Lord of the Rings

that sense of being hunted and lost, the "behind enemy lines" vibe of the first book through rivendell is so great.

i think strider being somewhat obscure in his abilities- capable, trusted by gandalf, sure, but unsure, imperfect, certainly not up to taking on the forces hes up against and knows it- is critical to the shift from hobbit-sized danger to a story that becomes a young adult/adult touchstone.

― kim rong un (darraghmac), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 22:47 (eleven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

ppl will refer to lotr as a work that birthed every cliche going but there's something quite striking in how useless direct confrontation is with a powerful enemy is, and how *badly* it turns out time and time again.

only second tier characters want to fight, gandalf and strider are the most powerful respectively in magic and arms of the fellowship and they spend large parts of the story avoiding having to demonstrate this and the story makes a point of demonstrating why, imo

of course, the movie glorying in special moves like a final fantasy cut scene gets this utterly wrong also.

might read it again with this new-sprung take tbh

― kim rong un (darraghmac), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 22:56 (eleven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think these thoughts from the bump a while back are relevant re the tonal shift from hobbiton to "oh shit" and also tolkien's unwillingness to have a big boss enemy you can directly confront and win out cleanly

Id add (from today's posts) that the real "oh shit" difference between hobbit and LOTR is that our guiding lights, strider and gandalf, have very early in their LOTR arcs moments that let the hobbits and the reader know that they havent a clue about anything other than that they are not up to this task.

Thats a huge jump from children's tale hobbit (gandalf is bigger than any episodic danger bar smaug) to teenager/older adventure of a much less certain and bumbling type

the first half of Two Towers got a little tedious in spots, what with all the journeying

Cannot agree, these books are about *walking* after all, as proved upthread

One thing I like about the main resolution in LOTR is that we never have a 'bunker' scene (to put the WWII comparison he always hated, I admit).

I do love that we get the briefest insight into Sauron's mind as "his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash, and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare." I don't think the movie caught this very effectively, tbh - the slight double-take as the spotlight turns towards the Cracks of Doom (though I don't like Sauron-as-literal-giant-eye very much to begin with.)

The whole sequence inside the mountain is like three pages. LOTR can be incredibly fast and exciting sometimes.

Cannot agree, these books are about *walking* after all, as proved upthread

story woulda been way better with a transcontinental railroad

Love Éomer's amazement at how good they are at walking.

"Wingfoot I name you. This deed of the three friends should be sung in many a hall."

it was surprising how short the final mount doom sequence was - but the impact is not minimized at all, it hits hard with maximum efficiency

also i love in this from Scouring of the Shire, after Frodo tells the Gaffer that Sam is one of the most famous people in all the lands:

... “It takes a lot o’believing” said the Gaffer,“Though I can see he’s been mixing in strange company. What’s come of his weskit? I dont hold with wearing ironmongery, whether it wears well or no.” ...

Best line in the book is gaffer about frodo teaching sam his letters tbrr

but overall i love the trilogy as a whole and the deep changes that the 4 hobbits go through is so affecting & beautifully illustrated - without ever really making a point of saying that outright? he gives you the chance to get to know them so well over the course of the books that by the end it’s purely in your own mindseye’s contrast that you see the ghosts of their former carefree selves almost, idk, floating away

this is very charmingly put

i seem to recall tolkien saying something to the extent that with merry and pippin he actually wanted to have characters that are mostly unchanged (unspoiled might be a better word even) by the horrors they experience (well, not counting the Palantir Experiment i guess) as a testament to the resilience of hobbits but also as an expression of hope that we can retain our humanity even after going through inhumane experiences

the funniest difference to me btw the books & the movie is how much storyline the movies give to aragorn & arwen vs the handful of sentences they get in the books including “oh and btw they got married & it was v nice”

it cracks me up

it doesnt me

yes yes i know yr v serious

darraghmac on Tolkien
i know
i know
it's serious

heeee

yeah darraghorn

(and don't get me started on the awful resolution to Smaug's story).

i found smaug's fate disappointing when i first read the book as a kid -- it seemed odd that the book's great villain should be killed by a character who had just been introduced a couple of pages ago, and not by our heroes who we've been hanging out with for the past 300 pages. on the other hand...what's the alternative? there really is no plausible way for thorin and his pals to get rid of the dragon. they don't even seem to have a plan, unless their plan is to have bilbo sneak in and steal all the treasure back, one cup at a time. (admittedly a pretty funny thought.)

My niece recently suggested that the hobbits should've waited till "the dragon was doing a poo" and then snuck in and stole the gold

omg somehow i did not have this thread bookmarked --- Veg has been liveblogging the book?!? Ned has a podcast?!? good god have i been missing out!

I love Smaug's death! It's like The Hobbit suddenly turns into a Tarantino film or Westlake novel. How could any of the boys have anticipated that Smaug would go and get himself whacked by some random blockhead?

the book's great villain is arguing (or the avarice of the short - let's just saying it's arguing)

Theyre called halflings not short-lets

omg somehow i did not have this thread bookmarked --- Veg has been liveblogging the book?!? Ned has a podcast?!? good god have i been missing out!

