LogFAQs > #908133283

Zeus posted...

That was a terrible twist for any number of reasons, not the least of which being that man colloquially refers to women as well (an aspect which I suppose factored into the deceit). But yes, the fact that it's overused in fantasy -- and I think mythology as well -- certainly contributes to the lameness, although it probably suffer to some extent from the same phenomena as the Twilight Zone.

Made even more complex (or justifiable) by the fact that, in-universe, "man" means something entirely different from "Man". "Man" means "the race of Men", ie, humans - but "man" means "male human" (and presumably COULD be used to describe male elves, dwarves, etc, but you'd probably piss them off if you did.

In the end he was basically killed by some who wasn't a "man" AND someone who wasn't a "Man" at the same time.



Zeus posted...

Of course, the general prophecy was completely underwhelming since it specified "man" in a universe with elves, dwarfs (or dwarves? idk), hobbits, ents, dragons, and all manner of non-human threats. Hell, they could have even forced him to accidentally hit himself with his own weapon since he was a wraith not a man.

Ehh, to be fair, the only time we ever really see him sort of fall back on it as an ego-driven "Hah hah, fucker, can't kill me!" sort of moment of hubris, it's when he's fighting someone he firmly believes to be both human and male. So the prophecy WOULD apply.

It kind of makes even more sense when you realize that most elves would never try to fight him in the first place because they're smart enough to know they'd probably lose (because he's still just bad-ass in general), while most dwarves whouldn't fight him because there's no profit in it. Most other non-human monsters are basically on his side by default, the ents hide out in the woods and aren't really a direct threat. So male humans are probably the only people he's ever going to be fighting in the first place.

The REAL head-scratching moment is when you realize that hobbits are explicitly descended from humans in the setting, meaning that, even if people in the setting consider them a different race, they SHOULD still count as "Man". Though in theory, you COULD also argue that Merry doesn't actually KILL him, as much as he just sort of hamstrings him as a distraction, so it doesn't violate things regardless.

Man, there's too much spoiler tagging in this topic now. These posts are starting to look like Cold War era government documents.


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