Took me like 2 minutes to hit subscribe (on the looking like a gremilin).. I'm outside, its 13 degrees and im wrapped in a blanket.. yeah i think cloaks are neat, would be awesome to have this at night while camping.. so lets look for some ideas and here we are.. brilliant content, the music, ton, the closing comments... its perfection, thank you so much!
@54:35 It doesnt mention ot being a time ship....based on the context of people dying all the time it distinctly sounds space only....he even forgot he "already did" arthur...having been stuck on that name for a while with arthur being in the future for rhe second visit
It is the question, not the answer that matters. The quest starts with a challenge, which leads to the journey. One swims out of the whirlpool, escapes from the dungeon, defeats the giant, makes friends with the dragon, sleeps three nights with 20 beauitul horny virgins who remain virgins each morning, is shipwrecked on the secret magic island, climbs the ice mountain, finds the Aged One who, after testing on, points out the strait path to the eternal cave and clambers down into the dangerous boulder collapse that nearly dumps one into the bottomless pit and finally ... there it is! You pick up the HOLY CRAIL and now one holds a cup.
I've been saying for decades that Computers will never have real Artificial Intelligence because you can't program in random error, which is what drives creative thought.
You are correct that everybody wants everything to be like everything before it. I read the entire trilogy as it came out I got that we are introduced to a world n the first two [really one] and, improbably as it may be, we are sucked in and - well, here we are. The trajectory is traceable through five books - wait" there's more?
Before the rings that we all know in the poem, there were dozens of lesser rings created as Celebrimbor and Annatar perfected their skill. Then came the rings made famous by Bilbo's poem. The last of those rings, but BEFORE the one ring was created, was the three Elven rings. THEN Sauron made the one ring that bound all the other major rings to his will. When Sauron put his ring on for the first time, the Elves wearing the three rings immediately knew of his treachery. All three removed their rings, and refused to use them again until the day Sauron lost his master ring. So what does the one ring do for Sauron? It binds all the major rings to his mind - like a psychic connection. He can see into the minds of all the wearers. He can influence their thoughts directly, bending them to his will over time. Imagine the power you would have over someone if you knew their every thought, every secret, their every desire. AND be able to insert your own thoughts into their heads. Now imagine having that power over 19 of the most powerful people on Earth. What does the one ring do for anyone else? It enhances whatever skills and abilities you already have. This is partly why it seems to do different things for different people. It also makes you well nigh immortal... but its ability to preserve your health is not so good. You will physically decline, but at a much slower rate. Your soul is bound to your body, though. So you cannot die even as your body withers away to bone, and even the bones turn to dust after a thousand years or so. Even then, you would still live in a twilight between the physical and the spiritual realms. This is similar to the power of the 9 rings for humans. The nazgul bodies had long since turned to dust, but their souls were basically imprisoned by their respective rings. Physically withered away to nothing, yet still unable to die, they were utterly enslaved by their master, Sauron. This is also why one became "invisible". It was because you were physically moved halfway into the realm of the spirit - this twilight between realms - one foot in each, so to speak. But as we saw on Weathertop, and also at Mt. Doom, you were still vulnerable to attack on the physical realm. What about the ring's malice? That's a function of its maker. Think of Sauron as essentially the Christian equivalent of Lucifer. Sauron, being primarily a being of spirit, imbued his ring with the greater part of himself. He put much of his own soul into the ring (sound familiar?). All that malice and hate and will in the ring affected others around it. (working sorta like a super horcrux). Being in the presence of the one ring was sort of like being in the presence of Sauron himself. Or his soul or spirit, at least. Thus, when the ring was destroyed, the greater part of Sauron's soul (or spirit) was destroyed - much like when all of Voldemort's horcruxes were destroyed. There wasn't much of his soul left. In Tolkien's story, there wasn't enough of Sauron left to keep himself together, nor all the other things he magically created - like his tower, his control over the minds of others, and his own physical body. All the major rings lost their power when the one was destroyed (or most of it) - suggesting that Sauron's secret to making all the magical rings was his own soul or spirit. Kind of like having 20 horcruxes all destroyed at once. What was left was barely a whisper in the wind. Which brings into question how Celebrimbor made the three rings on his own. How did Sauron bind those three to his one, and why the three lost their power when the one was destroyed? There seems to be some plot hole here, no matter how we look at it.
