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The best is their interpretation of Denethor as a fat stupid old man who eats grapes in a disgusting way. I hate Peter Jackson just because of that god damned scene.
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Jan 3, 2017 22:11
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:They're flawed films but they're better than we had any right to expect from Hollywood. They're nothing at all like the books. I can understand why they made the type of movies they did but it would have been interesting to see someone (not Peter Jackson who lacks any type of subtlety) try to make a more faithful adaptation. It'd be bizarre and fuckin' weird but I'd find that more interesting than generic blockbuster fantasy thriller. e: I just remembered the most egregious line of all: "He's twitchin because he's got my axe in his nervous system!" A line so profoundly stupid and out of place that I can't believe nobody caught it.
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Jan 4, 2017 01:11
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Smoking Crow posted:Movies are primarily a visual medium and both Lord of the rings films were huge successes in that department Okay Michael Bay
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Jan 4, 2017 06:46
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sassassin posted:PJ's elves are nowhere near strange enough, or gay enough (in the way Sam would use the word, not the way it would be used to describe Sam). Celeborn's portrayal is my favorite. The actor sounds high as a kite.
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Feb 8, 2017 22:43
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Ashcans posted:Yes, I believe there is a path directly through Minas Morgul to access Mordor; the hobbits don't take it because it means passing directly through the fortresses and in the busiest areas, where they are very unlikely to get through (maybe Frodo on his own if he was using the ring). Especially because at the time they arrive, the forces are mobilizing so there is lots of traffic/people running around. Frodo would have had no chance of going that way. If he didn't use the ring, he'd be caught. If he used the ring, the Nazgul would probably immediately sense him there. When the hobbits arrive there in the book it's right when the Witch King and his armies are moving out and the Witch King actually pauses before marching out and seems a bit troubled which seems to imply that he has sensed Frodo despite Frodo not even wearing the ring at the time. The way they went was pretty much the only way. Go through Barad-Dur and Sauron will catch you when you put on the ring. Go through Minas Morgul and the Nazgul will sense it when you put on the ring. Go through Shelob and you're probably hosed too but at least it's not a guarantee.
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Aug 31, 2017 05:39
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Forget werewolves, I want to know about the wereworms that Bilbo or someone mentions in the Hobbit. Show me the shapeshifting dragons J.R.R
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Aug 31, 2017 15:46
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Lotr is great because there's mysteries like that in it. The real world has all kinds of unsolved mysteries. It makes a world feel more real when not everything is explained. I like that we don't know what the Blue Wizards did. I like that Tom Bombadil is a big yellow booted enigma. I like that we have no idea what the hell the tentacle beast near Moria is or why it was there. poo poo like that adds a lot of color to the world and it's fun to speculate.
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Oct 27, 2017 15:01
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You know I don't blame PJ for doing what he did because it was the easiest thing to do with the material but I'd watch the hell out of a legitimately faithful adaptation of LOTR. I'm talking a poo poo load of walking and talking and focusing on the scenery and with action being rare. Made for TV and/or film? Nah. But it'd be something different from Marvel movie # 9999999. I think the biggest disappointment for me with the LOTR movies is they don't feel mystical and large enough if that makes sense. The books always left me feeling like there's this giant crazy loving world and the characters in it only understood small parts of it. The movies always felt so small. They lost all sense of the scale and mystery.
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Nov 17, 2017 05:59
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HIJK posted:The Silmarillion is easier then you might think, the characters are slowly introduced and they are given very vivid descriptions and personalities so it's pretty easy to tell them apart. The wiki format would divest them of their personalities so it would be easy to lose track. The way I always took it is the Ring enhanced the qualities its user already possessed. So Boromir with it would have become an even more charismatic warrior and mightier in battle, yet someone like Galadriel who used it could dominate the minds and wills of others even moreso than she already could. Boromir could use it in the same way Galadriel would but he'd have to train his will to be a lot stronger to do so. Galadriel basically tells Frodo as much. Even just having it with no training gives the user abilities other mortals don't have. For example, Frodo wearing it is able to perceive Galadriel is wearing one of the elven rings, and he even is somewhat able to read her heart and her desires. With training he would presumably become a lot more perceptive. But yeah the long and short of it is the more powerful the person the deadlier the Ring is going to be because it's basically an amplifier of what they can already do.
