanted to bring back Dale/Erebor to strengthen the North to fight the forces of Mordor.
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