wow, that's really awesome!
photo of tolkien there is absolutely wonderful, too.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 23 May 2014 21:06 (nine years ago) link
Yeah it's great. Almost one of a kind, much like the event.
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 23 May 2014 21:09 (nine years ago) link
Awesome! Ready for the whole thing. Auden, one of Tolkien's students, attended a groovy Middle-Earth event in 1966: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/12/w-h-audens-defense-of-the-lord-of-the-rings.html
― dow, Friday, 23 May 2014 22:31 (nine years ago) link
I'd heard about that. Amazing to imagine what that was like.
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 23 May 2014 22:39 (nine years ago) link
But the circling strings --> staccato stabs --> mournful theme of the main title music haunted my childhood.
in my head since I woke up
― nakh is the wintour of our diss content (darraghmac), Saturday, 23 August 2014 12:40 (nine years ago) link
Shore's 'history of the ring' right? Awesome piece. The Rosenman stuff for bakshi also rules tho
― before you die you see the rink (Jon Lewis), Saturday, 23 August 2014 18:19 (nine years ago) link
no! the BBC theme from the 1981 radio version.
― nakh is the wintour of our diss content (darraghmac), Saturday, 23 August 2014 19:31 (nine years ago) link
but yeah I like shores.
if Jackman took on the silmarillion in the style of the precis of the history of the ring from the movies I'd be OK with that I guess.
― nakh is the wintour of our diss content (darraghmac), Saturday, 23 August 2014 19:32 (nine years ago) link
Hugh Jackman, definitely meant him.
he BBC theme from the 1981 radio version.
― nakh is the wintour of our diss content (darraghmac)
Great theme!
Also like Shore, probably the best of the current heroic movie composers.
― the joke should be over once the kid is eaten. (chap), Saturday, 23 August 2014 20:35 (nine years ago) link
reading fellowship again with my children and it becomes clear to me - and them - that despite his status as like the dirk pitt of middle earth, strider manages to fuck up just about every part of the journey from bree to rivendell
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 22:07 (four years ago) link
hes kinda dropped in it and admits as much many times
― kim rong un (darraghmac), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 22:37 (four years ago) link
And whose idea was it to take the Caradhras Pass, eh?
― archangel's thunderpants (Matt #2), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 22:46 (four years ago) link
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 (four years ago) link
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 (four years ago) link
'What will happen?' said Merry. 'Will they attack the inn?''No, I think not,' said Strider.
'No, I think not,' said Strider.
but two grafs later Butterbur is telling Nob to bar the doors and the hobbits not to go to their rooms - and the next morning they find their appointed beds to have been knifed in the night
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:03 (four years ago) link
which attack strider avoided
this is a witch hunt
― kim rong un (darraghmac), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:06 (four years ago) link
they make for Weathertop even though the Riders 'are likely to make for Weathertop themselves'. even though they tramp 5 days through the Midgewater Marshes to avoid the Riders they're now heading straight for the place the Riders probably are too!
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:21 (four years ago) link
he allows Sam and Pippin to trample the ground of the dell behind this key staging post, essentially wiping its browser history, and says 'I wish I had waited and explored the ground down here myself'
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:22 (four years ago) link
of standing on the actual tippy top of Weathertop itself, he says he was 'too careless on the hill-top. ... It was a mistake for three of us to go up and stand there so long.'
as they build a campfire, scared out of their minds, Strider says 'there is little shelter or defense here' - thanks, Strider - 'but fire shall serve for both.'
the Riders promptly attack them anyway.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:23 (four years ago) link
'Is this troll country?''No!' said Strider.
'No!' said Strider.
two days later they find a door built into the rock of a hillside. Strider: 'It is certainly a troll-hole.'
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:26 (four years ago) link
all i'm saying is, teach the controversy
in a terrible scenario its very ilxy of you to focus all your judgement of the guy on your side trying to do something to avoid almost inevitable disaster who is already too hard on himself for the imperfections inherent in the attempt
imo
― kim rong un (darraghmac), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:29 (four years ago) link
xp no im enjoying it
fresh lotr takes are good. the book is quite vague in a lot of aspects!
lol i'm not mad at strider. it's just that as a kid i'd imagined him as kind of impossibly competent - the quiet hero who could follow any trail, who could suss out any danger. and now i'm reading it and just see him making all kinds of bad calls! just straight up wrong about stuff.
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:33 (four years ago) link
Strider is running up against the limit of the usefulness of the guidance he received when he was captain of a stolen Nazi U-Boat and his master chief advised him “Don’t ever say ‘I don’t know!’ Those words will kill a crew, dead as a depth charge!”Now Strider finds himself on land, in charge of completely untrained amateurs, he realizes he still can’t say “I don’t know,” even though he really absolutely does not know. Except about which fights they are guaranteed to lose.
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:36 (four years ago) link
There's a deep cut.
