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I’m among the last to stand up for Tolkien’s politics (his Franco  is a v.bad look) but “Dorfs is untrustworthy Jews” is an unfair take. He was (for his time and context) legitimately p.deece on the Jewish issue, he told the  to gently caress off with the racial purity statement authors had to put in the front of their books to sell over there and bemoaned his lack of  blood to nazis who were all  over what a strong Nordic he was.
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Jun 9, 2021 14:49
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Schadenboner posted:I’m among the last to stand up for Tolkien’s politics (his Franco Tolkien didn’t have a boner for Franco. He was a Catholic, and a major point of legitimacy of the Francoist regime was that it defended Spain’s Catholic tradition against a red tide of priest-slaughtering commies. Such a point, even if ungrounded in reality, would hit Tolkien fairly close to home because his guardian for most of his childhood, Francis Morgan, was a Catholic priest from Spain. It also hit him fairly close to home because as an English Catholic, he was very conscious of being a vulnerable religious minority himself.
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Jun 9, 2021 15:06
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Franco killed tens of thousands of priests and nuns, probably more than the Republicans. it wasn’t a religious issue, it was a political issue (for the most part); Catholics who supported Franco and conservatism got killed by socialists and anarchists, Catholics who supported the Republicans were killed by fascists. only one of them made it official state policy though chances are Tolkien was just dumb enough to uncritically believe British reporting on the issue, which wouldn’t be surprising
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Jun 9, 2021 19:12
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I don't think dwarves are jewish, they just remind me shirkers I know in real life. You could 100% have an equitable trading relationship with Dwarves and what have you but when it comes time to do something that requires actual Dwarven sacrifice they won't be there. Also the book is like "oh some humans started living on the edge mirkwood between it and the misty mountains" and like, who are these idiots. Esgaroth at least has a deeply symbiotic relationship with the elves and is made out of the descendents of Dale but what idiot is like "hell yeah, let me get all up in between gobbos and magic death forest" Rohan probably, they seem dumb.
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Jun 10, 2021 03:28
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Barudak posted:I don't think dwarves are jewish, they just remind me shirkers I know in real life. You could 100% have an equitable trading relationship with Dwarves and what have you but when it comes time to do something that requires actual Dwarven sacrifice they won't be there. the folks who lived in rhovanion were proto-numenorians who stayed behind and did not go to numenor. they share ancestry with rohan, yeah. anyway dwarves and elves are both very cautious about sacrifice in the third age for reasons that are perfectly sound. the elves are simply done having kids, there aren't going to be any more. each and every combat-trained elf lost is hundreds or thousands of years of training that can't defend the remaining elven enclaves and can't be replaced, ever. dwarves aren't done having kids, but they do seem to breed very slowly. coming to the aid of Men when Men can simply replenish their numbers in a generation must seem hopelessly foolish. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Jun 10, 2021 |
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Jun 10, 2021 03:46
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also it’s not like men are any more trustworthy than dwarves. they can’t even depend on each other also what do the men of Esgaroth have to offer to the elves of Mirkwood to maintain that relationship? if it was mentioned in the book I forget it
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Jun 10, 2021 04:31
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indigi posted:also it’s not like men are any more trustworthy than dwarves. they can’t even depend on each other They sell them wine.
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Jun 10, 2021 04:36
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sweet geek swag posted:They sell them wine. Also various foodstuffs, very notably apples. Their is a discussion of an elaborate farming system surrounding much of the land around the lake so I would guess in addition to that non forest game (grazing animals) food is also supplied to the Elves this way. In addition more trade from southern lands of elves and humans is routed this way, so Esgaroth is vital to managing this. Should Dale be rebuilt it'll become an even more critical juncture city The Elves even have people in town when the Dwarves show up and the Master of Esgaroth is going to hand the dwarves over until the fox news citizens yell him down. Actually, given the timelines established a little later in the book, it seems like the Elf King 100% let the Dwarves attempt the mountain rather than recapture them so he doesn't come across super great either. Edit: Presumably based on the Elves songs in addition to meat and apples, berries also come via the barrel route, but its not fully clear if Esgaroth produces those or is a clearing house since the trade also comes from human and elven kingdoms in the south Barudak fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Jun 10, 2021 |
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Jun 10, 2021 04:58
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How on Earth do you guys know all of this stuff? Is it a Silmarillion thing? I love LOTR but I have no desire to go deep into the lore of everything. I'm halfway through ROTK right now and they don't even touch on this type of detail. I do notice he mentions a different land or type of people what seems like every 10 pages and I have no idea what he's talking about. Seems like he just makes up silly names on the fly. You're just nerds aren't you. Really big nerds right? God bless you. I'm glad someone is into this stuff to help explain it. I've often thought about why there aren't any elven children and now I'm glad I know that they just are done with that BS.
