The Hall of Fire

A non-smiley variant would be good! There aren't enough things that you can say with our smileys. I can think of lots. (No one has tried my last one yet) But I can't guess Liddy's easy one. If Alatar's movie poser was one word I would say Clueless, but it is three words. Is Alatar's TV show a US on...

While you were sleeping?

Hurrah, we are playing the leapfrog variant of charades! Well done Jny, you were right: Shakes pair :scarey: :hug: ....Inn :cheers: ....Love :love: I had intended to go back and make it a little clearer. If I'm allowed a turn for my correct guess Its a film and book, three words, the middle word is ...

#2 Is it The Misfits? If not, how many words in the title. We need the standard clues
#3 It's not Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice - too many words
ETA The Fellowship of the Ring?


Btw mine wasn't Carry on Regardless. I'll post mine again when Faramond's is cleared up

Hmmmm.

Whoops Apocalypse?

Well, in that case ... carry on. I thought the joke was the utter impossibility of doing charades in a place where everything has to be written down. Silly me. But we should figure out a way to do charades in writing ... like all synonyms or something ... because they are so much FUN! Jn Well if we...

I think Cor Blok is wonderful, in particular the Amon Hen illustration and I wish PJ had used the idea in the film

Finding these historical parallels is entertaining. The one you quote is particularly so. The danger lies in stretching the parallels too far and also implying that Tolkien copied the incident into the book. I remember once on TORC I drew a parallel with Théoden' and his bodyguard's attack on the So...

I was on the train a couple of weeks back passing some thickets and small woods and realised for the first time that they glowed inside with greenness due to the transparency of the leaves. Later the leaves will be larger, darker, more opaque and the sense of looking into these woods will be of myst...

*waits patiently for Athrabeth to produce her book of critical studies on Tolkien*

In my alternative Hollywood casting for LOTR I had Keanu down for Imrahil.

*We have to get to a library - fast!*


Always a sound policy in times of doubt.

I'm with Ax and Elflover over this. I am seeing theological contortions purely to justify the withholding of mercy from orcs. Just because the societies in Middle Earth behaved a certain way due to their history and culture and physical necessity doesn't make it right. I am sure that any protagonist...

ToshoftheWuffingas wrote: Sam storming the Tower of Cirith Ungol and finding the orcs have conveniently killed each other off stretches credulity too far too. But that was one of my favorite parts in the book Sam once inside Cirith Ungol and everything that follows is truly wonderful and it has som...

OK, more seriously the 17 year gap and the fact that the Nazgûl are not sufficiently developed. The Black Riders in the Shire and on Weathertop need rewriting.They seem unbelievably inefficient. This could be accepted if it were explained better. Sam storming the Tower of Cirith Ungol and finding th...

They are too short.

A soul stretched thin as butter over too much bread

I agree with Sass. Tolkien himself didn't solve the orc problem so we are allowed a little speculation on these matters. Ax's point of view seems to me to be the easiest to sustain. By selective breeding they are inclined towards the worst in human nature but are not intrinsically irredeemable. I th...

I like Jn's concept of ripples of responsibility and morality expanding out from the self. I vaguely remember from one of Tolkien's letters he said that the cupboard love of children, dependent on gratitude, was merely the starting point or first step for higher things. Is a getaway driver's respons...

What we do is our own responsibility. Blaming evil on a mythological figure is just a way of saying that bad things are not our own fault. Moreover it easily slips into demonology with exorcisms and accusing people of being possessed and using that as an excuse to mistreat them.