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Shimrra Jamaane posted:I am not sure if Sauron knew who possessed the Three Rings at the end of the Third Age so he would absolutely have been concerned over some powerful Elf wielding one and sneaking into Mordor. If you think about it, something like that happened to his boss!
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Aug 31, 2022 17:51
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Ravenfood posted:I figured his specifications about rings etc was because he figured any spies coming in would be either powerful or carrying powerful objects like a very lesser magic ring. Not one of the Rings of Power, but still a ring. Certainly this would worry him, but he also night be worried about an assassination attempt being attempted by a great warrior who claimed the One Ring. Not that it might succeed necessarily, it is very unlikely that any mortal could even seriously hurt Sauron, even with the ring. But it would be very annoying if someone tried to sneak in with the ring and it sat in an orc's pocket for a century or two.
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Aug 31, 2022 20:36
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sweet geek swag posted:Certainly this would worry him, but he also night be worried about an assassination attempt being attempted by a great warrior who claimed the One Ring. Not that it might succeed necessarily, it is very unlikely that any mortal could even seriously hurt Sauron, even with the ring. But it would be very annoying if someone tried to sneak in with the ring and it sat in an orc's pocket for a century or two. Sauron could absolutely be killed at the time of the War of the Ring. He was killed at the pinnacle of his power while possessing the ring at the end of the Second Age. So in his late Third Age diminished and non-ring wielding form? Yeah he could be killed by quite a few strong individuals. This is why he remained held up in Barad-Dur the whole time and didn’t go near a battlefield as Denethor points out to Pippin.
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Aug 31, 2022 21:03
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Sauron could absolutely be killed at the time of the War of the Ring. He was killed at the pinnacle of his power while possessing the ring at the end of the Second Age. So in his late Third Age diminished and non-ring wielding form? Yeah he could be killed by quite a few strong individuals. This is why he remained held up in Barad-Dur the whole time and didn’t go near a battlefield as Denethor points out to Pippin. He wasn't killed, he can't be killed as long as the Ring exists, but I take your point. Still, that makes my main point more valid, he was scared of an assassination attempt.
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Aug 31, 2022 21:57
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sweet geek swag posted:He wasn't killed, he can't be killed as long as the Ring exists, but I take your point. Still, that makes my main point more valid, he was scared of an assassination attempt. Well yeah. But he was killed in body, just as he was killed in body on Numenor. Tolkien wrote at length about it, that he was dead and only through the continued existence of the ring could he recover and retake physical form over the centuries. No one would argue that Durin’s Bane wasn’t killed dead. What it’s Ainur spirit did afterwards who knows but it died.
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Aug 31, 2022 23:02
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Arc Hammer posted:Aragorn also got mad at frodo for mentioning that Galadriel had Nenya because word of it getting out into the open could only invite trouble. I remember that scene. He tells Frodo "it's nenya business"
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Aug 31, 2022 23:03
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Arc Hammer posted:I'd say he had a good idea of where two of them were even if he didn't know the specifics. Lothlorien was threatened during the war and Rivendell wouldn't be able to stay hidden for long after Saruman went turncoat. Sauron probably knew exactly where Rivendell was because it was assaulted in the first war he fought against the Elves in the Second Age, where he overran Eregion and Numenor came to the rescue. (the Appendices describe it as 'besieged')
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Sep 1, 2022 01:14
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hannibal posted:Sauron probably knew exactly where Rivendell was because it was assaulted in the first war he fought against the Elves in the Second Age, where he overran Eregion and Numenor came to the rescue. (the Appendices describe it as 'besieged') Didn't it also get besieged by Angmar later on as well?
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Sep 1, 2022 01:23
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Tree Bucket posted:I remember that scene. He tells Frodo "it's nenya business" Oh goddammit
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Sep 1, 2022 02:36
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Isn’t the whole point of Aragorns “a diversion” in the books is that, Sauron being Sauron, he will assume Aragorn has the ring? Because no one would be so catastrophically stupid as to do something like marching on Mordor if they didn’t have the power of the Ring. So even if it’s not actually possible, Sauron at least fears someone might claim the ring, sneak into Mordor, and I dunno, reenact the second shadow of Mordor game. So he wants anyone caught, Hobbit or not, searched.
