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Pippin is hereditary nobility.
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Jun 17, 2023 05:41
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Bongo Bill posted:Pippin is hereditary nobility.
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Jun 17, 2023 08:18
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Nessus posted:So you'd say he has a certain amount of sin from birth? Perhaps a sort of, original sin? No, but he is immune from consequences particularly involving peasant farmers
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Jun 17, 2023 08:28
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Halflings go to Half-Hell
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Jun 17, 2023 09:53
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Halflings in a half hell Eru's power!
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Jun 17, 2023 10:10
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Barry Foster posted:Halflings in a half hell
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Jun 17, 2023 11:10
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Mike N Eich posted:
Gandalf the White has to deal with much more bullshit than Gandalf the Grey. In Fellowship he just have to guide some idiots into the general direction of Mordor while in the other two movies he has to deal with politics knowing that the orcs are the front door.
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Jun 17, 2023 15:13
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Anshu posted:The souls of Men (hobbits presumably included) do go to Valinor for a brief check-in with Mandos before moving on to whatever Eru has purposed for us. We know this because Beren refuses to move on until Luthien arrives in the Halls to persuade Mandos to resurrect them. Turin is still sitting there, waiting for the time when he can finally get his revenge on that bastard Morgoth.
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Jun 17, 2023 18:18
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The council of Elrond was a lot of politicking I think but “off screen “
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Jun 17, 2023 20:56
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euphronius posted:The council of Elrond was a lot of politicking I think but “off screen “ Most of the politicking was getting them to show up in the first place. Once there Gandalf and Elrond showed how the pieces each of them had fit together and Gandalf made his case.
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Jun 18, 2023 03:14
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There was 0 politicking getting them to show up 100% will of eru Elrond is surprised they are there
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Jun 18, 2023 03:16
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Barry Foster posted:Halflings in a half hell
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Jun 18, 2023 04:26
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Tweenage Halfling Buckland Turtles.
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Jun 18, 2023 05:00
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Arc Hammer posted:Tweenage Halfling Buckland Turtles. ProudFEET!
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Jun 18, 2023 05:58
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Something I've wondered about off and on for a long time — It seems pretty clear that Tolkien had little to no interest in America for whatever reason, whether it's just that he didn't much care for American English or whatnot else. Like to my knowledge he never went there or wrote anything about it or alluding to it specifically, though we know he did travel plenty in Europe in his earlier days at least. But looking at the themes and motifs that keep cropping up in his fiction, like the "sea-longing" in particular and the whole deal with sailing westward (or eastward in the Numenóreans' case) and the placement of Valinor with respect to the "English" and "European" landmasses, it's always made me wonder whether he's tapping into a kind of latent European zeitgeist about the Age of Sail and discovery. Like just looking at Aldarion and Erendis, where the whole premise is about imperialistic voyages to the "New World" as it were, in search of resources and raw materials like gold and silver and timber, not to mention the slave trade that arises. And the founding of colonies and a port city called Vinyalondë (New Haven), that's a bit on the nose, no? An American writer, I can't help but feel (from my perspective as an American), wouldn't have as much of a cultural urge to write like that. Unless they were a super weird Imperial Britain nerd or something. American writers historically have tended towards our own homegrown forms of imperialism, whether the Old West or our own overseas adventures. But would someone in Tolkien's milieu be more prone to the kind of thinking that suggests "sailing across the sea in search of new lands and to assuage the urge to be on a ship at sea, with the cry of the gulls and the limitless horizon and the wind at your back" etc? (and now that I write that sentence, is Star Trek a counter to my own point?) I know this is all speculation (or "critfic" if you like), but I kind of want to understand whether there's some deeply embedded, never-quenched thing in the British or European cultural psyche that would have led Tolkien to fetishize the westward-sailing motif even if he never acknowledged that that was what he was doing.
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Jun 21, 2023 14:32
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I think most British sailing for adventure and trade as well as colonization would have gone to the West at least at first. East you just have the Baltic and Germany. West you have the world.