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Jun 10, 2021 11:41
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Im reading through the hobbit a few pages a night so its not like I retain all this knowledge on my own. Its a neat illustrated version but honestly it looks exactly like how a friend if mine draws so its throwing me. Got another set for the Lord of the Rings with more classical art that Im gonna start soon so Im drowning over here in complaints about nobody drawing bilbo's looted mithril shirt correctly. Its also funny to me that Thorin is like "look if I can't have all the gold I'd rather it go to my cousin than anyone in need"
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Jun 10, 2021 13:01
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Barudak posted:Im reading through the hobbit a few pages a night so its not like I retain all this knowledge on my own. Its a neat illustrated version but honestly it looks exactly like how a friend if mine draws so its throwing me. Got another set for the Lord of the Rings with more classical art that Im gonna start soon so Im drowning over here in complaints about nobody drawing bilbo's looted mithril shirt correctly. To be fair, that is how rich people have generally treated their money throughout history.
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Jun 10, 2021 14:47
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Thorin spent most of his life as the prince of a nation in exile, wandering about with no real home, dreaming of somehow reclaiming what was lost. His father was captured and tortured to death trying to reclaim the kingdom, his grandfather died trying to claim another lost dwarven kingdom for his people. It's no surprise he'd be reluctant to part with his prize he sought for so long. Maybe he and Bard could've worked something out with Bilbo's persuasion, but when the river elves showed up wanting a slice after a history of enmity with dwarves and having directly tried to prevent Thorin getting to Smaug, that made Thorin flip the gently caress out.  gently caress this guy.
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Jun 10, 2021 16:46
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Thranduil still salty about the Nauglimir incident even though he wasn't there.
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Jun 10, 2021 16:49
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Thorin and pals wandered into Thranduil's kingdom and refused to say anything about who they were or why they were trespassing. And/or had a love triangle with his son, depending who you ask.
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Jun 10, 2021 16:59
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SlothfulCobra posted:
The wood elf king's one main trait is "Loves Bling" and this makes him look like drab super gollum, dammit Rankin and/or Bass. Its one of the things I appreciate in actually reading the hobbit is that the Elf king comes across as deeply mired in the physical world, just as greedy (honestly moreso since his reasoning is shallow) than Thorin, and not particularly Elf-stereotype. I 100% understand why Thorin does what he does calling his cousin, there is no reason not to if you are in his shoes, but still I get a kick out of his overwhelming aura of "NO SOLICITORS" that the initial human/elf scouts don't even say anything back to him and just gently caress off. Edgar Allen Ho posted:Thorin and pals wandered into Thranduil's kingdom and refused to say anything about who they were or why they were trespassing. They also interrupted three different parties in the woods to do it. Shoulda listened to Beorn, the filler arc. Not related to anything above but Rivendell came across to me in the hobbit as Elrond's vacation spot that used to be in a way nicer neighborhood but he's not moving dammit this place has meaning instead of like, this beautiful tranquility and repose symbol of elf society.
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Jun 10, 2021 17:15
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Thorin and pals wandered into Thranduil's kingdom and refused to say anything about who they were or why they were trespassing. they refused to create joinder with him
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Jun 10, 2021 17:27
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He dresses a lot fancier when he marches out to get his  from Thorin, but yeah, it's not the kind of clothes that denote someone who would want anything from Smaug's hoard. It would've wilted by this point. And it contrasts a lot with their depiction of Elrond.  I like the style of the Rankin and Bass movies a lot, but there's a lot of weird choices.
