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Thread: Rater Reads The Hobbit
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2021-08-11, 05:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Regarding the songs, there was, if my memory serves:
- The Dwarves washing-up song "That's what Bilbo Baggins hates"
- Over the misty mountains old -- we must away by break of day
- Whatever the Elves were singing in Rivendell
- The song the Goblins were singing in the tunnels
- Fifteen birds in five fir trees
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2021-08-11, 07:32 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
The Rankin Bass version of the movie had renditions of all the songs which is why it is still my favorite film version of the book, even if it isn't a patch on the Jackson version as far as production values go.
So why don't they just ride the eagles to Erebor? I forget whether that's answered in this chapter or the next .
Respectfully,
Brian P."Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."
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2021-08-11, 07:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
The eagles don't want to go anywhere where humans might be—the eagles sometimes prey on domestic sheep, which means that the men tend to shoot at them with yew arrows.
The eagles, being good sports, admit that the men have a point... But the men also would not know that the eagles aren't there for that this time.I also answer to Bookmark and Shadow Claw.
Read my fanfiction here. Homebrew Material Here Rater Reads the Hobbit and Dracula
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2021-08-11, 10:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Regarding the Misty Mountains, it's supposed to be an absolutely enormous mountain range--this is more obvious in the map in LOTR. It pretty much splits most of the continent in half. I think it's basically the Middle-earth version of the Alps.
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2021-08-12, 04:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Ah, my favourite scene in the book happens next chapter!
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2021-08-12, 05:57 AM (ISO 8601)
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2021-08-12, 06:41 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
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2021-08-12, 07:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
This chapter gives D&D players their biggest problem: how did Gandalf go from being ready to commit suicide because he had no spells to use to the guy who killed a Balrog in LOTR ( which is also why we should focus only on this book as the others & the movies often do not match up well). Perhaps Gandalf is only first level and already used his Burning Pinecone?
I believe it was said that Gandalf was not a power wizard in the Hobbit but the children's story version of a wise man who simply assisted others.
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2021-08-12, 07:10 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
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2021-08-12, 07:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Gandalf is not a wizard in the D&D sense.
He's an angel. In the absolute literal messenger of god sense. He is bound and forbidden from taking direct action in all but the most globally dire of circumstances, his divine task is to guide others to stand for themselves.
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2021-08-12, 08:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Now that you mention it , the only spell we see Gandalf use in that entire sequence is 'Hold Portal', which Vaarsuvius in-comic described as 'so useless I shudder to wonder what I was thinking when I wrote it in my spellbook' or words to that effect.
Middle Earth Magic is not Vancian magic; it is raw exercise of will, given form in voice. Often in song.
The battle of Finrod and Sauron , by Clamavi De Profundis, is the best example of a magical duel in Middle-Earth I can think of.
For context, Felagund and company are disguised as orcs to infiltrate the Enemy's land, but they've been brought before Sauron (who is not THE Dark Lord in this story, but only the Lieutenant of an outlying tower in the border defenses) who is suspicious of this 'orc-band'. For one thing, they didn't report in as expected and required.
-- Sauron sings a spell to penetrate the magical disguise Felagund has created. He visualizes and evokes in his spell symbols and images to reinforce the working; piercing, treachery.
-- Felagund responds with a counterspell. He also evokes images to counter Sauron's song; strength of tower, secrets kept, snapping chains. If successful, Sauron will be forced to let them go free.
-- They continue to throw more and more of their will into the contest, the volume of their singing growing as their wills grow stronger.
-- Felagund decides to up his game by calling on the Powers of Valinor far away, evoking them and bringing all the power of the west into his song.
-- But this proves a mistake. Sauron recognizes the ploy and instantly responds with images that turns Felagund's ploy against him: He evokes the Kinslaying, the dark deeds the elves committed when they left Valinor to return to Middle Earth. He sings of the murder of the sea-elves and the theft of their ships, the banishment of a large portion of those elves to walk across the Grinding Ice on foot. The treachery of the elves in the beginning cuts the link with Valinor and slams that door shut in Felagund's face, bereft and alone before the might of Sauron. The things he had put most trust in turn to his undoing.
-- Felagund is overcome by despair, his will broken, and collapses before the throne. He is stripped of his disguise and is laid bare, prostrate, before Sauron.
That isn't the end of the tale, but that is the end of this magical duel. Others of his party will escape the dreadful Tower but Finrod Felagund will die here, killing a werewolf with his bare hands and teeth so his companions can escape.