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Sep 1, 2022 02:47
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galagazombie posted:Isn’t the whole point of Aragorns “a diversion” in the books is that, Sauron being Sauron, he will assume Aragorn has the ring? Because no one would be so catastrophically stupid as to do something like marching on Mordor if they didn’t have the power of the Ring. So even if it’s not actually possible, Sauron at least fears someone might claim the ring, sneak into Mordor, and I dunno, reenact the second shadow of Mordor game. So he wants anyone caught, Hobbit or not, searched. Aragorn is a strong enough individual of will, character, and authority to be able to wield the ring against Sauron. He would have almost certainly been able to actually carry out Boromir’s rambling boasts of grandeur about rallying large armies of men to overthrow Sauron and the tower Barad-dur. And Sauron understood this, and he understood the strength and potential divine threat that the heir of Elendil with the reforged blade of Narsil represented to him. So basically, if Aragorn had claimed the ring he would indeed have most likely been able to defeat Sauron’s horde on the field of battle. But Tolkien makes it explicitly clear that while Aragorn could claim and wield the ring he could never master it. And he could never destroy it. Absolutely no being of a lower stature than Sauron would, including figures like Galadriel. Only Gandalf the White would have had a chance to make the ring bend to his own will. And even then, he’d have become the next dark lord. Anyway, if Sauron were defeated by Aragorn he would either escape and flee to the far off East or if killed, be reset back to where he was at the end of the Second Age and Aragorn would slowly but inevitably become corrupted by the ring until he either had the strength enough to forsake it or turn into a tyrant and then a wraith. Shimrra Jamaane fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Sep 1, 2022 |
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Sep 1, 2022 03:01
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Learning how to wield the ring would also take time so Aragorn's gambit makes Sauron think he's overextending himself. It's not like you just put the ring on and you're instantly the master of it. You have to learn how to use it and bend it to your will. And Gandalf knows that and it's part of why they do it because he knows Sauron will think they're over extending
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Sep 1, 2022 03:37
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Regarding the ultimate fate of Sauron and Saruman, after Morgoth got hosed up that one time, Eonwë commanded Sauron to return to Valinor and present himself before Manwë to be judged, but instead he just... didn't. If Saruman wanted to return West and was refused, that represents a change in their policy for how to handle Maia who go over to the Enemy. Possibly the Changing of the World was involved.
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Sep 1, 2022 04:52
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Giving first Melkor parole and then Sauron only for it to blow up in their faces each time may have soured them on that particular policy. Well I guess it’s debatable whether it “blew up in their faces” with Sauron since he didn’t exactly accept and wasn’t given free reign to secretly go around making deals with spider demons and stealing jewels. But they did kinda just shrug and decide not to worry about it despite it being pretty obvious what Satans right hand man is going to get up to when he refuses to turn himself in.
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Sep 1, 2022 06:05
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galagazombie posted:Giving first Melkor parole and then Sauron only for it to blow up in their faces each time may have soured them on that particular policy. Well I guess it’s debatable whether it “blew up in their faces” with Sauron since he didn’t exactly accept and wasn’t given free reign to secretly go around making deals with spider demons and stealing jewels. But they did kinda just shrug and decide not to worry about it despite it being pretty obvious what Satans right hand man is going to get up to when he refuses to turn himself in. Sauron is noted to have sort of genuinely tried to repent after the War of Wrath. He just thought the best way to do this was to stay and fix things himself. I've always wondered at what Tolkien was trying to say by having the two most notable Maia to fall both be Maia of Aule, the one Vala besides Melkor to have defied Eru. Of course Aule immediately repented and became contrite, ready to genocide his own creations. I don't think Sauron or Saruman ever had that level of humility in them They had very prideful and "scientific" minds which meant they saw things that needed to be fixed and they figured no one was better for that job than them. Because Saruman also had at least one moment of potential repentance but his fear, his guilt, and his pride mastered him. Contrast with Boromir who also felt great shame in his lapse but immediately did all in his power to rectify it and confessed his fault/sin. Sometimes LOTR is so Christian it hurts. Really sticks out to me now since I'm reading a lot about Tragedies. They can be moralistic but also there's a kind of glamor in the tragic hero who never yields. NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Sep 1, 2022 |
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Sep 1, 2022 06:48
