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Is 'Lord of the Rings' better than 'Game of Thrones'
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Posted on 06/21/2014 10:00:35 AM PDT by Perdogg

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To: Perdogg
You can't match LOTR and related material up with historical events, and you can't match it up with any particular religious system. I've been reading The Silmarillion to some of my sons (8, 10, 12), and it's interesting to observe the elements that correlate with Christianity, as well as elements that are more similar to various European mythologies.

I think he made a point of not matching things up. That would have been boring.

41 posted on 06/21/2014 5:04:07 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("Cynicism is a far greater spiritual danger than naivete." ~ Stephen Webb)
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To: Tax-chick

I didn’t endorse it. Just repeating what I have heard.


42 posted on 06/21/2014 5:04:29 PM PDT by Colonel_Flagg ("Compromise" means you've already decided you lost.)
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To: Perdogg
True, but even Tolkien said in the intro that people should not make historical interpretations.

He said he detested allegory. I believe the trench warfare of WW1 was the template for Mordor.
43 posted on 06/21/2014 7:24:58 PM PDT by Nepeta
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To: Colonel_Flagg

You’ve a shock coming... I won’t say more.


44 posted on 06/21/2014 8:56:16 PM PDT by reed13k (For evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to do nothings)
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To: Nepeta

Elric rocked my world many years back; deryni I just discovered a few years ago and it was amazing


45 posted on 06/21/2014 9:00:50 PM PDT by reed13k (For evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to do nothings)
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To: Sherman Logan

The orcs in Tolkien began as elves and were twisted by dark powers into the orc ‘race’. Orcs and elves more closely related than men and elves in Middle-Earth canon.


46 posted on 06/22/2014 6:06:21 AM PDT by Notforprophet (Don't Tread On Me)
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To: Notforprophet
I would suggest that this indicates that Elves and Orcs may have had the same origin, but that this does not mean that they were "related" any longer in any mianingful sense of the word.

Fairly obviously, Melkor "twisted and corrupted" orcs at their very DNA level. To the point they weren't "twisted Elves" anymore, they were something else entirely.

In the entire canon, there isn't even a hint of a possibility of redemption for orcs. They had been corrupted past the point where that was possible. Although anything is possible for Iluvatar.

Using possible future gene engineering methods, it's possible to envision people being able to do something similar to humans. Changing them to the point where they aren't really human any more, and can't go back.

There are hints of the possibility that Men/Elves and Orcs might still be interfertile, but for Men/Orcs, not Elves/Orcs. This could be mainly because Elves were by the end of the Third Age scarce, and Elf captives would be a lot less common to the Dark Powers than Men captives. It doesn't seem likely there would be many volunteers among either Men or Elves, male or female, for a breeding program involving Orcs. :)

However, given the presumed magical powers of Sauron and Saruman, such a breeding program might involve something analogous to in vitro fertilization, not sexual intercourse.

BTW, the Orcs being "grown" in the movie by Saruman is not canonical. Every indication is that Orcs reproduced in a way roughly similar to all the other intelligent species. Though probably much faster.

47 posted on 06/22/2014 6:33:59 AM PDT by Sherman Logan (Perception wins all the battles. Reality wins all the wars.)
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To: dagogo redux
GOT is Caligula. LOR is Caesar Augustus.

Agree, if we specify that LOTR is Augustus only after he acquired that title.

During the 15 or 20 years Octavian spent fighting to gain that position of unchallenged supremacy, he did stuff that makes the GOT characters look like squeamish wimps.

48 posted on 06/22/2014 6:38:06 AM PDT by Sherman Logan (Perception wins all the battles. Reality wins all the wars.)
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To: Hootowl
LOTR is the world as we would wish it to be, noble, predictable, and dignified; ASOFAI is the world as it often is, mean, capricious, and demeaning.

I agree with this analysis, mostly.

However, I believe there's more in it than you may realize.

LOTR was written by a man who was born and grew up at the height of Western Civilization's self-confidence. His stories display an ultimate faith in the worth of the civilization and its ideals, no matter how often those ideals fail to be achieved.

In the movies that is best shown by Sam's great speech about some things being worth fighting for.

Martin has obviously, at least to me, been brought up in the cynicism of our present elite. The book is not about a battle between Good and Evil, or a battle between civilizations, it's about a squalid struggle for power within a civilization. To Martin, and people like him, that's all that is Real. The relevant point is not whether they are right or not, it's that their perception is to them all that exists.

So to me, GoT is based on the modern liberal worldview, LOTR is based on the older worldview held by many conservatives.

Note that I have seen only segments of the GOT series, and read only about the first three books in the GOT series, and that was a long time ago, so I may not be entirely accurate in this charactierization. OTOH, I know Tolkien inside-out.

49 posted on 06/22/2014 6:46:21 AM PDT by Sherman Logan (Perception wins all the battles. Reality wins all the wars.)
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To: Sherman Logan

Excellent observations, Sherman Logan.


50 posted on 06/22/2014 6:51:36 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("Cynicism is a far greater spiritual danger than naivete." ~ Stephen Webb)
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To: Colonel_Flagg
I didn’t endorse it.

