/lit/ - Literature

>>10203819
the eye would just shoot a laserbeam and kill them

>>10203828
Just have gondor attack the black gate and distract it

>he didn't read the book
The eagles flew him to Mordor in the book, and there is only one LotR book. Peter Jackson wanted to capitalize on it and split the book into three whole films, so he had to make the story longer.

>>10203819

>>10203819
My Black Riders were the Elder Kings of Men. Their blades were poison, and the touch of their royal hands turn bones to ice. It was only chance that they fell before your smallfolk, and chance again that your little heroes destroyed My Ring. The Eagles could not have penetrated the skies of Mordor, where I did watch without pause, nor triumphed over my Nazgul at their full number.

>>10204152
Tolkien lore is so damn good.

>>10203819
SA-3 SAM's from Assad

>>10204190
>SAMs

I really with USA had weapons platforms named after Tolkien characters. Would be rad to have nuked Soviet Russia with a Gandalf, or an Aragorn.

>>10203819
Why didn't the eagles fly Mt. Doom to Frodo?

>>10204208
Why didn't the eagles fly Sauron into Mt. Doom?

Even better why didn't they just take a boat go far out and throw that shit in the ocean like really deep something like the marijuana trench where noone can svim down

Why didn't the ring just grow to a huge size so the ringwraiths could find it easily?

>>10204093
What is this exactly? I just recognize flux, the partials, and the gradient operator.

>>10204218
This was one of the suggestions at Rivendell. Basically because it would be a cop out and the ring would probably cause problems against somehow in the future. Gandalf wanted it destroyed utterly.

>>10203819
The entire reason they were destroying the ring was so Sauron wouldn't get it. If they just hid it somewhere, then he would find it eventually, and if he got it, he would become unstoppable.
The only way to destroy it was by brining it to a volcano in the middle of a country ruled by Sauron, and guarded by his nine flying wring-wraiths, and literally millions of orc/goblin footsoldiers, who have access to a seemingly limitless arsenal of projectile weapons. All it takes is one lucky shot, by one lucky orc, and Sauron has the ring, and its all over.
So instead of that, they rally an army to invade Mordor, and distract Sauron/his armies, by making him think that one of their generals has the ring, when in actuality, the ring is with a small covert group of nine spies, sneaking into Mordor, and dropping the ring in the volcanoe without Sauron even realising that it's there. That's a much better plan.

>>10204255
>sauron is unstoppable with the ring
>already been beaten with the ring before

>>10203819

>>10204218
>marijuana trench

>>10204260
Wow, you understood nothing.

>>10204260
Also mentioned by Gandalf. There are no more heroes in the third age capable of defeating Sauron.

Face it autists, Tolkien left no loopholes

>>10204249
Its the Heimwelt-Taiyaki formula. Useful in psychophysics, not much application elsewhere... definitely not applicable to watever insane wormhole shit is implied by the photo

Why didn't eru just destroy sauron instead of making them go through the whole quest, just to push the ring in at the end?

>>10204272
>Its the Heimwelt-Taiyaki formula
Are you sure it's not Fernwelt-Tiramisu one?

>>10204264
Yeah in Japan

>>10204074
Nice.

>>10204248
Wasn't Sauron quite big? How come the ring fit a Hobbit? Bilbo really should use it as a cockring.

>>10204453
According to the movies, the ring will just shrink to fit whoever carries it. Can't remember if that's mentioned in the books or histories, but I doubt it.

>>10204475
That's a stupid feature in a magic ring that you only intend to wear yourself.

>>10204453
>Wasn't Sauron quite big?
For you.

Okay, I'll take the bait.

While Gandalf or the other Istari might not be able to go toe-to-to with Sauron, they could easily deus-ex-machina 9/10th of the plot. And if they couldn't, the Valars could have, because if Melkor/Morgoth was their equal, Sauron isn't.

But that would be pointless. Gandalf is a guide and a mentor first and foremost. His job is to make sure the children of iluvatar, especially men, do not become too corrupt and fuck themselves over, all the while providing counsel to help them grow as a race. The elves want to depart middle earth, but the men are not ready to take over because they morally are children, especially in the eyes of immortals. The whole war of the ring is basically the rite of passage for Men (and Hobbits) so they can end their childhood and become adult, and be ready to start the 4th age, the Age of Men.

