OOTS #1206 - The Discussion Thread

[hroþila]

Sauron x Celebrimbor is fun and all but Sauron x Melkor is where it's at.

[Fyraltari]

Reading this brought on a wave of great despair, and a quick google just made it worse. Why are there so many handsome elves who have the facial structure of models from the fast fashion industry???? Why is everyone so damn horny about them on google image searches???

Would you rather they be horny about orcs?

[LadyEowyn]

Ugh, an Angbang shipper.

(I HATE THAT I KNOW THAT.)

:D

This fandom...

[deltamire]

Maedhros is specifically stated (in supplementary material to the Silmarillion, i.e. Tolkien’s old notes) to have been very attractive, even by elf standards. He’s also an incredibly tragic character.

This combination, mixed with assorted other factors, has driven fandom quite mad over him.

(I love him too. It’s really a rip-your-heart-out character arc when you get to thinking about it.)

Even Tolkien had the hots for him???

Yeah, that seems to be a common strain in a lot of fandoms. You could spend years researching how certain characters just get a lot more love than others, and how their narrative role, appearance, their dynamic with other characters or even just how they're presented can lead to that.

Would you rather they be horny about orcs?

In regards to this question, I plead the fifth. Not for the Tolkien era of orcs, but rather for the relatively more modern image that's croped up in some circles. Big, green, and surprisingly not that mean.

[B. Dandelion]

I love it, but damn it feels like somebody cast some epic-level "lower defenses" spell on Redcloak lately. I thought it was odd that he went from "one door a night is plenty" to "we can manage six just fine" with no explanation for the change. Then it turned out he left the bugbear village totally unguarded, despite the fact that he demonstrably did remember the Order. Now he's plunked himself in a seat right out in the open and is almost nakedly broadcasting his loneliness and emotional vulnerability to somebody who's a stranger at best and an enemy at worst. The sole concession to caution on his part is the "neither confirm nor deny" line, and that is in regard to Durkon relaying a secret that he's literally committed murder over in the very recent past. I am enjoying this conversation immensely, and I am especially pleased that Redcloak readily accepts that Durkon is telling the truth, but you can't tell me it's not a little strange.

[danielxcutter]

I love it, but damn it feels like somebody cast some epic-level "lower defenses" spell on Redcloak lately. I thought it was odd that he went from "one door a night is plenty" to "we can manage six just fine" with no explanation for the change. Then it turned out he left the bugbear village totally unguarded, despite the fact that he demonstrably did remember the Order. Now he's plunked himself in a seat right out in the open and is almost nakedly broadcasting his loneliness and emotional vulnerability to somebody who's a stranger at best and an enemy at worst. The sole concession to caution on his part is the "neither confirm nor deny" line, and that is in regard to Durkon relaying a secret that he's literally committed murder over in the very recent past. I am enjoying this conversation immensely, and I am especially pleased that Redcloak readily accepts that Durkon is telling the truth, but you can't tell me it's not a little strange.

I’m pretty sure Redcloak is at his wit’s end, and that might be a factor. Besides, since when has he actually had time to talk about this kind of stuff?

[KorvinStarmast]

I haven't any clue if my avatar works for other people or not, but it does for me. I could help work yours out if it does, in fact, work.

Works great for me.

I still don’t know why the image I want (Schroeder from Peanuts, my profile pic everywhere) has never actually worked.

I wonder if there's a copyright issue?

(It’s mostly Fëanorians, but you seriously would not believe how large and intense the Sauron fandom is.)

Looks like Sauron's deceived them as well. That was his main schtick before the whole Dark Lord thing.

Maedhros is the redhead.

Yeah, I seem to recall that from Silmarillion.

Fandom likes the idea that at some point there was quasi-sincere friendship (and not just friendship) on Sauron’s part and then at some latter point there was a falling-out leading to the creation of the One Ring.

The lore (i.e., what Tolkien wrote/published) indicates that Sauron deceived them from the get go, and was playing 'the long game' .. but I think we are straying away from the topic.

Maedhros ... It’s really a rip-your-heart-out character arc when you get to thinking about it.

Yeah, I'll +1 that.

[LadyEowyn]

Yeah, I seem to recall that from Silmarillion.

It’s actually never mentioned in the Silm...a lot of the common fandom info about the Fëanorians and their relatives (such as their Quenya names and the meanings of their names) is never mentioned in the Silm...it’s all in the supplementary material (Histories of Middle-earth, a bunch of books of Tolkien’s old notes).

