"Fuck Man" or "We're Talking About The Lord Of The Rings Now"

[Bard The 5th LW]

I remember a long time ago I watched the movies with an older friend and I didn't get it because I was probably around the age of 10, but then my Spanish teacher started showing us the Spanish dub to occasionally eat time and I suddenly understood everything.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Archbio

The ring is described as "lost." Sauron and a bunch of "Wizards" are described as not being able to find it.

No, I don't think that it's in any way a reasonable reading to conclude that they know exactly where it is but just haven't bothered going there.

So you probably mean a different villain.

But it was in precisely the last place it was seen. And this was in a famous battle which is mentioned numerous times by lots of people and the place where this battle occured is in the name of the battle "gladden fields".
Like ok, Gandalf didn't find it either- that just makes Gandalf stupid as well. Though he would have been hampered by Sauron having his fortress right next to where he has to look.
It wasn't so much "lost" as everyone was too lazy to go find it.

And like Gandaf having to look up shit about the one ring- too much pot smoking. Like he was there when all the shit originally happened, he carries one of the rings himself.
Stupid, stupid.


E: Readig some more, Gandalf did know the ring fell in the river but he was like "It's totally washed to sea, bound to have... bound to, let's not waste time looking for it". That's pretty stupid Gandalf.
Also apparentely Sauron did search the river for it but didn't find it. So like instead of doing all the risky shit in the lord of the rings they shoud have just like dug a big hole and buried it. Cause Sauron can't find things for shit.

[Red Mage Black]

Originally Posted by EckScizor

I assume you're talking about Return of the King?

Extended scene where's he's smoking a pipe making fun of Pippin (as usual), he coughs an awful lot.

Like, that's not tobacco smoke coughing. That's pipe "weed" coughing.

Huh, what someone pointed out to me once, maybe pipe weed is just the lingo or something for tobacco? Maybe it's more 'pipe weed'. Granted, their whole point in smoking seems more for relaxing, hence the thing it's probably actually like weed.

And uh... didn't Gollum and his buddy find it in a lake, not the river itself? Unless my perception is just skewed when I watch the movie or they just changed it from the book.

Another thing they could have done was give it to the Dwarves and chuck it down one of their huge friggin' chasms. "You can go down to get it, but good luck coming back out or alive for that matter." The Ring wouldn't be destroyed, but at least it saves the trouble of it corrupting anyone else.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I'm just going by Wikipedia here which doesn't say whether it a lake or a river but does say it was in Gladden Fields which is where Isildur lost it so I think it safe assumption it was there or thereabouts.

Other things you could do witht he ring- hide it on one of the boats going to the undying lands- Sauron can't get there so he is fucked. Stick it in a box on the underwater side of the hull so nobody finds it.
Or you know, chuck it in a river- any river. That works really well.

[Bard The 5th LW]

I was under the impression that hiding it wasn't enough. Like, Sauron would exist so long as the ring did or some stuff like that.

e: I remember the scene where the elf was like "Kill the evil Ilsidure" and Isildur was like "Nah" and I was thinking to myself "Why doesn't the elf just kill Ilsidur?" Seriously, shoot him with an arrow, stab him with a sword, or just grab him and leap into the volcano with him. You ought to try something.

[Magus]

Originally Posted by Red Mage Black

Nothing to see here everyone! Seil has clearly been drinking(again).

On topic, I was pretty sure that Lord of the Rings was one big metaphor for the Bible. Gollum I guess was suppose to be Judas to Frodo's Jesus? Isildur I think was also suppose to be something like Adam... or maybe King David? Hell if I know. Either way, Borimir was a douchebag and his brother was far better.

There are some Biblical parallels but Tolkein was way more into Norse mythology than Biblical stuff. His buddy C.S. Lewis was more into Biblical analogies.

Like the cosmology of the world created kind of resembles a mixture of Christianity and Norse stuff, you have an archangel in Melkor/Morgoth rebelling against his creator and attempting to take over the world with fallen angels as his generals like Sauron and so on, but then you also have a lot of other stuff like those giant trees and whatever that is way more Nordic, or the final battle resembles Ragnarok more than Armageddon. Also the names are all Nordic sounding.

I could go into more detail but I can't even remember half the names for stuff, like the archangels are called the Valar, can't remember what Sauron/Gandalf/Saruman are called...I'm not on my A-game right now.

Also Re: the opening post here I just have to say that Seil must have been completely trashed, even more so than usual, when he wrote that.

EDIT: Oh, Sauron and Gandalf are Maiar, whereas the top brass (Morgoth and then the good ones) are Valar. Then you have the creator...Manwe or something? It's been forever since I read the Silmarillion.

ANOTHER EDIT: Er wait Eru Iluvatar created the Ainur/Valar which are like the archangels, I think Manwe was one of those dudes, as well as Morgoth...then Morgoth rebels and takes some of the Maiar, lesser angels, into trying to conquer the world, like Sauron. Whereas Gandalf, Radagast, Saruman, etc. are given human form and fight for the side of good (until Saruman decides to join forces with Sauron, of course).