Sauron's continued existence is Men's fault. Therefore, they must learn from their mistake and defeat him by themselves so they can grow.
On the other hand, Hobbits represent a sort of narcissic innocence. They think they can separate themselves from the world and its problem by simply ignoring it and living in their own private paradise. Problem is, they can't, and that's what the Hobbits venture out to learn. That's also what the battle of the shire symbolizes: the problems of the world now affect them, but they have grown enough to be able to deal with them.

By flying the ring into mordor -or at least skipping part of the road to avoid the whole nazgul/eye counterargument- Gandalf would compromise the whole entreprise. The Men and Hobbit have to suffer through the entire ordeal so they can learn from it, the same way a good parent knows that his kid must sometimes be frustrated to learn what life really is like.

On the other hand, flying back with the eagles also make sense. LOTR is choke-full of christian symbolism, and the eagles is the correct, antic use of deus-ex-machina: it represents the assentiment and validation of absolutely wise suprem power(s). Frodon/Jesus sacrifices himself to redeem his people of their sins, and for that God saves him.

tl;dr: the races of middle earth have to suffer through the entire ordeal so they can learn from it and grow. The ever-watching eye and nazgul threat is a decent diegetic justification for what is first and foremost a symbolic element.

>>10204509
The number one thing you have to understand about Maia and Valar is that they are forces of change. Their very presence causes "destruction" (at least in the eyes of mere short-term looking mortals). Last time they intervened they destroyed an entire landmass larger than Europe.
Their language was like thunder. (Which is actually depicted really nice in the movies with Gandalf raising his voice. And THIS scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRzVYYESyv4))

You could say the Ainu have no finesse, or, they are so "vast" they can't discern between a tornado and a hurricane.

>>10204536

Okay, sure, but what does this change to my point?

It just makes the whole hobbit vs sauron / david vs goliath stronger

>>10204490
But in the film, the ring visibly shrinks after Isildur picks up the ring.

>>10204490
The ring phones home GPS data every time someone uses it, so it's a smart feature really.

>>10203819

Read the book.

>>10204562
I added to your point.

>>10204647

Alrighty then. Thanks for the precisions.

>>10204453
>>10204475
>>10204490
>Though he had found out that the thing needed looking after; it did not seem always of the same size or weight; it shrank or expanded in an odd way, and might suddenly slip off a finger where it had been tight.’

>It was hot when I first took it, hot as a glede, and my hand was scorched, so that I doubt if ever again I shall be free of the pain of it. Yet even as I write it is cooled, and it seemeth to shrink, though it loseth neither its beauty nor its shape. Already the writing upon it, which at first was as clear as red flame, fadeth and is now only barely to be read.

Why is it so hard to find the Elvish language used anywhere?

>>10204490
The ring has Sauron's soul or whateverthefuck in it, so during LoTR he wants people to find the ring so their delicious blood can power its locator.

>>10204730
Dunno what you mean when Tolkien wrote tons of poems in elvish.

>>10204509
Good post.

>>10203819

>reading LotR literally

>>10204751
>reading LotR figuratively

>>10204757
>>10204751

>reading LotR

>>10204757
>>10204751
>reading LotR

>>10204766
>>10204768

>>10204768
>>10204766
>>10204757
>>10204751
>reading "reading LotR" LotR posts

>>10204801
>reading

>>10204820
>

>>10205013
>>

>>10205122

Las águilas no son putos taxis.

New to fantasy . Should I start with this or malazan ?

I've already seen the movies.

>>10204272
Yeah I don't recognize the equations in the pic but I do know they don't represent the line element of a wormhole, it's not describing the geometry of the picture. Did somebody just look for a complicated series of equations and paste it in?

>>10205213
Start at the beginning (pic related), then proceed chronologically to Tolkien. Don't bother reading anything written after 1960.

>>10205256
Exactly.

>>10205261
What is wrong with fantasy written after the 60s?

>>10203819
One does not simply ride eagles into Mordor.

>>10205334
It's uninspired garbage that can't live up to the giants of the genre.

Cause then no fucking story would exist to be told. Would you read a book whose characters lived in a fantastic world with great lore only to read about them having a 5 hour flight on the back of some giant eagle, get rid of a ring, watch a big tower explode and then end the book?
Jesus people, this loophole had to be made in order for the story to take place. Sure, you could make the argument that he could avoid it by making them return by foot, but oh well you can't expect everything in life to be a 10/10 perfect flawless thing, and then bitch when you find out it's not

>>10205408
I thought /lit/ liked WoT and malazan.