But it’s become broad enough knowledge in the fandom that a lot of fans pick it up without needing to read through HoME. I’ve been a Silm fan since my teens, and I wasn’t aware of any of it until I started paying attention to the online fandom a few years ago, and had to start figuring out things like who the heck “Nolofinwe” was. (Fingolfin, FYI.)

[KorvinStarmast]

It’s actually never mentioned in the Silm...a lot of the common fandom info about the Fëanorians (such as their Quenya names and the meanings of their names) is never mentioned in the Silm...it’s all in the supplementary material (Histories of Middle-earth, a bunch of books of Tolkien’s old notes).

But it’s become broad enough knowledge in the fandom that a lot of fans pick it up without needing to read through HoME.

Heh, Looks like I fused stuff I read on some of the Tolkien fan sites with the last time I recall reading the Silm. Probably not gonna go and find HoME again, I let go of my first two volumes of that years ago ... but wasn't Maedhros being a great singer in the First Age stories in Silmarilion?

[Quebbster]

The Sauron fandom pretty much only exists because people have the hots for him and people cannot not be horny on main.

(And I don't blame them)

Me neither.

That confidence is darn sexy.

[LadyEowyn]

Heh, Looks like I fused stuff I read on some of the Tolkien fan sites with the last time I recall reading the Silm. Probably not gonna go and find HoME again, I let go of my first two volumes of that years ago ... but wasn't Maedhros being a great singer in the First Age stories in Silmarilion?

That’s his younger brother, Maglor. (Maedhros is the eldest of the sons of Fëanor, Maglor the second-oldest.)

For the longest time I only had volume 3 of HoME (the one with the epic-poetry version of the story of Beren and Lúthien, which I adore), but recently I’ve picked up 10 and 12, which seem to cover a lot of the best supplementary material. Don’t ever intend to get the full set.

[KorvinStarmast]

That’s his younger brother, Maglor. (Maedhros is the eldest of the sons of Fëanor, Maglor the second-oldest.)

*Doh* - yeah, maybe I need to read Silm again ...

[hroþila]

For the longest time I only had volume 3 of HoME (the one with the epic-poetry version of the story of Beren and Lúthien, which I adore), but recently I’ve picked up 10 and 12, which seem to cover a lot of the best supplementary material. Don’t ever intend to get the full set.

Ooooh, The Peoples of Middle-earth is fantastic, and Morgoth's Ring is not far behind. The War of the Jewels has some very interesting stuff too, notably Quendi and Eldar. I would also recommend The Lost Road but that depends on whether you're interested in the language stuff.

[mjasghar]

Ironic that when some people say don’t sympathise with redcloak for what happened in SoD they don’t get the response I did.
With regards to certain fandoms and their memes about Feanor and Sauron - my experience of that is that it’s political. And that’s as much as the forums will allow to say on that.

[LadyEowyn]

Ooooh, The Peoples of Middle-earth is fantastic, and Morgoth's Ring is not far behind. The War of the Jewels has some very interesting stuff too, notably Quendi and Eldar. I would also recommend The Lost Road but that depends on whether you're interested in the language stuff.

Yes, Peoples of Middle-earth (12) has the supplementary material on the house of Finwë and their names; and Morgoth’s Ring (10) has the Athrabeth and the information on elven marriage and death and rebirth, and those are the key bits for me.

[Fyraltari]

For the longest time I only had volume 3 of HoME (the one with the epic-poetry version of the story of Beren and Lúthien, which I adore), but recently I’ve picked up 10 and 12, which seem to cover a lot of the best supplementary material. Don’t ever intend to get the full set.

I did but they stopped translating at volume 6 and so I made now torn between staying with my half-set or trying to find the latter six in English despite the fact that having one half in one language and one half in the other is kind of ridiculous.

Ugh, an Angbang shipper.

(I HATE THAT I KNOW THAT.)

:D

This fandom...

Spoiler: what?

Show

For reals, I don’t ship these two because:

A) I don’t do shipping in general.

B) I certainly don’t do it for toxic relationships

And

C) With the exception of Sauron’s pets (Draugluin, Shelob and a cat called Tevildo), I don’t see either of them being able to care for someone that isn’t them.

Spoiler: This is hilarious, though

Show

[LadyEowyn]

I did but they stopped translating at volume 6 and so I made now torn between staying with my half-set or trying to find the latter six in English despite the fact that having one half in one language and one half in the other is kind of ridiculous.

You’re obviously fluent in English, and Morgoth’s Ring has some really good material, so I’d recommend getting that one in English at least.