At any rate, that is magic in middle earth. It isn't throwing fireballs. It isn't modern artillery with a fantasy coloration. It is the imposition of will and desire on others and on nature, best done through song. Morgoth's strife with the music of Illuvatar in the beginning is of the same sort. Middle Earth magic is both far more powerful than vancian magic, as it is unbounded by any rules save one's own imagination and one's own spiritual power, mana, but it is also far more subtle and long-term. The work of Sauron to corrupt the nine men into wraiths, for an example, was an enchantment which took centuries to complete. It's also less tactically useful than Vancian magic; I assume that's why pretty much everyone in middle earth enchants their swords rather than using magic directly as a weapon; magic works better as a buff to amplify mundane action than it does as a substitute for same. In Middle-Earth, the most effective way to fight an enemy is still to stick them with the pointy end of a sword, not throw fiery pine cones at them.
ETA: This implies that PJ missed an opportunity by not portraying the battle at the door between the balrog and Gandalf as a rap battle! Yes. We can have the trolls beatboxing and playing the percussion while the Balrog throws out his (her?) rhymes.
Respectfully,
Brian P.Last edited by pendell; 2021-08-12 at 11:12 AM.
"Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."
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2021-08-12, 09:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Gandolf is a D&D wizard who is following an "optimization" guide he got off of the intarwebs, so he casts half his slots in the morning on extended long term buffs and memorized the rest on Divination spells so he "always knows what's going to happen" but then doesn't understand why he doesn't have anything to cast during combats.
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2021-08-12, 10:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
The Wizards = fireballs does seem to be a more modern conceit. A friend of mine put it like this:
Originally Posted by Afterward to Vinnie De Soth, Jobbing Occultist (I.A. Watson)
Both here, and with the Balrog, Gandalf is in a position he hadn't planned for, and has to resort to off-the-cuff tactics. With the Wargs it is an attempt at intimidation, with the balrog it is destroying the bridge to stop the Balrog from crossing (and getting pulled down with it for his pains). He had no intention of fighting the Balrog if he could avoid it, for all that he did a good number on it after the fall into the chasm.
It's not the case for all wizarding stories - I've read at least one (A Matter of Magic) where the flashy spells almost took second place to the more subtle pieces of magic.Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.
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2021-08-12, 10:12 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Yeah, a whole lot of magic in Tolkien fits better within the framework of "psychic powers" - will versus will, picking up other people's thoughts, etc. Gandalf seems to specialize in pyrokinesis - psychic control of fire.
But there is another type of magic - there's lots of references to spells. Spells that open doors, spells that hold doors, spells woven in to swords that make them more effective against a particularly hated enemy. These seem to involve actual words that have to be said in a particular order and other traditional types of magic. None of it is the kind of thing you could deploy in combat like a Vancian spell.
I'm currently reading 'Beren and Luthien', one of the First Age stories separated out from the Silmarillion, and there's a great segment where Luthien, who has learned magic from her demi-goddess mother, fashions some powerful magical items in a very classically ritualistic way - she needs a goblet of water in a silver cup poured exactly at midnight, wine in a golden cup poured at noon, things like that. Obviously we never see anything like that in the Hobbit and LOTR, but it's still there as part of the general background.
Circling back to why Gandalf would be outmatched by a bunch of goblins and wargs but not a Balrog, I think D&D terminology sums it up pretty well: He has the wrong kind of build. He can take on a single very powerful foe that no one else could face, but if he's surrounded on all sides by a ton of mooks he's going to get overwhelmed before too long. The Balrog had Damage Resistance that he could overcome, but he doesn't have it himself.Some people think that Chaotic Neutral is the alignment of the insane, but the enlightened know that Chaotic Neutral is the only alignment without illusions of sanity.
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2021-08-12, 12:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Random facebook observation re-posted for funsies:
"Remember that time Gandalf convinced the rest of the party to flee so he could take out the balrog himself and not share any of the XP ? Shows up at the next session with new robes and everything. What a jerk."
Tongue-in-cheek,
Brian P."Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."
-Valery Legasov in Chernobyl
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2021-08-12, 12:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
On the other hand, the reason he couldn't do it here but could there is because the Balrog is a being like himself. A maiar, corrupted, but still a maiar.
He's not allowed to deploy his power against mortals, because his job is to guide and advise not solve their problems with divine intervention. He is allowed to remove those like himself from the board.
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2021-08-12, 01:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Remember that the Hobbit takes place several decades before LOTR. So in the Hobbit, Gandalf is like level 3. By LOTR he is level 16. I read that in an interview Tolkien did with Dragon Magazine.