>>10205460
Perhaps /lit/ contains more than one individual. WoT is unbearably derivative at the beginning and unbearably slow after that. More than half the series is bloat. Malazan is just poorly written and trying too hard to be cool.

>>10205549
I am going to start with malazan. Thanks anon.

>>10205653
I'm always happy to help out the plebians.

>>10204766
>>10204768
>reading

Who's got the pasta that explains the value of Galadriel's gift to Gimli? Legolas was familiar with the history between her and why she refused Feanor.

Why didn’t Saron just wall off the entrance to mount doom

Why didn’t the nazgul know where bilbo was when he put the ring on all those times in the hobbit

>>10204217
Why didn't the eagles bombard Sauron with birdshit?

>>10207073
He was being a good sport

>>10205213
Follow this anon's advice: >>10205261

However, rather than avoiding everything written after 1960, avoid all such work with two exceptions.

The latter Tolkien works certified by Christopher Tolkien, such as the Children of Hurin, are very good and well worth your time.

Also the Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula K. Le Guin is a really phenomenal work, and unique enough to be interesting.

I suppose if you really want to read more quality fantasy type stuff Phillip Pullman's Dark Materials are probably good enough, although I don't know how good they'd be to an adult reading them for the first time.

Read The Hobbit, idiot. The Eagles only helped Bilbo & gang because they owed Dumbledore a favour, and even then they wouldn't go near the Mountain because of danger. Why would they risk their lives flying to fucking Mordor?

>>10205653
Malazan is really good don't listen to him, people just can't handle the length and you need to pay attention.

>>10207082
Please restrict your complaints about film-related plot holes to >>>/tv/

>>10204270
Why didn't Gandalf recognize the One Ring for what it was immediately? Going by the reasoning he uses in the beginning of the Fellowship, he should have.

>>10207590
Because Gandalf is a god and he could whoop them seven ways to mordor if he wanted to

>>10205213
Neither. Start with Thomas Covenant or Amber.

>>10205213
Malazan is amazing but probably too complicated and long for someone starting out.

>>10206965
I don't remember all of ot off the top of my head, but faenor kept asking for one of galadriel's hairs, and she kept rebuking him.
Gimli asked for 3, and was granted them. Legolas noticed that the strongest of all elves couldn't get one, but this dwarf recieved 3

>>10206965
> Legolas was familiar with the history between her and why she refused Feanor.
Was he? I can't think of any indication in the text that Legolas would know something like that.

Is The Hobbit legit good, or just a silly kids book?

I've never read Lord of the Rings.

>>10208002
Th eagles weren't just big birds, they were on a similar power level to gandalf if I remember correctly

>>10208057
its alright.

>>10208057
There is definitely depth to it, especially since it's purportedly Bilbo's journal expanded by Frodo his nephew, but the very loud narrator's voice is clearly a human writing since at least the 19th century, since he makes a comparison to a train coming out of a tunnel. The dialog with Smaug is also amazing, as is the contrast between the Dwarven/archaic conception of the world and Bilbo's very middle class modernish English one.

But at least IMO, I found it to be punctuated by moments of greatness, rather than being consistently good.

Is this any good?
Also, what else is there besides The Hobbit and LOTR? I see a few books but it looks like they were written by his son, and after Dune I don't want to go down that path again

>>10208145
Silmarillion.

>>10206965
Why do you need a pasta?

Fëanor was the most gifted elf of all times - a smith and a jeweller he was, and many wondrous things he crafted: among them the three Silmarills in which the light of the two Trees was captured and reflected after they were poisoned and died. The Silmarills were so heavenly the fate of the Arda was bound to them for thousands of years - but before Fëanor crafted the three Jewels, his eyes were set upon Galadriel, his niece, and he much desired to capture the shine of Galadriel's golden hair which reflected the light of the Trees. Three times he asked Galadriel for a strand of her hair and three times she refused, for she saw the blind greed and pride in his heart, and she despised him.

Third age was ending when Galadriel asked Gimbli 'what gift would the dwarf want from her'. Gimli felt broken and ashamed when he saw her glory, and he knew that no gems or shiny ores beneath the earth compare to the fair beauty and goodness of the Lady of the Light. He asked for a strand of Galadriel's golden hair to remember her by, because he felt in his heart that he would never see her again. She gave him three strands of her hair, and after the war, Gimli set them into a marvelous jewel which served as a symbol of friendship between the dwarves and elves forever.