When the movie came out, we were on holidays and we old folk attended a regional movie theatre with our bright beach towels draped over our shoulders. The looks we got from the young folk were hysterical. There were many side eyes and levitating eyebrows. You could see the “crazy old folk” expressions amongst the trendy teens. As we left after the movie hubby and I got lots of “ahhh I get it now” “good one dude” “you must be old fans” (rude, but accurate 😂) and non stop high 5s from the local youth. It’s a great core memory.
A point for anyone planning a society: about 4% of your people will be sociopaths and psychopaths. So you need to have methods to detect them and processes to deal with them. This is not done by idealists. And not enough writers of fantasy.
The fragment of TNS that exists comes across to me as almost more like the start of a Lovecraft story in tone. Without debating Lovecraft himself, the philosophy behind his stories is different to even Tolkien's darkest moments in a fundamental way. If it seemed as though that was the direction - even in a general way - the story would lead... I imagine Tolkien might be positively repelled by it. That said, there are fantasy / supernatural horror stories that lean towards the Lovecraftian that i always thought were not incompatible with Tolkien's legendarium. E.G. The Black Stone by Robert Howard - after reading this and then the Silmarillion it occurred to me that The Black Stone would be a good fit for tale about a modern-era person uncovering something of the ruins of Utomno, or Angband, and the worshippers and their 'deity' might match well to a surviving tribe of Orcs, worshipping a surviving Maia or other of Morgoth's monsters lurking in the ruins.
Ha, having read George RR Martin’s books, think he could have done with less detail and more flow. Those books needed serious editing, it’s rare for the TV version to be so much better
A great fantasy story that does have romance fairly heavily featured, but not a central aspect to the story you should check out is Malinda Lo's "Huntress." It draws heavily from celtic mythology and focuses more-so on adventure than anything else. Like I said, it does heavily feature romance, but it focuses on the companionship of romance, sex scenes are all "fade to black" style. It is also an incredible LGBT novel. It is EXTREMELY difficult to find LGBT stories that feature actual people rather than sad excuses for pornography. The author is a woman with a wife, so it is extremely realistic. She writes the featured straight couple incredibly well, too. Again, both romance subplots are about the companionship of love, akin to the friendship subplots in LotR. I highly recommend it; the book is so underrated. It's a follow-up to a re-telling of Cinderella, but otherwise disconnected from it, "Ash," merely set in the same world. Ash is good, too, but "Huntress" is more of an epic. It's difficult to describe the actual plot without having to explain aspects of the world it's set in, so I can't comment much on that beyond it's a fantasy-adventure faerie tail epic. *Does anyone else have recommendations for fantasy without heavy smut? I'm tired of all the fantasy porn being the primary option and need some direction in finding what I'm looking for.*
I see the HHG as a funny reflection on a scientific interpretation of how the Universe works. The infinite improbability drive adds an aspect of ironic analysis.
ARTHUR REX by Thomas Berger is an amazing, rather "arch" retelling of Morte d'Arthur. Mary Stewart wrote a very interesting and enjoyable "Melin Trilogy" starting with THE CRYSTAL CAVE.
Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart is the first book in a really good series … one of those attempts to put Arthur in history but it was great to read in high school… and it’s time for me to revisit
Tolkien's undergraduate college (Exeter) was that of William Morris (one of the Pre-Raphaelites) and Tolkien would have probably been surrounded by the works. Exeter has a room dedicated to Morris.
C.S. Lewis makes an admirable attempt to make sense out of pagan Merlin in a Christian world in That Hideous Strength, the truly excellent third volume of his space trilogy. Also, as if there weren't enough Merlin origin stories, has anyone heard of the Sweeney The Druid version, where Sweeney the Mad Druid of Ireland has his mind healed with sacred spring water, then moves to England to become Merlin. An interesting story to research, if anyone has time.
I was a young man, back in the ice ages, when last I read LOTR. I've come to think of them as long-winded and not very psychologically deep, but your words about Tolkien pulling at the threads of his own creation has made me want to reread - I did love these stories once and maybe I could again, thanks
