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webmeister posted:All four of them end up, at some point, in a situation where they're fully expecting to die: Frodo and Sam on Mount Doom, Pippin at the Black Gate, Merry in the charge of the Rohirrim. I'd agree that Frodo's psychological torture was probably the worst of it, but it's kinda splitting hairs to start ranking them Splendid! Let's begin at once. Where would you place Merry on the Mouth-of-Sauron - Faramir Broodingness Scale?
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Dec 4, 2020 05:04
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Well, the name alone takes him down a peg.
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Dec 4, 2020 05:11
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skasion posted:Time existed but there was nobody who gave a poo poo to count it. I think you can still figure out how long the age of the lamps lasted if you work from the Annals of Aman. It was also a long time for sure. The Eldar back-calculated everything when they reached Valinor. The Years of the Lamps proper lasted about 14,900 solar years. This era was itself preceded by an 18,200-year long era of darkness before the Valar had settled into Almaren. Here's VY 1: The beginning of Time. The Valar enter into Eä. Conflict with Melkor. VY 1500: Tulkas enters into Eä and Melkor flees. Almaren established in the center of Arda VY 1900: The Lamps are raised VY 3400: Melkor returns to Arda and delves Utumno in the far North of the world VY 3450: The fall of the Lamps and the flight of the Valar to Valinor VY 3500*: Blossoming of the Two Trees VY 4500: Varda begins work on the great stars VY 4550: The Quendi awaken VY 4585: Oromë discovers the Quendi VY 4590–4600: The Battle of the Powers VY 4600: The three ages of Melkor's imprisonment begin VY 4605: The Great Journey to Aman by the Eldar begins VY 4633: The Vanyar and the Ñoldor reach Aman VY 4651: Tol Eressëa is anchored in the Bay of Eldamar VY 4652: Thingol and Melian establish their realm VY 4751: The Teleri come to Aman VY 4679: Fëanor born VY 4800: Menegroth is delved VY 4862: Galadriel born VY 4900: Melkor released from Mandos VY 4950: The silmarils are created VY 4990: Fëanor exiled from Eldamar VY 4995: Finwë killed, the silmarils stolen, the Two Trees poisoned. Swearing of the Oath and the first Kin-slaying. VY 4997: The First Battle: Melkor attacks the Sindar. Fëanor betrays Fingolfin and sails to Middle-earth; Dagor-nuin-Giliath. Fëanor killed and Maedhros captured. VY 5000: Fingolfin arrives in Middle-earth. The Valar launch the Sun and Moon *The Annals of Aman reset the calendar at the blossoming of the trees, but to keep things simple I just continued the numbering from the start of Time.
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Dec 4, 2020 05:20
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Merry and Pippin go to war with everything that entails. Both horror and suffering and also a great appreciation of how you can achieve things with large groups of armed men. They get empowered by their experience and become noble leaders, the friendships they make and the deeds they do serve them well for the rest of their lives. One could say they become infatuated by violence though the book doesn’t push this too far. Frodo doesn’t go to war and he doesn’t win. He goes off walking into torment alone (“with only his servant” as the Silmarillion has it) and takes very little positive away from what was achieved through him, except the consolation prize of knowing that it could have been way, way worse. Frodo gets attenuated by his experience, and retreats from the world instead of becoming a leader or hero. He says that the world was saved, but not for him. He comes to find violence abhorrent, refusing even to kill Saruman. He also retreats from society, eventually from Middle-earth itself. The other hobbits get to have a nice adventure story ending, Frodo gets existential disaster and transcends into the spiritual realm leaving his nice adventure story ending to the gardener.
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Dec 4, 2020 05:20
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Falathrim posted:but to keep things simple I just continued the numbering from the start of Time.
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Dec 4, 2020 07:10
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New thread title material there.
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Dec 4, 2020 09:03
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Tree Bucket posted:
Bilbo had it far longer (iirc, to the point where he felt he was beginning to fade), and used it often. Bilbo was able to hand it over (slightly grudgingly), but immediately felt better. Hasselblad fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Dec 4, 2020 |
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Dec 4, 2020 16:52
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Fredonia also got physically wounded and poisoned, both, in ways the others didn't. Edit: wtf autocorrect Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Dec 4, 2020 |
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Dec 4, 2020 16:59
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Fredonia also got physically wounded and poisoned, both, in ways the others didnt. This is true. Would have been easier, had Sam not overheard the orcs talking about finding Frodo alive. CHANGE MY MIND
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Dec 4, 2020 17:02
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Falathrim posted:The Eldar back-calculated everything when they reached Valinor. The Years of the Lamps proper lasted about 14,900 solar years. This era was itself preceded by an 18,200-year long era of darkness before the Valar had settled into Almaren. This is silly tho. “Solar year” is meaningless without a sun and an earth going round it. There isn’t even other stars until the end of that time . As I said time is silly before the sun other than it “was a long time” . But even then that’s wierd.
