For tolkien fans among you

[Manekineko 200]

to be found here

[Kotoseiya Yuichi 3]

Unless I'm mistaken some of these pictures adorned the edition of The Hobbit I read when I was a kid in late Seventies. As everyone familiar with Tolkien's works knows, Hobbit is somewhat lighter in style to Lord Of The Rings and especially Silmarillion.

On Wednesday comes the new four-DVD set of The Fellowship Of The Ring  (Laughing...) and I may donate the old double DVD edition forwards. 37 days to the premiere of The Two Towers! I admit I was very sceptical of the movies first but having watched FoTR now for about ten times, I've learned to accept its differences with the book.

I do have to correct one mistake in the movie. Orcs are not born in mud pits! After all, once they were elves...

There's no way of knowing what's going on in The Two Towers unless you've read the book and/or seen FoTR first. You have a month to spare. I recommend both, preferably the book. :-D

[Kotoseiya Yuichi 3]

The movie never had orcs being born from within mud-pits. It was the Uruk-hai.

Possibly slight spoilers ahead!

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Yes, they were the uruk-hai but even uruk-hai are considered orcs. Just bigger, more resistant to daylight and generally nastier.

I've understood they started to appear about five centuries before the War Of The Ring. Certainly they weren't incubated under membranes generation after generation. Tolkien was adamant (I can't find the reference but my recollection is very strong) about orcs' nature as basically just another race under the sun which reproduced itself just like other races. They were horrendously mutilated but kept their very basic attributes inherited from the elves.

This might come as surprise to some but did you know that the orcs were...

...immortal?

This piece of conversation between orc officers Shagrat and Gorbag in the end of The Two Towers is often referred to prove this:

'Who cut the cords she'd put round him, Shagrat? Same one as cut the web. Didn't you see that? And who stuck a pin into Her Ladyship? Same one, I reckon. And where is he? Where is he, Shagrat? '

Shagrat made no reply.

`You may well put your thinking cap on, if you've got one. It's no laughing matter. No one, no one has ever stuck a pin in Shelob before, as you should know well enough. There's no grief in that; but think - there's someone loose hereabouts as is more dangerous than any other damned rebel that ever walked since the bad old times, since the Great Siege. Something has slipped.'

The Great Siege above is widely thought to refer to the last alliance of men and elves three thousand years ago when the One Ring was taken from Sauron (the introductory episode in FoTR). These two speak as if they were there just like Elrond, Gil-Galad and the lords of N

[Manekineko 200]

Of course, I considered naming this thread "For Kotoseiya-zeki"...  (Laughing...)

"Hobbit" will always stay in my fondest memory, since my big brother used to read it to me as a bed-time story, chapter at a time. I remember crying when Thorin Oakshield died... and to this day my eyes get moist when I recall that.  :~-(

Well, when I was a little bigger I read "Hobbit" by myself, and then "Lord of the Rings", and then many other fantasy and SF books... I own "Hobbit" in three different languages, LotR in two (and considering finaly buying that english version), and I reread them occasionaly (last occasion being after watching "Fellowship"). Yes, I too am Tolkienoholic, although not as ardent as Kotoseiya...  (Blush...)

[Kotoseiya Yuichi 3]

One more thing that's been bugging me.

At Amon S

[Manekineko 200]

Ah, Kotoseiya-zeki, you take your fiction far too seriously. Isn't LotR set in time before the Earth was round? America didn't exist yet, so tomatoes had to grow *somewhere*. And where else but Shire, which is not far from those west-facing harbours... No, wait, Earth was falt until sinking of Nummenor, was it Nummenor? I really should re-read Tolkien... (Baaa...)

Or, explanation No.2: those weren't tomatoes, but some similar and since extinct vegetable, that is best translated from common Middlelandish tongue as 'tomato'. Why, and overall smoking of 'leaf' didn't bother you? Or you just presumed it to be hemp, and not tobacco? ;)

[Kotoseiya Yuichi 3]

No, wait, Earth was falt until sinking of Nummenor, was it Nummenor?

(...)

Why, and overall smoking of 'leaf' didn't bother you? Or you just presumed it to be hemp, and not tobacco? ;)

Curved Waters didn't exist before the Fall of N

[Kotoseiya Yuichi 3]

Since there already was a Tolkien related thread going on, I thought I'd remind you of Ted Nasmith's new web site.

Dozens of large images that can be used as backgrounds. 8-O  (Heart)  8-O  (Heart)  8-O

[Onnagumo 4]

Wow. This really is a great forum!

I seem to have at least two things in common with Kotoseiya-zeki.... (Happy...)