Current Events > You know what? Frodo was a piece of shit *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

he didnt even destroy the ring in the end, it took gollum attacking him and accidentally dropping it for mordor to be destroyed.

is it the same in the book or was that jacksons creative license?
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that's why he needed Sam to help him. Sam was the strength behind Frodo

You somehow missed the eight hours of exposition about how the ring is evil and corrupts, huh
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Hanky_Bannister posted...

he didnt even destroy the ring in the end, it took gollum attacking him and accidentally dropping it for mordor to be destroyed.

is it the same in the book or was that jacksons creative license?

Yes, but in the book he just falls in by mistake while dancing
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It's almost as if magic wouldn't let him throw it in
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How is he a pos for bringing it 99.9% of the way?
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It's the same in the book. Frodo resisted the ring longer than anyone.
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Zikten posted...

that's why he needed Sam to help him. Sam was the strength behind Frodo

he really was. should have been his burden
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Frodo is terrible, but the whole book is loathsome as shit. The "power" of the ring in LOTR (not the Hobbit) is just a symbol for the Ruling Class, and how supposedly hard it is for them despite all evidence to the contrary, and thusly how great they are. Of course they get all the money and can treat people like shit, look how hard their lives are! The Hobbit is great but LOTR is such overrated crap. The movies suck too. Eat me.
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The ring corrupted Boromir (for a bit) without him even touching it. What do you think it's going to do to someone who is in possession of it for a long time?

Thought this topic was going to be about the "Go home Sam" stuff at first, which is stupid crap Jackson and Co. put in.

I think even Tolkien said Sam is pretty much the true hero of LOTR.
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MasterGakke posted...

Frodo is terrible, but the whole book is loathsome as shit. The "power" of the ring in LOTR (not the Hobbit) is just a symbol for the Ruling Class, and how supposedly hard it is for them despite all evidence to the contrary, and thusly how great they are. Of course they get all the money and can treat people like shit, look how hard their lives are! The Hobbit is great but LOTR is such overrated crap. The movies suck too. Eat me.

Wut. I've never heard this interpretation before.
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Southernfatman posted...

I think even Tolkien said Sam is pretty much the true hero of LOTR.

that actually makes me feel better. lol
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MasterGakke posted...

Frodo is terrible, but the whole book is loathsome as shit. The "power" of the ring in LOTR (not the Hobbit) is just a symbol for the Ruling Class, and how supposedly hard it is for them despite all evidence to the contrary, and thusly how great they are. Of course they get all the money and can treat people like shit, look how hard their lives are! The Hobbit is great but LOTR is such overrated crap. The movies suck too. Eat me.

Any evidence at all for this theory? Any writing by Tolkien that supported this?

MasterGakke posted...

Frodo is terrible, but the whole book is loathsome as shit. The "power" of the ring in LOTR (not the Hobbit) is just a symbol for the Ruling Class, and how supposedly hard it is for them despite all evidence to the contrary, and thusly how great they are. Of course they get all the money and can treat people like shit, look how hard their lives are! The Hobbit is great but LOTR is such overrated crap. The movies suck too. Eat me.

No. Tolkien hated allegory and LOTR has none.

ProbablyaCat posted...

Any evidence at all for this theory? Any writing by Tolkien that supported this?

Not at all.
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IIRC, the ring just doesn't really know how to manipulate Sam. It tries to show him the entire world turned into a vast and beautiful garden, but Sam figures that's just too much garden for one dude.
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LOL, evidence. It's literature, dumbass, not a blood spatter.
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Southernfatman posted...

No. Tolkien hated allegory and LOTR has none.

Yeah, I mean, it's not like he created a whole language for a fantasy race of people designed to sound like German because they represented the enemies who killed his friends in the first world war or anything. He hated allegory.
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MasterGakke posted...

LOL, evidence. It's literature, dumbass, not a blood spatter.

chill on the insults. unless directed at Frodo.
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Ah okay, so there's nothing Tolkien said that supports this

Hanky_Bannister posted...