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Dec 4, 2020 17:04
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Obviously the Elves define a second as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom at a temperature of 0 K and just calculated back from there
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Dec 4, 2020 17:07
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Hasselblad posted:Bilbo had it far longer (iirc, to the point where he felt he was beginning to fade), and used it often. Bilbo was able to hand it over (slightly grudgingly), but immediately felt better. Bilbo never tried to claim mastery of the Ring though. He tried to claim ownership of it, but that is an altogether different thing than trying to force the Ring to do your will.
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Dec 4, 2020 17:41
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Arcsquad12 posted:New thread title material there. Second the motion.
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Dec 4, 2020 18:48
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euphronius posted:This is silly tho. “Solar year” is meaningless without a sun and an earth going round it. There isn’t even other stars until the end of that time . As I said time is silly before the sun other than it “was a long time” . But even then that’s wierd. What? In real life, we say the universe began 13 billion Earth years ago, and the fact that the Sun and Earth didn't exist for 9 billion of those years doesn't stop "Earth year" from being a well-defined period of time that we can use as a unit of time measurement. In Tolkein's world, there's nothing to suggest that time progressed any differently before and after the Sun existed, either. That they reckoned time differently, based on different phenomena, doesn't meant that we can't convert from one measurement to another, just as we may convert between American feet and rest-of-the-world meters. Can't vouch for Falathrim's math, though. I noticed that using their numbers, 14900+18200 solar years does not equal 9.582 solar years per Valian year * 5000 Valian years. I'm not a Silmarillion/Tolkien expert, but looking at Tolkien Gateway it seems they missed out on 15,300 solar years between the creation of the Lamps and the growing of the Two Trees (i.e. the 18200 number is pre-Lamps, 15300 post-Lamps pre-Trees, and 14900 post-Trees). But the 9.582 solar-years-to-Valian-years ratio seems to be based on the conversion of 1 Valian hour = 7 hours, which doesn't seem like a very precise number. Assuming that could be anywhere from 6.5 to 7.5 and rounded to 7, that means that the ratio of Valian year-of-the-trees to solar year could be anywhere from 8.898 to 10.266. Also, there's another huge flaw in this system, both on the Tolkien Gateway and in Falathrim's post. There seems to be an assumption that the "Valian year" before the Trees is the same as after, which seems suspect, considering that the structure of the Valian year and the 9.582 ratio is based on how time was reckoned based on the blooming of the Trees. So they must have been reckoning time differently before the Trees, and presumably had a different arbitrary length of year. So we cannot conclude that the first 3,500 Valian years actually followed the 9.582 ratio. And the fact that they restarted their calendar numbering seems to lend credence to the idea that they were redefining the concept of a "year." Because of this, Falathrim's "I just continued the numbering from the start of Time" is a bad idea. So in conclusion, we don't have enough information to know for sure how long the first 3,500 Valian years were (1,900 before the Lamps and 1,600 after), and the 1,500 "years of the trees" correspond to around 13,300 to 15,400 solar years. Assuming that the length of year was at least similar before and after getting redefined based on the blooming of the Trees, the first 3,500 Valian years were about 34,000 solar years, but we don't really know how big of an error bar to put on that measurement, or whether that's a good assumption in the first place. But that's just how I see it, as someone knowledgeable in systems of measurement but a relative novice of Tolkien, who doesn't have the Silmarillion and Morgoth's Ring in front of me to check the citations on Tolkien Gateway. I'm curious if any of my assumptions about/interpretations of the text are incorrect.
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Dec 4, 2020 21:33
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sweet geek swag posted:Bilbo never tried to claim mastery of the Ring though. He tried to claim ownership of it, but that is an altogether different thing than trying to force the Ring to do your will. You could make a good argument that he used the Ring to bend Gollum to his will. Likewise, he used it to reach out his mind while on Amon Hen, though how much was the Ring and how much the Place is certainly debatable.
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Dec 4, 2020 21:59
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Ynglaur posted:You could make a good argument that he used the Ring to bend Gollum to his will. Likewise, he used it to reach out his mind while on Amon Hen, though how much was the Ring and how much the Place is certainly debatable. He was also wearing it when he was stabbed by the Nazgul, IIRC. (not that he was trying to control it at the moment, just an observation) Hasselblad fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Dec 4, 2020 |
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Dec 4, 2020 23:41
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Ynglaur posted:You could make a good argument that he used the Ring to bend Gollum to his will. Likewise, he used it to reach out his mind while on Amon Hen, though how much was the Ring and how much the Place is certainly debatable. Bilbo, I said Bilbo! Frodo absolutely claimed mastery over the Ring at Mt. Doom, and I brought up that Bilbo didn't to show why he wasn't really affected as badly mentally as Frodo was.