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Feb 11, 2018 08:29
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Ravenfood posted:A Balrog would live there, or dwarves/goblins/men would somewhat inexplicably decide to mine there, or a nameless creature that live underneath the mountains would find it, or an earthquake would bring reveal the former mineshaft, the mountains themselves might move (Caradhras has some level of sentience in the book), or something else. Remember, they discuss sending it to the bottom of the sea and the answer is "the tides would eventually bring it back." Collapsing a mindeshaft on it, or tossing it into the sea, would certainly work to keep it from Sauron for quite some time. The problem is that Gandalf, Galadriel, and Elrond believe that as long as the Ring remains, Sauron will endure and therefore, eventually, win. If the Ring remains, Sauron cannot be destroyed (at least by the current inhabitants of Middle-Earth). Hoping that you'll be able to keep the Ring from Sauron forever is foolish because eventually, you'll fail. Yeah it's a foolish plan. In Return of the King men are able to fight off Sauron's army and it's revealed that it's only one army for him and there's a lot more where that came from. It's basically stated that Sauron has pretty much limitless might compared to the good guys and that eventually he'll overwhelm them through sheer numbers if the ring isn't destroyed. He has basically all of the Southern kingdoms under his sway at that point plus countless orcs he's been breeding. Even without the ring he was gonna win. It had to be destroyed, that was the only hope for success.
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Feb 12, 2018 08:30
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sweet geek swag posted:The problem is that the ring binds Sauron to Arda. Sauron can't really be killed, and as long as the ring exists he can't be sent into the void either. The only way to defeat him permanently is to destroy it, which is nearly impossible. As Gandalf pointed out, if Sauron had concentrated on defending Mordor eventually somone would have brought the ring to him. But he was undone by his own uncertainty. He was actually scared about what someone with the ring might do to him. So when Aragorn revealed himself he attacked immediately opening up the way for the hobbits to get to Mt. Doom. Yeah that's the thing. Sauron never conceived of the idea that someone might try to destroy the ring. He did fear they might use it to overthrow him. And why not? That's what he would do in their shoes.
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Feb 12, 2018 22:00
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It's also interesting that powerful characters resist Gandalf's meddling. Denethor stubbornly refuses to accept most of Gandalf's counsel and while the reasons for that are layered I think at least part of it has to do with Denethor being an exceptionally powerful person with a will like iron and he does not trust the meddling of Gandalf. Gandalf mentions that the blood of Numenor runs almost pure in Denethor and that blood gives him powers of foresight and wisdom. He considers himself (rightly!) a rival in that sense to people like Gandalf, Galadriel, etc. Saruman resists Gandalf for similar reasons. There's a strong undercurrent of Denethor/Saruman basically considering themselves Gandalf's equal and being unwilling to accept his counsel at least in part on those merits because I get the sense that they think he's almost talking down to them as though how he tries to help weaker folks. I think where Gandalf errs with both of them is he comes at them like a counselor. That style works on people willing to accept Gandalf's superior intelligence/wisdom but for people who consider themselves Gandalf's equal they feel threatened by his approach. If he was ever going to convince Saruman/Denethor of their wrongs, he was going to need to do it in a way where they independently came to that conclusion without his direct intervention. They were too proud and powerful individually to accept his counsel otherwise.
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Feb 14, 2018 19:06
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Ashcans posted:I don't have any textual support for this, but I can't help but notice that both Denethor and Saruman have previously had their perceptions affected by Sauron by using the Palantir. Isn't it possible that Gandalf simply doesn't have the opportunity to undermine the influence of a greater power that has been working on them both for much longer and with considerable subtlety? I think that's certainly part of it but I feel like Sauron is just working on pride/discontent that was already there for Denethor/Saruman. Basically Sauron made it worse, but it was there before him. Gandalf even warns Pippin before talking to Denethor that Denethor is a different kind of King from Theoden and is much wiser/deadlier.
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Feb 14, 2018 19:49
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Runcible Cat posted:Saruman considers himself Gandalf's superior (and so does Gandalf up until their big confrontation), but he's always been twitchy about it since that ambiguous Valar remark before the wizards left Valinor. I think he'd have issues with Gandalf however Gandalf behaved because he's got a thing about status and having to be the wizard in charge, which may feed into the idea he seems to get that he can steer and manage Sauron. That's a good point as well. Iirc Denethor even points out that Gandalf never cared as much for Boromir because Boromir was strong and willful and didn't heed Gandalf. Faramir however did like Gandalf which was yet another point of contention between Denethor and Faramir and by extension Denethor and Gandalf.