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2021-08-12, 01:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Tolkien died in 1973. TSR's first D&D magazine was The Strategic Review in 1975. Before that, the oldest iteration of D&D was in 1974. So I don't think the chronology works.
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2021-08-12, 01:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Excepting Sauron, who he was also not allowed to confront directly with his own power except in the most dire of circumstances (ie Sauron wins and Gandalf and the wizards are fleeing). I believe the idea was that a fight between the Wizards and Sauron would damage or destroy the world theyre trying to protect, and runs the risk of a wizard just setting themselves up to be the next super powered conqueror or the world.
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2021-08-12, 01:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
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2021-08-12, 01:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Some people think that Chaotic Neutral is the alignment of the insane, but the enlightened know that Chaotic Neutral is the only alignment without illusions of sanity.
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2021-08-12, 01:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
I just want to say that I find the need of D&D's fans to qualify everything from other fantasy work in that game's terms rather insufferable. Just like people saying that a dragon with only four limbs should be called a wyvern instead of a dragon.
The singular of maiar is maia.
Except for the three times he directly confronted him in Dol Guldur?Forum Wisdom
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2021-08-12, 01:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
"If it lives it can be killed.
If it is dead it can be eaten."
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(Walter Moers "Die Stadt der träumenden Bücher")
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2021-08-12, 01:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
I thought that was more "heraldry fans" than "D&D fans"?
Wasn't that movies-only - with novel Gandalf finding out that the Necromancer was Sauron, but never actually confronting him - sneaking in and sneaking out?
It's left unclear in the Hobbit and in the tie-in material, whether the White Council's attack on Dol Guldur (forcing Sauron to flee) involved any actual fighting on Sauron's part.Last edited by hamishspence; 2021-08-12 at 01:55 PM.
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2021-08-12, 02:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Whoever they are, they are annoying.
Wasn't that movies-only - with novel Gandalf finding out that the Necromancer was Sauron, but never actually confronting him - sneaking in and sneaking out?Spoiler: Spoilering for Rater even though this isn't strictly speaking in the Hobbit.It's unclear. Gandalf went into Dol Guldur for the first time in 2063 T.A. and Sauron fled before him, setting off the Watchful Peace which lasted until the Necromancer came back to DG in 2460, leading to the creation of the White Council in 2463. In 2850 Gandalf comes back into Dol Guldur but is captured by Sauron (Gandalf formerly identify him at this point) and is imprisoned alongside Thrain, son of Thror. Then in 2941, this book happens and the White Council, Gandalf included march into Dol Guldur with Sauron fleeing once more. How much fighting happened each time is unclear, but come on.Forum Wisdom
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2021-08-12, 02:24 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
I thought he snuck in.
SpoilerOriginally Posted by The HobbitOriginally Posted by The Silmarillion
A point is made of how Gandalf was sneaking around in disguise:
Originally Posted by LOTROriginally Posted by Unfinished TalesLast edited by hamishspence; 2021-08-12 at 02:36 PM.
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2021-08-12, 02:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
I have a mental image of Gandalf sneaking around Dol Guldor in a cardboard box. I'm sure everyone here gets the reference
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Brian P."Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."
-Valery Legasov in Chernobyl
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2021-08-12, 03:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
SpoilerGandalf explains the limitations of his fire abilites in Caradhras, he needs fuel to do it, he can't burn snow or air, he needs something to set alight.
...which, thinking about it, is a very logical and clever limitation which doesn't happen in most fireball spells.
Last edited by Sapphire Guard; 2021-08-12 at 03:09 PM.
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2021-08-12, 03:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Warning: This posting may contain wit, wisdom, pathos, irony, satire, sarcasm and puns. And traces of nut.
"The main skill of a good ruler seems to be not preventing the conflagrations but rather keeping them contained enough they rate more as campfires." Rogar Demonblud
"Hold on just a d*** second. UK has spam callers that try to get you to buy conservatories?!? Even y'alls spammers are higher class than ours!" Peelee
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2021-08-12, 04:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Rater Reads The Hobbit
Given they just spent three days passing through the tunnels under the misty mountains they should have been able to pack off enough bat guano to open a business, were they so inclined. I was just listening to 'Riddles of the Dark' myself, and that was part of the flavor text -- bats flew by Bilbo's head all the time. At first it startled him, but eventually it happened so often he got used to it.
And, of course , where you find bats...
Tongue-in-cheek ,
Brian P."Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid."
-Valery Legasov in Chernobyl