Tag Archives: LOTR

Blogs, Socials, Fiction

Rings of Power Have Returned to Assail Us All

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Season two of Rings of Power has begun on Amazon Prime, and I have no plans to watch it. The first season was enough. I didn’t dislike the first season from the start, but it wasn’t a Tolkien story as claimed. It was LOTR fan-fic and not a good one. It wasn’t good enough to give a boat the hope it needs to float, if you know what I mean.

The second season appears to be more of that and worse. Sauron was styled as a returning king to Mordor, but now he’s appealing to the orcs and their father-figure to accept him. The orcs are styled as misunderstood foreigners who just want to live free of tyranny. What?

Army of orcs outside Gondor. "Sire, the orcs are here," someone says. "Well, don't be racist. Let them in."

Erik Kain describes other story points like this: “We need Conflict Between Main Characters, after all, even if it doesn’t really make sense,” and “nothing here is even remotely based on Tolkien’s lore.”

Brett McCracken notes another common complaint. “The series feels bogged down by overwrought dialogue. Sometimes the dialogue is great; often it’s cringey.” Plus, there’s excessive exposition and many opportunities for viewers to ask how a character would have known whatever they just said.

You can get it a feel for Rings of Power season two in this mostly positive IGN review, which according to those who pay attention to IGN is remarkably critical. Don’t those rings look cheap?

And props to Echo Chamberlain for this video recap of the first two episodes that quotes several lines, because you can’t understand the fundamental nonsense of this show without hearing some of these lines. For example, “A rumor is like a songbird; it may sound filling from afar but up close it’s an empty feast.”

Novel Adaptions: Johnathan Boes writes about adapting Tolkien’s work with some remarkable specifics from the Rings of Power showrunners.

Reading into the Text: Ukrainians have long referred to Russian soldiers as orcs and apparently Soviet leaders did too. “Comparisons between Mordor and Russia go back to the Soviet era, when the regime considered Tolkien’s literature politically threatening. The USSR banned Tolkien’s books because they saw the orcs as an analogy for the Soviet people.”

(Photo by Marc Szeglat on Unsplash)

Non-fiction, Uncategorized

What To Do with a Dragon Hoard?

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With all the dragons in new fantasy stories today, I hope young readers haven’t been shielded from their traditional setting. The picture of a dragon hoarding treasure under a mountain is a classic depiction of greed.

The beast is at the top of the food chain. It can destroy whole kingdoms if it wanted to. If two dragons were to fight each other, the disaster to their field of battle would be apocalyptic. But a defining quality of a dragon is its hoard. Why does it sleep on a mountain of gold? Why did Smaug care that Bilbo took a cup, and how could he have noticed one cup missing from his trove of treasure? Because that’s what dragons are about. They want all the wealth for themselves, and they are powerful and conceited enough to refuse to allow anyone to slight them.

I was thinking this morning about how some of us tend to use what we have and some of us tend to keep it unused. I’m a keeper. I’ve had my favorite t-shirt for over 20 years because I don’t wear it often. When people ask, “What would you do if we gave you $1000 today,” my first thought is to put it in the bank for the future. Of course, there will be a time to use it, but not today, because if I use it now, I may not have it tomorrow.

I wonder if the idea of a dragon hoard would apply well to those of us who keep to ourselves and take comfort in what we could do tomorrow if the need arose. Maybe all we’re doing is holding on to our wealth, not out of greed but out of pride, fear, and personal comfort.

What else do we have today?

Moon Caves: In the Sea of Tranquility or Mare Tranquillitatis, there’s a 200-foot pit, one of many spotted by satellites orbiting the Moon. Scientists studying the photographs have reason to believe this pit has a cave. Why we aren’t sending people to the Moon by now is likely a political question. The current NASA plan appears to be sending a team around the Moon.

In related news, Space X has been sending astronauts to the International Space Station for a few years. They have a team, Crew-8, at the station now and will send Crew-9 in mid-August.

Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

Publishing

Mind-boggling Lawsuit from Fan-Fic Author Fails

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A few years ago, a guy writes a sequel to The Lord of the Rings, which he hopes will be a collaboration with The Tolkien Estate. He solicits their support, gets nothing, so publishes his novel independently. He conceives it as the first of six books in The War of the Rings series.

Then, Amazon releases its Rings of Power series, and this guy, this fan-fiction author, sees it as a copyright violation of his work. He sues Amazon and The Tolkien Estate, claiming his work is “wholly original book and concept.” This is a work that begins with Sam and Rosie’s daugther, “Elanor Gamgee Gardner.”