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Feb 14, 2018 22:12
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VanSandman posted:I need to read the Lord of the Rings again. And the Silmarillion. And Beren and Luthien, which is my favorite. Read the Hobbit first which is his best work.
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Mar 26, 2018 04:23
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I hate that it says poor screenwriting. Peter Jackson didn't write the story, John Ronald Reuel Raymond Richard Tolkien did
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Apr 1, 2018 05:08
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Tolkien despised allegory but it's impossible not to be inspired by your circumstances so I'm sure there's a bit of his upbringing/background in what the Shire is like, Mordor, etc. In particular Tolkien was weary of industry and its destruction of the rural countryside that he loved.
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Apr 10, 2018 16:29
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Heithinn Grasida posted:I think Christopher Tolkien is pretty much the best custodian for JRRT’s works anyone could have hoped for. Not only did he have the dedication to compile and publish an enormous amount of his Father’s material, he seems to have a strict devotion to his father’s vision. If people ever take the legendarium seriously in spite of it being a bunch of elf stories, aside from the obvious quality of the stories themselves, it’s because of Christopher Tolkien. That said, I don’t think he comes across as particularly likable either. Yeah agreed. And while I don't hate the movies (though the Hobbit trilogy was terrible) they were not very faithful to what the books are like so I totally get why (financials aside) Christopher Tolkien hates them as someone who is so religiously devoted to his father's vision. JRRT would have hated the movies too. That said disowning your son over something like that is cruel and stupid. Some books about elves and poo poo aren't more important than family so I'm glad they reconciled. To understand Christopher Tolkien you basically have to understand this his whole life is curating his father's work. So any alternative piece of media that doesn't adhere to what he believes JRRT's vision was is going to be treated harshly.
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Apr 12, 2018 16:12
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skasion posted:Also the eagles don’t like carrying people indefinitely. Gwaihir bitches about flying Gandalf from Orthanc to Meduseld, which is not really very far. Hell the ring corrupts non Hobbits faster than others so the Eagles might have just eaten Frodo and took the ring for themselves. Just being around it would corrupt even them.
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Apr 14, 2018 01:19
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I liked the movies but the book autist in me still feels like a lot about them is nothing like the books were and that makes me sad. Things like Gimli being a joke, Legolas skate boarding, Elrond being a severe dude without the kind undertones in the book, the lack of wonder/mystery as compared to the books...there's a lot about the movies that bother me. They did a good job overall though and hit a few home runs. The Two Towers is the best one. They really nailed Rohan/Isengard though I didn't like their Treebeard. The books are way better but I feel that way about most adaptations so that's not necessarily a failing of Jackson.
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May 21, 2018 16:37
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skasion posted:Two Towers is so sluggish. I can understand why they wanted the two storylines to run parallel and not in sequence like the book, but the result is just awful, especially because they cut out the end of each one and jammed it into the next movie. In one case they just cut it altogether and did a crap version of it for the next movie’s extended edit! The whole Edoras->Helm’s Deep added sequence drags on for an hour, adds nothing. The Ithilien sequence is just stupid, it makes every single character involved in it look like an utter moron, the ending of it unravels Gandalf’s plan entirely and there’s no reason why the rest of the plot should work after it. Honorable mention to Faramir busting out some gratuitous Bush era prisoner torture hard on the heels of wondering whether evil people are really evil all the way down. Jackson’s ents are boring and the cgi for them is mediocre by the trilogy’s standards. Even the battle of Helm’s Deep which is really well done from a technical point of view has dumb poo poo like suddenly 1000 elf soldiers teleporting in to Faramir beating the poo poo out of Gollum is such an egregious rape of his character that I laugh out loud every time I see that scene. I dunno though nothing TTT does wrong even comes close though to their destruction of Denethor. The scene where he's eating tomatoes in a disgusting way is so dumb and nothing at all like book Denethor. They made him a buffoon when he's the closest rival to Gandalf's intelligence in the book that isn't Galadriel/Elrond/Saruman/Sauron. He's a really formidable person and the movie just shits all over that. And I think my memory might be wrong but doesn't Gandalf hit him in the head with his staff at some point when Denethor is freaking out? I don't remember that nonsense in the books but it's been a while since I've read them. I probably will soon actually since it's been a few years.
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May 21, 2018 17:53
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Movie Denethor is a pretty good self insert of Peter Jackson. Fat, sometimes right on the money with what he's doing but more often not, and he manages to screw things up despite having access to others (in this case, the books) giving him the correct way to do things.