I’m incredibly impressed that they even managed to translate The Lays of Beleriand into French - epic poetry (with cadence and rhyming! and a bunch of names in made-up languages!) has to be one of the toughest things to translate.

[Peelee]

You gotta get a unique avatar, like a broken image because when the forums came back online they would only host an avatar from a secure site and you still haven't figured out why yours isn't doing that.

If you're itching for an oots avatar, I can drum one up - both to practise goblinoids, who I've never done in that style, but also as solidarity / reparation for a fellow survivor of tumblr's weirdness : )

I see yours just fine. I had mine hosted on my personal website but apparently that doesn't work on here anymore. I dunno the best place to host it now.

I still don’t know why the image I want (Schroeder from Peanuts, my profile pic everywhere) has never actually worked.

You may already know this, but just in case, I wrote a thing! I've noticed that the most common problem is the image being hosted on a site beginning with "http://" and not "https://". As noted, images hosted on non-secure sites will not function for avatars.

[Dion]

Oh hai guyz! Have we started talking about Star Wars yet?

[reads thread, gets to Spider-Man and Dinosaur-Man sexy time image]

Oh no! This isn’t the Star Wars thread I was looking for! I’m going to just show myself out.

[Aquillion]

I love it, but damn it feels like somebody cast some epic-level "lower defenses" spell on Redcloak lately. I thought it was odd that he went from "one door a night is plenty" to "we can manage six just fine" with no explanation for the change. Then it turned out he left the bugbear village totally unguarded, despite the fact that he demonstrably did remember the Order. Now he's plunked himself in a seat right out in the open and is almost nakedly broadcasting his loneliness and emotional vulnerability to somebody who's a stranger at best and an enemy at worst. The sole concession to caution on his part is the "neither confirm nor deny" line, and that is in regard to Durkon relaying a secret that he's literally committed murder over in the very recent past. I am enjoying this conversation immensely, and I am especially pleased that Redcloak readily accepts that Durkon is telling the truth, but you can't tell me it's not a little strange.

It does make sense that he's willing to talk to Durkon, though - as he points out, having the god send someone to negotiate with him ought to be what he wants; it's the whole point of the plan in the first place.

I suspect it'll still fall apart when he realizes Durkon can't make any meaningful concessions that would help goblinkind. (Really, it was an oversight on Thor's part to not arrange something Durkon could offer.)

[Worldsong]

I love it, but damn it feels like somebody cast some epic-level "lower defenses" spell on Redcloak lately. I thought it was odd that he went from "one door a night is plenty" to "we can manage six just fine" with no explanation for the change. Then it turned out he left the bugbear village totally unguarded, despite the fact that he demonstrably did remember the Order. Now he's plunked himself in a seat right out in the open and is almost nakedly broadcasting his loneliness and emotional vulnerability to somebody who's a stranger at best and an enemy at worst. The sole concession to caution on his part is the "neither confirm nor deny" line, and that is in regard to Durkon relaying a secret that he's literally committed murder over in the very recent past. I am enjoying this conversation immensely, and I am especially pleased that Redcloak readily accepts that Durkon is telling the truth, but you can't tell me it's not a little strange.

I'd guess it has to do with the fact that they've been exploring the dungeon for a while now without anyone coming along to bother them. It's difficult to remain on high alert for prolonged periods of time, especially when you don't actually catch trouble with it. And his suggestion to do a sixth door comes from him believing they've done it before, and he probably wants to just be done with this entire quest already. He's been at it for decades and he's almost finished. Anyone would get impatient at that point.

As for Durkon, the dwarf did introduce himself as an emissary of the gods that Redcloak and the Dark One want to extract concessions from. Also the bond that fellow clerics seem to have.

[Quizatzhaderac]

Durkon should have practiced explaining the quiddities to to Vaarsuvius (to practice being articulate about it) then Elan (to practice with the explainee being confused).

Is it pronounced "Dur - kahn" or "Dur - kun"? (Also, is it Zy - kahn or Zy - kun?)

If we go with Zy-kahn we're set up for many Star Trek allusions.

*Xykon kills mentor
Eugene: Zy-khaaaaaaaaaaaan!

Redcloak is medium

Between speak with dead and commune, aren't all clerics mediums?

Actually you are required to add a disclaimer about how evil they are, how inexcusable their actions are, and how they totally deserve to suffer. Otherwise you must be subject to finger wagging moralizing about how evil they are and how you are clearly a bad person for empathizing with an evil fictional character complete with a lecture about how your taste in fiction reveals your moral turpitude.