MasterGakke posted...

LOL, evidence. It's literature, dumbass, not a blood spatter.

chill on the insults. unless directed at Frodo.

Aw, but I wanna shitpost!
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MasterGakke posted...

Yeah, I mean, it's not like he created a whole language for a fantasy race of people designed to sound like German because they represented the enemies who killed his friends in the first world war or anything. He hated allegory.

Never heard of that.

Here's a Tolkien quote though:

I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history true or feigned with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

I'm guessing you're just trolling anyway so ehh. At least I still get to talk about Tolkien in some fashion.
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ProbablyaCat posted...

Ah okay, so there's nothing Tolkien said that supports this

And you know, unless an author comes out and spells out exactly what he meant in every word, you're not allowed to even think about. Shame on me! Most authors do this, though, so it doesn't matter. 90% of written words are authors explaining in detail what everything fictional they wrote means.
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LOTR itself is a better story, but Narnia was so much better-written it's kind of sad

CS Lewis should've had a crack at LOTR. It would've been filled with layered humor and that CS Lewis sass.


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DarkRoast posted...

LOTR itself is a better story, but Narnia was so much better-written it's kind of sad

CS Lewis should've had a crack at LOTR. It would've been filled with layered humor and that CS Lewis sass.

i gotta read those books again, i only remember the movies and i dont think they do the books justice.
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DuranOfForcena posted...

this isn't just "death of the author", this is "death of the author and ripping off his arm and beating him to a bloodless pulp with it and then stuffing the mangled remains into an incinerator and charring it to a crisp"

@MasterGakke, i applaud you

Roland Barthes would have loved me, I agree.

In a non-shitposting way, since there are some people here who seem to know a bit about literary criticism, I'd love to hear what you guys think of the "Ring of Power" in LOTR. It was pretty well defined what it did in the Hobbit, it made Bilbo into a very powerful little dude. Then in LOTR it's completely different in every way and an item of massive weakness. If not a symbol for the "power" of the nobility, what is it? Because it's certainly not powerful. And don't say it's because Sauron came back, because the whole reason Gandalf had to keep leaving in The Hobbit was because Sauron was back already.
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Well the characters in LotR for the most part deliberately choose not to wield the Ring out of fear of being detected by Sauron or the Ringwraiths. It still grants invisibility and heightened senses and allows Frodo some measure of dominion over Gollum. Bilbo isn't even aware that Sauron exists in The Hobbit and therefore has no need to fear using the Ring; there's a "Necromancer" who was eventually retconned to be Sauron but he only existed originally to distract Gandalf at a key point in the tale.
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DarkRoast posted...

CS Lewis should've had a crack at LOTR. It would've been filled with layered humor and that CS Lewis sass.

Why not... Douglas Adams?

Questionmarktarius posted...

Why not... Douglas Adams?

Would be way too snarky and metaphysical

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I'd rather Kurt Vonnegut. LOTR in the style of Venus on the Half Shell would be great.
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MasterGakke posted...

I'd rather Kurt Vonnegut. LOTR in the style of Venus on the Half Shell would be great.

If we're going 'murrica! with this, Stephen King's LOTR would have been gloriously fucked up.

Questionmarktarius posted...

If we're going 'murrica! with this, Stephen King's LOTR would have been gloriously fucked up.

Oh God, the thought of it and imagining it. Lol
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pegusus123456 posted...

You somehow missed the eight hours of exposition about how the ring is evil and corrupts, huh

Which is cool and all but it took like 60 years to get to Bilbo.
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HP Lovecraft's Lord of the Rings

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Hey man, rings of power is a helluva drug.

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"His thought turned to the Ring, but there was no comfort there, only dread and danger. No sooner had he come in sight of Mount Doom, burning far away, than he was aware of a change in his burden. As it drew near the great furnaces where, in the deeps of time, it had been shaped and forged, the Ring's power grew, and it became more fell, untameable except by some mighty will.