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May 21, 2018 18:14
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cheetah7071 posted:Faramir's stuff in the book is boring. Giving him an arc where he rejects the ring at the end at least means something happens at all during it other than Tolkien masturbating over how good and noble Faramir is. I would have supported the movies vastly reducing his role. Too bad what they did instead was irredeemably stupid. I dunno if the solution to "Treebeard being boring in the books" (which I disagree with, but whatever) is to make him a moron in the movies who only fights Isengard because he gets tricked by Merry and Pippin. It's so much more powerful a moment in the books when the Ents are like yeah we're gonna go and try to stop Saruman even though we're likely gonna die doing so. And we're gonna do it because it's the right thing to do. Also the whole Entmoot in the books is rad with the different Ents talking tree gibberish to each other and Merry and Pipping not knowing what the gently caress. The movies take a lot of the sense of mystery and wonder out of the LOTR universe with decisions like that.
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May 21, 2018 18:42
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webmeister posted:Counter-point: Denethor's tomato scene owned https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac4I2DXxaG4
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May 21, 2018 19:10
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euphronius posted:Another example . The bridge of khazad dum scene is almost also a one to one beat for beat translation of what happens in the book (besides the ridiculous wings on the Balrog. Wtf). That works very well. But then “translations” of other scenes don’t really. Like there is no way the ent moot scene would have worked without major changes or the phantom dog attack in Hollin or Frodo just hanging out for 17 years or the bath scene in Buckland or Bombadils hallucination inducing story. adaptation is hard. It's fine to change things, but when you change them for the worse, then you done hosed up. An example of a good change is the whole Theoden arc which the movies did pretty well but wasn't quite the same as the book. Giving Arwen something to do instead of letting it be Glorfindel was a good change. A bad change was...well there's a lot. Faramir, the Ents, Denethor, etc. The whole tone Jackson went for was a more action-packed cinematic type Lord of the Rings. That's fine, and he mostly pulled it off, but I think Ebert said it best when he said that the way Jackson directed/filmed the movies was basically taking LOTR and aiming it at a teenage audience. The movies rarely pause to breathe. And god, I just remembered since I haven't seen them in a while, but does the music ever loving end? I think almost 100% of the scenes are musically scored which gets pretty irritating after a while. Still, my complaints aside, LOTR is a pretty solid trilogy of movies. They aren't the books, but they capture at least some of the feel of them. The Hobbit was loving terrible though. I didn't even see the other two so I have no idea how bad those are, but the first Hobbit was trash. Martin Freeman was an abominable Bilbo.
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May 23, 2018 16:17
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skasion posted:The movies are scored all the way through because Jackson was smart enough to realize that Shore was probably the greatest film composer in the world at the time and the more dramatic heavy lifting they could get him to do, the better. It's a great score but good lord it's in like every single scene. Even Star Wars gives you a breather.
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May 23, 2018 19:52
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Gandalf practically has a panic attack when he learns Frodo and Sam went that way but I dunno what he expected them to do. Trying to sneak through the Black Gate would probably have been as bad or worse. Sauron never even considers that someone would try to destroy the ring at least in part because the plan is madness. The Black Gate is heavily watched and guarded, and then there's Shelob.
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Jul 27, 2018 15:32
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skasion posted:Probably have a not-dead wizard, or at least a capable adult to make sure they didn’t run bare assed into primordial monsters/ringwraiths/orcs/any other fun Mordor stuff we never found out about. Gandalf and Aragorn probably always intended to send the bulk of the company to Gondor but there’s no reason to suspect it was in anyone’s plans to give Frodo and Sam a kick on the rear end in the direction of Mordor and just hope it turned out. Aragorn has probably been to Mordor before, or at least close, and who knows where Gandalf has been. But again, where else could they go? The Black Gate would have been impossible without using the Ring and if they did Sauron would have immediately detected them. Trying to sneak by Shelob is not the best idea either but probably a little less tough than walking right past Sauron's office. If I'm remembering the passage right though Gandalf says something like: "Cirith Ungol? Why that way?" And it's like dude what other way ya want em to go. Hieronymous Alloy posted:Gandalf's plan was, clearly, to take the Eagles. That's why he says "fly, you fools" ! This is true
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Jul 27, 2018 16:19
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skasion posted:That’s a good point. I’m not sure what he’s still wondering about then, since he surely can’t have expected them to get in by the Black Gate or its associated tunnelworks, walk round the entire country, or just scale the freaking mountains. Maybe he is just worried because he now knows Gollum was leading them there. A bit later when Pippin asks him about Gollum he does say that he fears Gollum will betray them. Yeah the passage Trin mentioned is the one I was thinking of. But I guess it's just Gandalf being a worry wart. He's having that reaction people sometimes have to a situation where there is no good answer where you get mad about a decision someone made but then realize the alternative is just as bad. I suppose it's possible Gandalf/Aragorn would know another way over the mountains but I doubt it. And any such paths would have been scouted by Sauron and defended anyways. There's no good way into Mordor.