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Following on from the earlier talk about Tolkien and futurism and what he really thought of science and technology, and thinking about how well he did actually grok the baser natures of human beings and the different kinds of people there are and what their natural actions lead to in societal settings, the above makes me think about whether he had a better-than-average grasp on what we've come to know about modern nerds and other technically minded people. As a nerd with a science education I naturally want to take umbrage at the idea that such a mind is inherently "prideful" or "only I can fix it", but given the disproportionate levels of bigotry/misogyny/proto-fascism that we see endemic in techbro culture it's ... kind of not wrong. Though I'm wondering if he wasn't also playing on the then-extant "mad scientist" trope? People who have no moral compunction against playing God. His Saruman could have been dreamed up the morning after seeing/reading Frankenstein
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Sep 1, 2022 11:30
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Something really compelling about the idea of Techbro Saruman
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Sep 1, 2022 12:08
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Data Graham posted:Following on from the earlier talk about Tolkien and futurism and what he really thought of science and technology, and thinking about how well he did actually grok the baser natures of human beings and the different kinds of people there are and what their natural actions lead to in societal settings, the above makes me think about whether he had a better-than-average grasp on what we've come to know about modern nerds and other technically minded people. As a nerd with a science education I naturally want to take umbrage at the idea that such a mind is inherently "prideful" or "only I can fix it", but given the disproportionate levels of bigotry/misogyny/proto-fascism that we see endemic in techbro culture it's ... kind of not wrong. Saruman and Sauron are very reasonant figures in the techbro era (which adds to the irony of Bezos, Palantir, etc.), but I feel that Tolkien's position was probably closer to a general conservative scepticism toward industrial society and perceived utopianism (political or otherwise) that you also find in others like Chesterton and Buckley. Don't immanentize the eschaton, etc. The idea of Orcs with the super dramatic disposition of Frankenstein's Monster is amusing though.
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Sep 1, 2022 12:31
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There is a lot of literature on tolkiens ideas of sub creation which is what you are talking about
euphronius fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Sep 1, 2022 |
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Sep 1, 2022 12:40
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There’s a fantastic discussion on this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wQSk8TM-7xs
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Sep 1, 2022 12:51
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I succumbed to Instagram ads and ordered a new sweater fom Boxlunch. 
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Sep 2, 2022 00:19
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Im getting into the first episode. This show is going to piss sooooo many people off. Shortest summary of the Silmarillion I've ever seen.
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Sep 2, 2022 02:28
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Arc Hammer posted:Im getting into the first episode. This show is going to piss sooooo many people off. Well what other summary of the Silmarillion have you ever seen?
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Sep 2, 2022 02:50
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Well what other summary of the Silmarillion have you ever seen? You ever have a friend who wants to talk about a show or book they really love but they don't know how to explain it without going off on tangents and suddenly they've been talking forever and you're just nodding your head? That's the way my mom first described Silmarillion to me after she read Lord of the Rings to us as kids and I asked about the other books on the shelf.
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Sep 2, 2022 02:55
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Well what other summary of the Silmarillion have you ever seen?
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Sep 2, 2022 02:58
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Episode 1 down. Hoo boy there's gonna be a lot to talk about. Starting episode 2 now. I'll say this up front, the Elves are closer to Warhammer Fantasy Elves than they are to Peter Jackson's ethereal Elves. So that puts them somewhere middling with regards to how well they align with Tolkien Elves. Definitely more personality than most Jackson Elves.
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Sep 2, 2022 03:06
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Arc Hammer posted:You ever have a friend who wants to talk about a show or book they really love but they don't know how to explain it without going off on tangents and suddenly they've been talking forever and you're just nodding your head? “Now we must turn to the general outline of metaphysics and its relation to the human condition.”
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Sep 2, 2022 03:10
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We got a TVIV thread here if you want it https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4007279&pagenumber=16#lastpost I really enjoyed Ep. 1! These are some Elves with actual character and distinctiveness, a long way from the ethereal-pronouncements I was fearing, and yet holy crap they went hard on the tonal whiplash between the way they talk and the country-bumpkin patois of the Harfoots and the Southland humans. The writers know what they're doing I'm actually kind of impressed at how much metaphysical philosophical stuff they're putting in, in all the dialogue between Galadriel and Elrond etc. Really feels like they got some people on board who want to do more than a surface-level skim of the material.