That lawsuit is dismissed with a judgment that the fan-fic infringes on Amazon’s copyright. At this point, The Tolkien Estate sues the author, and this week, the judge on that case rules the original “lawsuit as ‘frivolous and unreasonably filed,’ and award[s] legal fees to the Tolkien Estate and Amazon in the sum of $134,000.” The fan-fic is to be totally and completely destroyed in print and in digital.

Fiction, Reviews

Can’t Recommend Pathetic Rings of Power

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Last month, one of the showrunners for Amazon’s The Rings of Power enthused about the series, saying it wasn’t their story but Tolkien’s. I think that’s how deeply deceived fan-fiction writers feel about their stories. This isn’t Tolkien’s story by a far cry.

I watched the remaining episodes of The Rings of Power yesterday, and all the wind has been taken out of my sails. Reading a bit from the showrunners has depressed me. Hearing from a few critics has soured me. Spoilers ahead.

I wasn’t hoping or expecting the show to become awesome in the last three episodes, but some errors hit you differently than others. You can roll with some lines of dialogue, some character motivations, and with others you can’t. Others just rattle the wheels right off your wagon and leave you on the hillside, wishing Santa would make things that last for a change.

They make up an origin story for Mithril to compel Elrond to push Duran IV to mine for it, because King Duran III believes it’s too dangerous to continue digging for it. They say a tree with the light of a silmaril is fought over by an elf and a balrog, is struck by lightning, and creates mithril by sending all the light into the rocky mountain earth. The elf king pulls out this story in episode 5 to say another tree that’s tied to the life of all elves is dying all of a sudden and if they don’t get that mithril stuff, all elves will be forced to flee to Valinor. It was a point in which the king seemed deceptive and manipulative. And the whole thing was dumb.

At the end of episode 8, they handle the creation of the elfin rings like any other TV drama. A main character, regardless of supposed skill, has to suggest the solution to the master craftsman. They hint that this craftsman is being manipulated, but please. There’s no strategy working here. It’s a line, a plot point, a touch of authenticity to say they know Tolkien’s history and are telling his story. The rings themselves look like trinkets (image via LOTR Fandom).

In episode 7, there’s a battle, and the “good” villagers give up their most defensible position for one that trained solders would have difficulty defending. And in doing so, they give the enemy the freedom to unlock an old plan that would nonsensically ignite Mt. Doom. Which is a big problem, but it doesn’t come before they mop the floor with their enemies because the elves and Númenórean men, whom Galadriel has been attempting to rally for half of the series, finally show up on the horses they brought overseas. How this cavalry knew the Southland village would be under siege at that moment is not important. What is important is that had the villagers stayed in the defensible outpost they fled to days ago, the cavalry would not have been able to charge in like they did.

A Kodak moment, I tell you.

Continue reading Can’t Recommend Pathetic Rings of Power →
Blogs, Socials, Coffee, Tea, Drinks, Goofing, Non-fiction

Beautiful Summer, a Small Hotel, and Coffee Orders

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Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Will play the tyrants to the very same
And that unfair which fairly doth excel;
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o’er-snowed and bareness everywhere.
Then, were not summer’s distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

— Shakespeare’s Sonnet 5, on the fading beauty of summer and distilling it into perfume to preserve it. Applies to making jams and canning vegetables too.

Sovereignty: Faith from Staton Island writes maybe her personality or being a first-born or Chinese heritage or being a mom has trained her expect to serve others all the time. “At church events, standing in line at Panera, on elevator rides with strangers, reading an email, as long as another person is in my physical or mental space, I’m “on.” Unless I’m completely alone, and sometimes even when I am, I can’t help being vigilant for needs I may be called on to meet, sensitive to what demands my presence may similarly impose on others.”

So, it’s a great relief to her that God needs nothing from us. “That he who made all things, owns all things, and doesn’t use his creation to supply his needs. Rather, he is ever the gracious Giver, ever the joyful Benefactor in our relationship, the Source of life itself.”

“If he needs nothing from me, I can pray— really pray, not worrying about my anxiety or anger or foolishness swaying his judgment or burdening his mind. I don’t need to hedge my request in polite, calculated consideration of his limited supply of patience and help.” (via Keith Plummer)

Lincoln: “Where did Lincoln stand in the vanguard of antislavery and abolitionist advocates, and did he change his views over time?” What can we learn from the many African-American visitors Lincoln received in the White House? Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church said, “President Lincoln received and conversed with me as though I had been one of his intimate acquaintances or one of his friendly neighbors.” (via Prufrock News)

Quaint Photos: “There’s a small hotel/ With a wishing well/ I wish that we were there together.” Here’s a photo essay of the Stockton, New Jersey hotel that inspired that Broadway song.