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Jul 27, 2018 17:44
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skasion posted:To argue against myself here, we really don’t know how open the Noldor are about teaching to mortals. The fact that Bilbo felt an urge to translate the elvish myths into common speech suggests that no vulgate text was available. Hobbits do not seem to believe in the gods except in an extremely vague sense. Strider’s explanation of the Lay to the group at Weathertop is obviously given in the expectation that his audience does not have the slightest idea what he is talking about. Also, when Frodo speaks elvish it’s sometimes treated in a way like he’s speaking not entirely of his own volition, as when he “heard himself” invoke Varda against the Witchking or, invoking Eärendil against Shelob, “knew not what he had spoken”. So maybe he only knows a couple stories and some stock pleasantries and no more than that. I assumed the Shelob one was Frodo being influenced by the artifact Galadriel gave him.
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Jul 27, 2018 21:14
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skasion posted:Yeah. The star-glass is working magic on them through the whole scene, beginning with the vision/memory it shows Sam to remind him that it exists, and culminating in Sam himself reciting an elvish hymn which he explicitly can’t understand. Gandalf does something similar when Frodo has the ring on and Sauron nearly spots him after Boromir betrays the company. Frodo is wrestling with himself/Sauron mentally and he hears a thought telling him he's being a fool and to take it off. Whether Gandalf/Galadriel doing that is them doing so via the power of their rings or their own power is I guess up for debate. Iirc it's later revealed that Gandalf sat and wrestled with Sauron mentally to try and keep him from seeing Frodo. How Gandalf knew to do that I dunno. It seems like Elves have some veiled spiritual power given that Frodo sees how angry/gleaming Glorfindel is when the Ringwraiths attack at the ford and Glorfindel obviously has no ring. I'd guess Elves existing in both worlds have some greater power over the supernatural than a Hobbit, Dwarf, or Human might. So Galadriel is probably pretty strong even without the aid of her ring.
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Jul 27, 2018 21:29
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skasion posted:Sauron has been preparing military campaigns against Gondor for years, long before the Ring ever came to light. This is probably about half sensible strategic concern and about half enduring bitterness towards the Dúnedain. We don’t get enough data to see whether prior campaigns (like that against the steward Boromir in the 25th century) had the total ruin of Gondor as an objective, but you’d have to assume Sauron would have taken that if he could get it. Also strategically Sauron is so powerful at this point that he can afford to lose a battle against Gondor. So yes he attacks sooner than he might have liked because Aragorn spooks him, but he also weighs (correctly) the fact that he has enough armies in reserve to be able to do it again even if the attack fails. The ring being found is actually a huge boon for the people of Middle Earth because while its potential capture by Sauron would seal their doom it was also inevitable that he would have won the war had the ring not been found. Because even without it, his reach and his armies were strong enough that Gondor et al would eventually lose unless the ring was destroyed. But yeah Gondor/Mordor have been warring for years. Actually, there's a cool story (in the Appendix of LOTR or maybe the Silmarillion, I forget which) about how the Witch King takes up residence in Minas Morgul before Sauron has openly declared himself again (I think) and he basically sets up shop there and starts relentlessly poo poo talking the last king of Gondor, Eärnur and challenges him to single combat. Eärnur had fought the Witch King years earlier in Fornost (a Northern kingdom) but his horse panicked and he wasn't able to finish him off. Also at that battle was when Glorfindel made the prediction that it wasn't by man's hand the Witch King would die. So back in Gondor, Eärnur at first resists the trash talk but eventually relents and rides to Minas Morgul to fight the Witch King. He rides into the city and is never seen again. I wonder how the Witch King was doing the trash talk though. Did he send letters? Use the Palantir? Also given this happens all the way back in 2050 why doesn't Gandalf realize the Nine are still around and up to no good? The Nazgul apparently stay pretty quiet in Minas Morgul for years afterwards, but Gandalf doesn't seem to fear their presence until he hears tidings of them wayyyy later about when Frodo is setting out. Yet he should have realized based on what happened to Eärnur hundreds of years ago that they were still around and a menace. Ginette Reno fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Jul 31, 2018 |
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Jul 31, 2018 01:51