So the Ainur are similar not only to the Nordic Aesir (Thor and Odin and those dudes) but also archangels in Judeo-Christian stuff.

[Archbio]

Barrelpants,

And like Gandaf having to look up shit about the one ring- too much pot smoking. Like he was there when all the shit originally happened, he carries one of the rings himself.
Stupid, stupid.

Originally Posted by The Silmarillion

Even as the first shadows were felt in Mirkwood there appeared in the West of Middle-Earth the Istari, whom Men called the Wizards.

Page 359 of my HarperCollins edition of the Silmarillion, and I'm pretty sure that's the progression of events suggested by the Lord of the Rings, too. The Wizards arrive way after Sauron lost his groove, and Gandalf gets one of the Three as a gift upon arrival (that or he finds it in a cereal box.)

From page 360 onwards:

But Saruman now began to study the lore of the Rings of Power, their making and their history.[...]

'For I believe not,' said he, 'that the One will ever be found again in Middle-earth. Into Anduin it fell, and long ago, I deem, it was rolled to the Sea. There it shall lie until the end, when all this world is broken and the deeps are removed.'[...]He set a watch upon the Gladden Fields; but soon he discovered that the servants of Dol Guldur were searching all the ways of the River in that region. Then he perceived that Sauron also had learned of the manner of Isildur's end, and he grew afraid and withdrew to Isengard and fortified it[...]To this Curunir [Saruman] now assented, desiring that Sauron should be thrust from Dol Guldur, which was nigh to the River, and should have leisure to search there no longer.

For [The Ring] had been taken from Anduin long ere they sought for it, being found by one of the small fisher-folk that dwelt by the River[...]and by its finder it was brought beyond search into dark hiding under the roots of the mountains. There it dwelt, until even in the year of the assault upon Dol Guldur it was found again, by a wayfarer[.]

The Lord of the Rings probably just goes into less detail about it while keeping the same pattern, so I think that'll do.

Saruman knows the Ring was lost in the river, because he's studied the lore of it. The other Wizards don't seem to have much of a clue about that, and when Saruman informs them of it, it's to mislead them and distract them with an optimistic conclusion. That Sauron would know the details of the story of Isildur doesn't seem to have been a given to Saruman.

So obviously: there's an obscure character to it. I don't remember how the Lord of the Rings convey that. Well, I know that the movies convey it by having Gandalf do his own search of that forgotten lore.

So basically Tolkien describes Saruman and Sauron as learning whereabout the Ring was lost, they search for it (no small task I think, considering it's called The Great River and the Gladden Fields are marshes) while trying not to alert the whole world to it and they mutually obstruct each other.

And it's all moot, because the Ring was already gone by then. Deviousness/wisdom foiled by random chance seems to be the theme.

That's not to say that Gandalf wasn't sometimes kind of a shiftless pothead. That's practically a theme, too!

Originally Posted by Bard

I was under the impression that hiding it wasn't enough. Like, Sauron would exist so long as the ring did or some stuff like that.

Yeah, as I recall it's also why they don't give it to Tom Bombadil.

Page 363, Gandalf, being diligent about that one thing, at least:

'It is not needed that the Ring should be found, for while it abides on earth and is not unmade, still the power that it holds will live, and Sauron will grow and have hope [...] Soon he will be too strong for you, even without the Great Ring; for he rules the Nine, and of the Seven he has recovered three.'

Again, I thought that was conveyed even in the movie by Mordor just then going to war with a massive army that's growing into something virtually unstoppable.

Making the ring practically impossible to find could have been easy enough, sure, but it would have been sort of a Pyrrhic victory.

[Seil]

Because people mostly know the movies, I feel safe in saying this:

It was Tom Bombadils fault. All of it.

That's why they cut him out of the movies. I mean, he's a bear. Who knows what type of shennanigans he was up to?

[Archbio]

You're thinking of the other random weirdo loiterer, the one from The Hobbit, methinks.

Still a good point. It goes for both of them.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Archbio

Barrelpants,

Yeah that is in the book but it just confirms further that these characters are stupid. It's your mortal enemies/your own key source of power. It was lost in a famous battle with the death of a mythic hero. Like that's the kind of thing you should just know. Why did nobody go search for it the moment Isildur died? Why did everyone just forget about it.
Like clearly they all did just forget about it but that's fucking stupid.
Both Gandalf and Sauron are bumbling incompetents who forget incredibly important pieces of information because they hitting too much of the pipeweed.

Again, I thought that was conveyed even in the movie by Mordor just then going to war with a massive army that's growing into something virtually unstoppable.

Making the ring practically impossible to find could have been easy enough, sure, but it would have been sort of a Pyrrhic victory.

Just divert the river next to mordor to go right around it. Problem solved.

Originally Posted by Seil

Because people mostly know the movies, I feel safe in saying this:

It was Tom Bombadils fault. All of it.

That's why they cut him out of the movies. I mean, he's a bear. Who knows what type of shennanigans he was up to?

Tom Bombadil is the greatest hero who ever lived. Fuck you.