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Jun 10, 2021 23:22
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Pennywise the Frown posted:How on Earth do you guys know all of this stuff? Is it a Silmarillion thing? I love LOTR but I have no desire to go deep into the lore of everything. I'm halfway through ROTK right now and they don't even touch on this type of detail. I do notice he mentions a different land or type of people what seems like every 10 pages and I have no idea what he's talking about. Seems like he just makes up silly names on the fly. Also, one of the thing's that makes LotR/Tolkien so unique imo is how seemlessly all the nonsense lore fits into the story. Like if you remember the two-page or more song about Eärendil that takes five minutes to speak aloud, from FotR, and the added drama about Aragorn and Bilbo composing it: none of it is explained. Why did Aragorn insist on a green jewel being in the song? Why is it arrogant for Bilbo to be composing a song about Eärendil in the house of Elrond? Where the gently caress is Nimbrethil and what's so special about its timber? What even is this Silmaril thing in one line is that related to the imposing nerd bible? There is lore all about it that you can dive into if you want, and even varying versions as Tolkien rewrote over his life and edited and wrote letters, but it's mostly irrelevant to the actual story of Frodo and the ring. You can happily ignore it too. It ends up feeling much more like a real mythology than any of the derivatives where you can just crack open the DM's guide to elven myth and read exactly what each god's lore and specific powers and aspects are and get a perfect objective history.
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Jun 11, 2021 02:11
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I'm certainly glad it's there. I can't follow all of it though. There's soooooooooooooo much.
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Jun 11, 2021 03:06
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In the beginning, God made a good song. God then thought, I should create more beings so they can do guest tracks and thus the story of how if you make it you don't have to bring all your old friends with you.
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Jun 11, 2021 05:24
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I am now a Sea of Rhun truther because despite the absolutely massive size of the thing on the map it is only 75 miles across while the itty bitty bo bitty Long Lake on the map is around least 65 miles across at minimum.
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Jun 11, 2021 11:23
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maybe it's a mercator projection
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Jun 11, 2021 21:59
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Aren’t the maps it’s on kind of bare in that section? Like it’s not very well traveled or known by the people in the west.
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Jun 11, 2021 23:06
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sometimes you've really gotta wonder about the elves thousands of years of life each and they've never bothered to go check out anything eastwards??
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Jun 12, 2021 00:05
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Jazerus posted:sometimes you've really gotta wonder about the elves They came from there at the command of God. Probably bad vibes to go back
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Jun 12, 2021 00:11
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Zesty posted:Aren’t the maps it’s on kind of bare in that section? Like it’s not very well traveled or known by the people in the west. It was ruled by Gondor, somehow, and recently enough that the Stewards were already in place. The horn of gondor is from some creature that lived out by the sea of Rhun, apparently. Somewhere further east of that the never mentioned again after the hobbit "were wyrms" live indigi posted:maybe it's a mercator projection But mirkwood seems to be somewhat accurately sized as "gently caress off huge"
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Jun 12, 2021 04:52
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skasion posted:They came from there at the command of God. Probably bad vibes to go back some elves never even left and many of them stopped at various points along the way. there are two wizards over there, doing something. the total immobility of everybody - not even one guy went past the sea of rhun and drew a map, or bought one from the perfectly normal people that presumably live there, nor did any of those people visit the west - is maybe the least realistic thing about tolkien's universe. can't blame the guy considering how in-depth he wanted to be about every single place he did describe in detail, but it's an oddity once you realize that no, sauron probably doesn't control everything east of mordor
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Jun 12, 2021 05:09
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the Elves never seemed particularly interested in exploring, especially Middle Earth. a bunch of them became bored of traveling during the March and just stayed wherever they got tired. the ones who came back did so for a very specific reason and had no real interest in traveling further East than they had to to either find Morgoth or escape the drowning of Beleriand
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Jun 12, 2021 18:14
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The elves just seemed to settle in places they liked. Even the nautical elves of the Teleri just liked sailing around their bay on the coast of Aman rather than exploring. That tradition lies with Men and their curiosity. Not to say that Elves aren't curious or against developing but they aren't about to go sailing around mapping the coasts where the sun doesn't shine.
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Jun 12, 2021 18:21
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That's one of the reason Tolkien elves are a lot more interesting than the derivatives. Only murder or suicide can kill them. Even then they eventually rerez on earth on the paradise continent ruled directly by angels from heaven. Even Fëanor is going to come back before the end. At a glance they do literally everything better than humans. They have eternal youth and beauty. But they are eternally tied to the world, specifically. The early elves were keen on exploring, and plenty frolicked in place and then got back on the trail to the west. The longer time moves on though the more joy leaves them though, and the more they grow tired and attached to the lost joys of places they loved in the younger days of the world. They suffer trauma and the world changes and all they can do is stagnate and wish for the past. By contrast, humans age, die, flame out, and leave the world. They don't get a direct connection to literal angels. They can't do anything as good as the elves can. But to the elves their mortality isn't seen as more or less a blessing than elven immortality. They get to leave. And they have been promised a place outside the world. Elves know the world is ending and what the gently caress are they going to do afterwards? It's very catholic but a much more compelling set of elves than the ones who can just do backflips over humans while also being god tier immortal sexy wizard lords.