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Dec 5, 2020 01:08
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If you look in Appendix B, Frodo is repeatedly "taken ill" on the anniversaries of his stabbing at Weathertop (October 6) and his poisoning by Shelob (March 13th), but not the anniversary of the destruction of the Ring. The Ring's power was broken; it was his other wounds that did not heal.
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Dec 5, 2020 01:26
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Mahoning posted:I checked last night and iTunes has it available in 4K/DolbyVision/Atmos I was checking on my AppleTV and it didn't say 4k for the Extended Editions, but when I look on my Mac it does say 4k/Dolby Vision/Atmos for both regular and extended. (I ordered the UHD Blu-Rays anyway, but haven't had a chance to see what they look like yet)
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Dec 5, 2020 02:02
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sweet geek swag posted:Bilbo, I said Bilbo! Frodo absolutely claimed mastery over the Ring at Mt. Doom, and I brought up that Bilbo didn't to show why he wasn't really affected as badly mentally as Frodo was. Ah, you're right.
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Dec 5, 2020 02:07
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:If you look in Appendix B, Frodo is repeatedly "taken ill" on the anniversaries of his stabbing at Weathertop (October 6) and his poisoning by Shelob (March 13th), but not the anniversary of the destruction of the Ring. I think that the fact that the loss of his finger does not traumatize him indicates that Frodo's problem is spiritual rather than physical or mental. In fact I think the reason it doesn't cause him pain later is because he loses the finger after he claims the ring. The damage to his soul was done at the moment he claimed it, and it froze him in place in a way, much like how Galadriel became a living memory or Morgoth became unable to heal himself.
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Dec 5, 2020 02:34
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sweet geek swag posted:I think that the fact that the loss of his finger does not traumatize him indicates that Frodo's problem is spiritual rather than physical or mental. In fact I think the reason it doesn't cause him pain later is because he loses the finger after he claims the ring. The damage to his soul was done at the moment he claimed it, and it froze him in place in a way, much like how Galadriel became a living memory or Morgoth became unable to heal himself. Hmm. I never thought of it that way. Makes sense. Frodo lost a finger when he lost the ring- I can't remember, was Sauron's loss of finger-and-ring a movie invention?
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Dec 5, 2020 04:16
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Tree Bucket posted:Hmm. I never thought of it that way. Makes sense. The thread talked about it recently actually, Gil-Galad and Elendil defeat Sauron, but die. Isildur claims the Ring from Sauron's body/remains. skasion posted:Isildur did not defeat Sauron in the book. Elendil and Gil-galad did the fighting, everyone involved died or was mortally injured. Then Isildur robbed Sauron’s corpse, or at the very most chopped a finger off a fallen enemy who could not resist him.
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Dec 5, 2020 04:18
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The exact phrase is that Isildur "cut the ring from the Enemy's hand" though, iirc?
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Dec 5, 2020 06:46
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Tree Bucket posted:Hmm. I never thought of it that way. Makes sense. Gollum refers to how Sauron only has four fingers on his Black Hand. So yeah, Isildur chopped off Sauron's finger.
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Dec 5, 2020 07:25
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Kemper Boyd posted:Gollum refers to how Sauron only has four fingers on his Black Hand. So yeah, Isildur chopped off Sauron's finger. I like how losing rid of one's Ring finger is generally easier than losing the Ring...
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Dec 5, 2020 07:33
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Tree Bucket posted:I like how losing rid of one's Ring finger is generally easier than losing the Ring...