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Sep 2, 2022 03:15
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Really like episode 1 as well. Not going to drop any spoilers or anything, but I really enjoy the characterizations of Elrond and Galadriel. I'm pretty sure I see what they're going for with both of them, and it means they're actually going to have character arcs.
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Sep 2, 2022 03:21
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Yeah when I say it's going to piss people off it doesn't mean I didn't like it myself. I find it fascinating so far but there are certain choices that some groups might hate. But these Dwarves are pretty great. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Sep 2, 2022 |
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Sep 2, 2022 03:29
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I had a bad feeling about this show going in but I really enjoyed episode 1 too. The trailers were all so devoid of personality and I’m glad to see that doesn’t apply to the show.
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Sep 2, 2022 03:59
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Finished both episodes. Episode 2 was much stronger than the first one. Thoughts on things I'm not sold on: The prologue was an extremely abbreviated version of the Silmarillion and since I can't view it through the eyes of someone who hasn't read the story I can't say how easy it is for the average person to follow. For me it felt like a lot of stuff that should be extremely important was cut or condensed. The battle scene looked like a three way mix of the Dagor Bragollach, the Nirnaeth Arnoediad and the War of Wrath and Finrod's duel with Sauron was moved to after Morgoth's defeat. The whole relationship between Elfkind and Man is completely absent from the prologue when that should be a big deal especially given how strained relations between the two races are in the episodes so far. Gil-Galad rewarding the Elven lords with passage to Aman was bizarre, like it was a prize rather than the inevitability of all Eldar to seek the West. Ultimately it doesn't do much besides put Galadriel in the sea so she can meet Halbrand and get on a ship to Numenor. I'm wondering how the Stranger is going to play out if it's actually Sauron or just another Maia come to Middle Earth. This one is a wait and see for me. Arondir's partner was the schlubbiest Elf I've ever seen and I don't know how he can consider the two kindreds of Men and Elf to be tragedies where "they die" when the Chad Tuor got to go to Valinor and Beren and Luthien were the two baddest heroes of the First Age this side of Fingolfin. I'm wondering if the fortress in the Forodwaithe was meant to be Utumno and if they're going to expand further upon Finrod's apparent hunt for Sauron AFTER the War of Wrath. They really didn't have the rights to the Silmarillion because man that was a short prologue. Galadriel is several thousand years old at this point but feels like she's a bit too brash and impulsive. I'm hoping that she works through this and doesn't feel she needs to be a warrior in the Second Age forever. I do like her interactions with Elrond and it's funny that she'll be his mother in law eventually. Stuff I really liked was with the Dwarves and the Harfoots. The Harfoots are fun proto hobbits and the Dwarves were the best part of both episodes. Absolutely nail their gruffness, cheerfulness and grudges without sacrificing their honour and sense of decency. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Sep 2, 2022 |
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Sep 2, 2022 04:20
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Arc Hammer posted:Finished both episodes. Episode 2 was much stronger than the first one. Harfeet!
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Sep 2, 2022 04:37
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Whatever you say, Brandyfoot.
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Sep 2, 2022 04:40
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The scene where the elves on the boat to Valinor spontaneously break into song is simultaneously the goofiest and most Tolkien-like thing in the whole show so far.
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Sep 2, 2022 04:43
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On the one hand I would have liked a full rear end recap of the Silmarillion and first age but I'm also pretty glad they kept it relatively short and it didn't feel like a clone of the beginning of the the two movie trilogies. Liking it a lot so far. Prettier and funnier than I expected.
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Sep 2, 2022 05:17
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Too late to do a big post I mostly really liked it and I'm mad about cause now I'm going to keep watching it.