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Jun 12, 2021 20:10
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:That's one of the reason Tolkien elves are a lot more interesting than the derivatives. Only murder or suicide can kill them. Even then they eventually rerez on earth on the paradise continent ruled directly by angels from heaven. Even Fëanor is going to come back before the end. At a glance they do literally everything better than humans. They have eternal youth and beauty. But they are eternally tied to the world, specifically. The early elves were keen on exploring, and plenty frolicked in place and then got back on the trail to the west. The longer time moves on though the more joy leaves them though, and the more they grow tired and attached to the lost joys of places they loved in the younger days of the world. They suffer trauma and the world changes and all they can do is stagnate and wish for the past. This is one of the things I love about the tabletop RPG The Burning Wheel, which is explicitly trying to model its elves and dwarves faithfully after Tolkien instead of his derivatives. In Burning Wheel, non-human folk have a stat that is unique to their stock: for elves, that stat is Grief. Burning Wheel uses a Lifepath system to generate characters. You choose between 3 and 6 major chapters of that person's life, and the occupations they had during those times gives you resources to build the character with. For humans, it's a balancing act: the more lifepaths you take, the older you'll be, and while that means you'll have more skills, personal connections, possibly wealth and property, etc., it also ages you and applies traits that might not be positive. But elves are immortal! You can take as many lifepaths as you want and become an unstoppable god-tier immortal sexy wizard lord whose physical stats never go down, right? Right. Except, when you make an elf, toward the end of character creation you look over the events of their life up to the point where the game starts, and make a tally of their griefs: have you been a soldier or captain? Were you born to the high families on whom duty weighs heavily? Does your personal history include tragedy? Have you lived among non-elves? Have you lived hundreds, many hundreds, over a thousand years? Each of these things, among others, adds +1 to your Grief, on a scale of 0 to 10; my favorites are that if you are highly Perceptive, you tally Grief, or if you are an extreme badass who can look upon, endure, or commit violence, you tally a lot of Grief, because you've effectively already said that you've exposed yourself to many terrible things. It's entirely possible to leave character creation with an elf at Grief 9 out of 10, and Grief can and will increase in play as you suffer betrayals or betray your beliefs, take lives, see things of beauty laid to waste, witness the inevitable decline of your people, and rage at the short-sighted folly of younger beings. And the game encourages you to make it go up, because every once in a while you can channel that Grief into acts of terrible power: Glorfindel confronting the balrog as his friends are slain and Gondolin lies in ruins is an act empowered by Grief. What happens if you hit Grief 10? You're done. Your story is over. Your grief has overwhelmed you, and you must lay aside worldly trappings and pass on, wasting away or wandering into the West, never to be seen again until the end of days. There's a Burning Wheel scenario played at roleplaying conventions, where ten players are divided into two groups: five dwarves, who form the court of a mountain kingdom, and five elves on a diplomatic mission to that court, who are immediately set at odds through a cultural misunderstanding. It is a scenario that actively tries to get to the players' characters to give in to pride and greed and the urge to let violence solve the problem. The dwarves are by and large a dangerous bunch, personally competent fighters or in command of the martial resources of their hold. The elves are virtually helpless in that arena, except one. A swordsman of immense age and valor, one of the eldest and noblest of his kind, in possession of a song of war that will make him all but invincible in battle. But he is at the very apex of Grief, and has dedicated himself to pacifism because he has Seen And Done Too Much. If he draws his sword, his player can effectively decide who lives and who dies. But if he draws that sword, it will be, one way or another, for the very last time.