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skasion posted:I don’t think it’s that Gandalf doesn’t think they’re still around, it’s that he doesn’t specifically expect them to be around the Shire. Remember, Sauron has no idea where the Shire is even when he sends the wraiths out to go look for the Ring! If they hadn’t bumped into Saruman’s goblin-man flunky on the road they might have taken years to find Frodo. Also, the ringwraiths have historically been used to fight against the Numenorean kingdoms, and were most recently (still hundreds of years before LOTR) sighted making war on Gondor. We don’t get any sense that they regularly traveled any farther afield than Dol Guldur (in fact the total cockup they make of the hunt for the ring suggests their lack of experience in distant lands). Gandalf assumed they were still at Minas Morgul or in the borderlands of Gondor at best, or bumbling around half the northern world looking for a place whose name is also a generic word for an administrative division at worst. It's kinda curious though that the Ring Wraiths don't know about the Shire since Fornost is a Northern Kingdom and the Witch King dwelt near there for many years. And obviously, it's a short jump from there to Bree where Hobbits/Men have lived together for years and years. There's also the rumor of Hobbits fighting alongside Men against the Witchking's northern armies though it might just be Hobbits fancying that it happened. The Shire isn't *that* far from where the Witch King was dwelling for a while. I guess the argument would be they had no reason to care or wonder about lands to the West of there back then since so far as they knew the only thing of consequence to the West was the havens leading to Valinor. Also interesting that Sauron never learned of Hobbits via Saruman. Saruman obviously knew about the Shire long before Sauron did, and yet Sauron dominated Saruman via the Palantir. Yet perhaps Saruman had enough cunning and strength to hide knowledge of the Shire from Sauron. Certainly he would have tried to do so given he coveted the ring for himself. skasion posted:Since JRRT doesn’t elaborate, I’m forced to assume it’s just like the opening scene of The Worm Ouroboros and Angmar sent him a really ugly dude with a tail to deliver a rude note. That would own
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Jul 31, 2018 03:11
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euphronius posted:A Númenórean living forever would be a very big plot hole. Sauron teaching them enough sorcery to live longer than normal doesn't sound out of the question though.
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Aug 2, 2018 15:38
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What I'm wondering is what Sauron even thought Frodo/Sam were up to. Spying I guess, but what could he think the West could gain by that? It's no secret that Sauron has huge armies. What spying would there be to do? They're Hobbits, not Orcs or Men, so it's not like they could join his service as double agents. The extent of their spying would be limited purely to what they could observe by sneaking/watching. Just really goes to show how blind Sauron was to their plans because he should have had alarm bells going off in his mind the minute he learned there were enemies abroad in Mordor. It's fortuitous in the end that it was only Frodo/Sam in Mordor because if Aragorn or Legolas was there and the Orcs had spotted them and reported it to Sauron, that surely would have raised his ire more. Although to that point when Sam goes after Shagrat the ring (or perhaps the phial?) makes him look tall and menacing as he's searching the tower for Frodo, and it does so to such an extent that Shagrat panics and runs off rather than risk fighting him. So Shagrat then must have thought Sam was an elf or human warrior which begs the question of why Sauron wasn't more concerned about the possibility of his presence in Mordor once he heard Shagrat's tale. Although I guess it's possible that Sauron was worried about it and Tolkien just doesn't let us know
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Aug 2, 2018 21:39
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sunday at work posted:And if Sauron thought for one second anyone would ever try to destroy the ring Mount Doom would be swarming with Orcs and Trolls no matter where the bulk of his armies were deployed or how many ways there were into Mordor. Nothing, not even the Eagles would be able to get within miles. Gandalf actually says this at some point in the books. He said the easiest way for Sauron to win would be to just turn man all the borders of Mordor with a ton of his troops. If Sauron had focused purely on doing that, and guarding all ways to Mount Doom, there would have been no hope. In fairness to Sauron though, the plan of bringing the ring to Mordor is practically suicidal. Getting past the Black Gate would have been pretty much impossible without resorting to using the Ring, and anybody that put the Ring on that close to Sauron would have been instantly detected. So that leaves Cirith Ungol which is guarded by the biggest terror in the world apart from Sauron and the Balrog. And if you somehow get past that, you have to travel across Mordor which is filled with troops at all times. Gandalf's plan to draw away the armies of Mordor is a brilliant one because if the West had just turtled in Minas Tirith again and waited for Frodo to win they might have had disaster since Frodo and Sam would have had a terrible time of sneaking around otherwise. So even if Sauron had considered that the West might try to destroy the ring, he probably could have felt pretty confident that such a plan would end in his favor even without bulking up Mordor's security.