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Sep 2, 2022 05:27
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I think I will prefer to talk about it here than in the TV IV thread, if that's all right. It looks like that thread's gonna be a mess for the indefinite future. Seems like they spent two episodes planting seeds of future plotlines, but I'm into it. You had to expect they were going to play fast and loose with the story details, and that's just fine with me. I get the feeling like they're trying to set it up so there will be tension and mystery both for the hardcore Tolkienheads and casual audiences. For instance, take the "giant" that Nori is looking after. Someone who doesn't know poo poo about gently caress is gonna be wondering who this magical old man is. Someone who vaguely remembers the movies is gonna be thinking, Is that Gandalf? Someone still more into Lord of the Rings proper might wonder if that's Saruman or Radagast instead. And those who've delved too greedily and too deep into the other stuff will be wondering what one of the Istari is doing here in the Second Age. That'd have to be Alatar or Pallando in that case, surely? Other impressions: Young Elrond as a budding diplomat, literally Gil-Galad's speechwriter, is a promising take on the character. Ambitious, glib, and overconfident, but despite that well-meaning and insightful - already he's been set up as a very layered character. Harfoots as an insular migratory people who can expertly conceal their entitle settlement any time a Big Person lumbers through is a very imaginatively realized concept. The montage of shedding the camouflage was a great scene. Love it. I'd like it if the mystery in the Southland villages had been a bit more sharply realized, but I appreciate the general shape of what's going on. Orcs evaded detection because they were literally underground, abetted by the kinds of people who kept Sauron's heirlooms. It adds an interesting wrinkle to the mutual distrust between Elves and Men if there are both genuine secret adherents to the Shadow as well as people who merely justifiably think Elves can go gently caress themselves. That's the one plotline with the fewest characters taken directly from Tolkien (at least until Galadriel inevitably crashes into the fallout), but it's a good opportunity to add nuance to the estrangement of the Children. I'm guessing the shiny object in Durin's dad's chest is an ingot of mithril. I liked it and I'm glad that I liked it. Didn't pick up on any red flags here.
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Sep 2, 2022 05:43
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Thoughts on the Stranger. Definitely a Maia, engulfed in flames so I'm veering towards him being either the uncorrupted form of one of the Valaraukar or it's Olorin come a couple thousand years earlier and not going by Gandalf yet. It's either the Flame of Anor or the Flame of Udun surrounding him. Thoughts on Durin I don't know why but I feel like the shiny thing in the chest is a shard of the Nauglamir that the Dwarves possibly managed to keep, especially since Durin was showing it to his son after going on a spiel about how Elf and Dwarf cannot trust one another. Interesting that the Dwarves invoke Aulë rather than Mahal. Maybe it's because they're in the presence of an Elf and they don't want to speak Khuzdul in public. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Sep 2, 2022 |
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Sep 2, 2022 05:45
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Cautiously optimistic after the first two episodes. There are some nitpicks but so far seems to be at least in the spirit of the thing (much like the movies). Also, drat beautiful. (and the soundtrack is amazing -- love Bear McCreary's work) Elrond and Galadriel will carry this series. Both incredible performances. Not really a fan of the Harfoots and random new characters they've created but understand why they're there. Theories: Stranger Can't be a good guy, the fireflies die! But Sauron seems like way out of character. And a Maia wouldn't travel by meteor, or be confused about who they are. Not sure what they're doing here. Not Gandalf or one of the Istari since they don't show up until the Third Age (and they better not change that). Nitpicks: ep1 They're doing weird things with chronology here -- that map should have had Beleriand, no? Not sure why they felt a need to change it since Numenor is raised directly as a consequence to provide a home for Men displaced by the sinking of Beleriand. Hopefully this is an inconsequential change but I'm wary of changes for change-sake (I felt the WoT series suffered a lot from this). Also they kind of ... skipped the Kinslaying? What? You can't change that. That's too big an event. ep2 Knife-ears? What is this, Dragon Age? Galadriel goes to Numenor? That was the Numenor theme from the soundtrack playing if I'm not mistaken. But Galadriel never went to Numenor. Honestly the entire Gil-galad sends Galadriel to Valinor (she's his great aunt and she was in Valinor and he wasn't, he would not "command her" like that argh this whole sequence) and she jumps off a ship and swims the entire length of the ocean back to off the coast of Numenor is kind of ... wtf? Just why. Stuff like this makes me worried about the series. Also Elrond and Durin just happened to be friends? What? And the made-up Rite was kind of ... dumb? But ok, I'll roll with it I guess. But again, unsettling. My school of book->film adaptation is "cut for length, but try to avoid making up new stuff unless absolutely necessary because of stuff you cut (e.g. combining characters)" -- it feels like they're much more leaning toward a "reinterpretation" of the underlying source material instead of a pure adaptation. (I'd argue the Jackson LoTR movies stuck pretty close to my PoV, whereas the Hobbit trilogy started making poo poo up and suffered for it). alcaras fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Sep 2, 2022 |
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