The story of Fëanor and the Silmarills was well known to all the elves. Legolas was smiling because he knew that the four feet hairy attack midget was a nasty little skunk with the manners of a crippled orc, but his heart was pure, so pure that Galadriel considered him above the greatest elven craftsman that ever lived.

>>10208145
>Is this any good?
I thought it was decent but not great. It's mostly an expansion of a condensed version of the story given in the Silmarillion. If you've read that before, you won't see anything new except some details, and often they're so fitting with what you already had that I at least kept flipping back and forth to my copy to see if something was newly introduced or if it was there before and I had just forgotten about it.

>I see a few books but it looks like they were written by his son, and after Dune I don't want to go down that path again
For LoTR legendarium proper? No. The closest you can do is go through History of Middle Earth, which is mostly about the process used in writing the books, all the old drafts and various musings of stuff that didn't make it into the books for some reason or another.

That being said, I would recommend the Chris Tolkien stuff, especially Beren and Luthien and the Silmarillion. The former is really another one of these "how did the story develop" with Chris acting more as a selector of various texts and occasional commentary than a real author in his own right. The latter is more of an author/editor hackjob, trying to forge a coherent narrative out of a bunch of inconsistent manuscripts, but it's pretty decent, if very dry at times.

>>10208157
elves absolutely btfo. Why is it no matter what medium, be it doujins, fantasy novels, Dnd, Videogames, warhammer, elves are always portrayed as being arrogant and get btfo on the reg

>>10208157
>The story of Fëanor and the Silmarills was well known to all the elves.
What about the story of Fëanor the pedo uncle and his wanting some hair? Given that this one only appears in UNFINISHED tales, it's likely either a less important part of the legendarium/of disputable canonicity, and there's nothing to indicate that "all elves knew about it".

>>10208145
They're not really written by his son, and it's not like the Dune series at all. There are basically two categories of JRRT's posthumous publications: actual unedited rough drafts and notes by JRRT which were never cleaned up enough to get published as a traditional book, and edited/compiled versions of those drafts which have been altered just enough to form a single cohesive story while changing as little of the substance as possible. The first category includes Unfinished Tales, The Letters of JRR Tolkien, Beren & Luthien, and the 12-volume History of Middle-earth series; the latter includes the Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin.

Why didn't they just take the ring west, away from Mordor?

>>10208431
Well, if by "West"you mean to Valinor, they suspected, probably rightly, that the Valar wouldn't let them take it in there, they're supposed to clean up their own shit in Arda rather than bringing it over.

If you just mean to the general west as like the Grey Havens, that might buy time, but ultimately, Sauron has enough troops and a "war economy" to bull his way to victory anyway. It might take a while, but he'll do it.

>>10208431
Men were at the brink of defeat at the end of the War of the Ring. It's the destruction of Ring that won the war.

This paints an interesting parallel: Winning the war, winning your soul. If you can't go on, give yourself - your sin, the Ring - in, and win. There's no winning without destroying the ring, trying will only make you fail completely.
Maybe it really is a Catholic reflection. Never believed it. Ironic.

>>10203819
>Saruman invades Rohan with roughly 10,000 Urukhai and an undisclosed number of Dunlendings
>Rohan can bring together a force that matches them in numbers and will be of enormously higher quality.
>Can barely defeat Theodred's token forces at the Fords of Isen
>Wind up losing to 3,000 Rohirrim at Helms Deep, mostly on foot.
>What the hell, let's attack anyway.

What the fuck was he thinking? Aren't Wizards, even evil wizards, supposed to be smart? He seemed to be relying enormously heavily on Wormtongue being able to simultaneously keep Theoden completely incapacitated and unable to actually defend the country, but still in control enough to stop other people from just seizing the reins. And I mean for fuck's sake, if they bothered to mobilize a real force with Theodred, you might not even have Theoden incapacitated in the first place. Why did he come up with such a retarded plan?

>>10208431
Why didn't you just read the book, where this is clearly explained at the Council of Elrond?

>>10208567
You know, there are records of impossible battles won by stupid goofs and tricks. I don't recall the books clearly, but I think that uruks were still weaker in daylight, and their morale dropped heavily when they saw the glorious rohirrim cavalry. They scattered.

Also maybe the forest of moving blood-thirsty huorns that sneaked up during the night did help.

>>10208002
The eagles were literally the godliest god's pets. Would you whoop your boss's dog seven ways to mordor ?

>>10208606
Honestly this just felt completely out of place and coming out of nowhere.