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Dec 5, 2020 07:41
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At Imladris, lost fingat, write Red Book later
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Dec 5, 2020 10:52
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At Dol Guldur, lost fingat, raze Gondor later ed: raze. Raze is better. Runcible Cat fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Dec 5, 2020 |
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Dec 5, 2020 11:02
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sweet geek swag posted:Bilbo never tried to claim mastery of the Ring though. He tried to claim ownership of it, but that is an altogether different thing than trying to force the Ring to do your will. bilbo had a different ring
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Dec 5, 2020 15:16
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DontMockMySmock posted:Can't vouch for Falathrim's math, though. I noticed that using their numbers, 14900+18200 solar years does not equal 9.582 solar years per Valian year * 5000 Valian years. I'm not a Silmarillion/Tolkien expert, but looking at Tolkien Gateway it seems they missed out on 15,300 solar years between the creation of the Lamps and the growing of the Two Trees (i.e. the 18200 number is pre-Lamps, 15300 post-Lamps pre-Trees, and 14900 post-Trees). The Years of the Lamps spanned VY 1900–3450, a period of 1550 Valian years. 1550 × 9.582 = 14,852.1 solar years. I rounded that up. I never provided a number for the full span of time prior to the Sun and the Moon, since that question hadn't been asked. That, of course, would be a span of roughly (5000 × 9.582 ≈) 47,901 solar years. This number, 47,901, is explicitly stated in the text. DontMockMySmock posted:But the 9.582 solar-years-to-Valian-years ratio seems to be based on the conversion of 1 Valian hour = 7 hours, which doesn't seem like a very precise number. Assuming that could be anywhere from 6.5 to 7.5 and rounded to 7, that means that the ratio of Valian year-of-the-trees to solar year could be anywhere from 8.898 to 10.266. The conversion is laid out in The Annals of Aman. Tolkien never throws the precise value of 9.582 into the text, but you can work through the math with him to arrive at this number. Using a conversion factor of 9.582 also allows you to arrive at the 47,901 solar years cited by Tolkien, within an appropriate margin of error. Tolkien also provides an in--universe number for why this number seems so weird: the Valar had intended ten solar years to equal exactly one Valian year, but the Sun and Moon flew across the skies more quickly than by their designs. [EDIT: I've just recalled that while Tolkien himself never explicitly states the conversion factor of 9.582, Christopher does in his commentaries: Morgoth's Ring, pg. 59 posted:(ii) Relation of the reckoning by the Trees to the reckoning by the Sun DontMockMySmock posted:Also, there's another huge flaw in this system, both on the Tolkien Gateway and in Falathrim's post. There seems to be an assumption that the "Valian year" before the Trees is the same as after, which seems suspect, considering that the structure of the Valian year and the 9.582 ratio is based on how time was reckoned based on the blooming of the Trees. So they must have been reckoning time differently before the Trees, and presumably had a different arbitrary length of year. So we cannot conclude that the first 3,500 Valian years actually followed the 9.582 ratio. And the fact that they restarted their calendar numbering seems to lend credence to the idea that they were redefining the concept of a "year." Because of this, Falathrim's "I just continued the numbering from the start of Time" is a bad idea. While we've already arrived at this point, Tolkien is quite explicit in that the The Annals that all these dates use the same Valian year. The Valar didn't reckon Time at all until the Trees blossomed. The Eldar called the pre-Trees era the "Days before days" and back-calculated those dates after their arrival to Valinor. Per their calculations, there were exactly 5000 Valian years, of equal length, prior to the raising of the Moon, and this can be converted to 47,901 solar years. Falathrim fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Dec 5, 2020 |
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Dec 5, 2020 16:07
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"raising of the Moon" is just an excellent phrase. Really wonderful.Gats Akimbo posted:At Dol Guldur, lost fingat, raze Gondor later At Fangorn, Lost Wife, Ent Moot Later
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Dec 6, 2020 02:25
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Raising of the cellar door
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Dec 6, 2020 04:38
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Tree Bucket posted:"raising of the Moon" is just an excellent phrase. Really wonderful. in cave. lost precious. thief thief thief baggins! hate you forever!
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Dec 6, 2020 13:27
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Kindle edition of the Silmarillion is $2.99 today. I had been waiting a while cause my physical copy is multiple states away and someday I have to get more than ten pages in.
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Dec 7, 2020 13:34
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 Kid-friendly, you say?
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Dec 9, 2020 04:57
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Kilson posted:Kid-friendly, you say? Years ago, my little sister read about two paragraphs of the Sil and asked "why does he keep saying 'for' instead of 'because'"
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Dec 9, 2020 05:09
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Kilson posted:
yes
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Dec 9, 2020 10:38
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Tree Bucket posted:Years ago, my little sister read about two paragraphs of the Sil and asked "why does he keep saying 'for' instead of 'because'" because is one of the longest common words in english, "for" is far more efficient and sounds cooler
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Dec 9, 2020 11:18
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Like, as I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate LOTR more. But I still retain my youthful love for just how much more action-packed The Sil is. That was what drew me to it at first. I was big into nerd fights at the time, what fictional character could beat which other fictional character? And you learn very quickly even the mighty Witch-King is a chump compared to the powers in the First and Second Age. Fingolfin vs. Morgoth? Eat your heart out Gandalf vs. Balrog. So I can see calling The Sil kid friendly. Big booms and fights galore.
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Dec 9, 2020 11:37
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