Anyway thank you for potentially contributing a subject to a future episode of the podcast hey did I mention I have a Tolkien podcast thanks great you're all wonderful people.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:38 (four years ago) link
the quiet hero who could follow any trail, who could suss out any danger.
i think tolkien in LOTR is big on even these guys being fuck all use against a cohort of witch kings who know where you are going while you are carrying four gravy babies who think they are on a daytrip to bath.
also fwiw and iirc strider is v much aware that hes heading where hed rather not go but its gandalf fucked that up
its all good general/sergeant comment on how it is once the feet hit the ground
― kim rong un (darraghmac), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:45 (four years ago) link
ofc silmarillion and legends in lotr and elsewhere are full of the heroes that just did it and were legends (obv) or even whose failures were grand, decisive simple events
imo thats him being a bit meta about nature of legends and distilled tales and what they are used for vs "oh fuck we're here now and its not beowulf its wilfred owen oh fuck oh fuck ohfuck"
― kim rong un (darraghmac), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:48 (four years ago) link
dulcimar et decorum est pro patria moria, as i shall title the essay on the topic
― kim rong un (darraghmac), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:49 (four years ago) link
nb none of my apologies for strider should be taken as discouraging the continued attacking tracer, this court martial is v invigorating imo
― kim rong un (darraghmac), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:57 (four years ago) link
pippin is for the fuckin noose if we're going to be consistent, mind
― kim rong un (darraghmac), Tuesday, 28 April 2020 23:58 (four years ago) link
Imagining if Gandalf just threw him down the guard room shaft.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 29 April 2020 00:25 (four years ago) link
strider/aragorn's transcendent heroism is something literature can't convey, implies one of the greatest 20th century professors of english literature. see 1) all the references to post-hobbit - pre-fellowship northern ranging, 2) however the hell he and the phantoms commandeer the ships of the corsairs to win the day at the battle of the pelennor fields, and 3) he and faramir taking it to the dregs of mordor and the southrons in the return of the king appendices detailing the dawn of the fourth age
― reggie (qualmsley), Wednesday, 29 April 2020 00:27 (four years ago) link
helms deep worth a mention youd say
― kim rong un (darraghmac), Wednesday, 29 April 2020 00:30 (four years ago) link
that and 2 & 3 all disasters (albeit heroic doomed-to-fail let's try anyway attempts) salvaged by deus ex machina resolutions mind you
lucky generals and all that
― kim rong un (darraghmac), Wednesday, 29 April 2020 00:32 (four years ago) link
To be fair he is revealed as a master aromatherapist toward the end of the last volume, is there no lack of strings to his bow? He probably gives a great massage too.
― sing, for song drives away the goves (Matt #2), Wednesday, 29 April 2020 00:34 (four years ago) link
wait had he a bow
― kim rong un (darraghmac), Wednesday, 29 April 2020 00:47 (four years ago) link
Deems is a big LOTR fan, eh? Surprising.
Yes, that harrowed, paranoid, doomed flight from The Shire is my favorite Tolkien, no, favorite fantasy sequence, of all time (with the possible exception of The Children of Turin).
I think another element in Strider and Gandalf's approach is that by revealing oneself, you give Sauron the ability to move directly against you. This limits his options to basically, run, quickly, as your little Hobbit legs will carry you.
― Fetch the Bolt Thrower (PBKR), Wednesday, 29 April 2020 01:43 (four years ago) link
the war of the ring was primarily a guerrilla campaign, in thus lecture i-
― kim rong un (darraghmac), Wednesday, 29 April 2020 01:50 (four years ago) link
Insurrection of the rings, you were going to say
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 29 April 2020 05:35 (four years ago) link
whole escapade is a black op, the only reason the reader doesn’t catch on at first is because you start in a place so removed from the emperor’s touch that he’s forgotten about it. Everything else is just moving from one supposed safehouse to another until the game is up. The Bourne movies? Ronin? Just remakes of fellowship with some acronymic mooks in place of orcs
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 29 April 2020 05:43 (four years ago) link
Office of Reclamation of the Claims of Sauron
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 29 April 2020 05:50 (four years ago) link
playing D&D is what taught me rangers are garbage
― avellano medio inglés (f. hazel), Wednesday, 29 April 2020 06:25 (four years ago) link
That’s some ouroboros right there
― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 29 April 2020 07:52 (four years ago) link
playing dundee taught me the same thing
― kim rong un (darraghmac), Wednesday, 29 April 2020 09:04 (four years ago) link
tracer
i appreciate that you have a lotnon your plate right now
but tbh i was somewhat expecting another aragorn competence review by now and am a little put out
― kim rong un (darraghmac), Friday, 1 May 2020 09:40 (four years ago) link
I did think that Théoden sorted himself out a bit sharpish, all Gandalf needed to do was unleash his staff and say "remember you're a womble king" or whatever, and then Théoden's all like "begone Gríma I am Lord of Rohan" and the problem's solved. Far be it from anyone to say the books should have been even longer, but I think JRR could have padded that sequence out a little.
― all things must pasteurize (Matt #2), Friday, 1 May 2020 09:55 (four years ago) link
sorry, that was meant to be womble, oops
― all things must pasteurize (Matt #2), Friday, 1 May 2020 09:56 (four years ago) link