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Jun 21, 2023 14:54
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It’s an interesting question. Tolkien does mention the US here and there in his published letters (often in a negative light). American stories about Native Americans were one of Tolkien’s earliest literary influences. If I recall, the dedication of one of the American editions was especially “to his readers across the sea”, which is clearly using the language of the stories to draw a comparison between America and the fictional West. But that was likely a cynical attempt to draw readers away from the unlicensed Ace books edition. I do wonder about a mythos of the age of sail and westward sailing in Tolkien, but it seems very unlikely there’s any deep connection between Tolkien’s West and the actual United States.
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Jun 21, 2023 14:55
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Tolkien was interested in the medieval Irish “Imram” tradition in which some voyager (usually a hero and/or saint) sets out into the oceans to find various islands of wonders. In the end they conventionally find some kind of earthly paradise, sail back home to tell the tale, and sometimes set out once again, never to return. The ultimate destination across the sea is of course Tir na nOg, blessed realm where the gods live forever. Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a much more straightforward modern version of the same theme, albeit going to the east instead—not sure why Lewis chose to orient his fantasy world that way tbqh. The literary tradition probably does relate to a general ancient understanding that there are lands out there across the Atlantic that can be sailed to if the divine powers are with you (in one of the classical imram stories the voyagers end up rather prosaically by founding a monastery in Spain). And this piece of “common knowledge” persisted right up to the actual exploratory/colonial age. In “On Fairy Stories” JRRT directly links the naming of colonial Brazil to the mythical medieval isle of Hy-Breasail off Ireland, which is apparently a bit tenuous on etymological grounds, but certainly shows that he was aware of some sympathy or conceptual overlap between the medieval Otherworld and the modern New World.
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Jun 21, 2023 15:19
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skasion posted:not sure why Lewis chose to orient his fantasy world that way tbqh. Well, if in this tradition the gods (or Gods, or God) dwell across the sea, maybe Lewis had his God dwell in the direction of Jerusalem? Just a guess. Or he was just trying to not deliberately ape Tolkien.
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Jun 21, 2023 15:23
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skasion posted:not sure why Lewis chose to orient his fantasy world that way tbqh. I always sort of assumed the stupidest occams-razor answer to this, he didn't want to be seen as copying Tolkien so he did the opposite lol But yeah, now I remember he did mention America and its Old West/natives-and-colonists dynamics in On Fairy-Stories. Only in the context of what interested him as a kid, though (as opposed to sci-fi type stuff if I recall). Thinking about where the Imram kinds of myths would have come from and the cultures in which they would have developed, where the Atlantic had never been successfully crossed (at least in living memory) and there are only vague rumors of lands across the sea that would have come down from the Vikings, that in and of itself is the kind of altered perspective that I imagine being analogous to Tolkien's-vs-ours. Like what would it have been like to write those kinds of stories in a real world where the Sea was, for all intents and purposes, an impassable barrier and beyond it was only dragons and gods and sea monsters? How different from that is it to imagine Tolkien writing from the vantage point of a country/culture that had always been in the position of sending its sailors across the sea in search of gold and other colonial resources? Just a fun mental exercise I guess, but not a valueless one from the angle of being able to understand people's cultural contexts.
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Jun 21, 2023 15:38
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Sylink posted:The worst part of the trilogy is the ghost army that just cleans up the battle of the pellenor. Nah, the rotting hologram ghosts generally own. The shots from far away where they look like green mist aren't great, but close ups are fun. Plus in the film there are no other reinforcements Gondors population is only in Minas tirith, and as OP as aragorn gimli & Legolas are they need a magic solution for that battle.
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Jun 21, 2023 15:51
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The oathbreaker army sucks, I hate it so much. I hate that they're all green and spectral, I hate that there is some king guy who tries to defy Aragorn. Why is there an avalanche of human skulls? Aragorn marching under black banners at the front of an army of ghosts, while people refer to him as the king of the dead, and acting as if he's welding the ring is legitimately great. The movies brush over all that, in favour of boring rear end battle scenes with legolas surfing down an elephant trunk.
