Tolkien Thread (The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, etc.)

See my first post in this thread. I'd say if we're not on the same page, we're hovering around the same chapter.

Not really. Don't even need lore arguments for this one. Elves don't age (or I believe get sick) but obviously they can still be killed. Oh also if they go super emo, they die from that as well. True story.

Now if they let the Big Bad run a train on everyone else, it'd be a pretty shitty world for them to live in, forever. Forgoing the 98% probability that they'd get tortured and killed directly as well, everyone else in the world being so subjected and corrupted would make them go super emo and then it's "press F" time.

Personally I never cared for how the elves were portrayed in LOTR, at how they were this race of perfect, immortal beings who were automatically better at everything without even trying. I get that J.R.R Tolkien wanted the elves to be angelic in his stories and I can deal with that in terms of just reading the novels, but when other forms of entertainment media begin to emulate this trope is when I start to roll my eyes.

I suppose I should say that I don't like how the idea of "elves = literally the best" filtered down into the frameworks of other things like Dungeons and Dragons; I tend to like my settings a bit more balanced in that regard. After all, why play as anything other than an elf in those settings if the Tolkien version exists?


I like how the elves (High Elves technically) were handled in Warhammer Fantasy. Sure they're immortal and immensely skilled, but they are also incredibly prideful and arrogant. This arrogance is what lead them to drastically underestimate the dwarves during the War of the Beard, and they wound up having their capital sacked and their king's crown stolen by the short folk because of it.

Well that's the other side of the coin for elves. In most Tolkien-esque worlds this is downplayed or not acknowledged, but all you have to do to avoid the "graceful elves are better at everything forever" is just turn up the dial on their natural negatives. That may be partly why I prefer Thranduil over other elves in the LOTR movie trilogy. He does show the dark(er) side of that characterization

Haven't read the books yet, but where are the Elves and Bilbo heading at the end of LotRs, is there more of the middle Earth or is it on another plane of existence?

Yeah, the Silmirillian is full of *sshole elves:  Feanor and his sons, Maeglin, Eol, arguably Thingol Greycloak...

Elves are not just long-lived. They know exactly where they go after death, and it is questionable, depending on how Tolkien was feeling on a given day about his mythos, whether they can die at all. It is implied by some of the legendarium that their bodies just regenerate in Aman, and that some of them have even returned to Middle-earth i.e. Glorfindel.

Kinda sums up Tolkien's works well:

It's the first time I've seen it and it's a fun read but he's pretty hard on my favorite asshole. I would like to make a post later in defense of Fëanor but I'm not sure If I have the time. Maybe it's strange but I've always kind of hated the Valar anyway, except for Ulmo.

It's really interesting though, so thanks.

Some news (???) regarding the TV shows. It's said that Peter Jackson may be brought to work on it by Amazon.
Here's a link if you care to do some reading.
Mixed feelings honestly when it comes to Peter Jackson, the last set of movies was Hollywood garbage for the most part if you ask me. It's a given they would deviate from established lore, but dude, going THAT far is a bit of too much. I mean, the guy took one book and transformed that in 3 movies, like holy shit.
He did a great job with the first 3 movies though (imo).

It's said that Ian McKellen would like to play as Gandalf again, although Andy Serkis thinks he probably wont be on the show. I guess the success of the movies was also due to the iconic characters, but then again, there're fuckton of characters in the lore that people don't know, characters that are just as good I think.

Why wouldn't they is the question. If anything, it surprises me it took this long to get a TV show being LOTR such a big franchise, but I guess just recently it started the whole trend of getting loads of shows from one publisher or the other.
The problem with tv shows (especially fantasy/futuristic ones) I think is that you need a hell of a lot of money for each episode and you don't get as much revenue as in movies? I think a movie costs a lot, but you do one and then you get shitloads of revenue from theaters for quite some time.

lets be honest the simiraillion took  years to read because it was so fucking boring you fell asleep every few pages

finding workable material out of that to make into a screen adaptation is going to take serious amounts of hallucinogenic compounds, and if it follows the stories is going to largely consist of lots of epic scenery and not much else.....

i actually managed to read it for a second time when i was stuck in hospital chugging morphine every few minutes and it was still a chore to read it but since i couldn't think straight thats probably the only thing that kept me from going totally insane at the time..... heh maybe they should make it forced reading in nut houses, anyone that enjoys it goes to the secure wing and everyone that really struggles is clearly faking things so gets let out