LOTR: You were asking yourself the other day what characters from The Lord of the Rings would order from a coffee shop, weren’t you? Kaitlyn has your answer. “Merry Brandybuck orders an Irish Cream Cold Brew with cold foam and cocoa powder sprinkled on top.”

Photo: Library (Allegretti Architects), Saint Joseph, Missouri. 1991. John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Uncategorized

The Tolkien-inspired Artwork of Jay Johnstone Looks Like Religious Iconography

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In a two-part interview, T.Q. Kelley talks to artist Jay Johnstone about this Tolkien-inspired artwork, which takes after iconography and illuminated manuscripts.

“This came about because of a very bizarre dream in which I was in a Celtic Scottish church,” Johnstone says. “And I had seen a lot of what I believe to be Christian iconography. But on closer inspection, the iconography had such a connection to Tolkien’s work. So when I saw pictures of Jesus, they were initially presumed to be a Christian icon of Jesus, but I saw it as Aragorn. I looked at Moses and saw Gandalf. There was a great connection between the images that I saw and the beliefs that Tolkien had, and it came to me literally in a dream.”

“Isildur’s Bane” by Jay Johnstone
“Isildur’s Bane” — Artwork by Jay Johnstone

Pursue and purchase Johnstone’s works from his website.

Fiction

Coming in November: The Fall of NÚMENOR

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“HarperCollins is proud to announce the publication in November 2022 of THE FALL OF NÚMENOR by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by writer and Tolkien expert, Brian Sibley, and illustrated by acclaimed artist, Alan Lee with new pencil drawings and colour paintings.”

The above is from the press release. The Tolkien Society has a few more details. (via @TeawithTolkien)

Authors

Tolkien’s Long Procrastination in the Same Direction

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J.R.R. Tolkien wrote essays and myths for years before the publication of The Hobbit in 1937. Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics is also published this year. The Lord of the Rings is published in three volumes during 1954-55. And through all of this time, the author may have been thinking he should possibly find time to write something deep on Chaucer.

His research student V.A. Kolve said, “He confessed to me once that some were disappointed by how little he had done in the academic way, but that he had chosen instead to explore his own vision of things.”

Tolkien himself said, “I have always been incapable of doing the job at hand.”

John M. Bowers has written a book on the long academic project Tolkien intended to return to. He reports,

[Tolkien] confided to his publisher in 1937 that Oxford would merely add The Hobbit to his “long list of never-never procrastinations” (Letters, 18). Fiction-writing simply did not count in terms of academic production, especially after Tolkien had idled away his two-year Leverhulme Research Fellowship. “The authorities of the university,” he would lament when The Lord of the Rings was in press, “might well consider it an aberration of an elderly professor of philology to write and publish fairy stories and romances” (Letters, 219). He explained to his American publisher this widespread view of his failings: “Most of my philological colleagues are shocked (cert. behind my back, sometimes to my face) at the fall of a philological into ‘Trivial literature’; and anyway the cry is: ‘now we know how you have been wasting your time for 20 years’” (Letters, 238).

Authors, Fiction

Tolkien Styled His Dwarfs After Jews

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In 1971, Tolkien said it was obvious that his dwarfs represented the Jewish people. In a letter, he said, “I do think of the ‘Dwarves’ like Jews: at once native and alien in their habitations, speaking the languages of the country, but with an accent due to their own private tongue.”


via GIPHY

Among the members of Gandalf’s group (known as the “Fellowship of the Ring”) are a dwarf named Gimli and an elf named Legolas. Dwarfs and elves, Tolkien informs us, had never gotten along. When Gimli and Legolas first meet, each blames this historical ill will on the other’s people. Gandalf, in turn, calls for a truce. “I beg you two, Legolas and Gimli, at least to be friends, and to help me,” he says. “I need you both.” Coaxed by Gandalf, the two ultimately become the best of friends, fighting side by side and risking their lives to defeat the Dark Lord and his evil legions. This dwarf-elf alliance may well be a paradigm of a Jewish-Christian friendship. Interestingly, as Saks and others have noted, Tolkien’s correspondence during World War II reveals that he himself fell into an unplanned interfaith friendship.

Rabbi Meir Soloveichik offers his reaction to this revelation. (via Prufrock News)