You said, "I think it's true to a point." This doesn't make it clear what you think the "true point" is. Perhaps it was showing faked sex on screen acts, or, in the text, descriptions of sex acts.

Perhaps you meant that you think a nihilistic (fictional) universe is more "adult" than one with a vision of eternal absolutes.

Maybe it was something I haven't thought of.

51 posted on 06/22/2014 6:56:04 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("Cynicism is a far greater spiritual danger than naivete." ~ Stephen Webb)
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To: Tax-chick; Colonel_Flagg

See my tagline. To a very considerable extent, the world is what we choose to see in it.

If squalid sex and lust for power and dishonor and betrayal is all you believe exists, that’s all you’re likely to see in the world around you. From my limited exposure to GOT, that’s the world Martin sees and the one he portrays in his books. From what I hear, that is exaggerated even more in the TV series.

OTOH, I personally believe there are higher and deeper things, things that ARE worth fighting for.

Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it’s worth fighting for.

From my limited perspective on GOT, there really isn’t any Good in the world, and there is nothing worth fighting for except personal power and pleasure. Not a world I prefer to live in.


52 posted on 06/22/2014 7:09:13 AM PDT by Sherman Logan (Perception wins all the battles. Reality wins all the wars.)
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To: Sherman Logan
"Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?"

Odysseus pondered the same questions.

I think Sam hit on a key point. A great story is in the service of something bigger than the surface conflict.

53 posted on 06/22/2014 7:50:46 AM PDT by Tax-chick ("Cynicism is a far greater spiritual danger than naivete." ~ Stephen Webb)
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To: Sherman Logan

Agreed.


54 posted on 06/22/2014 10:21:41 AM PDT by dagogo redux (A whiff of primitive spirits in the air, harbingers of an impending descent into the feral.)
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To: reed13k
Elric rocked my world many years back; deryni I just discovered a few years ago and it was amazing

Clark Ashton Smith never wrote a novel, but his fantasy stories are among the most imaginative and beautifully written. He was writing in the 1930s--he lived until the 1960s, but stopped writing decades before that. No one knows why. His tales are worth looking for.

Paula Volsky's Wolf of Winter is more contemporary. Her later novels wander into predictability, but Wolf is delicious. Undeservedly out of print, but worth the hunt. Not a barbarian or witless boy who turns out to be the most important person in the universe in sight, but you will never forget Varis.
55 posted on 06/22/2014 11:09:09 AM PDT by Nepeta
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To: Nepeta

Wolf of Winter isn’t particularly hard to find.

http://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Winter-The-Paula-Volsky/dp/0553568795

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=volsky&sts=t&tn=wolf+of+winter

Agree it’s a very cool read. Very dark/evil yet oddly sympathetic lead character.

A similar character, in some ways, is the pirate Kennit from the Liveship Trilogy by Robin Hobb. Also recommended.


56 posted on 06/22/2014 11:58:02 AM PDT by Sherman Logan (Perception wins all the battles. Reality wins all the wars.)
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To: Sherman Logan
From what I hear, that is exaggerated even more in the TV series.

That's HBO. It's hard to find any miniseries they do these days that they DON'T treat like that, sad to say.

I agree with you with regard to Tolkien's world view. There is a definite good guys/bad guys split to LOTR and that's great. With Martin, you never truly know who is good and who isn't (with a few notable exceptions) and it makes for good reading, if a somewhat cynical world he has created.

57 posted on 06/22/2014 1:40:08 PM PDT by Colonel_Flagg ("Compromise" means you've already decided you lost.)
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To: Tax-chick
This doesn't make it clear what you think the "true point" is. Perhaps it was showing faked sex on screen acts, or, in the text, descriptions of sex acts.

A fair comment. I'm guilty of not developing my thoughts clearly enough and I thank you for pointing it out.

The sex in GoT is over the top in my view. Your second paragraph is a pretty close summation of my actual thought on this so I will let it stand with my thanks.

Just look at DC these days. Tell me there aren't power struggles of a similar nature behind the scenes, just without the overt bloodshed.

58 posted on 06/22/2014 1:42:42 PM PDT by Colonel_Flagg ("Compromise" means you've already decided you lost.)
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To: Colonel_Flagg
Tell me there aren't power struggles of a similar nature behind the scenes, just without the overt bloodshed.

I believe there are. However, the question is not whether political violence, betrayal, murder, and sordid sex exist. We all believe they do.

The issue raised by your original post is whether fiction that focuses solely on those elements is more "adult" than fiction which does not wallow in such things. LOTR doesn't avoid pain, death, betrayal, and other evil, but situates those elements in a fictional milieu in which beauty, love, selfless friendship, and sacrificial heroism are ultimately "more true."

There are different ways to view these things, but personally, I think of people who mistreat others, who seek power without accountability, who aren't trustworthy, as fundamentally immature, adolescent. Love and sacrifice are the grown-up things.

59 posted on 06/22/2014 1:59:03 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("Cynicism is a far greater spiritual danger than naivete." ~ Stephen Webb)
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To: Perdogg
LOTR totally rules. Nothing else can compare to it or beat it. So there.

Can you tell I'm just a little bit of LOTR fan? lol

60 posted on 06/23/2014 9:49:28 AM PDT by DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis
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