BTW if you want some great Mordor vibes the Iceland volcano coverage is amazing, especially given the generally brown landscape and slopes otherwise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA-9QzIcr3c

And then we got

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/05/soviet-tv-version-lord-of-the-rings-rediscovered-after-30-years

In Soviet Russia, elephant thing takes you down hardcore, etc.

caught up on this thread over the past day! SUCH good discussion, bravo. scattered thoughts:

• count me on the side in favor of Council of Elrond - don't think I ever realized anybody DIDN'T like it! on my first read as a tween, i was really gripped by all the page-turning flight-from-the-shire stuff and Moria, but i also lovvvvved the infodump chapters. Shadow of the Past has the benefit of a creepy ghost-story vibe, up late in a dark house getting the story one-on-one, but then Elrond has sooooo much lore, which is also used to flesh out other characters based on what they think would be a sensible solution to the ring problem. fascinating!

• i also liked SOME of the appendices. mainly the extended timeline. really nails that "the hint is more evocative than telling the story" thing. the section that got into gory detail about the failed dwarven colony in Moria also sticks in my memory. don't remember anything else, and may have in fact skipped a lot.

• now that y'all mention it: i guess i never did fall in love with the Lorien chapters! that is, i would certainly turn to and reread JUST the Moria segment or JUST Shelob or JUST Flotsam and Jetsam (what a great "downtime issue after the big crossover" that is) but never this part. just not my bag, no particular reason, tho i should reread and see. i agree there's something a little unreal about how easy it is to get there, but after Moria i'm not sure we'd really want another chapter's worth of them on the run in emotional distress. maybe it's just that it's SUCH a complete spa day and quest reset, for so long? idk.

• so many great posts itt that i would OTM. just a few: dlh's discourse on the Ring; mark s's 🤯 take where Sam's "return" in the final lines reframes the book's title; gyac's piece on tolkien's experience of life as a survivor of WWI being expressed in different aspects through frodo and sam; Veg on the ghosts of the hobbits' former selves.

• lembas in my mind strongly resembled Nice brand shortbread cookies, which were probably named for the city Nice but which were defined for me by my mom bringing them home and going "These are going to be NICE" and us cracking up. Anyway I pictured the elf bread as roughly that size, in similarly thick packets, breaking/crumbling the same way etc.

• Aragorn, btw, was and remains Mendoza from The Mysterious Cities of Gold. Boromir was the guy from the cover of the PC game Zeliard, and Theoden was Rask, another beardy medieval looking dude from the "Judgment War" storyline in Marvel's X-Factor. anybody who was in the Rankin-Bass Hobbit, which I rented over and over as a kid, had pretty solid models in my mind, which benefited Gandalf, Bilbo and especially Gollum; Elrond maybe not so much. my early 90s copy definitely depicted Frodo on the cover of Fellowship so i think that probably influenced me. not sure abt Legolas. by the time i moved on to Two Towers, i had a yard-saled box set of the 70s paperbacks with the Tolkien paintings, which is the only way i ever want to read these books. one of my students recently had one as her Zoom background, nice to know they still have traction!

Good stuff there, must think about who was what in my head

I read the thread from tracers bump-for-kids-reading again yesterday and its the best ilx thread in many a year imo

lol, this Soviet LOTR is almost unwatchable, but kinda fun to flip around through.

The techno fight in Moria is great.

Lothlórien a bunch of new age nonsense confirmed.

Ah but which new age

Lol @ Lorien as "a complete spa day".

Like Tolkien's equivalent of the spa scene in Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz.

Or is that where the reference comes from?

haha i was just referring to spa days! but i think someone mentions a "warm bath" upthread.

Anyway, our episode on the Rankin-Bass Hobbit is up!

https://www.megaphonic.fm/bythebywater/25

Also I found out what I could have watched that night instead:

https://www.ultimate70s.com/seventies_history/19771127/television

anybody who was in the Rankin-Bass Hobbit, which I rented over and over as a kid

Does everyone have movies that they for some reason rented repeatedly when it would have been cheaper to just buy a copy?

My parents definitely let me take out Willow and Army of Darkness many times.

Lothlórien is truly the Enya of places

Well, yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frTPnVRecxs

still sad they didn't use that in relevant scenes in the film

I mean it was kinda fated she'd end up on the soundtrack of the first film regardless. I'm just happy they found room for folks like Elizabeth Fraser and Sheila Chandra too, among others!

others like billy boyd

Should have used Rush' "Rivendell" - Geddy sounds even more like an elf than usual.

Gandalf's faithful steed, Cygnus X-1

But the Ents can’t help their feelings
If they like the way they’re made

I dont want to eomer the joint but lads the borders of ilm are over that way

xp

I mean how great would the sundering of the fellowship have been soundtracked by the battle portion of By-Tor & the Snow Dog?

That xp is the equivalent of strider offering me out in front of my entire band tbh

stoked to have that ep be my gateway to the podcast, Ned! in the queue for this week.

tbh i'm not sure we would have known where/how to buy The Hobbit on VHS in the late 80s. new release VHS was pretty expensive until right around that time, and I don't think stuff stayed in print and on the shelf that long. you can see why the families with HBO all had numerous hand-labeled cassettes with three unrelated movies each, recorded in the pathetically noisy "EP" mode. whoof.

you can see why the families with HBO all had numerous hand-labeled cassettes with three unrelated movies each, recorded in the pathetically noisy "EP" mode. whoof.

*whistles idly*

like i'm sure there was a VHS section at Sears or w/e, but not with a deep back catalog? i have no memory of ever browsing through such a thing, which surely i would have done for hours while my parents looked at boring grownup stuff, had it been an option.