"Moral turpitude" was a very nice sarcastic touch.

[CriticalFailure]

This is off-topic, but because I am dead-tired right now, we have the same avatar, and we posted so close together, I thought a mod had changed my post to this and I was so bewildered and so entertained at the same time.


I was on tumblr for a few years when I was a teen but I never saw those posts there, strangely enough. But that happened fairly recently to me on this forum, lol.

Have to admit, I'm mostly just wondering why Durkon is so surprised that Redcloak's god has never talked to him directly. Aside from one early comic (that I'm not sure even counts), Thor never talked directly to Durkon before he died, did he? Hard to say just how common it is since the examples we've been given are kind of all over the place. Hope the next comic goes into this a little bit more.

Oh yeah, to be clear I was referring to posts like that on this forum though. I have heard absolute horror stories about tumblr and other platforms though, going as far as doxxing. Not my cup of tea.

[understatement]

...I thought Sauron was just a big eye. Or that mass of spikes in the first movie.

***

I'll assume that if Redcloak readily seats himself at a table in the open, then Xykon is probably not in the village right now and not returning anytime soon. (I am prepared to be proven very wrong).

[Rockphed]

I love it, but damn it feels like somebody cast some epic-level "lower defenses" spell on Redcloak lately. I thought it was odd that he went from "one door a night is plenty" to "we can manage six just fine" with no explanation for the change. Then it turned out he left the bugbear village totally unguarded, despite the fact that he demonstrably did remember the Order. Now he's plunked himself in a seat right out in the open and is almost nakedly broadcasting his loneliness and emotional vulnerability to somebody who's a stranger at best and an enemy at worst. The sole concession to caution on his part is the "neither confirm nor deny" line, and that is in regard to Durkon relaying a secret that he's literally committed murder over in the very recent past. I am enjoying this conversation immensely, and I am especially pleased that Redcloak readily accepts that Durkon is telling the truth, but you can't tell me it's not a little strange.

I think part of it is that this might be the first time Redcloak has had a peaceful interaction with a cleric of a different god.

Between speak with dead and commune, aren't all clerics mediums?

This is a colossal pun. A tiny bit overdone, but nothing too large. You are obviously a creature of fine taste.

[KorvinStarmast]

I thought Sauron was just a big eye. Or that mass of spikes in the first movie.

If we take a look at Silmarillion (one of Melkor/Morgoth's top minions/fallen angels/maya) to Numenor (evil genius leading hubristic humans to their downfall) to Third Age (Dark Lord gonna rule them all) you could argue that Sauron has a significant ego, so "Sauron was the big I" works really well.

All in all, a good End Boss

[Fyraltari]

...I thought Sauron was just a big eye. Or that mass of spikes in the first movie.

Nope, the Eye of Sauron is just how he manifests when he comes into telepathical contact with somebody/is shown through divination/is his symbol and is a running metaphor for his grasp on Mordor.

The armor used in the movie version of Fellowship is based on a drawing of his master Morgoth, but since he did use a Dark Lord form at several points it fits.

He also turned into a big wolf, a big snake and a big vampire-bat but his most common appearance was that of a man of angelic beauty.

That is until he got Atlantis’d and lost his power to shapeshift into something beautiful.

[hroþila]

Also, the Valar and the Maiar first took physical shape after having seen a glimpse of what the Elves would look like, so where no other description is provided it is pretty reasonable to assume they consciously modelled themselves after the Elves and thus that Sauron, in his base form and for most of his existence, was hawt.

(Even before cosplaying as his OC Annatar, I mean)

[understatement]

It does make sense that he's willing to talk to Durkon, though - as he points out, having the god send someone to negotiate with him ought to be what he wants; it's the whole point of the plan in the first place.

I suspect it'll still fall apart when he realizes Durkon can't make any meaningful concessions that would help goblinkind. (Really, it was an oversight on Thor's part to not arrange something Durkon could offer.)

I guess Durkon could promise him to protect Gobbotopia from any divine retribution (with freeing all the slaves, of course), but as we all know, that's not the root of Redcloak's problems.

[Schroeswald]

You may already know this, but just in case, I wrote a thing! I've noticed that the most common problem is the image being hosted on a site beginning with "http://" and not "https://". As noted, images hosted on non-secure sites will not function for avatars.

And now I remember why this pic didn’t work (look at my avatar for context, if I don’t have one it’s because I think no profile is better than this crop thing, and maybe one day it will actually work and anyone reading this would be confused).