I'm glad Jackson removed them from the movies, they would have been so weird there.

I like how LotR shitposts seem to turn into almost serious discussions.

>>10204199
nerd & underage

>>10208857
hedonist & old

>>10204190
eagles in a dive would pull more Gs than an SA-3 could pull.

in addition the SA-3 FCR would not be able to hold a lock through all that bullshit on the ground and in the air.

also friendly fire is a concern, it'd be hard to distinguish between nazgul and eagles, so you might have trouble hitting your own.

SA-6 maybe, it would depend on the supermaneuverability characteristics the eagles are capable of.

>>10208057
Read Roverandom desu, its top notch childrens lit as well.

>>10208057
It's a legit good kids book.

>>10208057
Legit comfy. Read as an intro to lotr.

>>10208070
What the fuck Death of the Author bullshit are you trying to peddle?

>>10204270
as there was no risk to the creator of the One ring, if anything were to happen to it, there's no way they would have added a homing feature in case they lost it after a heavy night out or something. and at least we weren't told that the ring could be a little tricky to hold onto at times and wanted to return to it's rightful owner. thereby cooperating if the homing device was activated by a powerful wizard.

>>10207073
It never occurred to him that any being would be willing to actually destroy the ring. Which was true enough.

>>10208567
>Can barely defeat Theodred's token forces at the Fords of Isen
You're just making shit up. Saruman's tactics at the ford were very good, it would have been a complete rout if Elfhem didn't show up largely by chance. He had Theodred's forces surrounded and defeated by smaller numbers.
http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/First_Battle_of_the_Fords_of_Isen

>>10204218
They needed to actually kill Sauron. If they hadn't destroyed the ring Sauron would have been able to take over through sheer military might

>>10208145
>Is this any good?
It's the best thing in the mythos faggot. Reads like a classic Greek tragedy.

>>10209281
>You're just making shit up.
No, I'm not. I'm drawing from the Unfinished Tales, which has statements like

>At the first battle all his fiercest warriors were engaged in reckless assaults upon Theodred and his guard, disregarding other events of the battle, which might have otherwise resulted in a much more damaging defeat for the Rohirrim. When Theodred was at last slain Saruman's commander (no doubt under orders) seemed satisfied for the time being, and Saruman made the mistake, fatal as it proved, of not immediately throwing in more forces and proceeding at once to a massive invasion of Westfold.

>Grimbold was obliged to withdraw across the Isen. It was then near sunset. He had suffered much loss, but had inflicted far heavier losses on the enemy (mostly orcs) and he still held the east bank strongly. The enemy did not attempt to cross the Fords and fight their way up the steep slopes to dislodge him, not yet.
Bear in mind that at the end, the forces at the fords are bypassed, not annihilated.

>it would have been a complete rout if Elfhem didn't show up largely by chance.

>Elfhelm had been riding in haste along the horse-road from Edoras, leading four companies in asnwer to Theodred's summons

Some chance. Not to mention that this would be literally less than half the force ultimately committed, Theodred having 3 companies to Elfhelm's 4.

>LOTR wiki
No wonder you're full of idiocy. I especially like how it estimates the Rohirrim numbers at over 4,000, which is clearly absurd, given how in The Two Towers, it gets mentioned that far more were scattered than actually slain, and are reconstituted to a whole 1,000 men, and oh yeah, the fact that the text rather explicitly states that between Theodred and Elfhelm they had 7 Eored, are 120 men each http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/%C3%89ored meaning in total they had about 850 riders plus whatever local infantry was there, not 4,000 men.

>>10203819

Why didn't the allies use an eagle to kill Hitler?

>>10204509
but only the 4 or 5 hobbits that bothered their balls were the ones who ventured out and it was them who had to save everyone elses asses. The lazy fucks who stayed home didn't need to do anything. That goes for men who. Why should a random man or hobbit try to save the world (and probably die or be horribly injured) when others ended up saving them all anyway?

They were too busy getting their album cover photographed on acid

>>10210667
That's the whole point of the Scouring of the Shire. If you're lazy and stay at home you still get fucked.

>>10210771
But they didn't get fucked. They got saved. Men and Hobbits on the whole don't suffer. They can choose to be lazy fucks and leave it to others to die or suffer in their stead. Much like modern society.

>>10204249

75% sure this is some reaction kinetics problem.
-t. chemical engineer no longer in the field

>>10211947

yup, the kinetics look like they describe orc birthing pit yields