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Jun 21, 2023 15:59
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The avalanche of skulls was not in the theatrical release iirc
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Jun 21, 2023 16:00
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Data Graham posted:This has always been my vote. Yeah way to just cheapen all the sacrifice you've just finished drumming into everyone's heads, if Aragorn had arrived five minutes sooner you could have saved Theoden and about 5000 soldiers/riders etc Well they're ghost warriors, not ghost sailors! Your solution is to change even more of the story? Isn't theoden dying and eowyn killing angmar a pretty essential part, or what?
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Jun 21, 2023 16:06
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Blood Boils posted:Well they're ghost warriors, not ghost sailors! No, I wouldn't want to lose any of that, but to avoid cheapening the sacrifices the ghost army could have faced a bit more resistance than just "they swoosh up into the city in seconds and dissolve everyone like scrubbing bubbles, leaving Aragorn standing there with his sword looking around befuddled like John Travolta going uhhhh okay I guess that's over, don't need me? ok" A comedy beat was a dumb and weird call
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Jun 21, 2023 16:12
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euphronius posted:The avalanche of skulls was not in the theatrical release iirc Yeah it just cuts to them scrambling out into the sunlight after Aragorn scares the dead king guy. The paths of the dead were, weirdly, cooler looking in the tie-in game. Maybe a case of concept art not making it to the big time. There’s also a pain in the rear end boss fight where you have to hide behind rocks while the king of the dead goes “HOOOOOO” at you for mondo damage
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Jun 21, 2023 16:19
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That and the Cirith Ungol collapsing bridge killed me and my cousin so many goddam times in co-op
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Jun 21, 2023 17:05
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I think the ghost army scrub-a-dub-dubing the Orcs at Minas Tirith is one of the worst aspects of the adaptation, but what can you do. You can't have Aragorn go up into the Paths of the Dead for a cool confrontation and kingly moment and only have it pay off with the Dead scaring a few people off and then disappearing. It works on the page but not so much cinematically.
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Jun 21, 2023 17:24
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The two also work under an entirely different concept of battle and the depiction therefore changes. There is almost nothing about morale or the flow of battle in the movie rendition, it's all about killing the enemy. From the perspective of Saurons forces, "the corsairs are defeated, the relief isn't coming, the enemy are landing a totally unknown and unaccounted for army flying the flag of the King of Gondor on a previously safe flank, and our Witch King just got murdered" just breaks their collective back and they loving run. None of those things are hugely significant in the context of the movie's language of battle, because they don't really have huge impacts on how the armies actually kill. Changes of the winds both representing and causing changes to the entire course of the battle works so well in the books and just doesn't in the movies, not entirely because of the visual choices of the directors, or because of the medium, but because of the current cultural language of film battles. E: poo poo, just think of how significant the dawnless day is in the books and it just essentially doesn't happen in the movies. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Jun 21, 2023 |
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Jun 21, 2023 17:53
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:That and the Cirith Ungol collapsing bridge killed me and my cousin so many goddam times in co-op It's all coming down!
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Jun 21, 2023 17:56
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Return of the King PS2 game was so much fun. No Viggo Mortensen so they found a guy who only kind of sounds like Viggo and then had him scream all of his lines. And then you had David Wenham describing Faramir's fighting style as that of a rabid mongoose.