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Jun 12, 2021 21:31
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:It's very catholic but a much more compelling set of elves than the ones who can just do backflips over humans while also being god tier immortal sexy wizard lords. I think the Eldar in 40k have a similar spirit to that. They're all immortal aside from getting killed, but they've all been in decay since before the Imperium began, although because of their own corruption instead of being intrinsically tied to the world. They also have a whole complex system of trapping their own souls upon death because otherwise they'll be claimed and tortured for all eternity. I think there's even a lot of stories where they take a similar role in trying to push humans toward confronting a common foe, although for the Eldar it's more pragmatism while in Lord of the Rings apparently the elves are a little reluctant to destroy the Ring and depower the three Elven rings keeping their decay at bay.
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Jun 13, 2021 02:38
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The three elven rings weren't made with the same backdoor trap that Sauron built into the others, but the One was powerful enough to influence them which is why the Elves immediately took their rings off before Sauron could corrupt them. The elves and Gandalf did wear their rings after the War of the Last Alliance when the One was eventually lost and Sauron out of the picture. They're not hesitant to destroy the One because it's somehow powering the three elven rings, the Elves only knew about The One being found for a short while and pretty quickly settled on destroying it at the Council of Elrond. The three elven rings diminished alongside the waning of the Elves in general who had lingered well past their time into the third age and beyond.
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Jun 13, 2021 03:56
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Arcsquad12 posted:The three elven rings weren't made with the same backdoor trap that Sauron built into the others, but the One was powerful enough to influence them which is why the Elves immediately took their rings off before Sauron could corrupt them. The elves and Gandalf did wear their rings after the War of the Last Alliance when the One was eventually lost and Sauron out of the picture. They're not hesitant to destroy the One because it's somehow powering the three elven rings, the Elves only knew about The One being found for a short while and pretty quickly settled on destroying it at the Council of Elrond. Nah, their power is definitely bound to the one. Galadriel says as much. Sauron had the backdoor, but he didn't know the elven rings existed so he didn't command them before the elves snatched the rings off their fingers in horror.
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Jun 13, 2021 04:31
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sweet geek swag posted:Nah, their power is definitely bound to the one. Galadriel says as much. Sauron had the backdoor, but he didn't know the elven rings existed so he didn't command them before the elves snatched the rings off their fingers in horror. I still don't think they were hesitant to destroy the One in order to hold onto the power of the three rings. They pretty quickly decided it needed to be destroyed after it was made known that it had been found. Galadriel's test happened about a month and a half after the Council called for the ring to be destroyed and of all the elves she was the one who struggled the most (relatively) with its temptation and even she rejected it. By the end of the Third Age the elves were pretty much done with the world and the three rings weren't really used. Galadriel maintained Lothlorien with her ring but Gandalf never used his besides being its guardian and Cirdan only maintained the Gray Havens until the last ships left. So no, I don't think the Elves were really hung up on the notion of keeping the One intact to protect their own power.
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Jun 13, 2021 07:05
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Rivendell and Lorien, and perhaps the Havens, exist as such only because of the three rings, which, the elves rightly assume, are contingent on the One. They still decided to destroy the One because they’re not idiot assholes who are content to sit in circumscribed paradises ignoring the world until an evil immortal wizard rocks up and conquers them just like everyone else. It’s in the mirror of Galadriel bitquote:’Do you not see now wherefore your coming is to us as the footstep of Doom? For if you fail, then we are laid bare to the Enemy. Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlórien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it away. We must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten.’
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Jun 13, 2021 14:20
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That doesn't read as hesitancy that is the elves resigned to their doom and lamenting that it had to happen.
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Jun 13, 2021 15:59
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Arcsquad12 posted:That doesn't read as hesitancy that is the elves resigned to their doom and lamenting that it had to happen. Im not saying anything about hesitancy. My point is just the elven lords definitely knew they were destroying their own rings’ power and by extension, their realms and their last chance to live in Middle-earth by the quest to destroy the ring, because they felt it was the right thing anyway.
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Jun 13, 2021 16:31
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the problem is that even if the Ring stayed lost forever Sauron was definitely going to win in the end, nobody could get it together to meaningfully oppose him and Gondor and Rohan were hanging by a thread after his first attack
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Jun 13, 2021 19:54
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indigi posted:the problem is that even if the Ring stayed lost forever Sauron was definitely going to win in the end, nobody could get it together to meaningfully oppose him and Gondor and Rohan were hanging by a thread after his first attack yeah the necessity of the ring quest was sort of the result of hundreds of years of disorganization, complacency, and probably a bit of treachery via saruman sandbagging every attempt to figure out what the hell is up with this "necromancer" guy
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Jun 13, 2021 20:22
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