As Sam stood there, even though the Ring was not on him but hanging by its chain about his neck, he felt himself enlarged, as if he were robed in a huge distorted shadow of himself, a vast and ominous threat halted upon the walls of Mordor.

He felt that he had from now on only two choices: to forbear the Ring, though it would torment him; or to claim it, and challenge the Power that sat in its dark hold beyond the valley of shadows.

Already the Ring tempted him, gnawing at his will and reason. Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dur.

And then all the clouds rolled away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale of Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be. In that hour of trial it was his love of his master that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him.

The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command. 'And anyway all these notions are only a trick, he said to himself."

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pikachupwnage posted...

"His thought turned to the Ring, but there was no comfort there, only dread and danger. No sooner had he come in sight of Mount Doom, burning far away, than he was aware of a change in his burden. As it drew near the great furnaces where, in the deeps of time, it had been shaped and forged, the Ring's power grew, and it became more fell, untameable except by some mighty will.

As Sam stood there, even though the Ring was not on him but hanging by its chain about his neck, he felt himself enlarged, as if he were robed in a huge distorted shadow of himself, a vast and ominous threat halted upon the walls of Mordor.

He felt that he had from now on only two choices: to forbear the Ring, though it would torment him; or to claim it, and challenge the Power that sat in its dark hold beyond the valley of shadows.

Already the Ring tempted him, gnawing at his will and reason. Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dur.

And then all the clouds rolled away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale of Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be. In that hour of trial it was his love of his master that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him.

The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command. 'And anyway all these notions are only a trick, he said to himself."

Samwise
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Isildur: No.

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The conflict between Frodo and Sam is pretty much entirely made up for the movies. The books play out much differently.
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I would like to see a retelling of the LotR where the ringbearer succeeds not because he's virtuous, but because he's so arrogant that he thinks he's a badass without the ring and doesn't need it.

"It would merely hold me back," he says as he tosses the ring into the fires.

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jumi posted...

I would like to see a retelling of the LotR where the ringbearer succeeds not because he's virtuous, but because he's so arrogant that he thinks he's a badass without the ring and doesn't need it.

"It would merely hold me back," he says as he tosses the ring into the fires.

then tips his fedora?
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BewmHedshot posted...

MasterGakke posted...

Frodo is terrible, but the whole book is loathsome as shit. The "power" of the ring in LOTR (not the Hobbit) is just a symbol for the Ruling Class, and how supposedly hard it is for them despite all evidence to the contrary, and thusly how great they are. Of course they get all the money and can treat people like shit, look how hard their lives are! The Hobbit is great but LOTR is such overrated crap. The movies suck too. Eat me.

Wut. I've never heard this interpretation before.

I have that lunatic tagged with a quote snippet where he said "murder all the rich fuc4ers."
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JustMyOpinion posted...

Touch posted...

But Gandalf would stomp Aragorn. And Legolas killed a bajillion people.

I think the joke is more that they don't do much in the first volume, which kinda isn'tt true and would apply to Aragorn as well anyway lol.
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Touch posted...

Lol
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MasterGakke posted...

In a non-shitposting way, since there are some people here who seem to know a bit about literary criticism, I'd love to hear what you guys think of the "Ring of Power" in LOTR. It was pretty well defined what it did in the Hobbit, it made Bilbo into a very powerful little dude. Then in LOTR it's completely different in every way and an item of massive weakness. If not a symbol for the "power" of the nobility, what is it? Because it's certainly not powerful. And don't say it's because Sauron came back, because the whole reason Gandalf had to keep leaving in The Hobbit was because Sauron was back already.

the story is ultimately Sam's rise to power -- he starts off as just a gardener, then when he returns he helps to replant the trees. he gets elected mayor of the shire for 7 consecutive terms, becoming more powerful than the one he used to serve.

given that Sam ultimately survives and thrives due to resisting the temptation of the ring's power, I think equating the ring to the power of the ruling class is at least a little bit far-fetched.

do you have any evidence from the text (LOTR, Hobbit, Sil, or anything else) that contradicts this?
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"If i reduce the story to one out of context scene it doesn't make sense"
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