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Aug 3, 2018 16:08
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Ashcans posted:Sauron was pretty justified in not considering the plan, because it relies on someone having possession of the ring, and then not only willfully discarding it, but destroying it. There are a number of people who are able to refuse to take the ring, but I think its an open question question whether they would also be able to give it up once they had carried it. Could Aragorn or Faramir still refuse the ring, once they had taken it up and carried it all the way to Orodruin? Even Frodo, who had carried the ring and was able to offer it up to someone else three times, balked at actually destroying it. I believe that Tolkien stresses (outside the text) that Frodo did as well as anyone else could have just bringing it to the mountain. Sauron likely knew this, and even if he considered that they might try to destroy it, he'd expect that their will would fail and all they would accomplish would be to bring it directly to his stronghold. Which makes it a curious plan by Gandalf. He knows that Frodo couldn't even toss it into his small fire in Hobbiton. Why did Gandalf think he'd have the will power to do it in Mordor? I do agree that in the end nobody save Tom Bombadil could have willingly destroyed it (and that's assuming Bombadil's power even works outside of his borders which I doubt) I think even Gandalf, Galadriel, etc would lack the power to willingly destroy it. It took fate and mercy (sparing Gollum) to get it done. A lot of Gandalf's plans seem to basically come down to putting the right people in place and then hoping poo poo gets solved by providence. He puts together Bilbo's party but he knows they have no way to kill the dragon or realistically steal from it. Yet he hopes that by them going there and trying that something good will happen. And something good does. He knows that Frodo is unlikely to have the will to harm the ring. In Hobbiton when they do the fire test Frodo can't even bring himself to put it in that fire. But Gandalf puts together the Fellowship and figures if they can get the ring into Mordor it will get destroyed somehow. And it does.
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Aug 3, 2018 17:27
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euphronius posted:Yeah they are def past the point of raising the host of Valinor and raiding Mordor Wonder what they'd have done if Sauron won though. Would the Gods be content to sit by while Sauron had dominion over all of Middle Earth?
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Aug 3, 2018 18:10
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Heithinn Grasida posted:To answer seriously, Frodo got really hosed up by his quest, beyond the normal capacity of things in middle earth to heal. Gandalf absolutely knew that, or worse, was going to happen and sent Frodo anyway. If he was there at the crack of doom, he probably wouldn’t have just punted Frodo into the fire, but he likely would have used force to make him throw away the ring. Which would have wrecked what was left of Frodo completely. Gandalf actually says to Frodo that forcing him to give away/harm the ring by force would break Frodo's mind. So yeah, I think Gandalf probably wouldn't do that unless there were no other option. There is also the question of if Gandalf even could try to harm the ring in Sauron's domain. Could Gandalf harm Frodo or would he lose his marbles and try to take the ring from Frodo instead? I don't know if anyone - even an Istari- could willingly destroy the ring.
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Aug 4, 2018 04:50
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So why is Gandalf more powerful when he's sent back after killing the Balrog? Did the Gods say gently caress it and give him a power boost since Saruman turned traitor? Or was he always stronger than Saruman and just now realizing it? Or is it a matter of evil diminishing its own power? There's a consistent theme throughout Lotr (and the Silmarillion too) of how doing evil poo poo diminishes the person. Saruman diminishes the power of his voice by becoming a tyrant. Sauron diminishes his own power with the ring (albeit, his power is expanded when in possession of the ring) and he also loses the ability to take fair forms after Numenor is destroyed. So it's possible I guess to read Saruman's loss to Gandalf as Saruman losing a lot of his former power by becoming a tyrant. Indeed by the end of Lotr Saruman is so diminished that he gets owned by a bunch of a Hobbits and Gandalf isn't even worried in the slightest about helping the Hobbits stop his wickedness.
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Aug 9, 2018 18:57
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