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Jun 21, 2023 19:51
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Flakey posted:It's all coming down! "EVERYTHING COLLAPSES"-Elessar Telcontar
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Jun 21, 2023 20:11
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:"EVERYTHING COLLAPSES"-Elessar Telcontar Tbqh not a bad attempt at a two word summary of Tolkien’s fiction
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Jun 21, 2023 20:13
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Oracle posted:I feel like I read somewhere that Tauriel's love interest plot got fiated by the money people who wanted romance in their fantasy fanboy orc-filled movie so's not to bore the girlfriends who just came cuz Legolas is cute. People are always saying (hoping?) this but to date no one has backed it up with naming the execs who outranked Jackson on the series, which means the prime suspects are the writers, PJ himself & Fran Walsh & Phillipa Boyens. After all, Tauriel fits with their treatment of arwen and eowyn. Tbf to them the she-elf could be a holdover from del Toro, he's not afraid of romance in fantasy. Maybe that's why PJ canned him; GDT would have had the cajones to keep Fili (or was it Kili?) ugly instead of the only dwarf without goofy prosthetics, and had them kiss while still alive! keep punching joe posted:The oathbreaker army sucks, I hate it so much. I hate that they're all green and spectral, I hate that there is some king guy who tries to defy Aragorn. Why is there an avalanche of human skulls? The green colouring is to tie them visually to the dead marsh ghosts, I assume. Why green ghosts to begin with? Maybe influence from Ghostbusters, Disney's haunted mansion etc  There's a wide range of influences in these movies, Tolkien's dwarves aren't Scottish anymore than his elves behave like Vulcans.The tinge is whatever but the shifting spectralness rules, sorry.What's wrong with (briefly, unsuccessfully) defying Aragorn? The avalanche is just the rule of cool, it's fun like the Oliphant surfing. Blood Boils fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Jun 21, 2023 |
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Jun 21, 2023 20:38
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Blood Boils posted:People are always saying (hoping?) this but to date no one has backed it up with naming the execs who outranked Jackson on the series, which means the prime suspects are the writers, PJ himself & Fran Walsh & Phillipa Boyens. After all, Tauriel fits with their treatment of arwen and eowyn. Tbf to them the she-elf could be a holdover from del Toro, he's not afraid of romance in fantasy. Maybe that's why PJ canned him; GDT would have had the cajones to keep Fili (or was it Kili?) ugly instead of the only dwarf without goofy prosthetics, and had them kiss while still alive! According to this reddit post it was Boyens, though she uses "we" so presumably Jackson and Walsh were also on board.
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Jun 21, 2023 21:20
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Data Graham posted:No, I wouldn't want to lose any of that, but to avoid cheapening the sacrifices the ghost army could have faced a bit more resistance than just "they swoosh up into the city in seconds and dissolve everyone like scrubbing bubbles, leaving Aragorn standing there with his sword looking around befuddled like John Travolta going uhhhh okay I guess that's over, don't need me? ok" Yeah the tide of Tide looks bad, that aspect I agree with. But c'mon this a Peter Jackson joint, the third in a series - you kinda have to accept that bad comedy is part of the style by this point DontMockMySmock posted:According to this reddit post it was Boyens, though she uses "we" so presumably Jackson and Walsh were also on board. That's what I figured. And yeah, of course PJ was on board with it; beyond being one of the writers he's the executive producer and eventual director! Blood Boils fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Jun 21, 2023 |
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Jun 21, 2023 21:20
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The oathbreakers being unable to do any physical damage but still saving the day at the climactic moment through pure intimidation + the help of a few living allies to help sell the threat could have worked and even been quite cinematic, it's just that you'd also need to set up the Grey Company, the threat of the Umbar ships, etc. IMHO it would have also needed for Aragorn recruiting them to be serendipitous (something he stumble upon while rallying the Grey Company) because him specifically going out of his way at a crucial moment to enlist the help of a bunch of mythical guys who can't actually harm anyone would probably feel contrived to movie audiences.
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Jun 22, 2023 17:01
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"Tricking the enemy into thinking they're outnumbered and running away in panic, upon which your harmless coconspirators/force of children/illusions/etc throw off their cloaks and everyone has a good laugh" has a well-established track record both in film and in battlefield reality. I call the Three Amigos as my first witness, and we're gonna be here a while your honor
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Jun 22, 2023 17:31
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The biggest factor to victory in Lord of the Rings comes down to hope and fear and how those emotional states dictate the flow of battle. A person who fears will run, while a person with hope will stand. That's not as easy to get across in film when you also have to show off spectacle. So rather than a rock paper scissors of emotional swings the films do a rock, bigger rock, biggest rock where each new piece of the battle smacks aside the smaller piece until you have the immortal ghost army swarming orcs like fire ants.
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Jun 22, 2023 17:47
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Getting flanked by a surprise cavalry charge will do a number on morale
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Jun 22, 2023 18:01
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